Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - The Surprising Truth About Alcohol with Andy Ramage #438

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

Over the past five years, it’s been incredible to see how the alcohol-free landscape has changed. Pubs, restaurants and supermarkets boast a range of appealing 0% options. We’re seeing a rise in AF communities, influencers, bars and events. There has been a marked cultural shift towards acceptance of not drinking – and that’s in no small part down to today’s guest. Andy Ramage is one of the world’s leading alcohol-free performance coaches. Since his first appearance on this podcast, in 2019, countless listeners have got in touch to share how they’ve transformed their lives by giving up alcohol. Andy co-founded the One Year No Beer movement and recently co-created the Dryy app and AF community. Collectively, these innovations have helped hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of what he calls ‘middle lane’ moderate drinkers transform their health and happiness. He is also the author of two best-selling books - The 28 Day Alcohol Free Challenge and Let’s Do This, and is one of only a few coaches to hold a Masters degree in coaching psychology and positive psychology.  Many of us discover alcohol as a teenager. We start to believe we can’t socialise, dance or talk to strangers without it – and we carry these myths with us long into adulthood. We think others will find us boring if we don’t drink. Hangovers become a celebrated end to a ‘great night out’. And we play down negative effects such as risky behaviour, poor sleep, low mood or junk food cravings. Andy is passionate about reversing all these beliefs and behaviours. He explains his ‘ambivalence seesaw’ – a framework you can use to work out your current relationship with alcohol and start to shift it. We discuss why moderation isn’t a good tactic, why Dry January often fails, and why slip-ups are part of the learning process. And he shares some valuable advice on coping with social pressure to drink, and cultivating a kinder self-talk. I’ve not drunk alcohol myself for four or five years now and I can honestly say there’s not a moment when I miss it. But like Andy, I’m not here to judge anyone else, simply to encourage you to try out the benefits we’ve both felt. Andy is motivated, passionate and full of positivity, and someone who describes a life without alcohol, as a gift to yourself. He has managed to transform his own health, happiness and relationships and wants to inspire you to do the same. Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore. For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com. Thanks to our sponsors: https://boncharge.com/livemore https://drinkag1.com/livemore Show notes https://drchatterjee.com/438 DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

Showing up and shining, full power, whether it be socially, whether it be in your career, whether it be in your family, there's something inherently attractive about that. And I think people miss out on that. They're trying to be someone that they're not, when actually their real power sits with themselves, their authentic self. And I think we're always trying to be this other person or create this character when really what people are most attracted to in terms of friendship, in terms of connection, in terms of business, is you. The authentic you that's underneath it all. Hey guys, how you doing? Hope you're having a good week so far. My name is Dr. Rangan Chatterjee and this is my podcast, Feel Better, Live More.

Over the past few years, it's been fascinating to observe the growth of the alcohol-free movement. Pubs, restaurants and supermarkets now boast a range of appealing 0% alcohol options, and we're seeing a rise in alcohol-free communities, influencers, bars and events. There really has been a marked cultural shift towards the acceptance of not drinking. And without question, today's guest has played a huge role. Andy Ramage is one of the world's leading alcohol-free performance coaches. Since his first appearance on this podcast back in 2019, countless listeners have gone in touch to share how they've transformed their lives by giving up or changing their relationship with alcohol. Now, a few years back, Andy co-founded

the One Year No Beer movement, and he recently co-created and launched the Try App, an alcohol-free community. Collectively, these innovations have helped hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, transform their health and happiness by changing their relationship with alcohol. And he's also the author of two best-selling books, The 28-Day Alcohol-Free Challenge and Let's Do This, and is one of only a few coaches to hold a master's degree in coaching psychology and positive psychology. Now many of us discover alcohol as teenagers. Often there are cultural and societal pressures to drink and many people believe that they can't socialize, dance or talk to strangers without it. But is that really true? Hangovers also become a celebrated end to a great night out. And we often play down

or frankly ignore the negative effects of drinking, such as risky behavior, poor sleep, low mood, and poor food choices. Andy is passionate about questioning all of these beliefs and behaviors. about questioning all of these beliefs and behaviours. And in our conversation, he explains his ambivalence seesaw, a framework you can use to work out your current relationship with alcohol and start to shift it if you want to. We also discuss why moderation isn't always a good tactic, why dry January often fails, why slip-ups are part of the learning process,

and he shares some valuable advice on coping with social pressures to drink and cultivating a kinder form of self-talk. I myself have not drunk any alcohol for about four or five years now, and I can honestly say there's not a single moment when I miss it. years now and I can honestly say there's not a single moment when I miss it. But like Andy, I'm not here to judge anyone else and this episode is absolutely not meant to make anyone feel bad about their current relationship with alcohol. Andy is someone who is motivated, passionate and full of positivity and he describes a life without alcohol as a gift to yourself he's managed to transform his own health happiness and relationships and wants to inspire you to do the same i wanted to start off andy um of course we're going to talk about alcohol. Yeah.

In your opinion, what are some of the signs that might indicate somebody is drinking alcohol, not because they like it, but they're doing it because of either social expectation or because they're trying to numb some internal discomfort? I think it's a really simple test. For example, if I said to all the middle lane drinkers, so my advice is always aimed at those in the middle lane. So I'll just set that up. And that's very much my story. Middle lane for me is the average drinker.

So if you've got your alcoholic, your dependent, alcohol use disorder severe, and those that abstain, everyone else is in the middle lane. So you're looking at hundreds of millions of people, probably about 2 billion people worldwide. If I said to most people, take a break, stop drinking for 90 days, I would say for lots of people, the thoughts of that would drive fear into their hearts, the thoughts of having to deal with those stressful events, the thoughts of having to deal with those social events and not consume alcohol. And I think if there's any sense of fear or a rejection of that, I think that's a really good indication that maybe alcohol has a grip over you that you don't realize. So basically, if you have a healthy relationship with alcohol, then you're suggesting that the thought of not consuming any for 90 days

should actually do nothing for you. It should just be like, yeah, okay, no worries, I can do that. But if you're starting to push back or start to tell stories or make excuses, you're saying that might indicate some kind of problematic relationship? Yeah, and I think it's on a sliding scale, isn't it? That whole middle lane, there's those that

drink very infrequently and those that drink, you know, quite regularly that are not in that place of dependency. But I think what we find is we've got this cultural blind spot to alcohol and the impact that it's having on our lives in many ways. We treat it like water or a fizzy pop in many ways. And we consume it all the time for every celebration and commiseration and day that ends in Y and stressful day. And I don't think we realise the impact that it's having on us in many ways until very often we remove it. And I think that's why I always like people to take a break just to have a look. What does it feel like for you, the other side of that break, when you join me on the fun side of the island, as I like to say, for long enough to experience life without

alcohol. And you might find that many of those things that you thought you needed alcohol for to socialize, that actually you're even more social, that you have more fun. And maybe what's underneath some of those low mood, maybe mild anxiety, maybe depression, a lot of those low mood maybe mild anxiety maybe depression a lot of those things for lots of people not for everyone often disappear when you remove alcohol even as an average drinker you mentioned 90 days why is 90 days so important in your view i think it's that longer term break 28 days is great any Any break is great, in my opinion. And 28 days feels really achievable. But I think over 90 days, you start to get the results and returns that can transform your life like it did for me 10 years ago as a middle lane drinker. It was the 90 day break where I started to lose weight.

I started to get fitter. My mental clarity started to improve. My anxiety disappeared and never came back. You know, I started to feel better and look better. I started to sleep improve. My anxiety disappeared and never came back. You know, I started to feel better and look better. I started to sleep better. My relationships were better. It was such a powerful experience. I'd love more people to have that experience as an average drinker, because once you've got that lived experience of that type of thing, you're much more motivated to stay on that adventure. Throughout my medical career as a doctor, one of the things I've always been keen to do is to help my patients make changes to their lifestyle, change their daily behaviours. Because so much of what we see these days is driven by

our collective modern lifestyles. And one thing, Andy, I've noticed is that too often we try and change our behaviours without understanding the role that those behaviours play in our life. And what I've found is that in order to really change your behaviour in the long term, you have to really identify and understand what role did that serve in the first place. So for example, with alcohol, if your alcohol intake is a way of managing the stress in your life, well yeah, you can go on a 28-day break as many people do in January, for example. But what I found, and I'd be interested to hear your experience here, I've also found that a 28 day break, whilst for some people can be really helpful, I've also found that it wasn't long enough for them to realise

what is alcohol doing for me? Do you know what I mean? I don't know if you found that at all. Oh, completely. So if you look at it in terms of optimal performance, as an average drinker, at the end of the day, you're consuming what is a drug. And people don't like to hear that word because they like to disassociate from what it actually is. But as middle lane drinkers, it is, we can't ignore that. You know, there's a great quote from Kent Dunnington. He wrote a book called Addiction and Virtue. There's a quote in there that I love. And it's this, those with severe addictions are like contemporary prophets that we ignore to our own demise because they teach us a

great truth about ourselves. And I think there's so much of that when it comes to alcohol. We forget that actually we're messing with this thing that is highly addictive and can disrupt our performance in every which way. And I really believe that most adults in the UK, 70% are underperforming in almost every domain of their life without even realizing because of their middle lane relationship with alcohol. So if we bring it back to performance, what does alcohol do? It destroys your sleep. And we know all of the research around poor sleep and performance. It destroys your mental health because it blows up our neurochemistry. So on the back of that, I think it leads to this cascade of underperformance in all domains from our parenting to our performance in the office. And like you say, I think you need to get a longer term break

from it to see that and experience it and feeling. And then when you do, it's like a penny drop. It's like this alcohol-free magic that happens that I describe all the time. It's like getting a superpower back. It genuinely is. It's like you've removed the kryptonite from your backpack that you've been carrying for the last decade or two. Because that's another thing about alcohols, middle lane drinkers. We don't just drink for a year, we drink for decades, don't we? Most people start drinking in their teens and never stop. Imagine decades of underperformance. And when you remove it for that longer period, like 90 days, you get a glimpse of your optimal self. That is such a powerful experience. I think that's why millions and millions of people are coming to

this same realization at the same time. I think our first conversation together was in 2018. Yeah. You know, maybe coming up to six years ago, maybe, maybe five, six years ago, something like that. What is the state of the alcohol-free movement today compared to back then? It's been a transformation. I think we were probably at quite a pivotal moment in time. I think the five years prior to that, some 10 years alcohol-free pretty much. Congratulations. At the moment, which has been just such a wonderful adventure, which I'm so grateful for. But the first five no one got it they didn't really understand the middle lane it was very much still that black and white thinking you're either addicted to alcohol or you're not so you drink there was there wasn't the middle lane it didn't exist and i think our conversation

did a great job of broadening that sense that the average drinker can get these incredible results and what we've seen over the last five years is that the alcohol-free drinks industry, a good indicator, has grown by 500% since we last spoke. I think when we last spoke, there wasn't really an alcohol-free alternative. Now they're everywhere. You've got the incredible work that Bill Shufelt's doing with Athletic Brewing. You've got Lucky Saint is available pretty much everywhere in the UK. I think that's changed the game entirely. There's a cultural shift happening, which is so wonderfully exciting. And I'll give you a good example of that. I love Ireland. My wife's Irish. And stereotypically, the Irish might have been labelled as big drinkers. And a lot of Irish people that I know don't like that

label. And actually, I would say, of all of the places globally now, I think Ireland's at the forefront of the alcohol-free movement. It's incredible. I was there in the summer. I was in a beautiful place called The Strand in Dunmore East. In this, it's a bar restaurant. Pints of zero-zero were flying off the shelves. Bottles of zero-zero, no secco. I go up the road to the traditional Irish pub called Powell's Pub. In there, a massive selection of alcohol-free drinks. I even went to the chip shop, right, the fish and chip shop in Dunmore East. They had three different types of alcohol-free alternatives. That is a cultural transformation. I mean, this surprises me, right? Because you're right, rightly or wrongly, I think there may be

this perception of a drinking culture in Ireland, and quite frankly, in the UK as well, right? So I'm not at all saying it in a different way. But do you have any idea why this is growing so much in Ireland? Yeah, I think it's because the Irish people are just great people to be around. They have the greatest pubs in the world, but is the pub about the alcohol or is it about the people? And I think they're starting to realise it's about the people as much as it ever was about the alcohol. They are just a funny nation, right? That dark sense of humour that they have. You will see three generations in an Irish

pub. You don't see that as much in the UK, but it's a focal point of community. It's a focal point of connection. I think what they're real realizing now they've got an option they never had before to be in those places and not necessarily drink alcohol. That means they can't drive the car. That means they're going to underperform in their career the following day. They can still have the banter and the crack as the Irish say, but do it in a different way. I'll give you another example. I was in this beautiful village called Ardmore Village and I walked into this pub and I saw a scene that I'd seen a million times before. There was an older guy at the bar drinking his Guinness, probably in his seventies, eighties. His son walked in and I could tell it was his son because he looked like him. And his son sat next to him on

that stall. That's a scene that we've seen millions of time, almost handing over the baton of propping up the bar and drinking his Guinness. And it was one of the greatest moments of my life. This is so ridiculous, but it like thrills me. And he ordered his Guinness and he sat next to his dad and he drank his Guinness. His Guinness was a zero, zero. That is a cultural shift. I almost wanted to run over and give him a big hug. It wouldn't have been culturally appropriate in that public island, but I wanted to, I was like, that's incredible. We are seeing this change right before our eyes. Well, what's driving this shift? Because we did, you know, touch on this in our first conversation,

but, you know, growing up when we grew up in this country, in the UK, you kind of had to drink pretty much, or you certainly felt you had to drink in order to fit in. That was certainly my experience. As I reflected on in that conversation, I'm not even entirely sure I ever wanted to drink, but I did it and started to fit in with the people around me. It's only been in the last few years where I've actually reset that relationship and realised, actually, I don't really want to drink. My life's better when I don't. and realised, actually, I don't really want to drink. My life's better when I don't. What do you think is going on culturally to explain why this movement is suddenly exploding? Because everywhere you go, particularly in the Western world, because I think not in every country, I mean, we can maybe touch on why that might be. Let's talk about the UK or Ireland.

Why are we seeing this massive shift to alcohol-free living? I think probably the demand was always there. It was just never realized before. There was no opportunity. There was no availability of alcohol-free drinks. And I think that's really driving it. I think the big alcohol brands have realized there's a demand. Therefore, there's a lot more marketing that we're starting to see about zero zeros everywhere, which again, the marketing spends, it works. And also, I think culturally, people are becoming more aware. They're becoming aware that this substance, which is alcohol, that is in their life, that is so ubiquitous, isn't it? It's every celebration, commiseration, kid's birthday, day ending in wine, stressful day. It certainly was in my life. And it is for

most middle lane drinkers. I think they're starting to wake up to the fact, is it actually serving me in the way that I thought it was? And I think there's a cultural awakening happening where people are realizing everything alcohol promised, it takes away a hundred times more. And alcohol free is giving you everything that alcohol promised. More time, more energy, you know, more clarity, better mental health, better physical health, better at your job, and even better parent. People are learning to connect in a different way. There's now grown up opportunities to socialize without consuming alcohol. And I think there's just this wonderful awakening at the same time. And also, I put it

down to podcasts. I think you've got a massive part to play in this. I think our conversation that we had last time to this day is still influencing people. I got a message just yesterday. I was talking to one of the coaches that I train. I now train coaches. I was training her yesterday. Her name's Henny. And she said to me, I mentioned I was coming onto the podcast and she genuinely stopped with tears in her eyes and just said, that podcast changed my life three years ago. I quit alcohol and it changed my family's life. That's so important to me, how powerful that is. That is, well, it's lovely to hear. And I think that point about it changing her family's life, that's huge because when you change your relationship with alcohol, it's not just you who gets the benefits, is it?

It's everyone. It's the greatest gift you can ever give your family your work colleagues your friends like we have to get a bit of distance from it i think i think we're so disassociated from what alcohol is as an average drinker i'm always talking to the average drinker the middle lane drinker what does it do to us it destroys our sleep as i mentioned what does that do to us it makes us tired sleep, as I mentioned. What does that do to us? It makes us tired. It makes us grumpy. We've got less energy. You know, we're not as jovial. We might not do the things that we'd normally do with our family because we can't quite be bothered because we're nursing a hangover or that grumpiness of our neurochemistry being blown apart. And it's trying to maintain equilibrium, low mood, mild anxiety, and maybe we're not doing the things that spark joy. And I think that has a

massive consequence. And if you actually think about it, I'd say a middle lane drinker, someone that drinks once a week, let's just say once a week, those few on a weekend, what that will do to your sleep, destroy it. If you've got any wearable tech now, you start to see it in your heart rate variability. You'll see it in your heart rate elevated. That doesn't last for a day. That lasts for a day or two or three, let's call it three and a half days. That's 50% of your life. 50% of your life, you're underperforming in every domain. That's just once a week. Imagine if you drink twice a week, 100% of the time, you're underperforming across every domain. It's incredible when you think about it. That's why I think the flip side,

it's like a superpower for a middle lane drinker when they remove it. Yeah. On your podcast, Andy, you recently released an episode celebrating the fact that you haven't drunk any alcohol for 10 years, right? Which is incredible in this culture in which we live, the culture in which you live. And on that podcast, you said for 10 years, you have been the father and partner you've always wanted to be. What does that mean? Yeah, for me, I think my greatest achievement, and I always say is my marriage, my lovely wife, Tara, and my two girls. You know, there was a period in time, not that our relationship was ever strained. I was very fortunate even whilst I was drinking, time. Not that our relationship was ever strained. I was very fortunate even whilst I was drinking,

but I always felt like I wasn't as present as I should be. I didn't have the energy that I should have had, you know, as a middle-aged man. And the fact for the last 10 years that I've been consistent in my temperament, in my relationship, in my being present for my girls, always there to have that energy. I feel like I've done the best job that I could do. You know, I'm not perfect, far from it, clearly not, just ask my wife. But I've been there for them in what feels like for me the most optimal way. And I'm forever grateful for that. That's the greatest gift of this whole experiment for me is to be there as a father and a parent to my children. For people who didn't hear our first conversation,y i'd love you to kind of walk them through your story again because if someone's just hearing you say i haven't drunk for 10 years i don't want that to put people off yeah i don't want someone to think

well hey that guy's on a different journey to me like i I'm still having, you know, a couple of nights out with my mates where we have some lagers. I can't relate to Andy because he's not like me. He hasn't drank for 10 years. But that's not necessarily the case, is it? Although you haven't drank for 10 years, they should be able to relate to you because of where you were just over 10 years ago.

Yeah, exactly. So if I wind the clock back a bit, I started out as a professional footballer, which I loved, got injured very early on in my early 20s, fell into the world of broken, the guys in the pits with the bright jackets screaming and shouting at one another, and then fell into that lifestyle.

Fast forward 10 years, I'd achieved a certain level of success, but I was unfit, overweight, really unhealthy. I'd just discovered I had early onset heart disease. My relationships were a little bit strained in the office and at home. And I was a middle lane drinker at that stage. Again, as I described earlier, was I drinking too much? Yes. But so is everyone else on the planet. Was I drinking to excess? No. But in that space, I started to get really interested in, I thought there was more. I

couldn't put my finger on it. I was mid thirties. I felt like I was leaving some of my performance on the table. I couldn't quite describe it. So I went in search of that. And I read a book, funnily enough, Awaken the Giant Within. I don't know if you know that book, classic Anthony Robbins. And in that book, there was two things that changed my life. One was a quote. The first quote being, it's not events that shape our lives, but our beliefs about them. Such beautiful wisdom that goes back to the ancient Stoics. The second thing in there was that he mentioned Anthony Robbins, that he trained with this guy called John Grinder. John Grinder is the co-founder of NLP. And I was stuck at that stage in my life. And I'm searching for optimal performance. And I'm

looking in all the wrong places. And I thought, imagine if I could train with the guy that trained Anthony Robbins. But in my mind, I thought I'm gonna have to fly to LA. It's going to cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. So I Googled around John Grinder, next training course, Croydon. I was like, Croydon, what's he doing in Croydon? Anyway, the greatest gift, I went and trained with him. That was as an executive coach. I had no interest in becoming an executive coach. I just wanted to train with this guy. It blew my mind. The learning and the insights that I got. So I took that away and started to look at all areas of my life, again, as a middle lane drinker, but I didn't question alcohol. I tried exercise. I tried

nutrition. I tried meditation. Even at the odd cold shower, nothing would work because alcohol was so sort of ingrained in who I am. And I think that's the story for so many people listening. It's the last thing we ever question. It's just sort of part of who we are, right? It was part of who I was in my relationships, in my business, in my career. So to challenge that I found really difficult and I struggled with it at first, but I thought, I wonder if I take a break from alcohol, could that be the secret key to all areas of elite performance? And of course it was. And to set the scene, I found it really difficult. I had my rubber arm twisted all the time, you know, by the social pressure of

friends and colleagues and getting called boring and all those things that you get called. And how did you cope with that back then? Well, often I wouldn't even tell the truth. I would actually drink or not drink, as the case may be, without telling anyone because I found it so difficult. For example, I'd sit there with clients and I'd have my special drinks. I found one or two pubs that had Bex Blue that would fill me a pint glass so I could pretend that I was drinking just to try and buy some time and space to actually get a period of sobriety.

That's nuts, isn't it? That is completely nuts. As grown adults, it is totally nuts how we feel, and I felt it before, that social pressure to drink. Yeah. Or to be seen to be drinking. Completely. When you get some distance from it, it's nuts. It is insane when you get some distance from it.

Do you remember the last time you had a drink? Yeah, very clearly, because it was around this time. It's 10 years just recently. In our industry, I was a broker. We have a thing called International Petroleum Week, which was a week where everyone flies in from all over the world, brokers, traders, and we get together and it's a glorified, I can't think of a better word for it than piss up,

dressed up in the name of business. And it was brutal. And it was at the end of that, it was on the Thursday on the end of that, I was like, I'm just over this. And I said those immortal words, never again. And that was the first 28 day break. I'd said never again many times before, I think like lots of people, but it was that moment of, I've just had enough of this. I'm just, I'm over this. This is a really interesting point for me, Andy. So on that fateful morning when you felt horrendous and you said never again, that wasn't the first time you'd said never again. So had you already been trying to reset your relationship with alcohol? Yes. Over probably about two or three year period.

Okay. So already two or three years, you've already started to question things and have what a few weeks without, then you'd go back. Is that just sort of, because I think this is really important, because it's, it's quite hard, I think, for a lot of people. Of course, you mentioned someone who you got a text from yesterday, who heard our first podcast, and overnight stopped and hasn't drunk since. But for a lot of people, they're going to hear the information and it might just get them thinking. They may not initially go, right, that's it. Do you know what I mean? So I think it'll be interesting for them to understand how you got from initially having the question in your mind to actually then going and becoming alcohol-free for good. And what's really interesting about this, James Petrasca, who has the stages of change model, which I think we both love.

I saw some great research from him that suggests a lot of the time you have, there's different stages. One is pre-contemplation, when you're unaware of the negative impacts of alcohol on your life, for example, as a middle lane drinker. And then you step into contemplation when you become aware. And that's what this podcast stuff brilliantly, you know, Freud spoke about this, the role of psychoanalysis is to make the unconscious conscious. And I think

that's what we're doing for this conversation. So I became aware that, oh, maybe alcohol was holding me back in all these different domains. But the research backs this up. I reckon it took me two years before I actually made that change. And Petraska shows that in his research. So lots of people step from being unconscious by pre-contemplation into contemplation, i.e. thinking, listening to a podcast such as this. But it might take about two years before you actually make that change. And that was in my story. I trained with John Grinder, so I started to understand a bit more how my brain worked. I went back to university having left school at 16 to be a footballer, to do a degree in a master's degree specifically, because I wanted to understand how

my brain works. So I was doing a lot of work in the background to understand the inner workings of my own mind to try and make this behavioral change. Because it was so difficult for me back then in amongst that social pressure and that identity that I'd formed as a drinker. It's how I met my wife. It's how I did business. You know, it's how I thought I had fun. To take that away was like, I don't know if I'm going to come out the other side of this. My biggest fear, and this is the truth, how the hell am I going to dance at weddings? That's impossible, right? Middle-aged ginger bloke dancing at weddings without alcohol how's that gonna happen you know I had all those cultural worries where my friend's gonna disown me my

mates not think I'm funny anymore my kids would wonder where like their dad's gone my wife run off you know with someone that drinks and you know out the other side of that is that fear and I think humans are so scared of change you know there's that W.H. Auden quote that I always come back to, we would rather die in our dread than change. And I think it's so true, isn't it? We run up against something like a break from alcohol as a middle lane drinker and just tie ourself in knots. And we're so scared to make that change that we never do. Over these past 10 years, have you ever been in situations where you have been tempted? Christmas, get together with your old buddies who you used to drink with? You know, it could be any scenario, but was there any time when you were in a social setting when you thought, you know what, maybe just a cheeky

glass of wine or a cheeky beer would be okay or not? Not really in a social setting, but funnily enough, there was a moment, it was about a year and a half in. And bearing in mind, we'd started the One Year No Beer at that stage. And the other co-founder, a guy called Ruri, I'd inspired him about six months into my journey. He went alcohol free and said he was going to do a year. So 18 months into my journey, he decided he was going to have a drink again and drink in a different format. It transformed his relationship with alcohol. And I remember really strangely, it just caught me from unawares. It was like, well, if Rui's drinking, I haven't got a problem with alcohol. I was a middle lane drinker. I can

have a drink. He says, I can't have a drink. Bear in mind, we've started this whole organization called One You Know Beer, but I tied myself up in knots, what felt like for hours. And I was pacing up and down my kitchen saying to myself, well, if you can have a drink, I can have a drink. You know, one of these weird moments. And my wife was out at the time, Tara. And I thought to myself, oh, when she comes back, right? Bearing in mind, she's lost her drinking partner in my, you know, my mind for the last 18 months. I'm telling myself, she's probably going to be thrilled when I announced the news that Tara, I'm thinking of maybe having a drink again. And Tara walks in the door and I tell her what I've been thinking. And she just looked at me dead straight and went, why the hell would you do that? Why the hell would you go back to the tiredness, the drudgery, the low mood, the lack of performance? Why would you

do that? And it was a really beautiful moment because it just snapped me out of it. And I've never ever considered it ever since. This is basically what you want people to experience, isn't it? You want people to experience what their life could be when alcohol is not in it. You seem to have this real upbeat energy, positivity. You want to motivate people. I mean, you're always sharing these positive videos on Instagram. You want to get people going because you've seen the change in yourself. And I really get that strong feeling that you want to help

other people experience exactly what you've experienced, don't you? Yeah. And it's, for me, it's 70% of the adult population, seven in 10 adults, when you think about it, are middle lane drinking, average drinking. And I genuinely believe most people are leaving 10%, 20%, 30%, maybe 50% of their best self, whatever that looks like for them on the table because of this average relationship with alcohol. There's one or two drinks in the week, there's two or three more at the weekend. And I think the best way to experience what I'm talking about and always banging on about is to come on the fun side of the island for a little while and just experience it yourself. Then you don't need me to tell you because you'll feel it better sleep. You know, you'll be less

grumpy. You might find that some of those health issues clear up such as mild anxiety, like it did for me. Not that it's a cure-all for all of that, clearly. Low mood might evaporate. Your skin might start to glow. You might have more time. You might feel more peaceful. You might have more energy to play with the kids. You might be better at your job. You might meet those sales targets that you haven't met before. What a gift that would be. Imagine if some of those benefits are waiting for you. So let's imagine, Andy, there's somebody listening right now who does drink alcohol, thinks they're okay, is probably in that middle lane drinking category. You know, my life's okay. You know, I perform well at my job. I've got a good relationship with my partner. You know, I see my kids and play with them at weekends.

Why is it, Andy, that you think I should give it a go because I enjoy drinking wine at the weekends and I don't think it's having a negative impact on my life? What would you say to that person? Just taking a quick break to give a shout out to AG1, one of the sponsors of today's show. Now, if you're looking for something at this time of year to kickstart your health, I'd highly recommend that you consider AG1. AG1 has been in my own life for over five years now. It's a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It contains vitamin C and zinc which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important especially at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut

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And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office, or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. That's drinkag1.com forward slash live more. I think it's back to that pre-contemplation. I think this conversation's great, even if it starts to move you from unawareness to awareness. And maybe you'll start to notice that actually, over time, those couple of drinks does make you a bit groggy. So you mean that person might think that they're thriving. Yep. But are you saying that, yeah, you think you're thriving and maybe you are thriving but perhaps you could thrive a little bit more when you take alcohol out is that your message for

them yeah in many ways and that might be 10 that you've left on the table or 20 but for lots of people your new normal becomes for example lots of people be listening to this podcast thinking they're operating at 100 in terms of their health health, their vibrancy, their career, but they might be falling short of what that peak is by 10, 20, 30, 40, 50%. You just don't know because it becomes your new normal. And what happened for me, I remember it, right? This is how ridiculous it is. I remember being mid thirties, overweight, unhappy, unfulfilled, career plateaued. And I remember this almost epiphany moment of thinking, oh, I know what it is. It's middle age. Ah, here I am. This is middle age. My destiny is to feel a bit rubbish for the rest of my life. What a load of nonsense. I'm almost 50 now. You know, 10 years at this,

fitter, faster, healthier than I've ever been in my life. You know, from when I was playing professional sport. And I think that's the message to get out to people. I think we get so stuck. We believe our new normal is very often so far short of what we're capable of. And it's alcohol. It's always been alcohol. It's the thing that trips you up in terms of your consistency in the way that you exercise. It is. It's the number one thing. It's the thing that blows up our nutritional strategy. It's the thing that destroys our sleep. It's the thing that destroys our mental wellbeing. And we're all doing it. We're all doing it on such a massive scale. So imagine if people remove it, the gifts you get, it's like a superpower. That's the best way to describe it. I've seen something similar with food intake with many of my patients in the past, where

if you are eating the kind of standard Western diets, which unfortunately these days, for a variety of reasons, is full of highly processed foods, full of loads of sugar and all kinds of additives. And I get it, right? I understand that that's the easiest thing to eat for many people. I've also found that if I can encourage, persuade, inspire a patient to try two or three weeks with just whole foods within their budget, within their preferences, whatever it might be, I also find that two, three weeks in, people have no idea how good they could feel. They accept how they are today as all that there is. They don't realize that actually a few tweaks, you know, I mentioned with food, you're mentioning with alcohol, you may be surprised

just how great you can feel or how much better you can feel when you start to make these changes. Yeah. And I think you've got to compound it over the rest of your life. You know, the difference between being optimal at 30, 40, 50, 60 versus being suboptimal and your new normal being 50% of your health and vibrancy and vitality. That is a life changing difference, that gap between those two things. Because as I said, most people start drinking in their teens and never stop. So to remove it, just to get a glimpse of exactly as you described what it might feel like, what it might look like to sleep really well. And also discovery that you can socialize and have fun and do all those incredible things without alcohol. And of course, it also helps

your nutrition because you're much more likely to be optimal in your nutrition. You're much more likely to move your body more. The compounding effect is dramatic for so many middle lane drinkers. With your work, Andy, you've helped so many people change their relationship with alcohol. I'm interested as to where the obstacles are for people. So I imagine that some people will say, I get really nervous in groups. I struggle to talk to other people. When I have a drink, those inhibitions go and I can connect. I can talk. I can make conversation with other people. So alcohol is serving a role for them in their life at that moment. So perhaps when they remove the alcohol, they start to get really shy and they struggle to make friends and talk to other people. Is that something that has come up with the people or some of the people

you've coached? And how do you advise them to sort of get through that? There's a couple of things about that. That social anxiety, like I'm quite introverted by nature. A lot of people don't think that, but I actually am. So I think I would drink to overcome that introversion. It made me more extrovert as it were. But also I think we have to realize a lot of the time, because we start drinking so early, which is terrible really, when you think I started drinking when I was 13. My lovely, you know, young brain, I wanted to meet girls. My emotional pain was that I'm awkward. I don't know how to talk to girls. You know, if you look at it, a habitual routine, that was the pain, the trigger, the routine, I drank alcohol, the reward, I could talk to girls. I was socially at ease. Imagine how

powerful that was to my young brain. My brain just lit up and went, whatever you just did there, do that again. Every time you feel that emotional angst, as it were, do that again. And I think what happens for lots of adults, we bury that habitual routine into our subconscious and then we keep playing it forever. So we say to ourselves, oh, I need alcohol to socialize. But I was still telling myself that when I was in my mid thirties, that just wasn't true anymore. And then when I started to realize when I removed it, yes, I was a bit socially anxious, but what I'd never done in most of my adult life is just sat with that. I'll give you a good example. Matt Pink is a great mate of mine. He had the no booze cruise,

right? So it's a cruise up and down the Thames that's alcohol free. Now for an introvert on a boat, it was absolutely packed. It was an incredible event. 250 people, I can't escape. There's no alcohol. And I got that sense of social anxiety again. And this was quite recently. And I was like, oh, well, I've got no option now. I'm on this boat. I can't drink. And clearly I'm, you know, at that stage, I'm like eight years alcohol free. So I just had to sit with it. And what I found almost as if by magic after 15 minutes, it just went away. It went away because I think your primitive brain settles down and says it's safe. It's okay. So what I've

realized is all those years I'd been drinking to overcome something that had I just waited for 15 minutes would have gone anyway. And I think there's an element of that when it comes to social anxiety, you've got to retrain yourself. Now look at all these people that socialize without alcohol. They've just had to retrain themselves to socialize without taking this drug effectively that is alcohol. So I think there's some relearning in there. And I think also you have to get comfortable with being your authentic self. Like I'm not an extrovert. I was never an extrovert. Alcohol made me an extrovert. I'm much more introverted. So now I had to get comfortable showing up and socializing as me.

Yeah, that's such a good point, isn't it? Because one thing I've realized over the last few years, and you see this online all the time, where people change who they are in order to get validation. And it's a very, very dangerous trap to fall into because once you start changing who you are and you get celebrated for that different version of yourself, you're incentivized to keep doing that because we all like to be celebrated by others and have that connection with others. But a lot of the time we're doing it with someone who isn't really who we want to be. And so, yeah, you know, if you do go alcohol-free and you show up as who you really want to be, it may also mean that some of those friends or some of those

acquaintances that you thought were working for you, you may also find that they don't work so well when you're showing up as your true self. Absolutely. And there's a real power when you meet someone that's showing up and shining through their authentic energy. There's a power in that. It's attractive. You can sense it. You pick up on it. And I found that when I would walk into a room and not drink and got really confident with it, people would still gravitate towards you. They could feel that there was a different strength going on. Whereas before I felt I was weak under the influence of alcohol, even as a middle lane drinker, it weakened me as a person. It made me into someone that I wasn't. It was a bit of a fake persona that it would create. Therefore showing up and shining full

power, whether it be socially, whether it be in your career, whether it be in your family, there's something inherently attractive about that. And I think people miss out on that. They're trying to be someone that they're not, when actually their real power sits with themselves, their authentic self. And I think we're always trying to be this other person or create this character when really what people are most attracted to in terms of friendship, in terms of connection, in terms of business is you, the authentic you that's underneath it all. Do you think it's possible for someone to have a healthy relationship with alcohol?

In my opinion, why bother? I genuinely, that is my start. Okay. And I know everyone's got a different opinion on this. And of course people can. But for me, it's all about ambivalence in the brain. I think if you've got any relationship with alcohol, you're telling yourself at some level

that there's benefits to it for you. And I think all that does, it means that you need willpower in your life to resist that one that really you want to have two, three or four. And for me, my approach is always the same. Take a break, live that learned experience of all the benefits that you gain, and then build such a compelling future. Why would I drink? Why would I drink? Why would I blow up my sleep, my neurochemistry? I don't want low mood. I don't want to put freestone and weight back on. I've got too much going on in terms of the entrepreneurial things I'm doing, in terms of my fitness, in terms of my health, in terms of my relationship. Why would I have that in my life

at any shape or form? That's just my opinion. Equally, I believe people can drink on occasion should they wish. We call it mostly dry, but I think you've got to get to that stage where almost you don't need it. You are in total control. It's your choice to on occasion have a drink. If you are doing the moderation thing, which I don't like, which is basically suggesting, I'd quite like to drink three drinks, but I'm going to use willpower to drink one, you're doomed. Because obviously at some point we forget it is a drug, right? It's going to shut down your prefrontal cortex after about one or two drinks. So your emotional machinery is offline and your regulation, your behavioral regulation is offline. So the one always turns into two, which occasionally

turns into five. And all of a sudden your best laid moderation plans are out the window and then you're not moderating. So I don't believe in moderation because I don't think that works for people. I understand that some people can remove it to such an extent on occasion for whatever reason they can drink. I just think, why bother? I appreciate your perspective.

I mean, you're sharing your honest view on that based upon your own experience and what you've helped, what, thousands, tens of thousands of people? Hundreds of thousands, yeah. Maybe hundreds of thousands. It's quite incredible to see the impact you've had, Andy, over the past few years. I've been thinking about this alcohol-free movement over the last couple of years quite deeply.

And to be completely transparent, I haven't had an alcoholic drink. I actually can't tell you the exact date. It was in the summer, a few summers ago. So I don't think I'd drunk for a while. And we were staying with some friends and we were having a meal on this outdoor table in the evening. And you could see the sea and the sun was coming down. It was a gorgeous setting. And one of my friends offered me a glass of red wine and she said, oh, this is really nice. How are you going to like it? It's from a local whatever and it's organic. And, you know, and I was, I was kind of not really wanting it, but for whatever reason, a glass ended up in front of me. And I think I felt a bit of social

obligation. I think there was a bit of, go on, you know, it's really nice, you'll enjoy it, whatever. And I do remember, I think having one sip, maybe two sips. And I just remember thinking, I don't like how I'm feeling already. I've started to get that wooziness. I thought, I don't like it. And I've realized that actually, I love my life these days. I don't want to be numb to my life. I actually enjoy my sober experience of life. And to be really clear, I never had a problem with drinking. I didn't really drink that much, but I realized I don't actually want to drink. So I stopped drinking. And again, this could only have been four or five years ago. I remember awkwardly trying to go somewhere with a glass and pour it down the sink. And I think afterwards I thought, Rangan, you're a 40 year old man and you're still trying to hide. It's

ridiculous, right? I think that's the last time I drank. So it was either four years ago or five years ago. I can't quite remember. It's something like that. So again, I have no moral problem if someone chooses to drink. I'm just saying my own experience has been having drunk since university, where you become accustomed to drinking if you don't already drink, which I didn't. I haven't drunk in about four or five years now, and I prefer my life without any alcohol in it. But I do reflect on this alcohol-free movement, Andy, and I think, well, if we look at the blue zones, these are people who are seemingly able to enjoy a glass of wine, maybe three or four evenings a week, maybe every evening, maybe at 4 or 5 p.m. in company, and use it as something that is seemingly enhancing their life. And from what we can tell,

they're doing pretty well from a health perspective and a happiness perspective. So I always think, okay, I'm enjoying not having alcohol, but there do appear to be people who can but there do appear to be people who can enjoy it as part of their life without necessarily having adverse consequences. And my conclusion on that at the moment, or my current view point on that is these blue zones, they have quite relaxed, low stress lives. So the small bit of alcohol they're using as a way of enhancing bonding, or that's my perception of it. Whereas I think here in the West, life is so busy and stressful that I think we're using alcohol to numb stress, to numb discomfort. So I think our relationship with it is very different because I think if we're going to have this conversation about alcohol, we also have to be able to explain

why there are communities around the world who are seemingly thriving whilst drinking. So I wonder what your perspective is on any of that. Yeah, I think it's so true. I think our relationship with alcohol is really unhealthy in many ways. And I think that is a very much a Western thing, isn't it? We are drinking to relieve stress as opposed to enhance social bonding. And I think it's very different, which is why I think so many of us are, again, I was going to put to you today,

you know, is it a reflection of our Western culture where we have these extremes where people are, you know, wrecking their whole Saturday and their whole Sunday because they've drunk so much the night before, which is quite a British thing. Well, there's many other countries as well, to be fair, but it's definitely a very British thing. And so the natural way of dealing with that is to go completely alcohol-free. Yeah.

Do you know what I mean? I'm just kind of playing devil's advocate with this because I do think there are communities out there who do seem to drink and it not have those same adverse consequences. Totally agree. And I'm not anti-alcohol as such, but I'm really pro-awareness. I just want people to be aware. That's what I'm looking for, to be aware because it might be for them, actually, their relationship with it is not healthy. And it's not actually in that nice setting that's enhancing social bonds. I would argue for most of us, it's not. And I think even if you think about from an evolutionary perspective, I think we're drawn towards intoxication. I think we always have been from mushrooms to plants. But if we think about it, in most of our evolution, it would have been a yearly event due to a harvest or a harvest festival. Whereas now we are smashed

by advertising constantly. It's available 24 seven. You know, we're portrayed that you need to drink to have fun, be cool, be sexy. And I think in many ways, it's spoiled something that could have been used in a different way to enhance social bonds. And now it's become this problematic thing

because on average, our world is awash with it. And we're not using it in a way to enhance social bonds. We're just using it because it's a Thursday and I'm a bit stressed. We're using it plonked in front of the TV on a Tuesday night watching a box set. It's not even a box set, is it Netflix? But do you know what I mean? It's just everywhere. It's mindless.

It's mindless. We're not using it. I think we'd be much healthier if we treated it like all the other drugs and was like, we've got a festival coming up. Do we choose X, Y, and Z drug? We've got the alcohol drug and knowing what the consequences are. Whereas we treat it like a soda or a fizzy water. It's just everywhere. And that's what I'm really trying to portray is just wake a few people up. Like I needed to be woken up just to go, oh, I wonder, I wonder is actually alcohol the thing that's behind, you know, my lack of performance in

certain areas or my grumpiness or my tiredness or my inconsistency. And the reason I'm telling myself and beating myself up is I don't have the willpower. Very often you'll find that actually it's that average relationship with alcohol that sits behind all of those things. You have been involved with coaching people for years, for many things, but specifically around alcohol, changing our relationship with alcohol. Have you noticed any differences? I get everyone's an individual, but broadly speaking, have there been differences between men and women? I think, especially on the online space, it's predominantly female.

Is it? Yeah, always has been from all the organizations that I've run. Most of those groups are predominantly female. I think, again, we're generalizing here. I think females are much more comfortable about coming out and sharing their emotions and talking about these things.

Men, much less so. You know, and I really think there's a need for more specific organizations, initiatives for men around alcohol. Funny enough, the AA, and that's obviously not my position, I'm very much prevention, the AA might be something in very much looks like addiction. So people who don't know, we're talking about Alcoholics Anonymous.

Yes. And you're saying that's for... Predominantly, yeah. So that's for those who suffer dependency, identify as alcoholic, that's very much in that bracket. You're not necessarily speaking to them, are you? You're not trying to speak to them. I'm in the middle lane, but I'm just giving you an example that the AA is predominantly male. Whereas actually what I see this new movement of alcohol-free is predominantly female,

which is really interesting for me. And of course, men just as much as women are in that middle lane. And I think men just as much as women are suffering all of those performance, you know, negatives from their middle lane relationship with alcohol, but they're not coming forward as quickly or they do it, I think, much more on their own. So they're not as vocal. You don't see them as visually, but they're being inspired. And I know they're being inspired by these type of conversations. I think that's why podcasts are fantastic for men because they might not join the groups.

They might not show up and put their hand up, but they're listening right now. They're listening to this. And there'll be a lot of men listening to this thinking, oh, I wonder, actually I'm in my mid thirties or forties. I want to be optimal in the rest of my life. I want to peak perform in my career and in my relationships. Maybe this ginger bloke's got something to say that might be interesting for me. It's, it's kind of interesting, isn't it? It's, interesting for me. It's kind of interesting, isn't it? It's about asking ourselves the question, why are we drinking in the first place? I think a lot of us don't know that. Genuinely, I didn't really know that. You just sort of fall into it and then you assume that's what you do.

It's like going higher up the chain, going to first principle thinking, going, okay, well, wait a minute. I currently drink, but who said I have to drink? What might my life look like if I don't drink? And again, people can make their own decisions. It's up to individuals what they want to do with their life, how they want to spend it. That's always been my view. I think that's your view as well. One of the things I always like about your approach, it's very similar to how I've always dealt with patients, which is to raise awareness. You know, I'm not here to tell you what to do. I just want to, I want to help you experience something whereby you might go, oh, actually, I kind of prefer feeling like this. I prefer this way to that way. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And I think it's, we become the stories that we tell

back to that great quote. It's not the events that shape our life. It's our beliefs about them. All the coaching I always do is at the level of beliefs. I'm trying to help people unpick their beliefs. For example, with alcohol, lots of people have a belief that to not drink is boring. That's a cultural belief that a lot of people have. So they tell themselves that story and we become that story. So a lot of the work that I'll do, I'll sit someone down if I'm coaching them or I'm training our coaches, and we'll just try and unpick some of those beliefs. I just ask questions. For example, is it true that not drinking is boring? So I'll get people to write two lists, what's boring and what's fun. So on my boring list is repeating myself, saying things that I might regret, you know, waking up the next day, feeling awful,

tired, groggy, snapping at the kids, not having the energy to do the things that I might regret, you know, waking up the next day, feeling awful, tired, groggy, snapping at the kids, not having the energy to do the things that spark joy, putting on the freestone in weight, being unfit, unhealthy. All of those things are boring to me. That's my view. All of that's boring. And all of that I think is facilitated by alcohol. What's on my fun list, being energized and upbeat and having my mental clarity, being fit, faster, healthier, doing the things that I love, socializing a different way, starting entrepreneurial activities, coaching people, training coaches. They're the things, having conversations like this that are fun for me. So my point being, I think a lot of the time is we tell ourselves these stories that we maybe collect along the way, maybe from our youth in terms of we need alcohol to drink, to have fun

or socialize. And we keep them until we become aware of them. And I think that's what these conversations do so well. They wake people up to think, well, actually, I haven't even thought about that. What is boring and what is fun for me? And when you run that list, most of the time people will find on the boring list is the influence of alcohol or the after effects of alcohol. It's the very opposite to what they believe. Now, Andy, a lot of people have got insecurities. They're deeply, deeply insecure. I have been for much of my life.

So again, not a judgment, just an observation. In certain cultures, there is such a social pressure to drink that you've got to be pretty strong-willed to go up against that and actually be confident that actually you're not going to drink even if people around you are. It's something I've come up against. The reason I find it so frankly easy these days is because I have done a lot of work on myself. That's a very broad term. I've shared some of that on this podcast in the past, so I won't reiterate it now. But I feel very secure in who I am today. I know who I am. I know my values. I know what I stand for. So it's very easy for me to not drink and not be swayed anymore by social pressure. In your experience of coaching people, how much of a factor is this internal insecurity? How do you help them manage

the social pressure that they often face when they go down this path? It's a brilliant question, because I think it's a bit of a chicken and egg. So do I. Because actually, by removing alcohol, I see these transformations. It was the same for me, mentally and physically. I think people have to overcome something that they feel is terribly difficult, that may be impossible, that they face all that social pressure. And in doing so, in many ways, plus they get their mental clarity back because they're not blowing up their neurochemistry. So that momentum and that courage builds on one another. And I think that's why I see dramatic transformations

in people's confidence. The biggest thing that I see as a coach is lack of confidence, that same sort of thing, insecurity. The quickest thing that comes back when people remove alcohol is that confidence again. So I think it's a bit of chicken and egg. I think a lot of people do suffer from those insecurities,

but I think our middle lane drinking feeds that beast. It makes us more insecure. It takes away our power. I really believe that. I worked with a guy just recently and he described it like this. If it was a battery pack on his back, he was down at 1%. He was still operating in the world and doing all those things, but he'd lost all his power due to that middle lane drinking. Of course, he removes alcohol for a period of time, has to deal with those social events, that social pressure. It's hard, but we grow stronger through doing hard things, don't we? So through that process, we regain confidence. That's why I continually see it. And I've seen it up close for hundreds of thousands of people. People take a break from alcohol, transform their career. They take a break from alcohol, transform their

relationship, transform their body, transform their mind. They regrow their confidence back up as their authentic self. So for someone that's feeling insecure right now, the greatest thing you can ever do, in my opinion, if you're a middle lane drinker, is remove alcohol. And you have to go two steps back to go 10 forward. It might feel like you've lost that cloak, that persona, that guard that you used to put up and appreciate that you have to go two steps back to go 10 steps forward, but then you regrow your power. Imagine what it feels like to go out that first time and socialize. When you wake up the next day, you feel like a hero. There's a similarity there between what you've just said and some of the things you've said so far in this conversation and trauma. So in childhood, if for whatever

reason we don't feel unconditional love, we develop certain adaptations to help us, to help us survive childhood. Because as kids, we need the support of our caregivers, usually our parents, but could be anyone. We need that. So we need to fit in. We have to choose attachment, even if it means we're sacrificing authenticity. And the problem often is in adulthood that we don't realize we're no longer kids, that we still have those same patterns that, yeah, served us really well as kids, but perhaps are not serving us well as adults. And it's when we were talking about social anxiety before, Randy, you mentioned, yeah, you felt you needed alcohol when you were 13 to help you talk to girls. Now let's assume you were

right. Let's assume that that did help you talk to girls. Okay, so's assume you were right. Let's assume that that did help you talk to girls. Okay, so you used it as a, okay, you want a child, but let's say as a 13-year-old, you used this drug. And that drug lowered your inhibition, so you then were able to talk to the opposite sex. And by doing that regularly, you've built up your skill in how to talk to the opposite sex. So you now actually know how to do it. You've done it several times. You're not scared of doing it. You know that actually, oh, you know, there's no issue here. I can talk to them just as easy as I can talk to a guy, for example. But you keep the story running that you need the alcohol to do that without realising, wait a minute, you've already built up the skill running, that you need the alcohol to do that without realising, wait a

minute, you've already built up the skill. Do you still need alcohol to talk to a girl at 53? Do you know what I mean? When you look at it like that, it's like, well, you've just convinced yourself of a story that was true when you were 13, but ain't true anymore. And this is, you've absolutely nailed it. This is what I'm getting at.l jung the great swiss philosopher psychiatrist said what of the morning was true by the evening has become a lie and i think that's really indicative of a lot of our relationships in the middle lane with alcohol it was true for us at some point in our teens in our 20s that actually it was mainly upside right we didn't suffer those knock-on consequences in such a way. We build those habitual pathways. I drink, it helps me talk to girls. And then we just keep replaying that. And then we wake up one day in our forties

and we're unfulfilled and unmotivated and we've put on weight and we're inconsistent, all those things driven by this dragon from the past, which we're chasing, which is to talk to girls. But now we're happily married and we don't need to do that anymore. Like what are we doing? That's why I think there needs to be that lovely awakening of, oh, actually, why am I doing this? Why am I using this in the way that I used to use it? Maybe there's a different way to look at this. And I think that's why people get these incredible transformations because they realize, oh, I don't need it in the way that it once served me back then or years ago or decades ago. Let's say there's someone, Andy, who's listening to this and they're like, okay,

all right, I'm hearing you guys. I reckon that maybe I could experiment with my relationship with alcohol. Okay, let's see if what they're saying, let's see what Andy's saying holds true for me. You know, they're drinking twice a week, maybe a couple of glasses of wine or whatever it might be. If they want to start on this alcohol-free journey, and perhaps they've never had a period of time without alcohol, as is the case with many, many people since they were 18 or 16 or whatever it might be. How do you encourage people to start? Before we get back to this week's episode, I just wanted to let you know that I am doing my very first national UK theatre tour. I am planning a really special evening where I share how you can break free from the habits that are holding you back and make meaningful changes

in your life that truly last. It is called the Thrive Tour. Be the architect of your health and happiness. So many people tell me that health feels really complicated, but it really doesn't need to be. In my live event, I'm going to simplify health, and together we're going to learn the skill of happiness, the secrets to optimal health, how to break free from the habits that are holding you back in your life, and I'm going to teach you how to make changes that actually last. Sound good? All you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash tour, and I can't wait to see you there. This episode is also brought to you by the Three Question

Journal, the journal that I designed and created in partnership with Intelligent Change. Now, journaling is something that I've been recommending to my patients for years. It can help improve sleep, lead to better decision making, and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. It's also been shown to decrease emotional stress, make it easier to turn new behaviours into long-term habits, and improve our relationships. There are, of course, many different ways to journal, and as with most

things, it's important that you find the method that works best for you. One method that you may want to consider is the one that I outline in the three-question journal. In it, you will find a really simple and structured way of answering the three most impactful questions I believe that we can all ask ourselves every morning and every evening. Answering these questions will take you less than five minutes, but the practice of answering them regularly will be transformative. Since the journal was published in January, I have received hundreds of messages from people telling me how much it has helped them and how much more in control of their lives they now feel.

Now, if you already have a journal or you don't actually want to buy a journal, that is completely fine. I go through in detail all of the questions within the three-question journal completely free on episode 413 of this podcast. But if you are keen to check it out, 413 of this podcast. But if you are keen to check it out, all you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash journal, or click on the link in your podcast app. People have to be ready to change as well. I think this is really important. And that's great if someone's listening to this and they're inspired. We need to put a quick caveat in here. I'm talking to the middle lane. So this is the average drinker. If you're someone that might identify as alcoholic or you're worried that you might be dependent on alcohol, if you do decide to take a break, you need to

seek professional medical advice. But let's just say someone wants to take a break, which is great. I think the place to start, I've got a tool, a little technique. I'll just walk through it. I think it's great for anyone listening. I think this is really beneficial because it helps you see your relationship with alcohol on a page. So I train all our coaches in this. I call it the ambivalence seesaw. So you'd almost draw a line and a triangle underneath it, like a little kid's seesaw, if you can imagine. And what I'd get everyone to do on the right hand side of the seesaw, write down your perceived benefits for drinking alcohol right now, not in the past, not in the future, right now. And what you tend to find is, it's quite a short list. It'll probably say something like, helps me socialize, helps me relax. It's not an exhaustive

list. Catch up with my mates. Yeah, it's normally quite small for the individual. And then on the left hand side, I'd say write down all the consequences that you're currently experiencing in your relationship with alcohol. As a middle lane drinker, it might be tiredness, might be grogginess, to more extreme bit of anxiety, bit of load mood, you know, not performing as well as I'd like to in my career, grumpy, snapping at the kids, not as consistent in my exercise, not as consistent in my nutrition. It's quite a big list. So instantly you're starting to get a visual representation. On top of that, I'd put a line and say, what are all the benefits you think you might gain from being alcohol-free? And if you

haven't had that experience, you've heard me bang on about all the benefits you might get, more time, more energy, better skin, better health, more momentum. So visually you start to see this big list on the left starts to dwarf some of these perceived upsides on the right. And then what I'd like to do, and I get people to do, I challenge the truth in those perceived upsides on the right, i.e. alcohol helps me have fun or alcohol helps me relax. And we start to unpick that. And like we've been saying all along, what might have been true in your younger years might not be true now. Does it really help you relax? If you take the bigger picture into play, yes, it gives the chemical illusion of relaxation after those couple of drinks, but then what happens? If you were to stop drinking, you're more relaxed or less relaxed. What about the next day? More relaxed or less relaxed when you're suffering

from maybe anxiety. So you start to unpick that belief. So you've got your relationship with alcohol on a page. You're starting to unpick some of those beliefs and then you start to crowd them out. This is like retraining your brain. What other ways can you achieve the same reward of relaxation? What other ways can you achieve the same reward of socializing with my mates? And you start to put all other ways in there. And it might be take a bath. It might be go for a run. It might be go for a hike. So all of a sudden, really quickly, and we've just gone through that in record time, you start to see your whole relationship with alcohol on the page. It's really visual because you see that those little perceived upsides are causing all those consequences. You're missing out on all those incredible benefits. And you're

really clear about what it is that you need to do, the rewards that you seek to overcome them. Yeah, I love it. It's bringing the dark out into the light. It's It's why I love, you know, solitude practices, self-awareness practices, things like journaling, whatever it might be, because it allows you to step outside of your life to reflect on your life. That's a great tool where unless someone's done it, it's quite obvious when you hear you walk it through.

But when you're in your life and it's just habitual that on a Friday night you open a bottle of wine and you have half and your wife has half. If that's habitual, you've probably never done the pros v cons calculation and just literally five minutes of doing that, you'll actually visually see it on a piece of paper very, very clearly. You've done a lot of work on coaching, Andy. You train a lot of coaches. What is the impact for people on seeing that visually, seeing 10 things in the negatives and only two things in the positives? What does that do for someone? It's really based around motivational interviewing. So it gives people that distance.

And I think what happens, there's a great saying, my friend Matt talks about this, when you're inside the jar, you can't read the label. It's so true, isn't it? And I think we've got 2 billion people inside the jar at the moment in the middle lane. So that exercise gets you out of the jar. You get outside the jar and now you can look at it. It's on a page. You can see your relationship with alcohol on a page. And from that place of awareness comes the ability to make change. It doesn't necessarily make it easy, but you gain a whole new level of awareness. And I think as coaches, that is a great foundational skill to start with someone because it's like light bulbs going off everywhere. Oh, maybe it's not the thing that I thought it was. Maybe the stories I've been telling about it all these

years actually once were true for me are no longer true. That's a game changer. So the person does the exercise, it goes, okay, there's a lot of negatives here, not many positives. All right, I'm getting even more convinced now that I might want to experiment with a new relationship. Do you recommend abstinence, like 28 days, 90 days? Is that what you like people to do to fully experience how good you can feel? Or sometimes, I don't know, let's say you're drinking six glasses of wine a week. Is it useful for them to make that three glasses of wine per week? How do you find it helpful to guide people through that? Any change is good because three versus six is a massive benefit.

But on a personal note, I want people to take a break, whether that be 28 days, ideally 90, to experience all the benefits for themselves, to have that physiological, visceral experience of sleeping better. What it feels like to wake up without that low-grade anxiety hanging around to get your authentic self back for a month or two and collide with life. Do the big social event, go to the wedding and dance if you have to. Deal with the stressful event. Like that is so powerful. What we spoke about earlier, that's how you rebuild and regain confidence. I think so many people are lacking confidence. So many people are lacking a sense of meaning and purpose. And I think we're looking in all

the wrong places. So the longer you can have that stretch of sobriety whether it be 28 or 90 days the more impactful that will be then you won't need me to tell you yeah you will know for yourself that is a complete different world from reading in a book or listening to it on a podcast when people have in their head 28 days or 90 days have you found that for all the upsides, is there ever a downside? And what I mean by that is they're just counting down the days to that 28 day point when they can have a drink on day 29 or they can get to day 90. So on day 91, they can have a bottle of champagne and celebrate what they've just done. Have you found that to be an obstacle for some people or not?

Yeah, it's a great question. So my approach to this is to make it such a compelling experience that by the end of it, you are loving your life without alcohol. And I know I keep banging the same drum, but equally, lots of people might take a dry jam, which is a brilliant initiative, with the approach of, if I can last dry Jan, and then on the 1st of Feb, I can have a drink, I can wear that rusty medal of a month off alcohol for the rest of the year and use that as an excuse to say, I don't have a problem with alcohol, and then get plastered for the rest of the year, which is completely the wrong approach,

have a problem with alcohol and then get plastered for the rest of the year, which is completely the wrong approach in my opinion. But that's the, I see that a lot with dry January. I see, again, everyone's different, you know, everyone's got a different relationship to it, but that 30 day detox period is often used as a sign to go, no, I'm cool. Cause if I had a problem, I wouldn't have been able to do that. Yeah. And that's the completely wrong mindset. It's that problematic mindset as opposed to the aspirational, inspirational mindset of, I can't wait to take a break. Let's go for it. Let's see what lies in store for me. Imagine I've got more time, more energy, all those incredible things. And that's why I think a longer break is really important. Because I see that a lot. Like December very often gets written off to the fact that a lot of people are going to do dry jam. So they just go bananas in December. Whereas my approach is take the break,

but really get into what are the benefits. Look for them. If you look for them, you'll find them. And they could be really subtle benefits. Don't have to be really obvious ones. Or it could be the moment that it's a Saturday night and a loved one, a daughter phones up from a nightclub. It's 2am in the morning where you normally have had those couple of glasses of wine, you can jump in the car and you go and save them. Like those wins are huge. They're monumental when you see them and feel them. So my approach is not to just take a break. It's not about removing something. It's about starting something. Let's build a compelling future. What are your goals? What are your dreams? What are the things that you can do with your time and your energy during that period that would build such a compelling experience? Why would you get back?

Are there common things that people experience along the way? Like one weekend, they tend to say A, B, and C. Two weeks in, they tend to say D, E, and F. One month in, they tend to say other things. I mean, have you, I know every case is individual, so maybe it's hard to say, or are there some similar patterns that you have seen with the people who you've coached? I think early on, depending on where your relationship is, that there's very often headaches. You know, I think if anyone stopped drinking coffee, for example, and I've been on and off coffee, you know, all of my life, you get that sort of slightly withdrawal symptom. So I think the first couple of days can, you know, experience a little bit of withdrawal, let's say, even as middle lane drinkers,

this is the truth of it. But then after that, I think sleep is the big one that starts to come back. That is the big thing people notice. They're like, I'm sleeping better. And that was what changed my life. 28 days, I hadn't slept like that in years, that deep restorative sleep. We were talking about if you look at your, you've got your tech, your whoop or whatever it is, if you have a couple of drinks, it destroys your recovery, your heart rate variability. And it also destroys your heart rate in terms of it's elevated throughout the night at rest. And now I've done a lot of work around that. Sometimes your heart rate's elevated by about 20 beats. My resting heart rate's 42. That would be 50% higher if I was to go out and have a skin

for as it were. And that's why I think a lot of people, as a sort of an aside, put themselves into really dangerous places when they try and sweat out the night before because their heart rate's already 50% elevated potentially, and then they go and try and beast themselves. That was definitely me. So when you remove that and you sleep better and your recovery's better, I think you start to get that sense of joy come back. Here's another beautiful thing. And Anna Lembecki, I think that's how you say her name. Yeah, Dopamine Nation.

Dopamine Nation. She speaks about this beautifully, much better than I. But what happens, because your beautiful brain is so clever, you've got to remember, when we're putting the alcohol drug into our brain, it is a drug like all the others. It attacks us at the neurochemical level. It spikes dopamine. That's where we get some of the feel-good feelings. But your brain,

even as a middle lane drinker, is so clever, it starts to prepare in advance for that dopamine spike because it's got to maintain equilibrium. So it puts you into dopamine deficit effectively. So I know a lot of middle lane drinkers, and I would have described it like this. The world felt a bit gray, a bit dull. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. And the small joys just weren't joyful anymore. Because where I would have got a little dopamine bump from hugging a loved one, and I was in dopamine negative potentially, it was neutral.

Or if I'd seen a sunrise, it was just bouncing to neutral. So I see this consistently with people on their alcohol-free adventure. Suddenly, sunrises are joyful. Ice baths are incredible. Sea swims are amazing. Hugs with loved ones. And I think what's happened for a lot of them, their brains are just recalibrating. And they're getting those bumps of joy from the joyful things in life, which are hugs and sunrises and ice baths, if you love that kind of stuff. Do you know what I love about your approach, Andy? Is that you're selling the upside. We haven't really gone deep yet into the fact that excess alcohol consumption will increase your risk of seven different cancers,

increase your risk of liver cirrhosis, increase your risk of all kinds of different chronic diseases. That hasn't come up yet. And I like the fact that it hasn't come up yet because more and more I'm convinced that people don't need more information. They don't need more knowledge and more science about the downsides to certain things like alcohol or sugar or ultra processed foods, whatever it might be, most people know enough. It's not more knowledge they need. It's that inner awareness. It's that experience. As you say, do 90 days without any alcohol at all. And then you've got a really good comparison to make yourself. It doesn't matter

what I say or what you say, Andy. It's like, is your life better without alcohol or with alcohol? And then you're empowered. And then it also means that if you then do go and have a couple of glasses of wine one weekend, and the next week you've written off again, which often happens, you're like, oh, why did I do that? Actually, maybe I'm better off not drinking. That's kind of what happened with me bit by bit. Do you know what I mean? So you're selling the upside, which is one of the reasons I think you're being so successful in helping people because it's not about fear and negativity and this is going to increase your risk of cancer or whatever it might be. You're making it aspirational for people. It's so true because then I think if you hit people

over the head with the stats and facts, it's always coming from a place of loss, isn't it? It's like, oh, I'm despondent now. I can't do that thing that I want to do because I might get cancer. And then from that place, people don't make lasting change. Whereas I'm like, actually, what a gift. You're not going to get cancer, or you're less likely to get cancer because you don't drink, but why would you drink in the first place? Because you get all these incredible benefits. So let's just celebrate the wins, the joys, make it aspirational, inspirational. And I think you get much better results for people that way. Because ultimately people need to want to change as opposed to being forced or feeling like they should change. We know that it's so much more powerful when that

motivation is internal, intrinsic. What advice would you give to someone who has been on this journey before, who maybe for two or three years has been thinking about their relationship with alcohol and has, you know, maybe done a couple of 90-day periods where they didn't do it, but somehow it slipped back in, but they're really keen to keep trying. What would you say to them? I think first and foremost, we have to realise as well, very often for lots of people, slip ups as well. I know you were talking about longer breaks from alcohol, but I think also slip ups or going back to drinking is a part of many people's story. And I think a necessary part of change. I think Richard Rohr, the great spiritual

author who I love, says we learn more by getting it wrong than we do by getting it right. And I think it's so true. We learn through our mistakes. You know, you lift the trophy aloft. Yeah, it's nice. But when you lose 5-0, that is a lesson to teach you much more than lifting the trophy. And I think it's very indicative of life and any behavioral change. You know, again, back to Petraska, the stages of change model, his brilliant research showed us that on average, it would take people five or six times around all those stages of change to make lasting change. So it's like an upward corkscrew of change. I think every time someone does a 90 days or takes a break, they're going further up that corkscrew. Yes, it might technically look like they've come back to the start because they're drinking again, but they haven't. They're forever changed. And I think they

continue up that spiral, upward spiral, that corkscrew to such a point one day they do wake up and go, like I did, that's exactly what I did. And I go, actually, I'm not doing that anymore. I've had enough. You're absolutely right. You know, in my experience as well, when you fall down, when you don't meet the goal you set for yourself, as long as you don't go into a cycle of guilt and shame, if you can avoid doing that, you're having some of the most powerful learning experiences of your life, right? That supposed failure is teaching you so much. As long as you don't allow the negative self-talk to come in and go, what a loser I am. I can't stick to anything. And that guilt and shame gets you right back to where

you started. You have to look at it differently and go, wow, that's interesting. I did it for 90 days, but those two drinks on Saturday night wrecked my next three or four days. Wow, isn't that interesting? Wow. Wouldn't it be nicer if I didn't do that? Different, completely different self-talk about the same situation. This is really important. One of the biggest things I do with the coaches that I train and in my coaching is coach around slip-ups. Now, when I first got into this, it was like Voldemort, he who shall not be named. I've never mentioned slip-ups. It's like, I can't go there because if I talk about someone, you know, departing the wagon or whatever it might be, in some way, I'd convince myself I was almost giving them license. Then I understood the science and the

reality of it. So a lot of what we do is prepare people in advance to counteract that shame. Because what I noticed, and we see this all the time, people will try and make a change, they'll slip and beat themselves up and tell themselves, I'm broken, I'm not worthy, everyone else is perfect, I'm no good and and disappear and you can't help someone who's disappeared so what we would do is actually out front right at the start go right there's a high chance at some point it doesn't work out what are your options what are your options if it doesn't work out what can you learn from it you know and in that place you empower someone you're not giving them license to slip up you're empowering them with the fact that maybe it will go wrong. But then they remember that training instead of feeling

shameful and regretful and sweeping it under the carpet. They bounce back stronger from that experience. Again, that's how you make lasting change. Yeah. I want to share with you a couple of experiences, Andy, over the last 12 months for me, which I think speaks to some of the things that have come up so far. So last June, one of my best mates had his stag do. And there's about 12 of us who got together in the Lake District for a weekend. I think about five of us, including the groom, didn't drink at all on this, in versicom, a stag do, right? So five of us weren't drinking, including me. Seven people were. I guess two or three were very minimal, but maybe three or four were going full on. And it was really interesting because everyone had a great time. No one was actually putting any pressure on anyone else. So the people who were

not drinking were just not drinking. The people who were, were. So that was quite nice. And I do think society is changing a little bit where I thought that's interesting. I don't think 10, 15 years ago, maybe it's our ages as well. Maybe in our twenties, it would have been very different. We're a lot more immature back then. So that was interesting. Second thing though was we were in the Lake District to go up Scarfell Pike on the Saturday. And I remember this so well, it was the heat wave. It must've been about 28 degrees. It was really hot. And we got up early to go and get up to Scarfell Pike and come down, right? Pretty long way to go. And about half an hour in, I was starting to really worry because there were two people on that stag do who were totally smashed the night before.

I think they would admit they're slightly out of shape. We were half an hour up. They look red. They looked hanging basically, Yeah. Right. And I actually stopped to the group and say, Hey guys, listen, let's not be stupid here. We're not on our twenties. I thought someone's going to have an MI at the mountain here. Like a myocardial infarction, a heart attack. Right. I was actually genuinely concerned. I thought, I know in our twenties, people would do crazy stuff. I did crazy stuff, which I definitely wouldn't recommend, people would do crazy stuff. I did crazy stuff, which I definitely wouldn't recommend. But I was like, this could go horrendously wrong. People have been hitting it hard on the booze,

that unfit, they're trying to go up this big mountain in a heat wave. This is a bad idea. So thankfully, those two or three kind of stopped and stayed at the bottom, just sat there all day, just rehydrating while the rest of us went up and down. So it's quite interesting, isn't it? Because how many times would people end up with some quite serious consequences from still in their 40s trying to act as if they were in their 20s? And you mentioned heart rate before and heart rate variability and recovery. These guys, I mean, they weren't wearing trackers, but no doubt their heart rate sort of being through the roof already to deal with the booze. That is a recipe for a big problem. And I was thinking, these guys have got partners, they've got children. Come on along and be responsible here. Say what you need to say, because something's going to go badly wrong here. Yeah, it's so true. And again, physiologically, we don't realize. We have no idea the impact. And I would see this. I work with a great guy

called Christian Daly, who was former captain of West Ham, captain of Scotland. He's a brilliant physiological coach. So we would track heart rates. We would see it all the time in many of those clients. He works with me in the corporate environment. He trains people physically. I train them in resilience and mentally. And he would track heart rate variability heart rate at baseline and we would see sometimes as I described earlier 20 beats yeah like imagine that at rest so normally you're having a workout but you're not you're literally out you're having a workout just to be sat there at rest yeah and then you climb a mountain that's when you keel over is the truth of it because you're putting your heart in places that you shouldn't be. But there's also something more important about what you just said.

Those people that didn't climb the mountain, they missed something. They missed something really bloody important. They didn't get to the top of that mountain. And that could have been a beautiful experience for them. And they missed that because of those few drinks the night before. We often talk about FOMO, don't we? The fear of missing out. I like JOMO, the joy of missing out. And I'll share a story if I can, which is not dissimilar. My best friends, they'll drink, great Irish lads. And we spent a trip together and we created things to do during the day, really for me. And we were going to the Aran Islands, which is a tiny island off the coast of Ireland. And we arrived and the whole idea, we were going to this beautiful Dun Angus Fort. I

didn't know anything about it. I just knew the name of it. We arrive, it's 10.30am. It is sheet rain, absolutely lashing from the heavens. There's nothing to do. The mountain biking trip is cancelled. The only place open is the pub. So we're in the pub at half 10. My friends will drink, they start drinking. I'm not drinking clearly. And I was so despondent. I was like, well, I've lost my mates for the day. It's the truth of it. Fast forward two o'clock. It's already too late for them. They're singing. They're on the, all that sort of stuff is happening. And the sun comes out. So I noticed the sun coming out and I'm like, well, actually we're meant to do this thing. I think I'm just going to duck out. And of course I'm not going to say goodbye to them.

Otherwise I would have got the classic, you know, arm around the neck. I love you, son. You can't leave. So I backdoored it, backdoored it. I had no idea where I was going. I didn't know. I had no mountain bike. I just knew we were meant to go to this place. It's Dun Angus Fort. So I started to walk and I kept walking and I kept walking. I reckon I walked for six hours on my own. I didn't see anyone for the best part of four hours. It's a remote island in Ireland. And I happened upon this fort, Dunangus, which is centuries old. And as I climbed over the rubble, you're met with this sheer granite cliff face. You're looking out onto the Atlantic oceans. I'm getting goosebumps thinking about it now. I was hit by the power of the sea, the wind, this sheer drop about 80 meters in this spiritual place. And

I had what I'll describe as a spiritual experience. It was unbelievable. I felt connected to something bigger than myself. Everything made sense. It was just a joyous experience. One of the most joyous of my life. And I left that moment and I walked home again, literally with the biggest smile. I arrived back 10 o'clock at night. I looked in the door. Where were my mates? In the same space. And what I realized in that moment was that I would have missed one of the greatest moments of my life, stuck in that pub, like I've been stuck in that pub a thousand times before. And it made me realize how many things like that are we missing out on because of our relationship with alcohol as middle lane drinkers could be game

changing. Yeah, thanks for sharing that mate, honestly. I mean it's really, really powerful and there's a wider point isn't there, which is that everything in life pretty much has upsides and downsides. Yeah. But we often only look at the upsides, the upside being I'm with my mates in the pub drinking, right? Okay, let's assume that is an upside. And I know you could unpick as to why it potentially is not an upside, right? But let's assume that is an upside. Well, what's the downside here? You know, do that calculation. And over time, you might realize that actually, well, wait a minute, maybe there are more upsides to not drinking now than upsides to drinking.

I certainly feel that's what's happened in my life. I've got to the point where I'm just not interested in drinking. I'm not even tempted. It's interesting. End of January this year, I went to France for a ski weekend. Now, I haven't skied since 2019, I think. And I used to love going skiing regularly. And, you know, this year I've made a decision that I want to get back into my passions. So I went to France for a long weekend. And it's really interesting. There was, you know, a group of friends there. And I was the only one not drinking. And although it was fun to get back to the mountains and ski, I remember coming back thinking, I actually didn't enjoy that weekend as much as I thought I would. And a lot of it was around drink because everyone else was drinking.

So that meant all the social activities revolved around that. Now I was very happy not drinking. I would just have my sparkling water, you know, if I was feeling bold, I was very happy not drinking. I would just have my sparkling water, you know, if I was feeling bold, I'd put a bit of lime in it, you know. Second thing I realised, I've spent years being hungover in the mountains. I'm not interested. I want to get up. I want to meditate. I want to connect with the mountains. I want to connect with the snow and all that kind of stuff. So, have you got any comments on that, Andy? Yeah, because I think the bigger part of that as well, you would come back energized in many ways, having had that experience. And I know it wasn't quite how you want it to play out,

but those that were drinking would come back ruined. It would take them two weeks to get over that one week. We've all been there. And I think we forget that, that knock-on effect. And I love skiing and I learned to ski as a broker. So I'd take our client skiing. So it was a mess. It was constantly awash with alcohol. And I found it brutal, to be honest, mentally and physically. And now I ski with my daughters and my wife. It's joyous. You know, it's joyous to get on the slope. For me, alcohol destroys a great skiing holiday because exactly that, you're not as energized and upbeat again, just my opinion. And I think we see that a lot with holidays, with guys that connect together or groups that go out together. When the focus

is alcohol, it changes the dynamic. There's no denying that. I think you can show up and shine alcohol-free. But what I'm seeing now more of, which was great to hear about the Stag Do, is that bigger groups of people are starting to drink less. And I think it's still very much a solo mission. And I think what you would have done is inspired probably a lot of people on that event. Yeah, I think so. Because there were a few chats at various times individually with me from people, which I found really interesting. One guy was saying, well, it was actually interesting. He said, Akhil doesn't agree with him at all. At all. You know, he knows that even one drink will wipe out the next day. He feels he has some

sort of real intolerance, but he was still getting smashed with his mates because they're his old mates. And I get it. But when you're sober, you watch it and go, that is crazy. But you know it doesn't agree with you. You've got these three days in the mountains and you're going to obliterate them. And the other thing I found fascinating, and again, there's no judgment here, Andy, because I have been in those situations before, right? Exactly. But we were out on a Saturday night and we had a meal and we were in this bar. I was chatting to a mate of mine there, sitting at the bar, both with our sparkling waters. And I think it was about 11pm. One of them ordered a load of

triple shots of the most horrendous looking spirit. And they all did it. And again, no judgment. But what was so interesting to me is I thought, wow, you've had all the fun, you've had all the bonding, you've had all the connection. Now at 11 or 11.30pm, all you're doing is creating more pain tomorrow. And it's so interesting when you're out of it to watch it and go, it's absolute madness. But again, no judgment. I've been there before. It was just fascinating to observe it. But that's the important thing that we're talking about because when you do observe it, you realise, oh, actually, are they having fun having fun? And I would look at that group and know that they're not. They might think they do because they're caught up in the alcohol-induced... Yeah, make that case, because someone's going to say, someone may be thinking, Andy, so what's wrong with that, right? They're

having fun with their mates. That's their way of connecting. That's their way of bonding. Who are you to say that they're not having fun? Yeah, from my point of view, to observe it, often you see the way that the evening breaks down. And of course, there's those early parts of the evening when everyone's pretty much on the same wavelength. And I love that. So for me, socially, I'm out all the time drinking my alcohol freeze, but I'm ducking out after two hours before it gets a bit messy. Or with one of my colleagues, I had a four pint rule. He was particularly annoying after four pints. So I said, you can drink it as quick as you like, or as slow as you like, but the second you tip the scale of four pints, I'm gone. So it's up to you. That's a good take home, isn't it? If you don't drink and you're going to go out with people who

do drink, just give them all like their own rule. I quite like that. A little rule. But then you observe, right? So I'm around people that are drinking all the time. And genuinely, this is just my opinion. I'm like, you're not having fun anymore. I can see it. You're repeating yourself. You just don't look well. You know, the conversation's just gone. But when you're in it, you don't notice it, do you? When you're inside the jar and you're all collectively, oh, here's the big thing. This is the classic. And then we all contribute to the biggest cultural lie in history. And I've done this, the great night lie, where you'll wake up the next day, right? And someone, unless you say you've gone out drinking in the week, and the reality is you've come home, you now feel awful. You're anxious, you're tired, you've got to go to work, you don't

want to go to work. Someone gets on the WhatsApp and says, great night. And then everyone joins in that cultural lie and says, yeah, great night. Truth is, most of the people that are sharing that great night have probably got themselves into trouble with their partner at home. They now feel awful. They've probably cancelled their exercise. They're going to eat rubbish food. They're going to be terrible at their job all day. But we constantly try and sort of keep ourselves deluded. And in this trap, it's quite a weird thing to experience until you're out of it, then you see it. What about the social pressure though? Because a lot of the time in these sort of gatherings, because historically people got together and would drink. And look, I want to, first of all,

make it really clear that I know not everyone has this experience. Of course, certain religions don't drink at all, right? So to them, it must be like, what the hell are you guys cracking on about? Like, we don't drink at all. We don't have to deal with that. Do you know what I mean? So everyone's got a different experience of life.

I think it's really important to acknowledge that. But for people who have experienced the sort of things we're talking about and are now at a point in their life where they're starting to question things, it's often that social pressure that keeps them locked where they are. How do you help people get over that? Because that's a very, very powerful force that some people simply cannot get over. Yeah, I think, as you say, social pressure is huge. It is changing

though. Even in the last five years, I've seen that change dramatically. I think since the advent of alcohol-free alternatives, I think when you're with someone and you're drinking something that looks like they're drinking, tastes like that drink, it eases that social tension. When I got into this 10 years ago, there wasn't any of that and it was even harder, but there's still social pressure. There always is. But I think as well, it's to remind yourself that this is a solo mission. And I think if it is good for you and you're getting benefits from it, then I think you constantly have to remind yourself. I think online communities are huge. And I do have to put a shout out to what has also changed over the last five years is the rise of the alcohol-free influencer on Instagram and Facebook. There's power in our pocket, I think at times, especially with alcohol. I think it can

feel quite a lonely experience because you might be going out with your friends and they're all drinking and they're putting that social pressure on you. And I think to feel like you've got an app or a community or an influencer or someone that you admire in your pocket that you can turn to, I think is really important. I think we need that. I think, you know, I'm on a real mission to celebrate lots of elite performers, whether they be athletes or entrepreneurs that don't drink, because we don't really know who those people are. I think we do need broader role models to help people in those moments of tension when they're being socially pressurized to think, well, actually, my hero doesn't drink, and he's getting elite performance, or she doesn't drink, and she's this incredible businesswoman. Therefore, you can bat away that

social pressure. Yeah. It seems as though in our society, Andy, that the only two valid reasons for not drinking are, number one, I was an alcoholic, in which case people go, oh yeah, okay, no problem, I get it. Or if you are a member of a religion where they don't drink, like Islam, for example. I think people don't push back in those situations. I think if you were to say any of those two things in a group, people would understand, oh, it's okay. You had a real problem with it. But apart from that, you almost have to justify your relationship with alcohol in a way that you don't have to justify your relationship with, frankly, anything else. We talked about this during our first conversation that it's almost as if you have to state your relationship with alcohol.

Me in that bar in France on the ski trip, me not drinking requires an explanation. No one drinking requires an explanation. That's fine, that's the accepted norm. It's a kind of bizarre relationship we have, whereas if we could just be respectful, everyone can live how they want to live. If you want to drink, go for your life. If you don't want to drink, go for your life. But questioning people who don't choose to share the same behavior as we do, it's kind of a little bizarre, isn't it? All of it's nuts. It is nuts. When you get some space from it and you look at it and you go, what on earth are we doing? How have we ended up in

this situation where we feel pressurized to effectively take a drug that someone might have figured out is no good for them? Or pressure other people to give you an answer of why they're choosing not to partake in a drug. Exactly. That's crazy. Because let's just unpick this a little bit, right? Because I don't think we see it like that because it's the accepted norm in many cultures. But actually, what other behaviour do you feel it's within your right to publicly probe someone else as to their choices around it?

You know, we don't do it with many other things. It's the only drug in the world that when you try and stop taking it, you often get berated for that fact. Everything else, you'd be celebrated. If you started an exercise routine, people would cheer you on. If you quit smoking, you'd high five. Yet, try and take a break from alcohol, and people want to pull you out on it. Why is that, do you think? I think it's so socially ingrained. This is back to the way we've been marketed to probably for the last hundred years.

It's seeped into every area of our society to such a point, we've lost all concept of what it is. We treat it like fizzy pop. It shows up at every engagement. It's crept into our society. I think Big Alco has got a massive role to play in that, in the proliferation.

Is that changing? We're saying many things have changed in the last five or six years. I think Big Al Cole's got a massive role to play in that, in the privilations. Is that changing? We're saying many things have changed in the last five or six years. I'm really interested in your perspective here because recently I've been watching a few films with my son. It's something he really likes to do. We sit down together, we watch a film.

They're often kind of action movies, right? And I've noticed in most of them that I've seen recently, even new stuff that's just come out on Netflix, and I've noticed in most of them that I've seen recently, even new stuff that's just come out on Netflix, you can see the product placement of alcohol still today. I was hoping that would have changed, but I'm thinking, I don't kind of like this.

He's watching stuff where the cool guy at the end of the mission is celebrating with a beautiful lady who's also drinking. And do you know what I mean? It's kind of like, what is that subliminal message that's going into him at a young age that success and, you know, interacting with the opposite sex or whatever it might be, it all revolves around booze. So true. We're marketed to from the age of Dart. And we wonder why we end up in this situation where it's just seeped into every single aspect of our society. So it tells a story that to be romantic, you need alcohol, to have fun, you need alcohol, to get with your friends, you need alcohol. And the truth is you just don't, you know, all of those things become more joyous and enjoyable without having to take this drug that changes

the picture or changes your persona. And I think that's why we've got such a lot of work to do. We're at the precipice. It feels like I've been pushing up this flywheel, this gigantic flywheel for the last 10 years, but it really starts to feel like we are starting to see change slowly, but surely. And I really believe in the next five years, that flywheel is going to tip and it's really going to pick up. I think we'll start to see a lot of alcohol coming out of mass media, advertising being shut down. And I think people will have this cultural awareness of actually, why is it in our life? How did it, how did it end up that I have a kid's birthday party and all the adults are drinking? What's it got to do with my kid's birthday party? What's it got to do with every wedding?

What's it got to do with Christmas? Like rather than building our whole life around this product that's taken away our time, our energy, our looks, our health, let's start building like a new approach and giving people choice. I'm just about choice and I think that's really going to happen.

Let's talk about children, okay? You've got two kids. Yep. I don't want to necessarily ask you how you deal with this personally with your own children, but broadly speaking, something I think about a lot given the age my kids are, they're not yet at the age, to my knowledge at least, where their peers are drinking. But I know some of my other friends who've got slightly older kids are. And, you know, even at 15, 16, some of my friends' kids are out drinking with their mates on Friday nights and Saturday nights. Now, I don't like the thought of that at all for my kids

in a few years. I haven't had to deal with it yet. I don't know what the kind of pulse of the alcohol kind of movement in kids is and teenagers and adolescents at the moment around where I live. But what advice might you have for parents who are trying to navigate that? Their 15 year old, their 16 year old is being invited to parties and people are drinking, their peers are drinking. Have you come across this? Have you got any advice to share? Because I think this is a big issue as well. Yeah, I think as Gandhi said, be the change that you want to see in the world. It's like those parents that I can imagine are on their phones, telling their kids to get off their phones, right? We've all made that hypocritical mistake. I think it's a bit like that with alcohol. You know, for me, if you really value that,

take a break yourself. Show them how radiant you are, how great you look, you know, all the momentum you build in your life, you're crushing it at park runs or whatever it looks like. And in my family set up, my wife still drinks, Tara, and I don't. So my kids have had the two big role models in their life. One drinks, one doesn't. And I've just left it up to them and their choices. But what I've noticed for kids, which didn't exist when we were growing up, I've got two cultural experiments going on with my kids at the moment. One's 16, one's 18. And when the 18 year old was 16, she went to a party and she took a bottle of no secco, so alcohol-free Prosecco, so no secco out of the fridge. And I saw her walking out the door and I thought, oh no, through my map of the world,

I thought she's going to get the Mickey taken out of her. The kid's going to laugh at her. She's going to be the only kid with the alcohol-free drink. So she goes to this party, oh no. Through my map of the world, I thought she's going to get the mickey taken out of her. The kid's going to laugh at her. She can be the only kid with the alcohol-free drink. So she goes to this party, comes back. I'm like, how'd you get on? She went, brilliant. I went, what about the no secco? She went, oh yeah, loads of kids had it. I was like, game changer right there. That's one cultural experiment. The second experiment, my 16-year-old has been drinking my alcohol-free beers since she was about 13. So she'd go to the fridge and crack one open. And I'm a bit like, is this a good thing or a bad thing? I don't know. But as it transpires, they're 16, 18.

Alcohol's not in their life. I mean, maybe they've drunk. I don't know about it. But it's not in their life in the way that it was for us. And what they're having to do that we didn't do, they're having to collide with life without alcohol. So they're training all the skills that you need to train such as being social such as going to festivals such as having fun without

alcohol and maybe it will play a role in their life but the longer it goes on and the research backs this up the less likely they are to have problems with alcohol down the line so the later we can leave it for our kids to drink the better and i think there's that mythology about that French approach of introducing it, which we always get completely wrong because we're not French and it's not our culture, of introducing it early to our children. But again, the research plays it out. The younger that children start drinking, the more likely they are to run into problems as an adult.

Yeah. I mean, as an adult, as someone who knows the biology of alcohol and what it does to your brain and what it does to a developing brain, I can't stand the thought of my beautiful children drinking that stuff, you know, certainly as adolescents and teenagers. So look, if we have a conversation in a few years, I can tell you where we're up to with that because that hasn't been an issue so far. But I think you raise a really important point, Andy. And it's an uncomfortable truth, I think, for many parents. And this goes beyond alcohol. This is about smartphone use. This is about all kinds of things. It's about being present with the people around you. Kids do what they see you doing,

right? So the best way, in my my view to help your kids is to sort your own stuff out and start to behave and act in the way that you think is a great example to them. Certainly that's always the approach I've taken as a parent. In fact, I would probably say, I think we covered this on our first conversation, I think one of the first times I started to question drinking any alcohol was in the first year of my son's life where I remember I think I had one lager with a friend in a pub. And the next morning I was just feeling a bit headachy and a bit tired. And I just, you know, my son wanted, you know, he's a baby. You don't want to play with his dad. But the alcohol I had the night before

had gotten in the way of that. And for me, that was a big, okay, sort yourself out, son, you know, as in me. Sort yourself out, Rangan. That's not his fault. And I do believe with parenting, and I know it's hard and I know people are under a lot of pressure, the behaviours you want in your children, you kind of got to

showcase them. So true. And I think, again, if we look at optimal performance and alcohol, it makes you tired and grumpy and maybe a bit more snappy and you might not have the energy. That in itself has that huge impact on how you're showing up and the energy that's in the household. And that's why I really believe, and I know I'm so passionate about it and I'm the most biased man on the planet, but taking a break or, you know, changing your relationship with alcohol, even if it's not the entirety of your family, but maybe one of you makes such a difference. And I look at my lovely wife, Tara, who's my biggest supporter, who still drinks, you know, and that's her choice. And I totally respect that. I totally love her. How's that been?

It's been really interesting. She has been there for me the whole way through it. And it must have been hard for her, right? Because it was my empowered choice, but she effectively one night lost her drinking buddy, as it were. Not that she would drink a lot, but we would definitely drink more together. And we've had to adapt and adjust. Do we go out and stay out till 2am in the morning? Less so, but we've probably matured out of that anyway. And also Tara's got a great group of friends who she loves, real close girlfriends who like to drink together and go out together. And I leave them to it because that's not my thing. So we've got a really nice way of dealing with that in many ways. Feel free not to answer this question if it's too

personal about your own life. But what's interesting to me is that you are one of the public faces of the alcohol-free movement and you wax lyrical on my show and whenever I see you online about the benefits of an alcohol-free lifestyle. I wonder what that's like for your wife because if she is continuing to drink, and of course, as you say, it's her choice and she's got friends to go out with and do that with, let's say, our behavior often puts a mirror up to the people around us, right? So it's really interesting for me that she does drink and you don't. So in my life, for example, my wife doesn't drink either anymore. So for both of us,

it's not an issue on holiday or wherever, you know, we just don't drink. We just love a good sparkling water, right? With lime. Yeah, that's the best. With lime. Go crazy. Right?

So what's that like for you guys? Is that, you know, if she's hung over one morning, for example, you know, do you have to restrain yourself from that? Well, you know. if she's hung over one morning, for example, you know, do you have to restrain yourself from that? Well, you know. Told you so. Yeah. And again, I totally, you know, love and respect Tara's choices. And I think that's really important. And she doesn't drink that much. She drinks a lot less than we used to drink together. So it doesn't get in the way of our relationship

at all. But it's interesting. I think about two and a half years ago, Tara decided to do this fitness plan. It's called the six pack revolution. I don't know if you've heard about it. When you got on the inside of that plan, it was quite clever. One of the ways to get best results was to not drink. So Tara diligently follows this plan. She looks incredible, losing all this weight. She's not drinking. She pulls me to one side, like she's telling me a secret, right? And this is why people have to be ready to change. She goes, Andy, I haven't been drinking for the last 45 days. I'm like, I know, that's why you look amazing. She went, yeah, but I've got more time. I've got more energy. I've got more clarity. I'm getting more stuff done. I'm looking at her like,

have you not been listening to me for the last 10 years banging on about all these bloody benefits? And I think that is such a beautiful example of people need to be ready to change when they're ready to change. You cannot make people change. So I show up and shine my light and do my thing. And if Tara wants to join me on the fun side of the island at some point, it would be a wonderful thing. But until that point, that is her choice. For me, there's another point there, which is we don't always want to hear that information from our partner. Exactly. You know, we sometimes need to hear that information from someone removed from us,

where there isn't that personal connection. That goes for alcohol, for diet, for working out, whatever. I've seen it. I've experienced it over and over again. We're not always, I would say more often than not, we're not the person to give our partners or our loved ones that information. And I think after a while you realize that the best way is the way you're demonstrating, which is just show up, be yourself, be your authentic self, live the way that you want

to live. And that shines out to everyone around you. It's so powerful. It's the most powerful thing you can do. And lots of people approach me and say, I've got a loved one that I'm concerned about. It's the same story. I'm like, if you've got a loved one you're concerned about and you're drinking in the middle lane, stop drinking. Take a break yourself, show up and shine with a new energy.

Show them what it's like for you to live your life without alcohol. I think, again, that's probably the most powerful thing you can do rather than telling someone what they should do. And I think by seeing someone, you change their beliefs. You make them believe that maybe it's possible for them. And it might not happen after six months. It might take six years, but eventually they get there. I always laugh about it. You know, I go live on Instagram and Facebook most days. And I reckon for the last basically 10 years, I'm probably the most swiped past man on the planet. I reckon they're like,

oh, here he is again, banging on about, oh, like imagine years go by. Oh, there he goes again, banging on about alcohol-free swipe. And the amount of people have told me they've done this. They've swiped past me for about four years. And then of course,

it's slowly going in. They wake up one morning and think, oh, I wonder has he got something interesting to stay? And then fast forward six months, they're alcohol- and they're ready. They're ready. You have to wait. And I think that's so truthful. We equate change with action. And sometimes it's not about action. Sometimes it's just about awareness. That's why these podcasts are so wonderful, right? Because what we're doing is just raising people's awareness. It might be in the corner of their consciousness. They might be thinking, I wonder. And when they wake up with a bit of a hangover and realize it's taken them a week to

get over it, it might be like, well, actually, are those perceived upsides worth that week of underperformance? And it might take them a year or two. They might come back and listen to this podcast as people do all the time, years later and make that change. What a wonderful thing that is. And I think that's what's so important about this. We're not wagging fingers. I'm not telling them what they should do. We're just trying to show up and shine our light. You do it so beautifully as well. And in doing so, we motivate and inspire people. That's how you make change. Tell me about this documentary you're making. Oh yeah, this is so cool. So this is again, another thing that was never meant to be in the world. I just stumbled into it by fluke really. A guy called John Hyatt got in touch with

me. He'd made a great documentary called Screened Out, which is funny enough about phone usage and our children. It got picked up by Congress, got shown in Congress. So I liked the ethos behind this particular style of documentary, which was to raise awareness. But John had taken a break from alcohol and he'd watched my TED Talk, The Limitless Pill, listened to this podcast, a few other podcasts, I think Rich's podcast, and was inspired, took a break from alcohol, felt incredible, then made his next documentary that was all about health and wellness, got into the editing suite, no one mentioned alcohol. And he's like, how can this possibly be? Why is no one talking about alcohol? And these sort of so-called health and wellness

gurus got in touch with me to be that voice in the documentary. So we went backwards and forwards. And as part of that conversation, I said, I think there's a place for a Game Changers style documentary for alcohol-free. And John just come back and went, you are so right, let's do it. So it came from nowhere.

And really what we're going to do is make this inspirational piece that's going to cover off some of the health consequences, but also lift a few of those rocks, which I'm really interested in. Big alcohol's role in advertising, government's role in their relationship with big alcohol, some of the practices that are going on that people, I think, are unaware of.

And if I even may use this, because we're actively filming at the moment, if someone's out there, they've got a platform, they're a celebrity, you know, they're an actor, sports star, and you don't drink and you've had a wonderful experience, do get in touch because I'd love to share more of those stories.

We don't share those stories enough. We historically grew up knowing all the athletes and movie stars that drank alcohol, but we don't know any that don't drink alcohol. We need to shine and show a different story. So we're out there looking for support, investment, I have a GoFundMe as well, just to kickstart the whole thing, but it's going to go bigger than that. And really the design is to try and inspire a generation,

transform the world's relationship with alcohol. Big aspirations, big goals, but who would have thought, you know, that break 10 years ago would have led to this adventure. I love that. I mean, you've got such high energy. You're so driven to get this message out there. It's obvious to see the impact it's had on you. When I watched that podcast you recently recorded about 10 years alcohol-free, you listed, yes, sleep, consistent early mornings, weight loss, looking younger, more connection, more fun. You also mentioned saving money. How much money do you think people could save if they stopped drinking alcohol? Well, I always joke whenever I'm in a room with a lot of young kids, I'm like, all right, if I gave you £10,000, would you stop

drinking? Of course, no hands go up. I'm like, well if I gave you 50,000 pounds? What if I gave you 200,000 pounds? A few more hands go up. What if I gave you 250,000 pounds and all the hands go up? I'm like, brilliant, you win. Just don't drink. And you'll save that amount of money. I genuinely believe that. Like for those people, if you look at the compound interest that we spend on alcohol over a lifetime, it's astronomical. I think in the last 10 years, I've probably saved close to 50,000 pounds. That's completely nuts when you think about it. I've been able to reinvest that in self-development, in training, in courses. And I think there's a lot of that going on at the moment. We don't realize the knock-on

effects of drinking, not only the alcohol itself, the taxis, the poor performance the day after. Well, that's it, isn't it? It's not just the cost of that round at the bar. It's the taxi home. It's the extra sugar and fast food and junk you're eating on the way home or the next day because you've got the munchies. And you could keep going on and on. It's not just the direct cost of the alcohol, is it? It's the kind of knock-on effects as well. Yeah, exactly. It might be that you don't perform as well at work. You don't make as many sales, therefore you don't get as big a bonus or whatever your setup is. It is this huge ramifications, the health costs that can spiral out of that as well. It's huge when you look at it that way. So again, as a way to save money. That being said, alcohol-free alternatives are quite expensive.

And I think we have to admit that as well and own that as well. They're quite expensive, but I think you're still saving big time. What's your take on alcohol-free alternatives? I love them. I'll be honest. I really love them. They really helped me. Like I felt grown up. It took away a lot of that social pressure. I actually really like the taste now. So I think they have a huge benefit for lots of people and everyone's different. But for me personally, I really enjoy them. I think it makes me feel socially more at ease. There's definitely a placebo element to them. And I see it within our app, Dry. Maybe we can talk about that.

Yeah, please tell us about the Dry app. Is that D-R-Y? D-R-Y-Y. D-R-Y- y y and what is that so dry is an online community um with a focal point of an app which is unbelievable it looks beautiful it's aspirational it's inspirational full of incredible people we've got 76 year olds in there guy called amon from ireland who's transformed these relationship with alcohol he's buzzing we've got students in there you know we've got to 76s. It's this beautiful space that people come together. It's totally free. There's no barrier to entry. Just go to your app store, download it. And the way we've set it up,

every single day, there is a live feed in there. So someone does a live. So I go live every Tuesday morning at 7.30am. You get all this beautiful live content for free. And there's a bit of a stepping stone for those that want more. There's opportunities to train on challenges, be it 28, 90 day, we call it Get Dry. The self-development challenges, you can train with me as a coach. So it's a whole space, merch, meetups. We've got a festival, Dryfest, June 22nd in Glastonbury. I think it's a world first. We're really trying to come at it from a completely different angle, that real aspirational, inspirational angle of actually I'm loving my life because I don't drink and I'm proud of it. And I think it's about time we shared that

message. We've been told one message for the last hundred years, that alcohol is fun, cool, sexy. And now we're showing a different message. Alcohol-free is much more fun, much more cooler, and much more sexy-ish. Andy, I love chatting to you. You're so upbeat about this. You're so keen to share what you've experienced. You want other people to experience this kind of vitality that you've had, which is frankly magnetic. It's great to be around. frankly magnetic. It's great to be around. To finish off, for that person who is inspired and thinks, yeah, you know what? That's it. I do want to change my relationship with alcohol. I don't know where to start. I know you've already shared some of your best advice, but what would you say to that person? I think just start. I know that's ridiculously obvious because the first thing that many people do is look at their diary and go, oh, I can't do it this week because

I've got the wedding on, I've got the work due, I've got the X, Y, and Z. And actually those social occasions or those obstacles are the reason to start because in getting out the other side of those, you're going to feel so much power, so much momentum when you do the first social occasion. So I think that's the first bit of advice. Just start. Then join a community. It could be dry and obviously I'm biased with that, but there's loads of beautiful communities out there. Find a group of people that identify with what you're going through. They will support you. They will cheer you on. They'll inspire you. Go onto the internet. There's so many incredible people on your phone now in the sober space, in the alcohol- alcohol free space that are sharing their inspiring messages come and join me live every day i'll personally

cheer you on like immerse yourself in this world because it will be a solo mission and i think one thing you have to remember is that your choice to change is not your partners it's not your friends it's not your parents it's your choice and we have to remember it's a solo mission and the best thing you can ever do in my opinion for your health your health, your fitness, your vibrancy, your energy, your performance as a parent in your career, is take a break from alcohol and just show up and shine and see what it's like for you. And if you get some of the results I've been banging on about for the last 10 years, what a discovery that will be. What a win that will be. And most people never get a chance to discover that because they start in their teens and never stop.

So the greatest gift I think you can give yourself and your family is having the courage to start. Find a community that you align with, then show up and go for it. Rousing finale, Andy. Yes. Love chatting to you. Love your energy.

Love what you're doing. Keep up the great work, mates. Thank you. And it's a pleasure. And thank you for sharing this platform. My pleasure. Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. Do think about one thing that you can take away and apply into your own life. And also have a think about one thing from this conversation that you can teach to somebody else. Remember, when you teach someone, it not only helps them, it also helps you learn and retain the information. Now, before you go, just wanted to let you know about Friday Five. It's my free weekly email

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