How to Quit Drinking..and lose weight with Brad

Episode 169

My guest this week is Tribe member Brad who has struggled with his weight and his drinking. I love his story about how he heard about Tribe Sober when he was in the chemist picking up his meds!

In this episode:-

Brad's drinking story is tied up with his weight loss story and as we heard from the recent podcast with Adam Sheauble there is a crossover between the two addictions and how we deal with them
Brad had picked up a lot of weight in his 20’s and his psychologist and nutritionist both made a case for him to get a gastric bypass paid for by his medical aid
He lost the weight and was warned to be careful with alcohol as the food addiction could transfer to alcoholism.
Last week I interviewed Dr Vera Tarman who is an eating disorder specialist who tells us more about bariatric surgery and alcohol
Brad knew he was drinking too much so he took a year off and felt great – he even managed to have couple of drinks on special occasions during that year but didn’t go back to drinking regularly
At the end of that year Brad had a drink and basically he never stopped
He’d finished his MBA and felt there was a vacuum where his studies had been – a gap to be filled..
Contributing to this was the fact that he had left his corporate job after 18 years as he was trying to start his own business
So he started to fill this vacuum with booze
We have to be so careful not to leave a void when we quit drinking – we need to keep super busy at first so that there’s not much time to sit and think about drinking….
Then when we do start to make progress with our sobriety we need to find a hobby or interest to keep us engaged and keep our happy brain chemicals firing
For more on this listen to my interview with Dr Loretta Breuning – episode 55
So back to Brad who was filling the gap in his life with booze – which really got hold of him this time
He did try AA – 15 different groups and 40 meetings but he just ended up convinced that he wasn’t an alcoholic as he wasn’t as bad as the other guys
By the end of 2019 his partner had had enough and they broke up.
This led to him living in a tiny apartment without much furniture or any appliances and that’s when his drinking was at its worst
He was drinking spirits as well as litres of wine
In the midst of that he met his current partner and they both decided to stop drinking.
He managed a few months but succumbed to a bottle of whisky when house sitting for a friend
Brad started to drink in secret after that, his partner didn’t know about it
He tried the Sinclair method using Naltroxene but although Naltroxene blocks the buzz we get from alcohol Brad just drank more until he did get a buzz
February 2022 brought a couple of aha moments – his partners mom explained that her husband had thought he could outsmart the booze but he didn’t manage to do it
The second aha moment was when a psychiatrist refused to give him meds while he was drinking heavily
Said it would be like throwing a cup of tea on a forest fire!
He went back to the doctor who had put him on naltroxene and said he was going to completely quit rather than cut down and got some Antibuse which he took for 3 months… and it worked!
During the next 3-6 months Brad weaned himself off all of his medications
He focused on his work, his relationship, his health and he got a puppy….Benji
Benji is ageing alongside Brads sobriety so he gets called the sober doggy – a great idea I think!
Brad had a plan to have a drink on his first Soberversary but after about 7 months he realized that was not a way to celebrate
We agreed that alcohol gets far too much credit for the good times!
A lad

Published on 2 years, 5 months ago

Podcast Episode Details

How to Quit Drinking..and lose weight with Brad