 I am James Swanik, and today we are talking to Dan Menke, who is a 58-year-old entrepreneur. He owns a computer forensic firm in Sioux Falls in the southeast part of South Dakota. Dan drank for over 40 years, and today as we're recording this, he is now one year and four days alcohol-free. Congratulations and how does it feel? Thank you very much. It's hard to describe. It's an incredible feeling. And you're a pretty fit-looking 58-year-old, and you're a grandfather. You have three grown children and two grandchildren. Is that right? Tell us a little bit about yourself before we dig into your relationship with alcohol. Of course. Yes, I have three grown children and two grandchildren ages six and four, and I live in the southeastern part of South Dakota, which is in the northern plains of the United States for those who are not familiar with this area. I grew up in a community not far from where I'm at now in a very small town, and it was small enough where I had, I think it was 14 kids in my graduating class in high school in that community. And one of the things about growing up in that kind of an environment was alcohol was always readily available and present from a very early young age. What was the alcohol that was present? What type of alcohol? You know, all of the alcohol, all of the various types of alcohol were present, but by and large, it was beer drinking. Yeah. Do you remember the brand? What was the popular brand in South Dakota back then? Pap's Blue Ribbon, Grain Belt, and Miller High Life. Wow, okay. And from what age was it present for you? Did it start to come into your daily life, or did you see it? How old were you? Looking back, I think it became part of my daily life somewhere in my mid-20s and has stuck with me ever since. Got it. But your first introduction to it was in your teens, is that fair to say? And you only started really getting into it noticeably in your mid-20s, or was your introduction to it in your mid-20s? No, my introduction to it was probably at the age of 14 or 15 years old. Yeah, got it. And in that culture or society where you grew up, how was alcohol thought of? What did people think of it? Was it normalized? Was it just something that people did? Yeah. It was encouraged. It was more than normalized and more than something people just did. I mean, we centered social events and gatherings around a keg of beer. Yeah, around a keg of beer, not just like a six-pack or a carton, but a keg. That's right. And it was readily available to the point where the legal drinking age then for drinking beer in this part of the country was 18 years old. But in the small community that I lived in, buying beer at the bar slash liquor store was something we never got carted. So it would not be uncommon to go to the bar after class in high school and grab some beer. Got it. Did you get in trouble from your drinking in those early years or was it just like, harmless fun kind of thing? Was there any indication that it might become a more embedded issue later? No, it was honestly very well accepted. And when you asked, did you get into trouble for it? We only got into trouble if we got into some other form of mischief related to consuming alcohol. Or if it was obvious that we had had too much alcohol, that would have been frowned upon pretty heavily. And so you mentioned before, we'll probably do this in chronological order because we've talked about the teens and then we'll get into the 20s and then we might hit the 30s, 40s and now you're in your late 50s. So take us back to now the mid-20s when you said you started to formalize the relationship with alcohol. What were you doing and what happened with your habits around then? When I left high school, I moved about 60 miles away from that little town into where I'm at now in Sioux Falls. And I started college and I had a combination of an athletic and academic scholarship. But unfortunately, I grew up in a very poor family. And about halfway through the second semester of my first year of college, I had to drop out because my father had had a massive stroke and I needed to get into the workforce to help provide for my family. And so as I rolled into the early 20s, I became involved in a relationship. I got married at, I think I was 26 years old when I got married and had two of my three kids in fairly short succession. So I was out working 60, 65 hours, 70 hours a week and trying to build a little family. And alcohol was the great escape in the late evenings and during the weekend hours when I wasn't working. And what were you drinking at that time? Really, at that time, it was still all mostly beer. Once in a great while, someone would show up with a bottle of whiskey or bourbon, and something like that. But by and large, it was mostly beer. And so when you said it felt like the great escape, you'd come home after a long day, and then you'd go to the fridge and open up a six pack and drink some beers. And how much beer did you drink? And what was the daily habit, I guess? It was basically, right, it'd come home. And usually it was probably two to three beers on a daily basis. And then when you got into those events or those days when you had, maybe didn't have to be to work until noon the next day. So you had some, more of a buffer. You might be more willing to grab that six pack or more than that six pack. But basically, it was kind of like life itself, James, in the sense of having alcohol being introduced at such a young age to me. I grew up as a human being and grew up as an alcohol consumer at the same time. So as I aged from my teens into my 20s, my alcohol consumption increased along with the years that I had underneath me. Yeah. So let's move into our 30s now. So did your drinking habits remain the same or how did they increase? Did you move from beer to something else? Did you add some other stuff in? And at the time, did you realize the impact? To answer the last question first, I never realized the impact until I was in my 50s. I never accepted the impact until I was in my 50s. So it was in my 30s, probably the mid to latter part of my 30s, where other types of alcohol became a part of my routine and a part of my life. I was some bourbon and whiskies and things of that nature. But I was starting to now become a little bit more successful throughout the ventures that I was engaged in professionally. Starting to drink finer wines and drinks of that caliber seemed more socially acceptable than just grabbing a beer at the bar. Was that impacting your performance? It seems like you're actually doing better in your professional life. So looking back, do you see how your drinking habits at that time? I'm assuming we're now in our mid 30s, right? In our 30s, it's coming into our 40s. Are we noticing how drinking is negatively affecting us? Or are we still in that phase of like, oh, everything's going pretty well here professionally. And so I don't notice anything. I felt as though I was more creative during that time each day, during that euphoric period each day, where the creative juices were just flowing because I was under this influence, the buzz area of the alcohol. So I was on top of everything. I had the world. There was no downside to it at all, James. Yeah. And you probably felt that way for what, all through your 40s and early 50s? Is that right? I really did. I can honestly say that although I woke up each morning in a fog and I didn't realize how thick that fog had become until I quit drinking alcohol, but I really didn't experience what most people would consider to be classic hangovers, where they go out on a bender and then wake up the next morning and just totally throwing up and just totally out of the picture and out of the game for that day. That really wasn't me for the most part. It was just, it was like shake the cobwebs off for the first two to three hours of the day and then go back on with life. It seems like it was that way for a good 20 years or so, was it? At least 20 years. Yeah. Okay. Did anyone during that time ever say anything to your drinking, whether it was a family member, partner or colleague or a staff member? Did anyone ever say anything about your drinking habits? I had two people that talked to me about my drinking. One was an ex-best friend and another one was a gentleman who I had had a business relationship with a number of years. What did each of them say to you? It was different approaches. The individual who was my best friend at the time was very blunt and very forceful, tried to be very forceful with me and basically he came in, literally came into my home and he gave me an ultimatum of this was our friendship and or you're either done drinking or we're done being friends. I chose neither at the time. I chose to continue drinking and I chose to try to maintain my friendship with him to later find the testing of that friendship to become at issue during the time that I was that I decided to quit drinking. If for him to come in and suggest that you needed to stop, suggest that he thought that there was something amiss or something wrong, the way that you've described it up until now is that maybe it was giving you just some creative energy and that when you had that buzz at the end of the day that things were going well and you were producing and even though you didn't get the shocking hangovers, you still probably thought that it wasn't an issue. What was it that he thought was the issue with your drinking? He didn't know what the issue was. He didn't feel as if he could approach it that way. Basically, his approach to confronting me with it was much more directed toward me trying to live his lifestyle. He approached me or I'll use the word attacked me. He basically attacked me by telling me that I need to live his lifestyle and not live the lifestyle that I'm living. Alcohol was just one of those parts of it. The problem with him was he approached me shortly after his parents passed away and they left him a significant inheritance. He retired at a very young age and moved to a part of the country. He bought a big fancy house and didn't have to work another day in his life. It was after he got all settled in with with mom and dad's money and didn't have to work that he came to me in his fancy new Cadillac and said, all right, you need to live the life I'm living and clean up your whole life. So to him, it was very simple. Just take mommy and daddy's money and go live this new life. His approach was completely ineffective. Was the new life he was suggesting getting rid of alcohol? That was a part of it, yes. To him, that was what was in his mind. That was what was preventing me to be successful at his level. Got it. And you rejected that notion, yes? I did. Yeah. And I still do quite honestly. Yeah. You mentioned someone else had said something about your drinking. A business partner, yes. And what was it that your business partner or our business partner saw about your drinking that warranted comment? He made a couple of just very honestly very subtle comments along the way. And as a result, as I look back now, the outcome of those subtle comments ended up being he distanced himself from me. And that was his way to not have to deal with it. Did he see something in your drinking though? Did he say to you, you're drinking too much or I see you drinking consistently? Did he specifically mention something about your drinking? And if so, what was it? They were much more off the cuff comments that he would make. And it was kind of a double-edged sword for him, James, because he drank as well. And so it was, as the saying we call the pot, calling the kettle black, it really, you know, hear words like that from him really pointless. Got it. So you now, you've had a couple of people say to you something about your drinking. It sounds like you've rejected both of those. Maybe it's just to do with the people who were saying it or putting it out to you. But it sounds like you kind of rejected the notion that you have a drinking problem or there's anything that needs to change. So where did it get to the point where you suddenly realize actually, maybe it does need to change what was happening, what was going on in your life to warrant you actually finally taking action? I was starting to feel the physical effects of alcohol, years of drinking alcohol in my life. I had elevated liver enzymes and had some screening for what was diagnosed as a fatty liver and which I'm here to tell you now, it's completely normal again, according to the test results. But I noticed I was having problems focusing. I was having severe anxiety issues or what I thought were anxiety issues. And what they were in reality was temporary or the short term withdrawal effects of not having alcohol in my system all of the time. So your drinking had got up to what level at this point when you started to experience what you're describing as withdrawal symptoms? I was a very cyclical drinker in the sense of my drinking day began right at the end of my traditional work day at approximately around 5 p.m. or so and usually would start off with a couple of beers followed by a few bourbon and sodas and then to wrap things up, at least a bottle of wine if not more. That became a daily routine. And that started in your early or mid fifties? I perfected that craft somewhere between my early to probably closer to my mid fifties, early to mid fifties I would say. Yeah, so it sounds like a pretty big jump right from a few beers at the end of the day to a few beers and a couple heavier drinks and then a bottle of wine. Then is there any reason why you think it made such a noticeable jump at that time? Was there anything going on in your life? Was it just a culmination of a steady increase over time? Was there a catalyst for that? I think that by then my body had become so accustomed to having alcohol present that it took more alcohol to get that same sense of that euphoric level that I was able to achieve with less alcohol in the earlier years of my life. Got it. And how long did you keep that pace for? I kept that pace until November 16th, 2019. Got it. Literally November 15th, 2019 to November 16th, 2019 was it was the same as an on-off switch. Wonderful. I'm going to ask you about that in just a second. I'm just curious, what was the impact up until November 15, 2019 when you stopped? What was the impact that you in hindsight noticed it was having on your life or those around you or maybe your career? What was the negative impact, I guess? It was multifaceted. I was irritable. I was not a good person to be around. I had a very low tolerance for people. I was not creative. I was not able to focus on the work that I'm doing nearly as well as I needed to. I had really lost any kind of future vision that always seemed to be present and accustomed to my life was being able to see ahead. I was not able to see ahead beyond that next day and that next evening. I would plan my days and I would plan my schedule around that five o'clock, a couple of beers into the bourbon and into the wine. That became the part of my schedule that was most important to me. Yeah. You said that you were irritable, not a good person, low tolerance, not creative, unable to focus, lost the future vision. Did anyone at that time before, in the days or weeks before November 15, 2019, say anything to you, give you any feedback? They did not. In looking back at that time, especially probably the two years prior to when I quit and joined this program, I think that it's safe to say that some of the people who were close to me had probably just given up. And how does that feel looking back on that, the fact that some of the people close to you had given up? That is probably the most difficult part of my life today is dealing with the regrettable decisions that I made in my life prior to quitting. And as I mentioned in a recent post on the group talking about the downside to being alcohol-freeze, I don't have an alcohol problem today. I just have a life problem because of the regrets of the bad choices that I made. But the good news is that I now have the clarity and the mindset that I can deal with that much better than just going off and forgetting about it for four or five hours a day. Yeah. So what happened on November 15, 2019, and then what happened in the days and weeks and months after that? I wish I knew the answer to that, James. November 16th, 2019 was a Saturday here and I had gotten up and I routinely power up my laptop computer and check news, weather, and sports, and get an ESPN, check a couple of news sites, and check and see what the weather's like. And I was actually on social media, which I really don't spend a lot of time on, but I was on social media. And there it was, this advertisement for the 30-day No Alcohol Challenge that came up in front of me. And I looked at it for a couple of minutes and I saw that there was a fee associated with it. I don't even remember what it was. I think it was maybe $20 or something like that. And I don't know what inspired me to go get my debit card. I signed up for the program right then and there. And I think that initial connection, I already felt as though I had some skin in the game. And so I owed it to myself because I had just spent $20 on this thing. I need something back out of it. And so I decided to start reading some of the information that was on there, watching a couple of your videos. And that first day, there are parts of it that I don't really even remember. And not just because I was in the fog from the drinking the night before, but because of the overwhelming amount of information that I was starting to absorb and digest in a way that I never had before. Did you draw a line in the sand when you bought the 30-day No Alcohol Challenge? Did you have any idea that you would go a year and four days as you are now? That's it. I'm doing this. I'm not going to drink again. Or was it? That's it. I'm doing this, but I'm just going to try it. I'm going to test it out. Maybe I'll go 48 hours or three days or I'll see how I go with this. But I'm a bit unsure. Like what was your thinking at that time? Quite frankly, I never bought into the 30-day No Alcohol Challenge. I did not set a goal for 30 days because I knew I couldn't achieve it. There was no way I could achieve 30 days without drinking alcohol. So my goal was one day. That was Saturday, the 16th of November, 2019. That was that one day. And I decided that day that I was going to make that day all about me. I was going to eat and drink anything as long as it didn't involve alcohol, drink, and do anything that I wanted to. And I was going to ignore everybody. I was going to ignore my phone, my email, anybody that wanted to talk to me. I was going to focus on not drinking that day. And I decided if I could make it through that day and wake up on Sunday, the 17th of November, I would then have to decide what I wanted to do with day number two. And when day number two rolled around, it wasn't day number two for me. It was day one again. And yesterday didn't happen. So the 16th didn't happen. And so before I knew it, I continued with that mindset of waking up each day and literally asking myself, am I going to drink alcohol today? And I would have a conversation which lasted usually about two or three minutes. And once I answered the question and said no, I'm not going to, I then tried to just completely forget about it for the rest of the day. I said, all right, I'll worry about it tomorrow now because I already made the decision for today. So what ended up happening was after a month or so, I had completed 30 one-day no alcohol challenges successfully. Yeah, incredible. So when I got passed the 30 days, I never set a goal for 60, 90, 180 or a year. And as I sit here now, I don't have a goal for two years or three years or even a year and six days. I'll wake up tomorrow morning and the conversation will only be a few seconds long, unlike the three or four minutes it used to be. And I'll decide that I'm not going to have alcohol most likely and then just go about my day. And what helped you along the way? I saw that you were active in the Facebook group of the 30 day no alcohol challenge and I'm assuming you digested some of the videos that you get inside of that program maybe after the first day or so. Was that helpful or did you kind of just get the information that you felt you needed in the beginning and then kind of like handled it yourself? What was helpful for you along the way? It was the whole package, the videos, some of the material that you and your team have put together. And I'm still fairly active within the group. I don't necessarily post as much as I used to, but I'm in the group almost every day reading. And what has really set this program to the level that it has become in my life are the people, the other people who are members of this group. One of the things when I got into that first day and I started reading some of the posts by some of the folks that were on here, I realized that this group of people is comprised of men and women, tall and short, well educated, articulate, successful in many aspects of their life. They're not the drunks that are laying in the gutter and can't seem to get anything in their life going. I mean, these are highly successful people and their stories and that they talk about the challenges that they face. I was able to relate and understand where they were going and what they were talking about. So it was that connection with the other members of the group that really kept me attracted and focused to it more so than the content that you and your team have provided. What happened in the first seven days that you didn't drink? You mentioned some years earlier you had withdrawal symptoms if you didn't drink as much. What happened in the first seven days this time around? Oh, it was horrible. The first seven days, heck, the first three weeks were sleep, was horrible, night sweats. I had no consistent sleep schedule at all, headaches. I felt as though I had the flu. My mind was racing. I was physically shaking during that time. My body went through several changes during that first few weeks. But I had somehow prepared myself for that subconsciously. It almost became, let's say, laughable. I don't mean laughable in a funny sense, but laughable in the sense of each day was unpredictable. So days four and five, the curveball thrown at me on that day might have been different from the curveball the day before with the massive headache or the sleep deprivation or insomnia or night sweats or some days it'd be a combination of all of it. It was horrible. Sounds like good time, Stan. The good part about it was that after going through, this is going to sound a little bit strange, but after the first three or four days of watching, you know, these toxins literally leaving your body, I gained some traction in the knowledge that I must be making some progress. This stuff really is leaving my body because I've never felt like this before. And I felt some sense of accomplishment by sweating this out and by having that headache and by not being able to focus on that. So I go grab a big bowl of ice cream and get over it. It was like a rite of passage so to speak. At what point did all of that irritability and the sweats and the poor sleep, when did you turn the corner? When did all of that leave you? And all of a sudden you came out and you were like, wow, I'm on the other side here. I would say, I mean, the first week was the worst, no doubt about it. The second week, I think it got better the second week, probably by the end of the third week into maybe three and a half weeks into it, I started, I mean, the type of sleep I was getting was amazing. The energy I had was incredible and my life was starting to just really come into focus. Much of my life was coming into focus for the first time in my adult life. What about your life was coming into focus? The clarity and the reality of the decisions that I've made that had gotten me to the point that I was at. And I don't necessarily mean just all of the bad decisions because I made some good decisions along the way. As a business person, I would be considered to be successful. And to those who are near and dear to me, I'm well loved by them. My life hasn't been a complete failure. It was really having the clarity of understanding and accepting and acknowledging the damage I had done, not only to my own life, but to the lives of others in my life, and also accepting and acknowledging the accomplishments and achievements that I had been able to obtain along the way. What was the impact that it had on you professionally? And then I'll ask you a second question after that. But what was the impact that being alcohol-free consistently after those first three weeks of the adjustment period, let's call it, what was the noticeable impact that being alcohol-free consistently had on you professionally? I was able to juggle multiple projects at the same time and incorporate visions on how to move my company into the next phase of my profession. Being in the field of computer forensics or digital forensics, we used to call it computer forensics. It now encompasses all types of digital data, is an ever-evolving and ever-changing industry and profession. I was able to keep my business rolling with the current clients that I had and also start offering new types of services and new visions for new ideas and incorporating those into my life. What was the impact that you noticed being consistently alcohol-free had on your family and personal life? On my family and my personal life, the impact initially it was very hard because when I decided to join this program and decided to become alcohol-free, I shut everyone out. I focused on myself entirely and in years prior to that, I was always trying to do something for someone else and I made it all about me. It became very selfish, I became very self-centered, but I knew I had to do that. I was in the fight of my life and I had to put 1,000% of my energy on me and I didn't worry about anybody else. For the first few months of that, it was a struggle and a challenge for those closest to me. I'm here to tell you now, however, that I don't have the quantity of relationships that I had over a year ago, but the quality of the relationships that I have with my kids, my grandkids, and those who are closest to me is much, much stronger and more powerful and the future is so much brighter than it ever has been before. Did your kids express concern that you pulled away during those three or four months where you really focused on yourself? What was some of the feedback you received from your kids then? They really didn't show much concern. I've always been a very self-surviving individual. My kids, for example, they know that dad's always willing to land on his own two feet and so I don't really require some type of person to be in my life for me to ... I don't need someone to cook food for me. I don't need someone to provide shelter for me. I'm pretty self-sustaining that way. Honestly, they reacted by just ignoring me and they didn't know what I was doing. They just think he's going through some kind of phase or whatever and it really wasn't until probably six months or so into the program, not understand, six months into being alcohol-free, we were dealing with the onset of a pandemic. So that little distraction threw another wrench into the whole thing, but by then they started realizing that dad's not drinking and hasn't been for some time now. I never put it in their face but they knew that I had joined the program and they started realizing that I wasn't drinking and it started to sink in with them. Incredible. And what was some of the positive feedback you received from either them or anyone in your life after you'd got six months, seven, eight months alcohol-free? What were some of the positive feedback you received? I have had people, my kids and family members and those who are closest to me pull me aside on a number of occasions and just look me in the eye and go, what you have done is absolutely unbelievable. And it's been a complete cycle and for them visually, when I decided to quit drinking alcohol, I was overweight when I was drinking alcohol but I gained even more weight after I drank alcohol because I was eating all of the sugar. After I quit alcohol, you mean? Right. I never had a sweet tooth or I didn't think I did until I quit drinking alcohol and then candy bars and ice cream and cake. I was eating and consuming that type of food so I was gaining weight but I allowed myself to do that. If I'm going to eat a bowl of ice cream versus a six pack of beer, it's a lesser of the two evils. And I allowed myself to do that until about six months into it and then I realized, I think I've got a fairly good grasp on this alcohol thing right now at least. I'm now going to attack the diet and so I attacked the diet in a way of exercise and my eating habits changed drastically and I dropped about 40 pounds and am at the best health in my life right now. I also have, for years I was on anti-anxiety and depression medication and blood pressure medication. Those have all become a distant memory as well. I don't take any of it anymore. Congratulations. You got rid of 40 pounds. I did. And you got rid of prescription drugs. I did. And you got rid of irritability and low tolerance and inability to focus it sounds like as well. I did. And I also got rid of toxic relationships and I had plenty of those. That was a big part of the cleansing process was getting rid of those toxic relationships. And I really can't stress that enough. I looked at each relationship that I had with people in my life and if the only common element that I had in that relationship was going to the bar and drinking with them, I was done with it. There was nothing meaningful about it. So I stepped on toes along the way. November 16 of 2020 was four days ago as we're recording this now. So was it just another day? Or did you wake up and go, wow, give yourself a pat on the back? Were you tempted to celebrate with a drink? Did you celebrate with a tub of ice cream? Tell us about the one year anniversary. I've never been the type of person who really celebrated anniversaries, birthdays, things like that. It was just really wasn't wasn't a part of what I did. The internal celebration that I had on this past Monday, this one year was much greater than a combination of all of the birthdays and anniversaries I've had throughout my life. Celebrating with a drink. Now, are you kidding me? Seriously? No. And celebrating with food. I was celebrating my life and I did pat myself on the back. I took a day and just acknowledged what I have accomplished. But then on Tuesday, it's back to day one again. But for that day, I did. I took a time out. Sorry, I got a little choked up there. I want to acknowledge you for being so courageous and vulnerable and sharing your story with us, Dan. And I want to just say congratulations to you for an incredible achievement. Well, thank you, James, for those kind of words. But more than that, thank you for having your vision and having the entrepreneurial spirit to put this program together and save the lives of people around the globe every day. That's got to feel good for you. Thank you. Yeah, it does. It does feel good. Without this program, I wouldn't have done this. I know that I wouldn't have done this. I have a couple of friends or acquaintances that have gone to AA and just hearing their stories, AA was not going to be for me. I have never attended an AA meeting and I have no desire to attend one. I'm sure it's great, but I knew it wasn't going to be a fit for me. We've talked about the massive impact that it's had on your life, which is incredible. And now and probably what's already been happening is the massive impact that your new way of being will have on others. So who in your life gets to benefit and is benefiting right now because of your new way of being? Well, in somewhat reverse order, my staff and employees are certainly benefiting from it, which of course my clients are benefiting from that as well. My kids and my grandkids are certainly benefiting from it. My partner Erika is the rock of my life and without her, I would not, her steadfastness and support that she has given me along the way has been so instrumental in my life. And I know that she is benefiting from the rewards of seeing what I'm accomplishing each and every day. And what's so interesting about that with her is there have been aspects in her life that she's taken a hard look at and she's experiencing some new, wonderful gains in her life. She never had an issue with drinking alcohol, but just some of the other areas of her life. She's seen the success that I've had with this program and has taken it upon herself to address some of those things in her life and has been wildly successful. So it's been a great ride. Yeah. Just an incredible journey you've been on, Dan. Yes, sir. Does it feel that way? It feels absolutely unbelievable. Maybe being 58, you're only just getting started as well. Maybe this is like the next phase is going to be just so exciting and adventurous and impactful, not just for you, but for other people as well. Does it feel that way? It certainly does. At 58 years old, I'm in the transition part of my company. I actually own two small companies, another business here in this area as well. But I'm transitioning my businesses into ownership by my employees. And I've got plans for retirement and I plan on retiring within a few years. And I've got plans that will take me to other places in the world and do things that are way beyond my wildest dreams. We're beyond my wildest dreams just a couple of years ago. Wonderful. Well, Dan Menke, 58 from Sioux Falls in South Dakota, who drank for over 40 years. And as we record this today is one year and four days alcohol-free. Congratulations. I so acknowledge you for your transformation and for your commitment. And long may it continue, Dan. It was a real pleasure to hear your story and be able to share your story with some folks who may be listening or watching now in the hope that certainly they'll take that first step as well at some point or it will help keep them on the path. So thank you so much again, Sarah. So I appreciate it. Thank you so very much, James. 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 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 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 US 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 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.