Join Bernie Franzgrote, Wayne Pratt, and I on the Knack 4 Business podcast. I share my journey into alcoholism and recovery in both business and life. In this episode you will learn:
- How I ran a hugely successful business while being an active alcoholic.
- That alcohol is the most power drug in the entire world.
- Alcoholism is a progressive disease always getting worse over time.
- My belief that we cannot get sober (or overcome any addition) on our own.
- How the universe put a remarkable coach in my life who coached me to attend 12-step recovery meetings.
- Ways to deal with not drinking business and social situations where there is a lot of drinking.
- What my “bottom” was that caused me to enter 12-step recovery and quit drinking for the last fifteen years.
Learn more by listening to Season 2 Episode 120 of the Knack 4 Business Podcast.
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/knack-4-business/id1645599951?i=1000671548850
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6WaN4dpppT3DgJ4hR2pao3
Transcript
Announcer (00:00):
Welcome to season two of the Knack 4 Business Podcast. Today’s topic is my journey from alcoholism to Recovery, happiness, and health. Your host is Bernie Franzgrote from Creative Insight and his co-host is Wayne Pratt from Motive8U Inc. Gentry Learning, our sponsor, has crafted an exclusive collection of courses designed for individuals needing more how-to information in real estate investments. Additional details can be obtained by tuning into the Popular Property Wizard podcast. Check out gentry learning.com for more details.
Our guest today is David Greer from Coach David J. Greer. David is an entrepreneurial coach, author and facilitator. He’s the catalyst who gets you to fully live your dreams now. Spend one hour reading his book, Wind In Your Sails, attend a one hour talk with him or get one hour of one-to-one coaching and you will have three concrete action items that will shift and accelerate your business within 90 days. David specializes in working with entrepreneurs challenged with alcoholism or addiction. He and his wife Karalee are committed to each other and their three children spending time supporting them in the many in varied activities they are involved with. They live in Vancouver, Canada.
Bernie (01:17):
David, welcome man. What is your favorite quote saying, sir.
David (01:21):
Thanks very much Bernie and thanks for having me here. Yeah, one of my favorite quotes is progress not perfection, which is something I’ve heard a lot in 12 step recovery meetings.
Bernie (01:33):
And do you have a tagline too for your business?
David (01:35):
Yes. What are you waiting for?
Bernie (01:38):
You started sharing your story about struggling with alcoholism while running a business. What was the business and what kind of triggered off the addiction to alcohol?
David (01:48):
I have a long journey into alcoholism and my story is very much the progressive nature of the disease. When I was 22, still going to university, I joined a young software startup as the first hire after the founders and I think through my twenties. I don’t really think I was an alcoholic, although I liked to drink. And what I know for sure is now that I’ve got sober looking back is when my wife Karalee got pregnant with our first child, Jocelyn. She committed to not drink during the pregnancy and I committed to supporting her by not drinking. And that lasted 24 hours and then I went back to drinking and I still don’t even know how I squared it with Karalee. That’s a typical of most alcoholics. We’re pretty manipulative and find a way to justify or make whole our drinking. I know by that point what we say in recovery is that you, I became a pickle once you’re pickled, you can’t go back to being a cucumber is my belief.
(02:57):
I can say for sure that at that point I was indeed an alcoholic and I know it was sometime before that, but I don’t know. I don’t have a nice event that I can say I crossed the line. From that point, there’s another 20 years of daily drinking and when I was the president and co-owner of Robelle, the software company that I joined when I was still a student like 10 years in, I bought out one of the founders, Annabelle, the company was named Robelle for Robert and Annabelle a concatenation of their names. And so I bought out Annabelle and then for 10 years I was partners with Bob in the business and I used alcohol to power up, get more done if things were going bad, I used alcohol to take the edge off of that feeling.
(03:46):
If we had a big success, they used alcohol to make it feel a little higher. But it just was, my story is one of a high performing alcoholic, which I think is actually most people, most people are functional alcoholics. They hold down a job, they manage to raise families. But I’ll say me, I never like to talk about the weeks. I just have my story. But I was changing the way I was feeling by using alcohol and alcohol had me totally pinned to the ground. I ended up exiting Robelle by Bob buying me out. My wife and I did something completely different. We commissioned a sailboat in the south of France. We home schooled our three children for two years while traveling more than 5,000 miles, about 10,000 kilometers in the Mediterranean. I guess the Cinderella story of this would be I went to the med and I saw the error of my ways and I got sober.
(04:42):
That’s not the way this story unrolled. The Mediterranean was a fantastic place to be an alcoholic. Wine was half the cost beer only two thirds. And every place I pulled into there was a bar or a restaurant serving alcohol right across from where the boat was parked. But we did do over 20 overnight passages on Dragon Singer our sailboat. And interestingly, I didn’t realize it really at the time, but I never drank during those passages. Like when the life of my family was at stake, I actually had no trouble putting the drink down for 24 or 48 or 72 hours. We did some passages like three days and three nights nonstop. Of course, once we hit land, I immediately celebrated by having a drink pretty much no matter what the time of day, a little glimpses of maybe what was possible.
(05:39):
We came back, I did three years of angel investing. I didn’t realize how unfulfilled I was until I went to a training session. I took one of the CEOs I was invested in and I was in the board of directors of to a training event was the guy Verne Harnish. And his claim to fame is something called the one page strategic plan. And I had many of my entrepreneur friends in swore by this framework and about this guy. And so I went to a training event and Vern Harnish was actually giving it in person. But the important part of the story at the back of the room was two coaches. And in the morning break I went and I talked to those two coaches and one of them coach Kevin Lawrence, otherwise known as Coach Kevin, he made me more uncomfortable than I had been in half a dozen years. I had tears in the corner of my eyes and he really shone a light on just how unfulfilling this angel work was and trying to work for options and worked as director.
(06:36):
Then he gave me his card and his card sat next to me, my desk next to my phone for probably three weeks. Probably once a week. I thought about picking up the phone and calling coach Kevin and the phone weighed 10,000 pounds. And then three weeks in, Kevin called me and he said, “Hey, I thought there was a spark at the Verne Harnish event.” He said, “Do you remember me?” I go, yes. Meanwhile I’m like, oh, I haven’t thought about much else in the last three weeks. But yes, I do remember you. And I ended up hiring him. And on my 50th birthday we had our first coaching session and Kevin is my kind of guy. We are all in or all out. So at that time was Kevin, your first coaching session was two eight hour days. Really all in the second day? Actually, we both were getting a little stir crazy.
(07:23):
We went out in the afternoon and we walked probably 10 miles in our dress shoes up the waterfront in Vancouver and back. Both Kevin and I remember that. And so we started my journey together of really rebuilding my career, organizing my life. There was a lot of things that were not going well and Kevin slowly started pointing ’em out. We slowly started clearing off all the clutter on the table. Till 18 months into my relationship with Kevin, the only thing left was the elephant in the room. And on January 26th, 2009, my modus opera operandi working with Kevin is the day before I would email him a message with half a dozen of the wins, the things that were going successfully and then the topic for our coaching call. I had a coaching call the next day and I had my last beer about 10 o’clock at night.
(08:14):
I was very careful to make sure there were no others [beer] in the house. And I sent an email to Kevin and said, the topic for our call tomorrow is my drinking and press send. I think I knew once I pressed send, I knew that Kevin was never going to let me off the hook. And we built that kind of trust relationship. The next afternoon, it was a Tuesday, January 27th, 2009, I had my call with Kevin and I told him I had a drinking problem and he asked me some things about that and I told him, honestly probably the first time I’d ever been honest about my drinking with myself and certainly the first time I’d ever admitted it to another human being. And he coached me to go to 12 step recovery. And at the end of the call, as a good coach does, he asked for a commitment from me to go to a 12 step meeting.
(09:05):
And I committed to go by that Friday. This is Tuesday afternoon that afternoon, that early five o’clock or so, I was heading downtown for a networking event. It was a technology presentation and a lot of tech entrepreneurs and tech friends in town. I knew that was going to end probably before eight o’clock. I went online and I looked and lo and behold, there was a meeting at 8:30 that was going to be a quarter of a block off the road I was going to be driving down to go home. I think the universe was trying to tell me something. I went to that meeting and went into, which is held in a legion above a bar, which is a bizarre place, but somehow incredibly appropriate for a 12 step meeting for alcoholics. And three quarters of the way through the meeting the chairperson asked, is there anyone new to the program that would stand and introduce themselves?
(09:58):
And I sat on my hands and sat on my hands and the chairperson probably waited 20, 30 seconds. And at the last moment I stood up and I said, “I’m David and I’m an alcoholic.” I’m not even certain in that moment. I knew what I was saying, but I really was saying my truth. And a few weeks later I made that my home group. You’re suggested that you join a home group where you commit to going every week and where you volunteer for service positions. And earlier this year I took my 15 year cake 15 years of sobriety at that same home group. That’s me, my home group, my entire sobriety. And there was probably four or five people at my 15 year cake who were there the night that I came in. And they actually remember, right? You do. And it’s amazing having a home group with a lot of longevity where people stick around and people can be there to remind you what it was like when you first came in.
(10:55):
And that started my journey into sobriety. And I believe that not only was that meeting the universe put that meeting in my path that Tuesday night, but I believe that the universe put coach Kevin in my path so that I could get sober. I don’t know if I answered the question about while running a business, but I did answer the question about my alcoholic journey and I’ve been a senior executive and run businesses sober and run it as an alcoholic and I’m glad I can be sober and present today. I don’t have to rely on alcohol to cope with what I’m feeling or what’s going on.
Wayne (11:31):
Two things, one, have a few friends of Bill W in my family.
David (11:35):
Nice. Awesome.
Wayne (11:38):
And one thing, the other side, I’m sure you’ve met people who are white knuckling it and you may or may not, doesn’t matter, but where do you think the danger of trying to white knuckle it is?
David (11:52):
Great questions. In 2004, I had gone back to Turkey and I had moved the sailboat, our sailboat from Turkey to Spain with a couple other people. And then the last couple of days was by myself and I really drank a lot and I came home and I really had a felt sense that I needed to quit drinking. And so I did quit drinking probably May and June of that year. And it was completely white knuckle, completely just hanging on by my fingernails, no program, no solution. And I was so hyper the people around me were not suggesting I needed to stop drinking. And in fact, my spouse was shocked that I thought I needed to stop drinking and wasn’t altogether supportive. And a couple months in I picked up a drink and had three or four and then we went off to visit friends in the Kootenays who also liked to drink a lot and I probably had 13 drinks the first day with them and back I was right back at it.
(13:05):
And then it took from whatever that is, kind of July, 2004 until January, 2009 until I was ready to concede defeat. Yeah, that was a horrible experience like trying to just hang on and do it on my own. For your listeners, if you’re challenged by alcohol or drugs, there’s a couple of things I really hope you’ll take away from my story. The first is I want you to know there’s hope, there is hope for a solution. And the second is in my experience, it’s impossible to get clean or sober on your own. This is a disease of the mind. It is a diagnosed mental health disease, alcohol use disorder or substance use disorder. And the mind that that got you to the point where you were addicted or an alcoholic is not the mind that can get you out on its own. And so really I just really encourage you, if it’s not 12 step recovery, call me, have a conversation with me, find someone else. There are lots of other solutions, but just really don’t do it alone. Find someone who can help you. And of course when I white knuckled it, I had no one, right? I was trying to just totally do it on my own. And it just led to going back to alcoholism.
Bernie (14:27):
You find that, and I’ve heard this from people that have stopped smoking now they’re depending what they’re smoking, they can appreciate the flavors that they were missing. When you’re under the influence of alcohol under the influence of drugs and they can range your head up to caffeine, some people, some addictions, although not as perilous, but they’re, in other words, you can’t walk away from without feeling withdrawal, you find that your experiences is fantastic sail journey. And just in my mind, I’m picturing being on a sailboat in the Mediterranean, you have to have your wits about you because although it’s not like going in the open ocean per se, but it’s still a fairly large body of water, do you feel then that, or have you found now that you realize sensations better, you realize or you’re trying to dull pain, enhance pain, basically get that cortisol hit in
David (15:28):
The head all of the above. And especially getting past the negative emotions and being more present to those. We like to say in 12 step recovery, it’s not about putting a cork in the bottle. That’s relatively simple in the big scheme of things. The challenge is living life on life’s terms and not going back to my solution of choice. That is the hard part. And in the program that I practice, we have these things called the 12 steps. That’s my solution to any problem in life. If I have a problem, I can turn to these 12 steps and there’s a solution somewhere in those 12 steps to what I’m going through also helps if I call my sponsor and we talk through it, and again, I’m not doing it alone. And then he might point out to me which of the 12 steps have a good application to the challenge that I’m going through or what it is that I’m feeling.
(16:20):
And he also will remind me, this too shall pass. And what’s interesting is he also reminds me when I’m on a high and things are going really well, this too shall pass still in there. This is called life. And so now I try and ride that wave of up and down and where it’s in and just to be present to what’s going on. And it’s also been really important to me. You talked about kind of food and some of those things. I don’t know if that was that important to me, but what’s been really important is being present to my children, to being present to the most important people in my life and not dulling. I never want a substance to be altering my mental, physical spiritual place and get in between me and those people I really care for. And on Father’s Day, we were with our daughter and son-in-Law and our two grandchildren and we went to the pool and my grandchildren have never seen me drunk and I’m really proud of that. I can’t say that about my children, but I can say that about my grandchildren and it’s really important to me.
Bernie (17:30):
Have they recognize a difference or transition in your kids?
David (17:34):
Not that they’ve really, yeah, they have because I show up differently. And then it’s also all the personal growth work that I’ve done in 12 step recovery and through coaching. I’ve continuously had a coach now since my 50th birthday and I’ll be 67 this year. So it’s all the coaching work. I’m also part of another 12 step recovery program for adult children of alcoholics and dysfunctional families. And I’ve done a lot of work in that program and all of this has let me be a better listener, be in better not control of my emotions, but have appropriate responses even when I’m triggered, even when things come up. And I think this is the thing that my children notice is I can hold space for them. Our middle son and his wife had a tragic accident with their dog that Carley came into the relationship with.
(18:24):
It had for 11 years, slipped out of my son’s arms, fell on the stairs and instantly died. And this was a week before Christmas and it’s hard. It’s really hard. And before I would’ve been trying to fix it, why don’t you do this and why don’t you do that? Why don’t you try? I didn’t do any of that. I just held space for what they were feeling and I just honored it and I just reflected it back to them. And then would just ask them, is there anything I could do right now that would help you? And if the answer is no, to just be okay with that. As parent, my personality and being a parent and a guy, I want to fix things and there’s nothing to fix. They need to work through the emotions of what happened. And it was also, they just had bought this townhouse, it’s their first home, first purchase Karalee and I wondered whether they were going to keep it.
(19:24):
It was that kind of deep emotion. And it happened on the stairs of their new home. And I’m here to say they’ve worked through it and they did eventually decide to get another puppy. And we spent a lot of time with Lucky the new one. And I’ve had my son and my daughter-in-Law, thank me and my wife for just being there. And when I first came into recovery, I couldn’t have done that. There’s just no way. But recovery has given me the opportunity to work through all of this and to be able to show up as a different human being. Yes, my children are noticing that aspect of me, which is the original question you asked me.
Wayne (20:01):
People that don’t know the illness have a wonderfully naive opinion of it. I stopped drinking today, I’m an alcoholic, blah, blah, blah. I want you to tell me about the people who you used to drink with who then said, oh, you’re not fun anymore. David or the people who you actually had to choose new friends or the people that judged you harshly because they were feeling bad about themselves and you felt that they felt that you were judging them even though you weren’t. Tell me about that journey.
David (20:36):
That didn’t happen to me a lot, partly because I was a very isolationist drinker. My modus operandi was my home office at four o’clock. I’d always have a lot of work that to get done. And I load up with a six pack between four and six right before I even came downstairs. There was awkwardness with some, I’ve had at least one very close friend who probably a little more than 10 years after I got sober, he got sober and it’s only after he got sober. He then told me how shocked and he disappointed and betrayed he felt when I got sober, right? And he felt very uncomfortable, but he didn’t share that with me at the time. And there’s some of that awkwardness when you go over to people’s places and you just, no, I don’t want drink. No, I don’t want a glass of wine.
(21:27):
And for close friends I just outed myself like I’m an alcoholic, I’m going to 12 step recovery and I can’t drink anymore. And others, and some of this I coach around entrepreneurs who are struggling. You don’t need to say that you’re in recovery, you don’t need to say you’re an alcoholic. That’s a choice. You can decide whether you want to. And you can just say, oh, “I reached a point in my life where I decided that my health was really important. I decided drinking was not congruent with living a healthy lifestyle. And so I’ve decided not to drink anymore.” And you don’t have to talk about the struggle and how you were at a point where you didn’t actually have a choice in whether you drink anymore. You don’t need to share any of that. That’s your choice of what you want to share.
(22:19):
And in my experience around the friend group and even the not friend group, when I’m really challenged about that, why are you not drinking here? Let me get you a beer. It’s most likely someone who has an issue with alcohol in their life. And that might not be themselves, it might be their parents or it might be a spouse or it might be a child, but they have some issue with alcohol in their life. And my not drinking is making them extremely uncomfortable even if they don’t realize it’s making them extremely uncomfortable. And I’ve got much better at leaving them with their discomfort. And if they don’t ask me questions, I don’t offer up. I make a judgment call in the moment about whether I’m going to share my journey or admit that I’m an alcoholic. And it’s literally on a case by case basis. And in the moment,
Wayne (23:09):
One thing I find interesting that actually your story even thus far is telling me I’m on the right track. It seems that alcoholism seeks out the best and the brightest even when they’re drinking, they’re funny, they’re charming, they’re bright, they’re wittier than their colleagues. Why does it seem to attract cream? Yeah,
David (23:33):
I’ve never seen any studies that suggest that, but the book that we use in my 12 step program of recovery does suggest that as a whole, people who are alcoholics are smarter, higher performing. I have no idea why that’s the case. I think it holds out a lot of hope because when you do get sober, you still have all of those great attributes that you can build on and it’s just learning to do it without the alcohol. And I challenge you a little bit, there’s different people drink differently. My story, I tended to drink to a certain level and get a certain level of inebriation and then maintain it. And for me it would be like a loss of face to actually drink so much like I passed out or was stumbling. Now other people, they just drink to blackout and that’s just the way they drink.
(24:29):
And those people are less fun. And so I’m not certain we’re all life of the party, it just depends on how our drinking journey went. But I know what you mean. And obviously for a lot of people, even non-alcoholic, alcoholic, like in social situations, if you’re going to a networking event, you don’t know anyone. A couple drinks can be the way to get over your nerves and I’m not recommending that as a way to do it. But lots of non alcoholics do use that as a coping way in new situations and places that they’re uncomfortable. I think you’re still better off learning other coping mechanisms where you don’t have to resort to alcohol to feel comfortable enough to do that.
Bernie (25:14):
Would you say then that I think it sounds like it’s a series of triggers I have not studied or addiction, so this just me blindly asking a couple of questions here. Would you figure that you’re coming across a stimulus in your environment? So an event adverse or positive, either end of the spectrum and it’s jolting the person somewhat so that they’re looking for a coping mechanism. Some people I have to go for a cigarette. That was a really tough me and I know alcoholism is agnostic to race, gender, think, profession,
David (25:54):
Profession.
Bernie (25:56):
It doesn’t care where you’re at in the universe. It is what it is, how it is. But there are probably some things that are triggers lead you into that. And I don’t know if genetics plays a role into it for tolerance for certain substances because I’m assuming you’ve done the research on a lot of these elements as you talking. I’m going to turn it over to you because I’m just trying to fill in blanks. I think that form a part of the answer. Go ahead.
David (26:24):
Yeah, the question about genetics is actually still an open one. There’s a great book called Never Enough Written by a woman who was a really a heavy drug user, an alcoholic, and she eventually recovered and became a neuroscientist. Then she spent her whole career studying this and the book’s called Never Enough because alcoholism and addiction is the disease of more. There’s never enough. I have to have more. And that’s I think true of an eating disorder or sexual addiction or gambling, you have to have more. And I think some of us are maybe more predisposed than others, but as I say, the actual evidence on that is out. We just have to remember alcohol. It’s not advertised this way. Alcohol is actually the most potent drug on the planet and alcohol, like most drugs when they enter our system, however you take it, tends to target a very specific, this book actually talks quite a bit about this.
(27:30):
Each drug targets a very specific part of the brain that turns off or turns on certain things that gives us the feelings that we get from the drug. Alcohol is different from almost all other drugs in that it just pickles our entire brain. It’s actually impacting our entire brain. And then the progressive nature of the disease is actually our minds and our bodies are phenomenal because our body and our minds seek homeostasis. When we put alcohol into our body and it starts to get into, our brain immediately starts emitting other chemicals to counteract that. And over time, that’s why you need to drink more to get the same effect because your body’s getting better and better at emitting these counteracting hormones and chemicals to the point if you every Friday went to the same bar, this is what the argument she makes in that book.
(28:22):
When you’re a few blocks away, your brain will start emitting those chemicals before you’ve only got in the bar and picked up your first drink. And some people I’ve gone to maybe 2000 step meetings at least. And so I’ve heard a lot of stories. Now some people, they’re 13 years old, they pick up their first drink, they literally drink to almost block out and they immediately start drinking every weekend or some even every day. And that’s some people’s journey. My journey again is the progressive nature of the disease. I will say I was adopted into my family of origin and my parents, I don’t believe were alcoholics, but they were daily drinkers. Dad came home from work, poured a scotch and soda, made a gin and tonic for Mom. They’d sit visit or maybe they’d have it at the start of dinner and maybe they’d have a second one, maybe not.
(29:14):
But that was just the daily routine. That was modeled for me. And so when I got to the point where I was a daily drinker, it was not like this was unusual or very different, right? Subsequently, when I turned 60 and when I was nine years sober, I decided to finally go on our journey to find my birth families. And I did find my birth mother and my birth and my birth mother very much was an alcoholic, her middle son. So my half-brother, he died in 2015 of alcoholism as a direct result of his alcoholism. And my birth father wonders a bit about his dad and his sister is an alcoholic. Thankfully in recovery, I do believe it’s a family disease and it does run partly because of socialization. And again, this common what you witness as you grow up, but the science, so the science is still out on a lot of this.
(30:22):
I just, again, I remind listeners that alcohol is the most potent drug in the planet, but it’s yet it’s this completely socially acceptable coping mechanism that it’s very hot where you are right now. And summer is finally arriving in Vancouver where I am and I’m going to walk down patios and I’m going to see glasses of cold beer with moisture running down the outside. And even 15 years in, there’s a piece of my brain very occasionally, but it’s, oh, I think I should go sit in there and order a beer. And I just treat it as poison. This stuff is poison. No matter what my brain is thinking, I pick up the phone and call my sponsor. I run the other way.
Bernie (31:06):
Would you ever do a non alcoholic beer? In other words, sub it out. Some people they can’t have caffeine, they with
David (31:12):
Decaf. Yeah.
Bernie (31:14):
Would that bring you too close to an edge or is that, listen, this is what it is and this has a memory. And being a non-alcoholic, sorry. For
David (31:24):
Some people, they love going with the non-alcoholic beers and especially now the craft beers. There’s so many different choices. For me, the notion of having that feel so triggering that I don’t go there. Also, I am paranoid if I order a non-alcoholic beer, what happens if someone makes a mistake and gives me the alcoholic kind? Right? To me, there’s just so close an edge. It’s like even I don’t order versions of drinks. I order something that’s like a mocktail that’s being made custom. Because again, I’ve just seen, not so much for me, but with other recovering alcoholics who do order those virgin drinks and then a server like the message didn’t get relayed and one showed up on the table that’s got alcohol in it instead of the virgin version. And I just don’t want that risk. And again, I just really feel, for me it’s really feels triggering. And so absolutely not for me, but if it works for you, like fantastic, but it’s not for me.
Wayne (32:36):
My wife actually got a Caesar, a Virgin Caesar that wasn’t a virgin Caesar and the staff were absolutely horrified. Soon they had said, my wife, deep, it seems like club Gen Z is walking back from alcohol on their own, which is neat. I don’t think much of what they do. And second, the mad name ad agency that we all were raised with in the sixties, how does a employer make sobriety and healthy living a better choice instead of enabling the other?
David (33:17):
To the first, I think this whole movement to non to no alcohol and non-alcoholic drinks I think is a fantastic movement. I’m hugely supportive. I think it’s fantastic. But the data, the research says that roughly 10% of the population are alcoholics that’s
Wayne (33:37):
Higher than that.
David (33:40):
And you can argue it’s a little bit more, a little bit less. But so British Columbia, where I live is 5 million people, so that’s half a million people. That’s a lot of people. I am super supportive of anything. I was on another podcast recently where the woman I was with is challenged with alcohol and she won a really big award. And so she went to the award ceremony. She and a half a dozen other women won this award and free booze was included with the dinner. And she asked for a bottle of water, which she had to pay for, and she was aghast. And I think she should be like event organizers. How can you be doing this in 2024? How can you offer free booze and not offer at least free water? I think you do better than that. And I think I really like to see enlightened leaders and especially entrepreneurs who at the Christmas party make sure that there is as many non-alcoholic offerings as there are alcoholic.
(34:54):
And to normalize it’s, oh, you don’t have to drink to have a good time here and to normalize that. Whereas I think all too often in the corporate world, we somehow think that in order to have a celebration, we have to have alcohol. It’s been part of our culture, it’s baked in and you’re going against the grain to do that. But I think it’s getting normalized more. And I’m just hoping that stone runs downhill and gathers steam that more and more event organizers, anyone who’s organizing any kind of corporate event, whether it’s networking, whether it’s a corporate celebration that first of all, you think about offering non-alcoholic things and then you think about what you want to offer with alcohol. And of course in some of my coaching with entrepreneurs, this can be one of the big challenges is you were a practicing alcoholic and then you got sober.
(35:47):
And so what happens now with your Friday afternoon beers, which you did partly to support what you do and now you need to change that. And then also high-end sales people probably don’t know, but in business to business, high-end sales, the CEO flying down to close a deal and to have the big decision makers and you go out for dinner. I had a CEO I was coaching who’s not an alcoholic, but he went down to do one of these big, big deals and he said everybody had two drinks before dinner and then we had a bottle of wine each like, is that normal drinking? And I said, no, that’s alcoholic drinking. It’s actually in Canada and the US that would be defined as alcohol drinking, which is a man having five drinks in a row and a woman having four and you shouldn’t do that more than once a month.
(36:39):
That’s part of defining alcohol use disorder. And I said, yes, it’s definitely alcoholic drinking. I can’t tell you whether any of them are alcoholics. I can’t say that for any other person, but I can say it’s alcoholic drinking and it’s very normal. And some of my clients I’ve had to coach, they have situations where I have one client who works for one of the largest tech companies in the world and they’re at a dinner with the boss’s boss and they can’t prevent them from pouring a glass of wine for them. Even when they take the wine glass away, a wine glass comes back. And it’s interesting because in that situation, they’re okay with people of other religious faiths say Muslims not drinking, but because he’s a white Caucasian, they’re not okay with him not drinking. And it’s really a struggle. And I coach around kind of things you can try and do in that situation. And what’s interesting is that individual and that organization, when he shows that leadership and pushes back to the boss’s boss and does not have any alcohol, the people who also did not want to drink, who were not alcoholics, they just did not want to drink. They come up to him afterwards and they just thank him so profusely for normalizing, not having alcohol at a big corporate dinner, but it takes leadership, it’s courage. It’s hard
Bernie (38:04):
When you’re in this particular space and you’re, say you’re a startup company and you’re running, you’re observing something, you’re a partner, colleague, a collaborator, and all of a sudden you’re noticing there might be something slightly ask skewed that’s not, again, you can’t see what’s in inside of the person, but you only make the external observation. So maybe the bottle of wine with three drinks before and you see that combination, that’s part of the lifestyle. How do you broach that conversation with the person without causing offense or degradation in the relationship? How do you shape that or how do you shape that as a business where you’re looking over at somebody and we’re talking about alcohol, right? It can be cigarettes, it can be food diet. Certain lifestyle choices are less high risk behavior, and there’s a reason why they have key critical man insurance.
David (39:05):
You’re
Bernie (39:06):
Not trying to tempt fate either.
David (39:08):
I think that attacking the issue directly is almost always not, just gets people’s backs up. And especially if they’re not, the thing about any kind of addiction is that the person has to get ready on their own. And the only thing that you can help them down that path is putting some boundaries about their behaviors. It’s about are they not performing well as a partner because they’re off drinking, say, let’s say alcohol is the issue. Then you as a partner have to say, as my partner, you need to show up in this way. You can’t bail on a major partner event or saying you’re sick when it was obvious you were drinking or the reason you were sick was because of how much you drank. We can’t continue our partnership on this basis. And so how are you going to show up next time for this event?
(40:05):
It’s creating boundaries around the behaviors independent of the substance or the thing that’s being used to change feelings. Because that, and eventually, hopefully at some point, that person bumps into those boundaries enough they decide that maybe they should do something about it or eventually, maybe they’re no longer your partner, right? That sometimes is the hard boundary that happens, and my experience is no one can get clean or sober for someone else, even though children are just highly motivating and you want to do the right thing for your children. You can’t get and stay. It’s the stay part, stay sober for someone else. It’s something you have to desire for yourself or in my experience, it’s just not successful. It’s like what event or thing happens for me? I just got to a point where I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.
(41:09):
I’d had enough, and when I came into recovery, I had a house, I had two cars, I had a spouse, I had three kids. Fifteen years in, I got a house, I got a spouse. I have three kids, I have two grandkids and I got two cars. But you could say on the outside, nothing’s changed. But I’m here to tell you it’s not about the outside, it’s the internal. And I’m a completely different human being on the inside from who I was 15 years ago when I came in. That’s the real journey and the change. And when is someone ready to embark on that change journey? We talk about it in recovery. You’ve got to hit some kind of bottom. And some people, it’s like you lose everything. You lose the house, the car, the spouse, the kids, and that’s your bottom. Hopefully, as we say, you don’t have to take the elevator all the way down to the point it crashes into the basement. You can get off on the first floor if you want, but what’s the event that triggers you to want to make that change? And it’s different for each of us, but I get back to the things I talked about earlier. If you’re feeling stuck, I want you to know there’s hope, there is a solution, and I don’t think you’ll get there on your own. Reach out to someone else.
Bernie (42:24):
David, how can we reach you? What’s your website name and contact number?
David (42:29):
It’s coach d j greer.com, which is coach D as in David, J as in James greer.com. My one and only phone number is +1 (604) 721-5732. And like I say, you visit my website and every page has my email address and my phone number, and there’s a contact page. I try and make it as easy as possible for you to get in touch.
Bernie (42:55):
I want to say thank you to David Greer, my co-host, Wayne Pratt, and you, the Knack for Business listeners. If you have a question, you have something you want to work through, walk through. Well, David,
Announcer (43:08):
Thank you for listening to Wayne Pratt and Bernie Franzgrote. If you would like to be a guest on this podcast and share your knowledge, let us know. We would also appreciate your feedback on the content or format. Check the show notes for more details. For these podcasts. We like to acknowledge the support and thanks to the following people. Carl Richards from Podcast Solutions Made Simple, a renowned podcast expert. Fred Crouch, who is the Property Wizard podcaster, where Bernie is a co-host. Then Melanie Weber, Bernie’s invaluable business partner, and Wayne Pratt from Motive8U Inc, who serves as both a coach and co-host of these podcasts.
Disclaimer, please note that the Knack 4 Business podcast episodes are meant solely for educational and general informational purposes. The information and opinions contained within are not intended to be professional advice on any subject matter. The thoughts, views, and opinions expressed by the participants are their own personal beliefs and do not represent the views of the podcast hosts or any affiliated organizations. It is important to note that this podcast is not a replacement for consulting with certified experts in your area who possess knowledge of your unique situation. The hosts of the podcast, along with any participants or affiliated groups, do not take responsibility for any actions taken or not based on the information presented in this episode. It is highly recommended that individuals seek guidance from their own personal advisors in fields such as accounting law or other pertinent areas prior to undertaking any actions or making decisions that may impact their financial, legal, or other aspects of life.
