Sam shares the six lessons from his viral blog post about quitting drinking, originally written at his one-year sobriety anniversary, now 11 years later. He walks through his own story of alcohol dependency from college through his early twenties, and the mindset shifts — finding your why, telling people, recreating your identity, not chasing perfection, leaning into newfound confidence, and embracing inspiration — that made lasting change possible. The episode frames sobriety as a case study in any major life change, whether you’re quitting a habit, starting a business, or building something new.
Speakers: Sam Parr (host)
Introduction [00:00:00]
Sam: 11 years ago this month I gave up alcohol. In today’s episode I want to share some of the things I’ve learned along the way.
All right — 11 years ago I gave up drinking, and I want to share what I’ve learned since then. The reason I’m doing this is that at my one-year anniversary of giving up drinking, I wrote a blog post. You can Google it — it’s called “Six Things I Learned From Not Drinking For a Year.” Today I thought I’d recap that blog post, but also share some of the things I didn’t add to it that have kind of come true in the last 10 years.
I’m sharing this on My First Million because I think a lot of people would enjoy it, but also because this isn’t just about giving up alcohol. Doesn’t matter if you’re giving up drinking, or you want to give up drinking, or you just want to create a new habit — I’ve found that these lessons can apply to anyone trying to make a major life change.
Lesson 1: Figure Out Your Why [00:01:00]
Sam: So lesson number one: figure out your why, and go all in on that.
I started drinking in my late teens with just my friends, like most people when they start. But what I noticed was that it dulled my anxiety a ton. I am a pretty anxious person — I don’t know if you can tell from listening to this podcast, but I have fairly high anxiety. And I noticed that when I started drinking, my anxiety just kind of went away. So as I got more and more into drinking I was like, this feels awesome, I don’t feel anxious, I’m going to keep doing it. It was very much self-medication.
By the time I was 21 I was super into alcohol. By ages 22 to 23 I was basically intoxicated 24 hours a day. First thing in the morning you start, you go all day, and then you wake up a little drunk or a little hungover and you just keep going.
One night I realized I was blowing it. I always felt I was kind of special — felt like I had this fire in me that I could do something interesting — and I was completely blowing it. I wanted to feel life, because I didn’t really feel a lot of emotions during that period. They were hidden. So my reason was: I wanted to feel life, and I wanted to not ruin my potential.
Like funerals, weddings, celebrations, meeting someone you like, breaking up with that person — I think I, and many other people, we would drink because for some reason we didn’t want to face reality. Whether it’s trauma you had, or whatever it is — you want to cover it up. I’m not against alcohol and drugs for other people, but for me it basically just masked how I felt. And I hated that.
Then I realized that when I got sober, facing challenging situations felt like this massive adrenaline rush. I felt so good about facing things I was previously nervous about.
It took about six months after getting sober, but around month six, seven, eight, I noticed that I would face these challenging situations — like, I was 23, 24 when I quit, and like every single 23, 24-year-old guy, meeting girls was the number one focus. I noticed that at six or seven months in, at first I was super nervous to go up and talk to a girl sober. But then I did it one time and I felt, oh my God, that was a rush — I got to feel that again. And I noticed that it happened with business, it happened with so many other facets of my life. I got to feel this extreme emotion that for a lot of sober people is probably just normal, but it felt awesome.
So I actually loved confrontation. I loved nervous feelings because it felt like a rush to experience them. It was important to lean into that. And I had to sit down and figure out: why am I doing this? I always try to remind myself. And I think that’s the case for any goal — when you change your life, you’ve got to constantly remind yourself why you’re actually doing it.
Lesson 2: Tell Your Friends [00:07:30]
Sam: Lesson number two: tell your friends.
I originally tried giving up booze because I was in college and I was like, this is a problem, this is a huge issue. I was basically living by myself starting my sophomore year — full-blown an issue. I went two years like that, living by myself, so no one would know I was screwed up.
I also had a hot dog stand — that was my business. I’ve talked about it here a lot. The reason I had that business was you could own a hot dog stand and sell hot dogs from 11 to 3 while intoxicated and most people won’t know, because they just think you’re acting goofy. So I basically didn’t tell anyone.
The first time I got sober, I just went cold turkey and I got super sick. A lot of people don’t talk about this, but with alcohol there are pretty much only two drugs you can die from in withdrawal if you try to quit on your own — alcohol and opioids. I got really sick like five days in. I went to my college doctor, they measured my blood pressure and said, man, your blood pressure is through the roof, what the hell is going on? I had to explain to them what the issue was. That was the first time I ever vocalized it. We had to go to the hospital, and I had to tell the hospital. It was really embarrassing. I felt horrible even vocalizing it — I was practically in tears, like, oh man, I can’t believe I just said that out loud. But it definitely felt better.
I still didn’t mention it to anyone once I got out of the hospital. Then eventually, after a few months, I was going to graduate college and I moved to San Francisco to try to make it in the internet world. I relapsed. When I got out to San Francisco I wanted to meet new friends, I wanted to impress the guys I moved in with — even though I doubt they were impressed by drinking, I somehow felt I needed to impress them. We went out, I got pressured, I caved, and I ended up drinking again. Then it took about another year of kind of going crazy.
Eventually I went to a homeless clinic in San Francisco — I think it was called the San Francisco South of Market Mental Clinic. It was for homeless people. At the time I had just left my job to start The Hustle and I didn’t have any income, so I technically qualified. In a weird way I was like, I deserve to be here, I’m ruining everything, I deserve to be with these other addicts.
I met this doctor — her name was Joselyn Porz. I saw her up until recently, actually. She gave me this advice: she said, you should tell your friends, tell your roommates that you’re having an issue. I was so afraid to do that. I worked up the courage with her encouragement and eventually told my roommates. I said, hey guys, I’ve got a drinking issue. You can live your life the way you want to live it — I’m not going to judge you, I’m totally fine with you guys doing what you want to do. But from this point on I’m sober, and I’m not going to drink alcohol, and I would love it if you could encourage me.
I felt like the biggest weight lifted off my shoulders. And I noticed that once that weight went away, it became so much easier. I had no problem after that telling a bunch of other friends. A few of my friends at the time kind of bailed on me, and I was bummed for a minute. And then I was like, you know what — if they want to bail on me over this, forget them. I don’t want to be friends with those guys anyway.
It felt amazing. It felt so good to be able to talk about this with people. I’ve talked to a bunch of other people who have struggled with this, and a common feature when people are trying to break any type of addiction or habit is they don’t talk about it because they’re embarrassed. I’ve found that talking about it makes me not embarrassed, because a lot of other people struggle with the same stuff. It humanizes someone.
I know that a lot of people listen to me and might look up to me — and it’s cool to help them — but I mostly do it for me. It’s a selfish reason. It makes me feel better. It makes me feel like it’s no big deal, it normalizes it.
So in my opinion, if you’re trying to change a habit — whether it’s addiction, whether it’s trying to start a business — I think you should tell people. And the reason you should tell people is because of lesson number three.
Lesson 3: Recreate Your Identity [00:14:00]
Sam: I think it’s important to recreate your identity.
Robert Greene is one of my favorite authors. He’s got this book called the 48 Laws of Power. I remember reading it when I was trying to get sober — I think it’s around chapter 25. He’s got this chapter about recreating your identity. He wrote the book in terms of how to gain power, which you could argue is or isn’t good. But the lesson was awesome for me.
He gave examples of celebrities. Lady Gaga, for instance — she was this fairly normal woman when she was around 18. And then she decided, I’m kind of quirky, I’m going to lean into this weird thing with my identity, I’m going to make my whole brand about it. And she became that person. That is the Lady Gaga character. I found that very empowering.
So I started changing my language — from “I’m going to get sober” or “I’m going to try not to drink” to “I am sober” and “I am an alcoholic.” I found that labeling to be powerful. A lot of people don’t like to label themselves. Labels can be really bad — like “I am depressed” or “I am weak.” But I changed the label I gave myself. That was kind of like the seed for recreating an identity.
My identity before getting sober was things like: I’ve got a strong tolerance, or I can be the life of the party, or I just don’t give a — I’m down for whatever. Stupid labels I gave myself. But I was still labeling myself. So instead I decided I’m going to recreate my identity, and I’m going to give myself the label of “I am sober.”
I have other examples of doing this. After giving up drinking I got pretty addicted to sugar and put on some weight. A couple of years ago I told Shaan: I’m a fitness influencer now. If you go to my Instagram you’ll see all these old posts — I was kind of being silly about it, but I was serious. I said, I am a fit person now, I am an athlete. I got super fit because I started working at it, but I labeled myself. And labeling myself as an athlete, as someone who works out every day — I didn’t want to ruin that label. So I exercised every single day.
I think labeling yourself as a good person, a loyal person, a business builder, a force of nature, a fitness freak — those labels are incredibly important because they make you recreate your identity. And I like to tell people that. To this day I still do it.
If I meet someone new, I’m not going to be like, yeah, I’m an alcoholic with issues — but if they offer me a beer I just say, no, I don’t drink because I like it too much. They get the message. Little subtle things like that put my foot down: I do not drink alcohol. I felt this load lifting from my shoulders to put it out there. It also put pressure on me to never break it, because I didn’t want to disappoint others and I didn’t want to disappoint myself.
Whether you want to start a business — this is a business channel, so we’ll talk about business — if you’re working somewhere and you’re like, oh, I’m only here temporarily, I’m actually building a company right now because I’m an entrepreneur. I like labels. I think they’re incredibly effective.
Lesson 4: You Don’t Have to Be Perfect [00:21:00]
Sam: Lesson number four: I’m not trying to be perfect, I’m just trying to be mostly good.
I read so many books when I was trying to get sober. I talked about the 48 Laws of Power. Mastery by Robert Greene was another good one. And then there was The Power of Habit.
The takeaway from that book for me was that a habit doesn’t go away — it just gets transferred. When you want to change a habit, it’s important to look at your loop. Usually there’s some type of stimulus that makes you want to do something, you react to it, and you do that over and over again. That’s how a habit is created. So what I had to do when I was giving up booze was break the pattern. And the pattern wasn’t going to disappear — it was going to get transferred to something new.
I was under doctor supervision, and I told the doctor: I’m trying not to drink, and I’m on day three, and I am craving sugar so much. When you drink like I did — I was drinking like 30 beers a day — you’re craving carbs constantly, because that’s a big part of alcohol. The doctor said, just go eat M&Ms, just eat M&Ms all day. Just go — who cares. You can figure that out at a later date. Right now the goal is not to live a perfect life, it’s just to be better than you were.
I thought that was so relieving. I had thought I had to be perfect — like, no, I’m making this massive life change, I can’t screw anything up. And she was like, no, just improve this one thing. Give into the sugar. When you’re confident that the alcohol thing is behind you and you’re not craving it as much, we’ll address the sugar thing.
So I did. I ate tons of M&Ms for a long time — peanut M&Ms were my thing. And I drank so much non-alcoholic beer. I would drink like 15 to 20 O’Doul’s a day, because when I craved beer I just went and got an O’Doul’s. I got pretty fat because of that, but I was okay. It was better to be fat and not on alcohol than what I was before.
Eventually I transferred that habit from non-alcoholic beer and sugar. I’ve mostly successfully transferred it to diet soda and carbonated drinks. I drink a ton of carbonated water all day, and I love diet soda. You could say that’s not good for you — but that’s okay. I’m not trying to be perfect. I’m just trying to be mostly good.
Lesson 5: Being Sober Attracts More People [00:28:00]
Sam: Lesson number five: being sober attracts more people.
Like I said, I was 23, 24, 25 when I went through this journey. I was single at the time. And what does every single guy care about? Meeting girls, or meeting whoever you’re into — basically meeting someone.
My number one fear when I was trying to get sober was what girls would think of me. I was like, oh no, are they going to think I’m a freak? Are they going to think I’m religious? Which is nothing wrong with being religious, but I ain’t. Are they going to be turned off? Are they going to think I’m going to be boring?
I remember my first sober date — I was scared to death. I decided to just tell her. I think it came up because I didn’t order a drink, and she ordered a drink and was like, oh, you don’t drink? And I said, no, I’m basically an alcoholic, and it’s been about six months since I drank. I remember she leaned in — like, put her elbow on the table and leaned in — and I was like, bingo. She’s interested. What the hell.
I don’t think you should do something like this for other people, but at the time I was like, I’ll take any advantage I can get. And the fact that I was afraid women wouldn’t want to be around me because I was an alcoholic — and instead it made her more interested — I was like, I’ll take it. So I leaned into that.
I noticed that women liked me more. At least the right type of woman — the type of woman I wanted to attract. I’ve been married for a long time now, so meeting girls in that way isn’t something I care about anymore. But men were attracted to me more too, because I had this newfound confidence.
It felt as if I was walking around all day with a string attached to my back pulling me up straight. I would try to walk perfectly upright because I was like, wow, this whole sobriety thing is changing my confidence — I’m going to lean into other things that create a real sense of confidence. So I started changing my posture.
What happened was it created this cycle of confidence. I was like, oh, I can do this without beer. I can meet a girl. I can go start a business. I can do all of these things. And it created this crazy cycle of confidence that kept getting bigger and bigger. It was the best feeling on earth.
Lesson 6: Inspiration Is Worth It — Even the Corny Stuff [00:35:00]
Sam: Lesson number six: finding inspiration is 100% worth it and helpful, and it’s okay to be corny.
I remember when I was 24 I met this guy named Joe Garvey. Joe had a pretty interesting business called CLASH — it stood for something like the California League of Scavenger Hunts. When I was trying to start my business and I didn’t have any income coming in, I met Joe through a friend of a friend. He said, man, I host these scavenger hunts for companies — they pay me $10,000, I take them all over the city. It was a blast. He let me work some of the scavenger hunts and would pay me like $200 a time, which was a big deal to me.
At the end of the scavenger hunts you’d end up at a bar, and Joe would be there being the life of the party — this big, tall guy in the center getting everyone riled up. But it always involved alcohol. After working with him a few times I found out he didn’t drink. He said, oh, you know, I had a problem. I don’t drink anymore. I’m sober.
I was like, you can do that while being the life of the party? That’s insane. How do you do that? He had a ton of friends, women loved him. I said, you’re my hero. I can’t believe you admitted you had a drinking problem and you’re still the man. People still like you.
I got so much inspiration from that. It made me feel so good. So I started reading all these inspirational books — Tony Robbins, all that stuff. I read it like crazy.
I even had this jar. Every day that I didn’t drink I put a penny in. Then it became: every day that I exercised, a penny. Then it evolved to where if I didn’t drink, and I exercised, and I ate well, I’d put three pennies in. My goal was to fill the jar all the way up. Looking back, I’m like yeah, that was a little corny — but it helped so much. And leaning into some of these cheesy things is really powerful.
Because of this podcast and my work, I know a bunch of what you’d call powerful people — some billionaires, people that others look up to. A lot of them do this corny stuff. And I still do it, by the way. Because inspiration is awesome.
I was already a motivated person. I don’t think you can make someone who’s unmotivated motivated. But I think you can inspire them. And inspiration is just having something to reach toward — reading something, consuming some type of content that helps point your car in the right direction.
I always viewed myself as a fast car whose back tires were lifted off the ground. I had my foot on the gas and I was just flooring it, but I wasn’t going anywhere. My wheels were moving quickly, but I had to let the tires touch the ground and be pointed in the right direction. That’s what I use inspirational stuff for.
So I like a lot of these cheesy movies where a guy does something totally unrealistic, but it makes me feel good. Reading Tony Robbins books — I’ll make fun of them now, but I still read them. They made me feel so much better and gave me inspiration.
I think it’s important to lean into that, whether you’re starting a business or whatever you’re doing. Because, dude, it’s scary. Giving up alcohol, starting a business, meeting someone you like, moving to a new place — it’s scary. And you need every advantage you can get to get over that hump and make these things a reality. So lean into some of that stuff. There’s a lot of really good inspirational content out there, and sometimes that’s My First Million. I think it’s cool to consume a lot of that, because it rubs off on you.
Closing [00:43:00]
Sam: It’s still a little uncomfortable for me to talk about some of this stuff. But I do it because it definitely makes me feel better. And I think it will make a lot of you guys feel better if you’re trying to achieve anything — whether it’s giving up booze, starting a business, whatever.
At the end of the day this is all about getting over your fear. It’s about how to jump off a cliff. There’s a reason I have this tattoo — I’m not going to show it right now, but on my left foot and right foot I’ve got the words “act” and “now.” It’s a homemade tattoo. When I was getting sober I used a needle and tattooed my feet, because like I said, I like inspirational stuff. But I think this podcast is hopefully a little bit of inspiration, and also practical ways to get you guys to act now and change whatever it is you want to change.
I’ll be in the comments on YouTube. Whether you’re listening on YouTube or a podcast app, go to the My First Million YouTube page and comment on this video. If you are struggling with something, say what it is you’re struggling with and what you’re going to do to approach it and get over it. Because I think it feels good to put that stuff on paper. It feels good to label yourself for what you are now versus what you were.
Let me know in the YouTube comments what you think — and that’s the episode.