THE LIFESTYLE ENTREPRENEUR

Read time - 3 minutes

If you were forwarded this email from a friend and want to subscribe, go here.

Alcohol

The public discourse around alcohol has changed rapidly over the past few years, as has my relationship towards it.

As recent as five years ago it was accepted by nearly everyone, that 1-2 drinks per day was a healthy normal amount of alcohol intake. And a few very popular studies even made people believe that a glass of red wine a day was even good for optimizing health.

Remember that? It’s likely that everyone either believed, or chose to believe that message.

I’m sure plenty of people still think that’s true, but the overall discourse has changed dramatically just in the past few years.

In 2022 the World Health Federation dismissed the notion that any moderate drinking could boost cardiovascular health.

Health experts and influencers have all but stopped repeating these 1-2 per day message, and we’re down to 1-2 drinks, total, per week for healthy consumption amounts.

So we’re down to 1-2 drinks, PER WEEK, as the healthy amount.

I’d be willing to bet in the next 5 years that goes away too. The reality, is that there is no amount of alcohol consumption that is ideal for health and performance.

Why is alcohol bad for you?

There are many reasons alcohol is bad for you, as it’s generally accepted as a toxin that creates damage when it enters your system.

It’s also linked to various negative health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, digestive diseases, injuries, and several infectious diseases.

Alcohol also impairs judgement and makes people a lower quality version of themselves.

Sleep is substantially degraded by alcohol consumption - and I believe mass acceptance of sleep tracking has accelerated the public’s realization that alcohol is harmful for your health.

I believe sleep is a primary factor - alcohol destroys your sleep - which is the foundation of a healthy person.

My Alcohol Journey

This is disappointing news to any alcohol lover, which is a category I was in most of my life.

My history with alcohol is challenged but typical. I grew up in a house that didn’t have much alcohol around and I wasn’t exposed much to it until high school - at which point I binge drank my way through high school and college.

Out of college I dramatically reduced my volume but still binged drank on weekends. And over the next decade reduced the binge drinking down steadily, and fell into a 3-5 day a week of 2-4 drink habit.

This carried me relatively well into my mid-thirties, where the binge drinking occasions were few and far between, but I was in a daily battle attempting to drink less.

I always lost this battle. My relationship with alcohol is relatively simple - I want more. If have have 1 drink I want 2 or 3. If I drink 1 day, I want to drink the next.

For years I found myself on a constant cycle of planning out how many days I was going to have drinks, going over those days and amounts, pledging to do better the next week, and repeating.

On top of that because I planned on starting over on Monday, I often had a few too many on Sundays, which made things worse.

This continued until one day in 2018 when I decided to take some time off. I started with a month goal, but stretched that out to 9 months.

That period gave me a lot of clarity around my alcohol habits, and was the first step on a productive journey that today I have relative mastery over the drug.

The moderation vs abstinence decision

There are plenty of people I know who just kind of like alcohol and will adhere to the 1-2 drinks per week guideline naturally. I envy those people, and am not one of them.

This issue is not for those people. It’s for the people like me, who like alcohol but constantly have to spend mental energy managing their consumption.

For you, my people, you have to make a choice - moderate or abstain.

Moderation - This approach works for many people. It simply involves choosing how many drinks per week work for you and staying within that number.

The going recommendation is 1-2 drinks per week which is extremely low, but likely accurate.

When you drink is also important, so if you go this route, which is most people, I’ll lay out below my 1-2-3 framework for managing intake.

Abstinence - Abstinence seems harder than moderation, until you try it. The primary reason is the 100% concept - which states that not having to make constant decisions about your alcohol intake on a daily, or even hourly basis, can make complete abstinence easier than limiting to low weekly numbers.

Anecdotally this is entirely true for me, with alcohol and other things I have a tendency towards addiction.

If you’re not sure? Do a 1 month stop and evaluate how it affects your life. 1 month can seem like a big ask, but it’s a discrete period of time to test yourself.

My current alcohol status

In 2023 I attempted moderate alcohol consumption. It worked fine - I rarely had more than 2 drinks, and was able to stay down within the ranges I’ll lay out below.

In October I chose to take a year off alcohol, however, for a number of reasons.

• I still found myself constantly evaluating how many drinks I could have in a day or week, and I was tired of thinking about it

• I really started prioritizing my sleep in the past year and started using a whoop strap. That data, along with many tools, has helped me dramatically improve my sleep quality, which in turn has increased my mental focus, clarity, energy, and overall experience of life

• I have an alcoholic in my family and seeing their life quality degrade over the years has impacted my view on the drug greatly

• I wanted to challenge myself and see if I could do it

Will I have a drink on the one-year anniversary? I honestly don’t know - I haven’t decided either way. If I had to guess I’ll probably attempt the moderation plan below, but I’ll keep you all updated.

The 1-2-3 Method

I write about this method often, and love it because it’s easy to remember and minimizes the effect of alcohol while allowing some consumption throughout the week. It’s simple:

• 1 hard stop per year of a month or more. This allows the body to rest from consumption, and also allows you to experience life without alcohol for a period of time long enough to have slight sleep changes (note - my experience is you need 3 months off to have substantial sleep changes)

• 2 drinks max per day. Anything more than that and it will affect your sleep substantially and affect your system enough to be noticeable the next day.

• Stop drinking 3 hours before bed and no more than 3 days per week. Stopping 3 hours before bed allows most of the alcohol to leave your system before sleeping, minimizing it’s impact. And 3 days a week is a relatively easy number to stick with, without getting close to becoming a daily activity.

I’ve found this method extremely effective when using the moderation approach.

Where are we heading?

I believe we’re heading towards a 0 alcohol recommendation across the board - meaning there is no amount of alcohol that’s healthy. This is unsurprising to anyone who has consumed alcohol, and simplifies the conversation.

From there we need to individually decide how much alcohol is acceptable given our individual health and social goals.

Luckily from the social standpoint, non-alcholic drink options are proliferating and will get better and better. And other psychoactive drugs with different risk profiles are becoming more available.

All other drugs have their own degree of calculation required as well, in terms of how much consumption we believe to be healthy, or rather provide the least amount of damage.

The best amount of consumption for me?

Whatever allows me to feel rested, focused, energized, and able to present my full and best self every day; and allows me to feel present when I’m with my friends and family.

The balance that allows that will continue to change, and i’ll continue to experiment and find optimal amounts.

I wish you the best of luck in finding what works best for you.

Talk to you next week,

Mike

Thanks for reading The Lifestyle Entrepreneur

If you were forwarded this email from a friend and want to subscribe, go here.

Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help you:

I’m a Professional EOS® Implementer. That means I work with entrepreneurial leadership teams (typically growth oriented business leaders with 10-250 employees) to develop three things:

• Vision - getting teams 100% on the same page with where the company is going and how to get there

• Traction - Applying discipline and accountability to achieve that vision

• Healthy - Creating healthy, functional, cohesive leadership teams

If you or a business owner you know would like to hear more about EOS®,

Please click here for to schedule a free intro meeting.