Episode Transcript
Interview with Ken Middleton-Meeting Recording (1)
Deb: welcome back to the Alcohol Tipping Point Podcast. I am your host, Deb Masner. I'm a registered nurse health coach, an alcohol free badass, and today on the show I have Ken Makimsy Middleton.
He is an author and editor of a medium publication named A I N Y F. Alcohol is Not Your Friend, and he also has an upcoming book called Bamboozled. I love that name, by the way, bamboozled how alcohol makes fools of us all. So welcome to the show, Ken. Hey
Ken: Deb, thanks so much for having me. Super excited to be talking to you and your your audience today.
Deb: Fantastic. Well, can you introduce yourself a little bit more for us?
Ken: Yeah, yeah, definitely. So I will I guess I'll just tell you a little bit about like my background and my story. So I live in Atlanta, Georgia, just so you know where I'm from and my alcohol conscious journey with the term I like to use instead of sobriety.
We'll get more into that later. Started in 2018 2018. I was about 38 years old at the time and I had been drinking up until that time for about 19 years, or started when I was in college and had been drinking for 19 years. And Deb, very similar to your story I was probably what you would call a functional subtype or a functional ac not, I wouldn't say alcoholic cuz when you use that term it's, it's very hardcore but more gray area drinker in the sense.
My life was fine. Had a career in sales of up at that time it was about 13 years and had been fairly successful and doing really, really well. And the impetus that made me start looking at my drinking was the fact that I had left my former company as a sales leader and tried to do my run my own staffing company.
and I had been decently successful for two years, but not greatly successful. And I was getting to the point in which I was thinking I was going to have to go back to corporate America because I was really working a lot of hours and not like making a lot of money. And I always knew in the back of my mind that alcohol was something that wasn't allowing me to give a hundred percent.
Right. I always have this funny saying that I say my 60 70% is probably as good as most people, a hundred percent. For whatever reason, I believe that. But it still wasn't a good enough for me to be a, a, a entrepreneur cuz it was just a lot of work. I mean, you're the HR person, you're the, you're the marketing person, you're the operations, you're the finance, you're everything.
And so I said, you know what, before I go back to car order, corporate America, I want to. Take a break from drinking an holiday, as you say. I love that, that terminology. And I want to see if if that would make a difference. and Deb, I made more money in the next three months of not drinking than I had made in the previous nine months of drinking.
And when that happened I was like, okay, there is something here. I need to look at this more. Maybe this is even, I mean, and it wasn't just with work, it was with everything was so much better that it was something I needed to take a real hard look at. And from there I started researching and understanding and learning more and was like, I wish I would've known this so much earlier, but no time is as better than the present or as good as the present, and I know it now and, and I want to hopefully help other people learn it earlier as well.
Deb: Wow. I like how you use that term alcohol consciousness journey. Is that what
Ken: you said? Yeah. Yeah. It was something, I mean, it's very similar to gray area drinking. It's just a little bit of a different slant on it. And the, and the reason I use that term is because, and, and you'll learn, and I we'll talk more about this when we talk about bamboozled, but bamboozled, it is not, in my opinion, the purpose of bamboozled.
The book is not to get people to stop. Is that my hope? Yes. But is that his purpose? No. The purpose of Bamboozle goes back to what I share with you of once I recognized what alcohol was doing and I started researching it and learning, I'm like, man, I wish I would've learned this earlier. And that is the purpose of Bamboozles is to educate people on the trade-offs they're making wit drinking.
Oftentimes you hear the great dichotomy or the stratification of either you're an alcoholic, or your normal drinker, like that's all you hear of. You don't hear about this enormous spectrum in the middle that the majority of us are really on. And for me, I wanted to educate people to help them understand if you want to drink, fine drink, but I wanna make sure that when you're drinking, you're knowing that.
This is what you're trading for. This is what it's doing to your body. This is the check that you're paying now that you're going to have to cash 10, 15, 20 years from now. Cuz I would, I didn't learn that. And I wanna make people under be aware of it. And I use the term like health conscious because when you're health conscious, you eat foods better.
You. . That doesn't mean that you know that you're perfect or anything. It means that you are aware of the, the decisions that you're making and you're consciously deciding that this is what you're doing, being understanding what you need to do or, or how it's affecting you. So that's what alcohol conscious is about.
It's not if you're drinking, you don't drink. I don't care the way, I just want you to know what you're actually giving up when you decide to do.
Deb: Yeah, I, I think that it's, it's so helpful. I like, I like that term. And, and I think it, it. I mean, you're so right. Like we have not been taught the harmful effects of health, alcohol, and I mean, I come from the nursing world.
I'm, I work as a corporate health and wellness nurse, . Wow. And it, I mean, medicine and science is slow to Change, you know, turn the tide for a long time. It's like, okay, well moderation's, okay, you can have one drink or whatnot. And now we're slowly starting to turn the ship around because more and more studies are coming out about the harmful effects of alcohol.
More and more big organizations like the World Health Organization. Mm-hmm. , American Cancer Society, American Heart Federation, they're coming out and saying, No, no amount of alcohol is safe for your health. I mean, you're fool, like you said, you're bamboozled, you're fooling yourself if, if you think it is decent for your health.
Ken: Yeah, without a doubt. For so many years, and I think you hit on something that I, we talk about in the book, it's around the social engineering that happens to all of us at a very young age. And it's so subtle we don't even notice it. So growing up, and, and, and going to birthday parties seeing your parents.
O oftentimes we thought, oh, when we turn 21, you're an adult and this is this big time to be able to drink because everyone does it. And as soon as you become of age, Birthday parties for kids, baby showers at weddings. Everything that we do is so involved in alcohol that we don't even give it a second thought at times.
And then when you talk about finally that all of these scientific organizations are coming out and speaking against alcohol, I think it very much has to go to big. The industry of the alcohol, the alcohol industry in general, and the big money that the lobbyists are injecting into the economy. No different from smoking in which you had people saying that smoking was good for you 50 and 60 years ago.
I think there is a same group of individuals that are just pushing alcohol on us consistently, and one area that I talk about, Deb and I really believe needs. Someone needs to really shout this from the rooftops and really make a push to change is when it comes to Hollywood and movies and series and cuz it's, it that is the most diabolical because we don't pay attention to it.
Prime example, my wife and I went and saw Puss and Boots two weeks ago and you got puts and boots in the, in the, in the, in the bar and he's drinking. and it's a cartoon for kids and they're drinking alcohol in the movie and he's the star and he's doing it and there's nothing wrong with it, and he's still living a great life because of it, or doing like they don't.
They, they rarely ever in movies show the true negative consequences of drinking. People can drink. You have a good time and rarely does anything happen unless it's like some real show in which they're trying to show the dangers of addiction. But that's usually it. It becomes addiction. It's not like you won't be able to do all these great things if you just drink casually because everybody drinks casually, or at least that's what they want you to believe.
And that's why so many people do it and they never look at it, the habit that they have and if it's helping them.
Deb: I'm glad you brought up Hollywood cuz I I agree. It's, it's showing you either it's glamorizing drinking or it's showing you this rock bottom. I see. 28 days flight with Denzel Washington.
Extreme view of of hitting rock bottom and quote unquote alcoholic and alcoholism. There's nothing in between.
Ken: That, that, that's it. Def. So it's like they show either you're great and you're fine with it or you are addicted. That is exactly it, and it's so subtle. So a couple of things that I just, when I watch shows and it's like, did this really happen and watch this, how many times will you watch a show in which your parents are sitting down for dinner and every meal?
The mom has a glass of wine and the dad has a beer, every meal, every show. I cannot. That is happening in America. When you talk about the normal drinker, people say, oh, I wanna be a normal drinker. 60% of people drink less than one alcoholic drink a week. 60% of people. Most people, it's like when you drink, if you drink a fair amount, it's a lot.
So sometimes people say if they want to be a normal drink or drink one or two glasses a night, if you drink one or two glasses a night, that will put you at six, seven to 14 glasses a week. That puts you in the top 80th percentile, almost 90th percentile of people who drink in the United. So it's, it is a misconception of this normal casual drinker.
Like you can drink one or two drinks easily. Most people don't drink at all. It's either you don't drink at all or you drink a lot like that is the reality of it. But in Hollywood, they show like people drink casually and they have no issue with it. And the way alcohol is set up, as Kevin Hart said, the way his bank account is set up, the way alcohol is set up is that if you drink consistently over time, You will eventually become addicted to it.
There like that is how it's made. That's how your body responds to it, and people just don't understand that.
Deb: Yeah, totally. I think that it's, I, I feel like it's shown up more and more in our, our TV shows too. I, I have two teenage daughters and, and one likes to watch older shows. Like she's watching friends again and we Right, and we watched The Office and I was looking at these older shows and I'm like, they don't, I mean, friends hangs out in a coffee.
Like they weren't showing Oh. As much drinking as they are now. I feel like the amount of drinking in TV shows has
Ken: gone up. Yeah. You know what? Now that you mentioned that, cuz I love, I love the Office, one of the, one of my all time favorite shows. And you're a hundred percent right, because now that I think about it, you don't notice it.
It's not there as much. I watch Parks and Rec, I don't see it as much, but if you watch shows today, they actually did a study and I wrote, I wrote about this, that alcohol shows up in 86% of movies. and television shows it's like 86%. Like, and they say that they're, that the alcohol industry is not paying movies to put the, put it in there.
But I just don't understand the law of averages doesn't make sense that that many. Shows would make the decision. How many D are the directors deciding to do this? I have to think there's some kind of pay for play. And you talk about a little bit when you're mentioning the mo, like women and the mommy wine culture and how it's increased dramatically.
The alcohol industry made a concerted effort in 2000 to target women like you will find. It's proven and that they said they wanted to focus on soccer moms and, and mothers. And it's, it's shown that that did have an effect on women drinking. And I think they're doing it now. And I'm not saying they're targeting kids cause I think that's harsh to say, but if you look at a lot of these shows where you have teenagers and you have the, all these high school.
my wife and I always laugh about it cuz we're, I was like, babe, and my wife is seven years younger than me, so I was like, I, I don't know what you did in high school. But I wasn't partying like that in high school. She was like, I wasn't partying like that. Like euphoria, like the show euphoria. I don't know a lot of high schools that kids are partying like that, but they make it seem like that's normal.
And while they're trying to show you don't want to get. You know how it works. Kids are going to want to live that life because you got Zendaya showing you that's what she's done, and kids are gonna want to be like her. So it, it, it's, it's something that I think we really need to think about and address because the alcohol industry is playing the long game and we need to really understand that because the pe more and more people are being socially engineered, younger and.
Deb: Yeah, I, I'm glad you brought up the moms again. I, I just think it's interesting how women's role around alcohol has evolved, and especially in our country. Here we are prohibitions. Like a hundred years ago, it was women that were the driving factors of prohibition and also coincided during the The, the women getting the right to vote.
Yeah. And so it was ti so women were becoming more empowered and getting the right to vote, and they were recognizing like alcohol was affecting the men in their lives and people in their lives. And then, fast forward, you know, through, through a few decorates and, and then we really had women get involved with Moms Against Drunk Driving with mad.
Right, right. Yeah. And it was still women that were taking care of the culture and society and recognizing like, Hey, this drunk driving is a big issue. We really need to address this. And then, It switched, like you said, when the alcohol industry started targeting women. And we switched and we flipped, and then we started becoming the drinkers and we started becoming the marketers, and then we started developing problems.
And so I just thought the. Just how culture responds to alcohol is, is fascinating to me. Well, and
Ken: I will tell you this though, Deb, and I've noticed this cuz me and some of my fellow alcohol conscious influencers were just talking and I was about, we were noticing that if you look now at the people who are really leading the sober movement, if you.
It is mostly women though. Mm-hmm. , if you look at the number of social influencers online, people with podcasts, people with books, it's about 60, 70, 80% women in a lot of these groups that I is, I, my hat is off to them because they're recognizing that they have been kind of tricked, if you will, and led to believe that this is gonna make them a better mom or a better wife when it's really ruining their life.
And I. Men need to learn something from it, and it's something that we need to talk about as well, because I think men in, you know, naturally, sometimes men don't wanna be introspective. We don't wanna talk about our feelings. We don't wanna really address the issues that are hurting us. And the, the best thing that alcohol does is that it allows you to cover up things.
You don't have to really address what's going on. You can just put a bandaid on it and not really have to get to the crux of the problem. And I think a lot of. . If you look at the, the, the percentage of people that are in a lot of these groups is 70, 80% men. I mean, women, there's no way that there, that means that men don't have issues.
It's that they're just not addressing them or choosing to, to deal with them. So something that, that we need to some, I think we need to definitely put more focus and time into.
Deb: Yeah. I, I appreciate you saying that, and I appreciate you, you know, being a man, doing this, being a black man and doing this, like That's right.
What, what do you think, did you learn anything about just the culture of alcohol related to men, related to black men or black people? Like what did you learn? Well,
Ken: I think as an African American man, not the, the big thing, For us growing up, it always was, you don't wanna be an alcoholic. That was it. It was like, don't be an alcoholic, don't drink too much.
But it's very similar to, I think most people, you never learned that how it, it was damaging your ability to really to be great at life. But more so for men. What I found with men is that, You just don't get a lot of men that wanna talk about it, like they don't want to address it. It's like, it's like I have now pretty much two groups of friends, if you will.
I have my friends who still drink, who were still friends, but my level of conversation with them, Deb, is nowhere near. The level and the intensity and the depth of conversation that I have with my friends who don't drink, and the from a man perspective, because me as men, it, it's almost like they don't have the willingness to let it go because it, they're afraid, I think, I think there's that fear of if they let it go and they start really talking about how they feel and, and, and who they are, that they're not truly being a manly man.
They don't want to be vulnerable. And I wouldn't say I've lost friends, but I'm definitely not as close to some of my male friends that I was before. But on the same token, I gained a bunch of friendships and increased some closeness with some of my other male friends who don't drink on a level that I probably haven't really had with very many men because we're just more open and honest and we're not using alcohol.
To be a, a, a, a mask over who we really are in, in our true feelings about different things.
Deb: Yeah. You, you kind of see, like, it takes a few drinks for, for guys to all of a sudden be like, I love you man.
Ken: Mm-hmm. . Yeah.
Deb: Yeah. And be affectionate towards each other. Yeah. Like alcohol, they, you know, gave them a reason or an ex.
Excuse, or not even excuse, but like made it okay to be that emotional and affectionate and tell you, I love you, man, like you're my best friend. And it's hard to do that without the lubricant of alcohol. .
Ken: But the problem is once they've, the alcohol is gone, they forgot what they said and the feelings are gone and they're now able to express themselves.
And you can't be drunk all the time that have to be emotionally stable. Right. ? No. They have the capacity, you know what I'm saying? That that's the problem. The problem is they'll have that emotional outpouring in the moment of drinking, but to be to then to get to the crux of the. And be able to fix it.
And that's the thing I say about alcohol that I tell people. I was like, listen, I'm not saying that you can't live an okay life drinking. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not gonna say that. I'm just, I'm not a black and white. I'm not an all or nothing guy. And, and you, I'm never say never. Cuz there are some people that, you know, they can live amazing lives and they can drink.
But I will say to be your best version of yourself and to have the ability to ha to, to really handle the problems in your life and address them, there's no way you can do it with alcohol, because what alcohol does, it doesn't, it doesn't make you have to fa face problems. You just drink and forget about it.
You have a bad day at work. You just come home and drink. You and your wife get in an argument, or your spouse get in an argument. You come home and drink. You have a bad day with the kids, you just drink. You don't ever get to the point of understanding why was your day bad? Why were you mad at at your spouse?
Why were you and your kid having an argument? And then you don't have the emotional fortitude and the capacity to actually address problems. So I tell people, and I always try to be transparent because this is always how I've. When you stop drinking, it doesn't solve all of your problems. Sorry, PSA alert.
It doesn't solve all of your problems. It doesn't, but what it does is it gives you the capacity and the ability to truly start addressing your problems. To be able to one day solve 'em, and that takes time. Hmm.
Deb: Yeah. What, what are some of your tips for someone who is looking to change their drinking?
Yeah.
Ken: I tell, so we have this in the book it goes through kind of three stages, right? As we talk about the book, we talk about why do you drink? So we talk about the history of drinking and we, and we go in through every, some of the stuff you and I just talked about, social and engineering. We talk about Hollywood, we talk.
College is, which is a big one, right? Like college is big. I'm not even gonna, we have a whole chapter on the things we learn in college and how that shapes the rest of our life, right? And then the next chapter we talk about what you have to gain from not doing it. Like what do you have to gain, like, like we talk about career, finances, relationship, all the things that affected.
And then the third part is like, how do you do it? And the how do you do it? Part is something that we call the meds, M e D S. And this is something that I. that it is a process that I feel like people have to go through to help them control their drinking and hopefully come out on the other side, being able to really understand what they're doing and, and live a life of alcohol consciousness.
The first step M stands for mechanical re-engineering, and that goes back to kind of what we talked about before of. Learning everything you can about drinking. So what I tell people when you first start thinking that, do I want to, or you're questioning your drinking, is it a problem? I tell 'em, don't stop drinking.
Keep drinking. Do not stop. What I do want you to do though, It's looked for certain books by like an Annie Grace, this Naked Mine, or William Porter's alcohol e explain, start reading these books and, and understanding the, what they're sharing with you. And then because you're still drinking, I want you to assess for yourself.
Is this happening to you? Craziest thing ever. When I say it now, it seems bizarre, but I'm not lying, Deb. I never made the connection of the, the fact that I would wake up at two or three o'clock in the morning and couldn't go back to sleep, never made it to my drinking, had no sense that they were connected in any capacity at all, which it was the exact cause.
And I was like, holy, like I got, if I would've known that, I, I, I, Thought about how not drinking on certain nights when I got a big day or blah, cuz you don't wanna wake up at two or three o'clock in the morning. So it's about doing, continuing to drink, read, learn how alcohol is affecting you, and then seeing, all right, do you have brain fog that next day?
Is it harder for you to do this? Do that. Do you get in arguments with your loved ones or you're easily irritated when you're drinking? Like once you recognize that and you can see kind of how scientifically alcohol changes you. Then hopefully you can say, alright, I want to give it a break. Now you look at the other side of it.
Now when you decide to give it a break, the E stands for exercise commitment. The reason I go exercise commitment, cuz for me it's two things really. I often believe from a motivational standpoint, if you intrinsically see how your train changing, it helps you be motivated to want to keep doing it. Like we all change on the inside and we feel good about it, but when you can see it or when someone's like, man, you look so great, or Your skin looks good.
It's like that little extra boost that makes you feel great about it, right? And then the reality. Exercise is just very healthy for you emotionally and mentally also. So as you stop drinking, You, your body is gonna be missing. That dopamine hit that alcohol was giving you. There's very few things that can give you a comparable dopamine spike that as exercise will not, it will never be equal because of course alcohol is artificial, exercise is natural, but you do have something that would trade off.
And help reduce your craze of cravings. They've done scientific studies that by exercising when you stop drinking, it reduces the cravings for the addict to want to drink or do, because you're actually offsetting some of that dopamine loss that you're not getting anymore. So it actually helps with the physiological change that you have to go through.
And then the other aspect is just the, the, the p. Point of when you stop drinking, you're gonna have a, a shit load of time. I tell people that all the people forget. I mean, people have no idea how much time they waste drinking. And then when you stop drinking, you're like, what was I doing with all of this time?
Like, well, I, I have hours of putting hours. So I tell people, exercise and feel some of that time, and you can look good, feel good, and you won't just be bored all the time. So that's the other side of it. Next is d d stands for diet improvement. Now the purpose of that or the reason for that is, You know, with, with anything, if you go to the gym and you're working out every every day, but you're eating crap, you ain't really going to get all the effects that you can really get from that.
You're not gonna see the results of your efforts. And I just think it's connected. I, I, I tell people all the time, I'm more of a wellness wellness advocate. . And, and I think all things like alcohol is the beginning of your wellness journey. And then exercise, sleep, eating, right. It all compounds to you being able to be successful, which this thing I call an inverted triangle.
So an inverted triangle, and actually I have it here, an inverted triangle is it's, well, you can see it and the listeners can't see it, but it's an upside down triangle. And what it does is it's like, what is the thing. That probably is at the crux of why does holding you back from being successful?
It's different for everybody. For me, it's alcohol. For other people, it could be I, I don't know. It could be food, it could be their family members, whatever it could be. But that what if you, once you find out what that crux is or what that problem is, once you get that under control, Then you're able to build all these other blocks on top of it.
So for me, getting my alcohol or getting drinking under control then allowed me to look at my exercise. It then allowed me to look at my eating. Then it allowed me to look at my sleep. Then it allowed me to look at my meditation, and so I was able to go on this wellness, wellness journey because I started there.
So exercise and diet improvement are just another aspect of the wellness journey of getting you holistically healthy. And then the other side of just diet is just natural. Certain foods help you with your dopamine improvement as well. Folate, serotonin, if you eat the right type of foods. So once again, you need something to offset that dopamine loss from not drinking, eating the right type of foods will help you do that as well, as well as reduce c cravings.
And the last one, and this to me is the most important, is the s and that stands for success seeking. And what Success seeking is about. Deb, it's about the concept of, I tell people when you stop drinking, And you are giving your brain back holistically where your synapses can really s shoot at a fire at a much rapid pace, and you have increased ability for neuroplasticity in your head that you may have not had had since you were in college.
You can do so many amazing things like you have no idea what your brand is capable of. I often say that alcohol is a great governor. The governor, like a card governor, like u p s truck, that they only can go so fast or school buses can only go so that fast. They put a governor on the engine that stops them from going higher than 60 miles per hour or what have you, right?
That's what alcohol does to your brain. You only can go to so to such a level, right? For a lot of people, they feel like that's okay. But it's not the level that you're capable of. When you take that away, that gov you, governor's gone, your, your ceiling is raised tremendously. So I tell people. The reality is this, when you stop drinking, everything's gonna, initially it's gonna be like, man, life is amazing.
Everything's good. I cannot believe that I'm on this. Amazing. It's like a, I took a limitless pill. Eventually your body, it gets used to what you're going through. It's called homeostasis, right? Your body gets used to the feeling of even amazingness, and it's gonna start to do this. But I tell people, you are still growing.
You're still compounding and having major additions to your ability to think and execute and do a lot of things in your life. So for some people, when it starts to feel like this, they then say, well, I haven't drank for a year. I feel pretty good. I could probably go back to drink halfway, or I could probably go back and drink when I want to.
I think I can control it. So it won't be a problem. What success seeking does, it gives you something that is a motivator to then say, I will never go back to drinking. So you success seeking is, think of a goal that you want to have for your life or you want to accomplish that. You know, your pre alcohol conscious self could never accomplish because of the mental acuity that it takes to do it.
So, prime example for. My goal was to learn Korean. My wife is Korean. I wanna be able to speak to her parents, my in-laws. So I'm like, all right, let me learn Korean, because I know the drunken Middleton wasn't learning the Korean. There's no way I would have the ability to understand the characters, the, the nuances.
There's no way. So I started learning Korean and what I said, like as I was learning it and getting better and understanding the pronunciation then. I felt I was learning. I'm like, okay, if I ever go back drinking, there's no way I could continue to do this. There's just, there's, it's impossible. So for me, it was kind of like something that was a there's an analogy that, that this gentleman gave to me that I thought was, it was a it was an amazing analogy.
I think it was perfect. Like, it's like filling up your wallet, right? It's Jeff Graham gave it to me from back to zero. It's like filling up your wallet if you have, if you walking around in your wallet, your sobriety. If you don't put anything in your wallet and then a robber comes up to take your wallet, you're gonna give 'em your wallet cuz you haven't put anything in it or your purse, if you will.
But if you're putting things in it, if you're investing in yourself, if you're trying to learn and to grow and you're having this high goal and you know somebody comes and they take that wallet from you, all of that hard work is going to be lost. You're not gonna so easily give up that wallet. So that is about success seeking, is that you give yourself a goal that's so hardcore and you're growing so much and it's gonna take such a bigger version of yourself that once you're getting on that path, you never want to go back because you're like, I'm sorry, alcohol.
That was fun when I did it, but this is so much better and I ain't giving this up. To go back to what that was, and that's why I think that's the most important part of the, the. Oh,
Deb: those were great. So you had it stand it's meds. Yeah. And what did they all stand
Ken: for again? Yeah, mental re-engineering is the first one.
Mental I, I may have said mechanical, but mental re-engineering. Second is exercise commitment, and then a third is diet improvement. And then the last is success seeking. Yeah,
Deb: those are great. Yeah, and as you were talking about, you know, having those, that success seeking, it also kind of made me think of just your values and living by your values and how your.
When you have the value to be healthy or to live with love or kindness or whatever your values are, how alcohol just doesn't line up with those values
Ken: at all. Man, that, that, that is so perfect because, and that's the, the. How alcohol it, it, it doesn't allow you, and that's, I always say this, it doesn't allow you to be the best version of yourself because it makes you inconsistent.
That is the thing about alcohol. It makes you inconsistent where you hear people, and we talk about it in the book, we talk about relationships. The thing that alcohol does in a lot of relationships, how many relationships are ruined because somebody goes out and gets drunk and end up having an affair on their spouse and end up doing like, so you take all of what you've done and all your values and all the things that you've you've built, and then you ruin it.
For one night of fun, was that worth it? And, and a hundred percent, that's the stuff that alcohol does. It doesn't allow you to be consistent because you're just not a hundred percent in your normal mind. Yeah, and we, I mean, I just, I, I think you said that really, really well. Thank you, .
Deb: Now let's see what you had said that there's an unequivocal age that everyone should stop drinking.
Ken: Yeah, I, and so this is the thing, even in the book I, I talk about in, I say, listen, you do what you wanna do. But I'm just giving you the facts here. You do what you wanna do with it. But for, and I say, and this is the other thing, and I go back to at the beginning where I was talking, I'm not trying to get anyone to drink.
I don't believe in my personal opinion that people should never drink. I think there is a period in your life that it is, it is, it is Okay. Like I gotta be honest, like. My drinking time was some of the most amazing times of my life and I wouldn't take 'em back. Now there's a few things I'll take back cuz I'm like, it was a little much, but the majority of it was amazing and I wouldn't take it back.
I just wish I probably would've discovered that I should stop drinking a little sooner. But for a lot of people once you reach the age of 40 is what I. Is where you really need to hardcore look at your, well, you probably start looking at your drinking around 35. You need to really look at it and see to make sure it's not going too far.
But at 40, I just don't think it serves people because two things, one, by the time you turn 40, you've probably been drinking from anywhere from 18 to 20 years. If you started when you're 22 years old or started when you were 18 years old, and that is the amount of. that typical people go from being what they call a casual drinker to a consistent drinker that could then become an alcoholic.
That is the time. The average age of alcoholics are 41 years of age. That is the average age. The average amount of time that people that eventually become a alcohol alcoholics have been drinking is typically between 15 and 19 years. Right. Depending on kind of when they started younger, you are the quicker onset.
But for a lot of people, what I would call the, the group that I fell into, the functional sub. The, the amount of years that they're drinking is 15 to 19 years. And I tell, I I, I, I get afraid of a lot of my friends cause I see 'em because, and we all hear it all the time. It, it's almost like it goes from everything was fine, everything was fine, everything was fine, and then overnight.
It became a problem. And that's what happens. And it's that 35 to 45 year old range that a lot of people drinking starts becoming something that they like to do. And it makes your body, makes that physiological change to you have to do it. And then at 40, a few things happen to you. One, your body doesn't hold water the way it used to.
It just doesn't Right. You, you're naturally more dehydrated for that reason. Alcohol hits you quicker, it affects you more, and it stays in your body longer. That's just the nature of it. From a liver perspective, I tell people, it's the car analogy. Just like if you have a car when you're, if you have a car that's 18 months old, all right, that car is driving.
Well, the carburetor works. Everything is amazing. There's no issues with it. But if you got a car that's 10 years old, things don't work as well as that car anymore. And you like, you gotta be careful. You can't do all the things you did with that car before. And so I'm telling if when you're in a 40 year old car, Your liver just doesn't work as well.
And alcohol is a carcinogen. Like that's just it. It is just like smoking. It causes cancer. Alcohol will cause cancer. Right. And if you have, with your liver not being able to flush it out faster, you are greatly increasing your chances of getting some type of cancer. The older you are when you drink, when you're younger and your body is working qu, optimally and efficiently, when you drink a fair amount, it flushes it out.
But when you get. You are increasing, it's staying in your body and it's just without a doubt increasing the chances that you will get cancer as you age. And then the other aspect is that you just get drunk faster. Like, like with from the natural hydration, your body not being able to hold water like you think you can drink as much as you could when you were younger, but you can't but you, it's weird because you don't feel it, because your tolerance is better, but it hits you quicker and you can get drunk faster.
And that is why you'll see. People who you would think would know better than to drive drunk, end up driving drunk because they think they're not as drunk as they are. And that could just lead to a host of problems in your life as you age. And it, it just isn't worth it. In my opinion. You, you're giving up more than you're getting at that point in your
Deb: life.
Yeah. I like the phrase I'm too old for this shit ,
Ken: I'm telling you like that, that is perfect. I'm just te like, like there's nothing wrong with doing it when you're young. I, I really don't think there's anything wrong. I don't think, I don't believe in that. You should never drink. That's just my, if you don't drink, I don't care.
That's your opinion. But I think there's some things in your life that you go through stages and you gotta make the decision of when you give it. and I just think at 40 you need to be like, okay it was good while it lasted. I'm good with this. And then the other thing is like, the quality of your life later can be so much better.
There's another book in a chapter in the book where we talk about this concept called Decades Ageism. Decade Jism is something I truly believe in and this regard, and it re, it's related to success seeking actually, and I talk about it with one of my lady with Janet Garran, who does trap sober at the amazing thing she's done at a later stage in her life.
Right? So, When you say success seeking, you're looking at a goal that you want to focus down the road. Now, it keeps you focused on staying alcohol conscious, cuz typically it's not gonna be a goal you can accomplish in six months or 12 months, or maybe even a year. It's gonna be 3, 4, 5 years down the road.
It's a big goal. It's a long term goal. Now some people will be like, I'm too old to try something amazing or worry about that, but it's like, well, you're not too old. That's, that's a mindset thing. And a lot of people will be like, well man, I wish I would've quit drinking when I was 28 years old instead of 38.
Well, here's a reality. The average lifespan of someone in the United States is 78.2 years old, right? And I think in Britain it's like 81.4 What? In the uk, right? So you can live with the 80 years. If you look at an 80 year old and you look at a 70 year old, do you see that much of a difference? Like they're both old, but is there that much of a difference?
So if you're, if you're 38 now and or if you're 28, you can do a lot of amazing thing in 10 years. I always go to the Bill Gates quotes, like, people underestimate what they can do in they, they overestimate what they can do in one year and they underestimate what they can do in 10 years. And the concept of decade ageism.
So, so what you, you, you only stopped drinking when you were X number of age, right? And you wish it was 10 years younger. Think about what you would go and tell your 10 year old earlier self, and then in your mind. A, I believe age is something, is a social construct that we created. Who said you're that age?
Like what, what does that even mean? That you're like, you're too old for. Think about who you want to be, who you want to become, and start working on that now. So 10 years from now, you can look back and say, man, I, I did everything that I wish I would've done. It's almost like a time machine. It's almost like you, you, you, you, you rewind the time and instead of saying you're 38, say you're 20.
And then start acting that way and living that way and doing all the things that you want to do. So it's almost like the concept of decade jism is talk to yourself 10 years in the past and in your mind think, all right, I'm, if I was 10 years younger, how would I live my life? If I could tell my 28 year old self, this is what you need to do to live your life, then just go do it.
Because if, if, let's say, if you're 30, And if you get to 40, that's four. That's you get to 80, that's 40 years. Or if you're 28 and you live the 70, that's still 40 years. So why can't you do whatever you would've done when you were younger? Now, if that makes sense, right? It's about not allowing your age to hold you back from believing in yourself uh, doing amazing things.
People get so caught up in their age cuz they think they're too old to do something amazing. 10 years doesn't mean anything, right? You have the ability to do some amazing stuff if you just put your mind to it and then think the long term game and the other side is that is just by not drinking, you're probably going to live longer, which gives you the chance to do those amazing things as you age.
Deb: Yeah, I, I think it, I mean you talked before about when you give up drinking you have so much more time. Yes. And I've gotten really into mindfulness and teach mindfulness too. And I find it's interesting cuz people want that they're all about longevity and they wanna live longer and whatnot, but I feel like mindfulness and being alcohol free makes each.
Moment. The moment of now bigger and better. So do you wanna, and more quality. It's just that quality versus quantity, right? Yeah. And so how can you live bigger and better today, in this moment? . You know? And how can you make more time magically appear if you're not a time traveler or a wizard? Well, you can give up drinking
Yeah. And you can make more time and more time to follow your
Ken: dreams. That's it. A hundred percent. And you will remember it. I don't know how my wife and I, we used to, you know, we've been together for a while, so we've been pre-drinking and after she stopped drinking the same time I did, and we always laugh about the shit we used to do.
We used to travel to, to cities. and just get hammered and not really remember what we did. So we, we go back to cities. It was like our pre-trial drunk travel, our pre-drinking, traveling, and our post alcohol conscious traveling. And we'll, it's two totally different experiences because we're actually seeing the city the second time.
And to your point, we're conscious and we're remembering what's going on, and it's a million times.
Deb: Oh yeah. I love sober travel. I know that a lot of people have a hard time, like it can be vacations, holidays, like those can be more triggering cuz that's usually when we drink. Right? Yeah. But to experience it sober is, is just a very different experience and so much better.
Ken: Hence, so much better. Yeah. You just have so many more memories. You do more creative things. Because my wife and I, we used to, we used to go to a. , we used to go find a bar. We used to go play pool and we used to go play music, so it didn't matter what city we were in. We did the same thing in different cities, , as opposed to now we're doing stuff related to the city.
That's that's unique and awesome and exciting and it's just, it's so much better. A million
Deb: times better. I love it. I love it. Well, tell me, what are your plans for the future? What's your success seeking look
Ken: like? ? Yeah, so I'm, I'm still stick with a Korean. We'll see how that plays out for us.
We're doing that and we're trying to learn a little Spanish. My wife and I trying to learn Spanish. We eventually probably wanna. Move the Madrid one day. But that's a, that's probably Wow. Down the road. Yeah, that's a plan. But you know what to just release bamboozled, so the digital version is gonna be out in late February, early March, is what we are anticipating.
That's what my publishers told me. And the actual physical version is gonna be out. In eight August of this year. So a little ways down. We'll be in all bookstores, but that's really my focus right now is to get out bamboozle, get the word out to as many people as possible. And then just see where it goes from there.
Who knows? So we'll see.
Deb: Oh, that's fantastic. And how can someone
Ken: find you? Yeah, so biggest, the easiest way is to go into the bamboozled book.com. That's where you can go and sign up to be on my list, so you'll know about when we're releasing the book. I'm gonna have the book launch group in a little bit if you wanna be a part of that.
So the t h e bamboozled book.com. Second is an.com, which thank you, I call is not your friend for sharing that. That's our publication. That we have with all the 200 to plus writers who just write different articles to help people quit. So I always want people to go there. And then lastly, kin m middleton.com is my personal website, kin m middleton.com, where you can go.
I do a little fitness stuff there. I do all of my, I put all of my blogs there. So any of those three areas you can definitely
Deb: Oh, that's fantastic. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. This was really great, really interesting, and I'm excited for Bamboozle to come out that I will be reading it for
Ken: sure.
Awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me. It's been fantastic.
