 Hello. I am James Swannick, and today we are talking to Doug Rice, who is a 47-year-old father of two, married 21 years. Doug is a retail executive and real estate investor, who, as we're recording this, is 98 days alcohol-free. Doug just shared with me before we started this interview that he lost 21 pounds in the middle of doing his 19-day alcohol-free journey with me and my team. He improved his relationships with his wife and 19-year-old son, and he shared with me that he's got his productivity back. He actually got a promotion at work in the job that he always wanted during these 90 days alcohol-free. I've said it a million times. When you go 90 days alcohol-free, it's never really, I shouldn't say never, but it's rarely about just giving up alcohol and feeling clear and feeling great. It's about all of these things like losing 21 pounds, feeling better, improving your relationship, reconnecting with family and loved ones. That's what it's about. Doug Rice, welcome, mate. Congratulations. Hey, James, how are you? Mate, I'm feeling good, but I suspect maybe not as good as you're feeling at the moment, now that you're 98 days alcohol-free. What do you just describe for us, how it feels at the moment? It just feels fantastic. I put that target out there. I'll be honest, since I started drinking as a late teenager, I've never gone more than 30 days, and I'm 47 years old. To hit a milestone like 60 days would have been quite an accomplishment, but to go 90 and then continue and know that this is going to be my lifestyle choice, it feels fantastic. It feels amazing. Yeah. What feedback have you got from your wife or children or colleagues about your experience in the past 90 days? It's just been, you look fantastic. You've got plenty of energy. What are you doing? My wife certainly used that word I'm out of you, which is, we've been married 21 years, and there's been a number of times that I've certainly made an ass on myself. I've gone through seasons in 21 years. Let's just say that. So to finally, I could give her credit and say, you always told me that I maybe should think about not having alcohol in my life, and here I am, no alcohol in my life, and she was right. It's amazing. Wow. So good. And people noticed that you'd lost the 21 pounds? Yeah, absolutely. I started just hydrating, drinking water, and I started running. I was kind of an avid runner. I took it up about seven or eight years ago, and I'll tell you what, when you drink alcohol, it's pretty tough to get up in the morning and run. And so it was on again, off again, and so I just started running, and I'll tell you, it was slow at first. No breath, no legs, but almost immediately the weight started to drop in my face. And one of the things within Project 90, you get to get on Zoom calls and you get to connect with the community and post on Marco Polo. And so I started getting comments from the community almost immediately like, wow, you look like almost immediately, like within three weeks, I was already shedding pounds. And it's been consistent. And I mean, who doesn't love to hear feedback like that? I work remotely, so I don't get out much. As with most people coming out of the pandemic, I'm stuck in an office at home, but when I do get out, my friends have certainly noticed as well. I visited some friends over Super Bowl weekend and they all slept in. I got up and ran every morning and they're like, what are you doing? I said, this makes me feel good. I'm going to go out for a run. It's sunny outside and I'm going to enjoy my day. So yeah, I love running. I'm going to ask you about what your drinking habits were like before you joined us, before you set upon this journey. But just before I do, what was the promotion you got at work? Just tell us a little bit about your job, what you do and the promotion that happened. Well, I work for a retail company, a fast growing retail company, coast to coast chain. And about three years ago, I'd written a job description. It was one of those dream jobs that I thought my company needed this position. And so I wrote the description and I turned it in. And it was talked about, yeah, we certainly need this position. And I said, look, I don't care if it's me or it's somebody else. Our company needs this position. And here we are. About a month ago, the position was created, approved by our board. And I was asked to take this position. And so I'm in my dream job. And it feels great. I get to impact people and I get to help grow a company. And it feels amazing. I shared with you, I'm in retail. And there's not many great retail stories out there. I mean, every time you look at the paper, you hear about retail companies closing stores. And I happen to work for a company that's growing. And I get to be part of that growth. So it feels great. And I'm excited that I have so much clarity and energy to be able to step into this role and know that I'm going to make an impact. I can't say that the old Doug, two steps forward, one step back, Doug, could make the impact that I'm going to make now that I'm clear-minded and alcohol-free. It sounds like that you had already taken steps towards this role before you actually chose to go alcohol-free. But I'm just curious, did being alcohol-free during these 90 days impact the promotion? Or do you see how that influenced the promotion, either how you showed up, maybe whether there was a negotiation on salary or anything? Like, how did being alcohol-free in the 90 days impact that promotion? You know, I don't know that I can directly link being alcohol-free to the promotion. I mean, I'd like to think that the way I was showing up as, you know, during the month of January, when our company was budgeting and deciding, you know, okay, February 1st, our fiscal year starts, and Doug is Doug's our guy. And, you know, February 1st, he's going to be in this new role. I'd like to think that made an impact. But, you know, honestly, I think it was the efforts over the last three years that I've been contributing that ultimately landed me here. I've always been a high performer and, you know, even operating well below my capacity, I've still been, you know, done rather well. So let's dig into that because you consider yourself to be a high performer. And just for context for the listener or anyone who might be watching here, our Project 90 community is filled with people who consider themselves to be natural high performers, but they've got something in the way of them performing at a high level, right? Or either or at their highest level might be a better way of saying it. And often that thing is alcohol. And often it's not just alcohol, it's what's driving people to reach for the alcohol. So you consider yourself a high performer. What was going on in your life that was contributing to you not performing at your highest that maybe led you to me and our team and what we do? Well, I mean, I'll just be honest. I shared when we opened the interview that alcohol has always been present in my life. You know, it was raised by a single mom and she always came home from work and had a cocktail. I certainly made that part of my routine, you know, I don't know through osmosis or whatever. I also grew up in a bowling alley. And, you know, if you're familiar with bowling alleys in the 80s, I mean, this is bowling alleys. This is dark and grungy bowling alleys, right? And so there was always alcohol present. And I just like to enjoy life. And so I think over the years, I, you know, I ended up using alcohol because everyone else was using alcohol. That was my environment. But I also found that I used alcohol. Well, I'm clear now that I used alcohol to celebrate. And I also used it to escape. And, you know, that's that's just kind of, you know, it's interesting to be so clear minded during these 90 days to to know that I didn't really understand why alcohol was so prevalent in my life until, until I was clear headed and can really look at all the evidence of the choices I was making and the impact that it was having, you know, in terms of that productivity, you know, when you're drinking alcohol, you can't you can't really be productive. So I was probably losing in the evenings, two to three hours of productivity. And that could be productivity in my relationships. It could be product, you know, could be productivity at work. It could be productivity on my side hustle. I said that, you know, I invest in real estate on the on the side. So I could be doing things after work. But no, it was it was the type of drinking activity where I would just sit down with a glass of wine and play on Facebook, a complete time waster, right? You know, and and then, you know, if it was if it was too much wine, if it was, you know, too much wine and then a glass of whiskey, you know, that impacts your next day. I think about the the the mornings and the productivity loss, getting up right before I had to be up to be on conference calls. You know, just kind of not being present, you know, throughout my mornings. And just not feeling feeling 100%. And, and, you know, I look at my morning routine now, and it's it's all about productivity and getting up early and starting starting my day off, eating well, exercising, and then putting putting the energy I have to good use. So I mean, honestly, we're talking, you know, 25 to 30 hours a week of productivity loss, because of alcohol. That's a lot. That's a lot. I mean, that's three days, maybe four days of productivity in a five-day work week. Is that how much you were losing? Or I mean, I'm saying throughout throughout the course of a seven-day week. Yeah. I mean, it was quite a bit. It was quite a bit. And you wouldn't by any stretch of the imagination refer to yourself as an alcoholic? I don't believe so. No, I don't believe so either. But you were drinking enough that you were slaughtering three days of productivity every week, at least. Yes. In my opinion, as many as three days. No, that's not every week. I'm saying that's on the high end of the spectrum. But you give me three days, and let me put my head down. I'm a planner by nature, and I'm going to get some stuff done. And, you know, this 90 days, honestly, especially the last 60, if I look at my career as an adult, these have been some of the most productive days and weeks of my lifetime. And there's one thing missing, alcohol. That's it. It's insanity. Yeah. I mean, it's absolutely remarkable what you're sharing. How old are you? 47 next week, right? So we're recording this now at 47. You give me 47. And these last 60 days have been the most productive in your adult professional life? Yes, I believe so. Yeah. Just letting it sink in for dramatic effect here. Wow. Yeah. Isn't that something? When did you first start working? How old were you when you first started working? I started working when I was 14 years old. I've always had a full-time job from the time I was 14. Like I said, I had a single mom. We didn't have a lot of money. You know, I worked for everything that I wanted. And I've always had a job. There was one time where I was fired from a job, and I had a new one within like a day. And then I had a company close down. And so I went through one period of my life where I was unemployed for an extended period of time of, I believe, seven or eight weeks while I went through the interview process and found a new job. And that's actually the company I'm at now. I've been with this company for eight years. So yeah, I've always worked and it's always been progressive improvement in terms of responsibility and of course the dollars. So really if we're going to put a headline on this, because I used to be a newspaper reporter or journalist, you know, play around with headlines. You've been the most productive in 32 years. This is the most productive you've been in 32 years, because you started when you were 14, right? 32 plus 14 is 46 and you're about to be 47. That's correct. It does. And this is the tip of the iceberg. I'm just ready to get going. Yeah. I already know what the headline, what we're going to name the podcast, so it'll be like most productive in 32 years. This is the most productive I've been in 32 years. It's not always about productivity, right? Like it's also about connection with family. And you mentioned your wife and you mentioned your son. Can you talk about what happened with those two relationships? Yeah. So I've been married for 21 years and my wife lives her life alcohol-free. She drank very early in our relationship, but she wanted... I've been married 21 years, I have a 21-year-old daughter. So she cleansed her body and we started having kids just right out of the gate. And she just chooses to live alcohol free and it's always been... I've always had somebody could drive me home or drive us to where we were going and that was always kind of nice, but there was always a disconnect between... She always has a good time everywhere she goes and I love her to death, but drinking was never an activity that we shared. So there was some separation there when I would drink. It was out with my friends or I had activities. I might have shared with you that I grew up in a bowling alley. So I was a semi-professional bowler for most of my life. So it was away from her on the weekends. It was traveling to tournaments, a lot of drinking with the guys, type of relationship. So there was a lot of separation when I was drinking. I certainly wasn't always with her. And I know in the last 60 days I've been more conscious and I've been writing in my journal that we still love each other. We still have a lot in common. I have all this time on my hands now. We can do our date nights. We can take the time just to enjoy each other. My kids are 21 and 19. We're going to be empty nesters soon. And so we really need... I really need a good plan to to reignite our marriage and we plan on traveling the world and look at this list of 30 places we want to go before it's all said and done. And so just I really feel good about where our relationship is at. I can see the improvement in the way she talks to me and the way that I treat her. And as far as my kids go, my daughter's away at college and so she's come home a couple times during the 90 days. She was home during the holidays and she's certainly noticed that I didn't have a bottle of wine. I've got a great relationship with my daughter and she said all along, I'm really excited for you. I'm proud of you. We went to our cabins while she was home. Just her and I had a daddy daughter like two days in the woods and fishing and all alcohol free and it was just amazing bonding time. My son on the other hand, he's a 19 year old boy and I could use the term knucklehead. I was a knucklehead too when I was 19 years old and so we've had a challenged relationship. We've certainly had a challenging relationship to the point where I think that our relationship was as frustrating for him as it was for me and we both escaped with different ways for me. No surprise. My escape was to just go to the other room and have a glass of wine and then not really address our relationship. He would scream at me and storm off and part of me thought that was normal. He's a 19 year old kid. You don't want to hang out with your dad. But it was to the point where it was a strained relationship. He's definitely closer to my wife and so we actually in the course of the last 90 days, we're going to therapy to learn how to talk to each other and something really great happened. About two weeks ago, we were at a therapy session. He hadn't screamed at me in over a month and the therapist asked him how he thought things were going and he said, I don't think we need to come here anymore. My dad and I are good and that was awesome to hear, James, that my 19 year old son thinks that our relationship is good because it certainly hasn't been. It's been challenging. It's been very challenging. The issue for my son is that my daughter, she's off at a four-year college and he's 19 and she's graduating next month by the way. I'm very proud of her. He's at home and isn't sure what he wants to do. It's been an interesting dynamic to have a boy and a girl and one at home and one away. You just learn to be a dad and I haven't always been there and been present for both of them like I plan on being from this point on. What a beautiful story. Thank you so much for sharing that. It's amazing that you've had such improved connection, particularly with your son. That must have felt really terrific to have him give you that feedback or at least share to your therapist or counselor that there was no need to come back. That must have just felt incredible. Yes, it did. That was an amazing day. It was a day I wasn't expecting. Yes. Well, it's a testament, isn't it, to the actions that you've taken and maybe you didn't expect that to happen when you first decided to eliminate alcohol, but that's one of those surprising, beautiful things that present themselves or are revealed when you're in the middle of that process. Would you agree? Absolutely. I can tell you, I'm just much more patient. I'm much more aware of the way I'm feeling and I'm much slower to speak now. I have a much more measured approach when I get in a situation with him or a conversation with him and it's the same with my wife as well. I think I'm a better listener now. I take the time to listen and that's always been a challenge for me. I don't know. I think it's a guy thing. She thinks it's a dug thing, just not taking the time to listen. I'm just trying to be conscious of that. I've got all the time in the world to listen. I keep telling her, just talk away. I'm here. What was your main motivation when you first enrolled in Project 90? What was your goal or what were your goals? Let's compare that or those to what actually happened. I was very specific from day number one and knew exactly what I wanted. Health was at the top of my list. I had recently been to the doctor and they did the blood test and said, Doug, you have abnormal cholesterol levels. You really need to watch what you need to exercise or we're going to have to put you on medication like most of America. I said, I know exactly what I need to do. I need to just start running again. The health piece was very important to me. That was right at the top. The second was those relationships and then the third was productivity. I knew I was losing a lot of productivity. I knew this potential new job was coming in 2021. My side hustle, I buy and flip houses on the side for fun. I stopped bowling. I used to be my fun deal. I'm getting older. I can't keep up with 21-year-old kids anymore. I stopped bowling on the weekends and I started playing with real estate. I ended up with vacation rental cabins and I flipped houses. All those TV shows they have in America, right James? I flipped this house. I started doing that and that's how I have fun on the side. All this was picking up and my to-do list was growing, but I felt like I was two steps forward, one step back. I felt overwhelmed and I always felt like I was chasing. When I would get overwhelmed, I think that was one of the triggers where I would escape with alcohol. Now that I'm on the other side of these 90 days, there's nothing to escape from. I'm extremely happy. I'm full of joy. I'm 21 pounds lighter than I was. My days are much different and I sleep better. I could go down the list of everything that's better. But if you tie it back to my three goals, relationships are definitely better. No doubt about it. That's what I'm most pleased about is the relationships. I'm not saying they're perfect. You can't overnight change your relationship. Relationships take an investment of time and I've got clarity on that and so I'm making those daily investments. The health piece, I've got a routine down. I started a fitness challenge in January. I continued it in February and I get up every morning and try and give a motivational group to a bunch of peers of mine and we exercise and try and get 30 minutes of exercise in every day. I know I've absolutely crushed the fitness piece. The results are the 21 pounds loss, sleeping better. I got to go buy a new belt soon. I'm on that last belt loop. That's a good problem to have. I think it's a good problem to have. Then they increase productivity. I've filled all of the morning hangover time with a great morning routine that I'm a planner by nature. I like to plan everything out and nothing feels better than planning things out and having the time to actually check all the boxes. I go to bed at the end of the day, very satisfied and get up the next day and do it again. Being a planner, I love checklists and so I get to be productive at work. In the course of this program, I bought a house, remodeled it and sold it. I flipped the house within the 90 days, which was a record and very, very proud of that. That's productivity, I think. I think so. Yeah. Why didn't you just do this yourself? I got a lot of listeners, a lot of people who I tiptoe around whether they're going to engage my services to help them or not. A lot of the common resistance, I guess, or objections to getting some more professional coaching and accountability and support in the community or what we offer is I'm going to try it on my own. I think I can do this on my own. I'm going to use willpower. I'm just going to try it on my own, see how I go, and then I'll come back to you. In my experience, most of the time, it's probably not almost all the time. It's probably most of the time, I would probably offer it's like 80%, 90% of the time. Those same folks end up coming back to me either weeks, months, sometimes years later and say, hey, I couldn't figure it out on my own and then they're ready. Let me just pose the question for you. Why couldn't you have done it on your own or why didn't you do it on your own? What inspired you to actually invest your hard-earned time and your money to join my community and do this with the support? Well, believe me, I've tried it on my own. I've tried it many, many times. There's been probably 100 times in 25 years where I said enough is enough. I'm not enjoying my life right now. I'm not fulfilling my potential. I could be a better husband. I could be a better dad. I'm going to not drink and that might go a couple of weeks and then something happens. I was at a point where I had some great things on the horizon, great things on the horizon. I knew coming out of the pandemic that so many things were going to be better on the other side of the pandemic. I'm also at a point where I really am clear on what I want in the back half of my life, just crystal clear on what I want. I just started connecting the dots. None of this is going to happen with alcohol in my life because that's the one thing that's the step backward. I'm smart enough to take two steps forward towards my goals. It's the step backward that I can't do on my own. I just made the conclusion that I couldn't do it on my own, that I needed some structure. That's certainly what Project 90 has provided. It's provided structure. It's provided community. The community has probably been the biggest bonus. I don't think I knew going in how much the community helped. It was probably my favorite part, the connections in the community, but the accountability as well. The coaching within Project 90 was spot on and fantastic. A combination of all those things I just said, definitely it brought me, I set a record. I've never gone 90 days, 90 or 98 days today in my entire adult life. The difference is your program versus me trying to do it on my own. I have 25 years of evidence that I couldn't do it. But Doug, I can do it on my own. This time I'm really going to do it. This time I'm really, really motivated. I can do it this time. What's your response to that? Just look at the evidence. Look at all the times that it didn't work. The answer is 100% of the time it didn't work for me. There is the other piece. This was the financial investment in myself. I don't know what the term is here, but something along the lines that your heart follows your money or your heart or whatever. Focus goes where your money goes. Your focus flows where your money goes. Yeah, something along those lines. There was an investment here, but it was an investment in myself and my future. It was money well spent. Honestly, it was the best money spent in 2020 by far. It was a great way to end of the year. I chose to take on this alcohol challenge going into the holidays, which is an interesting time to say, I'm not going to have Christmas or New Year's. I was proud of myself for making the decision and running right through the holidays is part of my challenge. Doug, I'm a very private and discreet person. I don't feel comfortable sharing in a community. I want to be discreet. What would you say to that? Well, it is a discreet program. I didn't feel like my dirty laundry was aired out in any way, shape or form. There was many people in the program that were participating every day, and then there was people that were in the Project 90 program that you could tell that they weren't as comfortable participating, but I believe they were getting as much or more out of the program because I think we could call them the watchers. They were in the room and they were benefiting from everything that your program has to offer, but they may not have been as outgoing as others in the program. I mean, everybody has a different path through their 90 days, but what you see during the course of your 90 days is you see people in the beginning of the program. You see people in the middle and you see people at the end. That's the most amazing part is to watch people jumping over the finish line. It's not like maybe every once in a while somebody makes it across the finish line. It's like a regular part of this program. There's a lot of celebration when somebody makes it 90 days because there's so many people like me that don't have a 90-day streak. This has been something that people tried to tackle on their own, and there's just something special about Project 90 that gives you the support to get there. It's so cool to watch and it was so cool to be part of this community. Like I said, I felt engaged not a couple days a week, but I felt engaged in some way, shape, or form and held accountable every day. Honestly, you can look back now when you first start out, you're like, oh man, 90 days, right? I mean, that's like way in the future. I sit here today at day 98 and feel like it was yesterday when I started. It just flies by. I don't know how many people tell you this, but it's fun. I thought it was a fun journey. Thank you for sharing that. Incredible. What now, Doug? You're a day 90, day 98. A lot of people ask, well, what happens on day 90? What happens then? Do you just go back to drinking? Do you do moderation? Do you try to quit forever? Have you received enough training? Do you feel comfortable that you have power over alcohol now? Are you still feeling tentative? What now? Yeah, so I know that I'm going to live my life alcohol-free. I am determined to make this a lifestyle. I'll be honest, there was a point probably 60 days in where I started thinking, maybe I'll get through my 90 days and I'll, one thing I really loved, the old Doug really loved was food and wine. It was pairing food and wine and it was traveling. You and I actually had a conversation in one of our meetings and we talked about, we went through an exercise where we talked about how important is that wine with the food? We went through an exercise where you had us list all the 10 most memorable experiences in our lifetime and how many of them involved alcohol. There was only one of my 10 that involved alcohol and it was my wedding. I know for a fact it would have been better if there was no alcohol involved because I was extremely hung over. That was the connection for me to know that if my 10 best experiences don't involve alcohol, then I'm going to do life without alcohol because I want everything to be, I want to crack the top 10 list again, over and over and over and a lot of mine involved travel. And I can't wait to travel and be clear-minded and have all of this energy hopefully late into my 50s and 60s and be healthy. Remember, healthy was one of my big three and I can't say that I was going to be able-bodied to knock all of this travel off my list. But alcohol free, I can see myself doing that for sure. Doug, congratulations and thank you as well. Thank you for supporting the other members because you were always a very active participant in there and I always share it with people when they first come into our community. The fastest way to learn anything is to teach it and teaching involves just simply opening up and sharing what's going on. And I'm confident, maybe you can back me up on this, I'm confident this is not an AA group. This is not a bunch of people sitting around surrendering to a higher power and feeling powerless against something and it feels very dark and depressing at times as AA does. I've attended some meetings and experienced it firsthand. I like to think we've created an aspirational, positive, uplifting type of community here. It's a different take on it, right? It's a different take. We're getting power over alcohol in a fun, uplifting, positive, aspirational way and you certainly embodied that for sure because you always jumped in to support others. You allowed yourself to be supported, to be coached and to be trained and then you would go on to Marco Polo or in our other groups and share what you learned, which is you teaching it. So you teaching it embeds the training in your own brain as well as gives the gift of the training to someone else. So just to sum that up, congratulations and thank you. Well, thank you. Like I said, this has been an experience. It has flown by but it's not over. I'm a lifelong learner and when you speak, I'm going to continue to listen and then I'll share with others. That's just what I do. Doug Rice from Texas, Dallas Fort Worth, married father of two, retail executive and real estate investor who's today is 98 days alcohol free. Let's check in on you again in a few months and see where you are in your journey. I'd love to have you back on the show. So thanks so much, Doug and congratulations again. Awesome. Thanks, 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 jameswanick.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 jameswanick.com slash guide. 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