In this episode, Paul Churchill shares his personal journey to sobriety as he learned to recognize and address his struggles with alcohol addiction. He delves into the complexities of moderation versus abstinence, highlighting the challenges and failures he encountered along the way. Paul also emphasizes the importance of seeking help and support on the journey to recover the person you were meant to be.
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Do you ever feel like life is just one problem after another. You finally feel like maybe there's a break, and then bam, another problem. This is how it is for many of us. But there is a better way to respond, a way of responding that brings greater ease into your life and returns some of the energy that the problems.
Drained from you.
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To bring people around a campfire, which we've been doing for hundreds of thousands of years of human beings come together to discuss our differences are resolved and we are pack animals. Recently it's like this wave of isolation individualism. But wow, we need other human beings. We do.
Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great tinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true, and yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Paul Churchill. Paul is the creator and host of the Recovery Elevator podcast. Today, Paul and Eric discuss his great new book, Alcohol Is Shit, How to Ditch the Booze, reignite your life and recover the person you were always meant to be.
Hi, Paul, Welcome to the show.
Eric, Hello, thank you for having me.
Yeah, I'm really excited to talk with you. We're going to be discussing your book called Alcohol Is Shit, How to Ditch the Booze, Reignite your life and recover the person you were always meant to be. But before we get into that, we will be starting with a parable, like we always do. And in the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. What is a good wolf which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other's a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and they think about it for a second. They look up at their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.
Wow, Eric, thanks for having me. It's great to be here. I've heard you work for a long time and thank you. So the older I get, the more I recognize that we do have an influence over our life, right, our thoughts. Actually, it can instruct physical reality.
And you know where I.
Choose to put my mental energies I find is what I get more in return. In fact, I came across a pdf on religions. If you could distill them all into like one sentence or less, and they're all the golden rule. Treat others the way you want to be treated, treat thy neighbor the way you want to be treated. And I think with the parable, it's where you place your energies. Yes, we live in a world of duality, Eric, where there's good and bad. You have to have them both for definitional purposes. But I choose to see wholeness in everything, and I choose to nourish that part of me that is rooted in love, that is rooted in bravery, that is rooted and acceptance in wholeness. Yeah, I love it.
That's a great answer, and one of the things on your podcast, Recovery Elevator, which is a great show for people who are interested in recovery. Paul's is one of the best shows out there. You talk about what you just talked about there often, and even in your book later on, you talk a lot about the power of our thoughts. But where I'd like to start is with you of just described that you have the single most accurate assessment test for alcohol. And the reason I want to start there is that a lot of people they're not sure about do they have a problem with alcohol or drugs. Now, some of us, like me, I was pretty sure pretty early on, and it wasn't so much a question of whether I had a problem in my case, was whether I was actually ever going to do anything about it, and whether if I did something about it, whether it would actually work. But I know many many people have a more nuanced relationship with alcohol and drugs, and so they're asking themselves often am I alcoholic? Or do I have a problem? Or should I stop drinking? And there's lots of different ways people phrase that question, and there's lots of different surveys out there you can take and you say you've got a one question survey that is the most accurate you know, so tell us about that.
I do, Eric, and thanks for setting that up. I love this question because most of us embark on this deep, inter explorative journey spending thousands of dollars with therapists online. Quiz's question, you know from the brightest minds and institutions, and yes, those do all the place, Eric, I agree, But it can be this simple, and it was this simple for me. At the end is if you've ever asked the question, if you've ever wondered do I have a drinking problem? That simple inquiry just answered the question. And for example, okay, so I'm here, I have a book alcohol Shit. I crashed and burned hard with alcohol, extremely hard, fast and early. I like I described that. For me, it was actually I was thankful that question was answered very quick. But for many and the stigma's part of this too. We go so far and so long into this when we don't need to do so. But I had a problem with alcohol. I don't struggle with gambling, not once. If I ever asked myself, you know, do we have a gambling problem? Do we have an online shopping problem? Do I have a sex problem? I've never asked myself those questions. So if you simply ask yourself, and I feel this inquiry Eric is coming from a deeper part of yourself saying, yo, hey there, buddy, this might be getting out of control, we might be going down a wrong path. And it's when that inner voice jumps in with those questions, with those narratives. If you ask the question do I have a drinking problem or not? You probably do. And if you've ever entered into Google, into google like online self alcohol assessment question, you've just answered it right there. You don't even need to take the test. If you've ever entered you Know How to Quit Drinking podcasts like you know, do I have a problem? If you've already answered the question.
Let's assume that that's a fairly accurate diagnostic question. I tend to agree with you that you don't search for that sort of stuff if you're not having some sort of problem. You know. The other way it was often phrased to me, is you know, do you have a problem with alcohol?
Well?
Is alcohol causing any problems in your life? If so, you have a problem with alcohol? Is another fairly clear one. My follow up question would be, let's say that that is accurate. Does that mean that if I've answered yes to that question, that abstinence is the only path for me? Or is it perhaps that I have a problem that I need to model. I mean, different people have different opinions on this, right, and I'd be curious your opinion and your experience with this.
Yeah, Eric, and this is where I think it gets so beautifully interesting. It's confusing. It's not a black and white world. It's full of paradoxes. There's a program called Alcoholics Anonymous, started in nineteen thirty five by Bill Wilson and doctor Bob. Many times in the Big Book it says, drinking is but a symptom. Right, you know what does that mean? Alcohol is not the problem? It's not. It's a symptom of other unrest in your life. However, to uncover that unrest and do any sort of inner growth work with that, the alcohol has to go. Now, great question, is full abstinence the way to go? We can go here real quick with this. That's for everybody to decide, And I think everybody who eventually arrives at full abstinence has to go through this chapter of moderating right. Ye, Look, I'm not drinking. I'm not drinking on the weekday, on the weekends, I'm not drinking alone, not drinking before work, not drinking you know, in the Jupiter and moon or an eclipses together. Not you get it. But these are lines in the sand that if you do struggle with alcohol, eventually every single one of them will be crossed. And so, okay, I've been doing this for a hot minute and I have not come across anybody in a long term fashion here that moderation has worked. I've heard stories of a couple weeks, a couple months in my own in my own personal journey as well. Eric abstinence for me was the best way to go because of the progressiveness of alcoholism, but also the nature the way of life works, life circumstances. This could be deaths in the family, this could be your own personal tragedy or whatnot. Alcohol is a darn good coping strategy for a short time.
You know.
I think it's interesting because that moderation piece is so true that I don't think anybody would get to the point of giving up alcohol or drugs if they actually love them, like any of us who have a problem with them do. There's no way it was going to give them up without having tried everything else possible.
First. You know, you mentioned AA.
There's a line in the A Big Book, I think, basically along the lines that you know, certain people will chase this idea that somehow, someway I'll control my drinking, you know, to the gates of insanity and death.
Right.
I mean, that's what we're trying to do. And I tried all those things this last time when I got sober, what I hope is the last time fifteen years ago, I actually did a stint in moderation management as a program first, and I've shared about this before, but it was so good for me because I failed so badly at it.
But I tried so hard.
I had been sober eight years before I knew what abstinence was, I knew what AA was. I was like, I do not want to go back and hang out with those people. I do not want to give up my alcohol. So I tried everything I could and moderation management, and I.
Couldn't do it.
It would set out like well your weight or whatever you could have, you know, two drinks a day or a drink and a half a day or whatever.
And I was already immediately.
Inflating my weight from about one hundred and forty five pounds to about one hundred and eighty pounds so that I could get to the two and a half drinks a day or whatever it was, right. And then, of course a drink is measured by certain number of ounces, but you know, well, we don't have to be real accurate that, so I was cheating from the very beginning. And even while cheating, I couldn't do it most of the time. I remember this, you know, this is one of my most like poignant memories of that time. Of it would be like, let's say eleven thirty at night. I worked a corporate job, so I'd have to be up the next morning. I'm in my kitchen by myself. Everybody's gone to bed. It's not like I'm at a party. Nothing is happening. It's time to go to bed, and I'm standing there with a bottle of whiskey on the counter, and I'm trying to not take another drink for which there's no possible reason on earth to take another drink. There's no good reason, and I'm trying as hard as I can not to do it, and yet more often than not, I poured another drink. And I'm so glad I went through that process because then it was much clearer, like Okay, my brain goes well, moderation, I go. We tried that really hard and it just didn't work. Now I'm not saying that's the way it is for everybody, but I know that in moderation management, what I saw was a lot of alcoholics hanging around hoping that there was a moderate answer to this.
Eric, I like you phrased that, And through those failures, and I had hundreds of them, with moderation, we almost learned that the abstinence actually is the path of least resistance. We think abstinence is this like, oh my god, it's life in the dentist's chair, but it's flipped because there is such an obsessive compulsion, as you mentioned, to find a way to drink without impunity, which I tried hundreds and hundreds of ways. I couldn't find it. But I think what we say it's like moderate with alcohol, we almost say it like in brevity, like it's light. You know, I can't can't have just a couple. But if you look at the addictive traits of the chemical alcohol. It's one of the most addictive drugs in the world. And if we were to say like moderate, you know, let's moderate our heroin or crack use, like it just doesn't have the same ring to it when actually alcohol is. This study show that it's just the most addictive drug in the world and it kills more people every day than every other drug combined. Quite remarkable that way, and one of them thought of this in twenty twelve. You know, apps are everywhere now, but there was a time when a BAC of blood alcohol content app tracker came out. I said, yes, here's a way to moderately drink. So I went to Old Chicago's downloaded the app. I'm not going to be drunk driving home and to drink in that responsible way. At the the app told me when when to order the next drink so I could be safe to drive. It was so painful, Eric and I didn't even survive that way, just all right, two more that just deleted the app, right.
Then, Yeah, there's another line from the AA Big Book that I ever fully understood, and it was that, you know, something about we could not control and enjoy our drinking. And what I realized was, I get that, like, if I'm trying to control it, hey, I ultimately can't do it. But even while I'm trying to do it, I'm not enjoying my drinking. It's miserable, you know. It's just or I can completely let go of the control and then I'm able to enjoy it a little bit, of course, until it all comes crashing down. But that recognizing those two things as not being able to coexist was really helpful to me and leads me into another topic I want to discuss though, because I'd get why abstinence is really important for me. I get why abstinence is important for most people who are problem drinkers, and it's because of what you said to me. Abstinence is so important. It's because it's the only way that the mechanism of craving ever gets shut off. Meaning if I don't get complete space from alcohol, then I'm in that craving game again and again. But I think one of the problems with an abstinence only viewpoint towards alcohol is that there's no room for progress in that right, meaning the scoring is one hundred percent or zero. Right, You're either one hundred percent like not alcohol free or your zero. And I've seen that can be very discouraging and detrimental to people. So how do you think about that in terms of like, yeah, absence is where we want to get, but how do I measure progress along the way if I'm not able to get to full absence right out of the gate?
Okay, Hey, I'm really glad you brought that up, Eric, because the way most people land in sobriety and I'm no different here, and thank goodness, I'm on a current nine plus year away from my last drink. Hope that never changes. But the way most of us get here is by stacking days. Right. It's not a one and done thing. In fact, I've interviewed over four hundred people on the Recovery Ell Theater podcast. Very few of them were one and done. Like you know, I'm done with this. It rarely happens, and it lots more of what's called stacking days. You get three days here, you get a week there, and even years. You look back at the years orre like, Hey, in twenty twenty two, I went thirty three percent alcohol free. In twenty twenty three, I'm seventy five percent alcohol free. I think we're going for abstinence, but really I think that's how we get there. In more accurate terms, I think that's how most of us land in sobriety.
That makes a lot of sense and certainly my experience, and I think that given that I was either completely abstinate or not, it was one hundred percent or zero in the scoring system I was given and introduced to, it led to when I wasn't one hundred percent just giving up completely, I mean, and so it was just profoundly discouraging, right, And so I think what you're saying is I wish I'd had more people tell me, and I wish I'd understood more that, like, you're going to have to make multiple runs at this, Right, You're going to come in and you're going to learn some things and you're going to do better, and then you're going to come up against something you can't you know, handle, and then you're going to come back again, and over time you'll eventually get there. That wasn't the way it was presented to me. So I ended up in a really dark period where I thought I've done everything they told me to do, right. I was a heroin addict at the time, right, And I've gone to treatment. You know, I did thirty meetings and thirty days, I got a sponsor, I did all those things and it didn't work. And so, you know what, I can't do this. I'm not the kind of person that will ever get this. And I wish it'd have been presented to me more the way you're presenting it, because that was a really dangerous period when I thought I can't get this. I'm not the kind of person that'll ever get sober. That was a dangerous and dark period.
There was a movement in the late eighteen hundred It's called the Temperance movement, and I think that's one of the reasons why it's not around today because it was basically an internal and external declaration Melty with the Church of I'm going to abstain from alcohol. However, there was no work. There was no inner work, there's no recovery work, there was no spiritual growth, there was no program. Then I think when AA came along, you know, they filled that void. And you're right, that's black and white. I drank. Oops, I can't get this, and I went through a period of that to Eric where I had so many day ones and I was going to the meetings or whatnot, and I'm such a stubborn dude. I started my own sobriety tracker app. The reason why Eric there was only like one or two on iTunes of that time, and the one that I had started off you got a day after twenty four hours, and I had so many times where I didn't even have a day. I actually developed an that was still on the app store, the Recovery Elevator Sobriety Tracker, that you start on day one, like if you're on day one. But I just couldn't even make it. It was like point zero one, you know, point when I woke up, it was point zero five. You know, you get an hour point zero five. And I was like, I cannot get this, but I'm going to start my own app because I want to wake up and see the number one point zero. Eventually, here I am today. I had to go through all of that stuff, all those failed moderation techniques, and again I think, I think sobriety is the path of least resistance. It gets a little brutal, they'll kind of let the brain, the mind, the body, reset the dopamine systems. But I feel today is also the wild West of recovery is and there's so many more options today to quit drinking your drug of choice whatever than there were five years ago, ten years ago, and definitely twenty or thirty years ago.
Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about that. You've got a line in your book, and I've heard you say it on your podcast multiple times, right, there are many pathways leading to the same place, So meaning, I think what you mean is there's not one way to get sober. There's lots of different ways to get sober. Share a little bit more about that.
Yeah, with Recovery Elevator, we believe there's no right or wrong way to quit drinking. In fact, I think it's dangerous when we do put like this is what sobriety looks like. Here's step one, two three. I know there's the twelve steps of AA. That's a beautiful guide that I think every human being on the earth could follow and get benefit. But all pathways lead to home, and stick with me here for a second. I do feel the addiction actually serves a purpose. In biology, this is called endowment theory. That nothing happens on planet earth or in this universe without some sort of beneficial purpose. If drinking is but the symptom, it's but the messenger, it's but the invitation to step into a more authentic way of living. And I think the addiction where I'm at right now, it has forced me to land inside of me. We are in a fractured world, a disconnected world. Rates of addiction, sickness, illness, pain and all that stuff, autoimmune disorders, inflammation, they're on the rise. But I think what an addiction is trying to do. It's very painful at first, but it's trying to reconnect the soul with the conscious, the unconscious, all parts of your body and helping you land at your core. So again, all pathways lead to home. There's no right or wrong way to quit drinking, and I don't advocate go out and make your own program, right. I think AA is a great place to start. I think Cafe Airy is a great place to start. I think surrounding yourself with people who've already done this, listening to podcasts like yours, Eric is a great way to start. But again in twenty twenty three, when we're recording this in twenty four and beyond. There are some really neat ways to ditch the booze. And I think the invention of our time, Eric is going to be the Internet. That's it, and how we're able to connect. And this isn't my quote, but the opposite of addiction is connection. The ways that we can connect in twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four looks so much different. I'm recording this right I'm in Costa Rica right now, and I can see you like you're in the next room and we're two human beings have an authentic conversation about how we ditched what was holding us back?
Yeah, I mean when I got sober the first time, it was nineteen ninety four in Columbus, Ohio, and so there was nothing else except AA And I mean that quite literally, Like there wasn't even like the smatterings of like smart recovery or you know, there was one game in town and thank god it worked for me. But like you said, today, there are so many different options. There is no one way to do it. But I've heard other people express a concern that the fact that there's so many different ways to do it. There's all these different apps, and there's all these different things, that people can spend a lot of time sort of monkeying around with a lot of different things before they find something that really works for them. And I don't really know what I think about that argument, but I'm curious what you think.
That's definitely valid. I track with that. I think things can be discarded a little fast. I cringe when I hear people like, oh, I read a pamphlet about AA, it's just not for me. They never went to one, or they went to one meeting, it's just not for me. But I think when you're ready, Eric, when you were ready to stop using, when I was ready to stop drinking. When you're ready, it doesn't matter what program you show up at, and when you're ready to focus on the similarities instead of the difference, it doesn't matter if it's AA, Smart Recovery Cafe ARI, it doesn't matter at all. And I think that's all part of the journey too, of exploring different programs out it's not for me today, it might be for me later on down the road. But I realized I had these these qualms about AA. Well, we're just we're just going to talk about alcohol for an hour. That sounds quite triggering to me and that it was a good argument internally, but I just wasn't really ready to quit drinking at that time.
You hit on something there that I think is really important, which is focusing on the similarities not the differences, right, And I think this actually applies to any group we go into, any type of connection we're seeking. It's a useful idea, But in regards to alcohol or recovery, say why this is so important and what happens if we're not orienting in that way?
Okay? In twenty twelve, I had been sober alcohol free for about two and a half years and I went to my first AA meeting with a friend who was struggling with alcohol. I took this person to an AA meeting to support that person. And this is after I had owned a bar in Spain lost to the bar in Spain was getting blacked out, blacking out every night of the week for a couple of years straight. And I was at that AA meeting and I was focusing on the differences, not the similarities. And I heard people share and I said, wait a second, I don't have multiple DUIs. I didn't have any at that time. I've never been to prison. I've never been to jail. I don't have a bankruptcy all these things, and I was drunk like two nights later, and it was a train wreck. I had like thirty drinks that night, and when the gas station was closed, I could no longer pick up alcohol. I was googling if I could drink rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide, and I had a bottle of each on either side of my computer. So shit got real fast. But it was a big eye opener for me. I recognized in that meeting, looking back, that there was still the obsession to drink, and I was focusing on the differences of why I was not like them, why I was better, or why I was different, and why I could find a way to go out and drink again. I did, didn't work. I got back at it, and I don't think that was an error. It had to happen. I learned a lot from it, Eric, I really did.
Yeah. I think that when we walk into any group, I was saying, I think some of this comes up. But I think in recovery in particular, we want to not belong there, right, that would be our preference. Our preference would be as we talked about earlier. The great desire of every addict or alcoholic is that you're not an addict or alcoholic, right because then you can continue to do what you do. So we're pretty motivated to disqualify ourselves. We're pretty motivated to look for all the ways I'm not like you people. And I know people who look at people and go you know, people will walk into a meeting and go like, I was not nearly as bad as those people, or other people will say I'm way worse than what those people were. I mean, we're just looking for a way to give ourselves an excuse to walk out the door. And so listening for similarity is really helpful. And I don't know if you said this in your book, but I think you did, or maybe you said it on a podcast. Even further, if we don't focus on the stories, the externals of what the stuff, but the internals of how it feels. And you know, I've shared with you and I've shared with listeners before. You know, there was a time I got sober twice once was a very low bottom heroin addiction, homeless heroin addic hepatitis CEE going to jail for a long time and then I stayed sober, and then I went back out and I just pretty much drank and smoke pot and my bottom the second time was much higher, if we want to use that terminology, meaning had the best job I'd ever had, I was driving the nicest car I'd ever had. I was living in a great neighborhood. I mean in all those ways. Luckily for me, what I was able to focus on was inside. I felt just as out of control as I did the first time. Right, And so oftentimes, if we can shake the if we can get away. And I say all that to say, when we're looking at externals, it's easy to disqualify ourselves. But most people who are an addict, if you walk into a room of AA or another support group and you listen to people describe what it felt like to be an alcoholic or addict, I think that that's when the similarities really come forth, which is just that just that despair and that shame and that confusion of why can't I stop this?
Okay, I track with you, Eric. I think one of the most dangerous parts about alcohol drugs the stigma and the ego, the disease or whatever you want to call it tells us that we're the only person in the world that's struggling with that, which is not true at all. Millions and millions of Americans, millions across the world when we find our tribe or find other like minded individuals that have the same thing in common, and for us, we've punched an intense ticket of pain to enter the rooms of sobriety or to enter the rooms of authenticity, growth, and wholeness through recovery from an addictionary substances, You're gonna go through a lot of pain, you know, rock bottom, homeless on the street, hepatitis, ce, all that stuff, regardless, and sometimes you know, higher bottom, lower bottom. They're all emotionally relatively the same, they're all internally equally is painful. But I also have found on the flip side, on the other side of it, it is an incredible glue. I've been part of many clubs, guilds, sports teams, committees, you name it, but not once have I found the camaraderie that exists in sobriety. You know, we do events, we do retreats, we do sober travel trips, and the first couple ones I thought we were getting lucky. I was like, Man, we're gonna that's gonna be hard to duplicate. But it's the glue of sobriety. It's the glue, which actually it's the pain, you know, day one, when we start talking, it's like we've known somebody for seven days or two weeks. We go right, pass a small talk and get into it, which I absolutely love.
I teach a couple of different programs, and an aspect of it is about building community. And I quote some studies around how long it takes to build friendships, right, and so if you look at the scientific research about how long it takes to build a friendship, it takes a lot of hours, right. I've seen some estimates like one hundred hours, which is why people tend to become close to people they work with, because they spend all that time with them. What I think about these studies, though, is that they did not interview groups of alcoholics or addicts, or support groups for depression or support groups for cancer or pick your top, because friendships form so much more quickly when you're immediately talking about things that matter deeply. Right, it takes one hundred hours to build a friendship if you're spending thirty of those hours talking about the weather and sports. Right when you're immediately in the sort of intimacy that any of these different types of groups and hopefully you know, our spiritual habits programs go that deep that quickly. When you do that, the time to build friendships and lifelong connections is far faster and far easier, which is what you're describing right, Like, right away, you have these connections with people that are really strong and deep, and it is like a glue.
Eric, you know, the people on this sobriety journey. Again, there's a stigma, But I think we have it wrong. I think the stigma puts us at the back of the societal queue. But I think it's opposite. We can come together in a room and put aside our differences, talk respectfully, lead with love, and connect fast. In fact, it's almost a superpower of mind. When I travel there. I've been at AA meetings in like over a dozen countries right around there, and I do it because I find the connection in a meeting. I find myself at a barbecue, hit somebody else's house later, or dinner plans or whatnot, and it's this fast track right past the bs small talk into authentic conversation with all of this at the sole level where seeking we're yearning for this.
Let's pivot this direction a little bit because you're starting to sort of talk about recovery as a plus to life, Like it's not just like, oh, I get to quit drinking and that's why I go, but that I actually get further ahead in life. And you talk a lot about this idea where you say, as I mentioned earlier in this book, alcohol is a spirit which can give us profound gifts if we're able to recognize, right, you sort of talk about this like seeing our recovery and our addiction as ultimately a gift. Talk more about that, because that's what we're sort of talking about here, is that as part of this you get an enhanced community. What are the other benefits that come from a life in recovery?
Okay, Eric, sobriety, recovery it's the greatest gift I could have ever received. But not everybody gets there in sobriety. My take is there's a lot of victims in sobriety. It's a lot of victims in this world. There's a lot of victims in AA actually, but back to the parable the one You Feed podcast. As I said, if I'm authentic to how I answered that question, if I choose to see wholeness in everything and really lean into the universe, that everything is happening for me, not against me, it helped me depart from the victim mentality. So if I'm true to that, if I honor that, and I know that nothing malfunctioned in the past with the addiction, it all took me to this path right here again, all pathways lead to home, mine, yours, and others on this sobriety journey. It's more of a painful way into this type of work, but also you catapult to the other side. So I think there are so many benefits to sobriety that others who don't embark on this. We have no choice but to answer questions such as who I am, like, what's the point of life? What's important to me? What am I going to do in this human life the rest of the time I have here. There's many normal drinkers out there, whatnot? You know, they're not forced to ask these internal deep questions. They're not forced to find a different way of living, and they're not forced to find a way to align the way they're living more in line of how we are as human beings. So I want to be in the moment, but I'm excited, shall I say, of where this recovery journey goes in the future. I think a couple of years into sobriety, I could barely spell spirituality. And now it's like this beautiful aperture of really trusting the universe. Bob Marley's got a song. Every little thing is going to be all right, three little birds and up into this moment for me, Eric, and maybe you can say the same about yourself. Every little thing is going to be okay, and it has been up until this moment. So it's really leaning into that. And the sobriety has taught me again back to the parables, like where you put your energy is what you're going to get back. And I'm choosing to see wholeness, authenticity, love in everything that I see. And there's days it's a struggle. I get it. I drive in the same roads that you guys do, and that stuff. This is a superpower. This is an asset. It is not a liability.
You know.
I've even had that reflected back to me and people throughout my life. You know, over the years who have been almost envious of what it's like to be in recovery, of the friendships that get formed, of the deep work that, like you said, were forced to kind of do you know? I have been involved in some form of healing and or recovery and working on who I am because I've had to since I was twenty four years old, that's almost thirty years now. There were a couple of years of a big detour in there. But I never would have done the type of things that I did as young as I did them, with the intensity that I did them, and I mean as far as my own spiritual path and my own personal growth path, I wouldn't have done those things if I hadn't been forced into doing it. And so there are many, many benefits and gifts of recovery. And I think there's another element to this too that I think about a lot, which is, you know a lot of people in recovery will say that they eventually see it as a benefit or a gift, or many people who have gone through any sort of very difficult experience, many of them will turn around and reflect upon it as a very positive thing and The key element to me seems to be that they found some way that that difficulty served the world.
That when we're able.
To suddenly take what was difficult for us, what was really painful for us, and use it in some way to help someone else. To me, that transforms the thing. That's the alchemy that gets it to be where we're able to sort of go like, oh, that was a gift.
Yeah, if you didn't say the word alchemy, I was going to say just that. I saw Morgan Freeman movie a couple months ago and he was asked what's the point of life? And without hesitation, he responded to pass on what we've learned to others. And Eric, we're doing that right now. I crash and burn so hard. I'm not the only one. There's millions of people who have as well, same with you, and here we are. We've had limited time together and we're getting after it. We are sharing our experiences, of our stories of how we found healing and how we continue to deepen on that path, and also how we can help others. The only reason why Recovery Elevator has been successful, I feel, is the motives behind it when I started were to create account of be for myself. That's a selfish motive, but number two to help. If other people listened along the way and gain traction out of it, then let's do it. There was no money, there was no sponsorships. The first hundred episodes. It was almost like an easier day. But to pass that along to another human being of our experiences again, I think it's how we're wired biologically. Chemicals such as oxytocin, Sarah own and all those feel good chemicals are released when we do so. And we do this with other species too. We help out animals who need help. We raise it dogs, right, We have animals in our households, and helping others feels our soul up. And it was almost like rocket science. In nineteen thirty five when Bill w figured it out, he said, you know what crazy as can be. When I go to Manhattan hospitals and share my story with alcohol, I stay sober. Not everybody I speak to stays sober, but by golly darn it, I'm staying sober. It was revolutionary at the time, but now we know that sharing and opening up and teaching, and that's what you are.
Eric.
You're a teacher and you're teaching right now. Doing that to listeners, it helps us as well and hopefully it helps the listener.
Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. I think that that founding of AA. And again I want to be clear, like neither you nor I is saying AA is the only way to go by reight stretch of the imagination. It happens to be the program that saved my life twice. I also see the challenges with it, and I'm glad that there's all sorts of alternatives, but I reference it a lot because it was what worked for me. But that moment that Bill found out and he found it out in Ohio, which is where I'm at right, you know, just up the road from here. You know, he found that when he talked to another alcoholic, he stayed sober. And I think that what's so beautiful about that is the actually the reciprocity there, because I know people like this and will come into recovery or any sort of support movement, and they won't want to be a burden to the other people. Oh I don't want to call him. I would just be a burden. Or I don't want to tell them about my problems because I would be a burden, right, And the beauty of what Bill and doctor Bob found with each other was that they helped each other equally. It wasn't like the person who has a ear sober and the person who has a day sober that there's some power imbalance there.
There isn't.
There's a reciprocity in the coming together. And that's been my experience in any sort of good support movement. You know that there's a lot in the mental health community today around peer support, and it works for the exact same reason. There's a true reciprocity between people in that both are helped in that relationship. And I think it's one of the most beautiful things in the world, is that thing where when we genuinely connect with people, both people benefit from that connection.
Yeah. An addiction I feel in a purpose of it is the humbling process you mentioned two people coming together as equals. It's the ego, right, you have to come face to face with the ego and make a decision life or death and letting the ego take me off the cliff or whatnot. So this reciprocity of two people coming together, which is very in line for roughly ten thousand human generations of how we evolve. We have to help each other pass on our stories of how to live. You know, how we're living today is completely past awkwards of how we used to live and made it this far. And by not asking for help, and look, I'm the same too. I don't want to be a burden or whatnot. But by not asking for help, you're depriving another person to feel good, for them, to be in line with what a human being is to help them. Once I really embodied that, it became a lot easier for me to ask for help. And we've heard it in the rooms or whatnot, is the most important person in the room is the newcomer. That's the same in cafe iri. That's our private online community as well. And you know, aa that's how I started. I still go. But you know it's not a perfect program either, and I want to be clear on that as well.
Yeah, there's so many programs these days that are out there, and I think a lot of them share in common in something that you say in the book, which I believe. Also, you know, anytime I'm on a podcast and anyway's like well, they'll ask me to make some definitive statement about alcoholism or addiction. I don't really want to make any definitive statement because everybody's different, and there's so many gray areas that you talk about. But the one statement that I will make, and you make it also, and you say you can't do this alone. There are several gray areas in recovery, but this isn't one of them.
This one is.
Black and white. What that means the not doing it alone can take lots of different forms. But I do believe that to be true for the vast, vast majority of people who have a real problem, is that doing it by yourself won't work. We do hear stories of people who do. I'm not saying that never happens, but it's so rare.
Yeah, and I think it was a long term. It's even more rare. People can do it on their own a couple months whatnot? Yet I did it on my own for two and a half years and went twenty AA meeting and the drunk two days later. I did.
Yeah. I went and saw my sponsor lead when I was thirty days sober, and went out afterwards and bought hero And I was like, man, that is a strong message you got, dude.
So similar to you sober two years of walking to an AA meaning and all goes up in smoke.
Folks on the differences. Yeah, I drank my roommate's bottle of champagne that he saved from his wedding.
Yikes.
In the late seventeen hundreds, there was a Seneca man named Handsome Lake. This is an Indian tribe who recognized he brought the tribes people together that struggled with alcohol, and he almost built. He didn't have twelve steps right, but it was a strikingly similar program as AA to bring people around a campfire, which we've been doing for hundreds of thousands of years of human beings come together to discuss our differences are resolved, and we are pack animals. Recently it's like this wave of isolation individualism, but wow, we need other human beings we do.
Yeah, share a little bit more about your story here. So we've referenced it a couple of times. Obviously you said you owned a bar in Spain. We can all assume what happens if you Manchin an alcoholic and owning a bar.
It's not a good thing.
We can picture all that you stay sober a couple of years you go to an AA meeting, you drink again, walk us through there. How did you find your way back to sobriety? And what was it like in the early days for you?
All Right? So in twenty ten, this is five years after I owned the bar, I said, hey, I something's going on here. So I went two and a half years without alcohol. I was only going to go for a month, but after just a couple of weeks, the color in my face changed, the bloating went away. It's like, oh, I might be onto something here, but I still didn't want to believe it was alcohol. Two and a half years later, drank we covered that. I said, no problem, I'll get back on it at two and a half years before, I'll do it again. Except that wasn't the case. That two and a half years went seven months that I remember, got like three months and three weeks, and then it was like a year and a half two years of just day ones, over and over and over. Twenty fourteen got a little the grim at a failed suicide attempt there. I got a DUI while driving to work and it was just the hopelessness. And my heart goes out to everybody or anybody who's listening out there that's in that space of an addiction where there's just the hope seems to be lost. Keep going. Myself was there, Eric was there. We got your back, We're right there, We're right here with you. We are. And later that year, in twenty fourteen, Eric, luckily, I found myself two months away from alcohol. I was going to an AA meeting and I was hiding behind pine trees. This is the stigma, right. I didn't want people driving by. No one was going to AA. I heard this voice in my brain that said, we don't have to go to that meeting. I got this, and I just stopped there because I knew every time in the past when I said I got this, not only did I didn't get this, I ended up in a way worse spot, just completely backfired. So something was there with me. I left the pine tree, I went into the AA meeting. I came out and I had the idea of a podcast. At that time, there's only a couple sobriety podcasts. I said, shit, not only do I have to go back into AA, I have to do something more. And you've heard the quote or a line like you have to put at least as much energy into your recovery as you did for your drinking, and obviously like a little bit more to counteract that. And I put a lot of energy in my drinking. I was a bar owner, I was used to DJ clubs and weddings and all that stuff. So I just went full board into it. And I said, all right, I'm going to start a podcast called Recovery Elevator. February fifteenth, twenty fifteen, was a first episode to create accountability, and I just in an MP three format, launched it out in the world. Burn the ships. Look man, name's Paul Churchill, crashed and burned big time with alcohol. But an amazing thing happened. Eric I had got honest and authentic with myself, and that process was already underway in twenty fourteen. And when I did it in MP three format, I gave others the permission to do the same. And I received one email like three weeks after I launched the podcast, it's too scared to read it. Actually, more emails came, people started listening, and here we are nine and a half years later, four hundred and sixty something weekly podcast Sober Travel over ten million downloads. YadA, YadA, all this stuff. I mean, what an incredible journey. I don't think everybody has to get sober that way. I don't recommend it, you know, looking back, that was actually quite risky, with about six months of sobriety, launching a sober podcast. I don't recommend that. But but for me, that's how my universe bent, you know, turned melded in a way that I was able to remain alcohol free. And thank goodness that current run is still live today.
And so while you were doing that, you were also attending AA. Sounds like you've attended a reasonable amount of AA.
Yeah, okay, I did the full ninety and ninety you know. Sponsor steps just put the ego asides, like, look, I don't know better than these people. I am not better. I have no effing clue what's good for me or how to do this. So I just said yes yes to everything, and including the podcast. Right now, I'm in Costa Rica, and I go to one AA meeting a week about thirty minutes away from me. It's awesome. And with that into seven or eight meetings, and I've already got a wonderful community of authentic people who know exactly who I am. Right, superpower, right leverage that this is an asset. Back home, I spend most of my time here in Montana. I probably go to one to two AA meetings a month, but sometimes I'll go three or four months without going to a meeting. However, I am very plugged in to our community group cafe ARI like I run it. You know, I'm in a different position there. But I attended our chat right before I interview Eric. I attended our we call them chats and our version of meetings. I do probably two to three a week, and I make sure I host at least one.
My recovery journey was a lot of a early on, and then as time went on, I sort of found other aspects to get, you know, sort of what I was getting from AA. I was starting to drift away from AA, which the first time I did that ended up with me drinking again. And when it started to happen again, I was like, I don't want to repeat that, and so I was kind of looking at like, well, what am I getting from AA, Like what is it doing? And I was able to sort of reverse engineer that in different ways. You know, oh, I'm getting community, So where else am I getting community? I'm getting a structured approach to change. Where else might I get that? I'm getting the chance to support others.
I like that.
I sort of.
Tried to break it down, and I think I'm glad I did that after I had like, say, five years sober, instead of trying to do that in the beginning and be like, oh, well, I think I'm going to know how to do all this. Let's talk about the word alcoholic for a second, because this is a controversial term. You know, it was not a controversial term in nineteen ninety five, right when I got into sobriety. It was like you just that's how you identified, And many people now feel like as a label, it's not a very helpful label. How do you feel about the term alcoholic and how does it work for you in your life?
Yeah? Great question. I've oscillated on both sides of it. Eric, I have officially broken up with the word alcoholic twice in podcast episodes. Yeah, but when I go to the program, hey, man'am, it's Paul an alcoholic. Out of respect for the program. We do need to be careful with words, right. The unconscious has already attached to label a stigma behaviors whatever to a word, so we need to be careful with that. And studies show that only five percent of alcoholics actually live under bridges. Brown paper bags fit that bill. Most alcoholics are very functional, And the stats here are we're high earners, we're highly educated when we are in relationships. So with that, the word alcoholic to what an alcoholic it really is, actually is a compliment, like we're higher achievers than the average person. Like crazy stats there. But where I'm at right now in my journey, and I think this is the point of an addiction, is you know, we have been looking for happiness outside of ourselves so long. That was for me in a bottle, right, this internal unrest, well, what's up tequila? Like that'll fix it pretty quick. But where I'm at right now is I'm trying to be as grounded and as rude as possible as I can be. That you can call me whatever you want to call me, eric, alcoholic, you know, alcohol use disorder. I've been called way worse in the past, probably well in the future. It doesn't matter. And that's part of the recovery work, too, is to not focus on what everybody else is thinking about you and normal. Number one. People don't think about you as much as what we think that they do, So it really doesn't matter. And again, I think we're living in a world. It kind of upsets me sometimes that we want everything to be black and white. You're either this or you're that. And kind of how we started, Eric, we go down this road of online questionnaires, meetings with doctors and therapists. Oh am, I in do I have an alcohol use disorder? It doesn't matter. Like you are what you are. Do you want to improve in life as there is something that's holding you back. But I've already seen a change, Like the words sober curious is now on the horizon. That's just like alcoholic light, you know. But it really doesn't matter to me. In fact, you know, we think if we come out to our friends and family as an alcoholic, then you know, the stars will fall, our worlds are over. But let me just share this with you guys, and Eric, you might have seen the same. I know you have. I have burned the ships or said I am an alcoholic to over a million people, probably high hundreds of thousands. Yeah, by download numbers, millions. Yeah, I've actually received the opposite more love, more support, more authentic, you go, do you man? Hey, how can I help? It's the exact opposite has happened. I imagine you too, Eric, And the more authentic you are about your story, in owning it and being you and being more rooted in yourself, it doesn't matter what people call you, it doesn't. And you've probably seen the opposite, Like people are like, yeah, Eric, you do you man? Like I wish I could own my story in a fashion that you do.
Yeah.
I think about this question a lot, you know, I talk a lot about recovery. I talk a lot about different mental illnesses, and I think this idea of a diagnosis versus an idea entity are very interesting. Right. I still refer to myself as an alcoholic because to me that means a very specific thing. It just means I can't drink alcohol safely again.
But interestingly, part.
Of what you know made me go to AA less was the fact that there was this constant discussion of what an alcoholic meant, right, and so you know, there would be like, well, you know, we're still all really sick. You know, well we're still a liar, cheating, a thief. Were still this idea that like since I once was quote unquote you know, define myself as an alcoholic, that I had all these character traits that I no longer had, you know, I was like, wait a minute, I don't actually think I'm particularly dysfunctional or sick. I came in the rooms really messed up, but I don't think I'm really that way anymore. And so that idea of sort of what alcoholic meant started to not work for me because I was like, well, identify myself as so much more than an alcohol I actually identify myself much more with everybody in the world than I do a very small subset of people in the world, even though in the beginning that's where I need to identify. And so for me, it's sort of like these labels or diagnoses or identities, I try and think about where are they useful? And then when do they become limited? You know, And for me that's what works. But alcoholic is a shorthand for me, meaning don't be an idiot and pick up another drink eric, Right, Like, as long as I don't forget that fact, it doesn't really matter what I call myself, right, But I don't want to forget that key fact. Because every time I have in the past it has not gone well.
I think a lot of people are pushing sobriety off because the word alcoholic is too big of a word for them to swallow. Like you said, if it's a little too prohibitive for you, you call it whatever you want. Yeah, Laura McCowan addresses it like this, You just ask yourself, are you free? Is alcohol blocked your freedom? You can call it whatever you want. But of course, listeners, if the word alcoholic is just there's too much much of a charge there, Yeah, I agree. And sometimes, like I've been diagnosed things that end in syndrome or disorder or disease, and I I don't even say that. I don't even say that internally in my brain, Like I'm not going to say, oh, I have a syndrome because words have weight. They for sure do, and the unconscious will latch onto that.
Yeah they do.
I mean, I think that's what's so interesting is that oftentimes in the beginning my experience is at the beginning to diagnosis, like being diagnosed as depressed was actually initially helpful because I was like, well, what is going on with me? And then somebody's like here's what it is, and they describe it, and then they were like, and here's the different ways you treat it, like initially really helpful and then over time though, I don't want to be limited by it. And so that's I think where it's interesting. If the identity or label helps you deal with that situation or problem better, great, But the minute that you start to define yourself and your limits of who you are by that thing, to me, that's when it's time to discard it, because then it is no longer empowering, helping, healing, curing, it's limiting. Another guess we've found on the show Catherine Gray. I don't know if you know where. She's out of England. She's delightful and is written about recovery, but hers is even simpler. It's just simply would your life be better without alcohol in it? And that is such another just really great way to look at it, Like who cares what you call it, how you define yourself? Would your life be better if all the bad things that were happening related to drinking weren't happening? And you can move on that foundation.
Without a doubt. And internally, there's a lot of ways to phrase it it is and whatever's the easiest, softest way we've heard that before for you to enter into that world to explore it. Yeah, go for it, because quitting drinking is the one domino that has the capacity to knock every other domino in your life over. It's going to affect everything. So you know, go slow with it, but also don't go too slow with it, because there's a progressive nature of alcoholism or really any addiction of sorts. And you kind of wait, wait a little too long, shall we say?
Yeah? Yeah, I mean, I'm so grateful but having been an opiate addict that I did it in the nineties and not today because it is dangerous out there. So this is a big question. What is addiction or alternately, what causes addiction?
There's one thousand and one answers for this. None of them are right, none of them are wrong. But I'm going to try to summarize it. And I have fun talking about this, I really do. There is a line in the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. This is doctor Gobermante's book on addiction that says most anthropologists agree that there was no record of addiction in pre modern times. There is addiction in the Bible, and there has been, but nothing like we see it today. So what the heck is going on? If it's genetic, you know, genes don't change that fast. And side note with genetics, they still have not found the addiction gene. In fact, they stopped looking for the addiction gene. They've already mapped the whole human genome. There's not a gambling gene. There's not an Amazon Prime shopping gene, there's a there's not a cigarette gene. There isn't And so the genetic thing, maybe genetic loads the gun and the environment pulls the trigger. I think we're a little closer to that. If we distill it to the opposite of addiction is connection, then addiction is disconnection, then I think we're onto something. There is the way we used to live. You know, prior to three or four hundred years ago, the communities were much more intact. Every task that we did meant something to the community. Ourself being, our self worth was more tied to that. So the way we're living today, Instagram, email, this super fast paced, these high salaries. I'm a big fan of capitalism some aspects, but also we're seeing the limitations clearly, and I think addiction is a big part with that. The way we're living today, I think is completely out of balance, and I think it is the environment that is creating such such extreme unrest. I just read that the life expectancy for a white male in America has dropped for like four straight years in a row. There's all kinds of barometers. Addiction is one of them. But mental health, like I said, inflammations, anxiety disorders, all this stuff, it's skyrocketing. So what the heck is going on? I think we have separated ourselves from nature. Eric, there's like this compulsive, obsessive, compulsive disorder by everybody to consume. Right, we have the climate change. We've all heard about this stuff, but can we rein it in it's It's quite interesting. But one more thing with that, the spirits, like the technology to drink or the technology to get an alcohol up to forty percent alcohol like that didn't exist about one hundred years ago. Beer topped out at like three point two percent. This is a couple hundred years ago. Wines we're like six to seven percent, not thirteen percent. You couldn't find, you know, your microbrew a ten percent and drinking was also done more in communal settings a couple hundred years ago, So there's almost like these safeguards, these stop gaps in place to prevent alcoholism from going out of control. But again, I think it's the way we're living. It's we've never been more stressed. It's so competitive. We've got parents like cheating on their kids' SATs to get them into college. Like what's going on with so many of these things right now? But I don't think we labeled it.
All is bad.
Hang with me for just a second. I do think that every human being is going to have to overcome addiction, and I think there are a wave of people that have already done it, like this could be me and you. Eric the buddhas said all of humanity has to cross a river crossing of consciousness, and it wasn't metaphorically spoke about it many times. So today I think we've got some very potent drugs. We got alcohol, we have sugar, we have TV, and we have screens, right cell phones, and I think the cell phone technology, I think that technology addiction is going to be the greatest of our time that everybody is going to have to overcome. And this is finding wholeness externally, looking for wholeness externally, and we're going to be forced to find it internally. And I think there's a wave of us that have already started. And I don't want to say, Eric checkbox, Yep, I'm there, they're not. That's not it at all. But I think there's going to be a wave of humanity that have to really tackle this inner unrest at the individual level. I don't think that the government is going to have the answer to addiction health like I think this is going to be something the individual or small communities are going to have to solve. And I think we'll see us moving back into smaller communities, let's say, off the grid, but where those soul societal structures are more intact. But I think it's an incredibly fascinating topic.
I do, Yeah, I agree.
Also, I want to probe a little deeper there because and you write about this in your book a little bit about at first glance what can seem to be contradictory things, which is this need, as you said, to sort of go inwards and establish our relationship with ourselves on an internal level, right and also remain connected to the people around us. And I think that's what you're saying, right, is that you need to do both those things sort of simultaneously, because it seems to me that, like you know, certain Eastern traditions would focus on, at least the way we've westernized them, going inside, you know, the answers within you. You know, meditate, be quiet, go inwards. Right, that's one extreme. The other extreme is you spend all your life outward, and it seems like and you're write about this in your book, sort of being able to do both right, being able to go inwards and remain connected to others.
I think the word we're going here is balance. There's the yin and the yang, right. We almost have to know both extremes, the good wolf, the bad wolf or whatnot. But it's finding that healthy balance because you're right, one of the other is not going to work. I don't think I could just go sit in a cave and meditate, at least for myself right now and find that inner piece. It just wouldn't work. I need I need that human connection. I have a wonderful wife and I need that connection. But on the flip side, if it's all external and you neglect internally, that inner child's like, yo, what about me? So I think this river crossing of consciousness that the Buddhist speaks about could be just that, it could be balanced, it could be harmony. And there's another theory with that. I know I'll lose some people here, that we are one of the last species out there to enlighten orally to reach full homeostasis with nature. You know, the human beings have been a little out of balance in the last couple hundred years without a species that have been with extinction and climate change, YadA, YadA, YadA. But it still fits in the big picture of it, all right. So I think thousands of years looking back, like whoa humanity had to go through that really rough time, almost like that caterpillar who looks like they're going through extreme dysfunction before emerging as a butterfly. I really hope that's what's going down here.
As we finalize and wrap up here, give me one last piece of advice for somebody who is either early in their recovery journey or even determining whether they should get on the recovery journey.
Okay, burn the ships, burn the ships, and it's got to be done internally. You can look in the mirror yourself and be like, hey, is this really where we're going. You gotta get honest with yourself. Then burn the ships externally. Find a close friend. It doesn't have to be a close friend, but just voicing it, getting it inside to outside in front of a live human being is going to do wonder for you. And that could be just going to a meeting, a chat. There's so many online recovery platforms, but burning the ships is quite impactful because it's honesty. You have to get honest with yourself and get honest with another person. It's not easy. I get it. That's my advice, Eric.
So not everybody's going to be familiar with that phrase burn the ships. So what's that meaning?
I guess you're right. In fifteen nineteen, with bernand Cortes sailed from Cuba and landed on the coast of Vera Cruz in Mexico to conquer the Aztec Empire, which for the previous five hundred years many have tried to conquer the Aztecs. The first thing he did, and this is true, when he got on the coast of Mexico, he said, burn the ships. He burned. I think it was like thirty or forty ships, millions and millions of dollars in today's money. The only way they were going to go back to Spain is if they were victorious, and that's what happened. They won. A long story, but with burning the ships, we have conversations with people that we can't unha those conversations. And like I said earlier, when you reach out for help, you give another person the opportunity to be of service, to be of help which helps them.
Well.
That is a beautiful place for us to wrap up. Thank you so much Paul for coming on, Thanks for sharing your wisdom. We'll have links in the show notes to your podcast to your recovery community. And it was a real pleasure.
Eric, it was a blast, nice chat with you. Thank you very much for having me.
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