Unknown: Hey, folks. This is Abel James, and thanks so much for joining us on the show. Do you ever feel like you're losing your edge? Today, we're here with my friend, James Swanwick,
creator of alcohol free life Style, a movement guiding high achievers like you to sidestep the sauce. In this episode, we're exploring James's journey from rock bottom,
hungover in the hallowed halls of IHOP where mediocrity
reigns supreme
and dreams go to drown in corn syrup and regret
to fifteen years alcohol free and counting. Whether you're an entrepreneur grinding to reach the next level, an athlete looking for that extra edge, or just someone who knows deep down that something has to change, this episode is going to light you up. Before we get there, make sure that you subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. And if you'd like to stay up to date, please sign up for my newsletter at abeljames.com.
That's abeljames.com
or my Substack at abeljames.substack.com.
Alright. On today's episode with James, you're about to hear the shocking hidden costs of socially acceptable drinking,
why the dubious dogma of just one drink so often leads to self destruction,
the compounding benefits of booze free living for your brain and body, how to wittily fend off well meaning drink pushers,
and much, much more. Let's go hang out with James.
Welcome back, folks. James Swanwick is an Australian American entrepreneur,
speaker, and former SportsCenter anchor on ESPN.
He's the author of Clear and creator of Alcohol Free Lifestyle, which helps successful high achievers
Unknown: change their relationship to alcohol. Thanks so much for joining us, James. Thank you for having me here, Al Abel, I should say. I was like, Abel, I got my Australian accent thick here. And I've been in Australia I've been in Australia for a couple weeks, and my accent's gone to hell. I'm sorry about that. Isn't that amazing?
Unknown: I'm, trying to think back of of your moment of truth, but I I think I read in your book that it was in 2010 in Austin, Texas of all places,
where you were in an IHOP and had
had a moment that I'll I'll let you describe.
Unknown: Yeah. I grew up in Australia. Moment in IHOP, I assume.
Unknown: Yes.
Unknown: I grew up in Australia, and I was a socially acceptable drinker. And I drank, you know, two or three drinks most nights of the week.
On weekends, I would drink heavier, and I did that for almost twenty years. And then in 02/2010,
as you referenced, I was in Austin, Texas. I was at the South by Southwest Festival
that year.
I had two Bombay Sapphire gin and tonics at a festival party on a Friday night. I went back to my hotel about fifteen minutes outside of Downtown Austin, went to sleep. And when I woke up in the morning, I just felt blah. And by blah, I mean,
I could taste the the gin in my mouth from the night before. I was overweight. I was weathered. I had puffy skin. I was irritable. I was envious of other people. I looked in the mirror, and I was like,
and next door to this hotel I was staying at was an IHOP. So I walked over to this IHOP, and I sat down in the booth.
And suddenly, it dawned on me. What the hell am I doing in an IHOP?
And I was I was looking around, and there were some very unhealthy looking people, and they were eating all you can eat pancakes. And
I looked out the window, and I was like, oh, James. It's time to take a break from alcohol. This is, like, rock bottom for you. Now, you know, I didn't wake up in a ditch. I didn't get arrested. I didn't get a DUI. But for me,
going to an IHOP hungover
was kinda average and mediocre. That was kinda my rock bottom. And so
that was when I committed to take what I thought would have been 30 off alcohol. It's now been fifteen years and counting. Wow.
Wow.
Unknown: Man,
congrats.
What a powerful thing. Although it reminds me it's not quite as powerful of a story, but it does remind me of the last time I ever went to Denny's. And that was kind of a similar hungover experience
at a as a it was at a music conference actually in LA.
And, after I ate that grand slam wish and
and considered how bad I felt and considered pulling the trigger, I'm like, this is the last time I'm ever gonna eat at a day.
And
I think
having standards for yourself and
how you feel
doesn't just apply to one aspect of your life nor nor should it. It should,
you know, cross from food to drink and anything else that might be getting in the way. And I think if we're honest about it, you know,
our society, our conditioning,
our culture
lead us to mediocrity. I mean, mediocrity is extraordinarily
profitable
on the other end of it. Right? So
having those standards for yourself and being honest about those moments where you're like, wait a minute, am I just like stewing in a sea of mediocrity
right now? Is this my life? Is this really what's happening? Good on you for taking
that approach in that moment and then continuing on to help other people
change their perspective. And one of the things that that you bring up, and I think it's a gentle way of saying this, which isn't something that always comes off so gently, is you give people permission to reexamine
the relationship with alcohol. And I think that's just such a wonderful way to frame it. Yeah. Thank you. And,
Unknown: that mediocrity you were talking about, I know a lot of your listeners would consider themselves high performers. Okay? We've got entrepreneurs,
executives, attorneys, physicians, people who are looking for an edge, people who are probably health conscious,
but also know that their drinking
probably is holding them back in many areas.
Now to be clear, not an alcoholic, not someone, like I referenced before, waking up in a ditch or getting a DUI or getting arrested, but someone who's been a socially acceptable drinker for many years and that drift.
Napoleon Hill actually talks about it in that book, Outwitting the Devil. He says the worst thing that we can experience is the drift, and the drift is just
allowing mediocrity to seep into our life. It's just drifting
down. And
I always say alcohol is like death by a thousand cuts.
You don't really notice its negative consequences,
let's say, nightly
or maybe even weekly.
But we certainly notice it over several months,
several years, and in many cases, decades,
because
just a little bit of irritability
this week leads into
a lot of irritability
over very many weeks and then months and then years.
And dissatisfaction
in our marriage or not being present with our kids
when we're in that drift
can certainly
increase.
And then
over years and then decades, that can lead to a divorce, that can lead to your kids not wanting to spend time with you, that can lead to you put on 25,
30 pounds, and you didn't even notice it. That can lead to high higher blood pressure than what you ordinarily had. And so that drift
is a very, very dangerous thing. And so I guess I I I wanna,
in our conversation here, really invite your listener
to explore their relationship with alcohol. I'm not here to sell you on quitting forever if you don't want to. I'm not here to say that alcohol
is the devil.
I'm here to to just gently,
maybe,
invite you
to reexamine your relationship with alcohol.
And
just question,
is that seemingly innocent glass of wine each night really supporting me, or could it be compromising my quality of life?
Unknown: And I think a lot of us as well has have had this false sense of security
because of that, whatever it was, health advice, magazines,
the government saying that a small amount of red wine every night is beneficial
for
resveratrol
and other other antioxidants and polyphenols
and all the rest of that.
We've seen more recently,
government entities coming out and saying, no, alcohol in any form is directly a carcinogen. We can't really argue about this anymore. And so I think that false sense of security that we might have had for a while now is a good opportunity once again to re examine, is this a good ritual to have? Because to your point, it seems quite innocuous, you know, like one glass of wine a night. But when you do the math as you do in your book, you know, one drink a night turns into 365
drinks. Every single year, you add that up, you're at a thousand drinks pretty quick. And the cost of that we can get into later, but the math is real and hard to argue with.
Unknown: Yes. And
that's what I'm really trying to impress upon people in my book, Clear, which is,
is one seemingly innocent drink a night really that healthy? How is it actually affecting you?
And to speak to those claims about a glass of wine being good for your heart, those claims have been debunked so many times now over the years, but still I know because I have clients who come to me, they're still clinging on to hope. Are you sure it's not good for for you? Are you sure it doesn't help help your your heart? And I and I say to them, why are you clinging on to this thing? Like, why are we as a society
worshiping at the altar of alcohol in the first place?
I describe alcohol as attractively packaged
poison because that's all it is. It's poison put in a very attractive bottle. And then we have these things that are referenced in the book called smiling assassins.
And smiling assassins
are our friends or family members or the waiter or waitress who are smiling as they offer us a drink. Now, of course, people are trying to be nice and pleasant. Abel, I would suggest if you were having a dinner party at your home, you would wanna be a great host, and you
would go up to the guest and say, can I get you a drink? Would you like a wine? Would you like a beer? And you're smiling as you offer them this poison. And, of course, you're well intentioned.
But nevertheless, you're a smiling assassin
in that moment
because you're inviting people to drink something
which
causes cancer,
destroys our sleep,
creates stress, creates anxiety, creates irritability,
leads to higher blood pressure,
leads to all of these things.
And yet the ritual, to borrow your term,
is that it's just normal. It's it's part of bonding. It's part of relationships. It's creates romance. It creates connection.
And
we've been living this way for decades. Until now. Until now, there is a tidal wave of movement where people are now waking up to the consequences of alcohol and
trying a different ritual or different rituals.
Unknown: Definitely. I'm curious about your perspective, James, on that change because it's happened you've been at this work for a while, and it's also been going on for a few years now that
now especially the wave of the younger generation who are very anti alcohol
is so much larger than it ever has been in recent history that it's it's really something to behold. What do you think is going on there exactly?
Unknown: Well, generation zero have got
exposure to much more education than we did in previous years just through social media and through
the proliferation
of knowledge and information. So now they're aware of the consequences of it. They're now more health conscious. I mean, certainly, they're now more focused on their screens, which is not a great thing, I would submit, but they are increasingly
health conscious, so much more so than,
my generation. I grew up I was born in 1975.
I wasn't health conscious
nearly as much as that most recent generation is.
So, also,
they're seeing the consequences now of their parents and their grandparents who've been drinking for many, many years. And let me tell you, it's not great. I have
an 80 year old mother, and she's married to a lovely man whose name is Peter, and he's 83. He's got dementia.
I caught up with my best friend in the whole world just a couple nights ago back here in my hometown of Brisbane, Australia where I am right now to play golf with him, and he told me the sad news that his mother has dementia.
And I'm like, oh my goodness. And I grew up with her. You know, she was like a second mother to me. I am seeing dementia
everywhere I go now of people of that generation. And I when I ask questions
about what their lifestyle habits were, almost always,
consistent, socially acceptable drinker.
Certainly, my mother's,
husband, Peter, was I wouldn't say a big drinker. I would say he was a drinker. Like, he would have a couple of beers a night and a glass of wine. That's three. Now for some people, that would get you drunk and falling off a chair. But for him, he builds up so much tolerance over the years that it was normalized.
Very, very unhealthy. I'm surprised he even got to 83.
So I think now also
people are relaxing into the idea that not drinking alcohol
is actually okay. Whereas before, if you didn't drink alcohol,
the initial reaction might be, oh, is Abel an alcoholic? Is James an alcoholic? Oh, why why aren't you drinking? And there was a stigma
around it. Whereas now,
in part, I hope, because of the work I've been doing for the last, you know, ten years as an organization,
and many other people in this movement, we've been
trying to create this idea that not drinking is a superpower. Not drinking is the gift. Not drinking is cool, if you wanna break it down to kind of, like, a, you know, a sexy kind of slogan.
But that wasn't the case in previous generations. If you didn't drink, you were the weird one. In fact, alcohol was, and in many ways still is, the only drug where you have to justify not consuming it. Right.
Whereas today, the new generation is like, yeah. I'm alcohol free. Yeah. Hey. You wanna meet up and go for a run-in the morning? You wanna go for a hike? Should we go for a smoothie? Hey. Have you seen this cool podcast by Abel James? He's talking about a whole lot of health stuff. You know what I mean? Like, that's the new sexy. That's kinda like the new cool.
Unknown: Yeah.
Isn't that incredible? It's such an opportunity because, I think it's easy to get disenchanted with the way that a lot of things are going, but there are great things happening at the same time. And
also one thing that you do with your work is you use language a little bit differently than some of the other programs that go about office. And so
what's your take and what's the importance of using more benefit driven language
when you're talking about these issues?
Unknown: So traditional stop drinking modalities will use verbiage like sober,
sobriety,
recovery.
In AA, you must surrender to a higher power and do the 12 steps.
I hate all of that language. I was gonna say I dislike that language and that I find it ineffective, but I hate that language. Yeah. Let her loose. Let's go.
Also, this language of I'm an alcoholic.
Bullshit.
Excuse my language.
The problem with that is that we're stuck in an identity.
Oh, I'm an alcoholic. I'm this. I'm that.
Well, now that's very, very tough to be able to get out of that identity. Because then you go through the world
describing yourself as something. I am this.
And then everything in your life then
proves that you are that very thing. Right. Whether you drink or not.
Exactly. Exactly.
So someone said to you, as an example, that maybe your mother or father said to you when you were a little kid, you're not smart.
And so you go through life maybe growing up going, I'm not smart. And you see the world that way, and everything that you do reinforces that belief. So when we're walking around saying, I'm an alcoholic,
we have no room to grow. There's no opportunity there. It's just I'm stuck in this belief. I can't move. I'm an alcoholic.
And that's very, very tough. That's a tough way to live, I would submit.
So I don't like those terms sober, sobriety, recovery.
I cannot stand AA's,
you must surrender to a higher power.
You must declare, my name's James, and I'm an alcoholic.
Same reason. Right? You're stuck in an identity. And
saying I'm powerless over this disease?
Give me a break. You're not powerless. You're powerful.
And so what we do in our organization
my organization is called Alcohol Free Lifestyle, and we have a a flagship
ninety day stop drinking process. It's called Project 90, and
it's based in neuroscience.
The University of Washington did a a scientific study on this process in 02/2023,
and it it showed a 98%
reduction in drinking from the study participants. And part of the reason why I would submit it was so successful
was because we use verbiage like
alcohol free. I get to be alcohol free.
I get to drink soda water ice and a piece of lime.
We don't use words like I'm sober, I'm practicing sobriety, I'm powerless.
We're choosing something. We get to experience something.
And so that empowering
positive language
can get us to the results
of loving living an alcohol free lifestyle as opposed to being sober or in recovery
or practicing sobriety, which feels very dark and heavy and, like, I can't do this. I need to stop. I have to quit.
And, of course, when you are saying that you're sober or you're in recovery or and that you need to quit and you have to stop,
you feel like you're a prisoner,
and you feel like you're experiencing
deprivation. Like, under normal circumstances, you would drink, but you can't because you're an alcoholic or you have to be sober. And, of course, all prisoners want to break out of prison,
which is why then being, quote, unquote, sober feels hard. It feels like you're having to white knuckle it. Whereas I would suggest over this way, I get to be alcohol free. I'm living an alcohol free lifestyle. I'm focusing on my sleep. I'm focusing on conscious communication.
I love getting morning sunlight. I love
understanding food and nutrition, listening to great podcasts like Abel James' podcast.
This is very empowering. This is positive, and this is focused on what we will do as opposed to what we're trying to avoid over here.
Unknown: Yeah. Future focused as opposed
to sins of the past.
Yes.
And when you look at what alcohol actually does to us, there are a lot of words thrown around. Some of them hit harder than others, but one that I'd love for you to talk more about is just anxiety
because,
this is certainly something that I've noticed because,
well, thankfully,
my wife, Allison, raised Mormon,
really didn't touch alcohol until her twenties, and it was really me who introduced her to it
and early in the relationship.
And she never really took to it that much anyway
and has this whole
gear, is is how we like to think of it, where it's shut off. And I have that gear as well. I was totally straight edge, basically until I went to college.
And, during the times that I really have something important to me in in my past where I wanted to go after it, I would just go into that different gear and shut the alcohol off
because
it's hard to deny that it does all sorts of things. But the anxiety is one that I noticed, where even if it had been drinks a few nights before,
that lingering
feeling that you think might be your personality,
actually,
is due
to something that you imbibed and haven't totally recovered from
days or even weeks
before that. So maybe you can talk about the less obvious aspects of a hangover or alcohol like anxiety that kinda creeps in there, as you mentioned before.
Unknown: Well, they've shown that alcohol stays in the system for between seven and ten days. In fact, they've also done a study where they can take a strand of hair,
put it under a microscope,
and they can tell whether that you drank alcohol a week earlier or not.
That's fascinating.
So when we drink toxins, because make no mistake, alcohol is just a bunch of toxins,
it stays in our system.
Yes. The liver does a a great efficient job of getting most of those toxins out within the first twenty four hours, but there are still toxins that are lingering in your body.
The other thing is most people will drink at nighttime. Yes? Like, most people drink close to bedtime.
You're actually better off drinking for breakfast than you are anywhere close to bedtime because at least in that scenario, your body has sixteen hours to rid itself of most of the toxins that you've just ingested.
Whereas when we're drinking at nighttime,
we're essentially clocking the body in for a night's work
at a time
when the body doesn't wanna work. The body wants to rest.
And so
a poor night's sleep, as you would know, Abel, can linger. The consequences of that can linger for three, four, five days.
And people mistakenly believe that drinking alcohol helps them sleep. The truth is is that it might indeed help them to
fall asleep. It might help them to pass out. But the quality of that sleep is going to be so severely compromised
that the consequences
are dire.
And the consequences
aren't just feeling irritable one morning,
foggy one morning, distracted one morning,
fighting with your wife or husband, or not being present with your kids one morning.
Those effects linger
day after day after day.
And so
don't be so sure that drinking a couple of seemingly innocent drinks at nighttime
helps you with your sleep and is therefore beneficial, and therefore you're gonna wake up with a, you know, great performing heart because there were that study in the eighties that said drinking is great for the heart.
Instead, look at it as
I'm drinking poison.
The effects of this poison are gonna be in my system
for another week.
That's going to compromise
how I relate to my wife or to my husband. That's going to affect how I engage with my son or my daughter. That's going to affect how I perform in my
business. That's going to affect
the gains I'm trying to make in the gym. That's going to affect my blood pressure, etcetera, etcetera.
So rethink the drink is the headline that I would invite your listeners to really ponder here.
Unknown: Yeah.
As technology has gotten better over the years, it's become more and more obvious to me how bad alcohol really is even in small amounts. And and so
back in the day, gosh, this was almost fifteen
years ago when I was doing a lot of marathon running.
I ran this little loop that was that was measured, and so I would time myself doing it. And so just for fun, I decided to
because I wasn't drinking alcohol at the same time that I was doing marathons, I I should say, because I didn't wanna stress my body. Right? So while I was training, I wanted to see what would happen if I had a glass of red wine
or not,
and and ran the same. And so I did this a number of times, and each time I did it, I was
running the same distance. But for me, you know, being relatively competitive back then, I was going
ten to fifteen seconds slower
per mile
with a higher level of effort because I wrote down, like, how hard did it feel to run at this time? And my effort went up out of 10. I can't remember. It was, like, two points out of 10, basically. My time got slower from one glass of wine the night before. And then moving forward to once the,
you know, Oura ring came out and you could start to look at your heart rate data, especially over time as it's measured, your HRV and all of that, my beats per minute go up significantly.
And that is one thing. When you see your,
at least for me, when I looked at what it did to my heart specifically,
I'm like,
oh, no. Not my heart. Like, that is the that's the scariest thing that it could affect so obviously.
Unknown: Yeah. There's a gentleman called Evan Melcher, and he's got a a chapter in the book, actually. I'm just showing, you now, Abel, a photo of him. That's his before and after. Evan
is a financial
adviser in Atlanta, Georgia.
He wore an Oura ring
as a drinker,
and he tracked his heart rate variability. He tracked the number of heartbeats he had.
And then he joined our ninety days stop drinking process, Project 90,
and he tracked his he tracked his heart rate with the Oura ring.
He estimates that he saved
5,000,000
heartbeats over the course of one year that he didn't drink alcohol.
5,000,000
heartbeats
in one year is what he saved
from stopping drinking alcohol. Isn't that extraordinary?
Unknown: So basically, for for listeners out there who aren't familiar with what this looks like, you can see the amount of beats that your heart is is taking over the course of the day and over the course of the night. And so your resting heartbeat is generally at at a certain number, but let's say that,
mine was at at 40,
not drinking.
My heart rate will go up to
55 or or 45 or 50 if I had been drinking, especially if I tied one on, stayed up a little bit too late. And then that also extends to the following day where my heart rate will remain elevated over the baseline for a few days after that. And it's
interestingly,
different types of alcohol did seem to have a different effect, but they were all bad. There was there were none that were good. The only thing that I found that was kind of intriguing
in all of that measuring that wasn't necessarily directly bad was that sometimes blood sugar wouldn't spike quite so high during a meal if there was a bit of wine or a little bit of beer with it. But even that is something where the data shouldn't be completely trusted because there are a lot more variables than that, just that going on. And I would imagine the downsides of having the alcohol
would outweigh whatever the, you know, modest benefit of a
smaller spike might look like.
Unknown: Yeah.
A lot of folks who come to us have a pattern
of health challenges,
high blood pressure, for example, triglycerides,
cholesterol,
unwanted body weight,
then they stop drinking alcohol,
and all of those markers improve
dramatically.
You know, we referenced the Oura ring tracking the the heartbeats.
Blood pressure can drop and has dropped dramatically.
I've seen people lose,
25 pounds over ninety days. I've seen people whose triglycerides have reduced,
cholesterol
drops.
And people might say, how does the cholesterol drop from not drinking? Well, there's a couple things,
including the fact that when you're not drinking, you tend to eat better.
Because when we're drinking,
we tend to reach for dessert or for more carbohydrates,
because the sugar in alcohol makes us crave more food. So think about it. If you're at a at a bar or a restaurant,
and you sit down at the beginning of the night and you're trying to lose weight, and you have the best intentions of not having dessert, and you're just gonna have one glass of wine. Right? You're trying to watch your weight.
Well, once you have that glass of wine, your body is now, oh, that tasted pretty pretty good. Actually, now I'm hungrier.
Right? Now I wanna eat more food. And so then when the smiling assassin comes over at the end of the meal and says, can I get you a dessert? Here's the dessert menu. What would you like?
Oh, alright. Okay. I'll have the creme de brulee. Alright. I'll have the, the ice cream and the chocolate cookie or whatever it is. And then you tend to eat that stuff. Right? And I remember I was at this this pub or bar up on Sunset Boulevard when I was a drinker. It was called the Happy Ending Bar. It was on the corner of Sunset And High Lane, and it was a very interesting name for it. Classy place.
But I remember as a drinker, I went up there, and I was ordering
a burger and fries.
And I said, I'm not gonna eat the fries, but it came with the burger and the fries. And because of by the time I'd put the order in, I'd already smashed a Budweiser and I was onto a rum and coke. When the fries came, it was impossible for me to decline those fries. They were put in front of me. I'm gonna eat those fries. So, of course,
what happens then? You put on extra weight because you're eating more calories. Your cholesterol levels go up. All of your markers go up. You're consuming fried food, fried oils.
So it makes sense that when you stop drinking,
you're less prone to eating crap.
Not to mention, you're no longer drinking those dead calories.
Now your body loses
unwanted body weight. It starts to run more efficiently. You sleep better. Now your blood pressure drops.
Your triglycerides go backwards.
You start to look better, so you have some more confidence. Now you have less stress and anxiety.
Now you're less likely to crave something like a drink.
And then you go, well, you know what? Maybe I'll lift a little heavier in the gym, or maybe I'll actually go for a longer walk. Or you know what? Now I've got this Oura ring. Maybe I'll go for 10,000 steps a day. And these little 1% improvements
cumulatively
add up to,
suddenly, I'm not stressed and anxious anymore. Suddenly, I'm feeling pretty good, and suddenly,
my wife says she's proud of me, and my husband says I look good naked. And,
my kids are and I are playing and having a great time, or my my kids are starting to phone me when before they didn't phone me.
And I'm just experiencing a much higher quality of life.
Unknown: You know, it's interesting. This is it brings something to mind where I've coached a number of people over the years. And,
with many of them, I encourage them to give up alcohol because it's going to make the whole process a lot easier. But of course, many people, you know, just want to focus on the nutrition side or the fitness side or whatever that is and continue to drink. But
the ones who
don't
give up drinking or really start moderating it to some degree with a pretty strong cutoff, you know,
the ones who don't do that and continue to drink,
they always like, sometimes they still get great results, but they're like, that was hard. You know, like, this is hard, they would continuously say. And the ones who gave up alcohol at the same time often said, like, I'd check-in with them and be like, hey, how are you doing? They're just like, I'm doing great. This feels, this feels great. I wasn't expecting it to feel so great. Like, I don't have so much energy. Yeah, yeah. But I noticed that that was a pattern that would come up where the people who
actually quit both
the horrible food and the drink at the same time,
had a heck of a lot of an easier time
giving up the bad food forever.
Unknown: Yeah.
I remember when I
sat in that IHOP all the way back in 02/2010,
and
I made that decision for what I thought would be thirty days stopping drinking alcohol.
I remember that was the first domino that fell. Right? And imagine a big long line of dominoes
and the first Domino is stop drinking.
And the first Domino then led to me
eating better
or or at least stopping eating as much
crappy food like fries and Carl's Jr burgers and all that kind of stuff.
And that would hit over the next domino.
And then I remember I was living in Hollywood, California at the time.
I was like, maybe I'll join that LA fitness up on Hollywood Boulevard,
because I hadn't been lifting weights or doing anything really at that point. I was like, okay. So then I like
then I started working out, and that hit that. And then I joined a spinning class, which was in that gym. And I went, okay. I'll just go and do that two days a week and kind
of ride the cycle.
And then all of a sudden, I was like, oh, I should help more people. I'm not very charitable.
And then
I joined, Arnold Schwarzenegger's
after school all stars charity, and I started raising money for that charity. And then I got invited to his
home at his annual party
for all the people who'd, you know, raised considerable money for his charity. And I was like, okay. That's cool. So now I'm getting a new friend group. This is pretty cool. And then that the heat over the next domino, and on and on and on it went. So it's just one decision. Like, one domino,
all of a sudden, results in all of the dominoes falling that have been holding us back in life.
And what opens up is a beautiful cascade
of new experiences,
better sleep, more connection,
attracting
a great romantic partner,
reengaging with a romantic partner,
being more charitable,
feeling good,
just
going through life feeling
fulfilled.
Now there's a difference between pleasure and fulfillment, and I would submit most people who are drinking
are probably chasing pleasure. Right? So there's a there's a spike of, like, oh, I got pleasure, then there's a crash. Oh, I've got pleasure, then there's a crash. Oh, I got pleasure, then there's a crash. Kind of like a heartbeat
on a monitor.
And I was like that for years,
years and years and years.
But since I've stopped drinking alcohol and those dominoes have fallen, what I'm experiencing now is what I describe as fulfillment.
And it's like this this kind of
measured compound
interest
where it's not so
noticeable,
like the heartbeats of the pleasure each day. But it's like, oh, I feel good from sleeping well. Oh, I feel good from that morning walk. Oh, I feel good from having a loving conversation with my wife. Oh, I feel good from reconnecting with Abel on this podcast and being able to, you know, put my message out to the world and support his listeners. Oh, I feel good that the sun is shining. And that fulfillment
just seeps in through your life over years and then hopefully decades, many more decades for me to come.
That's a beautiful way to experience life. So if we can just knock over that first domino of alcohol, I promise
you, all of life,
most of life gets to be just glorious.
Unknown: Yeah.
Because you,
you don't have that edge, that extra, like, skipping your step when, you've even been drinking a little bit the night before or even in general. But I find that there are different levels of of this too where there's something that happens
two weeks out after you haven't had a drink where you really start to feel quite a bit better. The first few days may be hard or whatever for for certain people. But having coached people through this and and experienced it myself, there's there's magic, like you say, that starts to happen where instead of your baseline being,
oh my god. I gotta do this. Alright? What the fuck? That guy, man.
You you're like, oh, I, like, feel good right now. There's something in me that feels good. Like it's an unusual
feeling for people who haven't been in there for a while, but it is completely real. And then,
on top of that, you know, your body is just
running a lot better. Everything is working and detoxing. You're not burdening it. Like God knows, looking around what we're exposed to in our food, our water, our environment,
Our bodies have enough work to do as far as that goes, so we don't need to layer more on top. But another thing that's really scary is, as you mentioned before, is the amount of dementia that we're seeing. And
alcohol
causes
brain damage as well
as degeneration. And so
there are a lot of people who,
even younger, who start to notice that their memory isn't quite right. You know, it's not
not everything is firing exactly as as it should. They're not remembering things that they know they would otherwise remember.
That could be a cause of concern. Right? Because some of these
these issues, like especially involving the brain and the memory, start small, and they can start quite young, actually.
But if you start to enact better behaviors when you're young, you can prevent
major
injury down the road. The graph that you show in your book, I think, is extremely compelling.
Unknown: Yeah. Sadly, most people
don't fear
how they're going to be many decades in the future.
If we did,
then we wouldn't do the things that we do. Right?
But the reality
is exactly as
you just put out, which is our
habits today
will show up
in our health
and quality of life in two, three decades' time. No question. And it doesn't matter how compelling an argument you and I make here, Abel. People who
are maybe in their thirties or forties,
maybe early fifties, are not still going to be compelled enough, probably, most people,
to take action today
for fear of how they'll be when they're 80. It's just human nature. Right? Some of us will, but most of us will not.
So my challenge here is to try to convince people
to get short term benefits and then hope that it sticks so much that it becomes a lifestyle that they just carry on, and they get those beautiful consequences of life
in their eighties and hopefully nineties. In fact, I saw something the other day from is it Peter Diamatas? Who's the longevity expert? Is that his name? Yeah? Peter Diamatas? I think it was. Or Peter Attia, maybe?
Possibly. I'm not sure. I'd have to double check it. But he said that if we can stay alive another ten years, like, we can all just not die for the next ten years, the way that medical science
is progressing and with AI, we should be able to extend our life by an additional 30. That's what he said. Right?
Here's the thing. The quality of our life is what I'm more interested in. Because, I mean, I talking to my my parents, who were both 80 this last week, because I'm back visiting them here in Australia temporarily,
my mom says, oh, I don't wanna live to a hundred and a hundred and five, James. I'm like, well, why not? I don't wanna be old and I can't move, and I've got dementia, and I'm in a home. And I said, okay. Well, what about if you could live to
a hundred and five,
or a hundred and 10 or a hundred and 20, and you could move, and you had all of your cognitive faculties, and you had even more energy than what you've got now, and therefore, you got to spend another twenty, thirty years. Would you be open to that? And she goes, Oh, yeah, absolutely.
So you see, it's the quality of life that people want. It's not so much the duration, it's the quality. Yes. And and so
I would just submit,
like, however old you are listening to Abel and I right now,
even if you can't look that far into the future, look into the next ninety days, six months, or a year.
Think of today's date,
fast forward to today's date in one year from now. How could your life be different by removing this poison consistently?
And I I can tell you this anecdotally because folks come through our programs and they stay with us for a year, two years, three years, whatever it is, and go alcohol free. Like compound interest, life just gets better and better and better and better the longer you remain alcohol free. But if I can just get you to commit to at least ninety consecutive days now, You can experience those short term benefits.
Then I got a shot of having embedded this in in your life as a lifestyle, and now you desire
to get to a year alcohol free. You desire to get to five years alcohol free. It's not being sober and white knuckling it, and it's hard.
It's like you get to be alcohol free. It's amazing. And that's that's really my work, I guess, my my mission able.
Unknown: What are some of the other more immediate benefits that you encourage people to notice or that you've noticed coaching people throughout this?
Unknown: Energy, clarity, focus, great night's sleep,
less irritability,
less envy,
a feeling of calm, a feeling of peace, a feeling of fulfilment,
just an increased positivity
for the future. A lot of people are walking around life going, this is hopeless, or I'm worried about the future. Those kind of feelings and thoughts start to dissipate when you remove that toxin.
They're some of the short term effects. Some people have referenced just for whatever reason,
their family members have said, oh, you look good.
And I'm like, well, yeah, that's because the toxins have been removed from your skin. Our body's largest organ is our skin.
And when you stop drinking alcohol, your skin returns to the way that nature intended your skin to be. But when we're drinking, those toxins show up with more visible crow's feet and bags under the eyes. In fact, they did a study out of The UK in the early two thousands, and they showed a bunch of photographs
of random drinkers and nondrinkers to a a group of study participants. And they said, choose out who you find more attractive
out of this group of photographs.
And overwhelmingly,
the study participants
chose the nondrinkers
as being more handsome or more attractive than those who were drinkers.
That's fascinating. So just a warning, you do get better looking when you stop drinking alcohol.
Hey. That's a that's a fair fair warning. Let me just speak to the financial benefits as well, if I may, because I know that you've got some some business owners or executives or investors or realtors or attorneys or physicians listening to this.
If you are drinking,
most people would submit that they feel like they're performing at a six,
five, seven out of 10 compared to what they know their potential is. Right? Certainly, when I have prospective clients talk to us, I say, how do you feel on a scale of one to 10? And it usually is, like, either somewhere between a four and a seven. Okay? Now let's just do some math here for those who are who are logic and mathematically based. Alright? They need logical mathematical proof.
If you have a business that's doing a million dollars a year in revenue and you feel like you are operating at a six out of 10
because you're foggy, distracted, irritable, not sleeping great, you don't make strategic decisions, you don't hire someone quickly enough, you don't fire someone quickly enough. You're just kind of, like, phoning it in. Six out of 10, you make a million dollars. Got it. If you stopped drinking and you went alcohol free, and now you experienced
a great night's sleep, clarity, focus, energy. Now you make a couple of additional sales calls. You make a better strategic decision. You hire that person. You fire that person. You're more engaged. You've got clearer thinking in your business.
When I ask people that question, they say, oh, I'd be operating at about an eight or a nine out of 10 in the business. And I go, okay. Great. Now over the course of the year, if you are operating in an eight or a nine out of 10 in your business, how much revenue do you think you'd generate?
And then they tell me. And most of the time, they say, oh, probably 1,500,000.0,
maybe 2,000,000.
And I'm like, well, that's interesting. Let's take the most conservative
number that you said there,
half a million dollars more than what you're making right now.
Therefore, your drinking habits are costing you half a million dollars a year.
And then I pause,
and I watch, and I listen, and the penny drops, and I go, oh.
So, really,
that drink or two a night
that they've been thinking is innocent
and helps them relax,
helps them sleep,
it's no big deal,
is actually costing them
$500,000
a year in that scenario.
That is mind boggling. Now here's the next thing. And sorry to go on, but I think it's worth laboring on this point. Yeah. I'm gonna pull out my phone here.
I'm doing the math here. Right? 500,000,
okay,
divided by three hundred and sixty five days of the year, which means every day you choose to drink, it's costing your business
$1,369.86.
Now if we take it that most people are drinking, let's say, two drinks a night, three drinks, but let's just use the example of two.
We divide the $1,369
a day divided by two drinks a day, each drink you choose to consume
is costing you $684.93.
Now that is dumb tax in my view.
That is a dumb tax that you are paying in your business. And if you're a business owner, you're running around going, how do I save taxes this year? How do I make more money? How do I keep costs down? How do I do this? How do I make this a more efficient oh, we're in the red. We need to get in the black or how who do I hire?
Meanwhile,
the you're draining $684.93
with every drink that you consume.
And that's just at a two night
two drink a night basis.
Right?
It's insanity.
So I do,
outline that calculator in the book. You can go in into that chapter, and it will walk you through how to do that math in your own business to see what the true financial cost of your drinking is. And just to put a there's kind of like a bookend on this part of the conversation, Abel,
divorce is pretty damn expensive too.
And if you're drinking and that's leading to a divorce, that's probably gonna cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars. Is drinking alcohol and the consequences that come from that really worth getting a divorce?
Unknown: And then, I mean, you also have to account and this is pretty simple math too. Whatever it costs you, like, per drink, your your drink of choice every night, and let's say it's one,
then,
you know, you put a few zeros after that when you do the math of that over time, and that that adds up to thousands and thousands of dollars. Easy. No problem for every person who's choosing to do this. Right? Like a man who's drinking 750
drinks a year, whether it's at home or out, 5 or $10 or whatever. We're talking 5 to $10, probably.
And that's that might be on the lower end
depending on what city or country you live on.
Unknown: Listen. People are saying, oh, I don't spend that much money on alcohol. It's only, like, you know, $10 a year, and I put it through the business.
I'm like, that's what you're spending on alcohol.
But here's what you're not generating
because of your drinking.
Millions of dollars. Yes.
You're flying all over the country trying to do deals with people, trying to convince people to work in your company. You're trying to hire people. You're trying to cut costs.
And yet
you're choosing to go through life with a ball and chain around your ankle, which is costing you millions of dollars over time. It's like, guys, we gotta wake up here. And don't be so sure that this is only for business owners. For those who are listening, who are executives or in, you know, jobs and got careers,
if you're operating a six or a seven out of 10,
you might get fired for poor performance.
Right? Or certainly, if you don't get fired, maybe you don't get a promotion as quickly as you might ordinarily if you had been alcohol free. Right?
People are gonna notice if you jump from a seven out of 10 performance to a nine out of 10 performance overnight. They're gonna notice. Right? And then all of a sudden, it's like, oh, we're gonna compensate you more. Maybe you've got compensation built in to your job. So that could mean an additional $20.30 grand a year. Maybe you get a promotion. That could mean another $50 a year. There's all kinds of benefits if you're in a career, like a job,
from being alcohol free and enjoying the clarity and the focus and the and the greater performance as a result of that.
Unknown: Definitely. I mean, you look at musicians
who drink or not drink or drink very, very moderately
compared to ones who drink like a typical musician who's just slamming booze and practically paid in booze. I mean, you're you're very much encouraged to be the life of the party, and,
much of that involves tequila shots. But if you compare the musicianship and the actual performance
that you see from these players, the ones who choose to, you know, keep going in that direction. Maybe the beginning of the gig sounds pretty good. The first few songs might be alright. But once all those tequila shots kick in and and people are nice and loose and get a little bit too slobbered up, it's hard to argue that the music gets better at a certain point. Right? The running joke is if we don't sound good, drink a little bit more, we'll sound better. You know, that's kind of what a lot of people's approach is to this whole thing.
But you are a worse musician. You're certainly going to be a worse musician the next day. And so the people who I've I've coached and been around and some of the highest level players who I've seen,
you know, being in the the music scene for a long, long time, the people who are continuing to tour the world and sell these incredible albums that are
rocking
across the world for many decades to come. Like, these people cleaned it up a long time ago. The rock star
that most people think exists is a myth. You know, the ones who are just, like,
on drugs all the time, slamming booze, all those ones died when they were 27. You know? Like, that's not something that that continues to happen. It catches up with you. So it's important that people are honest with themselves about this because it doesn't just apply to music, but, the arts as well. I know you've interacted with a lot of people who are actors, who are very
strict about this fact that they do not drink alcohol in heaven for years and will never go back. And that is their advantage in many ways. Because once you're that guy, then you rise above the sea of people who are just a little bit
frazzled and anxious. And at the six or seven out of 10, there aren't quite so many people who are up at the nine out of 10 level. So, yeah, you you get noticed.
Unknown: Yeah. There's some famous people that people might recognize. Bradley Cooper, the actor, has been alcohol free now for many years. In fact, in another
life, I was a Hollywood
Correspondent. When I was living in Hollywood, I actually interviewed movie stars. And I remember I interviewed Bradley Cooper
when he was promoting the film The Hangover.
And I remember I was a drinker at that point. I think it was 2,007 or 02/2008, somewhere around there. It was a couple years before I stopped drinking. And I was interviewing him at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills,
and he told me that he didn't drink. And I thought to myself, doesn't drink? God, I don't wanna hang out with this guy.
Yeah. You know, that was my that was my way of seeing yeah. That was my way of seeing the world.
Well, fast forward to today, I think he's done okay, Bradley Cooper. I think he's done alright as a nondrinker, don't you think?
Chris Martin as well from Coldplay.
You know, Brad Pitt I mean, look. I know I don't know what happened, but but depending on whether you believe media reports or not, apparently, he was, you know, drunk on a plane with his then wife, Angelina Jolie, and grabbed her and grabbed his son or something happened,
you know, and that led to Angelina Jolie effectively divorcing him. And he's cleaned himself up in in recent years and is now alcohol free,
and seems to have excelled in in his life subsequently since then. Natalie Portman
is an actress. Interestingly,
president Donald Trump claims that he's never touched alcohol. He had a brother,
whose name I think was Frank. I'm not I'm not sure. I have to double check that. But he was, what they described as an alcoholic, was a big drinker. And his brother
told Donald,
don't drink, don't smoke,
don't do drugs.
And, apparently, Donald Trump listened and claims that he's never had
a glass of alcohol, and that's very interesting.
And,
you know, Larry Ellison,
billionaire, multibillionaire,
owner of of Oracle,
and,
I think Warren Buffett
rarely, if ever, touches alcohol now, most successful,
investor in the world,
Shana Twain,
Ronaldo, the footballer. I mean, look, all these people know that alcohol
affects their performance, and so they steer clear of it.
And it's that way of life seems have done okay for them.
Unknown: Yeah.
And it's it's hard to deny. I mean, if
once again, to go back to the beginning of this conversation,
gently reexamining
and and looking
at your perspective
how alcohol shows up in your life is something that, shouldn't be threatening and we should all invite ourselves to do, not just right now, but, like, forever, all the time. You know? Because,
there are different stages that you go through in different points in your life. And if now isn't the time,
then maybe tomorrow or a few weeks or a few months from now. Because once you really experience the difference,
in in how you feel on a day to day basis,
like you say, that compounds over time, it's it's hard to hit the bottle,
too hard. I mean, I still drink on special occasions
from time to time, but also go on long, long streaks of just being like, you know what? Nah. And right now, I think I'm gonna go on a long one of those too because it just
you inspire me, James, and, it's
really important timing for people out there, I think, because we have less room for air error in many ways with what,
we have going against us in terms of hyperpalatable
foods, low food quality,
the pollution,
lack of of movement and exercise, like, so many problems. This doesn't need to be another one of them. And and there are so many wonderful alcohol alternatives now as well that are out there. But before we go, I I would love for you to quickly just talk about
what can people do
to get around the cultural implications
of turning down a drink that's offered, you know, by one of those smiling assassins who do it in, you know, in good faith for the most part.
Unknown: When you're offered a drink, whether you're at a party or a work event or a restaurant,
it doesn't
matter so much what you say. It matters more how you say it.
So most people
in a social situation
say that they feel awkward
declining a drink because of that fear that people will be going, oh, look, Abel must be an alcoholic, or he's got a drinking problem. What do you mean you're not drinking? Why aren't you drinking? But it's my birthday, but it's our anniversary, but it's the party. Come on, but it's the NBA playoffs. What are you talking about? Of course we're gonna drink. And they feel awkward
because of the scrutiny that that invites.
But the scrutiny only comes, and the judgment only comes
if your body language is displaying
that,
oh, yeah. I wish I could drink, but I can't. Oh, no. No. No. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. I can't drink. Yeah. I don't wanna be a killjoy.
When you're displaying that body language, when you're
apologetic
for not drinking, what are you saying to yourself and to the people who are inviting you to drink? You're saying
that drinking equals fun and pleasure, and not drinking
equals pain and deprivation and being dull and boring and being a killjoy
or being rude.
So
instead, what I invite my clients to do and what I invite the readers of my book to do is
go into any social event
and own
confidently with a smile and a smirk
that you are alcohol free. And just, oh, no. Thanks. I'm I'm good, actually. Can I grab soda water? Do you have any, alcohol free drinks? What have you got?
And then when the scrutiny comes, which it won't, but if the mild curiosity
comes, oh, what do you mean you're not drinking? You just go, yeah. You know what? I haven't drunk in, like, six months. It feels great.
But I tell you what, I'll go shot for shot with you tonight. You drink that vodka, and I'll shoot this, soda water.
And you just have a lot little lighthearted giggle about it. Right? You maybe even make fun of yourself.
You put on this smirk, this sly grin.
And what you do in that scenario is that you convey
through your energy, through your body language, through your mannerisms, through your tonality,
that you are
confident
in choosing an alcohol free lifestyle. You're not apologetic. Oh, you are. Sorry. Sorry. I wish I could. You're not displaying that it's painful not to drink.
Rather, you're displaying
that you're just you're happy being alcohol free. Right?
They've done studies of of persuasion and influence, and what they've shown is that
persuading or influencing
a fellow human being
only is 7%
what you say,
93%
how you say it.
I'll say it again. Persuading someone is only 7%
what you say and 93%
how you say it.
So for example, you, the listener, have been listening to Abel and I just have this conversation. You can hear, I slow down, I emphasize
words,
I kind of speak with,
empathy and and care, or I'm, like, talking, like, aggressively, like, you need to quit alcohol. Damn it.
Right? Like, you can hear how my tonality is changing. And if you're watching, you know, the video of this, you can see how my body mannerisms are changing. That's persuasion. Right? Body language, tonality.
Now when we go into a social situation, oh, geez. Sorry. No. I wish I could drink. No. Oh, oh, should I drink? Should I not? No. No. No. No. No.
We're telling ourself. We're reinforcing
this ridiculous notion that not drinking equals pain and deprivation,
and drinking equals fun and joy and release. And, of course, the people that we're with believe that now because they they're seeing you in pain.
So now they're believing it. Come on. Alcohol equals fun and good times and and
bonding, and not drinking equals, you're a killjoy. You're ruining this celebration.
So my invitation is go into those situations,
shoulders back, chest forward, and just own the fact that you're alcohol free. Have a giggle about it. Be lighthearted about it. Don't get on your high horse and start pontificating and trying to make people quit drinking as well. Just own the fact that you're alcohol free, and that social awkwardness will subside. I promise you.
Unknown: I love it. James, what is the best place for people to find your work and your new book Clear?
Unknown: Alcoholfreelifestyle.com/clear
will, take you to a page where you can get the book on Amazon or you can get the, audio version. It's also available on Amazon and online wherever books are sold.
Yeah. And alcoholfreelifestyle.com,
you'll find some other stuff there as well. I appreciate you
inviting me on the show and, and asking me where folks can can grab the book, Abel. Thank you. Of course.
Unknown: Brilliant. Thank you so much, James, for for the work you do in the world and and all the people you're affecting positively. The the ripples just keep on going.
Unknown: Thank you, Abel. Appreciate that, mate.
Unknown: Hey. Abel here one more time. And if you believe in our mission to create a world where health is the norm, not sickness, Here are a few things you can do to help keep this show coming your way. Click like, subscribe, and leave a quick review wherever you listen to or watch your podcasts.
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