Sept. 24, 2024

Quitting Alcohol and Finding Energy with Duncan Bhaskaran Brown

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In this episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, host Curveball sits down with Duncan Bhaskaran Brown, an inspiring advocate for a healthier lifestyle. Duncan shares his transformative journey of quitting alcohol, smoking, and junk food, and how these changes have dramatically improved his life. He discusses the importance of helping others not just to stop drinking but to start living fully.
Listen in as Duncan delves into the impact of alcohol on productivity and employee well-being, offering insights on how businesses can support their staff in drinking less. He also touches on the surprising findings about the portrayal of alcohol in media and how societal norms influence our perceptions and behaviors.
Duncan's latest book, Real Men Quit, is a must-read for men looking to reassess their relationship with alcohol. He also shares his passion for Morris dancing and how it has enriched his life beyond the bottle.
Don't miss this enlightening conversation that promises to motivate and inspire you to live the life you truly want.

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> Curtis Jackson>Welcome, to the living the dream podcast with curveball. if you believe you can achieve Chee Chee, welcome, to the living the dream with Curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire.

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> Curtis Jackson>Today I am joined by Arthur Duncan Basqueren. He's going to be talking to you about how, he quit alcohol and how he can show you how to get your energy up and live the life that you want. So, Duncan, thank you so much for joining me today.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>It is my absolute pleasure to be here.

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> Curtis Jackson>Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>So, my name is Duncan Basquerand Brown.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>I live just outside Oxford with one, beautiful wife, one amazing looking daughter, and a very, very average bonsai tree. And like you alluded to in your introduction, what I spend most of my day doing is not really helping people to stop drinking. What I spend my time doing is helping them to start living.

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> Curtis Jackson>Okay, so why do you feel what you're doing is so important and so needed in today's society?

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>So, I mean, my own experience with alcohol is not really, particularly pretty. You know, it took me to a lot of places where I didn't really want to go, made me the kind of person that I didn't really want to be. And then when I stopped drinking, you know, the change was, it was huge. I mean, it was night and day, the amount of energy and concentration and focus and peace and joy that I got when I stopped drinking. You know, it was amazing. And part of me sort of thinks I'd be a bit of an idiot if I tried to keep that all to myself. You know, I gotta, I gotta share that with people. And unfortunately, problems with alcohol are, ludicrously common.

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> Curtis Jackson>Well, I know you were drinking, smoking, and also eating a lot of junk food, and you stopped all that. So, you know, kind of tell us about that.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>Yeah, so I suppose I should stress I didn't do that all at the same time. for my journey was this kind of period, about four years. I started off by stopping smoking and then I stopped drinking. And then finally I sorted out my diet. So I think that's something that's really important to stress two people. We kind of think that when you stop doing something, it's this one moment in time. But actually, if you look at a car, stopping a car is not actually a single moment, is it? I mean, yes, there's the single moment where it's comes completely to rest, but actually, there's a lot before that isn't there. There's, you know, anticipating that you need to stop noticing that you need to do something, and then applying your foot to the brake and then gently slowing down and then reaching that point, that you actually stopped. And I think that's something that we often miss in modern life, is that actually, you know, it's a process and it takes time and it happens over the course of years. And, you know, to an extent, my story is about stopping drinking, but actually stopping smoking and sorting my diet out were very much a part of that journey.

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> Curtis Jackson>Well, what do you feel like businesses can do to stop alcohol from draining their employee production?

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>So there's obviously this huge connection between business and alcohol. you know, so much of the way things are celebrated, the way events are run, the way people are rewarded, you know, so much of it is tied up with alcohol. And that's not really surprising. I mean, we live in a society where the vast majority of people drink, so of course it's going to kind of bleed over into the business world. But I think a lot of people, you know, they're not really aware of the impact that alcohol can have, even at relatively low levels. So you think, two drinks. I think, two drinks, that's nothing, Duncan, you know, that's not going to cause any problems, is it?

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>But actually, two drinks is enough to reduce the quality of your sleep by about 24%. And, that's the quality of your sort of your deep sleep. You know, your rem sleep, where you process the information of the day, lay down information, you kind of deal with the emotions of the day. So you're really reducing your ability to, recharge from the day. But then again, those two drinks will also increase your cortisol levels by around 18%. And that, I mean, I'm sure your listeners know that cortisol is the stress hormone. And that, I think, is one of the real ironies of alcohol that a lot of people think, oh, you know, I drink because it helps me deal with stress.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>And if that was, of course, true, it would reduce your cortisol levels, not increase them. So even drinking at that kind of moderate level, it is having an effect on people. so I think the first thing that companies need to do is realize that actually it does have an effect, and it has a fairly immediate effect. And if you don't sleep so well and you're more stressed, you aren't going to be working as well. Your concentration is going to be off, your energy is going to be low. You're going to be distracted.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>So alcohol does have this effect on people's, productivity.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>and I think becoming aware of that and then starting to open a conversation about how we can do things differently, how we can, run events and reward people and celebrate in a slightly different way, but also how companies can actually support their staff to drink less. Because most people who drink actually do want to drink less. some research recently put the figure at 72%. 72% of drinkers want to drink less. and companies have got a great opportunity to help people do that.

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> Curtis Jackson>So what group does the World Health Organization recommend should be checked annually for alcohol use.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>So the World Health Organization convened a panel of experts, a little while ago, and they looked at a lot of different, risk factors that make you more likely to develop a problem with alcohol. And then they identified certain high risk groups. And I think that's one of the most surprising things, is that actually, they identified business executives as one of the high risk groups. And a lot of people, when I tell them that, they sort of think I'm being a bit silly. But actually, all of the risk factors are, there.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>Stress and alcohol, are very much tied up in our society. There is this prevailing illusion of truth around alcohol helping you to deal with stress. And, of course, the higher up in business you get, the more stress you tend to be subject to. But also, there's this correlation between high performers and high earners and drinking.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>I think a lot of people, their image of somebody who has a problem with drinking is, of course, somebody who doesn't have a home and doesn't have a job, and doesn't have a driving license. But that really isn't the case.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>80% of the people that have a problem with drinking have a job as well, and many of them are actually quite successful. So the more affluent you are, the more you tend to drink. So the higher up you get in an organization, the more likely it is that the, people are going to be drinking. So something like, I think it was 96% of the highest earning people in the United states drink, and compared to the general population, which is more like about 80% of the population.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>So there's a lot more drinking going on. And actually, a very revealing statistic that effectively, on any given day, 40% of your high earning graduates are likely to have drunk last night, which is pretty much half of them, isn't it? So any day that you go into work, there's a 50 50 chance that anybody who's high up in your organization will have had a drink, and that is absolutely going to have an effect. So, for me, it makes perfect sense that the World Health Organization recommends that business executives are, ah, screened annually for their alcohol use.

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> Curtis Jackson>So you became obsessed with the portrayal of alcohol on streaming services such as Netflix. Tell us about that and why you became obsessed with that.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>I think the thing is, I always had these ideas about drinking, and drinking makes you tough. That was definitely a, part of my life when I was growing up. I also believed that drinking made you very creative. And when I stopped, when I stopped drinking, part of the process of getting free of it was removing these kind of false beliefs, you know, questioning them, asking, are they true? but, you know, looking at them at a deeper level as well, and saying, like, honestly, is that belief serving me? Is it helping me become the person that I want to be?

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>And once I'd got through doing all of that, I started to wonder where these beliefs had come from.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>So I started looking into. Looking into it. And actually, if you sort of, like, if you really watch the tv, with an open mind, you will start to see a lot of alcohol.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>So it kind of all got reached a point when, there was an article published in the british medical Journal about smoking on Netflix. And what they found was that 74% of shows, on Netflix, depict smoking, which is a very, very high percentage. And I do a lot of work with smokers as. As well. So I talk a lot about some of the shows on Netflix when I'm working with people. And one of them was Bridgerton.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>And in the, after the first series in Bridgerton came out, and before the second series came out, this report hit the BMJ. And I think that affected, the amount of smoking that was in the second series of Bridgerton. I mean, there still is, in, fact, they've just launched the third series, and there still is smoking in Bridgerton, but there's less of it than there was in the first series. And that kind of made me think a little bit. But what I also noticed was there seemed to be more drinking. So I scratched my head for a little bit and thought, well, let's test it. Let's do an interval coding study and find out, you know, how much drinking there is on Netflix. So we picked 37 Netflix original shows, branded, 15 and 18. and we studied them. this is my idea of science, by the way, watching tv. And what we found was that 76 and a half percent, 86 and a half percent of them had, alcohol. In them. And that kind of staggered me a little bit because it's much. It's actually higher than the amount of smoking. And I thought there was a lot of smoking.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>But what really surprised me was where in the shows that, the drinking was depicted.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>Ah, it averaged out to almost exactly ten minutes, which how your listeners are now going, wow, ten minutes, Duncan, that makes so much sense. But actually, if you look at product, placement, if you look at the theory behind, putting products into dramas to promote them, the thing is, they always talk about ten minutes in being the sweet spot. Because, actually, that's all makes a bit of sense, doesn't it?

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>You've got into the drama enough that you. You've almost drifted into that made up world, but you're not so wrapped up in it that you won't notice it. So, in terms of product placement, ten minutes is absolutely the sweet spot, which is, incidentally, where typically, Netflix will put the consumption of alcohol. So, you know, that really is just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, I could honestly talk for about 45 minutes about the portrayal of alcohol in the media. There's so much of it. But I think it helps people to know that, you, know, we are being influenced. Even when we don't think we're being influenced, we are being sold these messages about alcohol and toughness, alcohol and sophistication, alcohol and power.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>And the very good news is, it is a little bit like that pill in the matrix, isn't it? You know, once you've seen it, you can't unsee it. so if you start watching with a little bit more awareness, you catch it pretty quickly and you become a lot less vulnerable to it.

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> Curtis Jackson>So you say that stopping drinking is the one area of life that isn't dominated by men. Tell us what you mean by that.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>Yeah, so, drinking is very definitely dominated by men. So the World Health Organization found that basically 75% of the alcohol worldwide is consumed by men. So if you go into a bar, three out of every four drinks are going to be drunk by men. and, you know, that means it's not really that surprising that men end up with more problems around drinking. So, you are about two to three times more likely to develop a drinking problem if you're a man. So, in the UK, if you are a white man, about 30% of white males in the UK develop a problem with drinking, which is basically one in three. And nobody explained that to me. Nobody told me that the odds when I started drinking were one in three. As to whether I would develop a problem with it. So it is. I mean, it's not exclusively a male problem, but it is very much, a male problem.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>However, the people that are doing something about it tends to be women. There are a lot of really amazing women out there who are doing some fantastic things in the space. You know, they're doing a. A really good job of promoting sobriety or moderation, sober curiosity, 99% sober, all of that kind of stuff they're doing. Doing really good work promoting that. But the men, well, not so much. So we got more of a problem, but, we're doing less about it. So that's, I think, one of the really sad things that, you know, men, we tend to get everywhere, but this is the one area where we really, really do need to be doing a lot more. so that's why I wrote my most recent book, real men quit. because I wanted to write something that was specifically aimed at, ah, men.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>Because there are a lot of great books about stopping drinking out there, but none of them tend to be really trying to meet men where they're at. Most of them don't have sports in it. very few of them have James Bond. most of them don't have star wars. And most of them don't have a whole heap of bad jokes, because blokes, we love a bad joke, don't we?

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> Curtis Jackson>Yeah. Go ahead and tell us about your book. Tell us where we can get it and what we can expect when we read it.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>So, it's called real men quit. And if you just put real men and quit into Amazon, then, you know, you will absolutely find it. I didn't realize at the time that the title is composed of very simple, very short words. So, even if maybe you've had a drink, you can still find it online. What can you expect from it? So, it does a couple of things. First off, it helps you get to grips with your beliefs around alcohol. So it will, help you to examine, sort of identify them and bring them to light, and then examine them and say, you know, is it true? Does alcohol make me look sophisticated, or have I just watched James Bond one too many times? and then it will help you sort of work your way through the thought process. A little bit of, you could call it, dealing with the cravings, but I prefer to think of cravings simply as thoughts. So, it helps you work your way through the thoughts. And what I have found with people is if they. If they get the beliefs right, and they get the thoughts right, then the actions follow. However, most of the time, what we.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>What we tend to do is we tend to focus on the behavior. and we hope the thoughts and the beliefs catch up, and they often don't. So, yeah, grab yourself a copy of real men quit and do it the right way round, with jokes, included.

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> Curtis Jackson>So tell us you like to do some Morris dancing. Tell us what that is.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>Yeah, so Morris dancing is a, sort of traditional kind of english folk dancing.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>I suppose if you were to picture the sort of traditional british village scene, you know, thatched roof, little cottages, sunny, day, with a big green in the middle of the, of the village, that that is exactly where you would find Morris dancers. And the way we dress is, we wear white trousers, white shirts. There's lots of ribbons going on, there's lots of bells. we have hats with, a flowers in them. And then we wave hankies, around, which, I mean, let's face it, that's kind of weird, isn't it? and we, we dance to traditional english folk music. And honestly, it's a lot of fun. I mean, I'm not sure how much the audience enjoy it, but I definitely enjoy dancing. The thing is, it is a little bit associated with alcohol. So a lot of people that dance drink. And certainly when I started, I drank quite a lot. And when I stopped drinking, I was a little bit nervous as to whether I would enjoy myself quite as much, whether it would be the same, actually. I was wondering whether I would be able to do it or not, and what I found. So I went out with the guys a couple of times because I'd kind of already agreed to, And I didn't want to let them down. And, I quite quickly realized that. Do you know what?

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>I quite enjoy dancing. I quite enjoy showing off. I quite enjoy the exercise. I quite enjoy the guys that I hang around with. I enjoy their friendship. I enjoy the sense of community. I like being a part of a, tradition, something that is much bigger than myself. So there's all of these things about Morris dancing that I hadn't actually realized. That was what I enjoyed about it. It was never really about the drinking. It was always about those things. And I think what I've found over the years, working with so many people, is that there's so much in life that we think it's about the alcohol, but actually it's about the people.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>It's about the place, it's about what you're doing. It's about the connection and the community far more than it is about the beer.

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> Curtis Jackson>Tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that people need to know about.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>So at the moment, we're working, very hard to sort of help organizations and companies to become a bit more alcohol aware. So I think it is an area of business where there is, quite frankly, a lot of opportunity to make some money, not by selling alcohol, but by actually helping your employees to reduce the amount that they're drinking and to gain a better relationship with alcohol. So the kind of things that we work on is, yeah, you know, that productivity piece that we talked about earlier, helping people to just perform better at work.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>But that also seeps into a lot of other areas.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>If you look at the effects that alcohol has on things like serotonin, it reduces empathy, which, makes relationships a little bit, harder. So actually, it can kind of improve relationships, it can improve morale, it can improve engagement. So all of these things that businesses are very kind of focused on, it can really help with. But actually, we've been doing more and more work in the kind of equality and diversity, area because, you know, it is a big part of inclusion. If you have a culture which has got a lot of drinking in it, you are excluding a lot of people. So there are very many reasons to why people never drink alcohol.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>Probably the one that springs to mind for most people is religion.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>You know, everybody knows that people, who follow, the islamic faith don't drink alcohol.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>But actually, quite a lot of Christians don't drink alcohol.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>Many Hindus won't drink. Same with Buddhists. So there are a lot of different religious reasons. There are also really reasons, that revolve around race.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>So people of east asian origin might lack the enzyme, that helps them to digest alcohol. So it gives them a real problem.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>Then you can get into all of the physical and mental health reasons why people stop drinking. you can look at the gendered issues. So a lot of women stop drinking when they're trying to conceive or when they're pregnant. Many women start stop drinking around the menopause as well, because the effects of the menopause are massively exacerbated by drinking. and also the burden of caring falls unequally upon women. and if you are caring for children or if you're caring for elderly parents, you know, that's not always compatible with drinking a lot. So I think there's a lot of issues around diversity that alcohol has quite a profound impact on. And people aren't really talking about it. So I'm really excited about the work that we're doing to help kick off that conversation, huh? To help companies become more alcohol aware and more profitable, but also happier, healthier places to work as well.

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> Curtis Jackson>Go out your website so people can keep up with everything that you're up to.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>So I am really easy to find online if you can spell basquerame brown, but most people can't even pronounce it. So, what I think is easiest for people to do is if they just put getover dot UK into the Internet, that will take you to a bit of my website and as a bit of a gift for your listeners. on that page, they'll be able to download my last book, which is called get over indulgence. They can grab a PDF copy of that, or kindle, or if they can stand listening to me for 3 hours and 45 minutes, you know, they can, they can download the audio track as well.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>and that's, honestly, you know, it's a very light hearted book. It's just kind of a little bit of, a little bit of my journey. There's not a lot of educational learning in it. It is mostly just a, a funny and entertaining story. I mean, you might accidentally learn something, but I don't want to put you off by saying that it's just, it's just a nice, pleasant little read. and as I say, you can get a free copy of that at getover Dot UK. And that is a bit of my website. So you can find out, you know, about all of the stuff that we do. You can find me on the socials there as well. I'm pretty busy on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook. And, you know, if you've got any questions, queries or comments, please get in touch. I love talking about this stuff.

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> Curtis Jackson>Okay, close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to touch on that you would like to talk about, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>There's one thing that I would love everybody to tattoo across their heart, and, that is that you are enough. You know, you don't need cigarettes, you don't need alcohol, you don't need junk food. There's so many things in life that you don't need because you are enough. You have everything inside you that you need to live a, ah, happy, fulfilled, meaningful, enjoyable life. So, yeah, never ever forget that you are enough.

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> Curtis Jackson>All right, ladies and gentlemen, you are enough.

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> Curtis Jackson>getover UK, please follow rate review share this episode to as many people as possible. Jump on your favorite podcast app. Give us a review. Give us a follow.

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> Curtis Jackson>If you have any guests or suggestion topics, Curtis Jackson, 1978 T.net is the place to send them. As always, thank you for listening. And Duncan, thank you so much for joining us today.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>It's an absolute pleasure. Thank you.

00:24:55.875 --> 00:25:03.614
> Curtis Jackson>For more information on, the living the Dream podcast, visit www.djcurvefball.com.

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> Curtis Jackson>until next time, stay focused on living the dream.

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> Duncan Basquerand Brown>Dream.