'I wouldn't be living the life I am without overcoming alcoholism' says Yorkshire personal development coach
He had built it all from the ground up, a successful recruitment business that was enabling him to live a life quite different from his childhood roots in working class Sheffield.
“I had everything – the house, the Range Rovers, the millionaire status, the business,” reflects Cliff Sewell. “I’d done it, I’d cracked it, at a young age.”
Something else had crept in, however, an underlying issue, though one that was not obvious to him at the time. "I’d found alcohol,” he says. “And I almost became very proud of how much I could drink – I could outdrink anybody.”
It took him a long time to recognise it but 55-year-old Cliff now talks openly about the 15-year period when he was a high functioning alcoholic.
It was part of the journey to where he is today – a businessman, inspirational speaker, and a performance coach and mindset mentor helping people to achieve ‘success’ in work and life. "Success is not all about making vast amounts of money,” he says. “There’s happiness, there’s contentment and there’s living everyday as you want to live everyday.”
Earlier this year, Cliff launched The Magical Mindset podcast. Each week, he and his guests share their highs and lows of life, real experiences of overcoming adversity and achieving success.
Through this, Cliff aims to inspire hope and guide listeners towards their own breakthroughs. He hopes to do similar with his latest book, A Magical Mind, to be released next month.
“My mission is not to help people in crisis,” he explains. “My mission is to look at what I’ve learnt and use the tools I’ve now got to give people the belief that they can control their own mind and own destiny and that actually lots of things are possible.”
Cliff, who lives in Wetherby, recalls growing up in a community with hard graft at its heart. From a young age, work has been at his own core too. The harder he worked, he says the better he felt he could cope with the challenges of what he now knows to be ADHD (he was diagnosed five years ago).
“School to me was an absolute inconvenience,” he reflects. “I never understood the point of school. I just wanted to go to work.” He did just that after turning 16, taking a job as a holiday rep in Spain before joining the Youth Training Scheme, an on-the-job training course for school leavers. “That was probably one of the best things I ever did because it got me into the working world and I learnt a lot,” he says.
For a time, Cliff worked as a salesperson for a concrete block manufacturer, before deciding to set up his own business, which he achieved at the age of 27. “I always struggled with being told what to do and I’m not saying that’s a great attribute to have but it was just me. I set up my own business because I didn’t want to be told what to do. It wasn’t about money, it wasn’t about success. I just cannot cope with somebody who I don’t think is as good me telling me what to do.
"I looked for an easy route in and I found recruitment. I went to work for a recruiter for a year to learn what I had to know...I left on the day a year was up and I set up my own business...It grew to be one of the best, one of the most high-profile, and one of the most successful independent recruitment businesses in the north of the UK but we developed in London, and we did some global work as well. We created a fabulous business.”
“I’d get up everyday and go to work everyday and I somewhat was blinded by that,” he continues. “I think I probably thought from my childhood, I don’t want to have no money. I worked and worked and worked. I built a super business but there was obviously a real underlying issue which I didn’t (recognise) at the time.”
Nearly every day, Cliff would be making decisions around the next potential drinking session – and once the first pint was sunk, it became 20 or more. “It took over my life eventually and I didn’t realise how bad it was. I didn’t see myself as an alcoholic because I wasn’t drinking vodka and I wasn’t wetting the bed and all those things. But I was (one).
"When I woke up in a morning, even though there was a hangover, I’d think how quickly can I find myself a reason to go to the pub again? I didn’t go everyday but most days I would find a reason to. Once I’d go in the pub and have a pint, that was it...I’d be there for however long, no matter what responsibilities I had or what I was meant to be doing. I’d sort that out the day after.”
Alcohol led Cliff to lose sight of the bigger picture and the main business story was one of survival. But things spiralled, and he lost “everything”.
Now, Cliff is five years sober, but it hasn’t been easy. “I opened up forty hours a week when I was awake and not drunk and that is when mentally I really struggled. I had got sober - why wasn’t life amazing? Why wasn’t I happy? I spiralled. I’d lost my identity and I’d lost my escape route, which was alcohol.”
Four years ago, Cliff found himself at a tube station in London, one step away from taking his own life. He doesn’t know what stopped him from doing so, but he’s called the process since his “rebuild” and he feels he’s found his purpose in helping others.
“I live every day now better than I have in the 55 years before,” he reflects. “Should I have done (this) before? Possibly, probably, who knows? Did I have the scars and the pain and the skills? Probably not.”
“The only reason I now can stay sober is because I know what I became,” he adds. “I don’t regret becoming an alcoholic. I never wanted to, I never set out to, I just did and if I’d not, I wouldn’t be living the life I am today.”
- For Cliff’s books and podcast, visit cliffsewell.com