Meet Sebastian
How He Quit Drinking The Fast & Easy Way

With Sarah Kelt & Mindset Transformations

Auckland NZ| Working Online Globally

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Hello There,

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If you’d like to quit drinking for good or even be able to have an occasional drink without wanting more then this program is for you!  

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I recently asked Sebastian - one of my clients who has had 100% results with my support to be brave enough to share his story. This is what he had to say:

 

Hi Sebastian it's so nice to see you again and see that you are glowing and looking so healthy and I know you're making great progress in your life. I'm really grateful that you're here doing a testimonial with me today.

I just want to start off by asking you, am I paying you to do this testimonial for me?

 

Sebastian:  No not at all.  Not a cent.

 

Sarah: If you could give us some background and tell us who you are and how you found me.

 

Sebastian: My name is Sebastian I found you through a friend who had already been to see you and had had great success with your program. He was a very close friend of mine, a good old drinking buddy. In fact, we had been drinking buddies for decades, drinking together, getting into lots of trouble and both probably slowly ruining our lives. To be quite honest, we were both on very similar paths. We have said hello and goodbye to relationship after relationship and the only thing that seemed to be consistent in this was alcohol in our lives.

 

When he finally managed to kick it earlier this year, I think he's been seven or eight months without alcohol, and he told me about it I decided to do the same. I had been thinking about it for years and had wanted to turn my life around. So I decided to do the same.

 

Sarah: What was the biggest thing happening in your life at the time that really motivated you to decide to make a change?

 

Sebastian:  I think I've been thinking about this for years and I had tried different avenues and they hadn't worked out. At this particular time, my relationship was the biggest issue.  My fiancé and I were struggling and we went to counselling, couples counselling and therapy, and during one session my fiance said basically that if I couldn't give up drinking she wasn't sure that we could continue to have a relationship. So, it was an outside influence which sort of got me to really to think about it. I thought that’s it, this is the time. I've been trying to cut back and try to cut it out for many years, but it always just comes back to bite me in the ass and I end up in the same situation and that's when I called you.

 

Sarah:  OK great. What have you tried in the past to help you give up alcohol? Had you tried a program? What methods had you used or tried in the past to be alcohol free?

 

Sebastian: I had tried Alcoholics Anonymous, I had tried to go cold turkey, I had talked to a therapist about it and all that type of thing and I think the longest I've managed to go without a drink was maybe a few weeks. But it was always on my mind. There wasn't a day that I didn't wake up and think, when can I have a drink. It was hard.

I felt like a child that constantly needed to be distracted to keep me motivated and away from alcohol. It was like that 24/7. I distracted myself by doing other things, but I could not maintain it past a few weeks.

Without alcohol, I found that I had so many hours in my day and for most of my life I've been looking for all of these extra hours to be able to accomplish things and do things but when I tried to give up in the past, they were just empty hours without alcohol and I couldn't deal with it.

 

Sarah: So aside from the challenges you were having with your relationship what are the parts of your life were being affected by your overuse or your destructive drinking habits with alcohol.

 

Sebastian: I think most relationships like family and friends relationships were affected by alcohol for a long time. Not just months or years, but decades. My father had mentioned to me a few times in the last year that I should try and cut down on the alcohol, just do something about it. He was being very gentle about it because then I would react badly, so he just encouraged me to try and keep an eye on it. But that let me know that he was really aware of the situation. I talked to my sister recently and she felt the same way. Both my sisters, in fact, most of my family have noticed that I was just spiralling out of control. I have a lot of nieces and nephews and every one of them is super super happy to have me around them sober. They enjoy my company much more, now that I am sober.

 

Sarah: Did you feel it was impacting your ability to do your job and focus?

 

Sebastian: Yes absolutely. With my work,  it wasn't like I was drunk at work every day but it was definitely affecting my ability to focus on my job all the time. I would work late at night because then I could have a drink or a few drinks I could open a bottle of wine, and then it would always be like two bottles of wine by the time I finished work so it all became the sort of cycle of working longer hours but achieving less during that time because I was always drinking at the end of the day it took me away from my relationship with my partner as well because I was working all the time. I was working all the time and drinking all the time and not doing anything well.

 

My physical health also suffered. I definitely notice that I feel better now. I don't know because I guess I was always slightly drunk I didn’t notice how my body felt, in between drinks, so I didn’t really get hung over either. There was always just this fog. Clouding my brain.  I never really had much energy to get anywhere and do anything, until I was motivated by another drink. It was horrifying! That was the only thing that motivated me to do things….

 

Sarah: By the time you did come to the realisation that you were drinking too much, what were some of the emotions you felt?

 

Sebastian: When I started to consider giving up alcohol it’s a little bit of turmoil of loathing yourself and not being able to cope with the situation.

 

Thinking that everybody else can drink alcohol and I can't, why can't I do this,  and then you just spiral into this little circle of feeling guilt and shame about it and because you're feeling guilty and shameful about it and then you go drink some more. But then there is the fear… the fear that you will lose yourself and the fear that you're going lose your friends. 

 

I also think I have a lot of fear that I wasn't capable of being the person I wanted to be without alcohol. I thought that my sense of humour was related to alcohol. I thought my creativity with writing and playing piano and guitar and writing music was associated with alcohol. But that was all bullshit right.

 

"I have less brain fog without alcohol in my life. I'm writing more music and writing more stories. I am just working better. Everything that I want to do creatively is flowing easily. Nothing is slowing me down, I am staying on track."

 

Sarah: Have you lost any friends because you don’t drink?

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Sebastian: I have not lost any friends or had any bad response from family or friends, about the situation at all. Everybody has been super positive and supportive.

 

In fact, I have started to make friends in other ways. I have started playing golf again and meeting new people there. I have actually been going out and meeting people sober and wanting to meet people and not hiding behind drinks.

 

I used to rely on alcohol to give me confidence in social situations. But I don’t need it or want to do that anymore. I was a bit nervous on the first occasion going out as I wasn't sure how it would go.  I was confident that I would be able to not drink, but I wasn't sure how to conduct myself and thought it would be weird to be sober. It had been years since I had done this… It turns out, I am fine!. People actually wanted to talk to me. I am actually quite a fun guy and I do have a lot to say, without alcohol. It was a great outcome. But it was really easy.

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Sarah:  So tell me a little bit about the process of working with me and what it was like to work with me?

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Sebastian:  Working with you was great. I think there was exactly the right connection when I first called up. We had a discussion about why I wanted to quit alcohol you were very forthcoming about my reasons for doing it and if I didn't have the right reasons for doing it that you didn't think that I'd be successful.

 

You explained that  I  would have to put in some work and that I couldn't be doing it for somebody else or any other reason except that I needed to do this for myself.  I think as soon as you said that I felt like you understood me. That’s when I decided to do this for myself… and get into the process.

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From there, you told me what to expect. I approached it with some trepidation, but yeah I was I was excited about it because I tried other things before, and I had failed miserably so it was actually really excited.

 

Sarah: How did you find the RTT hypnotherapy session? Was it scary? How did it go for you?

 

Sebastian: The session itself was, I guess a little nerve-racking just at the beginning,  you're just stepping into water that you've never been in before, you don't know if it's gonna be hot or cold. But you got me settled into a nice comfortable place.

 

"When we got into the session, it was amazing… I've never really experienced something like it before."

 

I felt like I was entirely present in the situation but also sitting above myself somewhere watching the myself there.  You feel like you are really present in that situation, but it is also like an out of body experience where you are really aware of yourself and you are completely immersed in it.

 

Sarah: What was the biggest takeaway from the session? Or the biggest kind of lightbulb moment?

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Sebastian: I think there's a couple of things. Firstly, that alcohol had been present and prevalent in my life for so long. Since such a young age and it really changed the way that I think about alcohol in general and how prevalent it is in our society, it is frightening to think that there's a drug out there that is so socially acceptable that everybody uses every day and hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on it all the time and by the people around you.

 

When I was a kid I grew up in Tonga and my favourite films are all James Bond and he was constantly walking around with martinis and scotch and stuff like that the whole time, and all those old movies with dudes walking around drunk… every hero that we have is like an alcoholic.

 

When we think about how we represent ourselves and you know what kind of future I want to give to my children.  It is easy to get caught up with so much marketing around alcohol. It's so easy to get swept up and it's made into this glamorous kind of thing, but actually there is nothing glamorous about it. 

 

The second thing was fear, the fear that I carry around alcohol. I think for myself since childhood being around alcohol all the time and fear that I carried through and till the day that I gave up alcohol. It was my release it was my way of understanding the world, but what I didn't realize was that it was my control, so yeah I was scared to let go of most of it , but that was the thing I needed to let go of the most.

 

 

Sarah:  So do you feel like you got some clarity about why you were drinking and where the drinking behaviour came from?

 

Sebastian: I feel like I got sort of deep into my past to find out what were the reasons I started to drink. What was the seed in my brain that made me think drinking was a good idea all the way from that seed to grow into a position where it took over my life, so yeah I got pretty much got to the base or the root of why I needed to drink like I did. Now I just think it is a terrible idea.

 

Sarah: How did you feel after the hypnotherapy session?

 

Sebastian: Oh my God , after the session I think I was high for three days here. At the time that I did this I was under a lot of stress, and I had to take some time off work. I think my family thought I was like taking some really strong medication or something, for the stress.

 

"But there was no alcohol in my life at all, I was excited about my life again. I was clear, focused and motivated!"

 

Sarah: Did you have any urges? You mentioned in the past that you had tried to give up but failed and it was always top of mind for you, it was like a weight hanging over you… how did it feel this time around? Did it feel hard for you?

 

Sebastian:  I don't think it felt hard at all to not drink.  I mean maybe as a way to feel part of it I generally have some non-alcoholic beers or options around like that. When my friends or family are having a beer or watching a movie, there is something kind of nice about the ceremony of cracking a beer and drinking but I just don't wanna do that with anything that's got alcohol in it. I still yell at the referee and express myself like I used to. I don't have any urges to drink alcohol.

 

Sarah: How long have you been alcohol-free for?

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Sebastian: Over four months now.

 

Sarah: Are you happy that you chose to do this for yourself?

 

Sebastian:  I am sooooo happy I did this. This is one of, if not the best thing I've done in my adult life.

 

Sarah:  What would be the top three kind of benefits to you in your life? What is the positive ripple effect that giving up alcohol has had in your life?

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Sebastian:

 

I feel like I am in control of my life rather, than alcohol being in control of me.

 

I have my life back. 

 

That comes with everything. My relationship with my family is so much better. I mentioned earlier my niece and nephews actually really enjoy spending time with me. There are so many times I take them out to the movies and stuff like that and they love it. They think I am way more fun that I used to be. They tell me I don’t need to be drunk and that I am so much more fun to be around.  All my relationships have improved.

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My relationship with work mates has also improved. I didn't realize how obvious my struggles were to everybody else. I talk to some of the girls at work and they told me that could see me sliding. That it was hard to watch. That they were really happy to have me back. I thought it might have blown my career. I feel like I have respect for myself again.

 

Sarah: How do you feel about yourself now? It’s not really just about giving up the alcohol right, it's about seeing yourself and appreciating yourself?

 

Sebastian: I would agree with that totally.

 

I feel like I respect my mind, my body and my soul enough not to miss treat it. I spent years and years miss treating it. I started to run since I quit. I am training for a marathon now.

I feel that without alcohol I have the opportunity to respect myself.

 

Sarah: So would you recommend this program to other people? Do you think other people can benefit from it?

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Sebastian:  Yes I would absolutely recommend this to everybody and anybody who's got some struggle in their life.  This works!

 

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