Before I became a top seller for a leading MLM business, I was an alcoholic for 16 years. Alcoholics perpetually lie so they can keep drinking. Here are 3 of the biggest lies Alcoholics tell themselves as network marketers and direct sellers.
This blog post contains graphic, blunt honesty that may offend you. Alcohol is still the number one cause for domestic violence and crime related reports. Alcohol poisons the fabric of our entire existence and ruins families. But, it is worse than that. Alcohol lies to the user and tells them: “It is okay to do what you do. You need me.”
Here is the first lie alcoholics tell themselves:
“I don’t have a problem.” Reality check:
*I have a problem driving blacked out. There were so many nights I would leave a party or bar and not remember driving home. One time I rammed into another car and kept going. I ran three red lights to get home and hide out.
*I have a problem cursing at you. Many memories I have of past girlfriends were riddled with tears and unwanted emotions. I caused a lot of needless suffering because of being drunk. These girls were trying to communicate with me, but my ears were closed by the lies of alcohol.
*I have a problem drinking as soon as I wake up. I found out that you could get rid of a hangover by drinking again. This belief led me to drink all day and at 4 am when the tremors from alcohol withdrawal would wake me up, and at 7 am when I was shaking again and had to work.
*I have a problem completely changing my types of friends to hang out with bums. Having friends who had healthy lives became awkward. I needed to find “lesser” people who drank as much as me so I could feel better about myself. Bums became coming over to my house and we lined the floor with empty beer cans. *I have a problem urinating in the bed. At first I was shocked that I pissed the bed, but then it became normal. I changed the sheets and sprayed Lysol on the mattress so I wouldn’t smell it the next night. dealing with alcohol
Second Lie: “I feel like staying home today.”
Reality check: *I can’t leave because I’m too sick. The first year with a girlfriend was great. I held it together to go out. But later, I drank more and was sick if I wasn’t constantly slamming a beer. I decided not to go out until I was afraid to go out. *I can’t leave because I’m shaking with withdrawals. The more I drank, the more my body needed it. If I didn’t consume the exact amount my body needed, I would shake. People can die from these withdrawals and have heart-attacks like I did. *I can’t leave because I have so much anxiety that I’m scared of people. Alcohol withdrawal not only taxes you physically, but also mentally. If you’re used to being intoxicated for long periods of time, you will feel anxiety without the buzz. Alcohol leaving your body is like feeling like someone broke up with you and you’re all alone.
Third lie: “I Love myself.”
Reality check: *I hate myself and everything I do. Secretly under this “feel good” buzz of alcohol where life felt great, the reality was that I hated my existence and everything I had done. Alcohol gave me a few seconds of reprieve from the horror of a man I had created. Alcohol distorted my thinking to where I could tolerate my existence without killing myself.
*I hate you because you love yourself. People that had a life and did things with others gave me huge jealousy. I had a heart somewhere deep inside, but it was covered with layers of guilt, shame, and deep despair. I wanted you to shut up and become non-existent in my presence so I could die in silence. We co-existed merely so I could fuel my addiction.
*I don’t care if I kill someone in a “hit and run” because that would silence my suffering. After years of steadily drinking more and doing worse things, alcohol became a game of death. Bad situations were almost exciting, because it made “order” that people relied on, “disorder.” I became the monster of chaos and attracted drama because we reflect into others what we are. I’m not happy to admit these things and most of that happened over seven years ago. It’s unbelievable to think of the insanity I was led into through alcohol.
Millions of people have stories like these and if you’re not alcoholic yourself, you probably know one or live with one. It’s crazy to think that alcohol is legal in America. It is accepted more than marijuana or even psychedelics. Psychedelics are being researched heavily again, which hasn’t been the case since the Sixties, because they are finding that their effects are helping people with anxiety and depression.
Almost every bad experience I had in my life probably was influenced by alcohol. I remember being about 4 years old and being with my parents on a wharf on the water in Long Beach, California. A man walked by and he was talking strange and pointing to his forearm. It truly shocked me and I asked my dad what was wrong with that man. My dad said, “He’s just drunk.” how drunk I got, tips to stop drinking how drunk I got I can’t believe I became the same man I was so deathly scared of as a boy. I walked around my little town as a drunk, just like that man. In fact, I was worse. There’s an underlying evil in alcohol also. I have seen plenty of people who seemed possessed on TV and in my own life who were drunk. I spoke to the police one time after I fell and hit my head on the cement sidewalk.
They asked if I was on other drugs because I was speaking so strangely, not slurring like a drunk, but coherently insane. I was only drunk. I was only drunk when I remember talking to a cat for an hour at my friend’s security job at a mill. There were tons of stray cats around and one happened to hang out with my friend. I guess that's what happens when you don't have a job (before my MLM company career) So, drinking just doesn’t get you drunk. If you have a preposition of being spiritually sensitive, you could attract demon spirits and alcohol allows them to enter you. No joking here when it comes to drinking booze like a Russian network marketer.
Why am I telling you all this? For one, it allows me to be completely vulnerable and honest with you, which makes me feel alive and connected with you. Two, I hope I can help at least one person who reads this to stop drinking. We live in a world that is becoming divided. We have the side of people who are heading towards some kind of evolution, whether that be through meditation, mindfulness, and living peacefully and seeking higher consciousness. This is true even if you are an MLM business owner in Argentina or the United States.
Then, you have the other group who are mesmerized by the idiocy of TV and the media, and want nothing more than to undermine themselves by overeating, using drugs and alcohol, glorifying violence, being racist, and being overly opinionated and just being low-vibration. Science is understanding more each day that we are all interconnected, and that animals are just as intelligent as we are. They just think differently than we do. Here is one of my favorite thought leaders right now talking about DMT:
Now let's discuss How I Thought I Lost my Personality when I Got Sober. I finally got sober from alcohol. Reality hit me hard and left me wondering who I should be. Here is why I thought I lost my personality. It has been over seven years since I got Sober. . . But, had a few relapses here and there until fully getting sober two years ago. When I got sober seven years ago, I was on a pink cloud. Members of AA call this “pink cloud” the honeymoon stage. For me, the honeymoon stage made me happy all the time, just for being sober. This stage lasted for almost two years, before I landed back down to reality and felt normal stress. But, I wasn’t off the hook. Just because I was sober now didn’t mean all my problems that caused me to drink left. Emotions started to surface that I wasn’t used to dealing with. In fact, before alcohol, I was a “rocker.”
I learned only a few months ago that “rocking” was a coping mechanism for trauma. Sometime, around the age of eight, I started rocking because something happened where I needed to “escape.” I don’t remember what that was, but I devised a coping mechanism – what I thought was just something that made me feel good while I did it. So, all those years from 8 to 36, when I quit drinking, was me escaping from uncomfortable feelings. A New Sober Man I was, planting my flag in the MLM business world.
A few years of sobriety and all the emotions dating back to when I was 8 years old tried to surface. I didn’t know who I was or how to act. I wanted to be a real man, a man my parents were proud of and a man friends would like. What I did, instead of becoming a man full of life, love, and laughter, was becoming a little child inside a man full of fear and anxiety. I had a big list of emotions and traits that I supposedly represented, (at least my ego told me that.) These emotions and traits had a big empty box beside them. If I felt that an emotion or trait I had wasn’t acceptable to others, I checked the box. After a few years of checking the boxes, I had only a few emotions and traits left I felt were acceptable to show people in my personal life and MLM company.
This self-imposed limitation made me frustrated and confused. I recoiled and felt more isolated than ever. Even when my parents came to visit me after being a couple years apart, I was full of anxiety. I didn’t know how to act. But, on the outside I looked great. my dad and I That’s the thing, I always felt I had to “act.” I needed a script for a person who would play myself, because I had removed part of my soul back when I was 8. Having only a couple acceptable personality traits left me imprisoned at home. I was afraid of everyone. The only reason I wasn’t afraid of my wife was because we were inseparable and succeeded selling our network marketing product lines together.
This fear would build up inside for a couple months and turn into outbreaks of anger or sadness. I felt like I was lobotomized, unable to feel “human” around others. More of the Best Articles by Category: Starting Network Marketing Anxiety Tips Personal Development Empowering Introversion A Real Man Feels Everything (or Woman) A real man has the courage and self-love to feel everything and express it. I didn’t trust what I would do around people (with my limited personality script,) therefore, I didn’t trust myself. Not trusting yourself usually means you don’t truly love yourself. It took me months of bottling up emotions to get angry enough to explode or sad enough to cry. Kids don’t need to do this. They feel an emotion and express it in that moment. They usually don’t bottle things up until they get older. I want that kind of freedom.
Just getting sober means nothing if you don’t uncover what made you drink in the first place. I’m discovering slowly to trust myself, even if it feels uncomfortable. Like they say in business, “Get comfortable being uncomfortable.” Expressing emotions as they arise, rather than compartmentalizing them, is truly liberating but also scary. It’s uncomfortable to feel the raw emotions we have deep inside, especially if they are resurfacing after years of alcohol and addiction. Everyone feels uncomfortable at times. We feel nervous before a meeting, an event, a dinner party, etc. The difference between sober people and alcoholics and addicts is that sober people understand how to manage their emotions.
When I have to socialize, I will get so worked up before I go that it becomes full blown anxiety. Sober people feel the nervousness and breathe through it. They understand the process of that emotion. Having escaped emotions for nearly three decades, emotions are still new and intense for me. Emotions are not the enemy. The enemy is that you don’t trust yourself to fully feel them. I still don’t trust myself. Forgiving myself moment by moment throughout the day for whatever emotion I experience is part of the healing process.
We judge ourselves tremendously. We are our worst critic. It even still happens to me when I am working in network marketing.
We are going to feel uncomfortable experiencing new things. As we keep doing new things, the intensity will fade. We will be able to handle more and more. Some of the best professional speakers had to work their way up to the stage from being terrified speaking in front of two people. It is a never-ending process. Trust the process. It is completely acceptable that you feel ALL your emotions. If you are terrified of people right now, take small steps. Go to a busy intersection and just stand there. Get used to being around people. Do this for however long you need, then say hello to a stranger. We work up from where we begin in life and in the direct selling business.
My anxiety isn’t that bad. I can say hello to a stranger, but I get terribly nervous around my own family. Everyone has their own set of stressors. Trust the process. Feel the emotions come up and know they won’t harm you. Anxiety is caused by believing that these emotions will get worse. Feel the fear and do it anyway. (yes, it is a book) I now feel 5 emotions rather than 3 during multi-level marketing work.
With sobriety I have been able to start a career in MLM and join a top network marketing company. If I wasn't sober, I would never have reached success in MLM.
