How One Drink of Alcohol Per Day Costs Entrepreneurs Millions Each Year with James Swanwick – EP 259

Justin Donald: What's up, James? Welcome to the show.

James Swanwick: Justin, thank you very much for having me.

Justin Donald: Well, I'm excited for our session because I just feel like what you are covering and teaching, and the research behind it, is going to be groundbreaking and earth-shattering for so many people in our audience. And I'm just absolutely thrilled to have you here.

James Swanwick: Well, thank you. I'm sure some of your listeners aren't as thrilled with the message that I might be about to parlay.

Justin Donald: Well, you're going to be able to back it up. And I think that's the thing, like anytime that we have strong ties to things or addictions or just routines that maybe become more than routines, it can be harder to kind of pivot from them, but when you have the data to back up why it makes sense to do it, I think it becomes a lot easier from that standpoint. You're a renowned alcohol-free coach. I've had other people on the show that have talked about the impact of alcohol from a medical standpoint, from a health standpoint but you do a lot with coaching investors and entrepreneurs. You speak. You're a former SportsCenter anchor for ESPN, which is the one network that I tend to tune into the most.

And then I'm excited for you to dive into Project 90. You're the founder and creator of that, and my understanding, you'll probably do a better job of explaining exactly what it is, but it's a neuroscience-based program with a staggering 98% success rate in reducing alcohol consumption in just the first 90 days. Is that accurate?

James Swanwick: Yeah, it’s a 98% reduction in drinking according to a University of Washington scientific study on our 90-day stop drinking process, and that was conducted in 2023. So, yeah, we take entrepreneurs, executives, high achievers through a 90-day stop drinking process, scientifically proven, and the results from a financial point of view, because I know a lot of your listeners are very much interested in investing in finance and wealth creation, the benefits of living alcohol-free are profound to the tune of millions of dollars, by the way.

Justin Donald: Yeah. It was interesting. So, I haven't been “a big drinker.” I enjoy a good bottle of wine periodically. And I've never really contemplated giving it up completely because to me, I've just never felt like it was an issue or a problem or I overdrink or anything like that. Sure, I had a few times in college where I probably should have made different choices and maybe a couple times post-college, but not many. But I listened to an Eric Huberman, or not Eric, but a Huberman podcast, and he had like a two-hour session on all the negative benefits and then the small, teeny tiny positive benefits that someone could argue, and it was very convicting.

James Swanwick: Yes, I would submit that one seemingly innocent drink per day is costing you a million dollars a year in revenue or income for most entrepreneurs and investors. And Andrew Huberman spoke a lot about that one-drink-a-day phenomena. There was actually a study out of the UK in 2022 of 36,000 middle-aged Brits, and what they found was that one drink a day was enough to destroy white and gray matter in the brain, in other words, some level of brain degeneration. Now, that should be frightening because alcohol is worshiped by millions of people all over the world.

We're bowing down at its altar every day. We’re catching up with people for drinks. We're networking with drinks. We're entertaining clients with drinks. We're relaxing with drinks. We're celebrating. We're commiserating. We're creating romance with alcohol. And all alcohol is, is just attractively packaged poison. That's all it is. And just one drink a night, enough to compromise your clarity and your focus and your energy, and your sleep and your relationship with your wife or your husband or your children. I mean, it is astounding when you really have that kind of drop-the-mic moment or that eye-opening moment when you realize, "Wow, one or two drinks a night actually is compromising my life in a way that I didn't realize previously,” then you can't not see it.

Then it's all about how do I love living an alcohol-free lifestyle, not needing to be sober or white knuckling it, or needing to do Dry January or Sober October or go to an AA meeting. But how do I love living alcohol-free? Because when I do that, then I can really surge in life.

Justin Donald: It's interesting. I have an Oura ring. I'm an early investor in the company, Oura. And you do too. I love it. Huge fan. And really, the data screamed at me when I started analyzing it that if I drank in the evenings, it really jacked up my sleep. It jacked up my heart rate. Some of it's the alcohol, some of it's the sugar. But I had a long enough comparison where I actually learned, for me, if I'm going to drink, I should not have a drink after 5:00 PM. I need more time for my body to burn it off. Now, you can make the argument then, "Well, then why are you drinking at all?”

And actually, what has happened now that we had a crazy mold situation in our home. And I mentioned this, really, I haven't mentioned it except for one podcast episode that I don't even know if it's launched yet. And it's been the worst year of my life physically, mentally, like it has just been… This mold, my ochratoxin levels are so high, so off the charts, one of the highest my mold specialist medical doctor has ever seen, because of what happened with the home that we had built that wasn't done properly. So, to make a long story short, we were living in it, didn't know it, couldn't see it. I got so sick I couldn't get out of bed, could not figure out what was going on.

Tried to solve for everything. Tried to solve for food allergies, parasites, other gut issues, inflammation galore. And finally, none of that worked and we went down the last road of, well, maybe it's mold, and we're like, “We have a brand new home, though. How could it be mold?” We started digging into the walls, and it was just caked with mold so bad that you couldn't treat the wood. So, we're in the process of actually removing all the wood in the master bedroom, which is where the largest section was. So, part of it is coming from the windows not being flashed properly. Part of it's from the roof not being sealed properly, the TPO not being sealed properly. Part of it's from the gutter not being sealed properly against the wall, and it penetrated through the exterior to the interior.

So, long story short, it has been a brutal week, a brutal year, six months, six and a half, seven months. But the protocol that I was put on to help me, they said, "You've got to make sure you're doing everything that reduces inflammation in your body.” Mold thrives on inflammation, and the number one thing that they said that you have to eliminate is alcohol. The number two thing is added sugar. The number three thing is gluten. And by the way, for the last however many months, all right, we learned about this in January. I started getting sick, feeling major symptoms of like head fog, migraines, body aches, not being able to get out of bed, like started in late December, early January, so we eventually moved out of the home.

And so, for the last three to four months, I have been on a diet that is literally no alcohol, no added sugar, no dairy, no gluten, no legumes, no soy, no corn, no rice. So, basically, protein, veggies, berries, and citrus. That's it. And actually, tomorrow I graduate to being able to add dairy back into my diet for the first time.

James Swanwick: Wow. And how do you feel?

Justin Donald: So, this is the longest I've been alcohol-free, but it's been a game-changer for me, James. I would've never guessed for the little amount that I actually drank that I would have such clarity by just cutting it out.

James Swanwick: Two things on that. You're actually better off drinking for breakfast than you are anywhere close to bedtime if you are going to drink alcohol. Now, this is an invitation for your listener to go out there and pour some wine and scotch over their Wheat Bisks, or their toast in the morning.

Justin Donald: Breakfast of champions.

James Swanwick: Yeah. However, at least then, if you were going to drink at breakfast time, your body would have 16 hours to process the poisons and the toxins from the alcohol to give yourself the best opportunity to sleep the way that nature intended you to sleep at night. But alcohol is a sleep destroyer. It's true that alcohol may help you to fall asleep, but the quality of that sleep will be so compromised that you will wake up feeling irritable, tired, distracted, foggy, and craving sugary substances, which makes you eat more food, which then has you put on more weight, which then leads to you craving more food and the lack of self-confidence, and then it increases fatigue, which of course then brings itself to 5:00 or 6:00 where you are craving something to relieve you of that fatigue, which of course can usually be found in a bottle of red wine or a beer or a scotch or whatever.

So, drinking alcohol anywhere close to bedtime is just a disaster. I will also say drinking at all is a disaster. There's no health benefits whatsoever to alcohol. This has been researched thoroughly. Just anecdotally, I will share one of our Project 90 clients, and Project 90 is our 90-day stop drinking process where we take investors and executives, and entrepreneurs through a mind rewiring process and help them kind of love living an alcohol-free lifestyle. One of our clients, his name is Evan Melcher, and he's a financial services manager out of Atlanta, Georgia. He joined us about four years ago, Justin, and he was an Oura ring wearer. And he had been tracking his heartbeat, his heart rate over the course of a year as a drinker. And it was a disaster.

It was like the equivalent of like going very quickly. He joined our 90-day stop drinking program, Project 90, stopped drinking, and he tracked himself over the 90 days and then the next 90 days, so over six months, and then over a year. And after one year of alcohol-free because he stopped drinking, joined our program, stopped drinking for 90 days, decided to keep going, stopped drinking for a year, he figured out that he saved 5 million heartbeats in one year. And he tracked it using his Oura ring, 5 million heartbeats. So, his heart rate went from [fast tapping sound] to something more like [slow tapping sound], slowed down, slowed right down. So, alcohol puts this tremendous strain on the heart, this tremendous strain on the body. We have to work harder.

And the body doesn't want that. The body wants to live the way that nature intended it to live, and nature did not intend it to drink attractively packaged poison. So, that's just the health benefits, okay? But think about relationship. Imagine you're irritable and you're stressed and you drink alcohol and because you're irritable, stressed, and you're foggy and you're tired the next day, you snap at your wife or your partner, or your husband or your children, just a little bit, just a little bit irritable, and you say something under your breath, “Oh yeah. Okay. Alright.” And then that creates this tension and this resentment. And then over many weeks, months, years, and possibly decades, that can lead to, "You know what? I think maybe it's time to get a divorce.” Do you know what's very expensive, Justin? Divorce.

Justin Donald: Divorce, yeah.

James Swanwick: That's incredibly expensive from a financial investment point of view. You know what else is incredibly costly? Your children not wanting to spend time with you. Now, that is just death to most parents. I saw an interview with some billionaires once, and one of them said something profound. And he said, "You know what the definition of success is?” And he said, "It wasn't a billion dollars succeeding, creating impact in the world.” He said, "The definition of success is your adult children want to spend time with you.”

Justin Donald: That's great.

James Swanwick: I was like, "Wow. That's amazing.” And most of us are drinking alcohol at the end of the day. We're not alcoholics, but we're having one, two, three seemingly innocent drinks, and it's causing this friction with our husband or our wife, or this distractedness with our kids. We're not as present, and all of that shows up in this compromised way of living where people kind of resent you a little bit, you resent them, you're kind of pissed off. You're focused on what you don't have. You're living a life of expectation instead of appreciation, and that seeps into your business, and it seeps into your financial decisions, and it seeps into your wealth creation strategies because you're distracted, you're irritable, you're foggy, and you're not feeling the best version of yourself.

Justin Donald: Yeah, that's powerful. Now, one of the things I'd love to talk about is alcohol-free wealth. So, you got into it a little bit here with family. I'd love to talk about just the transformation that cutting back on drinking can have on career and finances, right?

James Swanwick: Yes. Well, let's do a calculation, shall we? I call this the lost revenue calculator. So, imagine if you will, a business owner who generates a million dollars a year in annual revenue. That's a nice business, million dollars a year, and he is, let's say, a modest drinker. He's not an alcoholic. He's not getting drunk on weekends, but let's say most nights of the week he's having at least two drinks, sometimes three, sometimes four if he's out networking. He doesn't get a DUI. He doesn't get arrested, but he's consistently over many months and years and maybe even decades, two, three drinks a night. Now, that is compromising his sleep, right? So, he wakes up distracted, foggy, irritable. So, that shows up in his business as not making an additional sales call, not being fully present on a sales call.

He finishes work at 4:30 instead of 5:30 because he's tired and he's irritable. He doesn't hire that person, he doesn't fire that person because he's spending the morning recovering from two or three drinks the night before, or sometimes four if he's out with the lads, or he is out having a business meal and he hasn't slept well. Now, he's lost the whole morning. He's just kind of phoning it in. He's operating at, say, a 6 out of 10. Now, most entrepreneurs, when they come to our program and they're a prospective client, I will ask them, “Compared to your capacity on a scale of 1 to 10, how efficient and productive are you in your business?” They will usually say 5 or a 6 out of 10.

And I go, "Okay. So, at a 5 or a 6 out of 10, your business makes a million dollars a year. Yes?” “Yes.” “Okay, got it.” And then I say, "Well, let's say that you stopped drinking alcohol. The benefits you would get would be this, right? You'd sleep better, you'd have more clarity, more focus, more energy. You'd make an additional sales call. You'd make a better sales call. You'd hire the right person. You'd fire the right person. You'd have the time and the thought and the focus to invest your money in the business in a more wise manner. You might spend more money on marketing. You might look at the numbers and actually look at the books and be able to have strategic insight because of that beautiful clarity and focus that you have. And then you'll make different decisions. Better decisions. Yes?”

And they say yes. And I said, "If that was consistent and you were doing that over many months, six months, nine months, a year, how effective and productive would you be in that business?” And they'll usually say about an 8 or a 9. I say, "Okay, great.” So, at a 5 or a 6 out of 10, as a drinker, you make a million dollars. How much money do you think you would make if you were operating at an 8 or a 9 out of 10 in your business over the course of the year?” And almost always, they say something like, "Probably double. At least double.” I said, "Okay, that's a million extra dollars. So, your drinking habits are costing you $1 million a year.” And then I shut up.

Justin Donald: Minimum, plus the cost of the alcohol.

James Swanwick: Yeah, minimum. Then I shut up. I shut up, Justin. And it's like a mic drop moment, and I usually hear this, “Ohh,” and they go, "Wow. A million dollars.” Now, here's the really interesting thing. I'm going to pull out my calculator, Justin. Okay. I've got my calculator right here. If we go $1 million divided by 365 days of the year, every day that you choose to drink in this scenario is costing you $2,739. Let's just say the entrepreneur claims that he drinks two drinks a day. I would submit it's probably three, but let's say two. So, we divide that by two. Every single drink that the entrepreneur in this scenario has is costing him $1,369.86. That's a pretty expensive cocktail, Justin.

Justin Donald: That is. Yeah, that's palpable, right? I mean, just add it together for a week or add it together for a month. Yeah.

James Swanwick: And we don't see this because we're just like walking around. We're looking at all of these people that I refer to as smiling assassins, and a smiling assassin is someone who's smiling. Can I get you a drink? Would you like a drink? Hey, let's have some drinks.

Justin Donald: Yeah. Well, it's been normalized, right? Culturally, it's accepted. It's normal. And I would say there has been, until recently, I've noticed kind of a change in the dynamic of it, but it's almost like if you don't drink, it's like, "Oh, why don't you drink?” Versus like in the last year or two, I have really noticed a trend with a lot of younger people, millennials, and Gen Z, not drinking. And it's becoming cool to not drink. It's becoming healthier to not drink, but I feel like it's a movement to the point that you see mocktails on almost every menu when you go to a restaurant. There are bars now that are mocktail-only bars. They don't even serve alcohol. And by the way, I can make an argument that the sugars are still bad for you and all that, but I would imagine that it's nowhere close to the harm that alcohol causes your body, your brain, your clarity, et cetera.

James Swanwick: Alcohol's reputation is crumbling.

Justin Donald: Yeah.

James Swanwick: It really is. Generation Z has drunk or is drinking so much less than previous generations. There was actually a study from 2020 just as the pandemic started that found that the portion of college age Americans who are completely alcohol free had risen from 20% to 28% in just a decade.

Justin Donald: Wow.

James Swanwick: And during the pandemic, Generation Z Australians, my native country is Australia, but they did a study out of Australia. Generation Z Australians were most likely to have decreased their alcohol consumption with 44% reporting they were drinking less, which was more than double the rate for any other generation. Okay? So, generation appear to be more cautious than the older generations, both in terms of their health and also how their peers perceive them. Now, having said that, overall, our generation, I mean, I’m 50, we drank so much more during the pandemic. In fact, there was a 27% increase in alcohol-related deaths stemming from the pandemic because we were all locked at home, we were all isolated. And they had this ridiculous law or rule, in my view, ridiculous that liquor stores were considered essential services.

I mean, I saw all these businesses shut down, and liquor stores were allowed to be open, and yet this alcohol is so destructive to society. You don’t need to get a DUI or wake up in a ditch or be arrested in order for alcohol to severely compromise your life, and yet society deemed it an essential service during those lockdowns, which seems crazy to me, but yes, alcohol’s reputation is crumbling. There’s never been more alcohol-free companies on the market. I’m actually an investor in an alcohol-free company called Gruvi, G-R-U-V-I. They’re out of Denver, Colorado. They’re kind of like a more modest, smaller version of like athletic brewing. They do a lot of great alcohol-free beers and wines and things like that. And people are now increasingly becoming aware about the detrimental effects of even modest amounts of drinking, especially your listeners who are entrepreneurs, executives, and high achievers who realize that they’ve been holding themselves back in their wealth creation because of their seemingly modest drinking habits.

Justin Donald: Yep, that’s it. And by the way, I saw a chart here recently that basically showed baby boomers were at the highest percentage of alcohol drinkers of any generation. Then you had a huge drop-off to Generation X. You had an even bigger drop-off to millennials, and then you had the biggest drop-off to Gen Z. So, the trend for sure is going down and it is becoming much more normal amongst most of the people alive to not drink.

James Swanwick: If you’re a high achiever, if you consider yourself a high achiever, any amount of alcohol is compromising your efforts in that regard. And I always say to my clients, in order to create more wealth, financial wealth, better life for yourself, you don’t need to put your foot on the gas harder, you just need to take your foot off the brake. And in this analogy, the brake is alcohol. Your foot on the brake, it represents alcohol, because one or two seemingly innocent drinks a night, like I said, compromises your sleep, leads to irritation, frustration, expectation instead of appreciation, poor strategic choices, not as much energy, not as much stamina throughout the day and your strategic thinking.

But most entrepreneurs are listening to your wonderful podcast, Justin, or they go into conferences and they’re digesting audio books and reading books, trying to get an edge, trying to figure out how to invest like you, Justin, how to grow their business. And they’re doing it with their foot simultaneously on the brake by drinking two or three drinks a night. So, stop going harder on the accelerator and just ease up on the brake, in this analogy, alcohol. And you will start to just glide. You’ll start to make better decisions, make more money, create generational impact in your family. Be a great role model. All these things come to you when you choose to live an alcohol-free lifestyle. Not being sober, not needing to quit, not surrendering to a higher power, not needing to go to an AA meeting. You get to live this style of life.

Justin Donald: Yeah, that’s very compelling. I just interviewed Allan Dib, who’s also from Australia right before our show. And his big thing is, you have all these entrepreneurs that are trying to add more to get a better return, whether it be in their business or their body, their health, whatever. And he said the one thing that most people don’t do is subtract. And he said, the best way to get ahead is usually to subtract something that you’re doing so that you can be more optimal where you are.

And this would be a perfect example on a health standpoint, where it’s like, hey, we could be healthier by taking more peptides or drinking more water or getting our labs done, or we could subtract and just stop drinking and watch the labs clean up and watch the hydration increase, et cetera.

James Swanwick: Tony Robbins says, “Complexity is the enemy of execution.” And when we’re drinking, we’re creating unnecessary complexity in our life. The complexity of strained marriage, the complexity of not operating at a 9 out of 10 the following day in our business, therefore making compromised choices. So, you’re right, and Allan Dibb is correct. Extraction. I mean, a lot of the world’s productivity experts say, when you’ve got some kind of project to do, first of all, put it through the automate, delegate, or eliminate stress test, right? Like, if I don’t want to do this thing, can I automate it? Can I delegate it? Or can I eliminate it? I would suggest with alcohol, rather than delegating it and automating it, I would just damn well eliminate it because then you’re just flying on the highway of life.

Justin Donald: Yeah, I love that. It’s interesting, I did a dry January just because I’d never done one before and I was like, ah, why not? I always like to do things that will challenge me in some way, shape, or form. I’ve got these year-long things that I’ve done over my life where it’s like, no red meat for a year, no added sugar for a year. I could go on and on and on, where I had a decade of doing something crazy for a whole year. And so, I cut that out in January, and then I had one, like maybe a drink or two in January or February. And that’s when I got the new protocol. And I was like, well, it’s a good thing I haven’t been drinking this year anyway.

So, now, it’s been, I don’t know, five to five and a half months and I haven’t had anything to drink. And during this time, I felt so much better that I kept saying to myself, well, maybe I just eliminate it. Maybe there’s no reason for it. And after this podcast episode, like this is just confirming what my intuition was already telling me that I don’t need it and that it’s not going to make anything better. And one of my closest friends in the world gave it up last year. My wife has given it up. So, it’s great to kind of see some of these parallels and really get this type of information at a time where I’m already assessing the next chapter of life and I’m already like in a critical battle for my health to gain it back. And seeing that it’s the number one culprit of what I need to heal my body today, it tells me that even when I heal my body, it’s still probably the number one culprit to the life that I want.

James Swanwick: I would agree with you. I’m in alignment with your thoughts on that, Justin. You seem like you’re a very healthy guy, generally, except for what’s been going on this year with the mold. And if you can eliminate alcohol and love living an alcohol-free lifestyle, it’s like an unfair advantage, in business, in relationships, in joy, and in happiness. I mean, I was a socially acceptable drinker for many years. I finally stopped drinking when I was 35, and I figured out not just how to quit, but to stay quit, because quitting is actually pretty simple, but staying quit is a completely different skillset. But I haven’t drunk now since 2010.

Justin Donald: Oh, it’s awesome. Yeah, 15 years, that’s great. Although I always hear that whenever you quit, if you’re still counting down the days, then there’s still something. But for you, you just said like, I’m done, right? It’s not like I’ve been done for these many years. I mean you knew the date that you stopped, and boom, that was it.

James Swanwick: Yeah. I was in Austin, Texas, March 10th, 2010, and I was at that year’s South by Southwest Festival.

Justin Donald: Oh, love it.

James Swanwick: On a Friday night, I went out to an industry party. I had two very modest Bombay Sapphire gin and tonics. I remember meeting Tim Ferriss that night who was there, and I, like I said, had a couple of gin and tonics. I got in a taxi, went back to my hotel about 15 minutes outside of downtown Austin, went to sleep, and when I woke up in the morning, I looked in the mirror and I looked and felt, blah.

And blah means the 5 or 6 out of 10 that I was referencing earlier. I was about 30 pounds overweight. I had bags under my eyes. I was envious of other people. I was kind of often stressed. I had the occasional cigarette here and there. I was eating burgers and fries. I mean, I wasn’t rock bottom, but I was just kind of average and mediocre in every way. And I remember I walked next door to the hotel and there was an IHOP, an International House of Pancakes. And I sat down there and I looked around at all these very unhealthy-looking people, eating all-you-can-eat pancakes with whipped cream and maple syrup. And I looked out the window and I thought, what am I doing in an IHOP? Like, this is my rock-bottom moment. It wasn’t really that devastating, a rock-bottom moment, but it was my rock-bottom moment.

Justin Donald: That’s an epiphany. Yeah. This is your wakeup call and it’s funny, the different ways they can be triggered, but once you get enough pressure and force, it’s like, oh, my eyes are open.

James Swanwick: Yes. That’s exactly what happened to me in that IHOP, and that was in that moment that I said, you know what, James? Just take a 30-day break from alcohol just to see if you can do it and let’s just see what happens. And that’s what I did. And in 30 days, I lost 13 pounds. It just fell off me. That coincided with the time incidentally, Justin, where an opportunity for me to audition to host SportsCenter on ESPN presented itself. And because, at that stage, I was about 30, 35 days alcohol free, I had this clarity focus and this drive and this desire, and I remember I said, you know what? I’m just going to get this job. I’m going to go for it.

And I flew from Los Angeles over to New York and then on to Bristol, Connecticut, where ESPN was. I did the audition and I got the job and I was on TV two weeks later and I couldn’t believe it. And I was like, this not drinking thing is pretty damn good. I’m feeling rocking here and like everything felt in flow, like, previous to that, when I was drinking, I was like, should I go? Should I not? I’m not sure. It was like questioning everything. But then when I had those four or five weeks of clarity and a good night’s sleep and I’d lost the weight and I had more energy and I was just thinking clearer, I was like, I’m going to get that damn job. And I did.

And then, thereafter, because I had that confidence, I remember meeting a very beautiful woman. I was a single man at the time, and I was a bit socially awkward. I was worried that if I shared with her that I wasn’t drinking at the moment, she might think that I was an alcoholic or I had a problem. But far from her judging me for not drinking, she was actually incredibly impressed. And she actually referenced to me, wow, finally, a real man who’s got his sh*t together. I was like, damn, this is good. Like, women finally attracted for not drinking. And I got this job on TV and I’ve lost 13 pounds, which I ended up losing the 30 pounds. I was like, this is pretty good.

And then I remember I was at the following year South by Southwest Festival of 2011, and I remember it was the one-year anniversary of when I’d had my last drink and I walked into this bar called the Lustre Pearl bar on Rainey Street. And I went up and I ordered a Bud Light. And just as I went to take a sip of it, something stopped me and I paused and I put the beer down. And I just thought, for about 30 seconds, I thought, wow, in one year, I’ve got the body nature intended me to have, I’ve got this beautiful romantic relationship, I’m hosting a television show, I am feeling much more positive about my life, I’m now living a life of appreciation instead of expectation, I’m connected to my parents back in my native country in Australia, I’m having a good relationship with them, I’ve got good friends. I’m learning how to be an entrepreneur when I’m not hosting the show, this is pretty good.

And then I called the bartender over and I said, “Actually, I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going to have it.” And I gave it back to him. I tipped him and I walked out. And I have not so much as picked up an alcoholic drink since.

Justin Donald: Well, it’s amazing, and it’s actually interesting because what you almost did would be like the cultural norm. Let’s celebrate a year of sobriety with a beer. And so, it’s actually interesting that in that moment, you caught yourself even thinking like, why am I going back? Why would I even use this as a celebration? There are so many other better ways to celebrate this wonderful clarity and body and relationship I’m in now than that. And I’m guilty of that too, using a really nice bottle of wine or champagne to celebrate a big moment or a big event.

And it’s interesting for me, like during this time, I’m having all this critical thinking and outside of the mold, I mean, I wasn’t able to think very clearly until probably about a month ago. I mean, really, it’s this month, like July has been the month. And so, it’s interesting because over the years, I’ve kind of built an identity around being a wine aficionado, a wine collector, a wine traveler. And so, there’s part of me that I’m like, yeah, I need to put that to death. Like, I need to– the quitting drinking isn’t as hard for me as the identity that I have created around wine. And so, that’s an interesting paradigm, but I know that the next step is to just really move on.

James Swanwick: It’s perfectly normal if you have been associating alcohol with celebration, with romance, with commiseration, with relaxation because that’s the way cultural conditioning has it. And the smiling assassins, as I referenced earlier, are everywhere, and they’re always reassuring you on an unconscious level that drinking alcohol is just normal because everyone’s smiling as they’re doing it.

I watched the Super Bowl commercials this year. They were fabulous, wonderful. Peyton Manning is there like funny Bud and calls beer ads. But make no mistake, they’re promoting poison. And these Hollywood celebrities like Dwayne The Rock Johnson and Ryan Reynolds and George Clooney, they all have their own liquor brands. They are peddling poison. History will not be particularly kind to them.

I mean, we look back in the 1950s and 60s and we see these TV commercials of doctors in white lab coats saying, Camel cigarettes or Winston cigarettes, cigarette chosen by doctors. And we look at that and we laugh, right? We go, bro, geez, what were we thinking? And I tell you, in 20 to 30 years from now, we’ll be looking back on today with the same level of disdain that we do cigarettes. We’ll look back and just go, what were we thinking? They’ll show clips of Peyton Manning doing his beer commercials in the Super Bowl, and we’ll shake our heads and go, what the hell were we thinking?

Justin Donald: Well, James, this has been a real treat, getting to know you, hearing your story, learning your methodology. I hope that this has been a really impactful session that a lot of people will walk away from and really make major change in their life. I’ve got a question I’ll ask at the end in reference to that, but where can people learn more about you and more about your Project 90 program?

James Swanwick: Thank you, Justin. To learn about the Project 90 program, you can go to AlcoholFreeLifestyle.com. I’ve also written a book, which is called Clear, a neuroscience-based approach to quit drinking without AA, rehab, or willpower. And you can find that on Amazon or you can go to AlcoholFreeLifestyle.com/Clear. There’s also an audio version. If you can put up with my Australian accent for eight hours or four hours on double speed, then you can get the audio version of the book. Just interestingly on that, Justin, the audio version of the book is outselling the hard copy, four to one. And I’ve been trying to figure out why, and I suspect it’s because people don’t want other people to see that they’re reading a book about quitting drinking. And so, with audio, you can hide the fact that you’re learning about living an alcohol-free lifestyle. But with the book where it says Clear right on the front cover, if you’re on a plane, maybe the person next to you is going, ooh, that person must have a drinking problem. So, that’s my hypothesis.

Justin Donald: That’s interesting. I mean, I would also say that, in addition to that, there’s a trend towards more Audible reading these days. A lot of people are doing it because you can do it on the go. We’re experiencing something very similar where our Audibles are often outperforming our physical copies. So, yeah, I mean, I do think there is a trend that people are enjoying listening to books than reading books. And I know for myself, personally, I probably physically read less than 10 books a year and I probably listen to 50 to a hundred a year.

James Swanwick: Yeah. Well, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. So, four to one, audio to the hard copy is fascinating, yeah.

Justin Donald: It is. Well, I’ve got a question for our audience, for those of you watching or listening, I ask this each week, I want to ask it again, but what is one step that you can take today to move towards financial freedom and really just move to living life on your terms, life that you desire? So, most people live a life by default, and, and my challenge to you is to live a life by design. And a follow-up challenge is, would giving up alcohol allow you to live a better life by design? Would that help improve your life or limiting how much you drink to start? Whatever that looks like for you, it’s a big challenge and I’m in full agreement with James here that it has been a game changer for me and I’m the guy that has come at you earlier in episodes with my personal wine sommelier and telling you about trips that I’ve taken and this is kind of where I’m at in life today. So, yeah, we’ll catch you next week. Thanks for tuning in this week. And James, again, thank you for joining us.

James Swanwick: Thank you, Justin.