 Hi there, this is James Swannick and you're listening to the alcohol-free lifestyle podcast where you learn how to take back control over alcohol and live a life of health wealth love and happiness Great to have you with us on the alcohol-free lifestyle show I have a Listener question today. This is from Martin Guevara Who asks what if you're in a relationship where both of you drink together and now you want to stop? But your partner doesn't How do you stop when the temptation is right in front of you? Martin thank you so much for your question and by the way Martin asked that question in the Facebook group of the 30-day no-alcohol challenge and if you're watching this on YouTube there's a link down below in the description where you can learn more about that and if you're listening on the podcast You can go to 30 day no-alcohol challenge.com Martin. Thank you so much for your question So there's two parts to your question here. The first part was what if you're in a relationship? We're both of you drink and now you want to stop what your partner doesn't so let me respond to that first Communication is going to be huge right you must communicate to your partner Why you're choosing to be alcohol-free the importance of it what it signifies to you ask them for their support Ask them for their encouragement ask them to refrain From this beautifully over you sentence go on just have one. Oh, you deserve it. Oh, you haven't drunk for a week Well done. You deserve a drink That's like the worst thing you can hear from your partner because now it gets you into this belief that you are depriving yourself of fun every single day that goes by that you're not drinking and then If you feel like you're depriving yourself that ordinarily you would be rewarding yourself with then you're gonna feel like you're in a prison And what a prisoners want to do they want to break out a prison, right? So encouraging your partner to simply just support and courage hold space for you Not to try to get you to break and just communicating and over community communicating why it's important Now if you have a loving partner someone who supports you and encourages you that should be very easy for them to do having said that many people don't have as Supporting and encouraging partners. I understand that and I appreciate that So in the event where they listen to you and they tell you what you want to hear which is oh, yep Yep, I'll absolutely support you no problems, but then later on they say oh, you've done gone two weeks. That's amazing Oh, you've gone two months. I'll just have a drink. It'll be fine in that event What do you do? so The way in which you respond to your partner is so much more important than the words that you actually say So 93% of all communication and persuasion is body language and tonality only 7% is the words that you actually say So if you are saying to your partner Yeah, no, I can't have one. I shouldn't have one. Oh, yeah, I really want to have one But I can't I'm doing so well then of course your partner is going to be is going to continue to encourage you to have a drink Because they feel like you're in a prison. They feel like they're in a prison and You both feel like you're in a prison and so now of course you're gonna crumble and you're gonna go, okay I'll just have one or okay. Yeah, you're right. I do deserve it and then slippery slope gets a hold of you and then you back to square one and I'm presuming that you don't want that However, if you respond with like nah, I'm good. Thank you. I appreciate it. Nah, I'm good I'm stay in the path and you say it with light-heartedness and confidence and assertiveness and you're not making them feel bad for them trying to corrupt you and You're just like, oh, no, I'm good. No, I'm gonna keep going with water I'm gonna keep going. I'm too strong too strong in mind and you make a little game of it You kind of you're playful with it a little bit then your partner will see that and your partner will drop the The temptation or like the trying to corrupt you Here's the thing a lot of partners and a lot of people for that matter who are friends Or loved ones, etc. When they see you stepping up your game. It can trigger them or rather they can feel triggered By that situation, right? And now that's nothing to do with you. That's their responsibility Because what many people get triggered by is they see someone else stepping up their game and it highlights the fact that they're not stepping up their game It brings up a whole lot of insecurities inferiority complex fears Jealousy envy Resentments it can bring Those things up for them. But again, that has nothing to do with you. You are living your life You are choosing to be alcohol-free. You're not shoving it down anyone's throat. You're not doing it Accusingly, you're not making anyone else feel bad for them drinking. You're just being you You're just choosing to be alcohol-free because you choose to be alcohol-free How they respond is on them But some people may respond in a way, which is they get triggered and they want to try and corrupt you and they put on their smiling Face and they try to assassinate you. I call them smiling assassins It's people friends waiters waitresses who are always saying hey, would you like a drink? Hey, can I get you a drink? Oh, come on. You deserve a drink. Oh, she's been a tough week. I don't know. Let's have a drink and They got this big smile on their face the whole time trying to lure you into this Feeling that alcohol is something to be desired and that we should all be striving to reward ourselves with this attractively packaged poison at the end of the week It's ridiculous because alcohol is attractively packaged poison. That's all it is. It's poison. It's a toxin. It's bad for you and You know, what's worse is that we pay for it. Oh, let me give you some money please please please let me give you some money for some poor sleep and some extra body fat and Some broken dreams and some irritability and poor relationships. I read some why that somewhere the other day that 70% of all relationship breakdowns has alcohol involved somehow crazy, I'll have to pick pull up the the actual study there and And refer to it on a future podcast but Crazy how much alcohol can affect a relationship? Anyway, I digress or is it regress? I'm not sure if it's digress or regress. Can someone let me know My mother who was an English school teacher would be horrified to learn that I don't have correct Grammar at the moment digress or regress Listen up if you're there, let me know Let's get back to it. So You want to stop what your partner doesn't Communicating to your partner why it's important asking them for their support When they try to corrupt you or if and when they try to corrupt you by getting you to celebrate by just having one The way in which you respond is so much more important than the words that come out of your mouth So you just remaining light-hearted Confident assertive thanking them for trying to corrupt you but laughing at them's like Oh, you're so silly trying to corrupt me You're almost on a like looking at them gonna not dismissively not in an angry manner, but just kind of like That's funny. That's cute. That's cute that you're trying to corrupt me because if you do get angry Well, then that again is on you right if you get angry with them for trying to corrupt you Then maybe it maybe it's because you really really really want really want to drink and Maybe they can sense and they can feel that and so they're trying to help you escape from prison But if you're always just like I'm good. I'm too strong in mind. I'm good with my soda water or ice and a piece of lime And you can communicate to them and they can see and feel that from that from your body language they're going to drop it and If your partner insists and keeps going on and on about this Well, I don't know whether you're with the right partner quite frankly or maybe I shouldn't say the right partner I don't know if you're with a partner that is serving you in that moment a partner who is Energizing you supporting you encouraging you I'm not sure you that type of energy is Would be welcome in your life in that moment Second part of your question Martin was how do you stop when the temptation is right in front of you? Well, here's the thing Anything else is the answer Sorry, if the question was what do you do when the temptation is there the answer is anything else and Anything else can be one million and one different things including just 30 seconds breathing in deeply Going to the refrigerator and pouring a nice glass of cold water Getting up and walking out of the home and going for a walk around the street phoning a friend jumping up and down splashing water on your face Going to your journal reading a book turning on the TV even anything else then Reaching for the drink and drinking Reminding yourself why you're doing this reminding yourself of your commitment as to why you're remaining alcohol-free Turning your life thinking about all the things that you are grateful for will put you into a positive frame of mind and will reduce cravings a lot of the science is showing that Alcohol cravings come from a lot of stress and anxiety and so when you're stressed and you're anxious your willpower just is Destroyed right it falls by the wayside. So if you can Get out of stress and anxiety by Reminding yourself of all the things you are grateful for or why today has been a great day even though it feels like it's been a crappy day Your cravings will subside because your stress and anxiety will subside So How do you stop when the temptation is right in front of you you stop by doing anything else and For me the best and quickest way to change your state is through the power of breath Just breathing in and out getting up moving around going outside drinking some water Doing something else picking up a journal reminding yourself of all the things you've been grateful for I don't do this thing called the daily 20 where I write down 20 things. I'm grateful for every day What it does is it activates my reticular activating system we all have it you have it reticular act activating system RAS and what that does is that your body starts to find Evidence and see things that you are thinking about So if I said red Tesla red Tesla red Tesla and we had a conversation about a red Tesla Chances are in the next few days. You'd go out and you'd see a red Tesla Because now your subconscious or your unconscious is now looking for that very thing that you've been talking about So when you write down 20 things that you're grateful for each day All of a sudden you go about your day and you start to see more evidence That there are things to be grateful for The birds the trees the sounds the fact that you've got a car the fact that you got a job Okay, you're sleeping in a bed. You got a loved one. You've got kids your Football team one on the weekend. Whatever Like the list goes on and on and on and come up with a million things that you're grateful for if you really sit down and think about it And you want it to feel hard because the reticular activating system works best when it feels hard when you're searching For things to be grateful for because what if you're searching and you're finding it challenging to find things to be grateful for Guess what your RAS is working It's super beneficial for you because when you stop searching for it And you just start going about your day all of a sudden boom You will just see more things to feel grateful for and all the science Neuroscience shows that when you are living a life of appreciation versus Expectation and you are grateful for things your stress and anxiety reduces when your stress and anxiety reduces your cravings for alcohol reduce When your cravings for alcohol reduce you tend to drink more water do more exercise be more grateful feel happier And people who are happier and do more exercise and are more grateful tend to be healthier and don't have alcohol cravings So That was a bit of a long-winded answer, but I'm confident there is enough Stuff in my response Martin and to to you the listener or the viewer if you're watching on YouTube to get some a few little tactics and some help out of my My answer I didn't word that very well. Did I? So Martin Gavara Gavara, thank you so much for your question I appreciate it if you are listening and you enjoyed this episode. Would you please do me a huge favor? And write a review if you're listening in iTunes could you please I would so love it if you would do this go Into iTunes and just write a little one-sentence summary like saying this was great awesome. I loved it And give it a ranking out of like a five-star review. It really helps Send the podcast up the iTunes rankings if you're listening on Spotify if you could do the same thing If you're on YouTube, could you like or to leave a comment down below if you would like to ask a question and have it answered on the show Feel free to email me at James at James swanick.com or you can send me a DM on my Instagram and You can just say podcast question and then post the question in pretty soon I'm going to get more technically advanced here and I'm going to give you an opportunity to text a question in People who work with me on my team will know that I'm pretty technically challenged at the best of times But it's coming. I'm also going to get a better microphone. So it sounds a lot better We're going to be doing lots of cool little polishes along the way, but for now, thank you so much Martin for your question Thank you so much for listening. There's another episode coming There's lots of episodes around here that if you stop listening now and you want to listen to another one Just listen to the next episode or the one before or the one before that and I'll look forward to Catching you on the next episode. See you for now Thank you so much for listening. I have some free stuff for you If you go to James swanick.com forward slash guide I will send you my formula for reducing or quitting alcohol If you'd like to watch the video versions of these episodes Then you can watch them at my YouTube channel, which is at James swanick If you'd like to send me a direct message on Instagram You can do so at James swanick if you would like to try a three-day challenge a free three-day challenge You can go to James swanick.com forward slash three-day challenge if you would like to try the 30-day no alcohol challenge You can go to 30-day no alcohol challenge if you would like to Schedule a 15-minute exploratory call with one of my coaches to see how we may be able to help you in your alcohol-free journey You can go to James swanick.com forward slash Schedule and my request is if indeed you enjoyed this episode or you have enjoyed the podcast Would you please go ahead and rate the show in iTunes and would you please write a review a review might just be a sentence saying great Listen, hey, this was fantastic. Oh, I really enjoyed this whenever you give a rating whenever you write a review It surges our podcast up in the rankings enabling more people to see it and hear it and potentially inspiring someone out there to reduce or quit alcohol and potentially transform their life So yes, while it does help me to get ratings and to get reviews You will actually be directly Contributing to helping someone's life by having them discover this podcast So if you are open to inspiring others and to helping me in the process Would you please go ahead and give this episode a ranking and would you please write a review? Thank you so much for listening and I will catch you on the next one