Sobriety 101 - Why Sobriety? | Modern Wisdom Podcast 123

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   If you can only…

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      If you can only bear to be around your friends when you're drunk, like, you definitely need better friends. Full stop. "Oh, mate, can't wait to shut down Newcastle tonight." Horn emoji, horn emoji, aubergine emoji.

   2. JOJonny0:14

      It's such a (censored) thing, you know, when people get, like, a table and a bottle. And the first time that that becomes, like, something you can afford to do-

   3. CWChris Williamson0:20

      Mm-hmm.

   4. JOJonny0:20

      ... and you feel like such a big deal, and then you, like, the next morning you're like, "Oh, for (censored) "

   5. CWChris Williamson0:25

      "Why did I do that for?" I've been to Ibiza 12 times, and all that you're doing when you go away and you get that blind drunk is choosing what destination and visuals you want to deal with a hangover in.

   6. JOJonny0:35

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson0:35

      Have you ever had a hangover?

   8. YUYusef0:37

      Once. I think the first time I tried alcohol must have been a bit before that, which was a pint of gin.

   9. JOJonny0:43

      (laughs)

   10. CWChris Williamson0:43

       (laughs)

   11. YUYusef0:43

       So I just said...

   12. CWChris Williamson0:46

       Extreme events on nights out are seen as badges of honor. There's no other experience in which two s- university students would ring each other and say, "Hey man, how was your night last night?" And the other one goes, "Mate, it's amazing. John broke his leg." Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. I'm joined by the mustachioed man himself, Yusuf, and Johnny from propanefitness.com.

   13. JOJonny1:10

       Johnny from yusuf.com.

   14. CWChris Williamson1:11

       Johnny from yusuf.com. How are you? You good?

   15. YUYusef1:15

       Very good.

   16. CWChris Williamson1:16

       Thank you. Thank you for joining.

   17. JOJonny1:17

       Great.

   18. CWChris Williamson1:18

       Lovely.

   19. JOJonny1:18

       Yeah.

   20. CWChris Williamson1:19

       Uh, we've circled around this topic for ages. We're talking about why sobriety today. All of us, either by religious doctrine or lifestyle choice, have gone sober (laughs) for extended periods. Uh, and even the man behind the camera, Video Guy Dean-

   21. JOJonny1:36

       Can you feel the hot potato? It's, it's, it's boiling.

   22. YUYusef1:38

       It's going into, it's in the pot.

   23. CWChris Williamson1:39

       It's coming out.

   24. YUYusef1:39

       I'm ready for it. I'm ready for it.

   25. CWChris Williamson1:40

       Um, yeah, the man behind the camera, Video Guy Dean, is one week away from a year sober, which is a fucking feet and a half. Mm-hmm.

   26. YUYusef1:50

       Feet and a half.

   27. JOJonny1:50

       Almost two feet.

   28. CWChris Williamson1:51

       Two feet? Yeah, well-

   29. JOJonny1:52

       Two and a quarter.

   30. CWChris Williamson1:52

       ... it's foot and a half, isn't it? Rounded up to two feet. So yeah, why s-
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. JOJonny15:00

      here.

   2. CWChris Williamson15:00

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JOJonny15:00

      I've had cost, calories, lost time, lost like mental clarity-

   4. CWChris Williamson15:04

      Bored conversation.

   5. JOJonny15:06

      Yeah.

   6. CWChris Williamson15:06

      Yeah.

   7. JOJonny15:06

      And I suppose it makes it, like it takes the edge off a little bit, doesn't it? Which is why people do it.

   8. CWChris Williamson15:10

      Yeah.

   9. JOJonny15:10

      If you think, like, why do people drink? They get something out of it at the time.

   10. CWChris Williamson15:14

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JOJonny15:14

       And we live in a society where people make very short-term decisions and ignore the long-term costs.

   12. CWChris Williamson15:18

       (laughs) .

   13. JOJonny15:19

       So that, that's why it's a problem.

   14. CWChris Williamson15:20

       It is. It's a, the, the reason that people choose to drink is for a whole host of reasons, but one of, one of the main ones is that their, um, the gains are immediate and the costs are in the future.

   15. JOJonny15:32

       They're tomorrow, aren't they?

   16. CWChris Williamson15:33

       Yeah.

   17. JOJonny15:33

       Tomorrow's problems.

   18. CWChris Williamson15:34

       It's like, future Youssef will deal with this hangover.

   19. JOJonny15:36

       Mm-hmm.

   20. CWChris Williamson15:36

       Have you ever had a hangover?

   21. YUYusef15:38

       Once.

   22. JOJonny15:39

       (laughs)

   23. YUYusef15:39

       Yeah. So...

   24. CWChris Williamson15:43

       Is that when you drank an entire bottle of spirit?

   25. YUYusef15:45

       The, the, surprisingly not. It was, so I've, there's a lot of backstory to this.

   26. CWChris Williamson15:48

       Don't tell me it was after I made you drink that rum.

   27. YUYusef15:50

       No, no, no.

   28. CWChris Williamson15:51

       Oh, that was-

   29. YUYusef15:51

       Just-

   30. CWChris Williamson15:51

       That was funny.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Oh. …

   1. JOJonny30:01

      but more ... it feels more like a strong nootropic.

   2. CWChris Williamson30:05

      Oh.

   3. JOJonny30:05

      It's like an edge. There's more of an edge to it.

   4. CWChris Williamson30:07

      Hamilton Morris uses, uh, nicotine gum as a writing tool.

   5. JOJonny30:13

      I mean, it, like it definitely makes you alert, but it's not ... I don't think it's a nice alert.

   6. CWChris Williamson30:18

      Dan Bailey got asked, "Have you ever smoked?" And he said, "Yeah, once I had to do like this seven-hour drive at night," and he's got a 20 pack and just like ... (inhales quickly)

   7. JOJonny30:25

      ... whoa. (laughs)

   8. CWChris Williamson30:26

      Just chain-smoked them, like, in an effort to keep himself awake.

   9. JOJonny30:29

      See, that's, y- viewing it as a drug. It's just that smoking is a very inefficient delivery mechanism, but just like drinking is an inefficient delivery mechanism for alcohol.

   10. CWChris Williamson30:37

       Right. But when you think about like, you know, we, we talk about, um, other drugs on this podcast, and you talk about the dosages that people have of mushrooms, grams of mushrooms-

   11. JOJonny30:45

       Mm-hmm.

   12. CWChris Williamson30:46

       ... or an effective dose of cocaine, part of, like, grams, like half a gram or a quarter of a gram or whatever. Or then you talk about, um, LSD, and it's like-

   13. JOJonny30:55

       Micrograms.

   14. CWChris Williamson30:56

       ... single micrograms, right?

   15. JOJonny30:57

       Yeah. (laughs)

   16. CWChris Williamson30:57

       And you're like, "How much fucking..." Like volume, sheer volume of alcohol, it's so much-

   17. JOJonny31:03

       That's why-

   18. CWChris Williamson31:03

       ... that your body has to excrete out the past stuff to make room for more.

   19. JOJonny31:08

       That's why I went for the gin, 'cause I was like, "I cannot believe that people get... people go out and drink ten beers, and they drink ten-"

   20. CWChris Williamson31:14

       It's 5% alcohol.

   21. JOJonny31:15

       Well, like, yeah, like such a low percentage. It's a horrible drink and t- who drinks... you don't need to take ten pints of anything, and yet for some reason it's normal to go out and drink-

   22. CWChris Williamson31:24

       Mm-hmm.

   23. JOJonny31:25

       ... five liters of some kind of fluid. It's crazy that people just don't, like in any other- Don't look like they're hyponatremic or something as well. (laughs)

   24. CWChris Williamson31:32

       Like, if you were to go... if I were like, "Right, we're gonna, all gonna go to this place tonight and take a drug," everyone's main concern would be, "Well, how much am I taking?"

   25. JOJonny31:44

       (laughs)

   26. CWChris Williamson31:44

       Like, if I'm gonna take a drug, I wanna know, like, is the amount I'm taking all right or am I gonna run into problems? But people just go into a bar and just have at it, don't they?

   27. JOJonny31:55

       (laughs)

   28. CWChris Williamson31:55

       I think that's, that... a lot, a lot of that is because we know what the dosage is, right? We can equate-

   29. JOJonny32:00

       Roughly.

   30. CWChris Williamson32:01

       ... one double equals this much drunkenness, two doubles equals this much drunkenness-
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Yeah. …

   1. JOJonny45:00

      you want-

   2. CWChris Williamson45:00

      Yeah.

   3. JOJonny45:00

      ... and if people judge you, then ... like, they're gonna judge you either way, so just have a good time.

   4. CWChris Williamson45:04

      Yeah.

   5. JOJonny45:05

      And then people will give you less shit if you're just an interesting person when you're sober.

   6. YUYusef45:08

      (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson45:08

      There's ... and so you ... again, you, you're super right with that, that alcohol is still controlling that person who's chosen to go sober but is being super reserved. They're still controlling their behavior.

   8. JOJonny45:19

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson45:19

      They're just now controlling their behavior what ... by its absence rather than by its presence.

   10. JOJonny45:23

       Yeah.

   11. YUYusef45:23

       It's a huge placebo effect as well, though, a lot of people-

   12. CWChris Williamson45:25

       Massive.

   13. YUYusef45:25

       ... like, it ... There was, wasn't that thing where they gave people non-alcoholic drinks, but-

   14. JOJonny45:29

       Yeah, they gave two, like, two tables non-alcoholic beer and alcoholic beer.

   15. YUYusef45:32

       Oh, okay.

   16. CWChris Williamson45:32

       And it just acted the same.

   17. JOJonny45:33

       I think they measured, like, how much of the food they ate.

   18. YUYusef45:37

       Oh, really?

   19. JOJonny45:37

       Have you seen that one?

   20. YUYusef45:38

       No.

   21. JOJonny45:38

       They mea- ... They gave them, like, onion rings and stuff, and get them mea- and get them, got them to rate their perceived drunkness and how much of the food they ate, and it wasn't that different.

   22. CWChris Williamson45:46

       (laughs) .

   23. YUYusef45:46

       Right, interesting.

   24. JOJonny45:46

       Which is crazy.

   25. CWChris Williamson45:47

       That's mental.

   26. JOJonny45:48

       It's like, if you're drinking non-alcoholic beer, there is a similar ... like, I've had times where I've drank non-alcoholic beer, got in the car, and thought, "Oh."

   27. CWChris Williamson45:57

       "Fuck."

   28. YUYusef45:57

       Yeah.

   29. JOJonny45:57

       But then your enemy, like ... it's ludicrous, like, that, you know, like Heineken-

   30. CWChris Williamson46:02

       It's like Coke.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:06:22

   They can't breathe obviously.…

   1. YUYusef1:00:00

      depression and you like...

   2. JOJonny1:00:01

      They can't breathe obviously.

   3. YUYusef1:00:02

      (laughs) And you give them the, um, the naloxone.

   4. JOJonny1:00:04

      You're like, "Fuck's sake, man."

   5. YUYusef1:00:05

      And they're going to go, "No, fu-..." So like you usually have to like either like tie them to the bed or something, or have a deputy-

   6. JOJonny1:00:10

      Taser, taser.

   7. YUYusef1:00:10

      ... policeman to a taser, taser.

   8. JOJonny1:00:11

      (laughs)

   9. YUYusef1:00:12

      And you like, you inject something in your body-

   10. JOJonny1:00:13

       I love how they say taser twice. I don't know why.

   11. YUYusef1:00:16

       (laughs)

   12. JOJonny1:00:16

       It just completely... Like if you have to shout taser and then you're gonna get tasered, the second taser at that point is just... (taser stuns)

   13. YUYusef1:00:24

       Well, you know it's, you know it's coming then.

   14. JOJonny1:00:26

       (laughs)

   15. YUYusef1:00:26

       Do you know what I mean? Taser, taser.

   16. JOJonny1:00:27

       'Cause it's twice.

   17. YUYusef1:00:27

       Yeah.

   18. JOJonny1:00:28

       It costs me, it's 'cause there'll be loads of times where you might say the word taser once, and then we'll be like, "Fuck."

   19. YUYusef1:00:33

       Yeah.

   20. JOJonny1:00:33

       Fair enough.

   21. YUYusef1:00:34

       Waiting for the s- waiting for the second taser.

   22. JOJonny1:00:37

       Waiting for the taser. (laughs)

   23. YUYusef1:00:38

       (laughs) I'd love to test that or like if you have a room of policemen and you just shout, "Taser, taser," and everyone will be like, "Go fuck."

   24. JOJonny1:00:41

       I think if you go in and shout, "Taser," then everyone's just...

   25. YUYusef1:00:43

       Have you ever been tasered? Have I ever been tasered?

   26. JOJonny1:00:45

       (laughs)

   27. YUYusef1:00:46

       I have.

   28. JOJonny1:00:46

       Have you?

   29. YUYusef1:00:46

       You've been tasered? What the fuck, Chris?

   30. JOJonny1:00:48

       Wow.

Episode duration: 1:06:33