 James Swannock here. How do you reduce and eliminate cravings when they come? When do you get cravings? Is it at the end of the day? Is it at lunchtime? Is it at nighttime? You come home in the end of a long day and you just want to relax on the sofa or you put the kids to sleep. That's when you pour yourself a glass of wine or maybe you're making dinner and you pour yourself a glass of wine or maybe it's a drink after work each day. What time's beer a clock or what time's wine a clock? I know many women tend to draw a bath and sit in the bath and drink a glass of wine. Sadly, that is not relaxation. I know it may appear that it is but it isn't because you're just pouring toxins into your body. But let's talk about how do you reduce cravings and then what do you do when the cravings come? So what I mean by that is how do you reduce the number of cravings? Like the frequency I guess is a better way of articulating that. How do you reduce the frequency of your cravings? And then when a craving hits, how do you either eliminate it or reduce the ferocity of that craving? So let's deal with the first part now which is how do you reduce the frequency of the cravings? Well, the best way I know is to live a mostly stress-free life because stress and anxiety will increase cravings, will increase desire for alcohol. And the practical ways that I know that I've experienced to reduce stress and anxiety is to practice daily gratitude. And the way I do it is by writing what I've referred to as the daily 20. And the daily 20 is you grab a journal and you write down one through 20 and you think of and you write down 20 things that you are grateful for. Not three or four or five or 10 but 20. 20 activates your reticular activating system otherwise known as your RAS which then forces quote unquote forces your mind to seek evidence that there is lots to be grateful for. And when we live a life of appreciation rather than expectation, we feel good. We certainly don't feel as bad and our stress is reduced. And when our stress is reduced, our cravings for alcohol are reduced. So to live a stress-free life, number one, live a life of appreciation versus expectation because really all the stress of our lives comes from where we are and where we think we should be. Where we are and where we think we should be. Do you ever wake up in the morning and think to yourself, man, I thought I'd be further along in life than this? I do. That's expectation. That's goals unmet. And that's where all the stress comes from. My circumstances should be this but they're this. That's what causes stress. It's the lack. I don't have this. My circumstances aren't great. I should have done this. I regret this. I should be here. That's where all the stress and anxiety comes from. But if we do a flipper rooney and instead we focus on all the things that we have, I'm grateful for this. I'm grateful for my friends, my family, the progress that I've made. And we express gratitude in the form of writing things down 20 times in a book. We call it the daily 20 or we say it to people. We say it to our loved ones or our children and we express gratitude. Then we're reducing stress and anxiety and cravings for alcohol tend to subside. Another way that I've experienced to reduce stress and therefore reduce cravings is to eat well and drink lots of water. This is very simple but right next to me now as I'm recording this, I'm have a big thing of water. I'm just going to drink some. More water you drink, the better you will feel, the less stress and anxiety you will feel. It's been proven repeatedly. Most of us are walking around dehydrated, which causes us stress and anxiety. We don't even know it. But if we drink lots of water, we flush out lots of toxins. We're less likely to be stressed. So eating well, drinking lots of water, getting natural sunlight. If you're cramped up inside all day and you don't get out and expose yourself to nature, then you're going to feel stressed. I mean during COVID lockdowns, I saw some studies that showed that depression increased exponentially. Sadly, suicide rate went up. Breakups, divorces, arguments increased. There was a study out of New York that showed that 25% of all breakups were alcohol related. Now, a lot of that comes from just being crammed up inside, not getting outside into nature. I like to think that our governments have our best interests at heart when they say stay inside and they're claiming that it's for health reasons. So I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. But in doing so, in us staying indoors and not being able to leave our homes, we go against the natural flow of what it's like to be a human being, which is to be out and moving in nature, in the sun, breathing fresh air, exercising. So how do you reduce the frequency of alcohol cravings? Get outside more, walk around the block, go and do some laps at a pool. I joined, four or five months ago, I became a member of the Manley Pool in Brisbane and started doing laps and I hadn't done laps since high school. And I was like, man, this is amazing. I'll tell you why this is amazing because I'm outdoors, I'm in the sun, I'm exercising, I'm in a body of water and it's kind of like very, it's like meditation because there's no cell phone, there's no email, there's nothing, it's just me and the black line at the bottom of the pool and laps. So I'm getting sunlight, I'm breathing, I'm moving my body outside. I mean, amazing. That reduces my stress like incredibly. And remember, I'll keep repeating this when you reduce your stress, the cravings start to subside, the frequency of the cravings drop. Putting your bare foot or your bare feet, I should say, on the earth. So that means just take off your shoes and sit on the grass. There's a little grassy knoll at the front of our home in Brisbane. Sometimes I go out there and I sit on it and I'm wearing my shoes and I have to remind myself, I said, James, take your shoes off. So take my shoes off and I just put my feet on the grass. And I connect to what's called the Shuman Resonance. And the Shuman Resonance is an energetic field that is going through the earth that we connect to every time we put our skin to the ground. I'm going to try and, no, I'm not, I was saying I was going to try and Google it here so I could read online a little bit more detail about that. But I'll invite you to do it yourself. But when we connect to the earth, when we're out and about with birds and nature and trees and all that kind of stuff, we watch the sunset and we watch the sun rise and we're just out and about our stress reduces. We feel better because we're in our natural elements. It's only with these man-made creations that we call cars and homes that we stay in and screens that we stare at too long does our stress start to increase. So yeah, drinking lots of water, living a life of appreciation versus expectation and connecting to the earth and moving and being outside. There's things that can reduce the frequency of your alcohol cravings because overall those things cumulatively will reduce stress, which is the biggest cause of alcohol cravings. So the second part of that now is what do we do when we get the craving? How do we reduce the ferocity of the craving? So a few things, one is, which I've already mentioned, the answer is to do anything else other than reach for an alcoholic drink, obviously. And some of those things practically can include drinking a big tall glass of water or soda water or sparkling water. It can simply involve breathing in where you are right there, just a big breath in and a big breath out. That's enough to change the physiology of your body. Get up and move. So if you're at home and you're sitting on the sofa and you really want to drink, get up, don't walk to the liquor cabinet, get up and just walk outside or walk up and down the stairs, move your body. They've done studies that show that the simple act of moving your body can change your whole mental state. Tony Robbins, the life coach motivational speaker, I saw him speak at a UPW, which stands for Unleashed the Power Within. I think it was in Dallas, Texas about five years ago. He said that you can change your feeling, like how you're feeling, like in the click of your fingers. You can go from sad to happy, just like that. You can go from angry to happy, just like that. You just choose to do it. So likewise, if you have a craving for a drink, you can just choose. It's like craving gone, give me a glass of water. I'm going to the fridge to pour myself a nice glass of Pellegrino or Perrier or whatever. I like to keep a bowl of lime strategically on my living room table. And when I see that bowl of lime, it reminds me to cut one open and squeeze it into a glass and then get some ice and pour some Pellegrino or Perrier into a nice glass and do that kind of like a ceremony, like make it a ritual. Because many of you have got this ritual of being home and at the end of the day, opening up a bottle of wine and popping the cork and pouring it or going to the fridge and opening a beer or drinking vodka or Scotch or whatever your drink is, you've created this ritual of quote unquote relaxing at the end of the day. So we don't need to remove our ritual. We just have to remove that ritual of pouring yourself an alcoholic drink. We can keep the ritual, but just pour yourself a non-alcoholic drink. So when a craving hits, you remind yourself of your commitment to be alcohol-free and you do anything else. Drink water, go to the fridge, cut open a lime, squeeze it into a glass, pour some Perrier, go outside, walk around the block, phone a friend, go to the movies, connect with family, pick up the guitar, run around the block, have a swim, take your shoes off and connect your feet to the earth. The answer is anything else. It really is anything else. And I get that the feeling is so strong in that moment, like the craving for a drink is so strong. I get that. But here's the thing. It's not that you want to drink to relieve yourself of your craving. You just want to be relieved of your craving. And you can do that one million different ways which do not involve alcohol. Breathwork will fundamentally change your physiology. It will change how you feel. And it doesn't need to be this big kind of dramatic, I'm going to my room for 10 minutes and closing the door and I'm going to do a guided meditation. It can mean that. You can do that. But I'm guessing that if you're out with colleagues or friends or family and there's alcohol present and they're encouraging you to have a drink, you're not going to say, oh, excuse me, can I just go into your bathroom and close the door for 10 minutes and put on the calm or headspace app and do a 10 minute chant or 10 minute meditation? No. But what you can do in that moment is just breathe in and out. And if it's weird to do that in front of people, just excuse yourself for a moment and go and breathe in and breathe out. Go straight to the bar if there is one and say, may I have a sparkling water or a Pellegrino or soda water with ice and a piece of lime, please and squeeze it in and drink that. The thing is, you don't want to have an alcoholic drink to relieve you of your stress and anxiety. You just want to be relieved of your stress and anxiety. So number one, how do you reduce the frequency of cravings? Live a stress-free life. Stress-free life means eating well, moving well, living a life of appreciation, practicing gratitude, putting a high focus on your sleep quality. That will reduce cravings. Reducing the strength of the craving, if and when you get it, involves doing anything else. Moving your body, breathing, drinking lots of water, keeping healthy drinks like Pellegrino or Perrier in your fridge for sparkling water, making sure you got ice, cutting open a piece of lime, moving, breathing, picking up a musical instrument, having a conversation with your husband or wife or your kids or if you're alone, you live alone and you're feeling isolated, phoning a friend. There's a lot of folks I know, especially during COVID, have been isolated. I have one member of our Project 90 program who was very upset the other day crying because her daughter works on the frontline of COVID as a nurse and her daughter is terrified of hugging her mother in case she might catch COVID and her mother is devastated because they haven't been able to hug or embrace in months. And so she shared with me that she felt isolated alone. She lives in a home that she bought for herself, a beautiful big home with a view outside of Sacramento, I think, or somewhere in Northern California. And she's got everything that really a middle-aged woman should need. She's got money in the bank and she has a home that she's built. But she's isolated. She can't be hugged or hug her daughter. And so she's been drinking, trying to overcome the isolation with and comforting herself with the bottle of attractively packaged poison, which is a glass of wine or a bottle of wine each night. So I think she shared with me it was a bottle or two each night until now. Now she's in Project 90 and we're helping her rewire her brain around alcohol and giving her all these other tactics and other things that she can do if or when a craving hits for alcohol. Community is a huge thing as well. Obviously she has the benefit of being able to reach out to one of our other 100 plus members currently and get support and have fun and joke and laugh and not be so isolated. But in any case, get a community, like find a friend who also wants to go through an alcohol-free journey with you and hold yourselves accountable. Create a fun little weekly phone call or a nightly phone call, little check-in. Get people who are on the same path as you. In the New York Times best-selling book, The Power of Habit by Chelsea Duhigg, he says, change occurs amongst other people. Change occurs amongst other like-minded people, which means if you're in a group of women, let's say, who are all looking to lose 20 pounds, then that's when you're all going to lose the 20 pounds because you're holding, excuse me, you're holding each other accountable, you're supporting one another. You're moving in a common direction, which is why folks who join Project 90 or any of our other programs that I offer here have much success is partly because of the community aspect because there are other people there going through very similar circumstances who can encourage and understand and support and they just get it. Don't be a lone wolf. Don't try to do this on your own because in my experience of coaching people since 2015, trying to do it on your own with will power is ineffective. I see it time and time again. People come to me and they say, I'm just going to do it on my own. I'm going to go and you know what, they do. They do do it on their own for like six weeks, sometimes even 12 weeks. But then what happens is that they go back and they think they're going to do moderation and then the slippery slope gets them and before too long, they're back to the same level of drinking habits if not more in many cases. And a lot of times it's because they were just doing a 90 day challenge kind of thing where they felt like they were depriving themselves of something that ordinarily they would choose. And yes, they felt amazing and felt terrific. But at the end of those 90 days, they wanted to come out and go, oh, let's have a drink and celebrate. That's not what I coach. What I coach is we're going to fundamentally rewire your brain. So you change your relationship to alcohol. You look at alcohol for what it is, which is attractively packaged poison. And you choose the alcohol free lifestyle, which is the name of this podcast, which is a life of incredible health and amazing relationships and progress and forward thinking and connection and efficiency and concentration and joy. That's the natural state of affairs. And you overcome stress and anxiety with natural ways, not by pouring yourself a glass of attractively packaged poison. What felt valuable for you about this particular episode? I'd love to hear from you. Send me a message over on my James Swanick official page on Facebook or I have a closed group called Over 40s Getting Clear with James Swanick. Send me a request there. Let me know that you heard me on the podcast. You can send me a message on Instagram at James Swanick. Love to hear from you. Got any question? What was helpful about this? Is your brain rewiring around alcohol? Are you going to practice the daily 20? I do have a journal that I've been working on that will be coming out very shortly called the New Me Journal, which is specifically a journal which gives you an opportunity to write down 90 things that you're grateful for and ask you a few other questions so you can get into that powerful emotional state throughout the day and be living a life of appreciation rather than expectation, which will then reduce your cravings and help you to live the alcohol free lifestyle. So that's coming. Stand by for that or stay tuned for that, I should say. But for the time being, I'd love to hear from you. Send me a message and I will catch you on the next one. See you. 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 44222 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 44222 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 44222 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 44222. 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 JamesSwanickOne, or you can direct message me on Facebook at JamesSwanick 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.