 I am James Swanake and today we're speaking to another James, a gentleman by the name of James Kemp, who is 40. He is a father of two. He's currently in New Zealand in the Southern Hemisphere, but most of the time he's been living in Bali in Indonesia. James helps people productise their services and he is now two years alcohol free, two years alcohol free. And he was just saying before we record here that one of those old Facebook memories came up on his phone of him drinking something, whether it was a margarita or tequila. I'm not sure what it was, but we're going to dig in to hear James's story about what life was like pre-alcohol free and what life is like now, alcohol free. James Kemp, how are you mate? Good mate, how are you? I'm doing very well. Great to have you here. Likewise. Tell us a little bit about yourself before we get into the alcohol story, but just give us a little bit of context as to who you are and what you do and where you are and all that kind of good stuff. Yeah, I think probably got some similarities. You know, haven't lived in one place for a heck of a lot of the past 20 years of my life, but bored down here in New Zealand. My wife is English. We met up. We lived in London for a period of time and worked with some of the most well-known companies in the world, BMW and Vodafone and Xerox and those guys in sales capacity and became an entrepreneur when I exited out of the startup space about eight years ago. So I've been working for myself since then and in between traveling and having two kids now, Max is nine and Eva's four and discovering that there are certain habits and substances throughout my life that I should moderate and maybe limit their consumption of to aid in living a better life. Yeah. How long were you living in Bali for in Indonesia? So we were there for just over 18 months. Got it. So and, wow, pandemic, pandemic, a pandemic pause that we're going through now. And we'll see how that works out for a bit. I live on an island in New Zealand, Waiki Island. And so I just kind of like islands and semi-warm tropical climates that I can run my business and have a family for. No man is an island, James. Apart from me. So tell us a little bit about life when you were drinking, the good, the bad, the ugly. Maybe it was just a habit that slowed you down. Maybe it wasn't at all. Maybe it was just something that you just work at one day and you decided to get rid of and something happened. But just tell us a little bit about your relationship with alcohol leading up to the point where you stopped. Yeah, I think I grew up and I'm from a country where alcohol is baked into the culture, you know, being a Kiwi. And then I went to a city when I was young in London, which is has a culture that's baked in around alcohol and very much at a time in my life when socialization was really important. I got the famed, you know, Heathrow injection with the pubs, put on about 10 kilos of blubber, which insulated me from the English winters. And then also, you know, used alcohol as a kind of coping mechanism as many people do when you're doing strange things in new places. But I think my peak was my very first job in the startup space was for a business called Living Social, which I actually ended up being quite senior and running one of their divisions. And we had a pub in the office. And, you know, this is a decade ago when startups were cool and you had to have a pub and you had to have a bar and all those things and it was alcohol on tap. And drinking occasionally turned into drinking every single day because it was free and it was accepted and it was cultural, culturally appropriate at the time. And it just became part of my life. And when I left, you know, I came back to New Zealand and was marketing director for a really big company here, which had the same culture startup, worked a lot of hours, worked really hard, socialization, because, you know, the startups employ younger people and people have more energy, socialization and alcohol are a big part of it. But when I went out on my own to do my own thing, I realized that it was a crutch that had some some consequences to it. You know, first the first thing that was the energy piece, because in a startup space, you know, you're, you're, you're spurred on by everybody else. But secondly, the emotional, you know, piece that alcohol brings, which I think is the the hidden cost of it. I don't think that I think when people focus on drinking, they focus on the behavior while they're drinking. But also there is a lot of downstream effects that it has on your hormones and your energy and some of the decisions you make that really kind of you pay a hidden price for. And that's only, it's only awareness that took a while to kind of understand those things, to, to, to actually see those things. So I was very much, like a lot of people in cultures where drinking was not only normalized, it was pretty much required. In many cases, if you're in, if you're a non drinker in the startup space, you were, you know, you had a pub in the office and it was free, then you were, you were kind of vilified of here if you didn't. But very much as I went out on my own and I was more, you know, had to be more self-reliant and self-directed, I realized the price I was paying. And also kids come along and kids interrupt your, some of your, some of your need for, for control over your own schedule. Kids, kids, kids like to wake up early and those kind of things. And alcohol and hangover is not that compatible with that. It's funny you were saying that when you're, when you went to the UK, you got the Heathrow injection. And just to clarify, the Heathrow injection means, you know, any antipodean, you know, that it flies into London for like a two-year working visa kind of stint. You kind of put on about 10, 20 pounds or 10 kilos even, because you drink a lot of beer, you eat a lot of food, the food's very different in the UK. And so what happens is a lot of Australians and New Zealanders in particular, they fly into the UK in their early 20s, seemingly fit and healthy. And by the time they touched back down in their native country two years later, the Heathrow injection, they've blown out. Like the puffiness in the face starts to happen and the, the beer gut starts to develop and the fatigue and the, and the, you know, the irritability has really set in. I recall, I moved to London myself as a 23 year old in March of 1999. And I got a job very quickly as a sub editor on the now defunct News of the World newspaper. And on a Saturday, I would work a double shift where my job was to go in and edit the football or the soccer reports from various soccer journalists around the country. And the first shift, I think was, if I recall correctly, was four hours. And then they gave you an hour, an hour 15 minute break. And then you'd come back and you'd do the second shift. And on that hour and hour 15 break, all of these sub editors would get up and say, come on, let's go, we're going to the pub. And we'd walk out of the News of the World office headquarters and would go to this pub, which was adjacent to the News Corp headquarters. And they would just down to maybe even three pints of beer. And I was a lightweight drinker at the time. And I remember I had two pints of beer on this first night that I did this. And I got back to my desk and I was absolutely blind just from two beers. And I was a wreck. I was terrible at my job, like horrendous. So bad. Like I couldn't think I wanted to go and urinate every like 30 minutes because I had like two pints of beer in me. I was just foggy. And I was shocked at just how normalized and accepted you said the word accepted there that this beer or this drinking culture was in the UK, not only outside of work, work hours, but inside work hours. Yeah, day day drinking day drinking was kind of normal. I had a I had a job for Xerox and we're way out in an industrial park. And there was one pub in the place. And it was, you know, it was like a magnet between 1159 and, you know, 129 in the afternoon. And I couldn't, you know, I had a pretty decent constitution there. I could I'm not I'm not a small person, I can I can consume some stuff. And the the these guys could put away stuff and the girls could put away could put away some stuff and then seemingly function back at the office. And I tried it a couple of times and I couldn't it wasn't even for me and I and I and I and I like to drink at the time. So yeah, I think it's very much, you know, and it's one of the big challenges of of giving up isn't it as your environment or making those or making those choices as the environment you're in can conspire against you if other people are made to feel that you're not you're not you're not part of the same part of the same tribe. Yeah, just just one other anecdote on that. I remember later on in 2002, I was now working very close to the millennium millennial wheel, I think they call it still there, right? Like in London, right on the Thames, it's the big, what do you call it? It's not like a merry-go-round, but it's like a big wheel, right? You go up there Ferris. No, Ferris wheel or something. Yeah. Yeah, like a Ferris wheel. It's called the London Eye anyway, but I remember 2002, I was working for a company called Sport Business at the time, which was adjacent. The offices were sort of a street back from there and at lunchtime, everyone would roll into this pitcher and piano, which was the chain of pub and bar chain. Yeah, they're a massive chain and everyone would roll into this pitcher and piano and again, knockback one or two pints and it was, I could not fathom how any of these folks got any kind of quality work done, because I was half cut by the time I got back. I was just a write-off for the rest of the afternoon. Anyway, I don't want to lay with the point. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy how you talk about the environment, like the culture of that business was very much drink during lunch, drink at the end of work. The business didn't do too well a couple of years after that. Maybe that's part of the reasons why. How did you design your environment when you became aware of alcohol maybe slowing you down? How did you design your environment to not drink and to be more productive? I moved to Bali. That's over the long tail and that's kind of the unsatisfying answer, because it's a very easy place to not do those things, because you can tap into any kind of tribe that you want. You've been there a number of times. You know that you can find your people relatively easy in terms of your social group. I made it exceedingly difficult on myself when I decided to stop drinking. The number one thing that helped me was that my wife stopped at the same time. There's a direct correlation to making that easy, but at the time we were travelling through Europe, we were in Spain and we didn't make it easy at all because then we were in Spain and we went back to the UK and we were catching up with friends and we were in all these places where people would buy me pints at the pub and put them in front of me and I had to go, oh, you've got to need dark coke. I had to navigate lots of uncomfortable situations, but for me it was just understanding the cost that I was paying. For context, when I started working on my own, I had a pretty standard start like a lot of people do. I had a good business. We did okay. I came from a good job. I was a consultant. I built a small team and we did okay. The year after that I stumbled my way into something that turned okay from amazing where my business essentially atexed over about a 15-month period and that was the beginning of a bit of a kind of rocket ship ride in terms of entrepreneurship for me both within building a business in the education and information space, but also starting other businesses as well based off of things that I didn't learn and productising my own services and going into other industries. I think as growth is an amplifier because you are in money and all these things are big amplifiers and the first thing I did when I started making money for the first time in my life was I bought lots of shit. I went out and bought lots of stuff and I bought nice cars and we moved to an island, which is kind of the Hamptons of the South Pacific. It's got 23 vineyards on it and 30, $40, $50 bottles of wine became pretty much the normal, you know, hundreds of dollars on booze and so I could afford and drink the best stuff. That kind of accelerated my awareness that as I grew, how incompatible with and what I understood I was capable of as a person, how incompatible I found the habit of alcohol was because I started to have this energy. I started to make poorer decisions, especially day after, like just the booze anxiety that I started to get, you know, even as an experienced drinker started to, I could see the direct impact on the decisions I made. So I think, you know, to go back to the question, the environment was kind of teaching me that alcohol wasn't great for me, but I think if I was to give up again, I would just, I would put myself in all the places where it was normal not to drink, you know, whether that's a community of people, which the internet is amazing for, you know, you've got one yourself, getting support of people where you normalize not the decision and the choices you've made, because the internet is a label to us to find these people now, they're not just need to be around the corner, you can join a community, you can join a group, you can get support for it. So my number one trick was, you know, my wife and I making that decision at once, because we understood the cost of it. But I think to do it again, I wouldn't do it while I was flipping, traveling through Europe and going to lots of wonderful places and having, you know, airline lounges and all those things where it's just expected and you're offered. I'd make it a lot easier myself by putting myself in places where it was normal, because it is, it is, and in the circles I, you know, and then it is normal, you know, it's accepted and encouraged because people understand the opportunity cost of booze, that it's both obvious and hidden. Your opportunity cost, it seems like your business ate x'd when you were drinking, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then during that time was when you made the choice to go alcohol free or was it after that rocket fuel time? It was after the rocket fuel time, but it was, it was from an awareness that if I wanted to ate x anything again, but I couldn't do with alcohol. Got it. Business growth, business growth and also, you know, personal growth, which I believe business is the ultimate personal development vehicle, kind of made me aware of capabilities that I had. And it made me aware of what price I was paying with drinking, you know, made me aware of what I was potentially capable of. And I got addicted to that and also more than I got addicted to the booze because I got addicted to finding my potential because I started to have awareness of it and it drew a focus on the fact that alcohol was potentially holding me back. And that first, that was just a feeling, an instinct that maybe it was one of the things that I needed to focus on. But I realized that after a certain point and in most things that you are the biggest bottleneck. And I realized that I was the biggest bottleneck in my business. And if I continued to make shitty decisions based on emotional vulnerabilities or low energy or laziness or any other, you know, characteristic that can be linked to, you know, excessive consumption, then I wasn't going to, I wasn't going to even begin to explore the realms of my potential. Is there, is there something that you can quantify now in hindsight where you can go, well, from the moment I chose to be alcohol free, I can now see a direct correlation to business growth or relationship happiness or creating another arm of the business or starting a new business or making a better strategic decision. Like, is there something that you can credit being alcohol free to creating? All of it. Honestly, I think it was a single, people ask me and I jokingly say, well, you know, one of the biggest things that happened, you know, apart from your kids and your wife and this thing was laser eye surgery and not drinking. Laser eye surgery is probably the best five grand I ever spent and not drinking is the most profitable decision I've ever made. Because it just gives me more clarity. It gives me more energy. And, you know, the thing I noticed that, you know, we have hundreds of clients all over the world is that it's hard to make decisions these days because there are so many options. It's hard to be clear. There's so much information. There are so much shoulds. There's so much there's so much potential created that people have a damn hard time choosing stuff. So you have to be clearheaded about the decisions you make in your life. And if you're not clearheaded, you're setting yourself up to make poor decisions. It's kind of baked in and alcohol by its very nature and any other substance that kind of distorts any kind of reality for it. It numbs you as a person. It numbs you down. And the direct the direct correlation with giving it up was just more being able to tap into actual potential and finding that I don't know what it is. We don't know what our we don't know what our potential is and we all measure it in different ways. But it allows you to find and feel things that you didn't before. And in a world where like clear decision making is really the game, then you've got to give yourself every opportunity to make good decisions. Because if you make bad ones, it will drastically over the course of your life, your relationships, your business, your ability to parent and all the other things that you care about. It's interesting you said laser eye surgery and going alcohol free. There were two massive decisions that you made that impacted your overall well being. Yes, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, I think mine was going alcohol free and then shaving my hair off and going bald. Going alcohol free did that 2010. And that just I mean that one thing that one choice there going alcohol free opened up a whole cascade or waterfall, whatever you want to call it of other healthy choices. It introduced me to things like good nutrition and exercise and terms like paleo or veganism or meditation or wellness or open me up to all of that world self development if you like. Right about that time is when I became an entrepreneur as well. Actually, well at that time actually I actually ended up getting a job at Sports Center on ESPN but during my shift wouldn't start until 6pm at night. So during the daytime I would learn on how to become an online entrepreneur. Now a decade later, you know, I've been obviously been doing it for a decade. So that was a huge thing. And then I was always pretty self conscious about my hair loss. And for a number of years I would put stuff in my hair to create the illusion that I had more hair than I actually did to make it look thicker and healthier, more vibrant. And then finally just kind of surrendering and like shaving it off. For the first four weeks afterwards I didn't like how I looked at all. I was like that doesn't look good. And I kind of was a bit self conscious about it. And then there was a shift about four, five, six weeks in where I was like, oh man, I remember I was in Venice Beach and I went for a swim and I dived into the water and the water kind of flowed over my bald head. And I came up and at that moment when I came up and I saw the Malibu Mountains and Venice Beach, I was kind of like, oh, I felt like this symbolic kind of being reborn. I'm like, okay, now it's not an issue for me anymore. Now this is just how I look and who I am. That was a huge big turning point for me. Yeah, I think it's a, I believe it's a huge domino, you know, and the other things. And I've seen the same things like I'm 40 and I'm in the best shape in my life. Like I'm 40 and I got a six pack. And let's, this ain't going to win me many friends, but most guys in their 40s look like dog shit. And also, you know, the Bali, the Bali factor, you know, you know, the beautiful people in Bali, they, you know, looking beautiful in places like that becomes normalized as well. And in a lot of places that that's not that people are making poor choices with their health, but it makes you more confident. When you're more confident, you can operate better, you can be better, and you're more likely to, you know, not force your will on other people, but you're more likely to put yourself out there in a confident way to get the things done that you are capable of doing, whether that's in your relationships or whether it's in your business or it's just creating, you know, creating things. If you feel confident, you are more likely to do, to act on those dreams and hopes and aspirations that everyone has in their head. And being comfortable with your body is a huge part of that. It's a huge part of, you know, showing up, isn't it? So it's a, it's a huge domino, along with obviously shaving your head, you know, maybe, maybe I'm joining you soon. I don't know. Well, but, um, and it's different for everyone. Everyone has different issues, right? I remember I was, I was hanging out with some people. One's the one guy admitted that he had a massive issue with his hands. He was so terrified of showing his hands. He was so self-conscious about his fingers and his hands. And so he would hide his hands all the time. Like, you wouldn't have thought that in a million years. It seems crazy to me, but it's a thing, you know, like for some, for many people. Yeah. So, but I guess, you know, bringing the conversation to alcohol, a lot of folks who quit alcohol think that that is the moment where they're going to be skipping down the street, singing zippity-doodle, zippity-day, maya-maya, what a wonderful day. But what happens invariably in those first few weeks after you make the shift is that all of a sudden people realize, oh, I've actually got a lot of stuff I've got to face here. There's a lot of stuff I've been suppressing. There's a lot of stuff I've been just like kicking the can down the road and numbing myself with alcohol to distract myself from the stuff I really got to deal with. And so, you know, in many cases, it's not that you quit drinking and immediately you feel better. In many cases, you quit drinking and in some ways, you feel worse. You can feel worse because now you've got all this time and these thoughts are coming up and you're not numbing out and suppressing them anymore. And that's when the self-development work really kicks in. And it can often feel like you're running through rose bushes, getting cut up and beat up until finally you come to the other side. In my case, in terms of shaving my hair, it was jumping in the ocean at Venice Beach and coming up and going, oh, I'm finally out of the rose bushes. Now I feel beautiful, you know? That took me longer than a lot of the people that I've had that conversation with. So I was about 15 months where the reasons that I was drinking became a lot more apparent because my sensitivity was increased and I was looking at the short-term things. I had more energy and my body was getting better. I was making better decisions. But after about 15, it took me about 15 months. So this is the beginning of this year where I was like, I got shit to deal with. I got stuff that I haven't dealt with in my 40 years on the planet that I need to start, that I'm now aware of and I can't drink away, I can't avoid, I can't suppress, and I can't push it down. But I felt like I could do it. I felt like I had the energy and the clarity and the support and I felt that not being with alcohol actually paradoxically exposed them, but also built the platform that I could tackle them off. Because I was equipped to do it because I thought, okay, there's some hard work to do here, but if I can't do hard work now, then when the fuck am I going to do it? So paradoxically, it exposed them, but prepared me for tackling them. And I started working with a coach that wasn't in the, you know, most of the coaches I worked with were in a business capacity. And I started working with a coach and probably the indirect ROI of that coach has had more impact on my business, ironically, than all the other business coaches, than programs and courses that I've bought in the long, because I dealt with the stuff that needed to be dealt with. And that was kind of finding yourself. And I'm still self-conscious about that to some degree, 40 years, you should, you know, finding who you are and these kind of things. But I think alcohol is just the the number and the socially acceptable numbing agent that causes us to, allows us to ignore those contradictions and that lack of alignment and the things that, you know, may have happened through our childhood and may have happened as we've grown up and we've accumulated them. And suddenly there's this character there who is the character who drinks. And it turns out when the character stops drinking that they want to play another role. And that took me 15 months, you know, the physical stuff, I felt the shift after about two, where I was like, okay, I feel my skin got better and my weight loss and those things were not a crapshoot. If I changed my diet, I could see an effect on it. Or if I up my exercise, I could see a direct effect. But it took me 15 months to really see that stuff. Actually, I shared my first inkling that alcohol wasn't serving me was actually, I read Dave Asprey's book about bulletproof. And you know, bulletproof coffee and he talks about a fat fast, where you just drink bulletproof coffee or you have just fat for, you know, two to four days. So I was like, this sounds interesting. And of course, I did it for vanity reasons. I was like, carrying too much timber. So I was like, four days, you know, it's the, the version of the like the juice fast, except for, you know, entrepreneurs or some bollocks that I told myself at the time. So I did a four day fast. And like, if I'm honest, four days is the longest that I've been without alcohol, probably for a number of years, four days in a row. If I'm really honest, I, I can't say that's 100% accurate, but it'll be damn close. And on day three, I'd only drank a couple of bulletproof coffees in the morning. So I was having a few hundred calories a day and drinking water. And I got through day two, which was pretty hard. On day three, I went for a walk in the morning, sun coming up. I live in an amazing place. It was, it was warm. It was summer. I was walking on the road and I was like, do a podcast. And it just had some innocuous story about someone finding themselves. And it was a kind of an entrepreneurship podcast or something. It's probably Tim Ferriss or something like that. I don't remember. And I just started crying just out of nowhere. I just had tears. And there weren't sad tears that were just feeling. And I was like, Oh, what are these emotion things that I've just felt? What are these things that are coming up? And all this stuff was coming through me because I'd removed the numbing agent just for a few days. And I, I don't think, I don't think at the time, I immediately thought it's booze and I got to stop it. But in, across that moment, those few days, I was like, I am doing things in my day to day life that are tampering and suppressing things down that are inside there. And I'm self aware enough, I've been on the planet long enough to know that that would was going to come and kick me in the ass one day. So maybe I should start thinking about it. And then it was kind of four months later where Michelle and I were in Spain and we're like, we got to stop doing this. And I think we should just stop now. And we did it. But it took, it took a break from it to start to drive some awareness of what I was pushing down. And then it took, you know, a decision and then another 15 months to really start to go, okay, I got some, I got some stuff to tackle that can, can help me in my life. Was there any technique that you used to tackle the stuff that became clear when you were clear? So we've removed the fogginess of alcohol. And now you're in your 15 months, 18 months, et cetera, you know, of that clarity. Was there anything that you did besides a coach to help you navigate dealing with yourself, dealing with your issues from childhood or dealing with whatever came up for you? Yeah, just surrendering to what is, you know, I've always had a creative practice. I write a lot, you know, I write hundreds of thousands of words a year, I send a daily email that makes me sales every day and I strongly encourage people to do that too. So I write a lot. But I just developed something which I just, I have a moleskin here, another red, it's even got no lines in it. And I just kind of, I just call it vomiting. I just put it down and get it out. And then I don't judge it, I don't think about it, I don't even read it again. I just get stuff out and get ideas out and form words and form ideas and, and feel again. Because I realized when I was drinking, I didn't really feel anything. Not really, not how you can. And people who have drunk for most of their adult life, well, let's face it is the majority of the Western world don't know what that is, but they can find out if they choose to. Yeah. So journaling, surrendering to what is, I've got lots of these journals as well. I've got one here that says notes, and I've got a, I'm actually working on a journal at the moment called the New Me Journal, which should be out in the first couple of months of 2021, which helps people to, you know, review their day, plan their day, not from a like getting stuff done point of view, but like their thoughts and their feelings and how they engage with people and their way of being. But there seems to be something very healing about just like you said, vomiting out words on a page. I think social media has created an environment where there's a perception that everyone's in the publishing business or everyone's in the sharing business, right? And the art of just being on your own and being with your thoughts and them not being anything in particular to anybody else is starting to be a bit lost. So just having a place that's yours, you know, teenagers have had journals and diaries for, you know, probably since the beginning of human history, just to, you know, navigate the challenges of puberty and all the things that happen to you. Yet many of the things that we judge that as adults is like, oh, that's for kids or something else. But the art of being alone and being with your thoughts and not necessarily sharing flipping everything with everybody on the planet in some, you know, nicely filtered way, I think is lost because I think people are embarrassed about what's going on between their head and their heart. And just because, you know, they don't know what they are or they can't identify them or they have thoughts and feelings that aren't socially acceptable or might not be, you know, mainstream or whatever. But just being with yourself and being with your ideas and letting them come out is very cathartic. Yeah, I love that. Is there anything, any other advice you might give to someone who's listening here who is exploring the alcohol free lifestyle in terms of how they might set themselves up to succeed versus what a lot of people versus how people set themselves up, which invariably ends in failure. Are there any rules or things that you would suggest to ensure that people succeed? Two massive things. The big thing is just being a place where it normalizes, that being a community of people or being a place where that is the standard rather than the exception. The second thing is rituals. When we live on beachfront here on the ocean, when we've been coming to this place in some capacity, we live here now for 10 years, you know, with a glass of wine, with the sunset coming down over the ocean and everything, it's a pretty magical place. We realized that after we stopped drinking that we love the ritual more than we love the alcohol. So replicate those rituals. Sometimes just to, you know, a nice Kiwi and Aussieism, take the piss. I'll give Michelle sparkling water in a wine glass. But just for a laugh and just to replicate the ritual. I tried going without coffee for six weeks recently. And again, I replaced the coffee ritual in the morning of making it all those things with a different ritual. In some cases, we're more attached to the ritual than the actual substance that's being consumed in the ritual. And that's the worst thing. That's the thing that's harming you. So replace it with rituals. I think in general with both of those two is there's this idea that gutting through things and slogging through something and toughing it out is the best way to do something. That is foolish and childish. And you should just make it as goddamn easy as you possibly can for yourself and do it with people. I've either done it before in environments that have a proven way of doing it and creating rituals that replace the things that existed before in a nice and healthy way. Yeah, I like that. Part of what I coach in Project 90, which is our program that helps people, you know, get to their first 90 consecutive days alcohol free and change their relationship to alcohol, is that idea of ritual instead of coming home from work or at the end of the day going and pouring yourself a glass of wine, for example. Instead, create a ritual of pouring of retrieving a glass that you've had chilling in the freezer, pull it out, create the ritual of cutting open a piece of lime, squeeze the lime into the glass, go into the refrigerator, pull out a glass of Perrier or Pellegrino, some nice soda water, sparkling water, crack open the bottle of the sparkling water and then pour the soda water or the sparkling water into a nice chilled glass with some ice and that piece of lime and then go down and if you choose, sit on the sofa or sit down and watch the sunset and take that first sip was like, and relax at the end of the day while enjoying the sunset. Like you pointed out, James, it's the ritual. People are only addicted to the ritual, not the substance that they consume during the ritual. Everyone's thinking that they're addicted to the substance that they're consuming during the ritual, but we can amend the ritual. We can drink or consume a different substance while we're doing the ritual of relaxing at the end of the day. Yeah, 100% and for us buying a soda stream created the ritual for us and it also means our kids drink a hell of a lot more sparkling water and things like that because we're involved. They can be involved in the ritual. I don't know if people know this, but if you feed your kids alcohol then it's generally seen as not that socially acceptable, but giving them sparkling water is quite encouraged. Especially if you're a role model and if you're a parent, some parents don't want to be role models, but you are, then those rituals have a lot more impact on just you than just you. Yeah, you said a couple times about community. Just a reminder, if you're listening here, if you'd like to join a community of like-minded folks who are alcohol-free, then reach out to me and go to JamesSwanick.com. We have a program named Project 90 or you can join a 30-day No Alcohol Challenge program. Their details are at James Swanick or if you're in the US on a mobile phone, you can text me at the number 44222, just type in the word quit guide, one word quit guide, send that to the number 44222 and I'll send you back some details on how you can join a community to get consistently alcohol-free. And then rituals, great suggestion there from James. I also like to set up visual cues around my home. I have lots of glass mason jars that are strategically placed in my living room, kitchen, bathroom, office. When I see the glass mason jars, it reminds me to drink lots of water and I go to our filtered water machine. I guess you'd call it the device in our kitchen and I pour myself water. The glass mason jars have a much wider rim so I actually drink more water as opposed to plastic bottles that have a much smaller rim where you might only be taking sips again. And again, that speaks to James's point about designing your environment, set your environment up to win. Another great tip which I've spoken about before and which I have all of my Project 90 members do is buy themselves bouquets of flowers once a week, even if you're an alpha male, man, like James here, very alpha male, very strong, six-pack abs he's got. Buy yourself a bouquet of flowers and stick it on your living room table. And when you see that bouquet of flowers with the color and the scent and the vibrance, it's just another visual reminder, whether it's unconscious or conscious of health and vitality, that will help you to make healthier choices, design your environment. So community rituals and designing your environment. Anything else, James? Anything else we haven't touched on? You don't know until you try, right? I think people who don't drink can get very precious about it. We have alcohol in our house. If people come over and they want to drink alcohol, I don't judge them. I host them and I'll give those things. That's their choice. And it's not my job to make decisions for them. I think people who don't drink vegans, people who just eat meat and all these tribal things, that it's easy to look at other people and go, oh, it's all right for them. But you've got to try and find what life is about. We're finding out what works for you. And the cost of not drinking for many people for 30 days, 90 days for the first time in their life, the cost that you can only win from that. Is it going to be easy? Not necessarily. If you do it properly, it's going to be very simple. There are challenges, mental and emotional challenges along the way. But you don't know it until you try it and the cost of trying it is very, very low. And the potential upside is unlimited. James Kemp, thank you so much for sharing your story, mate. Appreciate it. Where can our listeners find more about you or send you a message if they care to? Find me on Facebook. I'm halfway to a boomer, so easiest place. I'm still on Facebook. Easy to find me. James Kemp. All right, James, thanks for sharing your story, mate. Appreciate your time. 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 JamesSwanik.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 JamesSwanik.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 JamesSwanik.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 JamesSwanik.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 JamesSwanik. You can also watch video episodes of this podcast and a series of other educational videos on my YouTube channel, which is JamesSwanik1, or you can direct message me on Facebook at JamesSwanikOfficial. 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.