June 01, 2024

Sobriety Myths with the late Eusebius McKaiser

34 minutes

I’m recording this exactly a year after the death Eusebius McKaiser died at the tragically young age of 44.

He was a national treasure for South Africans – an author, a journalist and broadcaster. One of the smartest public intellects in the country he was a fierce defender of truth and justice as many politicians found out to their cost!

He was also a warm and generous friend.So instead of the planned episode I wanted to say a few words about my friend Eusebius and re-release one of the podcast interviews he did for Tribe Sober.

The story starts back in 2001 when I relocated from the UK to SA. I started to watch national tv, trying to get my bearings in this beautiful and complex country. I spotted Eusebius on a talk show and was impressed. I read a couple of his books and listened to him on the radio. I discovered he’d been to Oxford University on a scholarship and had won a global award as a Debating Champion.

I first met him in person more than a decade ago…

Ironically I was drunk at the time!

We were at the Franschhoek Literary Festival where I’d been drinking wine most of the day. This didn’t stop me dragging Long Suffering Husband to the Elephant and Barrel Pub in the evening.

I spotted Eusebius in the bar. He was with deep in conversation and I didn’t want to interrupt.

However husband knew I was a fan and he nudged me towards him – not quite sure what Eusebius thought about this drunken Brit lurching at him but he was very kind.

For obvious reasons I don’t remember much about that conversation but that was the evening that our unlikely but enduring friendship was born.

I finally ditched the booze in 2015 and set up Tribe Sober. Eusebius signed up for our Dry January Challenge and one of the mailers included my Goodbye to Alcohol letter – he asked me to come to Cape Talk and read it out on his Show.

So I did and we got plenty of calls from people who knew they needed to say Goodbye to Alcohol. I’ll put a link to that radio program in the shownotes.

Apart from reading my letter we raised more than R10,000 for Earthchild within 30 minutes. Just like me he loved the work done by NGO Earthchild and for the last 8 years he helped me to fundraise more than R300,000 which enabled more than 1000 underprivileged children to get a year of yoga and lifeskill classes.

I then became a regular on his show and many of our current and past members found us via Eusebius. He loved the work we did at Tribe Sober and often promoted us on his social media.

He came to two of our workshops in Joburg. The first one as a participant and the second one as my co-facilitator.

We looked out for each other - he coached me to be a better speaker on the radio and I convinced him to start his own podcast when he left Cape Talk.

Have a listen to this episode we recorded about 18 months ago

In this Episode

The sober curious movement is growing – we have an endless variety of AF drinks, many online sobriety groups and even our own magazine Hola Sober.

Eusebius believes that people should be free to make “bad choices” in life but did agree with me that education is important. Alcohol is a legal drunk which damages our health and drinkers need to be aware of that.

When tobacco advertising was banned the information about the link with lung cancer was all over the media – if alcohol advertising was banned we would hear a lot more in the media about the link between alcohol and 7 different types of cancer.

Women need to know that drinking more than 3 glasses of wine a week will raise their breast cancer risk by 15%

We tackled a couple of sobriety myths – first of all the myth that we can’t have fun without alcohol – the truth is that once you have navigated those early difficult months of sobriety then it’s easy to have fun without booze – and lovely not to have to pay the price of a hangover the next day! Our subconscious minds have been convinced by a combination of marketing and peer pressure that we need alcohol to enjoy ourselves – to deprogram this thinking we need to spend a few months socialising without alcohol – its not easy but treat it as a challenge and you will get there – your subconscious will eventually get it!

The second myth we busted was the myth that we need the buzz of booze to be creative – Eusebius wrote some of his early essays when on his way down from heavy drinking sessions but feels he has done some of his best writing since he’s been sober.

We talked about the social pressure to drink which is relentless and hard to cope with when we are in the early stages of sobriety – alcohol really is the only drug we have to justify NOT taking

That’s why CHALLENGES are so great – especially our January Challenge – we can just say “I’m raising money for charity by doing a Dry January” – nobody can really argue with that one!

We get more confident dealing with peer pressure to drink as time goes by and eventually many of us are proud of our sobriety and eager to talk about it!

Eusebius always maintains that it’s not our responsibility to make other people feel comfortable about their drinking and is quite happy to be rude to people who interrogate him about his sobriety!

We talked about dependency and I explained that I didn’t even realise what trouble I was in until I tried to cut down – and couldn’t.

That’s another reason challenges are great – its an opportunity to test your dependency – if you can get through a month without booze easily then you are fine – if not then you may need to make some changes!

Do a challenge at least twice a year to keep your eye on your level of dependence.

A challenge is also useful if you want to cut down your drinking – low risk levels are just one and a half bottles of wine a week (or 6 beers) – so do a challenge, have a month off the booze and then it will be easier to reset your drinking pattern.

Eusebius stressed that the Earthchild project helps children to find a moment of peace in their difficult lives. Yoga may be perceived as a middle class pastime but in fact the postures and the breathing bring a sense of calm to children who grow up surrounded by gang violence and poverty.

We concluded with a few tips and benefits of sobriety:-

Eusebius main benefit which he wasn’t even expecting has been the time he has regained now he no longer drinks – he loves getting up early at the weekend and getting on with his day

His tip was to stock up on AF drinks – Dry January Challengers get a discount from DN.co.za

My benefit was sleep – as drinkers we get only 2 cycles of REM sleep (we need 7) – over the years we build up a permanent sense of fatigue if we drink – even a month off the booze will boost our energy levels

My tip was to find your people – its very hard to change your drinking alone so join tribe sober!

So I do hope we have inspired you to sign up for the January Challenge

If you are listening to this and it's not January don't worry - we've got you covered - all you need to do is to go to our tribesober.com and hit Join Our Tribe and we'll put you on our 30 day starter challenge for new members.

More info

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