What if it Never Gets “Bad Enough” to Quit for Good with Eric Zimmer for The One You Feed
“I got sober the first time when I was around 24 years old. I was desperate and willing to try anything, so I embraced the twelve step program that was available to me. I was able to stay sober for a while, but then my life fell apart when my wife left me for someone else. I started to drift away from AA and back into unhealthy behaviors. I got sober again, but this time it was more of an intellectual exercise. I realized that I didn't need to wait until I hit rock bottom to make the decision to stop using. I could just step off the path I was on before it got too bad.”
- Eric Zimmer
For many of us, we justify our drinking by comparing ourselves to others who may seem to be drinking just as much or more than us. But the truth is, we all have our own unique set of circumstances that dictates whether or not we need to make a change. If we are unhappy with our drinking, then it is time to make a change, regardless of what others may be doing.
Many of us will go back and forth between drinking and not drinking for years, and what holds us back is this idea that our drinking isn’t “that bad”. So what are we supposed to do if our drinking makes us unhappy, but we haven’t experienced a rock bottom yet? You may beat yourself up for not being motivated enough to quit or wishing you had enough self-discipline or courage, but it has nothing to do with that. That’s why I asked Eric Zimmer, behavior coach and host of the top podcast The One You Feed, to join us today and talk about how to get past this and make sobriety stick. We discuss why a lack of external consequences keeps many of us stuck in this back and forth cycle, what to do if you get sober but still don’t feel great, and how you can start feeling hopeful about your recovery.
In this episode you’ll learn:
What spirituality is and why it’s not necessarily the same thing as religion
Eric’s first journey with sobriety in AA, why he eventually relapsed, and how he approached sobriety the second time
Why a lack of external consequences and the idea that it isn’t “that bad” makes it difficult to get sober
The idea of needing a “rock bottom” to get sober
How alcohol serves a purpose for you, even if it isn’t doing that job very well
Why things might not get better right away when you get sober
Why we need a community and why we can’t get sober by ourselves
Why we go back and forth for so long even though we say we want to quit drinking
How to feel hopeful about your recovery
What to do if you feel like you don’t deserve sobriety
Eric Zimmer is a behavior coach, author, and the host of The One You Feed Podcast. He is endlessly inspired by the quest for a greater understanding of how our minds work and how to intentionally create the lives we want to live. At the age of 24, Eric was homeless, addicted to heroin and facing long jail sentences. In the years since, he not only found a way to overcome these obstacles to create a life worth living, he now helps others to do the same. Eric works as a behavior coach and has done so for the past 20 years. He has coached hundreds of people from around the world on how to make significant life changes and create habits that serve them well in achieving the goals they’ve set for themselves. In addition to his work as a behavior coach, he currently hosts the award-winning podcast, The One You Feed, based on an old parable about two wolves at battle within us. With over 500 episodes and over 30 million downloads, the show features conversations with experts across many fields of study about how to create a life that has more meaning.
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