 If you're trying to only drink on special occasions, you still don't get it. Drinking is not a special occasion. Outstanding health is the special occasion all the time. Hello there, I'm James Swanick from the Alcohol Freedom Formula. There's some free stuff down below to help you get started on your alcohol freedom journey. I hear this all the time from people who are like, oh, I'm going to cut back during the week. I'll only drink on weekends. I'll just drink on special occasions like a wedding or the birth of my child or someone's birthday or an anniversary. And if you're doing that, well, first of all, let me commend you for not drinking during the week. However, you're undoing all of that fine work by then drinking on these special occasions. Here's the thing, drinking is a poison. Alcohol is a poison. So what you're effectively doing is saying to yourself, I'm going to celebrate by drinking poison. I'm going to celebrate by disrupting my sleep. I'm going to celebrate by being irritable and storing fat and feeling crappy and craving carbohydrates and eating more when ordinarily I would stop eating and dehydrating my skin and looking older than what nature intended me to look. So this special occasion thing is you're still thinking that alcohol is fun. You're still associating alcohol as a treat. You're still associating alcohol as something to savor and to hold up in such high esteem. Now I get it because society has tricked us into believing that attractively packaged poison is something that we should smile about and we should laugh about and we should have fun with because you see it all the time, right? People are like, oh, let's have a drink. Oh, shall we have a drink? Yeah, we won't have a drink. And the smiling assassins, they're smiling as they give you this poison. So if you are thinking, oh, I'll just drink on special occasions, then you think still that alcohol is special. You still believe that alcohol is something to savor and to take in and to taste. Just on the taste thing, when you first had your first drink of alcohol, probably you were 12, 13, 14, maybe your father or mother let you have a drink and what did you do? So you took a sip of it and you went, oh, that tastes terrible. Right? That was your first reaction. And so that's how it naturally tastes to people when they first drink alcohol. Only through cultural conditioning, only through society smiling the whole time and saying here, have some beer, have this wine, have some champagne. Do we then acquire a taste for alcohol? And because all of society is saying to us, drink this attractively packaged poison, we just keep drinking this attractively packaged poison until we convince ourselves that we like the taste, until we convince ourselves that it makes us feel good. It doesn't make you feel good. It just doesn't keep you feeling bad. And then this temporary illusionary pleasure that you get from drinking is actually just the alcohol satisfying your alcohol withdrawal from the day before. Because alcohol is a toxin. It's a toxin. And when it leaves your body, now your body's like, now I want more. I want more toxins. It's a drug. And so you mistake this drink at the end of the day for like relief and ice cold beer at the end of the day. It's so nice or this wine just after a hard relaxing day just helps me or after a hard day rather this wine helps me relax. No. All you're doing is getting rid of your craving, is getting rid of your alcohol withdrawal. It's temporary illusionary pleasure. And it keeps you stuck in this vicious cycle of drink, drink, drink, drink, drink just so you don't feel bad. Just so you think that you feel a little better. So if you are thinking to yourself, I'll have it on special occasions, then you still don't get it. There is nothing special about alcohol. It has zero nutritional benefit to you. Zero. The World Health Organization says there is not one bit of alcohol that is good for you. Zero. Zero kaput. And yet smiling assassins are all over the world smiling saying have my attractively packaged poison join us and everyone is in on the ruse. So the special occasion is every single day of your life without standing health and clarity and focus and energy and great sleep and being a great role model for your children and having the body that nature intended you to have and having energy and focus and strategy and joy in your life. And you don't need anything to relieve you of your stress or anxiety because guess what? You don't have stress and anxiety because you're living an alcohol free life. And it is beautiful. The special occasion is every single day of your alcohol free life. 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 4 4 2 2 2. If you're in the U.S. Of course, it doesn't really work anywhere outside of the U.S. But if you're in the U.S. On your mobile phone and you'd like that guide text the word quit guide to the number 4 4 2 2 2 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 4 4 2 2 2. If you're listening in the U.S. 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 4 4 2 2 2. 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 JamesSwanick1. 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.