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- [00:04]
A
Welcome to the youe Are Not Broken podcast.
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B
I'm your host, Dr. Kelly Casperson, a
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A
board certified urologist, thought leader and conversation
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starter on midlife living, hormones and sexuality. Enjoy the show.
- [00:18]
A
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the youe're Not Broken podcast. I have an amazing guest today, James Swanik, and we are going to talk about alcohol. Thank God. We need to talk about this. Welcome to the podcast.
- [00:28]
C
Thank you, Kelly. Great to be here.
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A
So I just saw on your Instagram that you have not had been drinking for 15 years.
- [00:34]
C
Correct. Alcohol free for 15 years. And I do say alcohol free, not sober. And we can talk about that. I just think that the word sober sobriety, recovery, 12 steps clean, all this kind of stuff is lamenting the past. And there's a lot of neuroscience now that shows that when we tell ourselves what not to do, the mind doesn't understand that it ends up doing the very thing we're telling it not to do. So instead, I like something that feels empowering and a choice. So I choose an alcohol free lifestyle. I choose a style of life as opposed to saying no to alcohol. Being sober. Sobriety. The terms sober and sobriety, I think have a lot of negative connotation and it prevents people who might be gray area drinkers from ever stopping because they may mistakenly believe that if they stop then people will think that they have a drinking problem or that they're an alcoholic or that they need to be sober. Whereas what I am fostering is, guys, let's choose a beautiful alcohol free lifestyle because we want clarity, focus, energy, great sleep, great conscious communication with our husbands and wives and our children. And let's just love life. Not consuming this attractively packaged poison that we call alcohol.
- [01:45]
A
Yeah. Which is legal on every street corner. Depending upon when you started drinking, you were alcohol free for like 18 years. Right. And like, as far as like, we actually had to start consuming it. And we spent our whole developing years not drinking the damn stuff.
- [02:02]
C
Yeah. And cultural conditioning has us normalize this poison. And make no mistake, it's attractively packaged poison. That's all it is. It's a bunch of toxins that we put in a very attractive bottle. And we associate it with good times and fun because everyone's smiling as they consume it. But make no mistake, it's po and it's compromising our life. And this conditioning started when we were little boys and girls. Kelly, you may have had parents or adult figures in your life who said, oh, no, no, little Kelly, you can't drink. You can drink when you're Older and in that moment, that adult figure implanted in our child minds. Ah, so drinking alcohol is something that adults do. That's something that I get to do when I'm older. That's like a rite of passage. Understood. And then of course we start drinking in our teens and then we've got friends who are smil and getting drunk and celebrating the fact that we're getting drunk. And then we get in the workplace and of course people are smiling as they say, hey, let's go for some after work drinks. And then we go to a party and the host is trying to be very nice and they're saying, can I get you a drink? Can I get you a drink? And hey, let's catch up for drinks. And we're all smiling. So it's no wonder that we associate drinking with fun and pleasure and not drinking with pain and deprivation. But I am here to try and de hypnotize you regarding alcohol and its place in your life.
- [03:20]
A
I love that. So I'm a physician in the medical training. Nowhere in the medical training do they say and don't drink alcohol. It's always in moderation, always. And you know, in my reading it's the alcohol companies that have kind of branded the in moderation to brand it that that's okay. But I'm like, in the physician world you don't need to stop unless you have a problem. And you know, it's the cage criteria, which is like drinking in the morning for an eye opener. It's a high thing to say, you have a problem and it's a whole different way to think about it. The way you're thinking about it and especially the more and more data that's coming out because people will be like, yeah, but is a little bit okay? Is a little bit okay. I think that's really where the conversation is now of like, is a little bit okay? And how would you deal with that?
- [04:07]
C
There was a study that came out in 2022 of 35,000 middle aged adults. And what the study showed was that even one seemingly innocent drink per day, just seemingly seven standard drinks per week, was enough to cause some level of brain degeneration. More specifically the destruction of gray and white matter in our brains. Now that should be a frightening prospect for anyone. Now anecdotally, the way that that one drink per night shows up is compromised sleep because we're actually better off drinking alcohol for breakfast than we are anywhere close to bedtime. Because at least then the body's got 16 hours to get rid of the toxins out of the body, which would then enable you to sleep the way nature intended you to sleep. However, most people are drinking at nighttime, close to bedtime, and they're essentially clocking the body in for an entire night's work. Because, make no mistake, when we drink these toxins, the body now has to go to work to get rid of the toxins. And at nighttime, when we're sleeping, we don't want the body working. We want the body resting. And how that shows up is we wake up in the morning just a little bit irritable, just a little bit tired, and we just snap at our husband or our wife or the kids get on our nerves. And so we're not as present with them, and we snap at them, or we're a little bit tired, so we're late for work, or we don't make that additional call, or we're not as effective in our career, or we're not as present, we're not as pleasant to be around. We get frustrated when we're in a line in the grocery store because the person in front of us is taking too long. Too long to put through their groceries. We get annoyed at the person who cuts us off in traffic. Like, we. We just got this heightened sense of stress and anxiety and frustration because we have that seemingly innocent drink the night before. And pretty soon, we start drinking alcohol to relieve ourselves of the very symptoms that drinking alcohol is creating.
- [06:01]
A
Yeah. In America, the stats are 25% of midlife women are on an antidepressant. And that's not even counting the people who have anxiety. And so it's like, why we aren't talking about. If you struggle with anxiety and depression or any other mood issue, do not bring this drug onto the brain. You're just wounding it even more, let alone the amount of people we're gonna help just by getting this drug off of our systems.
- [06:27]
C
And I love the way that you refer to alcohol as a drug, because most people say drugs and alcohol.
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A
Yes.
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C
It's just so ridiculous when I hear people say that, because alcohol is a drug. In fact, there are studies that have come out going back 2012, 2020, and then as recently as 2022 that showed that alcohol is either second, third, or fourth in terms of the most damaging drug to society, behind heroin and sometimes crack cocaine and meth. Now, sometimes they're interchangeable, depending on which study is coming out. There was a study in 2012 out of Scotland. It was corroborated by a study out of the UK in 2020 and then a recent study, 2022, which showed that alcohol occupies either the top, second, third, or fourth place in the most damaging drug to society as a whole. And it also interchanges between position one and four as being the most dangerous to a person individually. And yet we're walking around going, drugs and alcohol. No, no, no, no. It's drugs, including alcohol.
- [07:30]
A
Yeah. And we sell like, I've seen bottles of wine that say, like, 10% of this goes to breast cancer research. And I'm like, dude, it's associated with breast cancer.
- [07:42]
C
Yes. There is no amount of alcohol that is good for you. Alcohol has been linked to several cancers, including breast cancer. It messes with your sleep. It fires off the dopamine receptors in your brain when you consume it. And then over time, because of that regularity of consumption, the dopamine receptors become dulled. And now you need to drink more of this same substance to get the same effect from the dopamine receptors. It causes leaky gut acid reflux. I have hundreds of men and women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, mostly who are high achievers, entrepreneurs, CEOs, executives, retirees, and the women who start on our flagship 90 day stop drinking program, which the University of Washington actually studied. And I'll come back to that later, but because I know you're based in Washington. Most of the women who come to us say that they're not present with their children. Their marriage or relationship is strained in part because of their drinking or the irritation from their drinking and their frustration. They're carrying about 20 pounds of unwanted body weight. They've lost confidence. They've got crow's feet and weathered skin, which is a result of drinking toxins. Because our body's largest organ is our skin. I always say to women, if you want the greatest beauty regimen in the world, just stop drinking alcohol.
- [09:02]
A
It's crazy how faces change.
- [09:04]
C
Oh, yeah. And also, one really important thing to note, Kelly, is that you don't need to be rock bottom. Waking up in a ditch, getting a dui, getting arrested. For you to have alcohol be severely compromising your quality of life. I always say that drinking alcohol, even modestly, or let's call it socially, acceptably, is like death by a thousand cuts. You may not notice it, but during the week or over weeks or even, maybe even months, but geez, you notice it over years and decades, and then suddenly you find yourself in your 40s, 50s, and 60s. You're a middle aged woman, you're a middle aged man, and you got 25 pounds of unwanted body weight, you're tired, irritable, you're not sleeping great, you're not as present with your kids, whether they're young kids or adult kids. Maybe you've already had a divorce. You're irritable, stressed, you're envious of other people. You start waking up in the morning going, I thought I'd be further along in life than. And if you just removed that poison, it's amazing, the cascade of other healthy habits that open up and your experience of life just becomes beautiful and you
- [10:12]
A
save a bunch of money and it's cheaper to not drink.
- [10:14]
C
Well, let me say this. I'm not so much interested in how much you spend on drinking or what you would save from not drinking. What I'm most interested in is how much money do you not generate because of the consequences of your drinking. Now let's just use a hypothesis here. Actually, I'll use an example. There was a client we had, her name is Dolce Guman and she won't mind me referencing her name because she's done testimonials and case studies for our 90 day stop drinking program. Previously. She's an attorney in California and she is a married mother of two, two young children. One of them was four, I think one of them was seven at the time. They might be five and eight years old. Now. She was drinking a bottle of wine a day. She was stressed, she was anxious, she was going to sleep to try to help us to get to sleep. And then she was waking up between 3 and 4am most mornings, stressed, anxious, in a panic, unable to get back to sleep. That culminated in her generating incredible amount of marital strain and not being present with her kids. Now she came to us, she joined our project 90 stop drinking process with a bunch of other high achievers like physicians and attorneys and realtors and investors and executives and CEOs. And she stopped drinking. Now in the 90 days that she stops drinking with us in our process, she generated 800 new clients. 800 new clients. 800. Not 80 or 8, but 800. She did this huge mammoth deal and she credits the alcohol free lifestyle as in the clarity, the focus and the good night's sleep. She started sleeping through until 6:30 straight, not waking up in the morning. She credits the that to enabling her to go out there in her business, in her law practice and go, I got this, I'm going to generate this, I'm going to do this, I'm going to show up here. Now that I could just say anecdotally, she came to our Annual event in Sedona, Arizona last year. She was tipping the bartenders $100 at a time. I'm like, that woman's got some money. So again, just coming back to this, you may only spend a few thousand dollars, five thousand, ten thousand dollars in purchasing alcohol, but think about the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars that you are leaving on the table that you're not generating because you're tired, lethargic, dragging your ass, procrastinating in your business or in your career.
- [12:41]
A
Yeah, when I started, I'm like three and a half years now, alcohol free. When I started, like reading the books and just kind of immersing myself in the culture of it, you start looking at the high performing people in this world, they don't drink. By and large, the very successful people don't drink. And you're like, okay, they're not going around talking about it, but you start paying attention. They don't have time for the bullshit of alcohol.
- [13:08]
C
Being alcohol free is an unfair advantage if you're living life feeling like a 6 out of 10 in your health, 6 out of 10 in your wealth, 6 out of 10 in your love life, relationships, 6 out of 10 in your happiness. And then you consistently go alcohol free. And suddenly you've got clarity, focused, energy, a good night's sleep, you're more present. You just have a better experience of life. You start living a life of appreciation instead of expectation. Now you feel like you're at an eight or a nine out of 10. The difference between feeling like a six out of 10 and an eight or a nine out of ten each day, compounded over days and weeks and months financially, can literally mean hundreds of thousands of dollars with your relationship with your children. It can mean the difference between having a beautiful, present, connected relationship with your children, whatever the age, whether they're young toddlers, teens, or adults. It can mean the difference between you experiencing life as a gift versus experiencing life as hard, tough a slogan. So I would invite anyone to really step into this idea that stopping drinking is the gift. That's the reward, that's the pleasure. That's where all the fun and the joy comes. But we're mistakenly walking around believing and behaving in a manner where not drinking is the pain and the prison and deprivation and drinking is the fun and the pleasure and the reward.
- [14:34]
A
Yeah, it's like the bonus points at the end of a rough life. This makes sense with the whole dopamine thing. When I became alcohol free, I was like, music sounds better to me. Like, there was more to music, and now it makes sense, understanding. Like, you're resetting your dopamine. Right. So, like, I'm getting so much more of a reward from listening to music than I did years past.
- [14:58]
C
Yeah. You're more present, and you're able to take more of that presence in, and things just start to seem a little sweeter. On the flip side, when we're drinking alcohol, we're numbing ourself.
- [15:10]
D
Right.
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C
We're procrastinating. We're kind of like zombies. And again, this is not just for, you know, maybe your listeners are going, oh, this isn't for me. I'm not an alcoholic. My drinking is not that big a deal. I only drink one or two drinks a night. I'm inviting you to ponder the effects of those one or two drinks a night.
- [15:28]
A
Yeah, totally. So back up 15 years, because, like, the great benefit of now and me doing this, and everybody is like, it's trendy. Congratulations, James. You've made this trendy. Like, now is the zeitgeist. But 15 years ago, what was your story? When was your enough and when did it finally click? Like, I actually want to create a career helping other people doing this.
- [15:50]
C
I grew up in Australia. I was a socially acceptable drinker in that I would have two, sometimes three drinks a night most nights of the week. I would drink heavier on weekends, and I didn't think that was a big deal. I mean, society was rewarding me for that. You know, sometimes I might get drunk and have a good time, and people would laugh and go, ha ha ha. And I thought, cool. But most nights of the week, I was drinking half a bottle, a bottle of wine, couple beers of vodka, something like that. And I got to age 3518 years later after I made my drinking debut at age 16 or so. And I was like, this has caught up with me. I was in Austin, Texas. I was at that year's south by Southwest Festival 2010. I went out to an industry party. I had two Bombay Sapphire gin and tonics. Went back to my hotel 20 minutes outside of Austin, went to sleep, and when I woke up in the morning, I could taste the gin in my mouth. I looked in the mirror. I was tired, I was weathered. I had fat rol. I was 25 pounds overweight, and I just felt blah and blah. Is that five or six out of ten? There's this great book by Napoleon Hill called Outwitting the Devil, and he talks about the drift, the drift of life. We get stuck in this mediocrity and we just slowly drift into this nothingness. That's how I felt. I went next door to the hotel, to an ihop, which is an International House of Pancakes and American fast food chain. I ordered all you can eat pancakes. And then it dawned on me. What the hell am I doing in an ihop? I looked out the window. It was a very overcast morning. There was a freeway strategically kind of placed outside of the window. And I just thought to myself, enough, James. You gotta make a change. And so in that moment, I committed to attempting to stop drinking alcohol for just 30 days. That was my first goal. And you know what I did? I dropped 13 pounds. I slept better, my skin improved. I joined a gym. I auditioned to become a sports center anchor on espn. And to my utter bewilderment, they gave me the job. And I credit the clarity and focus and strategic thinking from being alcohol free for helping me get that job. And I thought, well, this is pretty good. I'll just keep going and going and going. And then I got to the next year's south by Southwest festival and I walked into the Luster Pearl bar on downtown Rainy street to order what I thought would be a one year celebratory beer. To celebrate my one year alcohol free. I ordered a Budweiser. I went to put it to my mouth, and at the very last moment I put it down and I thought, well, hang on a second, let's think about this. In one year, I've got my dream job, dream career, the body that nature intended me to have. I've attracted this romantic relationship. I'm sleeping well, I look good, I feel good. I raised money for that charity. I ran a half marathon. This is pretty good. And I called the bartender over and I said, I've changed my mind, I'm not going to have it. I tipped him and I walked out. And I haven't so much as picked up a drink since. That was 15 years ago, or rather that one year anniversary was 14 years ago. But I haven't drunk since 2010. And then five years later, in 2015, I just had so many people asking me, how do you have a good time without drinking? That I thought, let me create a little program around this. I started a little program called 30 Day no Alcohol Challenge Program that's now grown over the last decade to be this organization called Alcohol Free Lifestyle. And now we help mostly high achievers. The folks I described before, women, men, mostly middle aged, 40s, 50s, 60s, who are not alcoholics, who aren't waking up in a ditch, but who Know that their drinking is holding them back and they're stuck on this stop start vicious cycle. They stop for a while, they start again. They stop for a while, they start again. I help them to finally get off that stop start cycle, choose an alcohol free lifestyle and just explode their life in so many positive ways.
- [19:37]
A
It's so badass. I mean, so many people, they might need to figure out new friends or figure out how to talk to the friends if they're being pressured or figure out like, how do I be at a party? What do I do with an urge? It's so great that they can have a place to go that's giving them tools.
- [19:54]
C
Yes, I write about tools in which women and men can use to handle social situations. In my book it's called Clear. And there's a whole chapter there which outlines what to say when someone's inviting you to have a drink, what to say if someone's pressuring you to have a drink, what happens when you get interrogated, if you get interrogated at all by your social circle. How to be, how to respond, how to behave, what to say. There's a whole chapter of that in the book Clear, which is a neuroscience based approach to help high achievers finally break free from alcohol without aa, rehab or willpower. But a lot of times what I say in that chapter of the book is, is it doesn't matter what you say in describing why you're alcohol free. It more matters how you say it. And the how is just being lighthearted and confident. Yeah, I've been alcohol free now for like 60 days. It's been interesting. I've actually lost like seven or eight pounds. I'm sleeping better, my husband's really happy because I've, you know, I'm looking good and I've got some more energy going on. I'm feeling better, I'm feeling like I'm more present with my kids. I'm actually really enjoying it. So yeah, I'll just have soda water, ice and a piece of lime, thanks. And if you say it like that, with this confidence, with lightheartedness, you can even make a joke at your own expense if you're like, oh, look out, I'm going to get drunk on this soda water tonight. Ha ha ha. Then people can just relax and nobody really cares if you drink.
- [21:18]
A
That's the big secret. Nobody cares at all, dude.
- [21:23]
B
James.
- [21:24]
A
So I had a new experience in Sydney when I was just there. We were at the Sydney Cafe overlooking the bridge. Fantastic restaurant. Everybody's Australians are drinkers. Everybody's drinking. And the waiter comes up to me and he's like, do you want. You want some wine? And I'm like, oh, no, thanks. I'll have. I'll just have some more of the sparkling water. And he got. He heckled me to two things. Number one, the drinking culture, the pressure to drink in Australia. And number two, you guys don't tip for service where in America, like, it's tips. So, like, you would never get heckled by a server. I've never been heckled by a server, but I was like, the dude gave me a hard time for not drinking in Sydney. That was a first.
- [22:03]
C
I'm sorry that my compatriot gave you a hard time, Kelly, but I would submit that's very lazy behavior from that person. And unfortunately, that tends to be the norm in society, that we mock people for being alcohol free, and we celebrate those who are choosing to drink alcohol. You know, alcohol is the only drug where we have to justify not consuming it. Let that sink in. That's ridiculous. And so that waiter or waitress, whoever he or she was, that was very lazy of them, and that was boring of them, I would submit. And I'm sorry you had to endure that, but also the fact that you received it, a great way to respond to that. I'm not sure how you did respond, but I just go, ha, that's funny. Yeah, I'm gonna get drunk on the soda water that I order. Ha ha ha.
- [22:47]
A
I was mostly just shocked because I was like. I was like, this is a first. And I'm pretty solid in why I'm doing what I'm doing now. Like, heaven forbid. That was somebody who was just starting and just learning, right? But I'm like, dude, I don't care what your opinion is of me at this point, but I was actually like, you know what? Just not for tonight. I just said, just not today. He was fine with that and moved on.
- [23:09]
C
You know that waiter. You know, waiters and waitresses are smiling assassins. They're smiling at you as they offer you their attractively packaged poison. When they come up to you and they say, oh, hello there, Kelly. I'll be your waiter or waitress for the evening. When they say, oh, can I get you a glass of wine? Can I get you a cocktail to start with? What they're essentially saying is, oh, can I get you a bad night's sleep? Can I get you 10 pounds of unwanted body fat? Hey, can I get you some? A glass of shame and regret? That's essentially what they're offering us. And they're doing it with a smile on their face. And also our friends and family and colleagues, they're all smiling as they're talking about alcohol, consuming alcohol, offering us alcohol. And of course, there's this connotation again that drinking equals good times. The most ridiculous thing I've seen, Kelly, is when there's a group of people out and they're about to get together for a photo and someone says, let's get a photo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they all get together and then someone says, oh, hang on a second, let me just get my drink.
- [24:04]
A
Yes, let me grab my drink.
- [24:07]
C
Yeah. As if it's this prop. As if the viewer of this photograph, in seeing you hold this glass of attractively packaged poison, is therefore going to think, ah, the good life. Ah, wow. That is absolutely the good life. Standing here at a. At this sunset on this beach with these people holding a glass of attractively packaged poison. Yes, yes, yes. It's just ridiculous. And we all do it. I've been guilty of it. I did it in the past. Because there's this association that alcohol equals the good life. Elegance, sophistication, adventure, fun, bs.
- [24:45]
A
Well, in understanding. This is why I love that you bring neuroscience into it. But understanding what the brain is willing to do to keep the dopamine party going and how the brain is willing to trick you and be like, the thing I've heard, I just really like it, James. I just really like it. And I'm like, yeah, the brain wants to keep the dopamine going. So that's a common one, is I just like it. The reward of it, it's just a reward, just tastes good. It's like the brain wants to keep the party going. Even though it's harmful for the brain.
- [25:18]
C
It creates a temporary and illusionary feeling of relaxation. But in actual fact, what it's doing is that it is pouring gas on a fire that's already started burning of stress and anxiety. And so we mistakenly believe that this thing is giving us pleasure. And of course we think that and believe that because the dopamine receptors are going off and it gives us this temporary illusionary feeling of like, ah. But the effects of that, the effects of that now creates the cravings for more. So that shows up the next day with, like, irritability and stress and bit of anxiety. And now we associate drinking the alcohol to try and relieve that, which then creates more of the stress and anxiety, which now increases our longing and our craving for it. And then these ridiculous arguments. I would submit, in this situation and this Example of. I just like it. I just like it. Did you like it the first time you ever took a sip of alcohol? I mean, I remember when my dad gave me a sip of brandy back in the day, and I was like, oh, that tastes disgusting. Did you like it the first time you tasted it? No. But you learned to like it because all of these smiling assassins everywhere are smiling. And then you started drinking it, and then you associated it with pleasure. I'll tell you one thing, like, seeking pleasure in life long term and all the time is a road to a very destructive life. I would submit, I suggest that the alternative is that we want a fulfilled life. We want to feel fulfilled. And fulfillment comes from doing good things, feeling great, making good choices over many weeks, months, years and decades. But pleasure, if we're always seeking this pleasure, we get these high highs, but then we get these very low lows. And I submit, why don't we aim for a life of fulfillment, not of these, like, heartbeats of pleasure and then pain and pleasure and pain and pleasure and pain. How about we just go a steady, beautiful, compounding interest of fulfillment?
- [27:23]
A
Yeah, 100%. I mean, to me, I'm like, what do women fear the most? Alzheimer's, dementia? Breast cancer? Right. And it's like, you're on your path to both of those with alcohol. What do men fear the most? I might be wrong. You can judge me. But erectile dysfunction and, like, there's a study, there's a study done in China where they took some moderate to heavy drinkers, had them stop for like a month. The gross majority of their erections got better. And I'm like, if that shouldn't be on the warning label, like, that might help.
- [27:56]
D
Yes.
- [27:57]
C
And just a warning. Stopping drinking alcohol does make you better looking.
- [28:01]
D
Right?
- [28:01]
A
If you needed some bonus.
- [28:02]
C
I mean, it's true. I see all these ridiculous Hollywood celebrities promoting, you know, Neutrogena moisturizers and all this kind of stuff. And I'm like, ladies, just stop drinking.
- [28:12]
A
And what about the celebrities promoting Tequila? Not to name names, but there's big money in that.
- [28:19]
C
I'll name them for you if you like. I'm happy to. So look, there's three male celebrities. Dwayne the Rock Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, George Clooney. All of them have liquor brands. George Clooney actually sold his Tequila brand for a billion dollars. Ryan Reynolds. You know, I like Ryan Reynolds. He seems funny and cool, and he's very fit and healthy. And he looks like he's done a lot for charity. Same with Dwayne. The Rock Johnson. The hypocrisy, though, is too much for me to reconcile because these guys in many ways are fantastic men because they're fit, they're healthy, they've done good things in the universe, they're charitable, but simultaneously, they're peddling poison. Make no mistake, they're peddling poison. And they're probably convincing themselves that it's okay because it's not their responsibility how much of this poison the consumer consumes.
- [29:06]
A
And on the bottle it says, enjoy responsibly, which is branding created by the liquor industry.
- [29:12]
C
Yes. So it's hypocrisy at the highest level, I must say. I will also say this. There's a professor Tim Stockwell out of the University of Victoria in Canada, and two years ago he published a study of 100 previously published studies about alcohol and the claim specifically that a glass of wine a day was good for your heart health. And Professor Tim Stockwell researched these 107 studies claiming glass of wine was good for you. And then it involved 5 million participants, by the way, over three decades. Okay, so it wasn't just like one snapshot in time. It was like claims over 30 years that alcohol was good for the heart. His findings found that each and every One of those 107 studies, the claims were either biased or skewed. His words, not mine. Now, when you dig a little deeper and you find out who was funding those studies, in almost every case, it was either big liquor, big alcohol directly, or an association with ties to big alcohol. Now that should be frightening for everyone as well. So no, a glass of wine a day is not good for your heart health. That has been debunked so many times now over the years. And I would just also invite your listener to stop worshiping at the altar of alcohol. Stop trying to find ways to cling onto it.
- [30:41]
A
Yeah, yeah, right. It might cause breast cancer, but isn't it good for my heart? It may cause dementia, but isn't it good for my heart? It's insane. You probably saw at the end of 2024 the surgeon world of America before he lost his job, because now we have a new administration, said, hey, here's my write up. I think we should change the labeling on alcohol in America. I don't think it's going to go anywhere because that was like right before he left his job. Where do you think that's going to go? Health Canada changed in 2024 and said there's no safe amount. Do you think America will get a better warning label?
- [31:16]
C
Ireland was the first country to actually start to put warning labels on alcohol. So that's being rolled out as we speak. Canada as well. I know we're in the process of that. I thought it was astounding that the American Surgeon General announced that in January of 2025. And I applauded that. I think that in 20 to 30 years as a society, we're going to look back on alcohol with the same level of disdain we currently do. Cigarettes. Now, I don't think it's going to happen sooner because it's like a big, big, big ocean liner that takes a long time to kind of move direction. It's like a very slow moving ship. Having said that, that there is a tidal wave happening in society right now where people are waking up to the consequences of alcohol and are now choosing alcohol free alternatives. I don't know how long it will take, but it might take three to five years, seven years for warning labels to get onto liquor and bottles of liquor in the US but it's going to happen. It is going to happen. It's happening now. There'll be delays, there'll be pushback, there'll be all these kind of things. But the tidal wave of change is too big. Like the damn wall has been broken. This is happening as a society. We're turning our back on alcohol like never before. I just add one thing as well. This whole mummy culture. Wine o'. Clock. You do not need wine to be in a beautiful community of other mothers. You don't need wine to connect and to bond. You just get to connect and bond with the other mummies. This whole like, oh, wine o'.
- [32:51]
D
Clock.
- [32:52]
C
Having a little laugh and a smile. Ladies, one drink a day is enough to compromise your sleep, which is enough to cause irritability, frustration, not present with your children. One drink a day is enough to cause some level of brain degeneration. One drink a day is enough to increase the likelihood of you experiencing breast cancer and a whole set of other breast cancers. One drink a day is enough for you to lose a little bit of self confidence. One drink a day is enough for you to feel unhappy about your life. One drink a day is enough for you to have a dire effect on your children. I mean, I don't know of any other modality on earth that is more powerful than helping someone get off drugs, including alcohol. Because the children, our children are watching us. They're watching our drinking patterns, they're watching how we are. And then they grow up and then they mirror those patterns. And if you are experiencing challenging Times with your drinking habits and your kids, whether they're young kids or adult kids, are observing that they're just going to mirror mummy's behavior later on in life. So you have an opportunity here to change that and create generational impact in your family.
- [34:04]
A
And I think, I mean especially to women is like, the role of alcohol in dangerous sexual encounters in college is highly correlated. It's like 70 or 80% of at risk sexual events are alcohols on board. Like 75% of domestic abuse issues are when alcohol's on board. Alcohol is dangerous to relationships. It makes people vulnerable, it makes people aggressive. And I'm like, just for the so and it's like, yeah, yeah, we're not in college anymore and most of us aren't in domestic violence situations. But just understanding like this drug is nasty to society, it's nasty to relationships.
- [34:43]
C
And the point I really want to impress upon folks is that again, you don't need to be an alcoholic for it to be causing generational dire consequences. You don't need to be waking up in a ditch, you don't need to be getting a dui. You don't need to hit the proverbial rock bottom. Like I said, it could be death by a thousand cuts. It's enough to cause just enough marital strain for your quality of life to go downhill very quickly. It's enough just to cause enough disconnect between you and your kids. It's enough just to cause a little bit of procrastination in your career and your business and all of that cumulatively, like compound interest can go south very quickly.
- [35:26]
A
Well, the energy that you have so you can work out in the next morning, right? Like it's all the little things. So what advice would you give somebody when they're like, hey, I'm all in for this alcohol free thing, but my spouse doesn't want to at all. And they're worried about like that being stressed, them stressing the relationship because they want to go alcohol free. How would you, how do you advise
- [35:46]
C
those people choose your lifestyle? Stick to it, celebrate it. Don't judge your husband or your spouse if they decline to participate in that lifestyle. If you get pushback from your husband or spouse or partner, just smile and say, yeah, no, it's all right, that's fine. You do you. I'm just choosing to live this alcohol free lifestyle now. What I can tell you anecdotally, you know, Kelly, because I've been helping women now in their 40s, 50s, 60s, for 10 years as part of this project, 90 community is that any resistance that a husband or a spouse or a partner has initially soon fades away. And by day 50, 60 of their partner being alcohol free, suddenly they see this gap opening up. The partner, I mean. And the partner's like, oh, I can see my partner, as in my wife improving, being calmer, sleeping better, feeling better, behaving differently, or I better level up my game so the gap doesn't get so wide. And in some cases, the gap becomes so wide that the woman has actually decided to end the marriage. That does happen. There's a chapter in my book which is called Clear, in which it talks about the uncomfortable reality of your new clarity. And what that means is that we had a woman who went through Project 90 a couple of years ago. She got to about day 45 or 46, and she announced on a group coaching call, because we do these group coaching calls on Zoom. And she said, you know, I've realized my marriage is over and I'm going to sit my husband down tonight and I'm going to tell him. And we were like, whoa, so far from like, you know, stopping drinking, providing sunshine and rainbows for her. It provided this uncomfortable clarity. And so she sat him down and said, our relationship is over. And she'd been feeling that way for a decade, but hadn't been doing anything about it. She's been procrastinating on it and numbing herself with the alcohol because the discomfort of ending the relationship was too overwhelming for her. So she let 10 years pass. That's the drift that Napoleon Hill talks about in his book Outwitting the Devil. And then good on her. She made that choice. She subsequently got divorced. She then pivoted in her career. She went and created an Oils essence business, an E commerce business, which she loves. She's got all these happy customers. She's lost £25, more or less. At least that's what she told me when I spoke to her a few months ago. I'm not sure whether she's recreated another romantic relationship, but it's probably irrelevant. She just feels better. It was the right thing to do. And I wish that it was all sunshine and rainbows. And maybe you can argue that in her case it is sunshine and rainbows. It just took a couple years to get to that point. Right. But sometimes it's gonna unearth. Being alcohol free is going to unearth some discomforts, some decisions that you've been really kicking the can down the road on for a long time, and now you get to tackle them.
- [38:50]
A
Yeah, you have to feel like, alcohol provides a wonderful escape from having to actually deal with uncomfortable situations. And you have to. Some people have to learn, maybe most people have to learn how to deal with feelings and uncomfortable things. And you don't just have like, you know, my brother talking about it like, alcohol is a great tool for things. In thinking of, like, the upside of what alcohol lets you be in situations that you wouldn't have otherwise been in had you had the clarity. But you have to be an adult and learn new tools. I was thinking about the future of like, you know, when you're like, it's changing and thinking back to like, cigarettes of like, surgeons used to smoke in operating rooms, people used to smoke on airplanes. We used to smoke in bars and restaurants. Right. And the fact when I remember when that started, like picking up to get kicked out, people were like, that's crazy. And it's like, well, now we're like, oh, my God, can you imagine going to a restaurant filled with cigarette smoke? Right. Is like, society does slowly change. I just think the tax revenue is going to keep status quo for a while on this drug.
- [39:59]
C
Yeah, I mean, there's big money in it. Interestingly, Heineken has a 0% beer called Heineken Zero, and it equated for 11% of all Heineken sales just two years ago. That's extraordinary.
- [40:12]
A
And that's like, out of the gate. People don't even know about that probably.
- [40:16]
C
I mean, I see Heineken 0.0 ads now on the billboards at Champions League soccer games. You see it on the TV and those digital boards along the sideline of the soccer fields. Heineken Zero. I think one of the Formula one teams now may either be sponsored by Heineken Zero or there's billboards around the track promoting Heineken Zero. I think we're going to increasingly see these zero percent alternatives. I'm actually an investor in a Denver based company called Groovy G R U V I. They do great. Alcohol free beers, alcohol free wines, alcohol free spritzers. I really like their products. Look, the conversation is now going to be moving into, oh, can I get you an alcohol free drink? What have we got? What would you like? I've got this, I've got that. That's going to increasingly happen. Governments and societies all over the world are changing. And, you know, back in the 50s, we had doctors in medical white coats smoking Camel cigarettes and in advertisements saying, I smoke Camels, the cigarette that I trust the most. And, you know, we look back now and laugh and think that was ridiculous. We're going to look on this year and laugh at people like the Rock and Ryan Reynolds and George Clooney and the fact that we were all drinking alcohol in bars and restaurants. We're gonna laugh and just go, what? What were we thinking?
- [41:30]
A
Yeah. Like, it's so. It's so bad. And I think the time's right. Like the zeitgeist of listen, we have the amazing privilege of living longer. Let's do it better. Let's not think frailty is inevitable. Oh, alcohol and bone health, right? And, like, women in osteoporosis and breaking fractures, like, let alone the risk of falling. So I just think people are. They're more in tune to, like, to be 84 and thriving. What are the steps that are necessary to get there? And I think alcohol free is a key step to that.
- [42:00]
C
I think those two words that you said are the most interesting and thriving. Because I speak to my mother all the time. My mother's name's Jill Swanik. She lives back in Brisbane, Australia. And she goes, oh, I don't want to. I don't want to live a long time and have people, like, looking after me and, like, you know, being frail and like, and all this. And I'm thinking, and, well, what about if you just live, like, really energetically and you're, like, vibrant and you're happy, and then you'd probably just incredibly love life, right? And, like, you might, like, want to extend your perception of when you want the end to come. But the thing is, I mean, I would rather die at 80 and feel healthy and amazing and just die quietly in my sleep at night, but be moving and going to the gym and exercising and walking and feeling good, then dying at 90, having another 10 years where I'm, like, I'm frail and I'm weak and I've got osteoporosis and I've got Alzheimer's. And, I mean, that is a distinct possibility if I'm drinking alcohol regularly.
- [43:04]
A
For years and decades, we've normalized frailty. We've normalized chronic conditions. We've normalized feeling shitty. Like, we've normalized this mediocre existence because we forgot that an alternative is available.
- [43:21]
C
And I get it. Because cultural conditioning, we've just accepted the drift, as Napoleon Hill talks about in Outwitting the Devil. But what I've been trying to do by putting it out there in social media and with my book Clear, and with this Project 90 program and trying to get together a whole lot of men and women in this, the Middle ages now is to de hypnotize them around alcohol. I'm not here to hypnotize you that alcohol is bad, but I'm here to de hypnotize you that alcohol is good. And if I can do that and I can rewire your mindset enough to have you choose an alcohol free lifestyle, wow, everything's going to be great. Just coming back to the University of Washington, it would be remiss of me if I didn't mention that because I kind of teased it a little earlier. In 2023, the University of Washington conducted a scientific study on Alcohol Project 90 stop drinking process and the results were a 98% reduction in drinking amongst the study participants. That's extraordinary. Now I don't think that I've got something so groundbreaking and secretive and I've got this secret formula to help people to de hypnotize themselves around alcohol. I think it's simply putting a group of like minded people together who have a common goal, who want to choose a lifestyle as opposed to needing to be sober and be in recovery and go to an AA meeting. I think it's just putting people in a like minded community with a common goal and then letting them go to work. In fact, there's a book called the Power of Habit by Charles C. Duhigg who was a New York Times bestseller. It's been around a dozen years or so. In that book he says change becomes probable when you have a like minded community. Not a community, I'll come back to that in a second. But a like minded community of folks who are trying to achieve a common goal. Now the reason why I would submit groups like AA are ineffective for most people. In fact, the Studies suggest that AA's actual success rate is less than 10% which means that it's ineffective for 90% of people who attempt it. The reason I would submit that that is mostly ineffective is because it's a community. Now if you're a 50 year old woman, you're a parent, you're well educated, you're articulate and you go to an AA meeting and you're sitting next to a 19 year old meth addict who holds up a gas station, you've got no relatability to that person. Of course you want the best for that 19 year old, but you can't relate to them. And so you're not inspired, you're not motivated, you're thinking to yourself, I'm in the wrong room, I shouldn't have come here. My drinking is not that bad. I'M not going to say I'm an alcoholic. I shouldn't be here now. Of course that's going to be a discouraging experience for you. And so what are you going to do? You're just going to keep drinking? Stay in the status quo versus over here? Best thing that's ever happened to you financially. Go easy.
- [46:05]
D
Sold my car on Carvana. Amazing offer really.
- [46:08]
C
I hit 200 on the scratcher.
- [46:10]
D
Did the scratcher come to your house and hand you a check? No. How many scratchers did you hit to get that? I hit a button on Carvana.com once.
- [46:17]
C
Okay, that's fair.
- [46:19]
D
It's like the lottery, except you always win.
- [46:22]
C
Not like the lottery at all actually.
- [46:24]
D
Exactly. Inexplicably good offers worth bragging about. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply in this Project
- [46:33]
C
90 experience, which is just it's positive, it's empowerment, it's good nutrition, it's focusing on sleep. It's living a life of appreciation instead of expectation. It's having a gratitude practice each day and it's being in a like minded community of men and women in their 40s, 50s and 60s who all have this common goal of choosing an alcohol free lifestyle.
- [46:52]
A
Nailed it. Absolutely nailed it. Yeah, I love it. I love the reframe. I love that you. I love that it's an up level and it's so accessible to everybody now with the right tools and the right book. I'm so excited that you're coming out with the book. Let people know what's your the Instagram social media handle.
- [47:10]
C
My Instagram is Ames Swanwick. You can find me there. On Instagram. We do a lot of stuff putting out videos and content to show people how to have at the very least a better relationship with alcohol, if not questioning their relationship with alcohol. But lots of tips and and tricks there to support you to hopefully choose an alcohol free lifestyle.
- [47:29]
A
I love your social media. I love how you call out the bullshit of the normalization of it because it's like anything that helps people think. I'm kind of attracted to. I really like that part of your of the Instagram and we'll look for the book when that comes out in April.
- [47:47]
D
Yeah.
- [47:48]
C
The book is called Clear A Neuroscience Based approach to help high achievers finally break Free from alcohol without AA, rehab or willpower. Comes out April 8th. You can get details@alcoholfreelifestyle.com clear. It's also available after April 8th wherever online books are sold, whether that's Amazon or Barnes and Noble and There's also an audible audio version which I recorded.
- [48:09]
A
Did you record it?
- [48:10]
C
Took me eight hours over three days, but I did it.
- [48:13]
A
I've done that. I've recorded a book. It makes you respect the people who use their voice for a living, that's for sure.
- [48:18]
C
Oh yeah, oh yeah. If you can handle my Australian accent for eight hours, I'm glad they wanted
- [48:23]
A
I'm glad they wanted an Australian accent. That's good. And then where do people go for the 90 day program?
- [48:27]
C
Alcoholfreelifestyle.com Project90 but if you just go to alcoholfreelifestyle.com, i'm sure you'll find your way there.
- [48:35]
A
Love it. Thanks for joining us today, Kelly.
- [48:37]
C
Thank you very much for having me.
- [48:38]
B
Thank you for listening to this week's episode of youf Are Not Broken. If you want to dig deeper with me, sign up for my Adult Sex Education Masterclass where you learn adult things like communication skills, anatomy lessons and desire types, and how to talk to your doctor about sexual health concerns. If you want the Adult Sex Education Masterclass for free, join my monthly membership for more in depth exclusive content, more time with yours truly. A private podcast, coaching and educational empowerment and you can watch my interviews live and get them immediately without advertising. Head over to www.kellycaspersonmd.com for the membership and Adult Sex Ed Masterclass members. Get the masterclass for free. This podcast is presented solely for educational, entertainment and informational purposes only. I am a doctor, but not your doctor in this format and all of my platforms and guests including on this podcast are not giving individual medical advice or practicing medicine. See in Consult with your own care team for your individual needs and concerns. This podcast is not intended as a substitute for the care and advice of a physician, therapist or other qualified professional. This podcast does not constitute the practice of medicine, in case you were curious about that and no doctor patient relationship is formed. But I still love you. Using the information on this podcast or any of my platforms is at your own risk. Until next time, remember you are not broken.