How I Quit Drinking Alcohol

I'm sitting at a little cafe in Chiang Mai in Thailand and I have just spent the last week volunteering at a conference for successful online entrepreneurs at the Conrad in Bangkok. I initially came here to visit my sister and just hang out but instead I have been suddenly thrown into this incredible world of motivated and passionate people that love creating things.

When I began, I was super nervous and didn’t really talk much. Instead of being in my comfort zone surrounded by skiers, snowboarders and all my buddies, I was forced to socialise with people that I “believed” were better than me and/or I wouldn’t want to "waste their time” by talking to me.

When someone would come up to me and ask “So what do you do?” I would look down and say “Oh I’m just a volunteer” or “I just came to visit my sister, I’m not part of the DC”. 

However, after a quick session with my sister, Christina, about how to present myself and her showing me that I actually DO have something of value, I started to practice saying what I do to people at the conference and my confidence started growing!

I didn’t always present myself or say what I did with confidence at the beginning, but the more I did it, the better I got. By the end of the conference I was able to stand tall with my head up, introduce myself with a handshake and say something like “I have a blog which helps people quit drinking alcohol and I am going to write a book about it. Also, I am the host of a daily morning show on Youtube for a ski resort in Australia” and they will will say “WHAT?! There is snow in Australia?” and then it goes on from there… "HELLZ YEAH we have snow, Falls Creek is AWESOME”.

There were parties every night with free booze and not once did I feel the need to have a drink. I drank HEAPS of water and talked to many people. There were many times where I was wondering around by myself and feeling slightly socially awkward but I worked a lot on being in the present moment. When I felt happy to be where I was, I didn’t feel any need to be talking to someone all the time and would just take EVERYTHING in… how my body felt, the sounds I could hear, how good my water would taste, snippets of conversations and watching how everybody else interacted with each other.

I am extremely proud of myself and looking forward to blogging more and getting back to Falls Creek so I can start writing a book on how I quit drinking alcohol.

And, if you have successfully quit drinking, I would LOVE to hear your story. It was awesome hearing the stories of a couple people at the conference about how they quit booze and didn’t give a fuck about what anyone else thought!

I want to say a BIG thank you to my sister, Christina for telling me about the volunteer position at the conference and helping me present myself with confidence. I would have spent the entire conference feeling small and not talking to anybody if it wasn’t for her help! If anyone else needs help communicating or presenting themselves with confidence, my amazing sister helps people do exactly that and SO much more when it comes to any type of communication and being noticed in the workplace. She is a podcaster, blogger, coach AND consultant so check her out at https://www.thecmethod.com