EP62: Guest Episode – James Lloyd (AlcoholFreeCoach) | Everything You Believe About Alcohol Is a Belief, Not a Fact

EP62: Guest Episode – James Lloyd (AlcoholFreeCoach) | Everything You Believe About Alcohol Is a Belief, Not a Fact

James Lloyd spent 8 years trying to get back to four months of clarity he accidentally stumbled into at 38. He'd read Alan Carr's book on holiday in Abu Dhabi - picked it up because it was called How to Control Alcohol, not how to quit - and by the end of it, floating in a swimming pool, he thought: I don't think I'm going to drink again. He stopped for four months. Then started a new job at Nintendo, convinced himself he could turn it on and off for client events at Christmas. The toothpaste was out of the tube. It didn't work twice. He finally stopped for good the day his mum died. He had a drink with his dad, went to bed, and woke up knowing that was it. A month later, at her funeral, he stood up to give the eulogy and spontaneously told the entire congregation he was never going to drink alcohol again. He put it out there in front of everyone. He wasn't going back on that. Two and a half years into sobriety, he was given two separate cancer diagnoses in the space of a month. He processed it in about a week. He credits the emotional resilience that comes from proper sleep - and proper sleep that comes from not drinking - for the fact that it didn't put him in a hole for months. James now coaches grey area drinkers through 100 days alcohol-free. Not Dry January - 100 days, because you can white-knuckle a month, but you can't white-knuckle 100 days. You have to go to the wedding, the stag do, the birthday party, and find out whether the things you believe about alcohol are actually true. Nine out of ten of his clients come in wanting to get control back. Nine out of ten end up staying alcohol-free. This week, James, Rich and Andy get into why stopping drinking is probably not as hard as you think - and why the real work, the identity shift, the limiting beliefs, the blank canvas of what comes next - starts after the first month, not before. Plus: the selective attention experiment that explains exactly why people stay stuck, why the summer is actually the best time to take a break, and the line that stopped the room - it's only ethanol in a glass bottle with a nice label on it. Everything else is a belief. Find James at AlcoholFreeCoach.com or on Instagram @AlcoholFreeCoach_. His podcast, the Alcohol-Free Revolution, features both Rich and Andy in back episodes.

EP61: You Can't Read the Label From Inside the Jar | Alcohol Awareness Week & Real Stories From Real People

This week coincides with Alcohol Awareness Week, and this year's theme is Alcohol and Me - an invitation for people to reflect on their own relationship with alcohol and what, if anything, they'd like to do about it. Rich and Andy use it as a springboard for one of the most honest conversations they've had in a while. Rich reads out real, verbatim messages from people in their community - runners, parents, professionals - describing what their relationship with alcohol actually looks like. Not the sharp end. Not people who'd describe themselves as alcoholics. Just people caught somewhere in the middle, aware that something's not quite right, but not sure what to do about it. There's the person drinking daily since PTSD and a late ADHD diagnosis. The one who's stopped plenty of times but always comes back because the boredom gets too loud. The one with two drink-driving charges who knows, sober, they'd never get behind the wheel. And the one who just said: nothing good ever comes from it, does it? Rich also gets into why he now sees the alcohol industry as legal drug cartels - how alcohol got a green pass that no other substance would ever receive today, and how the industry's message of drink responsibly quietly places the blame on you while maximizing their profits. Andy brings in the ADHD connection - why alcohol is cheap dopamine for a loud brain, and why the single best piece of advice one prominent ADHD expert gives to anyone newly diagnosed is simply: take a break from alcohol. And underneath it all, there's this: you can't read the label from inside the jar. Most people don't see the full picture until they've stepped outside of it. Also in this episode: Andy's week of genuine chaos, Rich's take on the Eisenhower Matrix, and why surrendering isn't the same as giving up. FRIDAY CONNECTION CALL 1PM EVERY FRIDAY Register here - https://portal.take-a-cleanbreak.com/friday-connection-call-page [https://portal.take-a-cleanbreak.com/friday-connection-call-page]

EP60: Guest Episode – Sam Sadighi (Easy Sleep Solutions) | Sedation Isn't Sleep, Your Garmin Is Wrong & Why It All Changes When You Stop Drinking

Most people who drink to help them sleep think it's working. It isn't. What alcohol does is sedate you - and there's a significant difference between sedation and actual sleep. This week, Rich and Andy sit down with Sam Sidiji, one of the UK's leading sleep practitioners, who works with everyone from babies to city traders to motorsport professionals, to talk about what's really going on when your head hits the pillow. Sam breaks down the science without the scaremongering - what poor sleep actually does to your body over time, why your Garmin's sleep score is probably not telling you the truth, and why the anxiety about not sleeping is often doing more damage than the sleeplessness itself. They get into alcohol and sleep in real depth. What alcohol does to your REM sleep, why people who stop drinking often find their sleep gets worse before it gets better, what REM rebound actually is and why the vivid dreams aren't a bad sign - and how understanding all of this can be the difference between staying the course or reaching for a drink to take the edge off at 2am. They also cover the cortisol and melatonin dance that wakes most middle-aged people up at 3am, whether you can train yourself to become an early bird if you're a night owl, what a genuinely useful sleep routine actually looks like for a busy runner, and why sleep might be the single most underrated performance tool that nobody talks about. Plus Sam's verdict on napping, the 10-minute rule, and why sleep is like a cat. Find Sam at easysleepsolutions.co.uk or on Instagram @EasySleepSolutionsUK.

EP59: If You Say You Can't, Maybe You Should | The Naked Running Experiment & the Data Debate

Rich has ditched his watch. Not just for one run - for the entire Yorkshire Marathon training block. No Garmin, no heart rate monitor, no Strava, no data of any kind. Just running to feel, a whiteboard on the wall, and 20 years of experience to go on. He's calling it the naked running experiment, and it's already producing results he didn't expect. Two weeks in, he ran Leeds 10K without a watch and took 90 seconds off his PB. His average pace was 4:02 per kilometre - faster than he believes he would have allowed himself to run if the watch had been telling him otherwise. No data, no limiting belief, no ceiling. This week, Rich and Andy dig into what that actually means. Why does removing the data feel so uncomfortable to so many people? Why do we use our watches to confirm what we already know, but also to cap what we think we're capable of? Andy's Garmin has been telling him he can run a 4-hour marathon for years. His PB is 3:30-something. At what point does the data stop being useful and start being a ceiling? And then Andy makes the connection that stops the conversation in its tracks. When Rich says people keep telling him "I couldn't do that" about running without a watch, Andy says: that's exactly what people say about going alcohol-free. And if you genuinely believe you can't go without it - whether it's the watch or the drink - maybe that's the most important reason to try. Also in this episode: Rich's chaotic Manchester Half Marathon, Andy navigating the post-big-event lull, and what happens when your friends and family are done hearing about the race you just ran. Yorkshire Marathon training block officially starts June 29th. One Valencia place still available - details in the show notes. One Valencia spot still available. DM clean.break.coaching on Instagram if that's you. FRIDAY CONNECTION CALL 1PM EVERY FRIDAY Register here - https://portal.take-a-cleanbreak.com/friday-connection-call-page [https://portal.take-a-cleanbreak.com/friday-connection-call-page] Are you interested in training with us towards you Autumn/Winter Goals - On-boarding until the end of July ONLY - Come and join the Clean Break Collective.

EP58: Joy in the Hard Bits | Andy's Amazon Ultra Debrief

He's back. Andy returned from Peru having completed 230 kilometres through the Amazon rainforest over five days, finishing 17th out of 67 starters, and winning the Simon Small Award for his presence and leadership in camp. This week, he and Rich go through the whole thing. It starts at Cloud Forest - 3,000 metres above sea level, clouds rising up from the jungle below, temperatures at 3 degrees - and the moment Andy stepped off the bus and all the fear just disappeared. He'd arrived. He was back in his happy place. Then it's day by day. Day 1 down through five different ecosystems, insoles shifting in his shoes at 20K, running the rest of the day without them.  Day 2 into proper jungle for the first time - little rivers, bogs, mud, trees to go under and over, and ants. Ants everywhere, in every size and colour, for the entire five days.  Day 3 - the hardest 25K he's ever done in his life. Three enormous hills in thick humid jungle at 500 metres above sea level, a final 3.7K section that took him two hours to climb in semi-dry conditions, and then it rained for everyone still out there behind him.  Day 4 brutal but manageable.  And then Day 5 - up an on it at 4.30am, 70K, a river section with 60-odd crossings, a 7K climb in the afternoon heat, blisters forming in the dark, a torch he couldn't find in his own bag, and local kids grabbing his hands and running him through the town square to a finish line with a live band playing. He talks about the moment the jungle became a computer game in his head, and what it felt like to find joy not just in the finish, but in the hardest moments of the race itself. And then, quietly and powerfully, he connects it all back to where it started - the decision to go alcohol-free, and the belief system that grew from that one act of courage into everything he's become since. Rich is week two into his naked marathon training block for York in October - no watch, no data, no Strava. That's a conversation too. One Valencia spot still available. DM clean.break.coaching if that's you.