 Welcome to the show. I am James Swannick and this is the Alcohol Free Lifestyle podcast where we help you get lifelong power over alcohol. Some done-for-you scripts to say no in any social situation. I'm going to give you a few here. We're going to talk about if you're in a bar and your friends are encouraging you to drink, if you go to a party, someone's encouraging you to drink, if you're going on a boat trip and you're kind of quote-unquote stuck on a boat trip and everyone's handing out booze, if you're at a wedding. What are some scripts that you can use to politely decline alcohol and do it in a way that doesn't have people continuing to encourage you to drink and which actually has people being really impressed by you and not thinking that you've got a problem and everything's cool and light and easy and fun and breezy. I'm going to give you some in just a moment. Just a reminder, there's a link in the show notes down below to the Alcohol Freedom Formula Guide. You can click on that link and I will send you a PDF of my process for helping you to quit and stay quit. It's helped about 20,000 people now get long-term power over alcohol. You can also find it at alcoholfreelifestyle.com. Before I give you these scripts, what I want to say is the way in which you deliver the scripts is far more important than the actual scripts themselves. Another way of saying that is the way in which you convey to people why you're not drinking is far more important than the actual words that come out of your mouth. There is an energy and a way of being that I invite you to step into whenever anyone questions you about your lack of drinking or your drinking. And that energy is simply fun, light-hearted, very matter-of-fact. It's not, oh, yeah, I can't drink. I've got a problem. Yeah, I wish I could drink, but I can't. It's not that at all. And if you do it that way, if you convey your drinking habits that way in that dark energy, then people are going to think that you've got a drinking problem. People are going to think that you are depriving the situation of fun, and people may even encourage you to have a drink so you can join in the fun. So the way in which you explain why you're not drinking is far more important than the actual transcript of words that come out of your mouth. So let's go through a couple of scenarios here. You are at a wedding or a party or someone's home, and you walk in, excuse me, and the host trying to be a wonderful host offers you a drink. Hey, John, hey, Christy, can I get you a drink? Version one, this is the version not to do. Version one is, oh, yeah, can I just have soda water? The host says, oh, no, you want a beer? You want a wine? Oh, no, no, no, I shouldn't. I'm doing a 90-day cleanse and no, no, I shouldn't. Now, automatically, that is communicating to the host that you are depriving yourself of a fun situation. You're also communicating to yourself on an unconscious level that you are in a prison by choosing not to drink. You're basically communicating to both the host and to yourself that drinking equals fun and that not drinking equals deprivation and not fun. Don't do that. Do, do this. The host says, hey, can I get you a drink? Oh, yeah, I'd love a drink. Thank you so much. Have you got soda water or sparkling water? What have you got? Oh, yeah, you're not drinking? You don't want a drink? No, I'm not drinking, actually. Yeah, I actually don't drink, but I'd love to get drunk on your soda water if you've got some. Make a little joke of it. If they press you some more, like, go on, you'll be fine. Have a wine, have a beer. I'm like, I'm happy to go toe-to-toe with you in a drinking contest. If you want to tell you what, you take a shot of beer or wine and I'll take a shot of my soda water. Make a little joke about it if you like. Or you can say, yeah, no, I'm good. I'm good, but I'm going to swing from the rafters tonight. Just be careful. I'm going to get drunk on the soda water. Ha ha ha, make a little joke and you don't even need to make a joke, quite frankly. You can just say, yeah, I haven't drunk in about five years, actually. It's been good. I just quit for lifestyle reasons. Using that phrase, I just quit for lifestyle reasons. I just quit as a lifestyle choice. It's such a beautiful phrase because people get that. People accept that. People understand that versus, oh, I quit because I had a drinking problem. Then they're like, oh, yeah, the drinking problem. Now that their voice kind of like softens and they kind of, you feel judged. Like they're probably judging you. Now they're feeling like they've got a tiptoe around you all the time. The worst thing, they always apologize. Like when they have a drink, oh, sorry, sorry, John. I know you don't drink, but all of a sudden it's like this big deal. But if you just say, yeah, no, I just, I don't drink. I quit for lifestyle reasons. I just took a little experiment. I liked how I felt. And I thought, oh, I'll just keep going with the experiment. Haven't drunk now in two years. Pretty kind of cool. And you just say it like that. Wow, that's powerful. Now there's no issue. There's no problem. And no one's questioning you in a way like, oh, what happens? You have a drinking problem. Now they're questioning you like, how did you do it? I've often thought about quitting drinking myself or reducing, and then you can say, well, it wasn't really hard for me. That wasn't my experience. Actually, it's pretty easy now. You see how the way in which you explain it is so much more important than the words that come out of your mouth. You just, it's like, whenever anyone grills you about why you're not drinking, you just explain with a smile on your face. George Clooney, everyone loves George Clooney, right? Well, maybe not everybody, but a lot of people love George Clooney. Because he has that smirk. He has that confidence. He's got that way of being about him. He's cheeky. He's confident. Be like George Clooney when you're explaining why you're not drinking. Do you really think if someone was grilling George Clooney, why aren't you drinking George Clooney? Do you really think he's going to go, oh yeah, I had a drinking problem and I had to stop? No, he's just going to smile and make a little joke about it. He's going to make light of the situation. He's going to make light of the situation. Point to his head and makes a little joke, has a little wink. Says, oh, I've just, all the tabloids were making fun of me for having a little bit of weight. And they were calling me Porky George. So I thought, well, I might just cut back, cut back a little bit. Now they're calling me Skinny George. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Little joke. I'm making this up, of course, but the idea is that it's fun. It's light. It's easy. It's cute. It's cheeky. So really, these done for you scripts, you can throw them out the window. I'm going to giving you some suggestions here, but you don't even have to say these scripts. You can say whatever you want as long as the way in which you say it is just light and easy and fun and transparent and open. And I don't encourage you to lie. I encourage you to just share the truth. And the truth might be, I realized I was drinking way too much. And it was compromising my health. And I decided I wanted to do something about it. So I did something about it. And now I absolutely love it. And I'm absolutely okay with you and all of my other friends drinking around me. I'm going to have the most fun. I promise you I'm going to have more fun than you guys drinking alcohol. I'm just going to do a drink in my soda water. Let's party. Let's have fun. Let's connect. I love this. Let's go. As opposed to your friends thinking like you're a killjoy, like you're depriving them of fun because you're not drinking. Now some of your friends or colleagues or acquaintances are going to be stubborn probably. They could be stubborn and they might try to get you to change your mind and have a drink, just have one. They might say something like, are you really going to go this whole holiday trip without drinking? But like we've been looking forward to this for six months. And now you're not going to drink. You're not going to have fun. And they would be right in asking you that question if you are on that trip or at that function, not having fun because you're not drinking. They will be perfectly justified in questioning you and encouraging you to drink again if you indeed are not having fun. If you are not enjoying yourself. Because if they see you not enjoying yourself because you're in a state of deprivation because you really want to drink, but because you paid all this money to be in a coaching program not to drink or you committed to a 90-day break or a 30-day break or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and you're white-knuckling it, that nobody's having fun. You're not having fun. Your friends aren't having fun and you are the killjoy. What I'm inviting you to do is to step into this notion and this way of being that alcohol-free is fun. And drinking the soda water and the ice and the peace of the lime is refreshing and enjoyable. You can still have the ritual of pouring yourself a drink. Just make it a ritual of pouring yourself an alcohol-free drink. You can toast at the wedding while drinking sparkling water. You can do it because I do it all the time. Well, at least I've been doing it at lots of weddings. I was at my friend's wedding in Tuscany in Italy a couple of years ago. They got married. It was toast, the bride and groom. I poured myself sparkling water. Most other people at the wedding were drinking wine. They toasted with the wine. I toasted with the sparkling water. We all had a sip. Fantastic. We all danced into the night. Had a great time. The end. What's the big deal? There is no big deal other than the big deal that you're making it in your mind. I did get asked during the wedding at the dinner table by the couple who was sitting opposite me and the two women who were sitting either side of me. How long have you not drunk for it? At the time, I think it was nine and a half years. They said, oh, almost 10 years. They said, really, tell us about it. I said, well, I was a societally acceptable drinker. I drank at the end of the day, a couple of drinks. On the weekends, I'd drink more at weddings. I'd party and have fun, sometimes get drunk. Just fine, normal stuff. I didn't get a DUI. I didn't get arrested. But I realized that my health was not as great as it could be. I was phoning in my business and it wasn't really achieving. I was meandering along at like a six out of 10. I decided to take a break and I took the break. It felt good. All these amazing things happened. I just kept going and going and going. I haven't touched a drop of alcohol since. In that time, I feel happier and I've come to the conclusion that for me, an alcohol-free life serves me more powerfully than a life with alcohol. I see an alcohol-free life as the happier, more attractive option. Therefore, staying quit is very easy. That's what I say. That's what I said. I'm not encouraging other people to quit. I know that the headline of this particular episode is done for you, scripts. What it should be is don't do these scripts. When I say don't do these scripts, do not tell people that they should quit. Do not encourage people to do anything. Just share your experience because everybody's got their own journey. Now, if someone asks you for advice and says, how do I quit? Then of course, share with them what you've learned. But don't be proactively going up to people saying, hey, you should be more like me. Quit. Get on board the alcohol-free train because nobody likes being lectured to. Nobody likes someone who's pompous. Nobody likes someone who's smug. No one likes to feel like they're being judged for their drinking habits. Just like you don't want people to judge you for being alcohol-free, do not judge others for drinking alcohol. Just be cool. It's like that Quentin Tarantino movie, Pulp Fiction, where the couple robbing the diner and Samuel Jackson and John Travolta's characters are sitting in the diner when it's being robbed. And Samuel Jackson's character is telling the woman who's robbing the bank to chill. I'm going to use some profanity here because let's face it, Quentin Tarantino movies are filled with profanity. He's like, tell that bitch to chill. Tell that bitch to chill. Chill, honey. Then the romantic partner of the woman is like, chill, honey bunch. I think it is. That's a cute name for it. If you haven't seen the movie, you might be scratching your head going, what in the heck is James talking about here? If you have seen the movie, I'm hoping that you get the reference. Send me an email at James at AlcoholFreeLifestyle.com to let me know that you either got it or you didn't get it. I guess the point I was trying to make before I went down that little rabbit hole was chill. Just be chill. Be cool. Be cool like Fonzie from Happy Days. That's the line from Pulp Fiction. He's like, what's Fonzie like? And she's like, cool. Exactly. Be cool. Be cool like Fonzie. So what I'm saying is be cool like Fonzie. Be cool about you not drinking. Be cool about others drinking. Have a smirk. Have a confidence. Have a swagger. Enjoy yourself. When somebody says, go on, just have one. You smile and say, okay, I'll just have one bottle of sparkling water. If someone says, oh, but you're killing the vibe. Come on. I'm like killing the vibe. I'm making the vibe, baby. If it's a little bit, if the situation does not call for humor, if you're in a work situation, a networking situation, a boardroom meeting, trying to close a multi-million dollar deal or whatever, and it doesn't call for humor, then you just politely decline. It's like, oh, I'm good. Thank you. Yeah, I'll just have the sparkling water for now. Can I get you a scotch? Can I get you a whiskey? What can I get you? And they say, oh, you're not going to drink? You're not going to celebrate with us? Oh, absolutely. I'm going to celebrate with you. I'm just going to celebrate with my sparkling water or whatever your alcohol-free drink is. You see how it's the confidence? It's the swagger. It's the George Clooney-esque way of being. That's what's most important. So I hope this was helpful. There's some more training. If you want to dig into this a little bit more in written form, rather than listening, you can grab my alcohol-freedom formula guide. The link is in the show notes, but you can find it at alcoholfreelifestyle.com. forward slash guide. And these groups and these way of being, we talk about a lot inside of our Project 90 community. There's a link in the show notes as well where you can learn more about the show notes, and you can learn more about the show notes, and you can learn more about the show notes, and you can learn more about the show notes, and you can learn more about the show notes as well, where you can learn more about that. The link is alcoholfreelifestyle.com. forward slash project 90, and if you'd like to have a complimentary call with one of my coaches to see if that 90-day experience is for you, then there's also a link in the show notes there where you can schedule a call, and that link is alcoholfreelifestyle.com slash schedule. Yeah. So I hope this was helpful. If you have questions, if you want to converse with me, you can do that a couple of ways. You can send me an email at James at alcoholfreelifestyle.com, or you can go on to my Instagram page, which is at James Swannick, and you can send me a direct message there. I'm also, I also have a YouTube channel, James Swannick One, where this very episode, you can see the video version of it, because I record video versions of this, of each and every podcast now, and I upload it to my YouTube channel, which is James Swannick One. So if you want to see me speak this episode and you can see my mannerisms and all that kind of stuff, then you can go over to the YouTube channel. And by the way, if you're watching on the YouTube right now, you can go over and listen to the podcast, which you can find in Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. I think that's it. Hope this was helpful, and I will catch you on the next one. Bye for now. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I want to load you up with some free stuff. If you look in the show description, there's a link there to get my guide, which is the Alcohol Freedom Formula Guide. And in that guide, I will walk you through the process of quitting alcohol. It's the same system and process that I give to my clients inside of Project 90. And if you would like to get your hands on that guide, you can click the link in the description part of this episode, or you can go to alcoholfreelifestyle.com forward slash guide. Likewise, if you would like to be considered for Project 90 to join our community and get some accountability, coaching and have fun, achieve some goals over at least 90 days with our help and support, or if you would like to be considered as a potential complimentary coaching core with one of my coaches, you can do that by clicking the link in the show description or going to alcoholfreelifestyle.com forward slash schedule. Now Project 90 is for over 30s only and it's really for people who are ready to get long-term power over alcohol. You don't have to quit forever, but you will have to quit for at least 90 days with our support. Just a reminder, if you're a swanic and the word alcohol, you'll find that. For those of you who want additional support, if you want coaching, fun, accountability, if you realize that you can't do this on your own or you just plain don't want to, then I invite you to schedule that call and we can talk about if Project 90 is for you. If you would like to take some of my supplements, swanvitality.com is the website. I'll put a link in the show notes as well. I have a liver support product called loving liver, which I designed and specially formulated to help remove toxins from your liver after years of alcohol consumption. Again, there's a link in the show description. We've also got a green powder there, which turns into a green juice filled with amazing ingredients to support you and give you energy throughout the day. And there's also a magnesium product which I take every night to help me prepare for sleep and to sleep through the night. So there's a few options there. The show in general has helped you or supported you in any way. I would so appreciate it if you would write a review. It really does help the show climb the rankings and expose the show to people who don't yet know about us. So if this show has benefited you in any way and you feel compelled to pay it forward, just writing a short little review, hopefully a nice one, will be so appreciated and I will thank you immensely. Lastly, if you'd like to talk to me about anything at all, I'm James at alcoholfreelastyle.com. I do read and respond to every email. And you can also follow me on Instagram at atjameswanick. Send me a message there. And I look forward to connecting with you soon. Catch you on the next one.