“Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.”
— Epictetus
This week’s Ramble, as promised last week, features Luna and Twiglet with my new fancy camera, which I am also using to shoot video content for upcoming courses.
I love our fluffy fur babies, even if every meal seems to come with a hairball, but they are such great companions and have made our lives infinitely happier.
This week’s Ramble is about a few things. Change of season and sobriety, which is still my main trigger even after more than eight years. Fluffy Boy and Fluffy Girl, plus my favourite store to visit in the UK. What I actually do apart from writing books, without splashing my life all over social media anymore. And why I went back to therapy this week.
I would say my last remaining trigger, which happens most years, is sunshine and warmth.
Sobriety triggers can be strange like that. They are not always the obvious things you expect, like walking past a pub or seeing people drinking. Sometimes sobriety triggers are more subtle. A change in weather. The first warm day of the year. A certain smell. A holiday feeling. A song. A memory. A version of yourself your brain briefly tries to bring back.
We have had an increase in warmth and sunshine lately, so much so that my legs got an outing on the golf course yesterday. We were sat outside, with a lovely view over a lake looking across the golf course, funky jazz playing, people enjoying themselves, and everyone around me drinking.
It has always been the biggest association for me in the past. Sunshine, holidays, relaxing and drinking. Then drugging.
Every year, when we start to get into spring, the transition into warmer days still triggers me into thinking, “Ohhh, pubs and shorts.”
For anyone outside the UK, we have spring, summer, autumn and winter. If you ever visit the UK, try spring, March to May, because it is amazing seeing everything come back to life.
But that change of season can still do something to my brain.
Today, it is a split-second thought that does not turn into an obsession. But it is good for me to write it here, recognise it, and actively remind myself that I am allergic to alcohol and I have ten times more fun in the sun when I am completely present.
That is the thing with seasonal triggers in sobriety. They can sneak up on you because they are not always obvious. It is not always a dramatic craving or a huge emotional collapse. Sometimes it is just a smell, a temperature, a song, a certain light in the evening, a football tournament, a holiday feeling, or the first warm day when everyone suddenly starts acting like the entire country has been sponsored by lager.
For me, sunshine used to mean permission. Permission to drink earlier. Permission to stay out longer. Permission to turn a nice afternoon into a two-day anxiety festival. So even now, years later, my brain can still briefly remember the old association before the sober part of me steps in and says, “No mate, we don’t do that anymore.”
This is part of the reason why I send these emails. To recognise triggers still, but also for you to share as well. A problem shared is a problem halved, hopefully.
My weirdest trigger is a certain floor wash that reminds me of the same wash fluid they use in hotels abroad. I really do not know why it triggers me, but it goes to show how strange our minds can be around booze.
Let me know what still triggers you. The weirder the better.
Now, onto Fluffy Boy, Twiglet, and Fluffy Girl, Luna.
My favourite shop to visit is Pets at Home. The reason why is that it is the only shop I have been to that removes egos.
You can get a corporate CEO coming into the store next to a homeless person with their dog, and when the CEO is at the counter checking in their dog called Elsa, it removes any form of attachment. It is about the animal.
Animals, apart from Twiglet potentially, do not have egos. Their concept of self is not like humans. They are what they are. No attachment to this or that, and that is why I love being around animals.
It feels peaceful, unlike being around groups of people all trying to get their opinions across.
I still crave human interaction with the right people, but sobriety has certainly shown me that I have a newfound respect for animals and their egoless state. It is why I feel comfortable around them.
Talking of our fluffy boy and fluffy girl, here are the photos from my new camera that is being used to film content for upcoming courses.
[Add Google Drive / photo link here]
If you have a pet or pets, feel free to share a photo back. I love animals and people who have them tend to be my sort of people as well. If you do not have a pet, don’t worry, get one.
I also need to share a ramble of gratitude. I have been off social media for a while now and I really find this email cathartic to write. Now I can say this is an official Friday thing as it is six weeks in a row.
I am trying my best to let the Facebook and Instagram ads do what they need to do automatically without me ever having to share my entire life again. Social media is toxic for me. It plays with my addictive brain, and the fact I am happier, ten times more productive, and can still run a successful publishing business shows you do not need to post your life on social media.
So, what do I actually do as a publisher, course creator and golfer?
A day in the life of a nobody.
I wake up around 7.20am, with the benefit of working for myself. I just wake up naturally, and that time will probably get earlier as we get earlier sunrises. It is the best way to wake up, and getting natural sunlight first thing in the morning is great for telling your body to carpe diem, seize the day.
From 7.30am to 9am, I feed the fluffy bitches, have my porridge, peanut butter, blueberries, chia seeds, yes, wanky influencer food, and coffee from my Ninja Luxe. The coffee is so good. I just sit with the cats, who try to fight me for the porridge. Twig has been to the vets twice after eating porridge, so they no longer get any of it. That was a £600 lesson we didn’t learn the first time.
Depending on the day, I either train in the gym, practise or play golf, or on rest days I will work all day, or do a mix.
My focus is still to push into the seniors golf tour in 11 years’ time. People think I am mad, but that is me making a promise to my inner child, the kid who endured so much pain growing up. I am doing it for him. That is where I get my motivation from. Whether I succeed or fail, the only thing I worry about is my process of trying to improve each day.
Plus, I love golf. I love being outdoors, and golf is much more than trying to win. It is nature, the challenge, the banter we have playing as well. I am enjoying my golf again after last year and looking forward to the season ahead.
That crazy goal gives me purpose each day and motivation. Without that, I might feel a little lost and my energy would not be as streamlined.
In the afternoon, I work. People see me at the golf club most days and think, “What does he do that he plays so much golf?”
But the truth is, when you leave the corporate world and build your own skills through your own business, you understand that you can play 18 holes of golf and still do a full day’s work.
When you love what you do, you enter a trance of deep concentration. I do not even listen to music some days. I just get into it.
I really feel like when your purpose and passions align, the level of work I do now compared to when I hated my life in the finance world is insane. I feel like I can do a week’s work in one day, easily.
My actual work today was fixing a broken landing page for my lead magnet, 7 Sober Secrets, following my web developer building the new website. It annoyingly meant I was spending about £30 a day on Facebook ads and not generating leads. Burning money.
Without ChatGPT guiding me through so many tech-heavy web, email marketing and business things, I would not work at the rate I can. AI has truly improved my ability to fix things myself and, most importantly, understand why I am doing it as well.
AI has stopped me hiring anyone because it works at super speed, but the one thing I refuse to use AI for is writing anything I do, apart from ad copy, because I am rubbish at selling.
I pay $20 a month for ChatGPT, but it saves me over $500 a month in hiring people. If you are not using AI as a business owner, consider it.
Writing books feels super easy for me now. I love locking myself away for two months and coming out with a piece of art. A part of my soul in words.
I am an introvert. Writing is my voice.
Although I am testing my camera skills with the course creation, which is great because I get to test and challenge myself in new ways. That is super healthy. It also means I had to get a haircut and put a nice top on, because 90% of the time at home I wear fluff-proof clothing, which is ironically covered in fluff.
This house is full of fluff. I never knew Siberian cats shed so much. Every day.
Writing books is about 30% of my work. Amazon ads, which you need a financial background to be good at because of the amount of numbers, is about 20%. The rest is taken up with marketing through email lead generation and course management now.
I love what I do because it is always changing, mentally challenging and engaging.
Plus, the threat of running out of money if I don’t work suits me better than working for someone else. That fear keeps me pushing my business, whilst being mindful that I don’t want my ego to expand it beyond what it needs to be.
This is enough.
Evenings are to chill. I can’t believe I used to go to the gym at 8pm at night. I am normally in bed by about 10pm now. Sleep is my superpower. I can’t believe I used to sleep less than four hours a day in active addiction.
Mad.
My thinking with business is always to build it so you can have the life that supports your wellness and gives you the energy to deliver your best work. Publishing, courses, community, writing, golf, health, peace.
Never overpromise. Always design your business around the life you want and find people who believe in that shared approach. Help each other.
Very simple, but it has given me the ability to publish and play golf. My two passions. And I am very grateful for that.
This is a tiny insight into the kind of thinking behind Addicted2Life: helping people in sobriety use the extra time, energy and money to find what works for them.
Again, sharing this in email is a revelation. I have zero desire to share my life with social media anymore.
Thank you for being here, especially you, the one who has read this far.
So, why am I back in therapy this week?
I shared last week that I was going back to see my counsellor. I have carried a lot lately. Good things, bad things and just normal life stresses.
With the benefit of being a trained counsellor, having gone through my own challenges before and having used counselling, I know how beneficial it is for me.
It is preventative more than anything.
We are going through inheritance as a family, which has brought out family dynamics that have been hard to navigate, and my part as the conscious observer is made more difficult by being the one with self-awareness.
They always say you end up in therapy because of those who haven’t been, and that is very true.
But therapy helps me avoid being triggered into old patterns. It keeps me sober. It keeps me pushing forward, even though lately things have felt heavy.
My health has also been out of my control, and it brings anxiety with it because we do not know what is going on. I still have more tests upcoming and saw another specialist on Monday. I have a way forward, which brought a sense of relief and a possible end to this, even if results do not show anything.
Therapy felt heavy in places this week. Holding back tears and the therapist picking up on repeated sentences, because a great therapist sees and questions patterns in what you say. Those repeated sentences can be potential subconscious programmes playing, which are helpful to explore.
But with the heaviness of the session also comes the relief of getting those deep thoughts out into the open air, in a safe space, to explore without judgement or guilt.
If in doubt, go to therapy.
UK people can explore this website for local therapists: Click here
US people can use this one: Click here
Rest of the world followers, Google “local therapy” or “local counselling” and see what comes up. Explore the sites and see if something fits.
If you have been in therapy lately and feel like sharing, let me know. I love talking about therapy and will continue to promote it until the day I die.
As always, these emails are two-way. They are not just about me getting things off my chest, but for you also. So feel free to email me back and I will reply in between football, course creation and doing my Amazon ads work this weekend.
Much love,
Sean
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