 I am James Swanik. Hope you have a great 2021. How do you socialize alcohol-free? How do you have fun without alcohol? How do you handle social situations where friends or colleagues or bosses or family members are pressuring you to have a drink? That's what we're going to be talking about in today's episode. Just a little context. It's as I'm recording this now, it's the first week of January. I hope you guys had a wonderful Christmas and holiday period. I spent time with family over on Stradbroke Island, which is an island off the east coast of Australia. We had 31 family members there of aunts and uncles and cousins and kids and nieces and nephews and mums and dads. It was fabulous until the final day when 13 of us got a gastro something or other stomach bug. I found myself vomiting uncontrollably all afternoon on the Sunday. In fact, my partner and I had just got off the ferry, which transports cars from Stradbroke Island over to the mainland on Brisbane in the suburb of Kapalipa. We were driving home to where we live in east Brisbane and about a mile from my house, I couldn't handle it anymore and I said to my partner, Juliana, pull over and on the side of the road, we pulled over and I projectile all over the Brisbane motorway. It wasn't a very pleasant sight. The last time something like that happened was exactly 10 years earlier when I got food poisoning on the evening of the Super Bowl back in New York in 2000. I think it was 2010 or 2011. I'm not sure the exact year, but it's a long time ago. I very, very rarely get sick, but I got sick on this occasion. How's that for a pleasant introduction to the podcast here to talk about how to socialize with that alcohol and I'm conjuring up an image of me vomiting on the highway. Anyway, that was a real wake up call for me to just take better care of myself because while I generally eat well and exercise well, over that Christmas period, I didn't eat as well. Friends and family, they bring food and there's lots of sugary treats and I indulged. I didn't have alcohol, obviously. I haven't drunk since 2010, but I did indulge. I'm not saying that that's what led me to get the stomach bug because obviously someone had it and just passed it around, but once I finally got home and then was now vomiting in the bathroom in the safety of my home, in that moment, I was like, I never want to eat again full stop, but more than that when I realized that was ridiculous, it was I never want to eat crap food again. I always want to eat healthy and make healthy choices and subsequently since then, as I'm recording this, it's the first week of January, it's been a week since I was ill. I've eaten only organic food and I've drunk only filtered water and yeah, I've taken care of myself and I feel infinitely better. I mean, I just share the story because it's a good reminder, I think, for all of us that how many or how often rather do we destroy our bodies with poor food and Wi-Fi, all of the toxins and the plastics and all of the shampoos and the soaps that are filled with parabens and toxins and we really do destroy our body and our minds on a, you know, everyday basis and we have a choice not to, we have a choice to live toxin free and alcohol free and we also have a choice to not live toxin free and alcohol free. So obviously this is the alcohol free lifestyle podcast, we're talking about alcohol and we're talking about rewiring our brain so we can get power over our alcohol but every time that you drink or we drink, we are making a choice and we're making a choice to put toxins in our body because alcohol is a toxin. That's all it is, that's all alcohol is. In fact, alcohol comes from the Arabic term alcohol which means body eating spirit, body eating spirit and all alcohol is just toxins and so we're choosing to drink toxins, therefore we have to pay the price of choosing to drink toxins that shows up in dehydrated skin and craving sugary foods, higher propensity to eat carb laden foods because we're drinking compromised sleep which creates irritability the next day and fatigue and lethargy and a lack of focus and concentration. You know, we make these choices now I over Christmas over the Christmas holiday period I made a choice to eat some more sugary foods that I then I ordinarily would have and again I mean obviously there was a stomach bug and I caught that but I feel somewhat confident that if I hadn't eaten those sugary foods that my immune system probably would have been strong enough to have handled the stomach bug a lot better than it actually did. Maybe I would have never actually even got sick or maybe I would have just got a little bit sick and and didn't have to bomb it. So what choices are you making on a daily basis that is affecting the quality of your life? I asked you to do you know a study a stock take every time you eat food write it down take a photo of it maybe have a look at it over the course of a week and just look at what you're putting in your mouth and are those choices serving you note down every time you drink water what kind of water is it that you're drinking is it filtered water is it out of the tap is it a plastic bottle how much water are you drinking do a study find out we are going to get to the dealing with the social element of alcohol in just a second but I just wanted to start by giving that context for me it's been a just another wake up call that you know calls and effect is real like if you eat poorly you will feel poorly if you don't drink a lot of water then you will have dry skin and you will feel more irritable if you don't write down things that you're grateful for then you will always be living a life of expectation and worrying about what you're not getting and having a fear of missing out and you'll live in a life of stress and anxiety so Juliana and I we have just gone crazy in terms of buying organic food only I mean we look we ordinarily we buy organic food anyway but this week in particular I guess what's more accurate to say is we've avoided non-organic food because I'm so protective now of taking care of my body and treating it like it's a million dollar racehorse because if you owned a million dollar racehorse you would take care of that racehorse you wouldn't be letting it eat chips and pizzas and coke and everything like you'd be feeding it everything that you know that a professional racehorse needs but yet we humans we flog ourselves to death with sugary drinks and sugary foods and carb laden breads and pastas and all that kind of stuff which we know is not great for us but we make that choice anyway so I just invite you now as we begin 2021 take a stock take of what you're eating and drinking and how you're spending your time and and really start to ask yourself is this best serving me and then commit to making the shift commit to making the change many folks like to make many changes when they join our project 90 program which is kind of the alcohol free lifestyle signature program it's not just about quitting drinking it's about fundamentally transformation improving the relationship with your daughter asking for a promotion at work starting the business doing better in the business losing 20 pounds having more energy sleeping better looking better fitting into a pair of 32 inch waist jeans instead of the 36 inch waist jeans and so forth and so forth because this is never really about quitting drinking this is about the benefits that you get from quitting drinking people don't join a program such as project 90 to quit drinking they join a program such as project 90 to get all the benefits from quitting drinking and in my experience now being 10 and a half years alcohol free those benefits include energy great sleep better relationships you get better looking just a warning you do get better looking when you stop feeding your body toxins your skin just all of a sudden has a glow to it especially women who spend most of the money on on beauty products more so than men although men increasingly so I always share with with women I said you can buy your fancy nutridina skincare and your L'Oreal products advertised by Jennifer Aniston and you know Charlie's Darren and all these kind of famous celebrities and and put it all on your cream but you put all that cream on your face and those shamp that shampoo in your hair but you're literally putting toxins on your face into your bloodstream you're literally putting toxins into your hair and into your bloodstream because that or if you look in the ingredients of those products you'll see it's there are names there are products ingredients I should say that you can't even pronounce that you don't even know the name of you don't even understand or you can simply stop drinking alcohol and drink more water and all of a sudden your skin will look infinitely better you'll get your hair will start to get thicker we had a project 90 member Jessica Gaines-Jabo and she won't mind me mentioning her name because she's been interviewed on this very podcast at least twice now and she's she's given given us testimonials very kindly about her experience working with our organization and Jessica Gaines-Jabo who's a realtor in Kentucky she said that her hair just became so much thicker and fuller after just 90 days of being alcohol free so this is real like like you know these toxins of alcohol that they're damaging our looks they're damaging our productivity and our clarity and our focus and our efficiency and our concentration and if we make the choice to go alcohol free and instill healthy habits such as what I mentioned eating better for us and my family it means organic food but for you it can just mean eating better it doesn't necessarily have to be organic I choose to eat organic but just choosing to eat better and drink lots more water and I don't mean tap water I mean nice filtered water although tap water you know is a is a good second substitute I'd rather you be drinking tap water than you know not drinking enough water yeah it's amazing how many breakthroughs you can make in your life by simply removing the attractively packaged poison from your life and instilling healthy habits and that's what happens when you do remove attractively packaged poison from your life healthy habits just start to be ingrained I was listening earlier on the new clubhouse app if you're not familiar clubhouse is a new app that came out and really exploded in the last week of December between Christmas and New Year's where you can go in there and there are rooms of experts it's audio only it's kind of like a think of like a group zoom call but it's only audio and you can duck in and out or enter and exit rooms as in when you please and there are people there in entrepreneurial discussions and health discussions I created a room this morning called alcohol-free lifestyle I've applied to have the alcohol-free lifestyle clubhouse club when I get that I will announce it here and let you guys know so you can come in and join and just join the conversation you can have a conversation with me in real time in that room but in any case I was in clubhouse this morning and there was a gentleman there by the name of BJ Fogg who wrote the book Tiny Habits so he's one of the world's leading experts on habits BJ Fogg is his name and BJ Fogg was talking about how once you break one bad habit it opens the door to a waterfall or a cascade of other healthy habits and that's what happened to me certainly I quit drinking and all of a sudden I discovered mindfulness and I discovered organic food and I discovered exercise in mobility and I became interested in great sleep and then I became interested in little things like meditation and then I you know I went deeper down the rabbit hole and I did I did ayahuasca which is a plant medicine I did a 10-day silent meditation and these might seem extreme and in some cases they are but I experimented in that world had had fun learning now I don't do ayahuasca I just did it the one time I don't do the 10-day silent meditations but I do 10-minute meditations because I did the 10-day meditation it opened up a whole new door of people and opportunities and ways of seeing the world so when you choose when you choose to quit alcohol and you are consistently alcohol free if you experience what I experienced you will then start to be interested in other topics like relationships conversation how you use your language to communicate with people dietary choices exercise mobility longevity mindfulness which you get onto the topic the topic of today's conversation was about how you navigate social situations let me just take a sip of water here by the way we're starting another project 90 intake we had a record number of people enrolled in our project 90 program in December 2020 just floodgates were opened lots of people wanting to surge into 2021 alcohol free and getting power over their drinking and feeling amazing if you are interested in that and you'd like to chat with one of our enrollment team just to see if it is for you then you can schedule a complimentary coaching call over at James swanick.com forward slash schedule or if you're listening in the U.S. and you're on a mobile phone then you can text the word what is the word well just text me at the number 44222 project 90 PROJ ECT and then the number 90 the numbers 90 yeah text me at the number 44222 project 90 and I will send you back a link where you can book a time with one of my enrollment team to have a chat about how we might be able to help and support you go alcohol free in 2021 so the way in which you share with people that you are alcohol free is far more important than the words that you say to explain that you're alcohol free or put another way it doesn't so much matter what you say as it does how you say it so most people go into a social situation when they're not drinking and they go oh gee shocks I should be drinking oh people are going to judge me and then someone offers you a drink and they say hey can I can I get you a drink and you say oh no thanks I'll just have a soda water please and then they can see in your body language and in your way of being that you have some resistance to that and I say what do you mean go on you'll be fine just have a drink it's my it's my birthday or it's an end of year drinks and now all of a sudden you're in this position where you're being pressured or where you feel pressure and now it's a thing this is an issue whereas if someone offered you a drink and you said yeah I'll take a sparkling water for please that'd be great I'll take soda water that'd be amazing and you set it with confidence and assertiveness and light heartedly it's possible that that person may question oh why aren't you drinking but it's less less possible and even if they did ask you oh why aren't you having a drink go on just have one if you are smiley and light hearted and confident and assertive back and just go oh no I'm good I'll take sparkling water oh soda water I'm not drinking at the moment and just bring that type of energy to it you diffuse the situation you diffuse this kind of like debate that may spring up between the host who's obviously trying to be nice and offer you a drink and you who's trying to be nice in declining the drink see most people when they're alcohol free think that people are judging them because they're alcohol free most people who go alcohol free fear and worry that if they share that they're alcohol free that one of a few things will happen a that their friends or colleagues or whoever will think that they're an alcoholic and they have a drinking problem and therefore or isn't that awful that's terrible that someone thinks that I have a drinking problem or be they fear or worry that their social circle is going to think that they're a killjoy that they're not having fun that they're a dampener on the good times or they fear that their friends will have to tip toe around them walk on eggshells so as not to tempt you to have a drink and therefore now the energy is all weird mostly people just fear that people are going to judge them I can't tell you how many people who want who want to join us in project 90 who always plead and beg with me and double check and triple check it's 100% private and confidential isn't it like it's strictly confidential I value my privacy I value my confidentiality no one's going to know I'm doing this right and I totally get that like I like you it would be rare if you didn't feel that so it's perfectly normal for you to feel that way and it's also ridiculous to feel that way if you look at it through a different lens at the same time because if you are confident about not drinking and you bring a lighthearted fun playful energy to the fact that you are alcohol free then what do you care if anyone thinks that you're going through a quit drinking program or you're getting help to quit drinking you just wouldn't care the reason that people care so much is because they fear that people will judge them oh my god that person's an alcoholic all careful no I've had a bit of problem with the drink and isn't it ridiculous that alcohol is the only drug in the world where you have to justify not taking it it's crazy you don't have to justify not taking cocaine or heroin or crystal meth becoming you know taking any of those hard drugs I mean you have I mean you have to just I mean it's ridiculous alcohol is the only drug in the world where you've got to justify not taking it people are come on whereas if you say oh I take heroin or I'm not taking heroin tonight it's not like anyone's going to say oh come on just have one hit what are you talking about so people are terrified of what people will think if if it's known that they're choosing to be alcohol free but I'm going to let you in a little secret most people don't care most people don't care and that's what one of the big are hard sort of moments are for people who work with us is like wow when I actually shared that I wasn't drinking most people either A didn't care or B were really supportive or C asked me a lot of questions about it because they wanted to reduce or quit drinking as well and didn't know how or hadn't hadn't been given permission to speak freely about it most people are worried about themselves just like you're worried about yourself listening to this and I'm worried about myself listening to this like I'm thinking now is this valuable I'm speaking and I'm thinking I hope the listener is getting value out of this I hope I haven't gone off on too many you know tangents here gee I spent did I spend too long 10 minutes talking about how I was vomiting that time and I didn't get straight to the point are people going oh this is like just get to the point James like I'm thinking that story right now in my mind right worrying about me worrying about me worrying about me so let me tell you something you're going into social situations worried about what people are going to think about you not drinking they're all worried about what you're thinking about them they're all worried about your perception of them like you are the most terrifying person in the world to them because they're in their own world right now and they're going oh gee I hope Lisa or John or Christie you're like am I showing up right am I being confident does this person think I'm weak does this person think I'm late does this person think that what I'm saying makes sense bottom line is people are too busy thinking and worrying about themselves to think and worry about you but you're walking around as if you're going to be judged and that somehow your life is going to be compromised if people know that you are alcohol-free and I'm here to share with you that most people don't care and the ones who do care don't care as much as you think they do and those people who care even just a little bit most of them are caring because of one or two reasons one they're interested in living an alcohol-free lifestyle themselves or two the energy that you have brought to the conversation about you being alcohol-free is one of apologetic oh I'm sorry I know I do want to have a drink but I can't I should I want to but I can't and if you're in that energy of course they are going to encourage you to have a drink because you're bringing an energy of you are depriving yourself of something that ordinarily you would choose you're actually conveying an energy that you're in a prison this is why these these these like these are I'm going to quit for seven day things don't for the most part work or they're mostly ineffective because for seven days you feel like you're in a prison you feel like you're depriving yourself of something and then what a prisoners want to do in prison they want to break out right they want to be free so then on day seven comes you get to seven days of alcohol-free and then you want to celebrate with a drink because you've just felt like you've been in a prison depriving yourself of a drink all this time so if you bring that energy like you're depriving yourself of fun or pleasure or enjoyment of something that you ordinarily would choose then you're telling yourself that you're a prisoner and you're also sharing with your friends or colleagues or boss that you're a prisoner and then there becomes a conversation and of course they're going to try to help you break free they want you know they think they have your best interests at heart come on it's the end of the year just have one but it's my birthday but we're celebrating and so it goes so it goes so it goes whereas if you had originally just brought the energy of like let's say George Clooney George Clooney cheeky confidence smart cool suave let's say you walk into every engagement like that being alcohol-free are people really going to challenge you on the fact that you're not drinking you walk in and say hey can i grab a sparkling water may have a can i grab a soda water soda would be great thanks and they say what you're not drinking and they go nah i'm not drinking i'll get drunk on this sparkling water though i'll get drunk on this soda water make a little joke have a little cheeky smile now the energy shifted now people are like oh okay he's resolute she's resolute she's confident there's nothing to challenge here nothing at all because people don't want you to drink to have fun they just want you to have fun and you can do that without drinking and you don't want to drink to fit in and have fun you just want to fit in and have fun and you can do that without drinking so i invite you in social situations where a boss or a colleague or a client is offering you a drink or encouraging you to drink or inviting you to drink or inviting you to invite them to drink maybe a client wants to you know wants you to take them out to lunch you just confidently share that you're alcohol-free not from our oh gee i wish i could have a drink but i'm on day 27 of a 30 day challenge it's got three days to go no from a no i'm not drinking at the moment actually feels pretty good this has happened this has happened this has happened i'm just gonna keep going i'm gonna go for at least 90 days i actually think i might go six months since i've lost some weight and feel i'm sleeping better i'm feeling pretty good but you go right ahead let me get you a drink what would you like can i get you what do you want what's your drink a wine vodka let me get it for you no of course drink in front of me it's all good go for it in fact why don't we go drink for drink you have every vodka soda you have i'll have a soda water if you want to do shots i'll i'll drink you under under the table with my sparkling water little joke a little lightheartedness so i can give you script after script after script you know of what to say to people when they offer you a drink or they start asking you why aren't you drinking but it's not going to be nearly as valuable as the advice i give you which is the way in which you share whatever you share is far more important than the words that actually come out of your mouth so what's felt valuable about this episode what was the one thing that you got what was it like oh okay i can see that now i'm gonna try that now oh okay let me try that or or was there something that you recognize that maybe that you've been doing that's been ineffective or that's been inviting um uh questions from friends or colleagues or friends or family or whatever do you identify what maybe you've been doing wrong have you identified what you could amend in future do you have a question what's felt valuable for you about this i'd love to love to know shoot me a message over on instagram or find me on clubhouse and follow me on on clubhouse like i said clubhouse is the new app you can download it find me at james swanick and start following me and i do uh live quit drinking calls uh over there send me an instagram message if you have a follow-up question let me know that you heard me here on the on this episode uh send me a message over on on facebook official my sorry my official facebook page which is james swanick official i also have a facebook group which is a private group for over 40s for folks who are wanting to improve their sleep and eat better and get healthier it's called clear so if you find that over on uh facebook let me just type it in here so i get the right name it's over 40s getting clear with james swanick so if you go to facebook you type in over 40s that's the number four number zero and s over 40s getting clear with james swanick it's a private group we've got 778 members in there at the moment if you'd like to join that group and carry on the conversation send me a request there and i would love to to welcome you in it is for over 40s only the topics we talk about tend to be more for over 40 more i don't know let's say experienced crowd i was going to say mature but experienced crowd sounds a little bit better uh and uh yeah if you feel inclined would love for you to to leave a um a review of this podcast episode in uh apple podcast as well i hope this was helpful uh happy to talk to you just shoot me a message ping me anywhere and uh have a great 2021 see ya 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 james swanick dot com slash guide i will send you my quit alcohol guide which has helped six figure entrepreneurs and top professionals reduce 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 james swanick dot 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 james swanick dot 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 james swanick dot 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 james swanick you can also watch video episodes of this podcast and a series of other educational videos on my youtube channel which is james swanick one or you can direct message me on facebook at james swanick official 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