Health, Business, and Philanthropy
Here’s How a Mature Couple Stopped Alcohol Addiction and Built a Multi-Million Dollar Business
After wasting their precious time in pubs, Patricia and Robert reinvented themselves with healthy lifestyle habits that benefited underprivileged communities.
Purpose of the Story
This story aims to briefly share the alcohol addiction of a mature couple who transformed into a better version of themselves, leveraging healthy lifestyle habits and their dormant capabilities. The story’s inspiring part is this couple’s contribution to the well-being of underprivileged people through philanthropic pursuits.
A Brief Background to the Previous Lives of Patricia and Robert
Patricia and Robert met in a pub in the mid-seventies. They fell in love and decided to get married. However, after marriage, they continued to attend pubs and spent all their time with their friends drinking and smoking.
A historic pub in the town, also known as a tavern, allocated a particular spot for them as they went there every day, spending time from 2 PM until 11 PM daily. A group of like-minded friends initially joined them, so they had joyful times.
Robert studied business, and Patricia got a tertiary education certificate. However, they did not practice these disciplines. Instead, they depended on unemployment payments from the government. Since they ate cheap food and drinks in the pub daily, the government pension was adequate for them.
For the first ten years, they were happy almost every day with no responsibility and just having casual fun. They decided not to have kids as they saw their friends complain a lot about their children making their lives miserable. The idea of having kids was against their hedonistic lifestyle.
Nevertheless, after a decade, Patricia and Robert started feeling empty. They lost some friends. Some of them left because they established families and businesses. Some got sick, and some died from addiction problems.
The constant change in their circles started disturbing and depressing them. They were too dependent on their friends. When they couldn’t find affection from their new friends, they started feeling disappointed and unsatisfied.
As they got older, some health problems knocked on their doors. These wake-up calls made them reflect on their lifestyle. Alcohol and cigarette addiction was ruining their lives. They wanted to give up, but it looked impossible at that stage. They needed serious help.
The Silver Lining in the Cloud
The employment office investigated their situation. As they both had tertiary qualifications and no disability, the investigator reported them and started watching their job search progress.
Fortunately, a caring social worker (Alfanso) took responsibility for their case. Alfonso interviewed them and gained their confidence and trust. As a result, Patricia and Robert became transparent to Alfanso.
The best part of the conversation was finding this couple’s natural desires and capabilities. Patricia has excellent cooking skills learned from her Italian family. But she didn’t practice it after marriage. Robert learned excellent business skills from his father, who had a real-estate business.
Alfonso’s priority for this couple was to address their addiction problem. Thus, he referred them to a specialist who helped them to overcome alcohol and smoking addiction.
As expected, their physical and mental health significantly improved as soon as they recovered from addiction. Patricia and Robert felt more energetic and in a better mood. Patricia and Robert stopped going to the pub and instead joined community activities that kept them busier, healthier, and fitter.
Alfonso’s next priority for this couple was to leverage their passion and create a new job for them. But Patricia and Robert did not want to work for others. They desired freedom. Therefore, Alfonso investigated small business opportunities.
The emergence of a New Lifestyle and a Lucrative Business
Alfonsa helped them secure a family business loan from the local government. Patricia and Robert opened a catering business to serve delicious food to community groups and local schools.
$75 thousand from the government allowed them to buy necessary equipment and set up their business. They initially prepared the food at home and served it together to various groups. Community members loved their delicious food. Then, through word of mouth, their reputation increased.
Within a year, they gained many customers. A considerable list of service requests was formed, keeping them busier daily. They did not see this job as work. They treasured cooking and serving as a hobby. They made more friends and enjoyed every moment in the process.
After two years, Patricia and Robert decided to scale their business with help from the resources allocated by the social worker. They purchased an affordable property with help from Robert’s father. They converted the building into a commercial kitchen, hiring three employees.
The catering business, including a variety of fine food, became their forte. Then Patricia and Robert hired more chefs and service employees.
Their focus shifted to building better client relationships. They loved interacting with people and creating new business opportunities for unemployed people.
How They Improved Their Health
While building their business Patricia and Robert focussed a lot on their health. Alfonso introduced them to several community members who support their health and well-being.
They joined a bushwalking club spending their weekends in nature. In addition, they joined the community health, fitness, and social club with a gym, swimming pool, rock climbing, trampoline, dancing, karaoke, hydrotherapy, sauna, and spa. Participating in these activities improved their health and fitness.
The health club members embraced them as they always served healthy food to members free of charge. This philanthropic activity also boosted their mood, motivated them to produce more, and enhanced their life satisfaction.
Turning Business into Meaningful Lifestyle
After a few years, Patricia and Robert created multi-million dollars from their booming family business. They not only got wealthier, but they were also healthier. The old days served as lessons learned for them.
As they interacted with many people through their catering business, their empathy and compassion for people increased. As a result, they desired to extend their services to more people at minimal or no cost.
The altruistic spirit opened new opportunities in their lives. Since Patricia and Robert did not have children, they decided to sponsor several underprivileged kids from World Vision.
The second focus was to help the unemployed people in their community. With the help of the local government, they hired 50 people for their catering business. They trained and helped them gain new skills.
While employees were improving their skills, the business grew further. Gradually, they added many more unemployed people to their organization with the funds provided by the local government.
Then Patricia and Robert extended their catering service to homeless people on the streets. They opened a shelter for them, first feeding and then helping them find a home and paying job. They served as mentors for unemployed and homeless people.
Being financially independent, giving unemployed and homeless people opportunities, and supporting underprivileged children gave them the authentic joy they cherished. It was much better joy than they got in pubs in their younger years.
They never missed drinking excessive alcohol and smoking cigarettes in pubs, ruining their lives. They enjoyed a toxin-free, active, and healthy lifestyle.
At later stages of their lives, when they retired with a multi-million dollar portfolio, they opened a charity organization to support people with addiction problems and give them a new life, emulating their inspiring transformation.
Conclusions and Takeaways
I wanted to share this heartwarming story as it was full of lessons for me. When Alfanso shared this success story with me, I understood that we all have dormant capabilities that are required to be recognized and ignited.
I asked my friend, Alfanso about the critical success factors for the transformation of Patricia and Robert. In addition to helping many people like them, Alfonso shared a few key points that I list as takeaways from my story.
1 — Accept the situation no matter how difficult and intense it is.
2 — Seek help from others and communicate authentically.
3 — Take personal responsibility to recover from addictions.
4 — Cooperate with the supporters and follow their informed advice.
5 — Focus on your strengths and turn your skills into business opportunities.
6 — Collaborate with community members and build trusting business relationships.
7 — Scale the business with support from other sources incrementally.
8 — Support community members and others who are underprivileged.
9 — Remain optimistic and channel your energies into good deeds.
10 — Be grateful for your blessings and invest in your karma account.
I also documented the case of a friend who defeated alcohol addiction and transformed her life in a story titled Tina Quit Caffeine, Nicotine, and Alcohol and Replaced Them with Healthier Options.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
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