STOP Wasting Your Life And Reclaim It NOW! with Duncan Bhaskaran Brown

What happens when societal norms push us toward habits that don't serve our wellbeing? Join us as we uncover the transformative journey of Duncan Bhaskaran Brown, founder of the Sober Warrior Program, who has turned his personal battle with alcohol dependency into a path of empowerment. Through Duncan's poignant story, including the life-changing experience of facing a miscarriage, we explore the pivotal moments that can lead one to embrace sobriety. This episode promises practical steps to reclaim energy, boost productivity, and foster meaningful relationships, all without the crutch of alcohol.

Beliefs about alcohol can often fuel our consumption more than the actual substance itself. Discover how societal perceptions, particularly those shaped by media, may distort our understanding of alcohol's role in our lives. Addressing these misconceptions, especially for men who might use alcohol as a means of emotional suppression, is critical. We dive into the importance of emotional literacy and management, highlighting the often-overlooked dip in life satisfaction after quitting alcohol. Building emotional intelligence and forging strong social connections are vital strategies for navigating these challenges and achieving personal growth.

Alcohol dependency can significantly impact mental health and workplace productivity, and businesses are starting to take notice. This episode shines a light on the need for tailored recovery methods and annual health screenings to support employees. Learn how the Sober Warrior Program offers strategies for professionals struggling with drinking habits that have spiralled out of control. We emphasize the value of personalized sobriety plans and the power of accepting praise to nurture self-worth. Duncan's insights provide a roadmap to explore one's potential, reminding us that embracing a life free from dependency is not just possible but profoundly rewarding.

Key moments in this episode:
04:07 Duncan's Journey to Sobriety
05:08 The Turning Point: Choosing Family Over Alcohol
13:51 Mindset and Beliefs About Alcohol
16:54 Emotional Intelligence and Sobriety
20:27 Support Systems and Relapse Prevention
26:01 Workplace Support for Sobriety
31:18 The Sober Warrior Program
35:04 Final Thoughts and Advice

How to reach Duncan:
Website: https://www.bhaskaranbrown.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/duncan.brown.5648/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soberwarriorcoach/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/duncanbhaskaranbrown/

Chapters

• 0:00 Transforming Alcohol Dependency to Empowerment
• 14:02 Exploring Beliefs and Emotions in Recovery
• 27:00 Addressing Alcohol Dependency in the Workplace
• 31:58 Personalized Approach to Sobriety Success
• 36:01 Accepting Praise and Self-Worth

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Imagine waking up every morning feeling drained, your productivity at an all-time low and your relationships are strained by your struggle with alcohol. You've tried to cut back or quit altogether, but the cycle of overindulgence continues, leaving you feeling powerless. Now envision a life where you've had boundless energy, heightened productivity and thriving relationships. In a thriving relationships. This transformation is possible, but requires confronting the grip of alcohol has on your life, and it's taking deliberate steps towards making that change. And so in today's episode, we're going to explore the journey from dependency to empowerment and covering the practical steps to break free. Told.

Speaker 1: 0:40

Before we get in today's episode, let's also come to grips about something else, and that inevitably there will come a time in our lives when we will hit a wall, whether that's a marriage that's not working, or a career in business that's stagnated, or your personal life is completely flatlined. So if you're dealing with any of these, or a combination of them, and are finally fed up with where your life's at, I'm going to encourage you to allow me to help you get clear about what needs to get done and how to do that, so you can get back to living the life you were meant to live. Just look in today's show notes and book a clarity call. Let's get started today With that. Let's get on with today's episode.

Speaker 2: 1:20

The average man today is sleepwalking through life, many never reaching their true potential, let alone ever crossing the finish line to living a purposeful life. Yet the hunger still exists, albeit buried amidst his cluttered mind, misguided beliefs and values that no longer serve him. It's time to align yourself for greatness. It's time to become a revolutionary man.

Speaker 1: 1:49

Stay strong, my brother. Welcome everyone to the Revolutionary man podcast. I'm the founder of the Awakened man Movement and your host, alan DeMonso. As you listen to today's episode, think about your own relationships with alcohol or maybe any other habits that you have, and how might these be affecting your energy, your productivity and your relationships. Consider what steps you can take to regain control of your life, and have a more fulfilling one at that, and consider the societal norms around drinking and productivity. How can you challenge these norms and support a healthier or productive lifestyle for yourself and those around you? Our guest today is going to share insights on how we can increase our energy, power, up our productivity and build much healthier relationships, and he's going to guide us on this path to becoming a revolutionary man who lives with purpose and fulfillment. So allow me to introduce my guest.

Speaker 1: 2:43

Duncan Bashkaran Brown is the founder of Sober Warrior Program and is a renowned expert in helping individuals overcome alcohol dependency, and with over 20 years of personal experience with overindulgence, duncan's transformed his life and dedicated himself to guiding others on the path of sobriety. He trained with the world's most successful stop smoking service and holds certifications from esteemed institutions Such as Cornell University and Chartered Management Institute and Duncan's also the author of Real Men Quit, a practical guide to beating alcohol addiction and reclaiming one's life, and it's through this work he empowers people to create their energy, enhance productivity and improve relationships and live fulfilling lives without the use of alcohol. Welcome to the show, duncan. How are things, my friend?

Speaker 3: 3:33

Thank you very much for having me. I'm looking forward for today.

Speaker 1: 3:36

I really was inspired by your journey and as the father of a son who struggled with making healthy decisions with drugs and alcohol. This really is close to my heart, this subject, and so I'm always keen on hearing from experts such as yourself of how they defeated this demon, because it is quite the battle for many people out there around the world, especially men, and so we, we always start our conversations by talking a little bit more about your hero's quest, and so that each of us will have these defining moments in our lives that changed the course of our destiny. So tell us about that one of those moments, what you did about it, and how's that experience shaped you into the man you are today.

Speaker 3: 4:20

Yeah, I'm not so sure I'm a hero. Certainly I don't know whether going out and slaying dragons is exactly my story. I think it's more a kind of maybe I don't know Gulliver's Travels. I went a few places, I met some people, I made some bad choices, but in the end I managed to find my way home and I came back. You know, a rich in the sense of experience and knowledge, rich human being.

Speaker 1: 4:49

Absolutely, but it is those experiences in our lives that really, really show us what we're truly made of, and so tell us a little bit more about that lowest point, then, for your life, of what, what was occurring around that timeframe, what was your mindset like and what were some steps that you started to take in order to get you out of that position?

Speaker 3: 5:09

Sure, you know, what makes a really good story is that moment where you stare in the mirror at 4 am and you realize that it's all going horribly wrong. I mean, that never happened to me. It reached ahead over a period of years really, I mean in terms of alcohol. Alcohol it got to a point my wife and I we were trying to start a family. We were doing all right on the adult front. We, we had jobs. I was always relatively successful despite the drinking, and we had jobs. We, we had somewhere to live. So we thought, why not, let's start a family, let's do the ultimate adult thing? And we were just like all of those kind of young parents.

Speaker 3: 5:46

As soon as my wife got pregnant, we just turned into idiots and we were like happy all the time. It was like, oh, it's amazing, and yeah, we were very naive and it was all going incredibly well until we we stepped into an ultra scan room with that particular nurse who pointed out that my wife was having a miscarriage, and then it all just crumbled and it all collapsed and obviously that was incredibly hard on my wife physically, mentally, emotionally. But what made it a lot worse was I just wasn't there for her and my reaction to stress was always just to open a bottle and hope it'll go away, and that's exactly the opposite of what she needed, wasn't it? And, like I say, I never stood in front of the mirror and phrased it in a really clear way, but looking back now I can see that I spent six weeks, two months, really getting to grips with what it was that I wanted out of life.

Speaker 3: 6:45

What was I here for? What was the point of Duncan? And now I can see it just came down to this single question what do you want? Do you want to have another drink or do you want to start a family? And the good news is I made the right decision and, almost nine months to the day after I stopped drinking, our daughter was born, which was amazing for about 10 minutes, and then my world had a whole different set of problems to it. But they're good problems, aren't they?

Speaker 1: 7:15

Yeah, absolutely this. And having becoming a first time father and kicking a drinking habit and decided, hey, I'm not, I'm going to make this shift Lots of pressure. I can remember as a young couple, having our children and, on top of that, buying a new vehicle and getting into a house we were house rich and cash poor and all the pressures that we put on ourselves. And, as I don't know about you, but for me as a man, I really felt like I just, I just didn't, couldn't hold it together, I wasn't capable of doing this. Yet I was moving us, trying to move us forward at a pace, thinking that this is what needed to be done, and we make these decisions in moments of under pressure and when we look back at it, it's always hindsight, it's always 2020. It's interesting how different things happen in our lives. It makes us. We come up with these ideas on how to move forward, and they aren't always the greatest ones, right.

Speaker 3: 8:08

Oh, absolutely, and I think it's not like I stopped drinking and, all of a sudden, life was roses and sitting around discussing the poetry of John Keats, I think. If anything, I felt that pressure even more. I think a lot of men, we feel like we've got to provide, haven't we? We've got to go out and we've got to do it, and I think there's probably a whole other layer of pressure put on men now. I think there's a lot more expectations about us being great fathers and spending time with our kids, which is important, but there's also expectations that we're great cooks as well, so we've got to spend time in the kitchen and all of those kind of things.

Speaker 3: 8:47

I very much felt the pressure of that, and particularly when my daughter was young. To an extent, I still do, because you've got to keep the fridge full of food, haven't you? But yeah, that was something that was particularly difficult in the first few years since I'd stopped drinking. I was lucky that I was very resolved and very certain that I wasn't going to go back to drinking. However, I was a little bit naive and I thought to myself I'm not drinking now, which means I can pretty much eat whatever I like, and that turned out not to be quite correct and I got to to a point so my wife got quite ill when our daughter was pretty young, and then that was like that just ramped up the pressure even more and I got to the point where I'd put my daughter to bed and I was sitting on my own in the dark eating triple chocolate chip cookies and like I really wasn't enjoying them they just tasted awful, they were making me feel sick, uh.

Speaker 3: 9:43

But I just felt this compulsion to keep eating and all of a sudden, like it just struck me as, duncan, you are eating exactly the same way you used to drink. So all of that pressure never sent me back to the drinking, but it did lead me down another path, which ultimately I'm quite grateful I went down that path because it meant I had to stand up and do something and I had to sort out my diet, and it's a lot better. These days. I'm pretty much completely whole food, plant-based, which is like veganism but more hardcore yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 10:17

It's interesting that you talk about how that transition for you and I've seen that as well in my journeys with with my mother-in-law Her vice was alcohol as well, and when she got clean and she was doing all right, it just transitioned. We didn't find out until after she passed away that it transitioned to gambling and she never was really able to overcome that. And so it's interesting that these things happen. But you were able to, in both instances, to figure out and really ask yourself that question, duncan what do I want to do? Do I want to have another drink or have another bite to eat, or do I want to do something different? Take care of my family? And so let's get into talking about your book, real Men Quit, and what the premise of the book is about and what are things that we can expect to see in it.

Speaker 3: 11:04

What the premise of the book is about and what are things we can expect to see in it. I did some work with this guy and he was in the Royal Marine Commandos, which is a pretty elite bit of the British armed forces. It actually has the longest infantry training course in the world, so it's quite hardcore. But that wasn't enough for him. So he passed selection and joined the Special Boat Service, which is the sort of the British equivalent of the Navy SEALs, and he was a disciplined man, a lot of self-control, a lot of determination, a lot of what I think the Americans call intestinal fortitude, and he was a very. Everything in his life was absolutely under control, Everything was squared away, apart from the drinking. He just couldn't seem to get a handle on his drinking. It just creeped up and up. In the military there is a bit of a culture of drinking and since he'd left the forces being on deployment less and being less active, it just creeped up and it was really starting to affect his business.

Speaker 3: 12:08

And it occurred to me that if somebody like that, somebody that disciplined and just with that much self-control, if they can get caught in the trap, then any of us can. And there's no shame, it doesn't make you weak, because, trust me, this guy was not weak. It doesn't make you weak and that's why I wanted to write something specifically for men, because I think we do have, you know, a different sort of view of the problems, that a lot of men drink for different reasons, that you know what we talked about right at the start that kind of pressure to provide, to be strong to well, to not be weak. That's part of the reason why a lot of guys drink. So I wanted to get to grips with that and just say look, you know, some of the toughest people on the planet struggle with it, and some of the most successful people on the planet have become the most successful people on the planet after they stopped doing it. So you've got to realize it's not a weakness in you, but actually getting past it could be a huge strength.

Speaker 1: 13:09

Absolutely, it's one of those things that we need to overcome, and so I always like the idea in our men's work here of talking about everyone being on their own hero's journey or their hero's quest. And it's these moments in our lives where we are faced with this piece, this thing, that we need to deal with. And as we start to deal with that, then the mentor needs to come along, and then I really see that's what your book is doing for men to show us that there is a path forward, and I know in your book you talk about different ways for us to do that. So let's touch a little bit on mindset and how our mindset really can either reveal a hindrance to us or help us forward.

Speaker 3: 13:51

Yeah, no, I mean, I think I take a very cognitive approach. So obviously I do think mindset is really where it's at, and the thing that I always start with people is beliefs. You have a lot of beliefs around alcohol. Most men believe it makes them strong, it helps them to socializeize, it helps them to deal with stress, it's the way they bond, it's friendship, it's so many things and those beliefs, they dictate how much you drink. And that that's not my belief. That's actually supported by the research.

Speaker 3: 14:24

All of the research search shows that what you expect to get from alcohol not what you get from it, but what you expect to get from it pretty much dictates how much of it you're going to drink. So we start with your beliefs, and I think it's really interesting because our beliefs dictate so many of our actions. So, for example, I always used to take the seeds out of chili peppers. I like I was religious about it, like every time I'd use chilies in cooking, I would always take the seeds out, because I'd read somewhere that the seeds were the spicy bit. They're not. They're absolutely not. It's all spicy, like every single last bit of the chili is spicy. Removing the seeds it's not going to help at all, but I did it for ages and ages because I believed that was the truth and that's why we drink a lot of the time, because we believe it's the truth.

Speaker 3: 15:14

So I think the first thing to do is to identify those beliefs, bring them out into the open and start to question them. Say, is it true, honestly, is it true that drinking alcohol makes you tough and sophisticated and attractive to the girls? Or is that just because you've watched James Bond too much? So we start off with? Are they true? And then we'd like to move into other kind of ideas. Basically around it Is it serving you, even if drinking does have some marginal advantage in terms of socialization or networking? Is it really helping you become the person that you want to be? And what I find is that once people really get to grips with most of those questions, they find the rest of it fairly easy. There is another bit around thought management that's very well explained in the book and something that I've worked with people, but it is getting to grips with those beliefs. That's absolutely the first step.

Speaker 1: 16:08

That makes complete sense because we have these. We'll create these false beliefs, these misconceptions of what we think this is doing for us and let's just replace drinking with any other substance or any other habit We'll form these beliefs around what we think it's doing for us, and maybe it doesn't make us more powerful, but maybe we feel that it does other things. And I think that's for men because we struggle with managing our emotions at times that we look for these different ways to deal with it. And so talk a little bit about some of your work and helping men who are going through this process with you, and how are they handling their emotions and how are you seeing that impacting their their path forward?

Speaker 3: 16:55

so the research that we've done suggests that emotions are a massive part of the equation and and actually, funnily enough, not just with men, but particularly men. Yes, we're not exactly encouraged to talk about them in the first place, are we? So what I find with a lot of men is part of the reason they drink is to suppress those emotions, to get rid of them. They believe that they can drink the feelings away. Of course, that's not true, but what? One of the things that a lot of people don't ever talk about in the sober community, which annoys me quite a lot, is that, yes, you feel better when you stop drinking. Trust me, it's like you will feel a lot better. Your mood will improve, your physical health will improve, your gut health will improve, you will physically feel an awful lot better, which makes a lot of sense. If you stop pouring poison down your throat, of course, you're going to feel a lot better, but there is a period somewhere between about three and 15 months after people stop drinking where they tend to have a bit of a dip and their life satisfaction dips below the point that it was when they were actually drinking, which often manifests itself as some sort of fairly big, not very nice crisis and a lot of the time that is to do with emotions and people don't tell you that, and I wish they did more. I wish they were more open about it, because then you'd expect it when it happens. And actually in the time running up to that, you can start to learn some of the things that will really help you get past that dip. Just getting your life in a more kind of stable point of view from a kind of job, house, money, transport, those kind of areas that's quite important. Getting your health and your access to healthcare under control, that's really important. But the other things that really make a difference to people are trigger management, so that kind of managing the thought process that I talked about earlier. There's loads of that in the book.

Speaker 3: 19:00

But also just being a bit more emotionally literate, being a bit better about talking about how you feel. Most men think there are three emotions, don't they? Bad, sad and glad, and there's a whole palette and actually learning to be a bit more descriptive and a bit more comfortable talking about them. It can make a huge difference. Learning how to regulate them, how to stand in front of them, realizing that actually they are going to pass. Feeling a bit bad is not actually a death sentence. It will pass if you feel unhappy, but you aren't going to feel unhappy for the rest of your life. It's nothing to be scared of. So that kind of emotional intelligence is huge bit. And then building connections to other people I don't think that comes as a surprise. We are a very social species, aren't we? And building those connections is I absolutely agree with that.

Speaker 1: 19:52

I was I'm really I'm taken aback by that, by what you had said there. I hadn't recognized that nuance that you just brought forward about that time frame in between 3 and 15 months. When they're when we're, they'll typically have a lapse. This doesn't mean it happens all the time, but but it happens enough that it's statistical, and I completely agree with you, having attended a few different versions of AA and Malanon and different things like that. This was never discussed and there wasn't any preparation for that, at least not in the group setting, and so I'm happy to hear that's something that you're addressing. What are some other things that these hidden truths I'll call them that aren't being spoken about, that your, that your work is trying to address?

Speaker 3: 20:36

The one thing that I'd like to get people to understand is that it's actually a lot easier than you'd think. The actual bit of stopping drinking. That really is relatively straightforward and a lot of people they don't do it because they're afraid. They literally don't think that they can live their life any other way. In fact, you know, if you really dive into the literature, a lot of people use dependency rather than addiction and if you think about it, that makes a lot of sense because, certainly for me, I believed that I depended on alcohol to make my life work. I could not see a way of getting through life, handling stress, socializing, coping with my emotional life, my relationships without alcohol. That was the problem. I believed that I depended on it. So getting to grips with all of that makes moving away from it so much easier. And yes, there's a huge amount about helping people to navigate through that early sobriety period. And I get why a lot of the time, people are a bit reluctant to talk about relapses or lapses or learning new things, as they can be. It's because we don't want you to do it like, we don't want to set you up for doing it, so we tend not to talk about it, but it happens and it happens with amazing frequency. And again, if you dive into the literature, you'll find that a good relapse prevention program, particularly something based around mindfulness, you know, anything that helps you to become more aware of your emotions and your thoughts, you know that can massively increase your odds of remaining sober and it will absolutely outperform the traditional 12 step approach. And I think the other thing that we tend to ignore is that the methods that I use to stop smoking and drinking and eating junk food saved my life. So I'm a bit passionate about them. Of course I am. They literally I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for them.

Speaker 3: 22:39

You've got and a lot of people are like that, but you've got to get past this evangelical kind of this is the only method that works thing. I see that all of the time. It's, yes, it changed your life Brilliant, but that doesn't mean it's going to change everybody's life. It doesn't mean it is the right thing for everybody and everybody's got to find their own path. And you've got the people that I've met that have been most successful.

Speaker 3: 23:02

Whatever they used to start off their journey into sobriety, whether that was cognitive realignment or whether that was a group program or therapy. They haven't just stayed there. That was the starting point and they've moved on and they found a lot of other things that have really helped and I think that's the ultimate truth of you could say recovery, you could say life itself. You've got to find your own path. You've got to find what works for you and you've got to learn not to get bent out of shape because the gurus all tell you to meditate and you hate meditating. Okay, meditating might not be the right thing for you, don't sweat it. Realize what meditation is useful for and find something else that will fulfill that for you and add that into your life.

Speaker 1: 23:52

I completely agree with that. I think there's lots of different ways to lots of different paths to your to reach your ultimate goal, and one of the things that in our lives we always, we always talk about my wife and I talk about, when you come across a new piece of information is and then you get excited about oh wow, this is a, this is such great information. But soon you realize you recognize that there are some flaws in it and there's some holes. I should say, and it's okay, you just take what works for us and it works for you and then leave the rest. There's nothing. Nobody says it has to be all or nothing, and I think sometimes we have that mindset said, this is the four-step path or the nine-step path or whatever it is, and maybe three of the out of the five of the steps are what works for you. But the point is that you're moving forward and that's what I liked about your description. There's you.

Speaker 3: 24:43

Some of these things are just starting places and it's about the evolution of about who you are, because as you evolve, you'll need different resources, you'll need different things yeah, yeah, even the people that I know who've really worked the 12 steps that when you sit down and like really dig into it with them, they always favor one step above all of the other ones, and often they they do stuff that's really not on the menu. In fact, I interviewed somebody the other day who stopped drinking using AA, which is like a very kind of that's that way of doing it. It's quite solid and okay, and then she got really into crystals and energy healing and that is completely somewhere else, but it works for her. I don't think it's going to work for me. I'm not sure how many of your listeners it's going to work for, but if it works for you, do it, dude, and why not try it? Like the man says, there are more things in heaven and earth than I dreamt of in your philosophy that's for sure.

Speaker 1: 25:39

That's, that's absolutely for sure. So we've been spending a bit of time here in our conversation talking about the individual and helping them. But what about the situation where maybe it's work environment right, and today's work environment where if someone discloses to you that they have they're having struggles with alcohol or whatever their vice is? What can businesses do to help support that individual, to help them get healthy on their journey? See?

Speaker 3: 26:09

I think a lot of businesses still see drinking too much as a disciplinary issue, something to be packed off to HR, and I think that is a real shame because a lot of the really good businesses have already done most of the work. They just haven't quite joined it up a lot. So all really good businesses these days will have quite a well-developed well-being program. They realize that happy, healthy employees are good for the bottom line. I'd love to think they were doing it entirely altruistically, but of course not. It's just if your employees are happy and healthy, they will be far more productive. It's just like basic stuff. So well-being is something that businesses talk about a lot and they're getting more and more comfortable with Mental health, again something that a lot of companies are getting more and more comfortable with.

Speaker 3: 27:00

They've done the maths. You know the chances of them having employees that have mental health issues. It's just astronomical, it's like it's very common. So they've got to do something to help their employees so they can be more productive. And again, you know it helps the bottom line. They've done the maths on that one.

Speaker 3: 27:19

They just haven't quite worked out that the number one thing that affects people's wellbeing is the amount that they drink and one of the most common mental health problems in the world is drinking too much. And if you can just join those two concepts up and realize that alcohol is such a key determinant of people's well-being and that it's also it has a knock-on effect both ways. So mental health issues can cause people to drink more and drinking more can cause mental health issues Just joining those two things up I think that is such a huge start. And then there are plenty of things that businesses can do to help. We're massively keen on health screening, so that's once a year. You should be asked 10 to 12 questions by somebody with a reasonable amount of training who can just assess where your drinking is, at what level it is at. If you are at the nice low risk level, then brilliant, great, crack on with that. If you have creeped up into a more of a moderate risk level, then they can give you some advice 10 minutes maybe, not even that, maybe just a PDF and a couple of words of encouragement to help you get back down to that lower risk drinking area. And, of course, if you've creeped over into the kind of moderate to severe area, then there are different approaches.

Speaker 3: 28:48

I would always take a coaching approach with that, help people to understand the effect that it's having on their life, get to grips with some of those beliefs, do a bit of the thought management piece, help them put in place a plan that is going to work for them, is going to suit them, because I don't just go around and tell everybody they should be sober. Definitely everybody shouldn't be like me. That's really not a good idea. Some people do need to stop drinking and should never drink again, but that's not true for everybody. It's developing that plan that works for that individual. And then, of course, if you employ any amount of people, you will identify some of them who are drinking far too much and really do need some serious professional help.

Speaker 3: 29:29

So that kind of screening process it's so quick, so easy and you know it should be happening annually. And I think if you actually get to grip, if you get to talk to most people in the medical business, they'd love to run that annually with their patients. It's just they don't have the time or the resources to do it and I think businesses they do. They frankly have the opportunity to do that and again, it would make a huge difference to productivity, to relationships, to retention. It would differentiate them from other employers, which helps them to attract the top talent.

Speaker 3: 30:08

And this is, at the end of the day, the World Health Organization who developed these sort of brief interventions, these brief screening tools, and they sat down with a panel of experts and decided on a few groups that were high risk and should be screened annually, and business executives was one of them. And if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Business executives have a lot of stress. In our society, we believe that stress is, you know, something that alcohol can help with. So, of course, you're going to find a lot of drinking among businesses.

Speaker 1: 30:42

Yeah, I completely, completely agree that between business and the well-being opportunity of us is doing that check-in gives us, gives the business and the employee that chance to connect on a different level. That chance to connect on a different level other than just being receiving a paycheck and getting your annual performance review and having something that that ties you a little deeper and closer to that business. And especially for this younger generation of the millennials are looking for that other edge, that other piece. What are the things that my employer can give me? And no, I know you wrote the, you've had the book with that we just talked about earlier. But you also have the sober warrior program. Talk a little bit about your program, how and how you're using that to help people.

Speaker 3: 31:22

So we work with two different types of people. One of them are the people that kind of they got to a point where they really do need to do something about their drinking. In general they tend to be professionals. They tend to be quite successful people. They tend to be professionals. They tend to be quite successful people. They tend to be holding down a job.

Speaker 3: 31:41

But over the years the drinking has creeped up and it's now getting to a point where they're drinking either daily or very heavily on the weekends and it's starting to have an effect and they want to do something about it.

Speaker 3: 31:54

So those are the kind of the people that want to make a big change around alcohol.

Speaker 3: 31:58

But we also do a lot of work with people who have already stopped drinking, and it is almost to the point that if you tell me what method you use to stop drinking, I will tell you what you're going to be bad at, because all methods have strengths and all methods have weaknesses, and we like to think we're reasonably good at plugging the gaps and filling in the holes and helping you to build that more holistic kind of sobriety, the kind of sobriety that sticks. And what a lot of people that we work with they're in this phase of trying to stabilize and we help them to create that stability and then from that stability they help to really they propel, they pop, and that's where you get the success. And I can, you know, I can bore you for days about examples of people who've stopped drinking, got that stability in their life and then just gone on and done some amazing things in business, in sport, in adventure, you know, in creativity almost any field you can.

Speaker 1: 33:02

Yes, I would agree with you. I think there are people. We look at these different programs and there's lots of different ways to do things that we've been talking about through this conversation today, and there are those pitfalls, and so helping them become aware of that and then developing a game plan that allows them to see a path forward he really is the key to the success of this program, isn't it?

Speaker 3: 33:23

Yeah, and I mean I'm very keen on education theory because I'm quite boring, and if you look at the way people learn, everybody learns in a different way. Everybody approaches problems in a different way. Everybody approaches problems in a different way. And I think that's what we really try to do is we try to sit down, meet you where you're at, but also get a bit of an understanding about how you tackle problems, because I could tell you a bunch of really great books that you could read that would blow your mind.

Speaker 3: 33:55

But if you're that kind of person that wants to just get stuck in and learns by doing, then that is absolutely the worst advice you could ever get, isn't it? You've just, and it's about forming a plan that that works for you and meets you where you're at and embraces your uh, your the way you approach life, because so many people I know they went to school and those kind of people, those very dynamic people who just can't sit still and just want to learn by doing. What did they have to do at school? They had to sit still and read books and look at the blackboard and they were told for years and years that it was a disadvantage, that it was a weakness, that there was something wrong with them. Wrong with them and it's no dude. That's just how you roll and we.

Speaker 1: 34:43

I love it when you can turn that into people absolutely, and what I, what I'm hearing you saying, is that you're what your program is doing is matching the actual program with the personality, so that because that's what's going to stick, and not trying to force a square peg into a round hole. So I think that's, that's kudos to you for recognizing that through your journey and through the work that you've been doing. But in considering your journey, I'm sure you've had a mentor or two that has had some impact on your life, and so next question for you is what's the best piece of advice you've been given and how is it still serving you today?

Speaker 3: 35:16

So the two pieces of advice that I really? The first one is the only piece of advice about parenting that makes any sense, and that is that your kids will ignore everything you say and copy everything that you do. So for me, that is about not just telling my daughter how to behave, but actually trying to model the behavior that I want to see her. So I am quite concerned about the digital environment that she is shortly to be plunged into, and I think the best thing I can do is actually develop a fairly healthy relationship with my own tech usage and then model that to her. So that's number one.

Speaker 3: 36:01

But I mean my good friend and mentor, r Michael Anderson. He doesn't drink, partly why I like him, partly because he's awesome. He taught me that you've got to be able to take the praise, and I think this is something that most people are particularly bad at. I think men are awful at it in general. We just say, oh, it was nothing, I just did what anybody would have done.

Speaker 3: 36:28

It's absolutely nothing, it's a small thing, and you know what? I think we need to just get better at going. Look, I appreciate that you think I did something that really helped you out and I'm going to take a moment to stand in that power and recognize your thanks and that I did something good and I think there's this kind of like self-awareness piece so often it gets hijacked by being aware of what you're not very good at and actually developing that awareness for when you have done something good. That has been really big for me and it has really helped me to live a happier, chilled out, more fulfilled life and I now love it when my clients say nice things and I always I bizarrely get into this kind of.

Speaker 1: 37:19

I really want to thank you for thanking me that's a great piece of advice, though, because it is something that we have to learn. Lots of people not just men, but in our work here with men is that learning to be able to accept praise and when we talked, I changed that around a little bit. A couple of months ago, we did a month on talking about how to accept and receive love. Is that something that we don't do as men very well, and so I like this, that you've added praise to it, and so love, that information that you were able to garner from your mentor. And, as we close out today's conversation, maybe there was, maybe we've talked about it, or maybe there's something we didn't get a chance to talk about. What would be the one piece of advice you'd give our listeners?

Speaker 3: 38:00

Oh, that's easy. You are enough, something I would love everybody to really understand and tattoo across their heart. You are enough. You have everything inside you that you need to live a happy, healthy, fulfilling, meaningful, purposeful, enjoyable life. You don't need alcohol, you don't need cigarettes, you don't need junk foods, you don't need gambling. You don't need Facebook. You don't need so much of it, because you are enough.

Speaker 1: 38:29

Love that. That is perfect. Great way to wrap up today's conversation today with us. Duncan, I just want to say thank you so much for spending time with us today and showing us a way through any type of grip that we may that may be taking over our lives, and today's been focusing on alcohol. If men are interested in getting a hold of you and participating in your work, what's the best way for them to do that?

Speaker 3: 38:50

So if you want to grab a copy of Real Men Quit, just type Real Men and Quit into Amazon and they'll drone it over in the next 30 minutes or something. But if you wanted to connect or anything, the best way to do that is to go to my website. Now, if you can spell Basker and Brown, it's really easy. But nobody can spell it. In fact, most people can't even pronounce it.

Speaker 3: 39:11

So this is the deal. If you put getoveruk that's getoveruk into your search engine of choice, it will take you to a bit of my website and there you can download a copy of my first book, get Over Indulgence. It's the PDF, the Kindle or, if you can stand listening to me for three hours and 45 minutes, you can listen to the audio book as well. So that's like my gift to your listeners. It might give them a little bit of a nudge in the right direction and expand a little bit on my story, but it also, as I say, is a piece of my website. You can, from there find out about the programs, find us on social media, connect, say hi. Always happy to talk about that. There's a ton of stuff on our website.

Speaker 1: 39:55

Absolutely. I want to make sure that information is in today's show notes, as well as wherever you're hiding on social media. We're gonna we're gonna stalk you and find you and make sure that we get people to come to you. And because you're doing some amazing work here, duncan, once again, thank you so much for being on the show today it's my absolute pleasure and thank you for all of the work that you're doing it.

Speaker 3: 40:15

It's so important, I think, that, as men, we do organize and start talking about the problems that we have getting them on the agenda. So I hope all the listeners can go and give you a five-star review on all of their favorite podcast platforms to help.

Speaker 1: 40:29

you. Really appreciate it, thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 40:37

Thank you for listening to the Revolutionary man podcast. Are you ready to own your destiny, to become more the man you were destined to be? Join the brotherhood that is the Awakened man at theawakendmannet and start forging a new destiny today.