145: The REAL Reason Why Most People Fail Quitting Alcohol | James Swanwick

All of our cravings derive from I'm uncomfortable being me, whether it be alcohol or drugs or shopping. I now recognize that this two or three drink a night habit is really compromising many areas of my life. There's a tighter wave of change that's taking place. What was cultural conditioning that alcohol has just normalized is shifting. It sounds like in this shift of focus, there's also a fundamental shift in identity. My hypothesis is that in 20 to 30 years, we will look back on alcohol with the same level of disdain we currently do cigarettes. I don't think history is going to be kind to these Hollywood celebrities, Dwayne The Rock Johnson, George Clooney, Ryan Reynolds, who all have liquor brands. Alcohol is nothing but attractively packaged poison, and they are peddling it. The scientific study resulted in a 98% reduction in drinking by just focusing as opposed to I've got to be sober, I have to quit drinking. Hi, and welcome back to Reclamation Radio. I am Dr. Kelly Brogan. And today I sit down with James Swanick, who is an entrepreneur. He's actually a former ESPN SportsCenter anchor and founder of Swanick Sleep, which is a blue light blocking glasses wellness company. I wanted to talk to him specifically about his alcohol-free lifestyle program and experiences. And I really wanted to address the zeitgeist of sobriety, which is a term that I referenced, but he does not prefer. And you'll discover why, because I think something really exciting is going on. So we talk about our respective journeys away from alcohol use and the zeitgeist of abstinence that we are in the midst of. We talk about men and alcohol. We talk about the limitations of the 12-step world and program. And importantly, we talk about the ingredients from his perspective and research of a sustainable and enjoyable alcohol-free lifestyle. So I hope that this serves as a powerful affirmation if you are curious about an alcohol-free lifestyle and or as a resource for somebody that you love. Enjoy. Welcome, James, to the show. Thank you so much for having me, Kelly. So when I was on the floors in the hospital working as a conventional psychiatrist, there was a phrase that was bandied about by the attending physicians, largely in reference to the cluster B, they called them. So the cluster B personality disordered patients, right? And the attendings would say, oh, well, she's just a fuck, you don't leave me. So believe it or not, this is the phrase that was used to characterize the personality dysfunction of certain patients. And I've remembered that and many other colorful phrases that I was taught as a training physician. And it continues to be the greatest summary of the push-pull dynamic that I see as underpinning all addictive relationships. Right. So whether it's love addiction or work addiction or substance abuse, if we want to call it that, there is a part of you that says, don't leave me. There's a part of you that says, I love this. I need this. I'm dependent on this. I can't live one moment without this. And then there's another part that is the punisher, that is vengeful, that is bitter, resentful and pushing away, right? That's rejecting. And in that tension is all of this life force energy captured. So when I have explored a revised, reformed perspective on addiction, and I've moved beyond the disease model that I was taught about in my training, I have become very interested in the energies that get locked up in that push-pull fight. And I happen to see it in many different arenas of life. In fact, in the past couple of years of my own sobriety journey, I have recognized that it was not just about ending my relationship to social drinking, right? That it was about also, you know, practicing a kind of hygiene in my relationships, in the ecosystem of my life that really drained it of all these push-pull dynamics, right? And so when I think about sobriety, it's almost like this more holistic umbrella that encompasses a lot of stuff. And I really wanted to talk to you today about the specific subject of alcohol, because I know that there is a shift underway. There's a zeitgeist happening. I see it not only in my own life with my own friend group. I see it in the clients and the folks that pass through my own program. And chiefly, I see it in my daughter's generation. So I have two teenage daughters, and they have decided that they are not participating. And I grew up in suburban New Jersey, and I mean, people who are drinking at 11 years old in our parents' basements. So it was quite a different culture then. And so I can see this organic shift. And I know that you are offering extraordinary support and resources and a perspective on how people might begin that journey. So I'd love to start, James, with really, I'm fascinated with the moments of change, like the readiness for change. And I don't know if you can recall the moment that you recognized that the push-pull dynamic with alcohol was not working for you, right? Like the moment that you recognized it was time to shift and that maybe it would even be a relief to move in another direction and what the anatomy of that time of your life really consisted of. It was March 10th, 2010. You're like at 4.45 p.m. Yeah. So to get to that point on March 10th, 2010, And let me give you a little bit of context. So I grew up as a socially acceptable drinker in my native country of Australia. In that, I would drink two or three drinks a night most nights of the week. And on the weekends, I would drink heavier. Sometimes I get drunk and have fun through my late teens and early 20s. But for the most part, from age 16, 17 until age 35, it was just this consistent two or three drinks a night. Half a bottle of wine, a couple of gin and tonics, a few beers. Hey, you want to meet up at the pub for a couple of drinks? Sure. I asked a woman out on a date, hey, would you like to meet up for a drink? So I wasn't waking up in a ditch. I didn't get a DUI. I didn't get arrested for any alcohol related activities. I was just a socially acceptable drinker. Then in 2010, I found myself in Austin, Texas at that year's South by Southwest festival. I went to an industry party where there was an open bar. I had two Bombay Sapphire gin and tonics, and I went back to my hotel 20 minutes outside of downtown Austin very innocently, and I went to sleep. And when I woke up in the morning, I looked in the mirror and I looked weathered. I looked tired. I realized I was about 35, 40 pounds overweight. I just felt blah. And blah is the drift of life had got me. I was just mediocre. I was irritable, envious of other people. My relationships were strained. I wasn't sleeping great. I kind of looked just tired. And I walked next door to the hotel to an IHOP, an international house of pancakes. And I sat down and I looked around and I saw very unhealthy looking people eating all you can eat pancakes with whipped cream. And I thought to myself, what the heck am I doing in an IHOP? And that was the moment for me where I said to myself, you know what, this alcohol consumption, even though I'm not what society would deem an alcoholic, I now recognize that this two or three drink a night habit is really compromising many areas of my life. Enough, James, time to take a break. And that's what I decided to do in that moment. I said, I'm just going to take a 30-day break from alcohol and see what happens. Well, it's been 15 years now, and the break keeps on going. And in that time, I've generated the body that I think nature intended me to have. I have got great relationships with my parents. I have a baby daughter on the way. I feel healthy. I've got joy. And I've really helped foster this cultural shift now in society where alcohol's reputation is crumbling and people are now choosing an alcohol-free lifestyle. They're not trying to be sober or trying to white-knuckle it. What I try to help people with is choose a lifestyle rather than saying no to alcohol. I love this. And that's why your message is so resonant for me, because absent that yes, as I like to call it, there is the taboo energy of rejecting and resisting, and it will drag your life force down with it. So that white knuckling that you refer to, I think, is is very common in the 12 step world where there's an almost moral layer that's put on and imposed upon the badness of the substance. Right. And also the version of you that partakes and the goodness and the virtue of the the abstinent. And it's not to say that there aren't obviously many, in fact, I love your perspective, many aspects of the 12-step world that have clearly proven themselves effective. It's just that that dualistic good-bad split, I think, ends up arresting the development so that you never taste the yes. You never taste the like, this is what I get to have, you know, instead. And I'll just sort of sidebar that when I decided to stop drinking socially. So I had a very similar story. In fact, I was like such a control freak most of my life that I was like a straight edge. So in my generation in the States, there was sort of like a goth straight edge culture when I was in high school. And my boyfriend at the time was like a trench coat wearing like Dungeons and Dragons guy. And it was just like, it was our identity, like not to drink, right? But really beneath that was control, like a desperate need to never, ever lose control. So I personally didn't drink all through college, all through med school. And it was being courted by pharmaceutical companies. So back in the day, that was very common. And we were making, you know, like $3 an hour working 100 hour weeks. And I would be taken out to these like five-star restaurants. And of course, there'd be like Veuve Clicquot on the table and all of these, you know, fancy free things. And my social drinking never had. So I was like a work hard, play hard kind of girl, but I never had any consequences. Literally ever. Like I've never, never. There was never like the sort of you have a problem checklist that would have informed, you know, the need to shift. But when I decided that I was interested in sobriety, if we want to call it that, it was because I wanted to access more of my superpowers. Truly, like I wanted to become more intuitive. I wanted to have more clairvoyance. I wanted to have more access to my own mind. And that was my primary motivation. And the outcome, right? So the benefits, right? So I didn't necessarily have like, oh, my body changed and this and that. The benefits that I experienced were mostly in my relationship to my daughters. And in a million years, I would not have anticipated that. Yeah. The only explanation, I'm curious about your perspective on this, just given your exposure and experience to these kinds of journeys, right? The only explanation I can come up with is that when you are reaching for a state altering plant, substance, you know, activity, and it's not to say there's anything wrong with that. I am definitely in the camp that says addiction serves a purpose. It works until it doesn't, right? So I don't, I don't apply a good, bad rubric. However, when you're reaching, it's because you haven't developed the maturity to be with your own feeling states. And I wonder if it's kind of that simple, right? That we don't have a cultural initiatory process to help us expand our capacity to hold emotional states. And so when uncomfortable feelings come up, we need to run, right? So if you have a habit of doing that, even if it's cloaked in celebration or like innocent sort of like, oh, a glass of this with dinner. There is a limited range for you to hold these uncomfortable feelings, which include shame. And I think for me, there was like this low grade sense that I had really fallen short as a mom, even though that wasn't my conscious story. Like my conscious story was I'm a cycle breaker. Like my kids are, you know, having such a different life than I've had. But there was just this little like white noise of shame that said also because you know I divorced from their dad and that said like wow you really you fucked it up you know or something along those lines And every time I would brush up against it, I would recoil, you know, or find some other way to assert myself as, you know, an expert or something, right? So in the holistic world, it's very common that we're like these well-intentioned experts about like how our kids need to eat and live and, you know, all the healthy things they need to be doing. And we can kind of rule with an iron fist. So there was a lot of that going on. Anyway, what changed was that I got really good at being wrong, really good at saying, I'm sorry and taking responsibility and really good at no longer being an expert, like at anything. And it completely revolutionized our relationships just in time. So my girls are, you know, teenagers, this is a couple of years ago. And now we have this beautiful experience of 13 years that when I was a teenager, I like literally can't fathom having this kind of dynamic with my own family. Right. So what is that? Right. Like, so when I love talking about the the nuanced, like difficult to pathologize version of drinking that you describe you were doing and all of these unanticipated benefits. right from the emotional to the physical. So when you look at it, what do you think of as being the most common expected shift, you know, that people can look forward to experiencing? Like, what is that yes for most of us? Well, the most common shift is going from craving any kind of substance, whether it be alcohol or drugs or shopping or love or work to an ability to just be with oneself. Because all of our cravings derive from I'm uncomfortable being me. I'm uncomfortable with my thoughts. I'm uncomfortable with my feelings. I have resistance around this. Let me just try and numb myself for a little bit, give myself some temporary relief because the discomfort of being me is too much. Now, when you can make that shift and you can be with the resistance of being you, then you get to choose powerfully activities, mindsets, beliefs that make being with yourself increasingly comfortable. So you mentioned the word trauma, I think, before. A lot of people will say, I've got trauma. We've all got trauma. We all grew up. As soon as we had adults, we developed childhood trauma, right? Because of the way that our parents were. But my view is that it's become a lazy excuse in many cases, not the only excuse, but like in many cases, a lazy excuse to try to justify continuing to drink, continuing to work, be a workaholic, a loveaholic, a shopaholic, whatever it is, to try to avoid the discomfort of just being with ourselves. And selves, I mean being drug alcohol free. So my work really is dedicated to supporting people to have a much better relationship with themselves, to lean into that resistance, to be with that resistance. And instead of reacting, responding. And I think that all life and our pleasure and our joy and fulfillment of life lives in that moment between reaction and response. and if we can just take a moment, half a second, five minutes, ten minutes, two seconds, a millisecond, whatever it is, and just be intentional enough to come back to response versus reaction, then we don't crave a drink. Then we don't crave love. Then we don't crave work, shopping. all of our addictions. And nothing has been more powerful in my own life than physical exercise and appropriate human connection. In fact, I asked Professor David Bellen, who's a professor at Cambridge University, one of the world's leading addiction experts. We were on a coaching call with my clients. We have these stop drinking clients who go through a 90-day stop drinking process. And actually, it wasn't me who asked him. It was one of our clients who asked him. They said, Professor Bell, what are the two best supplements you recommend for trying to overcome an alcohol use disorder? And his response was really interesting. He said two things, exercise and human connection. And I said, wow, explain, elaborate. And he said, well, all of the science shows that if you move your body, if you exercise, it releases so much dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, all these great chemicals that it overpowers your feelings of discomfort that lead to you craving some kind of substance like alcohol, for example. It's been shown repeatedly, exercise, move your body. And then the second thing is human connection. And I said, what do you mean with the human connection? He said, we crave human connection. And he said, go back to the pandemic when we were all in lockdown, most of us didn't have that human connection. And you know what happened? Alcohol consumption went up 24%. Alcohol-related deaths have skyrocketed since 2020 and 2025, alcohol-related deaths. There are now 7,000 deaths a day that can be traced back to alcohol-related issues because we lacked that human connection. And so a lot of the work that I do is putting together like-minded people and creating human connection while also encouraging folks to get their body moving, to do personal development programs, to learn to have a relationship with themselves and with others. You might have a sense that supporting your energetic and subtle body is important, but how exactly does one do that? Like short of scheduling regular sessions with an energy healer. How do you do that? Most of the time I find that when we take supplements, it's from the energy of fixing ourselves. And honestly, it's really no different than taking a medication at that point. That's why I love flower remedies and specifically my girl Katie Hess's elixirs from Lotus Way. The formulations that she creates are so nuanced that sometimes it feels like I wrote the descriptions myself. The last one I took was designed to dissolve go, go, go mentality, as well as fatigue, weakness, apathy, and resistance to self-care. Relatable? Okay. I have a monthly membership called Flower Revolution where I get a new and super powerful on-point remedy sent to me every month, and it blows my mind how resonant each one is with exactly where I am in my process. I think of this as a truly feminine investment that harmonizes my process and allows me to walk, talk, and interact with grace. You can try it for a month or six at the link below. And if you just want to dip a toe in to learn more about how flowers heal, you can take their quiz. Yeah, it's a reminder too of the rat park studies I'm sure you know about that helped us to see in stark scientific reality that animals that were exposed to addictive substances, let's say, in isolation were vulnerable. And those in a natural ecosystem of other rats and toys and stimulation were invulnerable. So how could it be the substance? And this is why the externalization of the bad agent, I think, can be quite problematic. If we give all of the power to the substance absent the vulnerabilities that are conferred by the environment or the mindset or many different aspects of relating to the self, then we are in still a disempowered model. Right. So I wonder what you think are the the amazing gems of the 12 step world and some of the limitations. It sounds like the community and connection aspect is central to your model as well. And it sounds like you've also expanded the perspective on how to take command, including movement and the associated self-care disciplines. Yeah. Let's talk about AA specifically for a moment. So what AA does well is create a community. What I would submit it does, let's say, ineffectively is that it doesn't create a like-minded community. It creates a community of people who are all focused on the past, lamenting, shame. In AA, you must surrender to a higher power. In many cases, you must say, my name's James and I'm an alcoholic, even though there actually is no medical definition of the word alcoholic. It actually doesn't exist. Like all psychiatric diagnoses, yeah. It's actually alcohol use disorder. In 2013, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, it was DSM-5, the fifth edition, 2013, said alcohol use disorder is a terminology we're going to use. Now, I much prefer alcohol use disorder because it's a disorder, not a disease. And an alcohol use disorder means this is temporary. This is just some temporary thing that we can shift with mindset. And that's what we do in our work. Now, the problem that I see or the ineffectiveness I see with AA is that it's very rigid thinking and beliefs. It's like, I'm an alcoholic. Okay, well, first of all, modern medicine doesn't even recognize the term alcoholic or alcoholism. And now you're saying, I am something. Well, that doesn't give you much room to move. I am fill in the blank. I am an alcoholic. I call BS on that. Excuse my crass language. especially people are going in there who may be like gray area drinkers, right? Where they're drinking enough that it's compromising their life, but it's not like they're drinking that much or that badly that they're crashing cars, holding up a gas station, being physically violent, doing all these kind of what society would deem crazier things. And yet you walk into an AA room and you almost have to say, I'm an alcoholic. You're not an alcoholic. You just have an alcohol use disorder at the moment. You just drink too much right now. And we're going to unpack that, figure it out. And we're going to give you some healthy habits to change that. Now, I've done a lot of research. I wrote a book called Clear. And it's 10 years of research. There are many studies that suggest that AA's actual success rate, if you judge success over long-term power over alcohol is less than 10%. In fact, there was a book written by a Harvard professor by the name of Dr. Lance Dodds, and he wrote a book called The Sober Truth. And in that book, he said that AA's actual success rate would be deemed one of the worst in all of medicine. It's horrendously ineffective for most people. Now, unbelievably effective for the millions of people for whom it's been effective for, it's been around since 1935. So it's been around 90 years. And so, of course, just by the fact that it's been around 90 years, it's incredibly effective for millions of people. But most people who walk into an AA meeting, 93 people out of 100, it's going to be ineffective long-term. Long-term, yeah. Long-term. Effective short-term, ineffective long-term. So I love the community. I love the spirit. I love the mission. There's lots to admire about it. And I've got friends who go to AA and they swear by it. And they have friendly debates with me over its effectiveness because it's been effective for them. I'm like, that's great. If it's been effective for you, keep on doing it. But statistically speaking, it is horrendously ineffective because it keeps people stuck in an identity like I'm an alcoholic. It keeps people in using phrases like sober and sobriety, which I think don't serve people. The phrase that we use over at our organization, which is called alcohol-free lifestyle, is literally alcohol-free lifestyle. So the name of my company is Alcohol-Free Lifestyle. And let's look at that third word there, lifestyle. If we break that up into two words, it's a style of life. It's a style of life. And that style of life is choosing good nutrition, personal development, conscious communication, growth mindset, getting around empowering people who support you and focusing on what you will do. It's choosing this path. It's choosing this lifestyle as opposed to what I would submit AA is say no to alcohol. You have to be sober. You get a badge and a token when you're not 90 days or a year alcohol free. I'm five years sober. I'm an alcoholic. I'm like, what? Why are you stuck in this disempowering identity? And the other thing is you go to an AA meeting and a lot of times, not all the time, but a lot of times you have no relatability there to the other people. You might be a 45, 50-year-old woman, two kids, well-educated, articulate, health conscious, but you're drinking too much and you know it. And you walk into an AA meeting and you're sitting next to a 19-year-old meth addict who's holding up a gas station, who's being judged, ordered to be there. How the heck are you going to relate to that person? So the motivation to return or to want to be there drops dramatically And of course you want the best for that 19 myth addict who holding up the gas station Of course you want the best for them support them But your life experience is completely different. So that's where I think AA falls short. I love the mission. I love the sentiment of it. But I just think today, it's 2025, guys, come on. Why are we still in this 90-year-old rigid 12-step program, which statistically speaking is going to fail 10 times as many people almost as it will succeed for. Yeah, somebody who spent a lot of time in AA meetings actually with my dad growing up and then Al-Anon meetings later, I think that the adult children of alcoholics, Al-Anon construct of exposing the tendencies of codependent behavior and the tendencies of the enablers, as they call them, and those who are in relationship to addicts thinking themselves the ones who don't have the problem, right, is actually in many ways, potentially a greater contribution than the system as you're referencing now, maybe because collectively our understanding of empowerment, right, it's externalized or internalized locus is shifting, you know, we are understanding personal responsibility in a different way now than certainly 90 years ago. And I wonder if we could talk a bit about, before we get into what you think it actually takes to succeed, right? So if those abysmal outcomes are something to be held up in comparison into what is possible, then I want to talk about the ingredients for long-term self-commitment. But before we do that, I want to speak more specifically about men and alcohol because I went in my activist career, I did not watch one second of TV or a movie for 10 years. I was such a workaholic that I didn't even understand how or why somebody would watch TV. It didn't even occur to me that there might be hours in the day where that is the activity you would reach for. So this is how out of touch I was with what people are programmed with when it comes to shows, like Netflix shows and movies and stuff. Well, that changed, and I've become extremely interested in learning about archetypes and different narrative arcs and journeys and all this stuff. So I watch a good amount of these series and shows now. And it is fascinating to me that sometimes I'll play a game to see if I can find one scene in, let's say, a 40-minute or an hour-long show that doesn't feature alcohol. Literally, I'm talking about one shot on the screen. And I watch Viking shows. I watch comedy. I watch all sorts of genres. So this is absolutely fascinating to me. Like how much it is. I mean, could it be unintentional? Right. Like, could it just be an artifact of scenery design that there's like always an amber bottle of liquor, you know, on the counter or somebody is like always reaching for a glass? or is that a part of the programming, the normalizing? And I would say specifically for men, because it's usually the male characters who are in this kind of relationship to alcohol. And I talked to my eldest daughter about this, whose boyfriend, she's had a boyfriend for a couple of years, and he has decided that he's not interested in participating and partaking. And I think that's like the only thing that makes sense, right? Like if you're going to be as a woman, as a vulnerable, biologically vulnerable woman in relationship with a man, that man's clear sight, right? So I often use the word sober to mean almost poetically, you know, what's referred to in psychobiology as like neuroception, right? Like the ability to perceive with clarity and accuracy what's going on in your environment. I call those sober eyes, right? So you want your man to have sober eyes. Why? So that you don't have to be the one vigilantly surveying the environment for threats in your so-called masculine defenses. So that means, by extension, that a man even having one drink is problematic for the women and children around him or let's say in his care, right? So this would encompass partners, husbands, fathers. And how could it be that we're exposed to so much media and so much socialized programming in the form of our entertainment that says, well, yeah, men are drinking all the time. That's just how it is. They just drink all the time. And that that's supposed to somehow feel okay. You know, it's almost like I can see my daughter's instincts intact, that she would perceive that as undesirable. Right. Whereas in a lot of, you know, my generation and cultures that predominated prior, it's like, of course, we, you know, we party with men, men and women party together and men are sloppy, drunk and whatever. That's funny. It's fun. And that now there's almost like this reclamation of like a biological repulsion around that. And so I wonder, you know, in the men who are in your communities and in your world, are you seeing this like almost like a remembrance, a reclamation of like what it is to be like fully straight, fully in possession, like fully able to command the ship as a man? What I would say is that we have an even split of clients who come to us, men and women. So I'm not seeing a predominantly male problem as it relates to alcohol. But as it relates to the men, certainly their desires to come and do our stop drinking process and stop drinking is very much centered on relationships with children, being the best role model for their children, saving a marriage, trying to be the best husband or partner to a wife. And the men are really stepping up. Now, I recall stopping drinking in 2010, and I was a single man at the time. And in the first few months that I stopped drinking, I felt very awkward about dating and communicating to my date that I was no longer drinking because I thought, oh, they'll probably think I'm an alcoholic or that I'm sober. But as I increasingly got more comfortable with that and I was dating and I was meeting these lovely women, they were so impressed by the fact that I was alcohol free. And what I found was that that really separated me from many men who were of a similar age as I am. So the quality of women that I attracted into my life really did shift and go up. And I can tell you now the men who've come through and been successful in our program, they never say that they were physically combative or hostile, but they were definitely verbally hostile and combative with either their wife or with their children. But since they've removed the alcohol, they are now stepping into this higher version of themselves as a man and as a leader, as a leader of the family, as the oak tree in the family. And by oak tree, I mean a stable force, a provider, a protector. They're now embodying what a measured, calm, beautiful, strong man looks like for their children. And because of that, some men whose teenage children didn't even really want to talk to them have reconnected. Now they spend time with each other. In fact, I think the definition of success or one of them is that your adult children want to spend time with you. And certainly that has been the feedback that I've been receiving from a number of our male clients. And then on occasion, I get the gift of being able to speak to the wives or the partners of some of our male clients. And they will say words to the effect of, I got my husband back. I got the man I married back. thank you so much because the shift in him has been just monumental it saved our marriage he's now showing up he's now being the father that i always hoped that he would be and i'm like wow that's such a beautiful thing and candidly you know i don't think it's a male female thing i know that your question was definitely around asking around the the masculine versus the feminine but everything i just said around what i'm observing in our male clients i'm observing in a female our clients as well. So the women are coming and expressing fear that they're not being the best role model for their children. We had one woman who's a client of ours, her name is Sheila, and she has a 29-year-old daughter who didn't want to talk to her, in part because of her drinking, because she was confrontational. Sheila was confrontational with her daughter. She was trying to insert herself into her daughter's life, trying to tell her all the things that she was doing wrong. She came and stopped drinking. And her goal wasn't to stop drinking. Her goal was to heal that relationship with her adult daughter. And she recognized that drinking was compromising that or preventing her from doing that. So she came through. We rewired her mindset around alcohol. She's now been three years alcohol free. And just two weeks ago, she shared a photo in our community of her and her daughter standing on the steps of Sheila's church on a Sunday morning after her daughter had invited herself to come and visit her at church. And they were smiling and hugging. And she was sharing this photo and saying, oh, my God, I have my relationship with my adult daughter back. So they're the kind of transformations people make. And it's not just about stopping alcohol. It's not just about quitting alcohol. That's the mechanism that gets you to be with yourself, to have that relationship with yourself, which is what we referenced right in the beginning, right? It's being with yourself and being able to respond versus react. That's what gets you the gift. Absolutely. So if you have a parent or an aging loved one who is struggling with balance, joint stiffness, or simply getting around, you may have wondered what you can possibly do to support them. 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So again, it's Juvent.com forward slash Kelly Brogan. And the code is Kelly 300. And I'm sure that you have, you know, come across the phrase dry drunk, right? This notion that if you just remove the bad substance, that's sufficient. And if you enact the discipline to remain abstinent, then you have succeeded. And the relationships would tell a different story, right? So the relationship that remain in dysfunction and chaos and emotional immaturity, you know, basically reveal that the root cause hasn't been addressed and the mindset shift isn't complete. The transformation is has only begun, perhaps. So I wonder if we could talk about what you believe to be the essential ingredients in this more, what I'll describe as a holistic transformation that goes beyond just abstinence and that delivers these folks to a healthier relational reality, to a more fulfilling experience of their own bodies and a worldview that is expanded and empowered. You know, what do you see as being the vital ingredients and certainly what you frame out for folks in your program? There's a bundle of nerves in our brain called the reticular activating system, known as the RAS. And essentially what happens is that that which we most think about, we tend to see more evidence of or we attract. So for example, if you and I started talking about red cars, you and I might go out into society for the remainder of the day or this week, and we'd just suddenly start seeing red cars. Now, the red cars would always have been there, but it's just our reticular activating system is locked in on this idea of red cars, and now we're seeing more of it. So in our program and in our philosophy and in our process to help people live an alcohol-free lifestyle we get them focused on a vision a compelling vision for their life What they desire health wealth love happiness What kind of relationship do they want with their children What kind of body do they want to create How do they want to feel How does that look like? How does that feel? So we have them focus on that versus what they have been doing up until this point, which is focusing on what they don't want. I don't want the pain. I don't want any more suffering. I shouldn't drink. I've got to quit drinking. I have to quit alcohol. Well, when we're focusing on what not to do, the reticular activating system doesn't understand the negative command. It just hears alcohol quit, pain, suffering. So now you see more evidence of pain and suffering. Now you see alcohol. Now you tend to drink more alcohol. So one of the big fundamental pillars of what we do, which has been so monumentally successful in helping people rewire their mindset is we get them to focus on what they desire, an alcohol-free lifestyle, as opposed to what they don't desire, which is an alcohol-fueled lifestyle. When we do that, and practically one of the ways we help people do that is each morning we invite them to write down 20 things that they're grateful for. We call it the daily 20. And when you have to write 20 things down, you're really kind of thinking about it. You're, oh, what else can I write? So we're activating that reticular activating system. And now what happens is we complete 20 things that we're grateful for. And then the remainder of the day, what tends to happen is that the reticular activating system now locks in and it starts seeing more things to be grateful for. And what's the consequence of that or the result of that? We start just feeling more joyful. We start feeling karma. We start feeling more peace. Most importantly, we don't feel as much craving for any kind of substance, including alcohol or being a workaholic or shopaholic or whatever it is. So we're very much empowering people in our organization, Alcohol-Free Lifestyle, as opposed to what I would submit AA does, which is I'm powerless over this disease. that's why in part it has a 7% success rate or a 93% failure rate if you judge success over long-term power over alcohol whereas over here we're powerful back over here in AA we're powerless over here we're choosing a compelling vision and that compelling vision drives us towards what we will do the reticular activating system understands that it goes okay I see that target No worries. I'll just walk in this direction and give you great health, good nutrition, exercise, conscious communication, a personal development program, being more measured, responding versus reacting. That is the process. That is fundamentally the process of what we do at Alcohol-Free Lifestyle. I'll tell you, it sounds so simple and it is. The University of Washington conducted a scientific study on this process, this 90-day stop drinking process, it resulted in a 98% reduction in drinking amongst those study participants. Now, that's groundbreaking. That is phenomenal, a 98% reduction in drinking by just focusing on what you will do and having a compelling vision as opposed to, I've got to be sober, I have to quit drinking. Yeah. And I would argue it's the resolution of the taboo, because in that fight, in that rejection is a very, I call it the erotic caress of the enemy. It's a very intimate relationship that you're still in, you know, you're still very much in. And that's where, you know, we can see these folks who are technically sober, who are technically not drinking, but something feels very familiar, right, in terms of the way they were conducting themselves. And it sounds like in this shift of focus that you're describing, there's also a fundamental shift in identity, right? So you become not only somebody who's defined by what you're not doing, but you become somebody who is founded, let's say, on very different values, right? So the priorities and values that inform your daily experience of yourself, your self-concept shift. And that is, yeah, that is a, I would call a reclamation of self that can expand whole horizons. It's amazing. And I love outcomes data. So that's extraordinary to hear about that 98%, you know, because this is pretty measurable. It's like, you know, what's going on after, you know, two weeks, three months, years, like, Like, are you, have you relapsed, slid back all of that pathologizing language? Or is your life full of so many other things that your former life struggles have been rendered, you know, obsolete? And it's so exciting and inspiring. And before we point people in the direction of your resources, I wonder if you have a comment on like what you think is happening on a collective level. What you think is happening in the world right now? Why do you think that you're in a position to have this successful offering program book and to even be refreshing the conversation that is at least 90 years old on the role of spirits, let's say, in our life and lifestyle? What do you think is actually happening right now? Well, there's a tighter wave of change that's taking place. And what was cultural conditioning, that alcohol is just normalized and glamorized, is shifting. Generation Z are drinking less than any prior generation. There was a study from 2020 that found that the portion of college-age Americans who are completely alcohol-free has risen from 20% to 28% in just a decade. During the pandemic lockdown, Generation Z Australians were most likely to have decreased their alcohol consumption with 44% reporting they were drinking less, which is more than double the rate for any other generation. So the younger generation coming through are definitely now more educated and health conscious. In fact, just anecdotally, in my native country of Australia, they now have these sunrise raves where people all get up early and they go to the beach or they go to a park and they have a DJ and it's drug free, alcohol free. And then people go for a swim afterwards or they go for a run. So even young people who are now mating, who have kind of mating strategies, previously they would have gone out on a date or they would have gone to a dance or a nightclub or dinner or something. Now they're meeting in the mornings and exercising and moving their bodies. in Ireland in May 2023, Ireland signed a law requiring cancer warnings and calorie counts on all alcoholic beverages. That's being rolled out. Now, the US is behind certainly, but in January of 2025, the US Surgeon General came out and also recommended putting cancer warnings on alcoholic drinks. So there is a shift that is happening. I would submit that Hollywood TV series that keep getting rolled out are still very lazy in the sense that they keep writing alcohol into storylines. As you reference, you see it on television shows all the time. People are always drinking, glamorizing alcohol. I think that's going to be phased out. I'm pretty sure, well, let me rephrase that. My hypothesis is that in 20 to 30 years, we will look back on alcohol with the same level of disdain we currently do cigarettes. We now look back to the 1950s and 60s. We see these television ads with doctors in white lab coats smoking a cigarette and saying, you know, camel cigarettes, the cigarette trusted by most doctors. And we laugh at that. We go, that's crazy. What were we thinking? That's what's going to happen with alcohol. I don't think history is going to be kind to these Hollywood celebrities, including Dwayne the Rock Johnson, George Clooney, Ryan Reynolds, who all have liquor brands, Matthew McConaughey also. I'm sure they're well-intentioned right now, but the bottom line is they are still peddling poison because alcohol is nothing but attractively packaged poison and they are peddling it. Now, I know that they probably don't think that it's that bad and they do a lot of great things in society. I know those celebrities I referenced have raised money for charities and they do a lot of good stuff and they're inspiring people. Nevertheless, they're still peddling poison and it's disrupting society. And so there is a shift that is taking place. It's going to take longer than probably most people think because it's so ingrained in society and it's happening. It is happening. And that is reflective in the number of people who come to our 90-Day Stop Drinking program, the number of people who've read my book, the number of people who send me messages on my Instagram account asking about how to reduce or cut back. It's no longer this like, oh, you must be an alcoholic. She must be an alcoholic because she's not drinking. Now it's like, I'm proud to be alcohol free. Let's meet up for a morning hike as opposed to let's meet for Sunday cocktails. So that shift is definitely happening. So you inspired one more question because I am a believer. I call it the maturation of boundaries, but I'm a believer in like a fierce and firm no when you're resolving addictive patterns, again, whatever they may be, that can soften over time. And you mentioned reduce. I wonder what your take on, right? So if somebody is coming to your work and your resources and they say, well, I'm not interested in an alcohol-free lifestyle at the moment, but I am interested in how I could reduce, right? So I would be of the biased perspective that says, well, come back when you're ready, right? But I wonder, is that something that you cater to? Like this notion that there's like a harm reduction model of consumption or is it a little more all or nothing initially? Well, let me answer that two ways. Reduction is always going to be better than no reduction. So yes, if you would like to reduce and try moderation, I'm all for it. Go for it. However, I would also challenge that person. Why are you trying to hang on to drinking any amount of attractively packaged poison in the first place? Why are you bowing down at the altar of alcohol and worshipping it and thinking that it's still worthy of a special occasion? Because I hear this all the time. I'll just drink on special occasions as if drinking poison is worthy of being deemed a special occasion. The special occasion is every day of your life that you choose to be alcohol-free and love it. It's every day you choose to sleep the way nature intended you to sleep, and you wake up in the morning feeling clear and refreshed, and you have great relationships with your children, and you're connected to your husband or your wife, and you feel good, and you're being generous, and you're responding versus reacting. That's the special occasion, and you get to choose that every single day. Whereas when you drink alcohol, no amount of alcohol is good for you. It's been shown repeatedly to cause health problems. And even when people push back and go, oh, come on, just light up, dude. Like, just relax. Just have a drink. Like, just enjoy. But the point is, is that the drinking of the alcohol as a society, we are relating to a special occasion and the joy of life. But I'm saying the joy of life and the special occasion is every other moment other than drinking poison. It's just the conditioning we have is that, oh, wow, wow, I get to have a glass of wine. Oh, I get to have a scotch. Just take away the poison and enjoy your life without it. Then every day becomes a special occasion. So when people say, oh, should I reduce? Should I do moderation? Should I quit entirely? Listen, the utopia is you quit entirely and you start seeing an alcohol-free life as the preferable lifestyle. But if you're not going to do that and you're wanting to dip your toe in the water, then absolutely reduce. Go for it. Reduce. Start with moderation. But I'll tell you this. Many of our clients tell us that moderation is a myth because it's a very slippery slope from just having, I'll just drink on the weekends. All of a sudden now it's like, oh, it's Thursday night. I'll just have a drink. Oh, you know what? It's my birthday. It's Tuesday night. Let me have a drink. and then all of a sudden that special occasion drink becomes a gateway drink to drinking the way that inspires you to try to reduce in the first place. Yeah. Yeah. So James, how can those who are listening, who are inspired to explore this lifestyle and this shift be supported through your work and resources? Thank you. I have a book that's called Clear. You can find it on Amazon. There's also an audio version. You can also go to alcoholfreelifestyle.com slash clear. In addition to that, you can find most of what we do, programs and free resources and coaching over at alcoholfreelifestyle.com. And then I'm quite active on my Instagram account where I put out a lot of videos and tips on how to reduce or stop drinking alcohol. And that's just my name at James Swanick on Instagram. Amazing. Well, I'm so grateful that you're supporting this zeitgeist that I've had. the pleasure of witnessing. And I am very, very excited to see where we are all going in terms of our consciousness and experience of personal responsibility and embodiment and the role that shifting away from these habits of disempowerment will play. So thank you so much, James. It's been amazing to explore this topic with you. Thank you very much, Kelly. I appreciate you having me. I feel the light.