 I am James Swanick and welcome to another episode. Today we're talking to Brian Grenier who is 62 years old. He lives in the Outer Banks in North Carolina. He's 90 days plus alcohol free as of today. He's a former Marine. He was in the Marine Corps for 23 years. He actually did 10 years alcohol free some time ago but then returned to drinking and then he came and enlisted our help inside of Project 90 and he's now 90-something days alcohol free. First of all, Brian, congratulations on 90 days plus mate. Well done. Thank you James. I appreciate that. Tell us a little bit about your experience. Why did you want to get the drinking back under control again and what happened? Well, I think that back in the days when I was alcohol free, I lived a pretty good life and I'm not going to tell you I don't live a pretty good life now or never have but, you know, it was starting to affect my life, my relationships, my thought patterns and I was like, you know, maybe I should just go and quit again. This had been after about five years of starting drinking again which wasn't really heavy but it was just the continuous thing and it has a lot to do with the, I don't want to call it camaraderie of the military or the camaraderie of the contracting world but it's just something that's just like totally overlooked, you know. But I was like, you know, this is kind of affecting me a little bit, you know, starting to get up at like 8.30 in the morning and it'll feel well till noon. I was never a heavy drinker as far as, you know, alcohol is concerned like not liquor or anything like that in the Marine Corps. We all drink beer. That's just the way they look. But yeah, so I decided it was time for a change. I searched and I found your program and one thing I liked about the program is is that it's, I don't know how to say this, but it's non-judgemental, right? And we build the person that is having the issue up from where they're at instead of judging them with guilt. And one of the things I found through all the friendships I made through the program, some which to this day I still hold true, that was always the thing. It was never like, well, did you do this? Did you do that? Did you go to confession? It was just like, you know, man, you'll be all right. You know, you'd be okay. It's gonna be good, you know. So one of the things that really drew me to this program was the fact that it was positive. You know, and I don't want to be done AA, you know, they have their success stories. But, you know, it wasn't like, you know, I had to go to a meeting, you know, I had to do this, you know, or that, you know, Steve and I could get on, you know, Marco Polo. We could have a conversation about the trials we were having at that day. And then we would feel better about each other instead of feeling like we're doing the wrong thing. So, you know, that was really important to me, especially when I had my restart. That was a hard couple of days. You know, you just walk us through it. Yeah, walk us through that because you started the process and then you actually drank during the 90 days and then you started again, right? Came back to day zero and then went through it again. So walk us through that if you will. Yeah, I think the most important thing is one of the things I get from you too and one of the things that I hold dear to my heart is personal responsibility. You know, you know, I was out, I had a glass of wine, I could have told a lie and you know how it goes, right? You know, and I just didn't want to do that. I just wanted to be honest to myself, honest to my group and honest to the other people out there. Mistakes happen, you know, but you have to be not self-reliant is not the word I'm looking for, but you have to be true to yourself. You know, and that's one of the things about that I found out this time around is that, you know, it was really easy to say, well, you know, just go on to the next day, you know, and no one's going to know, you know, but the thing was, is that with the community that you have developed with the positivity in that community, you could express yourself and everybody would like gather around, you know, you know, kind of like, oh, wow, okay, all right, well, that's cool. You know, we're happy you said that, oh, what happened to me three months ago, whatever, you know, and then now you have a bigger and deeper community that you can build on and build your own, you know, alcohol-free time on because you can always go back to those people and say, hey, man, how are you feeling? You know, I'm really stressed out, you know, and then they'll come to you or you'll come to them in times of distraught, I guess, is the word I would use. So that helped me out a little bit, and I can tell you two weeks ago, I had a job that, man, if anybody was going to drink at that job, that was that one, you know, it was really hard, you know, and it was girl Tracy, Ian, and a couple other of the folks that I just expressed that with, it was the most horrible contracting job I've ever had, and I really get shot at to do that again, you know. So you found support because people were like-minded and they were experienced in business and not just that, but they were going through similar triggers as you were going through. And so I'm picking up that maybe you felt a level of comfort from being able to relate to some of the other members and share what was going on. Oh, correct. Without question, the Marco Polo thing and the ability to make friends or find somebody that's on the same path as you are, you know, whether it be in business or just trying to get alcohol-free is comforting because instead of going to a meeting where a bunch of dudes is going to talk about drinking, you know, we can go to Marco Polo and we can say, yeah, I was having a rough day, but, you know, my family's doing really good and, you know, the dogs, the cats, the birds, whatever. And we had other conversations that I thought were really important more than just going and focusing on one thing. So we all had a problem, but we also focused on the rest of the life. So that was really interesting. Just for the listeners, if you're not quite getting what Marco Polo is, Marco Polo is an internal phone app that we use which connects our clients and members to each other. Think of it kind of like a closed Facebook group, but instead of communicating via the typed word, you're communicating via little video selfies. So you can actually see people's faces and you can, you know, people do little selfie video sharing alcohol-free drinks that they're consuming or they're going on a walk or they're playing with their kids. And it's a great way to get to know other members in the community. Brian, what, if anything, have those closest to you noticed about you since you've been alcohol-free again, I guess, in these 90 days? It's hard to say. My kids love it, of course, because we are very close down here. I mean, we live in a paradise. I'm never going to lie about that ever. You know, but I have my sister down here now and all her kids, I have my children down here except one. And, you know, they can tell the difference, you know. It's not like I was a heavy drinker and, you know, show up, look it up at every party. But, you know, the thing was, is that they were like, you know, you're more calm, you're more standard, you know, you have direction. Now, even my ex-wife said, oh, you seem so calm. What's up with that? You know, for having an ex-wife do that and I had to go pick her up off the Appalachian Trail, I was like, well, you know, I mean, you know, I mean, I don't know. It's just the way it is. That's the way I am, really, without chemical interference. Yeah. And what was your, what was your drink of choice when you were drinking Brian? Oh, it really didn't matter. I mean, I can't say that. I didn't really drink like a lot of liquor. If I were to go out and have a glass of wine, if I was home on a Sunday, I would have maybe one or two glasses of wine. So I never was, I never, when I was in the Marine Corps, of course, I would drink with beer and a lot of it, you know. But it's just, it's the, you know, it's a persona. But this time around, it was more like, you know, I'm going to cook, which I love to do, and I'm going to have a glass of red wine. And then after dinner, I'll have two glasses of white wine. And, you know, that was my drink of choice, really, was wine. It was never anything hard. Every now and then I'd go out and, you know, when you're out, you're out, and you'd have, you know, can I have a Bloody Mary or, you know, a Coke and vodka, whatever, but it wasn't the choice. Yeah. And how did you identify that that was going to compromise, was compromising areas of your life? Well, I think that, you know, I, you know, 62, so you're supposed to have a decline, right? But, but the thing is, is that, you know, I just saw myself internally, especially when I was by myself, thinking more that way towards alcohol than I was thinking towards constructive ways, you know, where I live alone. So whereas before, you know, I always had someone to take care of. And when I did my job as a contractor, I always had someone to take care of. So that, you know, probably made up for the emotional impact or the emotional, I don't know, mix that now that I have to fight through since I'm not doing the same work, you know, or I don't have any kids and I live alone, you know. And you said that before that you, you, you picked up a lot of the drinking culture when you were in the Marine Corps. There's a culture that's, that's fostered there, isn't it? Well, I, you know, it's, you know, I don't want to say the Marine Corps does it, but what are you going to do with it? Well, at my age, what are you going to do with 318-year-old kids? Right? Yeah. You know, so, you know, you got, you got, you know, you can't all go bowling. As a matter of fact, it's funny, it's funny that we talk about this is because today I was on the driving range at the golf range and there was a bunch of Marines there trying to burn off some steam and they were just tearing a place up and I, you know, the girl came out and said, what am I supposed to do? I'm like, well, Amy, just kick them out. You know, because they're, they don't know how to golf. That's obvious, you know, but then they'll just come into the bar and drink and I'm like, you know, she left them out there and just let them go. And when you're young, you know, you're, you're crazy when you're young, you know. Yeah. And it's only until you were a little bit later when that catches up with this that we start to go, I think I might need to reverse this whole drinking and poor nutrition and sloth-like behavior thing. That was very true. Very true, James. Very true. You know, I've been healthy most of my life. I mean, you know, I can take a blood test tomorrow. Without anybody looking at it, they'll tell you it's a 35-year-old's blood, you know. And I believe in that. I've been in athletics most of my life. You know, I've either lifted weights. I was an international cyclist for a while. I worked on the, you know, Team Semper Fi cycling team for the 2012 Olympics. I mean, I was there and, you know, and maybe I have a lot of residual health left in me, but you know, it also becomes a habit. You take vitamins, you know, you take, you do what you are going to do to be the best you can every day. Yeah. And so do you feel like despite you having that and being very health-conscious and mindset-conscious, why do you think something like alcohol, in this case, is able to creep in to your life? You know, what have you identified as the reason for that, do you think? Yeah, that's interesting. I was thinking about that today and at the end of the day, James, I'll tell you, it was my choice. You know, I'll take responsibility for every single thing I do. And at the time that that started to happen, I could have said no, I could have said no, I could have said no, I could have said no, but that's not the way it happened. I said yes, but it was braying seeing yes. It wasn't a circumstance. It wasn't a pressure. It wasn't a feeling. I just said, okay, yeah, okay, you know, and I accept that responsibility to this day. And I think that's something that a lot of people that do drink, and I've seen this being in Marine Corps, they blame it on everything else. But at the end of the day, it's your choice. It's my choice. We're humans. So we're given that the ability to make a choice. You know, I can go to the store and I can buy a Pepsi or a soda pop, whatever you all call it. Or I can buy a glass of wine. I can just do that. It's called freedom. So I don't think there was any kind of, you know, other than it being prevalent at that time. I don't think there's any precursor to that. Does that make sense? Yeah. So what you're saying is you're 100% responsible. Whereas many folks will say, oh, it's because of my work. It's because I got a divorce. It's because my mummy loved me too much or not enough when I was a kid. It's because this kind of thing happened. So the alcohol and those things obviously are upsetting and whatever it is to that person. But the drinking is still a choice, right? It's still a choice that you're consuming that in order to numb yourself or try to get temporary relief from the pain that you are feeling. But you can't say, oh, I drink alcohol because of this. You're drinking out. You're choosing alcohol because you're choosing alcohol. Right. Right. And it could be anything else. Some people choose food or, you know, and some people use it to hide behind things. So, you know, I'm drinking too much because, you know, my mom or I'm drinking too much because of my wife or I'm drinking too much because of my job. And then you can just turn the word drinking into food. I'm eating too much because of my job. I'm eating too much because of my wife. It makes no sense, you know. And as you mature, I think you get to look at things a little bit differently where you understand that, you know, I'm responsible for me. No one can make me do anything, just like I cannot make you do anything. Now, we can have a conversation where we share things that work, but it's like in business, right? You know, some guys over here, he's got the same business you have and you have this business over here, you know, and he's going broke and you're building money, you know. And, you know, you don't, you want to look over there for the reason, but you don't want to establish a belief that since he's going broke, I'm going broke. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay. So, you know, that's how I think about it. And I think about that about drinking. You know, I don't care what you do. I really don't. I mean, I care what I do. I care how I wake up every morning feeling bad or feeling good. So, it's how I choose to, not personifies, not to worry, but how I choose to see that so that I can use that to my advantage. Some of the best videos you had had things in there that I could use to my advantage during that time period to make me think that way. Like, oh, what a glorious day. What a glorious day. This is awesome. You know, this thing about the salsa water, that's probably the number one great thing. That was about, I have some right here with a little bit of lemonade in it. You know, it's just great. It's just, you got to play games with yourself because, you know, if you're not alcohol is playing games with your life. What's the, just maybe just clarify for our listener what you meant by the salsa water thing that you just... Oh, well, you know, when you come home from a hard day of work and, you know, sometimes back before this program, I would work 12, 13 hours a day straight, seven days a week, year, year and a half at a shot, you know, every day. And, you know, and then you come home and you come home with your team and your team be like, yeah, let's get some beers or something like that, you know. And, you know, you just go along with the idea. But when I saw the part, and this was a while ago, but when I saw the part about the salsa water and you pouring it over the ice, I mean, I even brought it up to my ex-wife. I said, hey, listen to this, you know? And I poured some salsa water over the ice. She's like, oh, this sounds like a cocktail. I'm like, I know, you know? I said, I know. I haven't heard night, you know? And now I mix it with lemonade and different things. But, you know, it gave you an alternative. And even if, you know, for maybe people that are really addicted, I don't know. But for me, it gave me, you know, I poured this thing, I paid for it, you know, I took the time to make it. So now I got to sit down, I got to drink it. And then by the time drinking, it's over. I mean, all that stuff that was going on in my head is gone. Now down to get the laundry done, make the bed, you know, whatever, whatever it happened to be that day, you know, make dinner. So I think that one thing, I got to tell you, James, that one thing was like a game changer for me. Because, you know, I have salsa water in the house all the time. But I never thought about making it like no deal. You know what I mean? Once I started doing that, limes, lemons, mangoes, you know, lemonade, you know, I'd just make it out and it would be a big thing. And by the time I drank the first glass, I'd be like everything else I was thinking of is already gone and calmed down. Yeah. So yeah, and just to clarify for the listener, one of the things that we coach inside of our code and inside of our program is to amend your nightly ritual. So most people who have issues with their drinking, their ritual is they'll either come home from work or if they're at home and they're working from home, they will, you know, as soon as the clock hits five o'clock or six o'clock or whatever your routine is, you'll come home or go to the cupboard, open a bottle of wine, pop it open, or you'll go and get a beer or you'll get a vodka or you'll go to the pub on the way home or the bar or whatever. And there's a ritual of that. And you drink the drink to give you what you perceive to be temporary relief. It's illusionary relief, but temporary. Yeah, it's temporary and illusionary relief. So what we do is we encourage folks to keep the ritual of coming home and relaxing, but do it in a very healthy way. And so I encourage our clients to buy a bottle of Perrier or seltzer water. There's lots of really healthy flavoured waters on the market. You know, possibly keep a nice chilled glass in the freezer. So when you come home, you can open up the bottle of sparkling water, pour it into a pour it into a frozen glass and just hear the sound of it. Oh, sounds nice. Drop a couple of ice cubes in, squeeze some lemon or lime, stir it around. So what you're doing in this is that you're creating this ritual of like, oh, anticipating and really enjoying this beautiful drink, which just happens to be an alcohol-free drink. So you can still go and slouch down on the sofa, if you like, and go, oh, what a day. But then instead of you drinking attractively packaged poison, which is what alcohol is, you're drinking something very healthy and very nourishing for you. Right. That was a really important video for me. I can't tell you how much that changed my way because sometimes I don't drink that much, but it was enough that I was worried about it. I would come home and have water. And then once I joined the program, I saw that video and I was like, dog on. I mean, I go to the store. They got that stuff on every shelf up there. So I started doing that. As a matter of fact, I still have four of them in the freezer right now, a refrigerator right now, just waiting for the saffron in. Mmm. I love it. It hydrates you. Whereas alcohol will dehydrate you. And the hydration makes you sick and all that. But when you drink celtic water, you've got to twist the lime or the lemon or whatever you want. This one has lemonade in it. You're getting some vitamin C along with hydration, which makes it a more healthier alternative. So it gives you an hour. The thing I always find crazy is watching people order alcohol on planes during flight because you're at 30,000 feet. And at that height, plus the cabin pressure, you lose so much water from your body. And so if you are then ordering vodka, or wine, or beer, or whatever it is that you order from the airline steward or stewardess, you've got to double whammy. A, being dehydrated naturally anyway, just by virtue of the fact that you're 30,000 feet in the air and the cabin pressure. And B, you're drinking something which dehydrates you. I mean, you're drinking the very substance that dehydrates you. And it's madness. I've been in Sedona, Arizona recently, which is beautiful scenery, incredible, but very high up, very hot, so easy to get dehydrated. And I went on, I did two hikes recently. And I carried, I'll even show you, Brian, I carried these, what this is, a gallon, a gallon water bottle with me when I go on the hikes. And then even when I return from the hikes, I'm drinking another gallon of water. But last night, I was walking through town in Uptown, Sedona. And there were bars and restaurants and people were sitting out in front of the restaurants enjoying themselves. And they were drinking beer and wine and cocktails and vodka. I'm like, are you guys insane? You've been hiking all day, you're dehydrated, you're way up high with the thin air anyway, and you're drinking something, you're drinking this attractively packaged poison, which is just going to absolutely destroy you. So anyway, you know, I encourage our listeners, just do your own research, just Google how much body liquid you lose by being in flight in the sun and up high in altitude. That's very true. I remember a while back, I was doing some bodybuilding and I had a really close friend of mine. She was an international bodybuilder. And she would tell me that what they would try to do was fly to Chicago and fly back and drink white wine to be at the show the next day. Wow. And she's a phenomenal female, of course. But I was like, do you know what you're doing to your body? And same here, I found that amazing. When I get on a flight, I was in the military for a long time, so I've been on plenty of flights, all I want to do is drink water. It's like, where's the camelback? Who's got the water? Kind of thing. I'm not reaching for a Budweiser or I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. It's a name brand, but I'm not looking for a beer or a drink or something. I'm like, who's got the water, man? Like you said, you carry that gallon jug around. Smart. Smart. People don't know. Yeah. What was something noteworthy that you learned or discovered about yourself or about anything during this process, Brian? What was something that you learned or discovered? Well, James, I learned one thing that I had kind of let go for a little bit is that I own myself and I can do whatever I want to do. I can wake up and be unhappy. I can wake up. I can be happy. There's no outside influence other than me, because when you look around the world, there's so much happiness and there's so much unhappiness. But I think that last name, last guy's name was Frank Franken, I think, from PRW camps in Germany. He said, it's all about an attitude, man. It's all about an attitude. You wake up and you got a bad attitude. Guess what? You're going to have a bad day, you know? You go to sleep. You got a good attitude. You wake up with a good attitude. Regardless of what happens around you, it's all about attitude and the only people that can choose that attitude is us. So it's kind of like drinking. Drinking is legal, right? Pretty much everywhere, except down the street and there's a town down there you can't drink at. But it's still our choice. It's a personal choice and our choices come from our attitude about different things. That's how I see it. Yeah. The book you were referencing is Man's Search for Me's Meaning by Victor Frankel, which is a very famous book from 1946 where he chronicled his experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. And he described his psychotherapeutic method, which involved identifying a purpose in life to feel positive about and then immersively imagining that outcome. So it sounds very much like what you just described there, Brian. That's exactly the book, as a matter of fact. Yes. Yeah. So to me, those things are, it's all about choices. I could have chose to not come into this program. I could have chose to, I don't know, not have kids or not get married. It's my choice. I'm a free willed human being. But with free will comes responsibility. And for every plus, there's a minus. And Einstein would say that for every reaction, there's a positive, for every action, there's a negative reaction. So where I live, you see boats. Lots of boats. Lots of boats. But when they go through the water, what's behind them? It's the wake. And the wake is the reaction to the positive action. So when you think about your life and think about alcohol, if you drink a whole bunch, I can tell you for a fact that tomorrow will be a shit day. Excuse me. But it'll be a bad day. It just will. That's action, reaction. Like you said about being on an airplane, you're already at six grand. You know you're dehydrated. You want something to drink. You drink a beer. Now you're at six grand plus maybe two more grand as your body sees it. But it's your choice. So it's action, reaction. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's great. It sounds like you've got some tremendous clarity and have felt re-energized through the process. So I want to acknowledge you for your commitment and for supporting other people as well. I very much noticed you and appreciated you supporting other clients and other members in our community. It's not just about you. It's not just about the individual clients. It's about how can you shell up for other people as well. And you very much did that. So I acknowledge and thank you for that, Brian. Yeah, I appreciate it. It was a pleasure. You know, one of the things I worked for the Wounded Warrior Battalion for three years. Guys came out of Fallujah. Fallujah too, I think. And I worked there for three years until they realized I didn't have a master's degree. That's a whole other story. But you know, I like, you know, if we don't share our experiences and we don't, you know, whether it be with alcohol in business and or life in itself, it just, you know, you're just going to keep making the same mistake. History will repeat itself over and over again until someone's strong enough to stand up and say, hey, that doesn't work. It just doesn't. So let's go this way. So that's one of the things I found in this program compared to AA. And I don't want to pick on them. But I found the positive approach to dealing with what I was feeling and the community non-judgmental was fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing that feedback. I'm so happy that you had that experience, Brian. Yeah, it was great. Thanks, James. Brian, thank you so much, Brian Grenier from the outer, what do we call it? It's the outer banks, right? The outer banks of Carolina. I got to get out there. I got to get out there. Oh, it's beautiful. Give me a ring, man. You know, we own, our family owns 1,800 homes out on the island. So, you know, I have a house here that's just off island. My whole family lives here except my son. You want something, we'll get it for you. I love it. And any listener, reach out to me and I'll connect you to Brian. $100 finding fee. All right, Brian, congratulations again, mate. And thanks for sharing your... Thanks, James. You all take care and everybody out there is listening. Just do it, man. Just do it. You can do it. I did it. You can do it too. Thanks for listening to the Alcohol Free Lifestyle podcast. I want to load you up with some free stuff right now. 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