 Hello everyone and welcome to day two of the five day alcohol free challenge. I'm joined by Project 90 top coach, Victoria English Martin. How are you, Victoria? I am having a great day, James. Thanks. Doing very well. Great to have you here today. We're going to be talking about how to socialize without alcohol, how to have fun, because a lot of people get worried about how their life is going to change if they remove alcohol out of their life. Before we get into that, Victoria, just a quick little one minute summary of you. What's your background as it relates to being a cancer survivor and also you getting alcohol out of your life and what is the work that you do inside of our Project 90 community? Sure. So I have a background in dietetics and movement, specifically Pilates. I was the picture of health and I had this one problem with alcohol. I just couldn't shake it. I thought I needed it to manage stress and anxiety. Took me quite a while to get it through my thick skull that life was a lot more fun without it. I am a cancer survivor. I do a lot of work to advocate and educate around breast cancer. I'm a mom of four. And after going through my struggles with cancer and alcohol, I decided that it was my job to take this knowledge into the universe. So I got certified in coaching and wake up every day. Very, very grateful, number one, to be alive and number two, to be able to help others understand what alcohol actually is and how much better life is without it. I love that. Thank you, Victoria. So great to have you here. We've already got a question that's come in. John says, 48 hours now, still in a fog, I've slept great. Has greatly helped your neuropathy. How do I pronounce that? Is it neuropathy? Neuropathy, maybe. Now, is the fog normal? I was a heavy beer drinker. Do you want to answer that one, Victoria? The question seems to be 48 hours now without alcohol, but still feels like he's in a fog, is sleeping better. But, you know, generally feels like he's in a fog. What do you think about that? Absolutely, that is completely normal. As we ingest alcohol, our body recognizes it for what it is. It is a toxin. It is one of the most inflammatory substances that we can put into our bodies. So when we ingest it, not only just a little bit, we'll have that inflammatory effect. But when we ingest more than what is considered casual amounts, it is going to have those effects on our body. When we take it away, our body is our brain is and body is going to say, where's my stuff? And as we return to homeostasis, which is a beautiful gift that each body possesses to return to its normal balance, it is completely normal to feel a little foggy, a little out of it. However, the good news is you don't ever have to go back to that day one ever again. It's going to get better. So perhaps make a little note to yourself about how you feel today and check that note in three or four days. I promise you, you are going to feel better. And it just continues to get that way as our body purges itself of this toxin and returns to doing what it knows how to do. So have some trust in your body, have a little faith, and it will get easier. Thank you, Coach Victoria. See, Helen has her hand up. Helen, if you want to just ask your question there in the Q&A, you can type it in as a Q&A box there, just type out your question. And we would love to answer that for you. I'm just going to share my screen again and I'm just going to show you guys what we covered yesterday. Yesterday, we went over, stop trying to quit alcohol. Instead of saying to yourself, don't drink. I shouldn't drink. I have to quit. I'm quitting. Instead, say what you will do, which is I easily only drink water ice and a piece of lime tonight. We did the pink elephant technique. If you don't know what I'm referring to, go into the Facebook group and watch the little video there that I pre-recorded about the pink elephant technique. We also talked about designing your environment, manipulating your environment, removing the visual cues of alcohol in your home and replacing them with visual cues of health and vitality. We talked about removing the visual cues of wine glasses and liquor cabinets and replacing it with a bouquet of flowers and some mason jars. Who bought a bouquet of flowers for themselves? If you did, if you've already done it, you get five gold stars because we only did this yesterday. So if you've already bought a bouquet of flowers, message down below in the chat and I would love to hear from you today. And right now in about 30 seconds, we're going to start day two, how to have fun and socialize alcohol free. Let's just see. We had a question that came in. Nope, we've already answered that one. Helen, if you'd like to ask that question, just type it in the Q&A section there. And for anyone who would like to ask a question, just go ahead and type in your question and we will get there. Someone just said, I just bought $200 worth of plants. You get around with applause. Victoria, let me think of that, Victoria. That is fantastic. You know, as we make these little changes, they sound small, right? Buy some flowers, switch out those wine glasses. That is literally changing the neural pathways in your brain. So instead of thinking when you walk into your home, oh, I need a drink, you're going to be able to enjoy the flowers, some visual beauty around you. I always suggest to our members to nurture all of your senses. Get something that smells nice. Treat yourself to maybe a lotion or an oil. Anything that pleases your senses is going to be so helpful as you just change your environment. Thank you, Victoria. And great work to... I'm not sure who it is because it comes up as Five Day No Alcohol Challenge. So I don't have the name. I think that might be a husband and wife team, but I'm sorry because your name doesn't come up. I can't refer to you by your first name. Sherry, there we go. I'll always know that it's Sherry there. So great work, Sherry. Congratulations, way to take action. I'm giving you a virtual high five. All right, here we go. Sharing the screen, let's talk about how to socialize and have fun alcohol-free. So the latest neuroscience shows us that having fun while being alcohol-free reduces your desire for alcohol on a deep psychological level. And having fun a lot of times comes down to influencing yourself and influencing others. Now, here's a very interesting graph. Influencing people comes down to 7% what you say and 93% how you say it. Let me repeat that. When you're influencing someone, when you're persuading someone, it's only 7% what you say. The rest of it is voice, tone and body language. So when you're out with friends or colleagues or business partners or staff, and they say, hey, would you like a drink? And you say, oh no, no, no, I can't. I shouldn't. I'm doing this five day challenge. I wish I could. I've only got three days to go. Then what you're doing is that you're persuading and influencing people to believe that you are depriving yourself of something fun, that you're depriving yourself of something pleasurable by not drinking. You're also persuading yourself. You're persuading yourself that not drinking is painful, that not drinking is deprivation, that under normal circumstances, you would choose to drink alcohol, but you're choosing not to is hard and preventing you from really savoring life's pleasures. So each time you're apologetic, you cower in the back, you play small, you're like, oh yeah, drink too much. I shouldn't drink it. I want to drink. I'm not drinking. What you are doing is you are influencing people to believe that you're a killjoy, that you're not fun, that there's something wrong. They're starting to think in the head, is Victoria an alcoholic? Ooh, should I tread carefully around Victoria? Now let's do a flipper runy on that, shall we? What's the opposite of that? Let's look at George Clooney. Most people I think like George Clooney. Victoria, what do you think about this photo? Victoria's got the hand up. What do you think of this photo of George Clooney here? Like, what can you tell me about this image of George Clooney? What's your impression of him based on this photo? Ooh, well. He looks content. Yes. Happy. Happy. Energetic. Energetic. Confidence. Yes, not ugly. Yes, not ugly. He looks confident, absolutely. He looks in control. Okay. Now, if I was to bring Mr. Clooney over to your home in Denver, Colorado, okay? And I said, Mr. Clooney, meet Victoria. Victoria, meet Mr. Clooney. You said, hello, Mr. Clooney. I love you to meet you. She said, hello, Victoria. And you said to Mr. Clooney, can I get you a drink, Mr. Clooney? I've got wine, I've got vodka, I've got beer. What can I get you? Of course, you're a great host, right? You want to be a great host, you're offering him a drink. And Mr. Clooney in his sly little grin, charming way, smiling way, says, yeah, I'd love a soda water, thanks. Have you got sparkling water? Have you got, yeah, have you got sparkling water? I'll take some water, ice, a piece of lime. I've got some water. What would be your, what do you think your response would be? I would happily serve him whatever he likes. Exactly. Yeah. You're not going to stand there and go, what? Does he have a problem? Why isn't he drinking? And you're not going to stand there and go, oh, oh, you don't want to drink? You're not even going to question it. Right, you're not going to sit, you're not going to stand there and go, oh my God, George Clooney is not drinking. Let me just grill him on this. Go on, Mr. Clooney, just have one. Come on, what are you talking about? Have a drink, one won't kill you. The likelihood of you doing that is minuscule, right? And it's because, it's not because of George Clooney, it's because of the way that George Clooney has presented himself to you. He just confidently orders a sparkling water. He confidently requests the sparkling water, soda water, ice, and a piece of lime. He doesn't care what you think about him not drinking. He's not even thinking about it. That's because he's influencing you. 7% of what he's doing is saying, I'd love sparkling water. The other 93% is voice tone and body language. He's confident, he's unshakable, makes sense? So when you are just lighthearted and open and confident about the fact that you are alcohol free, nobody cares. You think they do, but nobody really cares. Everyone's just living their life, right? Most people are just concerned about themselves. So you can actually influence your own behavior and influence the response that you elicit from others by just going, yeah, just take a soda water. Thanks, I'll just have a soda water, ice, and a piece of lime. Some standard responses include, I just love some sparkling water, thank you. Yeah, no, I'm not drinking at the moment. Oh, I'm good with water for now, thank you. You're always being apologetic in that version. You can also be playful about living alcohol free. Someone starts to ask you, why aren't you drinking? You go, oh, I am drinking, I'm gonna get drunk on this water tonight. Look out, I'm gonna swing from the rafters. Look out, I'm gonna go crazy on this soda water tonight. You see how when we go back to the water tonight, I'm gonna get drunk, I'm gonna get drunk, I'm gonna get drunk, I'm gonna get drunk, you see how when we go back to this graph here where influencing people comes down to 93% voice tone and body language? Imagine if you very playfully just said, yeah, I'm gonna get drunk on this water tonight. Ah, I'm gonna swing from the rafters. I will go toe to toe with you. For every drink you have, I'll drink water. And you're just like George Clooney-esque, you're cool, you're calm, you're unfazed. What do you think, Victoria? Well said, James. I think that a lot of this buzz around alcohol and thinking that we need it to socialize comes from the conditioning that we receive. And as you go through our program, you start to see how inundated our society is with alcohol, it's associated with everything. If you're watching football, you have a beer. If you're at a wedding, you have champagne. If you're out with the girls, maybe it's a shots night. A lot of it is just conditioning. And when you break it down and you look at it again for what it is, and we look at what it does in those first, say 30 minutes, yes, it can help us loosen up, it can help us feel a little more comfortable if we're going into a situation. However, in my experience, and I'm sure James can attest to this, an hour or so into that party when you're drinking your sparkling water and you see what's going on around you as the drinks are flowing, everyone's not having quite as much fun as it looked like at the beginning of the party. You see people start to get a little bit sloppy, a little bit loud, repeating themselves, maybe some little arguments break out between couples or friends. So I do understand that initial thing. It takes some practice and that's what we're here to help you with is going into the situations and getting comfortable with saying those things. Like I'm good with soda water tonight, thanks. But it does get easier. And at the end of the day, you find that you have so much more fun without it. Collectively, again, yes, it can be a little awkward and it takes them practice. But in the long run, you get to go home remembering everything, no regrets, no silly comments, nothing like that. You are in control of yourself instead of alcohol calling the shots. So again, it does take a little bit of getting used to, but boy, is it worth it. And for those introverts out there inside of Project 90, we actually give you scripts where you can just practice them in a mirror before you go out to any engagement. And all you have to do is when someone asks you, you just literally regurgitate the script. That's it. We've got a question here from Emma, who asks, how do I convince others I don't have to be an alcoholic to say I'd rather not drink anymore? Well, you convince them by your way of being, Emma, like the George Clooney-esque thing. So if you're being very defensive when someone asks you that, then you're convincing them through a logical argument. But we already know that there's no convincing through a logical argument or at least it's only 7%, which is why we're talking about the importance of just being light and open where you don't actually have to convince anyone. They'll already be convinced by the fact that you've got a smile on your face and that you're grinning and that you're drinking so little water and you just very easily and effortlessly talk about the fact that you're alcohol-free. It's like, all you got to say is like, yeah, I don't drink. I don't drink. Ah, stop drinking. I was drinking a bit too much for a while and I realized it was holding me back in my wealth and my love and relationships. And then I stopped. And I thought, oh, this is actually pretty good. I like this. So I thought, well, I'll just keep doing it. And yeah, I haven't drunk in months now. It's been really interesting. And you see how that's a really easy light explanation as opposed to, oh, my life was falling apart. I think I was an alcoholic. I got arrested in a DUI. I was addicted. I was coming home. I was like, oh, I wish I could have a drink. But I'm like, I'm doing this 90-day program and I'm on day 72 and I hope I can get to nine. See how the energy there is very dark and heavy. It's like you're white knuckling your way through being alcohol-free. So Emma, you really don't have to convince anyone through a logical argument. You just convince them by just, yeah. Yeah, I just prefer not to drink. I drank for a while. It was okay. But I just made a lifestyle choice. I often find that using the words, the phrase lifestyle choice can often, people will accept that. They go, oh, okay, cool, made a lifestyle choice as opposed to I was an alcoholic. I had a real problem and I had to stop. And I've been three months sober. And I can tell you this, in our Project 90 experience, we do not use the word sober. Sober is not used because sober to us implies that you naturally have a problem with drinking and that being sober means you're saying no to something because you know, if you do it, then it's gonna really hurt and mess everything up. We use the phrase alcohol-free. And the name of my business is alcohol-free lifestyle, because it's a lifestyle. So it's not like, oh, I'm 27 days sober. People say, no, I'm 27 days alcohol-free. I'm 27 days alcohol-free into this amazing alcohol-free lifestyle. We're not saying no to alcohol. We're saying yes to the alcohol-free lifestyle. I hope that helped Emma. James asked a question. If I have a night out with some of my friends and I tell them I'm not drinking because this will be unusual to them, it's likely they will make it their mission to try to make me drink so everyone can feel comfortable. Great question, thank you. So here's the thing. First of all, I can relate to that. When I first stopped drinking back in 2010, I was in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York and I was out with my friend Nick, or sorry, my friend Zach and his brother Nick. And we were out at a bar. I was probably two or three weeks alcohol-free at that stage. And I told them that I was two or three weeks alcohol-free and that I was gonna get to 30 days. At the time, I thought I'll get to 30 days and then I'll return to drinking. Anyway, he said, oh, you're not drinking, right? What do you want? And I said, soda water would be great. He said, okay. So Zach went off to the bar, left me with Nick. We were talking and then Zach came back. We handed the drink to his brother. He handed the soda water to me, what I thought was soda water. And then I went to put it up to my mouth. And as I did, I looked at him and he was watching me intently and he had a little slide grin on his face. And I looked at him and I immediately was suspicious. And I said, did you put vodka in this drink? And he went, yeah, yeah, I did. And I'm gonna swear here, I hope you guys don't mind. I'm gonna use profanity, but I said, you wanker. That's a very Aussie slang term for Europe. I hope no one gets offended. It's kind of like an Aussie slang way of saying you're a masturbator. You know, it's like a man who can say that to another man. I said, you wanker. And of course I didn't drink it. But in that moment, I realized, wow, it is amazing of how ingrained alcohol is into society that even my good friend would try to trick me into drinking something that I've already declared that I don't wanna drink. So James, I get it. I get that this will happen and that some of your friends will try to make it their mission to get you to drink. So everyone can feel quote unquote comfortable. But here's the thing, people do feel comfortable if you are comfortable being alcohol free. But if you are uncomfortable being alcohol free, not having fun, wishing you could go home and you're putting out that energy, then of course, everyone is going to feel uncomfortable and they're gonna try to make you feel comfortable by getting you to drink because they're associating fun with drinking and you are associating fun with drinking by being uncomfortable because you're not drinking. So I would invite you get comfortable being alcohol free and then no one is gonna try to get you to drink because everyone's just gonna be feeling comfortable because ultimately people just wanna have a good time. They wanna know you're having a good time. They're not gonna have a good time if they feel like you're not having a good time. So all you have to do is just have a good time being alcohol free and all of a sudden your friends will stop making it their mission to try to get you to drink. By the way, James, when I first stopped drinking this was when I was in my mid 30s. I think friends trying to trick you into drinking is shockingly immature, quite frankly. And most of our clients now that we take into project 90 in their 40s, 50s and 60s, so they don't really run into that. And the way that we coach them on how to communicate with other members, with other friends and family is in a way that makes their friends and family comfortable with the fact that you're not drinking. So no one's really trying to trick you. Any thoughts on this, Victoria? Absolutely. If you went out with your friends and you shared with them, this is just, we'll provide some insight into, again, how conditioned we are. If you went out with your friends, and I don't know, let's say you went out to breakfast and everyone was having an omelet with eggs and coffee with milk and you said to them, I think I'm lactose intolerant. It really makes me feel poorly. Gives me a stomach ache, gives me a headache. I'm cutting out dairy. Would anyone sneak cheese into your omelet? Would anyone sneak milk into your coffee? It's bizarre. So when you step outside of how ridiculous this is, you can see it for what it is. If alcohol, one of the things I use is when people say, you know, well, obviously they know that I don't drink because of my work, but even before that, when I stopped drinking and they said, you know, why aren't you drinking? I'd say, it doesn't agree with me. It doesn't agree with me. It's as simple as that. And if a friend had a problem with that, well, I kind of had a problem with the friend. I am doing something that helps me feel better. It doesn't mean that my life was a wreck. It doesn't mean that I was losing my family or my job or anything like that. I feel better without it. And we like to say that if someone has that much of a problem then it's more about them. I use the iceberg analogy a lot. You know how an iceberg is 10% above the water and 90% below. So what you see the way people interact with one another, it's 10% about you, 90% about them. And once you get through, like I said, that first 30 minutes or so where they may be kind of nudging you and pushing you and like James and DERD with his friend slipping vodka into his soda water, they become so interested in what they're doing and what is going on with them that they'll leave it alone. So as James mentioned, it can be a bit awkward in certain situations but that's why we're here. We helped you through that. I was on a call just recently with a member and she was going into a situation and we did a role play. I was the waiter. I was the other guest pushing the alcohol on her and she talked it through with me and sure enough, she went and she ended up having a great time. So that's what I have to say. And oftentimes we also make this bigger in our heads than it turns out to be. Would you agree with that, James? Yeah, let me just share my screen as a good opportunity for me to share your screen about what people actually think about you not drinking. In most cases, let me just do, here we go. The big secret is that nobody really cares that you don't drink. That is the big secret. Nobody really cares unless you make them care unless you give them reason to care by you being apologetic or acting dull or cowering in the corner or making a big deal about the fact that you quit drinking. Okay, nobody really cares. We think we do. We think people do rather. But one of the most surprising things that a lot of our clients share with us after a few weeks after we've had them go out and we give them exercises to go out to bars and restaurants and to situations where there's alcohol and share that they're alcohol free. One of the things that our clients often say to us is like, I was surprised at how much support I got. I was surprised at how people said to me in response, oh yeah, I've been thinking about doing that for a while too. I know I drink too much. Yeah. So I think there's a movement that is happening where people are very supportive of your choice to be alcohol free. And there I say it, jealous or envious of the fact that you have taken that step that you've broken out of societal conditioning and are choosing to be alcohol free. We've got a few questions here. Let me, let's have a look here. We've got, Emma says, thanks. I'm alcohol free 30 days. Congratulations, Emma, great work. 70 in total this year. But I wear it heavy even though I feel so much better. I think I missed something, but not sure what. Thank you, Emma. Thank you so much for sharing. First of all, congratulations on being 30 days alcohol free and 70 this year. I get that you might feel that you're wearing it heavy even though you feel so much better. And the reason why you wear it heavy possibly is for a few reasons, including most of your adult life and certainly in your childhood, you have received stimuli from your parents, from your friends, from marketing, from billboards, from television ads, from movies, from TV series. That drinking is normal. That drinking equals fun. That drinking equals stress relief. That drinking equals a good time. That drinking equals romance. That drinking equals, et cetera, et cetera. And so when you suddenly try to rewire your brain after a lifetime of being conditioned that alcohol is amazing and this beautiful thing, it's understandable why there'd be a transition period there where you would wear it heavy. So I get it. Stick with it, try some of these energetic shifts that we're suggesting here with people. If you can be consistently alcohol-free, I promise you it will open up a whole new lifestyle for you which includes new hobbies, new interests, new acquaintances, new adventures, new friendship groups, new business, new ways of seeing things, greater health, greater connection, and none of those things are heavy. I promise you, all those things are energetic and amazing and fantastic. So understandable, you're wearing it like that for now. Continue with the process, try some of these things and it's about to get so much better, I promise you. Thank you, Emma. Robert asks, if you're having people over and they drink, do you have alcohol available for them? Great question, Robert. Here's how I look at it. When I lived in West Hollywood, California, I used to have a monthly business mastermind where I invited my entrepreneurial friends over into my living room. We had 12 to 15 folks and we'd get chairs and people sit on the sofa and I would invite them on and I invite them over and I always invested $200 to cater for it. So what I said to people is that this is an alcohol-free event, so bring sparkling waters or soda waters and I'll put on the food. And so I got very healthy chicken and great salads, organic salads and people came over and they brought Perrier and soda water and lime and I made sure I had a couple of bags of ice and then I had my assistant come over and she would like make people drinks, alcohol-free drinks. And so I ahead of time conveyed that it was an alcohol-free mastermind. On other occasions, I used to host a poker night. I had a poker table and my friends would come over and I didn't say it was alcohol-free. I just said bring whatever you wanted. And so on occasion, someone might bring a couple of beers or rum or wine or whatever and that was fine. Sometimes people not knowing that I was alcohol-free would bring over like a gift and say here's a bottle of wine. I'd say, oh, thank you so much. I don't drink, but I'll leave it here for the next guest who does. And so whenever anyone came over and said, can I get you something? Would you like a drink? And if they said, why is it great? I got wine and I'd pour them wine because it's not, it's fine. I wanna be a good host. I appreciate that not everyone chooses to live the alcohol-free lifestyle and that's okay. I'm not frowning upon people because they drink. Quite the contrary, everyone can live their own life. So Robert, for me, when I invite people over, I'll do one or two things. One, I'll say alcohol-free party, come on over. Or two, I won't even mention it. Just say bring your own drinks and I'll have alcoholic drinks naturally in the house anyway because people gifted that to me all the time and I'll offer them that. Okay, I hope that helps. Let's move on, we've got someone says, it's like when you quit smoking and you say, no thanks, I don't smoke. They don't beg you to have a smoke with them. Yeah, but alcohol, it's like the only drug on earth where you have to justify not consuming it. Crazy, it's the only drug on earth where you have to give a like a two-page presentation as to why you're not gonna consume this thing. Yet it causes more deaths, more health concerns, more marriage breakups, more relationship issues than any other drug on the planet. People have been saying for years there's this opioid problem in America. And of course there is, all right? There is an opioid problem. But the amount of media coverage the opioid problem gets in America compared with the alcohol problem is disgraceful in my view because the number of people who die, the number of people who have health issues their entire life, someone's trying to call me here. Excuse me, I'm very popular obviously. The more people have health concerns and relationship issues and a lack of productivity and a lack of confidence and a lack of self-esteem than any other drug. And yet if you read the media or digested the media, you would know that it's all the opioid problem. It's all these other issues. What are your feelings on this, Victoria? Absolutely. I could go on for days about this. Alcohol is, number one, it's a class one carcinogen. It is tied to multiple cancers. It's, you know, this is just another example of how we are marketed to from a very young age where modeled this by other people, people that we grow up around. And there, yes, this is definitely a growing trend as awareness grows about this epidemic of alcohol abuse in our country. I think, and that's part of why I do what I do, we are trailblazers. We are the people who are changing the narrative around this just like nicotine, cigarettes. You could smoke anywhere. You could smoke in an airplane. You could smoke in a lounge. You could smoke in a hospital. I think that eventually as awareness grows, this is, we are going to be the ones who got on this train early on. And things are going to change. It's going to become a lot more normalized to not drink just like it's normalized to do anything else that is good for your health. The reason alcohol is so normalized is because of the money behind it, because of the marketing. Think about when you go into a restaurant. I remember when I stopped drinking, I had to double check my restaurant check to make sure they had actually charged me for everything because I wasn't drinking. I was saving so much money. So waiters are pushing alcohol, restaurants are pushing alcohol. Think about your shelves in a grocery store, how much of it is dedicated to alcohol? So again, this is just a growing trend. We're on the right track. Yeah. Thank you, Victoria. We have another question here. Was watching TV last night and in two hours, I saw more than eight ads for beer and wine. What do you think, Victoria? You know, it's interesting. I have four children, three are in their 20s. And I have my youngest is 13. And of course, she knows about my journey and what I do for a living now. And her eyes are opened and we watch our shows together. And she is aware of every time in a show, every time someone's having a tough day. They pour a glass of wine, they pour a drink, the guys go out for shots. If they're celebrating, they need a drink. If they're at any sort of event, they need a drink. She is aware of it. And I know that she will grow up being aware of that and saying, wow, this is being normalized, but look what happens to people. So again, it goes, yes. And that's why it is so normalized in our society because of the money behind it. It's just like if you're familiar with Pavlov, the scientist and Pavlov's dog, I think we all learned it in school. The scientists studied that when the bell would ring and the dogs would get a treat, as time went on, the bell would ring, even if the dogs didn't get a treat, they would react, they would begin to salivate. We're conditioned the same way with alcohol. Now, we are smarter than dogs. We have the ability to see this, make the connection and make a different choice. Because again, when you look at alcohol for what it is, we like to call it attractively packaged poison. And it's not because we're being evangelical about it. Like James said, I don't care if people drink, that's their personal choice. I don't care if people smoke a cigarette, that's their personal choice. But when you see it for what it is, a toxin, a carcinogen, an inflammatory substance and addictive substance, you can as humans, smarter than Pavlov's dog, we can make informed choices. And that's what we're here to do, simply present the information and you can make an informed choice rather than being conditioned by society, by marketers who are profiting from it and choose how you wanna live your life. Thank you, Victoria. Yeah, I wanna show you a couple of people that have been clients and gone through our process here in particular. I wanna show you, this is John Keltner and he doesn't mind me using his name. He's now more than two years alcohol free. And John used to go to his local pub in Northern California and he would drink vodka cranberry and he would do that four nights a week. And the local pub or bar was down the road, a walking distance from where he lived. And so he became very friendly and everyone knew him, kind of like that TV show from the 80s Cheers where everybody knows your name. And he went through Project 90, got our coaching, went through the process and then he continued to go to the bar in the pub, to his local bar and pub, but just ordered soda, water and cranberry juice to the point where the waiter started calling him the Soda Cran Man. And now everybody in his local community calls him the Soda Cran Man and he loves it and they love it. And so when he goes to the bar, he still gets to socialize with his friends, and they call him the Soda Cran Man. And he's loving life. Let me just play a little video here. See if I can- I am one year alcohol-free, 365 days. How do you get this? Well, you know what? I had it on speedy. Slightly smaller glasses because of all of the loss of puffiness in my cheeks. There we go. I lost some weight. I am one year alcohol-free, 365 days. Had to get slightly smaller glasses because of all of the loss of puffiness in my cheeks. I lost some weight. I'm wavering around the 20 pound mark and everybody compliments me on that. Although you look like you've lost weight and some of you kid me about being skinny, I would basically look forward to the end of the day when I would head over to my local pub. As far as what was I drinking? Coors light, whiskey, didn't sleep well. Wasn't very clear headed. Did not look forward to getting up in the morning and getting going. I was really feeling like I was not taking advantage of my abilities and that alcohol was really holding me back. I felt so alone. I was by myself in this predicament. I found you and reached out to you and I'm glad that you convinced me that day a year ago that it's time to make a change. It was nice to meet the group that you had assembled that were people like me, entrepreneurs, professionals and so on that felt the same way that they were somehow limiting themselves by their use of alcohol. And so it was nice to not be alone. Fear is totally understandable based on our kind of our cultural conditioning and I had all those fears going into it because it was part of my identity, right? Amongst my family and friends. At first they were of course, I'll come on, you know, just have one and they would try to encourage me and call me some colorful names, just having fun with it and so on. But, you know, I was able to kind of stick through that and that all worked out fine. After a week or two of doing this, now one of my bartender friends started calling me the soda crab man. At this point I'm getting up at around 4.30 every morning and fitting in some stretching and some movement and some meditation. And three times a week I fit in some basketball and improve my relationships, especially with my children and my 15 year old son who lives here with me and that has worked out great. All of those things have improved. I've been kind of taking notes to myself on the things that I've been doing this last year and changes and progress and so on. And it's just amazing how quickly a year can go and how good you are at that feeling and how excited I am now going to a new decade in 2020 with my full capability and what people are going to reach out and try to get some help, try to get some coaching like Project Lane. You know, commit to some coaching and a group and a community of like-minded people and then you just take it day by day and you'll find that it'll just compound on itself in terms of how good you feel still today when I see people and they'll, hey John, you're still not drinking? No, not drinking. Oh man, that is great. That's fantastic. I'm going to continue to have no intention of ever drinking again. So looking forward just to continue to success in life. So yeah, I thought that was relevant to Cher given that he referenced the social conditioning, he referenced the bartender calling him the soda crayon man, people complimenting him saying, oh, that's great, encouraging him. Not saying, come on, what are you doing? You should drink greater connection with his 15 year old son. And by the way, we recorded that more than a year ago now. So you probably heard him saying, oh yeah, I'm one year alcohol-free today. He's actually two and a half years alcohol-free today. He's still going and he's now met the absolute love of his life. It's actually kind of disgusting the way that when he posts on Facebook how much he loves his romantic partner. It's kind of like, oh man, this is gushy stuff. So being alcohol-free led him to his love, to his great love, which is amazing. We've got a few comments here. Let's have a look here. We've got, Mike says, you just said it, stress relief. I work a ton of hours and alcohol is a quick stress relief, gets me to sleep quick. So Mike, thank you for your comment. It is true that alcohol will help you to fall asleep. However, the quality of your sleep will be severely compromised. A quick stress relief. It is a temporary and illusionary relief of stress. Let me say that again. Drinking to relieve stress is temporary and illusionary. When you say it gets you to sleep quick, it may. It may indeed get you to sleep quick. However, the toxins in that alcohol, your body is now working as you sleep to break down the toxins. Your liver is now working to process the toxins, which is why when you wake up, even after seven or eight hours sleep, after a drink or two, you still feel tired and lethargic because your body hasn't been in that deep restorative phase of sleep during the night. So anyone here is watching or listening. If you have a glass of wine at the end of the night to relax and help you to fall asleep, all you're doing is just creating an environment for lethargy and regret the following day. You're compromising your sleep efforts. So yes, it will help you get to sleep. And yes, it will destroy your sleep at the same time. Coach Victoria is nodding her head in approval. We've got here, Sherry says the alcohol aisle is as big as the cereal section in grocery stores. Crazy. And also cereal is not great for you as well. So when you go into the grocery store have a look at what they're selling, what our society is producing, a whole lot of mediocrity. Poor food, poor nutrition, artificial foods, boxed foods, crap and poison. 90% of a grocery store is crap and poison. Sherry says, please turn down the music in the background. Sorry, Sherry, it's already happened. I'm hoping it wasn't too disruptive for you. Victoria wasn't disruptive. I don't know. Was it okay? The music was a bit loud, but I could hear him. Okay, sorry about that, Sherry. Thank you for your feedback. I will take that on board for next time. Let's see, we've got another question here. Mary asks, this is just something I noticed in the past. So I just say I don't drink. I think most people are afraid to ask why. Would you ask someone why you don't smoke? That sounds crazy. Yeah, it is crazy. It's all crazy. I'm so glad that your eyes are opening, Mary, all that your eyes have opened. We live in this society where it's just normalized this drinking of attractively packaged poison. It's like when a waiter or a waitress offers you a drink or your friend offers you a drink, they say, hey, can I get you a drink? And there's a big smile on their face. They're essentially saying, hey, can I give you some crappy sleep tonight and make you feel a ton of regret in the morning? Hey, can I cost you business hundreds of thousands of dollars this year because you're operating at a five out of 10 instead of a nine out of 10? Hey, would you like to look less attractive? Can I get you a glass of less attractiveness because the toxins from this attractively packaged poison is gonna help you to sleep really poorly and have bags under your eyes tomorrow morning and you're gonna have to buy expensive moisturizers to hide the wrinkles and dry skin that you have? Hi, welcome, sir, welcome, man. May I get you a glass of attractively packaged poison? Would you like regrets, shame, 20 extra pounds, $100,000 left on the table in your business? Hey, would you like a failed relationship? Hey, would you like to not attract your dream partner? Hey, can I get you a glass of continue not communicating with your husband or your wife? Hey, can I get you a glass of mediocrity? That's what they're inviting you to consume and they're doing it with a big smile on your face. We talked about this yesterday at the Smiling Assassins. Mary, thank you so much for your question. Thank you so much to everyone who asked the question today. Coach Victoria, thank you so much for being on the call today. We might have you come back here on another date. It was great to have you here and have your expertise. Absolutely, James. Thanks, and I could talk about this for hours. Well, we do, right, James? That's what we do. I wanna thank everyone who joined. I hope you will continue to join us for the following few days and just learn more. And like I said, we are here to help you make your own informed decisions. So thank you all for being here. Yes, if you'd like to get a replay of this, it will be uploaded to our Facebook group within the hour. So you can always go into the group. I've just added that in the comments section there, five-day alcohol-free challenge Facebook group. So you can click on there. The replay will be there. Tomorrow, that being Thursday, we're gonna have Jim Miller joining us. Jim Miller is one of our coaches, one of our enrollment coaches who used to work with Tony Robbins, the great motivational speaker, was the head of transformation at Tony Robbins for many years. He's worked with Tihar Ekker and is just an all-round amazing guy. He had an alcoholic father. He's been alcohol-free. Also a cancer survivor, Victoria. Not sure if you knew that. And just a wonderful man. And he's gonna be joining us tomorrow to talk a little bit about leadership. And we're going to be doing an exercise which is going to reveal just how much your drinking habits are costing you. It's not just what you spend on alcohol, but it's what you don't generate because of your alcohol habits. So please do tune in tomorrow at 11 a.m. Pacific 2 p.m. Eastern. And I also encourage you go into the Facebook group and just write down or type what felt valuable about today's call. Just go into the Facebook group and say, wow, it was amazing to learn this because that way you get to inspire other people. The fastest way to learn anything is to teach it. So if you can go into the Facebook group and teach what you just learned, you will not only teach other people, but you'll also embed the training into your own brain which will increase your chances of living an alcohol-free lifestyle ongoing. Pete says, thank you both, I love this meeting. So encouraging and informative looking forward to tomorrow. You say that Pete, but when you find out tomorrow how much your drinking habits are really costing you, maybe you should be looking forward to it. So if you're ready to get a pretty shocking awakening tomorrow to find out how much the drinking is costing you and your business and your professional life come along. But be ready, some people won't like it. A smaller waistline and a bigger wallet. I like it. Thank you so much Victoria. Thanks guys, thanks everyone. And we'll see you on day three of the challenge. Everyone have a great day. Thanks for listening to the Alcohol-Free Lifestyle Podcast. I wanna load you up with some free stuff right now. So if you wanna go to jameswanick.com slash guide I will send you my quit alcohol guide which has helped six figure entrepreneurs and top professionals reduce or quit drinking. You can also text the word quit guide to the number 44222 if you're in the US of course. It doesn't really work anywhere outside of the US but if you're in the US on your mobile phone and you'd like that guide text the word quit guide to the number 44222 or you can go to jameswanick.com slash guide. If you'd like to schedule a free 15 minute call with one of my top coaches just an exploratory call to see if or how we can help you then you can go to jameswanick.com slash schedule or you can text the word project 90 to the number 44222 if you're listening in the US on a mobile phone. That's jameswanick.com slash schedule or you can text the word project 90. That's one word project 90 to the number 44222. Feel free to send me a direct message over on my Instagram account which is at jameswanick. You can also watch video episodes of this podcast and a series of other educational videos on my YouTube channel which is jameswanick.com or you can direct message me on Facebook at jameswanick.com official. And finally a request, would you please now write a short review of the podcast inside of the Apple podcast app on your phone or on iTunes on your desktop computer? Would you please give the show five stars and write a quick one or two sentence review? This will help the show get in front of even more listeners potentially transforming someone's life. You can rate and review the show inside of your Apple podcast app on your phone or over on iTunes on your desktop. Thank you so much and I'll catch you next time.