Missing Madonna - with Clive

Tribe Sober - inspiring an alcohol-free life!

This week my guest is tribe member Clive Vanderwagen.  Clive is a business and leadership coach who is also a wine expert!

In this Episode

Clive’s father offered him a taste of wine at quite an early age in an effort to make it “less exciting” but looking back Clive feels this was a bit naïve and if he was ever a parent he would probably share with his kids that he had struggled with alcohol himself and that it should be treated with caution.

Educating our kids about alcohol is SO tricky but one thing is for sure – it’s easier to do it if we don’t drink – it’s no good saying one thing and then modelling another as we open our nightly bottle of wine!

Like many of us Clive felt invincible when he was younger and the fact that he became dependent on alcohol took him by surpise. Alcohol dependency tends to sneak up on us over the years and its only when we try to cut down or give up that we realise we have a problem!

That’s why regular breaks are so important – if you want to try 21 alcohol free days with online, community and audio support then just sign up for Accelerate

I could really identify with Clive when he said he went to AA to see everyone chain smoking and talking about their rock bottoms and just didn’t feel he fitted in! He just didn’t feel like an alcoholic because he wasn’t drinking in the morning, crashing cars, losing jobs etc

The thing is we don’t have to wait until we hit “rock bottom” before we make a change

Like most of us Clive tried “moderation” and we agreed that our “drinking neural pathway” will always be there so once you’ve crossed a line with your drinking moderation is no longer an option.

Clive talked about being triggered by a sunny day and the thought of drinking rose – he has a sensible approach to his triggers – he just recognizes them, gets a bit curious about them and then lets them pass without acting on them

One way of dealing with those triggers is to create another ritual to replace it – for example if Clive started enjoying a glass on AF bubbly everytime he sat drinking in the sunshine then his subconscious would gradually create a new and less harmful trigger.