 I am James Swanik and can you take an alcohol alternative to give you the same kind of temporary feeling that alcohol may give you? Can it be a hemp extract product which contains some CBD? Is that okay? Can we do that? Today we're talking to a gentleman by the name of Ted Moskovitz, who is a former attorney, an entrepreneur, an angel investor, and he is the founder of a company called AMMA. I'm a like mama. Yeah, I'm a like mama, I like it. And one of AMMA's top products is called Elevate, which is a hemp extract and contains some CBD. I have tried it out and it's designed to give you some mood enhancing effects, the same as what you might get if you were drinking alcohol, but without the alcohol. Ted Moskovitz, great to have you here. How are you doing? It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, doing really well. Just before we get into this, tell us a little bit about yourself and your alcohol journey. Love to just know what your relationship has been with alcohol over the years. Yeah, absolutely. I think growing up in the US, we have this very prohibition mindset toward alcohol and a high drinking age. And culturally, it's not something that we consume a lot of or it's culturally, it's something that we don't consume a lot as younger people. There's this very clear line of 21 and not before. And so I think a lot of young people growing up, we almost idealize it and it's this forbidden fruit. And so when we first are able to have some sneaking it behind the bleachers at school or something, we really try and get our hands on it because it's not something that we've consumed with our family or in a culturally significant way. And so a lot of people growing up, I had this idealized notion of it. And going into undergrad became essentially a really heavy drinker. I think a lot of college students are. I was the president of my fraternity and it was almost expected that you're going to drink a lot of alcohol. And I did. And what's funny is, I did it without a lot of thought behind it. I never asked the question, is this something that I enjoy? Is this something that fits in with my lifestyle? Is this something that was just really expected of me? And after undergrad began to decrease my consumption, going through law school and things, it just doesn't really fit with studying all day and being up early to keep drinking it. But really, it's been in the last few years that I began to actually consciously think about my relationship with alcohol and shift towards someone who I would say is a pretty marginal drinker. I could count on my hands the number of drinks I've had in the past year. And really, it's just because I began to actually just ask this question of how do I feel when I consume it? And the answer is that I don't feel that good, right? Both in terms of my mental clarity, my performance in the gym and things like that. And there's this huge community, I think, of people like me popping up who haven't necessarily had a problem with alcohol addiction, but who realized it's just not really a part of a healthy lifestyle. So that's where I'm at right now. And is your lifestyle now around drinking? Is that frowned upon by your social circle? Is it encouraged to people who you come across? Do friends make fun of you for us? Or are they really understanding? What's been the spectrum of reaction from people when they realize that you only drink on occasion now? Yeah, it's really interesting. I think it's changed a lot even in the past one year. Previously, if you told people, oh, I don't really drink, it was like, oh, were you an alcoholic? Or was there something wrong with you? There's always an assumption that you're somehow broken or flawed when you don't. I think it's been shifting quite a lot. And now when you tell people, oh, I don't drink, it's just like, okay, cool, right? And so it's become a lot more acceptable. Fortunately, in my friend group, more and more people aren't drinking in general. Our community here in Austin, Texas is one that is really into mindfulness and consciousness and meditation and athletics and all these things. And so at least within that community, there's less and less alcohol consumption. So not drinking becomes more and more normalized. But for most of my life, that was definitely not the case. So it's certainly heartening to see that shifting to hell. You said you're a former attorney. I bet that world was filled with heavy drinking. Tell us about that. Absolutely. I mean, whether you're at a government job like I was in or at a large law firm like my wife Danielle was, alcohol is a huge part of the culture. The only real social activity that law firms or the government agencies have is happy hours, right? That's sort of the way that we commune together after work. And so you finish, you go to the bar, you have a few drinks with your friends. And then oftentimes people are going back to work after. I don't know how I was never really able to do that. But I think there's just so much stress in the lifestyle. People are looking for ways to relax and unwind. And for most of human history, alcohol has really been the go-to substance for that. And so people didn't think a lot about it when colleagues of mine were having three or four drinks every night to relax. It was sort of the norm. And so it's definitely a community where there's a ton of it. And I think it's starting to change a little bit now is, again, people are thinking about, is this really allowing me to perform at my best? But it's definitely still a big issue in that community. Yeah. Where else do you currently see it being a big issue in communities? And I know you mentioned the law community and attorneys. And I know in Austin, you're in a great environment of people who support your alcohol-free lifestyle. But where do you still see big, heavy drinking communities? I mean, it still happens here in a lot of communities, right? Even in some of the fitness and athletic communities here, there's a lot of alcohol, right? Like, if I do Sunday morning bike rides, it's like bike and brew where everyone's going and having a pie afterwards, which seems a bit incongruous, but is definitely still very common in the entrepreneur community. When someone moves to town who I want to connect with and I say, hey, we'd love to get together. Let's hang out. It's always let's go to happy hour. Let's go to a bar. Let's get a drink, something like that without even thinking about it. And so I think it's still prevalent in pretty much most of the circles that I engage with aside from my close friend group, which is now expanding outwards. But yeah, it's still super prevalent, I think, across the board. Yeah, isn't that crazy? It's like, let's go do some great exercise in the morning and get some fresh air and exercise and feel good. And then let's completely sabotage that by going and going on a pub crawl or having some beers. And it is fascinating, isn't it? Because I do see that. I remember I was living in Bogota, Colombia in the early 2010s. And I joined a CrossFit group there, super healthy, into paleo eating, really, really savage morning workouts and really fostered a great community. And then all the food that was either on sale at the gym or that people were eating was all paleo, like activated almonds and lean meats and vegetables. And there was no sodas and stuff. And then on occasion, they would have these social get-togethers at this very famous kind of steak eatery, which kind of doubled as a nightclub. And they would just get hammered. And by that, I mean, people just drinking, doing shots, girls out the back, throwing up, dancing on tables, like just doing ridiculous things. I mean, think about like these super fit athletic human beings. And then all of a sudden, they're just destroying themselves in the night time. It just felt so incongruent. Yeah. It's funny, you know, it makes sense. And this is something that I talk about a lot is sort of, how did we get to where we are now, right? And having this alcohol alternative product, they've almost become like a alcohol anthropologist, right? And try to dig back and just say, you know, where does this thread begin, right? And there's actually a lot that we owe to alcohol in terms of our, you know, like group dynamics and things. You know, it's not a coincidence that we can be turned into group hunters and group gatherers as opposed to solo hunters and gatherers, right when humans first started consuming alcohol in the form of fermented fruit, because it lowered our inhibitions. It lowered our suspicions of others and outsiders. It allows for the first time to say, maybe I can not be harmed by, you know, engaging with these other people. And I think, you know, back then, fortunately, there was a built-in limiter on our alcohol consumption, right? Which was, if you drink too much, you're going to be eaten by a saber-toothed tiger or something. Our modern world doesn't have those limiters built in. You know, we're not being called on physically in the same way that we used to be. And so, you know, we look back, we say, okay, it actually makes sense that we sort of came from this place, right? And now we have to ask the question of, how do we maintain a lot of these rituals? How do we maintain, you know, the group hangouts and the happy hour like atmospheres together, just with alternative substances. And, you know, if you want to dig more into, like the anthropology of alcohol and the things that it did for us and how we got to where we are today, you know, I can go way deep into that, too. Let's go way deep into that. And then we'll come out of it at the other end, and we'll talk about how you came to produce your non-alcoholic products. Cool. So, you know, a lot of people might have heard of the stoned ape hypothesis, which is about how there is this huge leap in human development when humans discovered sulfide in mushrooms. And this is something that a lot of thinkers have talked about. But what we don't talk about is what's called the drunken monkey hypothesis. And the drunken monkey hypothesis essentially is talking about a genetic change that happened about 10 million years ago, because humans used to not be able to actually consume ethanol. It would make us really, really ill when we had it. And we had a change in a gene called AVH4 that enabled us to actually digest ethanol about 40 times faster than what we were able to do previously. And at the time, what happened was the way that, you know, people were consuming alcohol was an overripe fruit that fell on the forest floor. Well, a side product of fermentation is that you're actually more easily able to digest the fruit, and you're getting more calories from it. And this was a huge advantage at the time. If you're getting more calories from the same food, you're at this huge advantage from the evolutionary perspective. And so humans who were able to sniff out ethanol were selected for, right? And so when people today talk about how they really are attracted to the substance, you know, it's been literally bred into you over millions of years, right? So no surprise there. The other thing that's really interesting is the antimicrobial properties. So alcohol has an antimicrobial effect that has an antiviral effect. It's why we use alcohol wipes for cleaning surfaces. And so it was actually helping people avoid disease back in the day when they were consuming, you know, things that had this sort of light alcohol, you know, nature to it also. And then finally, it was what was really enabling us to tap into the vine in some ways to have these kind of spiritual experiences and these state changes that were different from our normal. So, you know, back then there were all these reasons why people who enjoyed alcohol were selected for. And it was really favored, right? There's all sorts of vitamins that come from fermentation, you know, people that are really poor diet, you can get B vitamins, folic acid, thymine, riboflavin from it. So, you know, I like to say, listen, we need to move beyond it, but at least appreciate where it came from, right? And pay homage to our history with alcohol. And now we've gotten the other way, right? And it's become a huge detriment to society. And, you know, worldwide, I think people drink about a drink a half a day. And when you consider that it's, you know, not everyone who's drinking, that means some people are having a lot more than that, right? But really, like, high culture arose in the places where people were fermenting. But now we need to figure out a way to move past it into other things. Yeah. Do you see in the modern world any notable benefit from humans drinking one and a half drinks a day? I don't think there are any today. I mean, you know, all the reasons that we had back then just don't really exist anymore. Calories are cheap and easy. You know, we don't need it. We are, I think, less suspicious of outsiders and we're more prone to, you know, having group dynamics and things and getting along together. We don't need it, right? We don't need all these vitamins, which we can get for most of our food that we eat. A lot of our food is enriched with, you know, these B vitamins too. So, you know, I don't see it. What I do see, though, as still being important is the ritual. You know, we have alcohol as a champagne toast to celebrate a moment, right? And we're sort of sanctifying this moment together. You know, there's the moms who have a glass of Chardonnay when their kids go to bed, right? There's the people who the first thing they do when they get out, you know, from work and get home is they kick off their shoes and they have a beer, right? And so when I think, what is this really about to me? It's about the ritual of relaxation or sanctification of a moment or just sort of crossing the threshold from the normal profane day stuck in traffic, punching a clock, doing emails to me time, right? So more than anything, it's about separation. And I think people still need the separation. We still need to find ways of turning off our normal day and turning on our evening and having our time. But we don't need alcohol to do it. It's just been the most convenient form so far. So I think we still want to congregate together. We still want to consume together. We still want to relax and unwind and connect with people. We just don't need booze to do it. Yeah. And trying to unwind that whole idea that we do need booze to do it is challenging, isn't it, in the modern world? It's so embedded in our psyche and culture now. I feel like we're in a matrix all the time where I describe people who are smiling at us when they offer their drinks as smiling assassins. So you kind of feel like the alcohol is harmless because everyone who's offering it to you has a big smile on their face. They say, hey, can I get you a drink? Would you like a drink? Or when someone's suggesting that they meet up for a social occasion, we'll go, oh, let's do cocktails. There's a big smile on their face. Oh, let's do the ride and brew, whatever you were referring to in Austin. Yeah. And so these smiling assassins have got this big smile on their face. And so it's kind of implanting this reptilian brain idea in our subconscious that alcohol is fine. Alcohol is cool. That's what you do for connection. That's absolutely right. And I think the more you really dig into it and try and uncover why that is, the more you realize that it's just programming. It's just socialization. There's nothing inherently good in it. It's really good marketing on the behalf of alcohol companies. They spend a lot of money to convince us that it's good for us and that we need it and that we should enjoy it. But that's really all that it is. It's just propaganda. Have you seen one particular ad that sticks out to you that when you watched it, you were like, that's just ridiculous. That's the best marketing I've ever seen. And it's preposterous at the same time. Is there anything that sticks out or? Interesting. I don't know if there's one in particular. I mean, I think Corona has done a wonderful job of the find your beach idea, right? Wherever you have a Corona is where you are relaxed and where you are unwinded and where you can be in this kind of relaxed state. But I find the way that most people consume alcohol, most of the drama and most of the stress in their life is centered around overconsumption of alcohol. And so I think it's actually quite the opposite. So that's one that I think is sort of owned a concept well, but really is pretty far from the truth. I remember watching Super Bowl. I think it was about a year ago. And I think it was for what's the name of the beer coming? Is it Michelob? And there was an ad and it was they were making fun of people like I would probably suggest yourself or me or other people who are kind of like into health and fitness and eating well and lifestyle. And they represented that type of person as a robot. And the robot was kind of running through the streets. And then the robot was running and trying to like be a peak performer. And then they looked into a bar as they were kind of stopping and panting and they saw, you know, relaxed, cool people smiling, fancy people drinking their Michelob. And the robot was kind of like sighing, oh, you know, I wish I was that kind of person. I remember watching that going, that is the most ridiculous ad I think I've ever seen. I mean, like the marketing is suggesting that like, hey, you want to just relax and be cool and be chill and just live a well rounded life, come in and have a beer. I think that I think we should produce the second half of the commercial together where, you know, there's two people fighting and a girl throwing up in the toilet and her friend holding her hair back and show what the end of the night actually looks like that we might have a different perspective. Yeah. Yeah, so interesting. And so your life has brought you recently creating this company, I'm a healing. And some of the products there are alcohol alternatives, elixirs, and a few other things. So just tell us a little bit about how you came to create this company and then tell us about, you know, why the products were created. Because I think you touched on a little bit there where you're talking about people want separation, a separation from turning off their day and turning on their own time at the end of the day. And so I'm assuming that some of the products that you've created here are designed to help people to enjoy that me time without needing alcohol to do it. Yeah, definitely. So, you know, my background is as an attorney and as a tech entrepreneur, I had a couple of companies in the SaaS space doing software. And then for the last three or four years, I've been doing the intersection of technology and social impact. So I've had this sort of front row seat to social impact tech, whether it be in governance or alternative energy or healthcare, education, all these sort of feel good industries. And so, you know, for a long time, social impact tech looked like, you know, solar panels and, you know, like ways of getting internet access to rural areas of the world. Then, you know, these things are incredible, right? And I don't want to discount them. But what I have personally realized in the past two years or so is that the most important tech that we can be working on is the human OS. It's our own mind and it's our own body. And if we can just fix that, a lot of the other problems will essentially fall into place. If we can come at the world from this place of clearheadedness and groundedness and peak mental performance and peak physical performance will be a lot more productive than all those other things. And so for a long time, I was exploring, you know, different things, the sort of biohacking, cognitive hacking space, new tropics, research chemicals, you know, a lot of these things. And then, you know, essentially about two years ago, start to get turned on to hemp extracts. I had, you know, smoked pot like growing up a little bit, I had tried CBD a bunch of times. I never really had any effect from CBD whatsoever. And I had really essentially just written it off. It wasn't something that interested me particularly. And then about a couple of years ago, a friend of ours, you know, called me really excitedly and said, Hey, we invented this new way of extracting, you know, all these beneficial compounds from the hemp plant, you need to come check it out. And I was like, are you talking about CBD? He's like, yeah, kind of. And I was like, no, not interested, not my thing. I think it's total bullshit. But fortunately, the universe conspired to bring me out to where he was anyways, a few weeks later. And I said, I'm just going to go hang out with my friends, you know, wasn't really thinking we're going to talk about business at all. But I had a chance to try one of the products that they had made and just had this really profound conversion moment where I felt just dropped into presence. And I felt a reduction in my social anxiety. I felt this really loose, sociable kind of feeling. I really felt, you know, like this post breath work or post meditation state. And what we've realized since is that, you know, the way most people are making these products is really just not the way we should be doing. So they're using high heat to extract them. They're using all these industrial solvents to extract them. And what's happening is we're losing all these beneficial compounds that are found in the plant. But if we do it in the way that we're doing it, and some others are doing it, essentially, no heat, no additional solvent, we get these really powerful parasympathetic nervous system activators. So we're being taken out of the fight or flight mode into this new essentially brainwave pattern that can have a lot of benefits from it. And so when I had that personal experience, I was able to ask the question of why I had all these negative experiences before and why I now have this positive one. And when we uncovered the way of doing it responsibly, and just saw that time after time as we were sharing these things with people that are having these really profound moments, we said, this is what we've kind of been looking for, you know, we've been looking at ways of doing large scale societal change and shifting people's state of consciousness. We've now found a way to do it. How do we bring this to people, right? And how do we do this at scale? And that's sort of what has led us to doing AMA specifically. In terms of the elevate product, it was actually a really happy accident. When we had our launch party about a year ago, it just did not feel right to serve alcohol at the party. You know, as a health and wellness company, I just said, we can't do it, guys. Like it just doesn't feel right, you know, and everyone was like, well, what are people going to drink? You know, we could bring kombucha, we could bring in this, we could bring in that. And I said, no, I really want something that's going to give people this affirmative state change. And so we sort of went into the lab to try and figure out what can we make that will pair well with, you know, mocktails or alcohol free beverages and came up with this idea for the compound that's now an elevate. But it was not something that was supposed to go beyond the party, right? It was just something for that night. And then we were going to be done with it. But at the end of the evening, we gave out these goodie bags to everybody, and it had all of our different products in it. And people were messaging me over the couple of days thereafter and said, hey, I like this product, I like that product. But why don't you give me any of that stuff that was in the drink? I love those drinks. The drinks were amazing. And I was like, oh no, have I like created the wrong company here? People are really resonating with this thing that we weren't intending on doing. And so that's what began the process of seeing, can we do this in, you know, a self-stable way in a way that people will actually be able to mix and enjoy at home. And unfortunately, the answer has been yes. But yeah, it sort of came about as this accident. So just explain for our listeners then what the elevate product is and how someone might use it. So they come home from the end of the day, or it's the end of the day. And ordinarily, they would want to pour themselves a glass of wine or have a drink. What do they do instead? Yeah, so I'm drinking one right now in some juice. This is what the bottle looks like. So there's a couple of different toppers on it. Some of them are dropper tops like this, some are pump tops. And essentially, it's just a beverage additive. So you put half a milliliter into your beverage of choice, stir it up and drink it. And that's really it. There's some flavor profiles that it goes a lot better with like citrus and natural beverages in general, right? It's not great with like artificial sweeteners and things like that, but kombucha, ciders, you know, juices, sparkling water, stuff like that that mixes really well into. And so, you know, what's enabling people to do is have the ritual of pouring a drink for themselves, having that sort of separation time like we were talking about before, just with something that has all these affirmative health benefits instead of something which is quite frankly poison for you, which alcohol is. What kind of experience can or feelings can can people feel if they do this? So just because people are listening and they can't see. So it's kind of like you're just putting a couple of drops into an existing non-alcoholic drink. So what is the effect that someone might experience? Yeah, so it's designed as a parasympathetic nervous system activator, right? So in terms of what people feel from it, a lot of people describe a state of presence. A state of feeling really connected to the people who they're with, a reduction in their anxiety, a reduction in stress. So, you know, similar to alcohol, we have this sort of de-stressing and removing all of our thought loops and self-consciousness and things like that, except unlike alcohol, we're not getting foggy. We're getting more present and more connected. So I'd say that's probably the way that it's most often described. A lot of people also use that as an aid for creative writing, for dropping into a flow state, you know, where time just kind of disappears. A lot of people have been using it as a pre-workout. They find that just really gets them sort of in the zone and connected and present in their body, and so they like it for that purpose. And then we're constantly learning new ways that people are using it and enjoying it. Those are some of the most common ones that we've seen so far, though. My partner, Juliana, absolutely loves the lip balm. Yeah. She's been using that. You were kind enough to send us some samples of it some weeks ago, and we've tried them out. And so I can definitely attest to the fact that you do feel more present and you feel relaxed from taking it. And Juliana, my partner, just is addicted to the lip balm. Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah. So it's actually a muscle rub, which a lot of people use as a lip balm, but it's a lot more than that. So a lot of people use it for inflammation or muscle soreness or pain. I'd say reducing pain is really the main application for it. So people have like a sore neck or sore feet or something like that. They'll use it on there. It's wonderful for people who have different skin conditions to heal that, but it's funny you mentioned a lip balm. That's actually part of how I use it myself, too. But it's really designed as topical relief for pain, inflammation, muscle tightness, and things like that. And then there's other formulations for other specific purposes. We try not to talk about ourselves as a hemp company or CBD company or anything like that. We really try and focus on being a health and wellness company that's formulating supplements for specific purposes, whether it be pain or decreasing inflammation or sleep or stress relief and things like that. It just so happens that hemp extracts are really effective in synergy with the other compounds that we put in there for helping people with those purposes. Yeah. If you'd like to check out some more about AMMA healing online, you can actually go to JamesSwanick.com. That's AMMA. And also, if you want to try it out, you can use the code James at checkout for 10% off. So you can just go to JamesSwanick.com. As in, AMMA. And you can use the code James at checkout for 10% off. And you've got Alexis, Melatonin and various hemp and CBD products there. How do you see this? Look, you have a health and wellness company. And one of your products is designed to be an alcohol alternative. What trend have you seen with people's behavior around alcohol that gives you confidence that this type of product or any kind of non-alcoholic alternatives are gathering pace in terms of a trend? Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. Maybe it's very flat. Where are we on the broad scope of this? Are we just scratching the surface? Have we not even scratched the surface yet? Where are we at with this? What are you seeing? There's so much to say about this, but the trend is definitely toward a decrease in alcohol consumption. We're seeing, for the first time ever, at least pre-COVID, alcohol sales were decreasing in the US for the first time. More and more bars and restaurants are creating elixir menus or have low and no alcohol sections on their menus, which three years ago, maybe outside of Santa Monica, you probably would not have found anywhere, right? But now here in Austin Texas and in bars in New York, there's sober bars or non-alcoholic bars specifically that are popping up, which just shows that there is really a huge demand for this. And I think what's driving it more than anything is just, you know, we're for the first time just asking this question of what makes me feel good and what doesn't make me feel good. And people are tapping into their bodies and feeling more connected and present in their bodies for the first time ever. And I think a lot of alcohol success has been because it's an incredible numbing agent. It's a way to not deal with your feelings and not deal with your emotions. And I think as a society, we're waking up to the fact that we need to be able to process and deal with the things that we're experiencing and the systematic experience in our bodies. And the more that we do that, you know, the more we realize alcohol has just been helping us numb ourselves out. And now as we want to actually begin to feel these things, how my body really is naturally, we're realizing more and more that, you know, alcohol is not our friend that's just preventing us from dealing with these things. And so now we're seeing the trend of people wanting to have the experience, right? And realizing that alcohol just doesn't fit with that. Yeah. It's increasing. It hasn't quite got to the point yet where all of a sudden as a society, we realized how bad smoking was for us. And all of a sudden there was just a massive tidal wave turn of people's perception of cigarette smoking. Do you think we're ever going to get there? I don't know if it's going to be exactly to the same extent because, you know, alcohol is so deeply embedded in so many parts of our culture and ritual and religion and all these things. And I think, you know, this is just my personal belief, right? As for those who can handle it, there is some degree of safe alcohol consumption, right? Like for me personally, it's about a drink a month, right? Like that's what incorporates into my lifestyle. And I think a lot of people will find a balance like that where, you know, a glass of wine that they really love, you know, they'll still have on a special occasion or at someone's wedding, they might still have a few sips of champagne or something, right? But more and more, yes, we're going in the direction that you're talking about where there's going to be a lot of stigmatization, at least excess consumption. And I think we, you know, are realizing that what we think as appropriate consumption is actually excess consumption. And so in many ways we're going to see it being cut out of people's lifestyle, I think, yeah. Do you think we're ever going to get to the point where someone actually having any alcohol whatsoever, like our drink is going to be frowned upon? I mean, I think about today, today's society, if I'm out in a cafe or outside and someone lights a cigarette next to me, at least in most parts of Australia and the US, and I was different in some parts of Asia in particular, my friend was just, is in Istanbul in Turkey at the moment, he was saying everybody smokes. So, you know, depending on the country and the culture, it is different. But do you think we're ever going to get to a stage in the culture in America, or say, or the UK, or Australia or Canada, or maybe, you know, most English-speaking worlds at the very least, that people will have a drink and people will look at that and go, what are you doing? Oh, get away from it. It's like, we like, we don't want cigarette smoke near us now. And we're like, oh, can you believe that person's smoking, or this baby's present? What's that person doing? Do you think we're ever going to get to the point where they're like, oh my God, that person's having a drink, having a beer. That is just outrageous. I can't believe people still do that. Maybe. I'm not sure. You know, I think with cigarette smoking, you know, there's the effect on the people around you, right, which is so obvious in terms of second-hand smoke. And so I think at first glance, we think that maybe isn't the case with alcohol. But then we realize that alcohol is the source of so much violence and so much destruction and drunk driving and domestic violence and all these things. Yeah, maybe we begin to characterize it, you know, in that same way. But again, you know, I'm not such a zealot for the anti-drinking movement, having zero consumption whatsoever, right? I think, you know, for people who are able to, you know, things in moderation don't personally bother me, right? Like, I think smoking cigarettes is pretty gross. But as long as someone wasn't close to me and I wasn't having to breathe it in, you know, if that's what you enjoy once a month of cigarette to help you relax, it doesn't really actually bother me that much. And so similarly, you know, alcohol is a part of religious ritual, a part of celebration or something, I think may not go away completely. And I don't know that it needs to. What I know for sure is we are so far away from having an appropriate relationship with it that we need to continue going really far in that direction, right? So are we ever going to get to a 10 out of 10 on prohibition? You know, I'm not sure. Maybe an eight or nine is enough. But right now we're at a one. It's just so far off from where we are that this is the conversation that we should be having, right? And encouraging people to decrease and to find these other things, whether or not it completely goes away eventually. I want to just finish up here by asking you a question that if you weren't going to consume your product or even if you were, how would you or how do you switch off at the end of each day? You know, you talked about the separation between the end of a day and in the meantime, and millions of people all over the world are choosing to pour attractively packaged poison down there. Okay. That's what they're choosing. So how do you do it or how would you do it if your product didn't exist? Yeah. So, you know, that's the secret of all this, right? Which isn't really that much of a secret is we don't need any substances for that state change and to find that place of relaxation. There are so many ways to do it with nothing else, right? The substances are just tools. It's shortcuts, you know, for people. You know, me personally, meditation is one that really works well for me. Exercise is one that really works well for me. Just getting outside and putting my feet in the dirt at the end of the day and getting some sunshine on my body before it's dark out and walking around is one that works really well for me. So, you know, breath work is another one. And so there's all these tools that are accessible to us and that are free to everyone that can give you that same thing. And my hope is that, you know, people aren't reliant on a product like ours. You know, I think what I really see it as is just showing people there's an alternative that's out there, right? You have options. Showing people what it feels like to be in that calm and present and grounded state such that they realize when they begin to drift away from it and can use other tools to come back, right? Like the breath work and meditation and all these things. So, you know, there are so many of them out there and I encourage everyone to find the one that works well for them. But you don't need anything but what is available to you in your own body in order to access it? Yeah, well said. Just a couple of things that I do as well. I know you mentioned breath work. I did breath work and I actually went to a breath work class once or twice a week. I did it when I was living in Venice Beach, California, and it was magnificent. Having said that, I haven't kept up that practice at all. Once I left Venice, I just, I didn't go back to doing it. But what I have realized is that I actually do breath work most days of the week when I go and swim laps of my local pool. So I go to a pool here. And just the simple act of 30 minutes of very slow, gentle freestyle doing laps, I'm actually doing the breath work because think about it, I'm holding my breath and breathing in, I'm breathing in and then holding my breath as I just kind of do three strokes with my arms and then I'm breathing it out and then I'm breathing it in quickly and I'm holding my breath again. And so what I found is that I get, with swimming at least, I get sunlight on myself because it's an outdoor pool and sunlight has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety and it's a great form of vitamin D, obviously. I get exercise because I'm moving my body, which has been shown to be a great stress relief. And I'm doing breath work and quite frankly, I'm doing meditation as well because that black line at the bottom of the pool, I'm just following it and I'm breathing and yeah, thoughts are coming in. But there are times where I'm just in that zone in that flow state where I'm not really thinking anything. I'm just looking at the black line. So anyway, just a little side note there that for me personally, I found that doing laps in an outdoor pool has given me the ability to combine all those things that you just talked about, which was meditation, exercise, sunshine and breath work. They're the fourth things you mentioned. And I get those four things from 30 minutes of doing laps in an outdoor pool. Yeah, I love swimming as well. And I find the exact same benefits as what you're talking about. And it's wonderful for so many reasons. It improves your oxygen utilization as well. You are limited in how much you can breathe when you're swimming, right? It's every few strokes and you can't take the same huge gulping breath that you do otherwise. For people who want to dig into this a little bit more, not to get off topic, there's an incredible book called The Oxygen Advantage, which I would encourage everyone to check out. Breath is something that you're interested in, which talks a lot about this. Wonderful. Well, thank you, Ted. I appreciate you joining us here and sharing your words of wisdom. Ted Moskovitz, a former attorney, entrepreneur, angel, investor, and the founder of Amma, or Amma Healing, I should say. His product is called Elevate, if you're interested in an alcohol alternative. And there are some other products there as well, some great hemp extract products, including the muscle rub or the lip balm, depending on how you want to use it. Just a reminder, you can check out more at JamesSwanick.com slash Amma, that's AMMA. And you can use the code James for a 10% discount at checkout. Ted, thank you so much. I so appreciate your time, mate. Thank you for having me. It's wonderful getting to explore our alcohol-free feature together. Thanks for listening to the Alcohol-Free Lifestyle podcast. I want to load you up with some free stuff right now. So if you want to go to JamesSwanick.com slash guide, I will send you my quit alcohol guide, which has helped six-figure entrepreneurs and top professionals produce or quit drinking. You can also text the word quit guide to the number 44222, if you're in the US, of course. It doesn't really work anywhere outside of the US. But if you're in the US on your mobile phone and you'd like that guide, text the word quit guide to the number 44222, or you can go to JamesSwanick.com slash guide. If you'd like to schedule a free 15-minute call with one of my top coaches, just an exploratory call to see if or how we can help you, then you can go to JamesSwanick.com slash schedule, or you can text the word Project 90 to the number 44222 if you're listening in the US on a mobile phone. That's JamesSwanick.com slash schedule, or you can text the word Project 90, that's one word, Project 90, to the number 44222. Feel free to send me a direct message over on my Instagram account, which is at JamesSwanick. You can also watch video episodes of this podcast and a series of other educational videos on my YouTube channel, which is JamesSwanickOne, or you can direct message me on Facebook at JamesSwanickOfficial. And finally, a request. Would you please now write a short review of the podcast inside of the Apple podcast app on your phone or on iTunes on your desktop computer? Would you please give the show five stars and write a quick one or two sentence review? This will help the show get in front of even more listeners, potentially transforming someone's life. You can rate and review the show inside of your Apple podcast app on your phone or over on iTunes on your desktop. Thank you so much and I'll catch you next time.