You're listening to this naked mind with Annie Grace. Hi this Naked Mind podcast I'm here with Steve. Hi Steve how are you?

I'm doing wonderful Andy how about yourself? I'm doing good, really good. It's so nice to have. So good to see you again. Thank you. You too. So why don't you sort of take us back to the beginning in your journey with alcohol. Where did it all start for you?

Yeah, I started at home. You know, alcohol was modeled for me at a pretty young age, both my grandfather, my father, kind of everybody that was around you know drinking was

celebrated then when I went to college you know it was a big deal with everybody I

hang out with. And, you know, we had a lot of fun and I really started mostly in college, but then from there, you know, I graduated and started

build my career and actually slowed down quite a bit. Although, you know, in

financial services, alcohol is kind of everywhere and and I'll tell you more about that a little bit.

So it was pretty much in every event that we went to and everything we did and every golf outing. So it was always around. I will say what I did

drink over those years I was almost always the life of the party and I went pretty hard in the paint.

But I was still, you know, spending quite a bit of time where I didn't drink during the week. I was working hard, I was building my career, I was becoming a leader of my community and you know really at my nose to the grindstone for a long period of time and then it over decades it became

more and more prevalent in my life until one day I woke up and it was

omnipresent meaning that it was becoming an everyday habit and that you know every time I turned around in the life that I had built for myself

with every friend group every social activity every work activity there was alcohol and it was just surrounding me and you know me if you will.

So that's a short version of a 40 year tale.

Yeah, yeah, I relate to so much of that.

I mean, I was also in financial services, sort of,

I was on the marketing side for banking and then foreign currency and that was kind of my career was always in that world and yeah I remember the the whining and dining and especially pre 2008 there was I mean it was just and

I mean it was just as heavy booze it was post 2008, but pre 2008,

pre 2008, especially I was working for a huge bank,

one of the biggest in the world.

And the sort of corporate team building events

were, I mean, not only were they kind of,

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