Quick Start Preparation Course (FREE)

Download our Quick Start Preparation course as our FREE gift to help you stop drinking alcohol and get the best start to your new life. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD.

How Winston Churchill Can Help You To Quit Drinking Alcohol For Good

by | Stop Drinking Alcohol | 4 comments

I just wanted to have some fun today by doing a couple of quotes by Winston Churchill and try to apply them to how you can quit drinking.

The first quote is: the pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity, the optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.

That’s the way you should be looking at this when you quit drinking, once you’ve gotten over the starting line of this.

You’re going to be presented with a lot of different choices in your life, a lot of changes.

It’s making those changes from day to day that is really going to change the person that you are, that individual core deep inside you.

It’s how you react to these changes that’s going to make the biggest difference in your life.

So if you look at each difficulty with a pessimistic viewpoint then you’re not going to see any opportunity.

You’re going to see someone standing in your way whereas if you look at every difficulty from an optimistic point of view, you’re going to see things as an opportunity, as a chance to improve yourself.

The second quote says: Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.

You can say this another way but it’s still the same thing.

It depends on how you look at things, from what perspective you’re looking at them, from what framework you look out.

If you quit drinking and your perspective or attitude is that you can’t wait to stop, you’re looking forward to a future without alcohol and that you’re going to do everything in your power to build a better life for yourself, then you’re going to do a lot better for yourself than if you turn around and you face the alcohol and you worry about all the things that you’re missing in your life and all the other things that you won’t be able to have in your life now because of this one fucking thing that’s missing, this alcohol that’s missing.

95% of this is attitude, it’s mind work, it’s getting it right from your mind.

If you do that right then nothing else matters.

It doesn’t make any difference how much alcohol is to there in the world, who is drinking what, what they’re saying to you, what they’re trying to get you to do because in your head you’re not going to do it.

That’s full stop.

You won’t do it.

You’ll quit drinking easily.

The third one is:

I’m an optimist and it doesn’t seem too much use being anything else.

That’s my attitude in life.

What’s the point of being a pessimist?

I don’t think anyone is an eternal optimist.

I think there are certain situations where you have to look at the negative side of things. It’s just the way things are.

But, in general, I think if you look at life with an optimistic viewpoint, you’ll not only have a better life but you’ll achieve more because you’ll see the opportunity, you’ll see that when quitting drinking for instance, when you look at this with an optimistic viewpoint, you’re going to see the benefits of this.

You’re going to see your body recovering, your life improving, your relationships improving your finances improving, and all these things improving around your life.

If you look at it with a pessimistic point of view, what are you going to see?

You’re going to see how much you’re missing, what you’re missing out on, the parties that you can’t go to…this is the thing that got you into trouble in the first place.

It’s not the alcohol, it’s the life that surrounds the alcohol, it’s the framework that you’ve built up around alcohol.

Alcohol is a part of that framework.

It’s those things that you’ve got to change over the course of your life.

I’m going to walk for a while.

Having a positive attitude and just keeping yourself in the right framework and keeping, and keeping the right attitude in your head and just trying to build all your decisions around a positive frame of mind, around an optimistic frame of mind, is going to lead you to opportunities.

It takes time to do this.

Alcohol can lead you down into areas where you’re not necessarily going to be thinking very optimistic about your future.

Einstein once said that it’s very difficult to solve a problem with the same mind that created it.

So, when you’re talking about drinking, for most people when you stop drinking, you’ve still got the mind of a drinker.

You’ve still got that framework, the mind, the lifestyle that produced that alcohol problem and all the problems in your life.

So, you’ve still got that framework in your mind. You have to gradually dismantle that framework or at least the parts of that framework that’s causing problems bit by bit.

This is not going to happen overnight, so maybe a part of that framework is that you’re a pessimist or you’re more inclined to think pessimistically than positively.

It’s going to take a long while to do this.

Bit by bit by bit.

So, I’m going to give you a few tips on how to do that from my own experience today.

The first tip is to mind the basics.

All the rest of your life is going to be built on a few core principles.

Getting rid of the bad habits of your life is part of that but that’s just something that’s part of the bigger, overall plan.

The overall plan that you should be planning on is improving your health, and by that I mean your nutrition and what you actually put into your body all over.

Not just the alcohol – stop doing that, stop smoking-, but you just stop putting things into your body that are going to do you damage.

And start replacing that with the things that are going to benefit you.

So, drink plenty of water.

Think about your nutrition and study this because this is a big part of how you’re going to reduce your hospital stays in the future, your overall health in the future and you’re going to increase your positivity, your lifespan and the quality of your life.

Read books about this.

I can recommend you a few books, if not here then I’m going to put it on the website, some books that I think everyone should read on this subject.

Same thing with exercise.

Exercise doesn’t have to be this big mad dash to the gym every day where you’re pumping out weights and you’re screaming yourself to death on the treadmill.

Getting out walking every day, it’s movement.

You change your emotions by getting yourself into motion.

That’s the trick.

I have to climb this thing now.

The old legs aren’t what they used to be.

As you get older you start to miss the agility that you had as a kid.

I certainly do, anyway.

I’m 50.

I turned 50 a couple of weeks ago, a few weeks ago depending on when you’re watching this video.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: I’m making this video two days before I’m turning 50.

As I’m making this video, I’m actually 49, in my forties.

When you see this, I’ll be 50.

But I feel great, and that’s about changing the attitude.

It’s learning about the core habits, the fundamental basic stuff that you have to get right at this stage, and that’s your health first and foremost.

That’s your nutrition and your exercise.

Secondly, also to do with your health is your sleep, get good sleep.

I can hear in some people’s minds ‘’the only thing that gets me to sleep is alcohol’, alcohol is knocking you unconscious.

That’s not sleep and it never will be sleep no matter how much of a spin you put on it and how much you want it to be sleep, it’s not sleep.

Quitting drinking alcohol at first, you’re not going to be able to sleep well.

Maybe you will, maybe you won’t.

I didn’t, it took me a month.

It took me a month to get from not sleeping great…first few days were horrible.

I’d just get into bed and I just couldn’t sleep.

By day 3 or 4 I was knackered and all I wanted to do was sleep.

But then once I fell asleep I’d wake up again.

It took a while to get into the routine but so what?

This is ruining your life and this is the price that you have to pay, not only for all the drinking that you’ve done.

You’ve taken this instant gratification so many times and now it’s time to play the piper.

If all you have to pay is a few sleepless nights then isn’t that great?

Some people are facing into this journey of having to quit alcohol by going down to the doctor and the doctor said to them ‘’sorry to tell you this but you’ve got cirrhosis of the liver and the best thing you can hope for is that if you stop drinking now, there won’t be any more damage. But your liver is sort of half fucked’’.

I have so much gratitude for the fact that I had pains in my liver, I was feeling like shit beforehand, I was having heart palpitations, pounding heart in the middle of the night and I was feeling like crap, and I stepped across that starting line not knowing what to expect, not knowing whether it was too late for me in so many different areas of my life, whether from the health points or my relationships, all that kind of stuff.

But, all I had really were some of the discomforts, and I couldn’t sleep.

So I’m going to be forever grateful.

So that first step is getting the basics right.

If you get the basics right, you increase your health, and you get proper sleep.

You eat good food, get plenty exercise, all this is going to add to what I call a vigorous cycle instead of a vicious cycle.

So one, you eat healthy; that means you have more energy to go out exercising.

You exercise better and that means that you can think more clearly, and it all starts going around in circles and you see more clearly so you can think of better ways to eat, you’ve got more time to spend more energy studying nutrition and exercise and how you can treat your body right.

These are things you shouldn’t be leaving up to other people, you should be actively taking a part in your own education of this.

Buy books, watch health videos on YouTube, watch people who are in the position that you want to be in and copy them.

It’s not that hard to do this but it does take time and effort.

The results are not going to happen overnight but it’s all worth it.

When it comes to positivity and negativity, my second tip would be to choose who you listen to very carefully.

From that perspective, I’ve already spoken about going out and getting books, reading up and educating yourself about your health and about how to keep yourself healthy.

How to get healthy and how to maintain that health over the long run.

But, be very careful about all the other influences in your life.

No matter what area of entertainment you’re thinking about: music, television, movies, books that you read, these can have either a positive or a negative influence on you.

If all the television programs that you watch are violent, then that’s not a very positive influence.

That’s the same with books, the same with music.

You can listen to a lot of violent music these days, a lot of music that brings out negative undertones, so just choose your influences very wisely.

A lot of our influences were from when we were young.

A lot of bands I listened to were scar bands like specials and that kind of stuff.

Paul Young, Tina Turner, Queen, all that kind of stuff.

But I listen to some of the stuff nowadays, the lyrics are…does this show my age?

I don’t listen to it that much so I shouldn’t really be saying much about it.

I’ve listened to a few songs and I thought the stuff they were singing about was either very banal or it’s violent, inciteful as in inciting people to commit crimes and to do bad shit in their lives.

What a great day it is today.

What a great day it is every day when you can get up, walk, breathe and don’t have to worry about a fucking hangover.

So that’s the second tip, be careful about your influences, about who is influencing your mind.

The third tip is fake it till you make it, or act as you want to feel.

So you’ve heard the old saying ‘fake it till you make it’, that means if you’re feeling shitty, if you’re feeling down, smile.

Put on some upbeat music, watch a comedy, tell yourself a few jokes, make some funny faces into the mirror, do anything that you can to fake a good humour, and eventually it will come about.

In general, the more you do this with yourself, the more your brain will get used to it, so when you do have the odd pessimistic day when you’re feeling a bit down in yourself, then it won’t be as difficult to get back up again.

The more positive stuff you can bring into your life, the more positive vibes you send out, the more you’ll get back off other people as well.

It’s like another vigorous cycle.

What’s the old quote? ‘Go through your life with the attitude that you’d like other people to show towards you’.

If you can do that then you’ll get it from other people as well.

Surrounding yourself with good people.

Don’t put up with fucking assholes in your life.

Everyone can be an asshole at certain times, but there are certain people who are assholes most of the time.

And, to be honest, even if they’re fucking family, get rid of them.

Distance yourself from them because they’re poison.

These people are literally poison because they try to bring everyone else down around them.

Surround yourself with people who want to bring you up to their level.

It’s the same with everything in life.

If you’re trying to get an education, surround yourself with people who are in that situation that you want to be in. if you want to quit drinking, don’t surround yourself by drinkers.

Surround yourself by people who don’t drink.

And if you drink, the looks of them, you know, ‘what the fuck are you doing to yourself?’

If you want to eat healthy, don’t surround yourself by burger munchers.

Surround yourself with people who eat whole foods and treat their body with respect.

And then if you find yourself thinking ‘oh I fancy a whopper with large fries and a milkshake on the side , then these people are going to give you a dirty look.

They’re going to look at you differently, thinking ‘what the fuck are you doing? I thought you were a healthy person, you’re putting that crap into your body?’

That’s what you have to do, surround yourself by optimism, by people who are going to pull you up to their level.

I always remember my brother years ago when he was in college in Dublin and he was talking about a certain group of people.

He said their whole mentality was to climb up the ladder of success, and then kick everyone else off the ladder.

They didn’t want anyone else up there as competition; whereas there was another group of people who, when they climbed up the ladder of success, they were willing to reach down and help you up because they figured that the more competition that they had up there with them, the harder that they would be spurred to work, the more motivation that they would have to do better.

You’re only as good as your next competitor.

So always try and find people in your life who are going to try and pull you up, not those who are going to try and fucking knock you off the ladder or pull you down if they’re beneath you.

The fourth tip from these Churchill quotes is to start off your day right.

Set the context for your day early in the morning, or the night before, if you can.

Know what you’re going to the next day before you actually do it.

Make a list of the things that you want to get done the next day, the day before.

Before you get up the next morning, you know what you’re facing into.

More important is starting off that day with a good routine.

I think that’s so important to know whether you should spend the first 60 – 90 minutes on yourself, on your health, on getting some good food into your body, so my routine starts out with a half-litre to a litre of water depending on how thirsty I am.

At this time of the year, I drink more than half a litre normally closer to 2 litres of water.

Get some exercise.

I start out with water, hydrating myself after the night.

Then get out and do some exercise, do some walking.

Then I come back and look after my nutrition, get a good breakfast, normally a big smoothie or a big bowl of homemade museli – mostly that’s just a lot of fruit with some oats mixed into it.

That’s how I start my day off, and I keep all the negative thoughts out of my head.

I don’t watch the news, I don’t read newspapers, I keep the outside world out all the time if I can help it.

Some of the time that’s not very possible but other times it is possible, and I manage to do that most of the time.

The only big negative that I have in my life is because I watch Arsenal football club, and that brings me some positivity depending on who I’m listening to.

A lot of negativity and often times I think ‘what the hell am I doing?’ but I’ve been supporting Arsenal for such a long time that, you know you’re stuck with a football team and you either stop watching football altogether or you find another team, and that’s impossible.

You just can’t do that.

It’s impossible to switch to other teams, to go over to the enemy, so to speak, and that’s what makes football great.

Drifting off there, but I try and minimise the amount of negativity in my life as much as possible, and maximise the amount of positivity.

It doesn’t happen overnight, it’s going to take time.

But, the more you do this, the better you feel about it and the more you’re going to do it.

As I said in the beginning, one of the biggest issues of this whole thing is to break down the framework that alcohol is a part of.

That whole lifestyle that you’ve got, alcohol is only a part of the problem, the rest of it is the lifestyle and you have to break down that lifestyle bit by bit.

As you’re breaking down this thing, you’re replacing it with something else.

So, make sure that you’re replacing it with something better, something better than what has gone before.

That’s the best thing to do.

Things move on and you get more confident in the new things that you’re doing.

The more confidence you get the easier it is to do these things, the easier it’s going to be to set out of your comfort zone and move to something else.

In order to change, you have to get out of your comfort zone.

You can’t stay in there.

It’s impossible.

You’ve got to think, am I going to get what I want in this life if I just stay where I am?

And the answer to that is usually going to be no, and the only way that you’re going to make change and make the things that you want to happen, is to get uncomfortable.

Get out of your comfort zone.

I’m not talking about doing stupid fucking things.

There’s a lot of people that would recommend that you go out and dress in a pink dress and stuff; walk down a major high street in a pink dress, or in a tutu or something like that, just so you can feel uncomfortable.

I think that’s stupid.

I don’t agree with stuff like that.

I think that you have to do something which is stepping outside your comfort zone but it would have to be a positive thing.

It has to be with a purpose.

Your time is short.

Don’t just do things just because you want to get out of your comfort zone.

Do things that are leading you in the direction that you want to go.

Do it bit by bit.

You don’t have to do everything at once.

Take it a little bit at a time and eventually you’ll get there.

Let’s take the guy coming by me on a bicycle; when I first started doing this, there was no way I would have done that.

I would have taken the camera down and tried to hide the camera because I wasn’t confident in what I was doing, or in myself.

But there, I was like, whatever.

I’m happy doing what I’m doing, I’m proud of what I’m doing.

I’ve got more confidence in myself.

That comes through time and keeping the right attitude.

Anyway, that’s the end of this.

I thought that was just a nice way of looking at some things.

I might do a few more of these videos where I look at famous people and see how what they’ve said can help us figure out our own lives.

You might have different ways of looking at these things and I’d love to hear them down below in the comment section.

Come on over to the website and download the audio for this.

There’s also the transcript.

Until next time, stay healthy, and try and keep up a positive attitude, no matter what angle you’re looking at these things.

It’s always the best way of doing things.

There’s no point in looking at anything through a pessimistic viewpoint.

Keep the alcohol out of your mouth and stay safe.

IN OPTIMISM, THERE IS MAGIC. IN PESSIMISM, THERE IS NOTHING.

Until next time…
Onwards and Upwards!

You May Also Enjoy…

4 Comments

  1. Gary

    Nice video Kevin. For myself, I am thankful that the urge to drink rears up from time to time; it is taken as my personal reminder of the necessity to quit it.

    Reply
  2. Wilfredo villegas

    Hi Kevin, my name is wilfredo and am an alcoholic. I start watching your videos, and am very interested in the program. I want to change my life, I couldn’t place the order I put my cc. Information and when I hit continue nothing happens, is a master card, is there any problems with the system right now? . Today is thursday the 18th 10:26. USA

    Reply
  3. Gail

    Hi Kevin

    I’m very inspired by your messages

    Also, the comments, ie

    “I am thankful that the urge to drink rears up from time to time;
    it is taken as my personal reminder of the necessity to have quit it”.

    I have written that one down to remind me.

    Onwards and upwards is my favourite though.

    Peace, Gail

    Reply

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.