Andy Delderfield- Alcohol Free Runners

This week we were joined by Andy Delderfield, the founder of Alcohol Free Runners. Although Andy and David only met a little over a year ago through one of the co-founders of Oner Year No Beer, they immediately hit it off and made a firm friendship. 

Andy’s story is that having travelled and finally settled in Spain, he began to enjoy the ex-pat lifestyle a little bit too much - spending the weekends drinking solidly and feeling like crap for the rest of the week.

As a result he was overweight and depressed and his relationship with his family was suffering.

He discovered the One Year No Beer Movement and after several hiccups has not had a drink in 4 years.

During that time he has become a lot healthier, lost loads of weight and now runs ultra marathons. During lockdown he ran a marathon without leaving his house and has also completed the London and Valencia marathons. However his biggest achievement was a multi-day ultra-marathon across the arctic circle.

David at time of recording is on a streak of being sober, and the benefits seem to be immense. Energy, control, and better sleep. 

However, Volker loves his bottle of red on a Friday night, making homemade pizza. Since recording the episode he is trying to break the habit of ‘red wine being default’. 

As Andy pointed out, society fuels drinking alcohol. We grow up with it, the amount and drinks we are allowed as we get older. From beer to hard liquor and cocktails. However, at the end of the day it is a drug and a depressant. With alcohol free beers and now decent red wine being available, we can have fun without alcohol and still enjoy our favourite drink.

It seems that David and Andy had a different relationship to alcohol where they drank 6 pints on a Friday night, something Volker hasn’t done for many years. It’s not serving anyone to binge drink and if you have a problem stopping after a few drinks, then it is a time to evaluate whether drinking is still serving you.

The question is why we drink and whether we are in control. There are 4 C’s: Andy makes the suggestion that everyone should take a break of alcohol for 100 days to see if it still serves them and if they are in control. 

What alcohol takes away is our consistency of doing things. Self-compassion is important and with alcohol you might do things that you might regret. 

Connection is the last one, as we think alcohol is something we need to connect to people.

Recently Andy had a full health check to see what impact 4 years without alcohol had had on his body - such as lowering cholesterol.

Sadly he discovered he had prostate cancer. While that’s a massive shock, without the blood tests he wouldn’t have found out until it was possibly too late.

Because he’s caught it early the outlook is a lot more positive - although he is still facing quite a challenge. We wish Andy the best of luck and hope to have him on in season 2 to discuss his progress.

If you are interested in ‘Alcohol Free Runners’ or working with Andy as a coach, please reach out on the links above or email him: andy@alcoholfreecoaching.com

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