Ep. 025 - Odell Warren's Path from Alcoholism to New-Found Health - A Client Success Story
Jul 19, 2023SHOW NOTES
Recently divorced. 40 alcoholic drinks a week. Travelling 4/5 workdays a week. 256 pounds. High blood pressure. Type 2 diabetes.
Odell was not in a good place. In today's episode we dive into an unreal transformation story about Odell Warren, a man who has triumphed over adversity through unwavering resilience and determination. Odell's journey from being a heavy drinker to becoming a marathoner is truly remarkable. His story is a testament to the notion that it’s never too late to transform your life.
In a world where we are constantly looking for quick fixes, his story emphasizes the importance of ACCOUNTABILITY, VULNERABILITY, SELF-ACCEPTANCE, and unwavering DETERMINATION.
The final aspect of our conversation centres around Odell's journey towards embracing fitness. He shares how he leveraged his frequent work travels to stay fit and healthy.
Today, Odell stands as an emblem of optimism, inspiring us with his story of transformation and a newfound sense of inner peace. He urges us to challenge our own narratives and encourages us to envision a healthier, happier version of ourselves.
Join us in this enriching conversation and witness how Odell's inspiring tale is a powerful reminder that our past doesn't define our future.
TRANSCRIPT
Craig Spear:
If you're doubting yourself and you think all is lost, then you are in the right place, because in today's episode I'm joined by a special guest who shows us all that our past does not define our future. Welcome to man in the Arena, your go-to podcast for all things related to health and weight loss for men over 40. Here we discuss strategies that will get you off the sidelines and into the game so you can achieve your optimal health. It's time to lead a legacy of longevity. Hello and welcome to the man in the Arena. Today's a really special episode because I'm welcoming a guest that I've had the privilege of working with for the past two and a half years. His name is Odell Warren, who hails from Texas, via Illinois, and he's a territory manager who works and travels four to five days on the road all over the southwestern United States. Now, when I first met Odell, he weighed over 256 pounds and he was drinking upwards of 40 drinks per week. At the same time, he was going through divorce and, needless to say, his health was not a priority. Cut to two years later and Odell has done a ton of work on himself. Now I'm not going to go into too much detail, because I want Odell to share his success with you, but I will say one of the crowning achievements in our coaching was the Selma to Montgomery 50 mile ultra we did together, which commemorates the civil rights march that took place in 1965. That was an unreal experience, especially when you consider Odell's story. As you can probably tell, I'm super pumped to introduce my special guest and good friend, odell Warren. Odell, it's an honour to have you in the arena, hey.
Odell Warren:
Craig, thanks a lot. I'm glad that you invited me. I'm really excited to be on your podcast and let's go and let's rock.
Craig Spear:
Let's do it All right. Let's pump some people up here and motivate some people, because your story is really unbelievable just being with you along the way and seeing how much you changed and transformed and I think that not only I think. I know that somebody's going to hear this and going to be inspired to go on their own journey. Let's just start before we met and before we started coaching together. Where were you at in your life and what was going on? What were you doing? Maybe just share a bit of your back story so people get to know you a little bit better.
Odell Warren:
Good deal. A couple of years ago, before we started working together, I was going through a divorce, separated, went through a divorce, working a lot. I traveled for work, and also I was drinking a lot, not working out, not taking care of myself, really not taking care of my family. I was more than not drinking a lot, I was drinking very heavily, severely overweight I weighed about 256 pounds. Here again, not taking care of myself, not taking care of my family and drinking a lot. I thought I was in a good place, but really I wasn't in a good place, so it was some dark times then.
Craig Spear:
And so then you're going through all this your divorce, and when you say drinking a lot, kind of give some context there. How much were you drinking and what did that look like day to day?
Odell Warren:
Good deal. Well, start off with Craig. I probably started drinking when I was in seventh grade A couple of years ago. I was drinking probably three to four double gin and sodas daily. Maybe I would take a day off once or twice a week periodically, but I was drinking a lot. So three to four doubles during the week and then on the weekend I would tilt out to about five to six to seven doubles gin and sodas daily, so that I was drinking heavily.
Craig Spear:
Yeah, and remember you saying because obviously travel for work a lot, you're in different states, different cities, at least four to five days a week, and so I know that part of your deal is like you get this per diem, this from your company and that pays for your food and all those sort of things. So would it be such thing that you'd go to work, you meet with your clients and then at the end of the day you'd find yourself kind of in a restaurant and a bar just trying to unwind and kind of pass the time? Is that kind of how, day to day, what it looked like?
Odell Warren:
Correct While I'm on the road at work, visit my customers at the end of the day, go to dinner, or I should say, go drink and have dinner. You know what I mean. So on any given day, Monday through Thursday, when I traveled, especially at Monday through Wednesday when I stayed on the road overnight go to dinner, thermal drink, eat, go back to the hotel, go to sleep. Do it the next day. Go visit customers, take care of my business. Go to a restaurant, sit at the bar, drink and eat.
Craig Spear:
Right, so you're still functioning, like you're still day to day. It's not like this really deep, dark alcoholism, but it's kind of like functional alcoholism day to day. You know is that kind of how you describe it?
Odell Warren:
Yeah, and ironically, way back in the day, my father and I my ex-wife and my mother owned a catering business. We went back home in Illinois for about 17 years. Ironically, my sister God rest her soul called me a functioning alcoholic one day and I was like what? What did you talk about? You don't know what you're talking about. She, literally, and Craig, that was over 25, 26, 27 years ago when she called me a functioning alcoholic. I'd never forget it. I was driving the catering van, she was in it with me, we were driving off to a catering job and I think I was talking crazy about, we were running late or something, and she called me a functioning alcoholic.
Craig Spear:
Wow, so long history here. Right? This isn't just something that happened because of the divorce, that things were going down a bad path. This is just the long-term relationship you've had with alcohol started when, I think you said when you were 14 or something like that yes sir, yes sir.
Odell Warren:
So alcohol was one of my best friends from way back in the day.
Craig Spear:
Yeah Well, I know a lot of guys listen to this, relate to that right, we sort of are tempted by alcohol at a very young age, want to be cool. It's one of those things that's forbidden when we're young. So we're curious about it and then we see older people doing it and there's kind of this increased desire to try it out and then, of course, we go down that path. So definitely not alone in this, and I know a lot of people are going to relate. But what's really fascinating we're going to get into this in a bit is how you've completely changed your relationship with alcohol Before we go there. So, okay, here you are going through divorce, You're on the road a lot, you are over-drinking and that kind of also overeating right, because that's hand-in-hand with over-drinking. You're eating at restaurants pretty much every night on the road, and so here you are kind of in this place like was there an aha moment? Was there a moment where you're just like I got to do something about this, or was it more of a gradual sort of process? How did you start to change and what was the process there? That's a good question.
Odell Warren:
So as we were splitting up and I'm drinking every day, drinking on the road, overeating as you said, drinking on the road, drinking on the weekends, drinking all the time my ex-wife suggested that I sign up for a training that you had and I believe it was for men trying to reduce drinking if I'm correct.
Craig Spear:
Well, no, I remember that it was an eight-week program that I ran. I think it was 2020. And it was just February 2020, we're just kind of introducing my coaching ideas to a group in a group setting, and it was around just overeating over drinking, and so I guess your wife heard about this program through a network that we're a part of, and then she passed that on to you, so you jumped in right.
Odell Warren:
Yes, she suggested that I jump on this program.
Craig Spear:
And you know what you were getting into at that point. No, no, I didn't know what I was getting into.
Odell Warren:
You know, the marriage was over and I'm like I'll do it. You know I don't know what I was trying to do, but no, I didn't know what I was getting into. But I think there had to be something in the back of my mind saying Odell, you probably need to do something.
Craig Spear:
Yeah, and this isn't sustainable. This isn't the path you want to be on.
Odell Warren:
Exactly so I signed up. I signed up for I think it was an eight-week course with you, and when I signed up, it was about not overeating, not over drinking. And so it was quite an experience for me, because once I signed up, I really didn't know if I trusted you. I'm thinking myself who's this guy? Who's this guy trying to tell me what to do? This guy don't know me. Really. Yeah, everything that he's saying. True, I could do this. I know what's happening and so I was negative starting out. I must say let's say resistant.
Craig Spear:
I say you were resistant.
Odell Warren:
Yeah, okay, all right. You say resistant, I say negative. And so, as time went on, for a couple of weeks I didn't trust you, I didn't trust you, but as time went on, I learned to trust you. I figured out that I didn't trust myself. And it wasn't you, it wasn't everybody else, it wasn't my ex-wife, it was me.
Craig Spear:
Totally. I know a lot of guys go there, myself included. Right, we silo ourselves, we try to do it on our own and in the back of our mind is this fear of failure that we're not actually going to do what we need to do, what we know we need to do to accomplish our goals, and so we don't even try or we just sabotage right from the start. And it is a matter of not only surrounding yourself with people who can hold you accountable, who can point out your blind spots AKA a coach or a friend or a mentor or accountability partner, whatever that looks like, which is kind of what we developed early on but then also, you started to kind of see a process. You gained clarity around. There is a path, there is tools that can use, and then you started to build trust in yourself. Right, I want people to hearing this to know like it doesn't happen overnight. It's not always this aha moment or this rock bottom place that you get to. There is challenges even when you start. Do you have someone you can trust, who's in your corner? You know if you're part of a group, does everyone else in this group have the same story of a similar story? It shares similar experience to you. So we get into this coaching, this eight week thing, and I remember your engagement was really low at the beginning, right, you know just that, really doing a lot of the work, not showing up to some of the calls, but ultimately, near the end of the program, you really started to catch your stride, right, you really started to integrate the work that we're doing, which was unbelievable. And so then we went from this kind of group to one-to-one coaching, right, and you said to me, I remember you said what's next? And I said, well, we can coach one-to-one. And you were like, all right, how do we do that? We set it up. And so, you know, we recognized early on in that coaching, all right, here's where you're really challenging is being on the road. Right, having this pattern, this habit of over-drinking three drinks a night, right, no more than three drinks a night because there are triples, right, and really having some dependency there. And so we just went to work on that. We really started with the drinking. And so do you remember, like, what the plan was in terms of how we got you to kind of focus on the drinking? Yeah, craig, and I do remember.
Odell Warren:
But first let me back up. You know you're gonna have aha moments, but then, once you have aha moments, you have to put the strategy in and work that strategy.
Craig Spear:
Yeah, well said yeah.
Odell Warren:
As I think of the Oprah Winfrey show and you know Oprah was big I thought, oh, the aha moment. But then if you have that aha moment and you're all by yourself, it's just like an aha moment and it just passed you really fast. But if you don't have the strategy, if you don't have the foundation, you know what are you gonna really do with that aha moment. And so I want to say that Good point, yeah. So once I started individually coaching with you which I must say it's a blessing and I pray on it every day, it's a blessing that you're in my life, it's a blessing, like once we started looking at my drinking, which I was ashamed to even tell you how much I was drinking, so that was a big hurdle for me. You suggested that, hey, odell, how about if you, just on a couple of days a week, you drink right and what you say is is your drinking protocol?
Craig Spear:
Yeah, yeah, there's some of a protocol, right.
Odell Warren:
Yeah, so I'm the protocol Odell, on Monday, you won't have a drink. On Tuesday, maybe you'll have two On Wednesday, you want, you won't have one. And then I'm like, craig, it's Thursday, I'm at home, it's weekend, and then you say, okay, how many drinks do you want to have on Thursday and Friday? Right? And so you gave me the freedom to say, craig, now I want my three drinks on Thursday, friday and Saturday. And you said, okay, then do that. And so my protocol was set to where on a couple of days I wouldn't drink, and on the days that I did drink, I didn't drink as much as I normally drink, and so it was like a stair step to reduce my drinking, and it took me a while, because on a grading scale at the start from A to F, I was probably at F minus.
Craig Spear:
Right. Well, there's so many good points there. One number one was your vulnerability. Right, you said you were kind of embarrassed to tell me how much you were drinking, but you surrendered that outcome. You let go of that. That was one of the things that we talked about right in the beginning was surrender the outcome, let go of whatever judgments you thought I might have and what other people are gonna think, and just be open and honest. And that was key, because when we set up your protocol, right, we said, okay, monday, this many drinks, tuesday, this many drinks. We set it up for the week. Every week we get on a call and we talk about that, but then the next week, the first thing I'd say, come on, all right, how did you do this week with your protocol? And because you surrendered the outcome, you were vulnerable and open and honest. You could share with me. Hey, I planned so many drinks on a Monday but I went over that, but on Tuesday I went under, and so it was very open and honest. That allowed us to really dive into what challenges you were facing, why you made certain decisions, and what happens in coaching sometimes is there's a lack of honesty and then you can't really get to the root cause. So I commend you for being vulnerable in those moments early on With this guy. You didn't necessarily know and trust, but that was instrumental to your success, right. And so, speaking of your success, like, here we are, we created this protocol and this wasn't just weeks, this was like the early 2020's. And so, right in the middle of the pandemic, right or started a pandemic and so we start to go through this process. Sorry, this was 2021, I'm off by a year. This wasn't like a short-term sort of solution. This was week after week after week, right.
Odell Warren:
Yeah, craig, you know me being a marathoner. This was infinite goal, not a finite goal. It took a couple years to get to where I am right now. Right, a couple years, week after week. Hey O'Dell, how'd you do on your drink protocol? Oh, craig, I did this, did that. What's a little bit better than last week, the following week, hey O'Dell, how'd you do on your drink protocol? Hmm. Craig, I did this, I did that, so a long process. Like I said, aha moment. Okay, I think I need to reduce my drinking, but it takes a while to get to it and the protocol Really help that. On days that I didn't drink, that next morning I'm thinking to myself Wow, I feel pretty good and guess what, I didn't drink anything Right right now.
Craig Spear:
That's a win. Yeah. Well, you know it's kind of looking at these really integral pieces the accountability, the vulnerability piece, the stamina which you kind of talked about, like this ongoing process, showing up every week and doing this work that takes stamina right. Another integral piece was Just this acceptance and not beating yourself up. Yeah, which I think holds a lot of guys back when they do work like this is they beat themselves up, they're self-critical, they judge themselves, which, of course, just makes that work even more difficult. So did you ever go to that place? I remember we talked about this a lot like. Were you able to kind of utilize Some positive self-talk to overcome that?
Odell Warren:
Yet you know, I went to that place on a lot of things. You coached me about not going to that place with my failed marriage, hmm, right, with my overeating, with my over drinking, with several things. As you know, people are more critical on themselves that any shade will give everyone else the blessing and grace, but we'll be so critical on ourselves that it literally just keeps us in handcuffs. And so if I would mess up a day and drink, I would be critical on myself, I would be hard on myself, I would sit in my empty house and think about all the bad things that I've done To get to this place of a failed marriage, mm-hmm. And when you coached me through not being critical, giving myself patience and grace, that really opened up the world to me. That really opened up my eyes to me. Not being critical, not being so hard on myself.
Craig Spear:
Yeah, well, it goes hand in hand with that stamina piece. We need that in order to keep doing the work, otherwise we're just, you know, building ourselves an even bigger wall to go over. So here we are, we do this work, and then I remember you got to this point where it went from 40 drinks a week down to under 20 drinks a week, down to under 10 drinks a week. We just kept shifting that protocol and reducing your desire for drinking and eventually you just got to a point where you're just like I don't even see the need for this anymore. Right, yeah, just doesn't align with who I want to be and where I want to go in my life. Can you kind of share with the listeners what that looked like?
Odell Warren:
Yeah, so to your point 40 drinks, 30 drinks, 20 drinks a week. And then one evening I thought to myself I don't need this. I can watch a basketball game without drinking, I can be out with my cousins without drinking and on top of that I can save a crap ton of money.
Craig Spear:
Oh yeah, a lot of money. 40 drinks a week adds up it adds up, it adds up.
Odell Warren:
And so, during that time, when I discovered that I didn't need that gin and soda, you know, I had to think about what that gin and soda led me to A failed marriage, not being true, not being honest, being a liar, being tired every morning, being severely overweight, eating like a crazed madman and that drinking led me to all that. And so I decided on June 26th what 2022? That I was done with gin and soda. And, as of June 26th of 2022, as of now, I haven't had a drink since. I decided that nope, that's it, I'm done with it. And, with your help, and with the protocol, with that drinking protocol that got me to that point, because I discovered during the work that I didn't need that booze. I didn't need it, right.
Craig Spear:
Yeah, it's amazing transformation. I'm so happy and excited for you that you've undergone this transformation, and just to be a part of that has been so amazing, and so I'm grateful for you to allow me to be part of that and then now share this with the listeners of this podcast, who see that it's possible they can go from where you were, for example, and get to this place. But I do want to highlight you made that decision, but it wasn't just like all right, I'm done. There was still a lot of doubt, there was still a lot of resistance, because I remembered you had a vacation with your cousins coming up and that was very much something that you were struggling with because you were concerned about how they were going to perceive you having this decision, and so there was a lot of still desire and temptation there and there was still a lot of like oh, maybe I should just this weekend, right, so yeah, yeah, and so my cousins was in July, the month after I stopped drinking.
Odell Warren:
And, craig, I want to take you back. I've been drinking since I was in seventh grade. Seventh grade, 13 or 14 years old I'm blessed to say I'll be 60 next week, wow, so I have drank for a long time. So I'm preparing for this vacation with my cousin, and we all like to get together and have a good time, having a good time. For me yet to understand is drinking, right. And so I was very afraid, I was very afraid of how my cousins would accept me not drinking, and I was more so afraid of how I'm not going to drink but being a bad ass. I am from your coaching. I made it through the weekend and they kind of jugged at me a little bit, they kind of poked at me a little bit, but, being an American theater, you know I'm used to going through, pay and survive, right, and so, as I said, they kind of poked at me a little bit, but I went through that weekend without a drink. Without a drink, yeah, and I'm still standing.
Craig Spear:
Oh, yeah, and that was just the sign to me like, okay, he's doing this, that he's no turning back. Right, yeah, and we had a stopover drinking coach on a couple of weeks ago Patrick Fox and he talked about these sober firsts. So you had that first get together with your cousins where you were sober, and there was yes, you know this situation where you usually drink, and this time you did it and you realized, hey, I can do this, I don't need to drink to have fun because you had a blast. Right, yes, you still got to connect with your cousins and go on vacation and have this experience. And so that opened the door to again this continuation of sobriety a year long, over a year now, of you not having any drinks. So just a phenomenal transformation. And you're just getting started, because now you've parlayed all of this weight loss which is what over 60 pounds at this point from one of these drinks a week down to zero, and now you're training to qualify for the Boston Marathon at 60 years young. So here you are. Right, training, yeah, complete 180. Tell everyone kind of what your life looks like these days.
Odell Warren:
Yeah. So here you get, craig. I'm blessed to have you in my life, to have a coach, and I think it's so phenomenal to say that I have a coach, you know. But I know that Kobe Bryant had a coach in Shaq and Bird and Magic Tiger Nicholas, and I know that CEOs and Fortune 500 have coaches. So what does my life look like now? I am truly blessed. I am an avid runner and I train my body all the time. I train by good, good sleep, eating clean, proper hydration and working out.
Craig Spear:
Yeah, I'm working out just like 60 miles a week working out 60 miles a week working out.
Odell Warren:
And the sad thing about it is I look at people now that's working out 80 miles a week, I'm like damn, I got to get to 80. I got to get to 80. Also, in my career, as we talked about, I travel a lot. So I'm in sales and I'm highly blessed because, with your coaching and being coach, I've been the number one sales guy in my company two out of the last four years and I'm going to be number one this year with coaching. Right, with coaching, how do my life looks now? I went from 256 pounds to 195 pounds training now to qualify for Boston at the right young age of 60. It's just amazing. I'm excited. One thing that I always think about is surrender the outcome, surrender the outcome. When I, when I vacations with my cousin, I basically surrendered the outcome. Either they're going to like it or they're not. This is what I'm going to do. In the past, craig, I lied to my ex-wife but I didn't know about surrender to the outcome. I didn't know about that.
Craig Spear:
No, and then you had this situation Remember we coached around this a couple of weeks ago just like having tough conversations, right, yeah, and that came up again. It's like surrender the outcome right, because we assume what's going to happen, how people are going to react, and so maybe we don't have that tough conversation, we withhold it, and then things just grow and get bigger. You were able to kind of step up, have that tough conversation and that worked out really well right, exactly, and tough conversations is what we're going to experience as humans.
Odell Warren:
There's going to be tough conversations in every walk of our life. There's going to be obstacles, but what's going to happen is going to happen. But yes, that's where I am now 195 pounds, alcohol-free, number one sales guy in the company, and all this is because of the model that we've talked about.
Craig Spear:
Yeah, use that model. Yeah, use it because the circumstance hasn't changed. You still travel four to five days a week. You're on the road, you're in different states right, you're all new to the place, so that hasn't changed, right? Because a lot of people will come to me and say, craig, I travel for business. It makes it really difficult to eat well and to not drink, and I always use you as an example to say, hey, coach, this man down in Texas and he's a prime example of where you can get to. But you got to change your mindset, you got to change the way that you think about your circumstance and you've changed around to look at it like I'm on the road. This is like the perfect situation for me to eat well and get my sleep and train, no distractions. I'm in business mode here.
Odell Warren:
And being on the road, I have a different gym every night. I don't even have to pay for a gym at home, because I'm in gyms all the time, because I'm in the hotel.
Craig Spear:
Yeah, exactly yeah. So you turn to disadvantage to your advantage. So you know, oh Dale, you've done such a beautiful job here of explaining to people just kind of where you were. It wasn't easy, but you were able to step up to the challenge, change your life for the better, and here you are just pursuing so many really positive things. I'm so grateful that you were able to come on and share this with everybody. What is one last golden nugget, one last piece of wisdom that you can share with people listening to this, that then they can take on and kind of ponder for the rest of the day?
Odell Warren:
Yeah, that's awesome. And, craig, thank you so much for inviting me. I will continue to say that I'm blessed and highly favored to have you in my life and I'll truly say that, and I'll say that. And I talk about my coach, my Canadian coach, all the time. Hey, little Dale, yeah, I just do. I just do, because we have to know when a blessing is put in front of you, you have to recognize it, you have to recognize it. So what I will leave with the listeners is that you asked me a long time ago hey, how does the new O'Dell look? What does the new O'Dell want in his life? Don't talk about that double gin and soda O'Dell. Don't talk about that, the liar, or the cheating O'Dell, or the overweight O'Dell. But what does the new O'Dell want? And so I said, man, I want to qualify for Boston, I want to live in a certain area where I live, I want to lose weight. That's the new O'Dell. So I challenge people that what does the new you want? What does the new you look like? And once you determine that, once you decide that, then go for it and surrender the outcome. That's what I say.
Craig Spear:
That's amazing, man. I got goosebumps O'Dell. That's brilliant, awesome. Well, I looked for somebody.
Odell Warren:
I was so little about it. I heard something.
Craig Spear:
Oh, but the passion behind it, that's what it's all about. I love it. All right, my friend. Well, thank you again. I appreciate you too, and I'm so excited for what you got coming up. If you're ready to step inside the arena and change the trajectory of your health, head on over to the spear methodcom and download my free guide to learn simple and effective strategies on how to optimize your health today.
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