 Hi, I'm Courtney and I'm 91 days alcohol-free today. Congratulations Courtney, it's an amazing achievement. Just tell us a little bit about how you feel now compared to 91 days ago. A lot better, a lot clearer headed. I feel like I can make decisions a lot easier, a lot quicker, a lot better. Yeah, I feel a lot better. What were you drinking beforehand? What was your drink of choice and how much were you drinking and when and how was that affecting you? Martinis were my drink of choice and I would say that I would have one or two a night, maybe three if it was a weekend, and I didn't have to be anywhere the next day but I had a pretty good Martini habit. And how was that compromising areas of your life that you identified? Well, it just was putting me in a place where I wasn't at my best to say the least in the mornings, but it was putting me in a place where I felt like the decisions that I was making weren't necessarily long-term focused. Decisions were more reactive than proactive. So it was a foggy brain type of deal. It was a lack of self-care, self-care, it was boredom, it was not doing things that served me as much as just doing things that passed the time and I thought calmed me. I thought it was a calming effect that I was having, but what it was really doing was creating a lot of stress and shame. And who in your life was being affected by that? I think indirectly my son was. Maybe directly, you could argue. He lives with me. Full-time now, which is a big determining factor in me making this decision to become alcohol-free, but people at work, customers, clients, I think everybody was indirectly affected. I mean, I wasn't drinking at work or I wasn't drunk at work, but I was definitely always under the influence of the hangover effect of having the alcohol in my system. Yeah, I think there probably a lack of empathy in some cases for people in certain situations. I could go on and on. There's a lot of circumstances I think where alcohol probably played a role when I wasn't drinking. What do you do professionally and whereabouts do you live? I live in Dallas, Fort Worth. I'm in sales. And so I interface daily with individuals. It's not business to business. It's individuals dealing with them directly on large purchases, not retail, not something these are big decisions they're making. So I felt an obligation also to them to be present. If you're making a big decision, you want to be making it with somebody who believes in the solution that they're providing. And when you went alcohol-free for 91 days, how did your professional life change? How did your performance at work change as a result of you being consistently alcohol-free? In the beginning, it was more or less not much of a change that you could notice right off the bat. I think probably 15 to 30 days into the deal, I noticed immediately that I found a lot more time and I found a lot more clarity, a little bit more ability to reason or actually think about what was going on a day-to-day basis. I felt more rested. But after 30 days, into 60 and then beyond, especially in the last 30 days, well, first of all, the people around you notice. I mean people notice that there's a difference and they start asking you about what the difference is. I lost 20 pounds. I started responding to people professionally in a different way. I had more patience. I think I was a little bit less pushy with my finance assistant and people that were interacting with me daily. They noticed. So when they noticed, they asked what the difference is. What are you doing? You're losing weight? What is this thing that you're doing? They were surprised and I told them that it was really nothing other than just being alcohol-free. And that was kind of like a leap of faith for me to be. I mean, that was me being vulnerable for the first time in a long time. You don't want to admit that you are an alcoholic. Well, even if you're not, it's almost just as awkward to admit to people that you're being alcohol-free because it indicates that you had a problem. Anyways, I told people freely that I decided to become alcohol-free. I'm 60 days in. What's interesting is that the people that I work with, because they have after-hour get-togethers and things like that, and I was never shy about not drinking, they start asking and they're inquisitive and they offend a lot more people really want to be. That was the interesting thing. And so you joined Project 90, which is our 90 day and beyond quitting drinking program. It's designed not just to get you to 90 days alcohol-free, but to get you to at least 90 days alcohol-free so you can just embed the alcohol-free lifestyle. So what was your experience like within that program? When was it hard and when did it start to feel easier? Well, the hardest is obviously in the beginning. You see a lot of new faces, people you don't know. You're not really sure how it works. You're not really sure if you trust yourself to not drink. And once you start, I mean, it's, I would say within a matter of just a few days, the first two calls, you feel comfortable. But then once you realize, you know, I think that the coaching that we get in the program, you get to really focus on who you choose to be every day. And that's important. And I think very early on, you start to realize that drinking wasn't the problem. Necessarily, it was the feeling that you were looking for, you know, in drinking that was the problem, the feeling that you were trying to have that you thought alcohol was going to give you. And when you start talking with other people in the community about the same problems, the same day-to-day stresses, the same day-to-day, you know, beliefs that we have, false beliefs a lot of times, but who we are and what we're capable of, then you start to talk about being alcohol free becomes a lot less of a conversation or topic of conversation and how you can improve, you know, your life becomes more of the conversation. So once you start feeling that you're part of that group, it really changes. The momentum picks up quick, you know, it picks up really quick. I think you start to trust yourself a lot more 30 days in, but I'm not going to lie, the first 30 days, there's times when I found myself having to break patterns and the patterns were the hardest thing to break. They weren't necessarily habits that I needed to break, they were patterns. It was like I had a pattern. If I was on a business trip, I went to the bar, you know, if I went to the bar, I drank. But when I changed those patterns, when I just ordered soda water or lime, or if I just didn't go to the bar, or even if I did, I just ordered a soda water with lime, I broke the pattern and then therefore empowered myself to make those decisions again and again, which then became a new habit. Yeah. You were saying that there was a one time when you were in New Orleans and it was, you're getting close to being, well, you just begun being alcohol free, but there was lots of temptation around, just describe that experience. Yeah, it was a, it was a convention. It was actually a conference in Nashville and I went to their state, the Gaylord Opryland, and basically, you know, nice hotel, you check in, it's my first trip, it's my first social setting, three weeks into the, into the Project 90 program. And I just, like I said, I just felt drawn to go to the bar for no good reason. I was in the lobby and it just happened to be a Monday night. So we had a Monday night call and I pulled up the Zoom call, got on the call. And I mean, we had a group talk and I was able to share my feelings about how I felt about the situation I was in. And I wasn't the only one. There was another, there was another member in New Orleans at the same time. And we've had other people on trips and doing similar types of social situations. And I just found that the group allowed you to go to a place and talk to people and just tell people, Hey, man, I'm in the situation and I feel like I want to go to the bar and there's no, there's no good reason to do that. Other than it's just a pattern. And that's all it was. And once, once we talked through it, and once other people were able to kind of give me feedback, I mean, it was very easy to, to kind of calm down, go back to my room and, you know, get up the next day and be completely present for the conference that I was there to attend. Yeah, wonderful. And so now that you've gone through these 90 days and you're on day 91 as we're recording this, what are your plans around alcohol ongoing from here? Well, I have no plans of introducing it back into my life at all at this point. I think one of the, one of the key points that I learned in the program is that, you know, what you think about the most, you know, in the beginning, I was definitely thinking about drinking a lot, which is typical, but I haven't really thought about it. And I don't really see that there's a, I'm not going to say that there's never going to be a social occasion or there's never going to be a situation where having an alcoholic beverage is going to be not an option. But I know that it will never be, it'll never be a daily need. You know, it won't be something that I come home and decide or choose to drink for the sake of boredom or the sake of trying to solve a problem or anything like that. I really feel like it's just the beginning, honestly. I mean, 90 days is in the beginning, it seems like it's going to be a long time, but today on day 91, it seems like it went by like that. Finally, what would you say to someone who's watching or listening to this right now who's considering going alcohol free as a lifestyle? And maybe they're considering doing that via our 90 day and beyond program. What words of encouragement or support or advice would you give to that person? Just do it. I mean, seriously, I was so hesitant. I mean, first of all, taking the step to even just reach out to James is probably a huge win in the first place. So if you've done that, at least you are reaching out and asking to find out more about how you can be helped. But I was very, very hesitant to join the program, and I'm so glad that I did. It's one of those things that when you sign up for something and you make the commitment, you stick to it. It's not something, it's not a social group to join when you feel like it. It's something that you make a commitment to join because it's going to improve your life. But when you do and you see what you get in exchange, the value, they definitely over deliver. So the group, the coach, James, and all the people that are in it that are participating with you, you just have no idea what the value of having a community of people that are all in the same boat as you are doing the same thing, how that helps support you in your journey to get to where you want to be. And then I think once you start to realize, once you start to realize how much better you feel and what more you can do once you get alcohol out of the way, there's just no doubt in my mind, just do it. Thank you, Courtney. Thank you so much for your kind words and congratulations again. I'm super happy and super pumped for you. And thank you for being such a positive influence in the group as well because you always supported other people. And like you said, it's not just a social group. You make a commitment and you are always on the calls and you are always supporting other people and you're always asking for coaching. And yeah, so I appreciate you participating full-out, mate. And good luck for the next 90 days and beyond. Thank you. Thank you so much. 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 jameswanick.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 jameswanick.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 jameswanick.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 jameswanick.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 jameswanick.com. You can also watch video episodes of this podcast and a series of other educational videos on my YouTube channel, which is jameswanick.com. Or you can direct message me on Facebook at jameswanick.com 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.