the hidden impacts of "moderate" alcohol consumption (feat. Clifford Stephan)

No, I s- stoked to be here.

Thanks for having me.

Appreciate it.

So take me to the beginning about how this whole, um, movement for wanting to start a c- uh, a program to help men kind of all begin, and tell me a little bit more about what Booze Vacation means to you.

Sure.

Yeah, I, yeah, like a lot of ventures, definitely scratching my own itch.

Um, started drinking in high school.

I'm Gen X, I'm 53.

Um, a little less common with the, the later, latest generations, but yeah, I started drinking in high school, played sports, went to college, played sports, hung out with buddies, um, drank alcohol.

G- went into corporate America, you know, kind of worked my way up there.

You know, they drank in corporate America, so it kind of followed me wherever I went socially.

Got a degree in nutritional science, so I was always very health conscious.

Played a lot of sports, so I was also very physically fit.

And with a hectic lifestyle, I, I had my own consulting business in Silicon Valley for 20 years, and with age and wear and tear and, and family life and, and, and kind of going full steam ahead, definitely started noticing some issues with my health.

Um, and so I kind of poured into that with a lot of different protocols and hacks and kind of continued to work on that and kind of continued to get worse results.

Especially my sleep was really bad, um, sleep apnea, and was trying to kind of solve that p- problem.

And me and my buddies, we're not alcoholics.

Like, I, we felt like we had addressed our drinking.

We, we had cut back.

We took dry January off.

We're drinking only on the weekends.

But, um, yeah, so it was, it was a, it was a tricky problem to solve, and I was kind of getting [laughs] worse and worse, my performance, my blood work.

Everything was kind of heading in the wrong direction, and I got inspired to take a year break after, uh, listening to an Audible book, Al- Alcohol Lied to Me.

So it just kind of really helped me question, "Hey, maybe alcohol isn't benefiting me like I thought." So I decided to take a break, and that kind of really opened, opened my eyes to what was possible.

I was really able to make some really compelling gains across my health and performance.