WEBVTT - new from kaleidoscope: two percent with michael easter 0:00:09.960 --> 0:00:12.160 Yo, what's up. It's dexter. I wanted to share a 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:15.280 new show on the Kaleidoscope Network. It's called two Percent 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:19.000 and it's hosted by journalist Michael Easter. The show explores 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:21.880 how we can live better by examining pop medicine hype 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:26.279 with healthy skepticism and putting real science first. The clip 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:29.159 we're sharing today is from an episode about alcohol and 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:31.960 how the recent trend of not drinking at all might 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:35.640 not necessarily lead to a healthier life. Here's Michael. 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:38.360 The way that I figured out that I had a 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:41.560 drinking problem was that literally every problem in my life 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:44.559 was caused by my drinking. So if that is you 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.680 probably don't drink. Yes, if you're more like Dean, where 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:53.440 you are doing one hundred healthy behaviors, you go out, 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:56.080 you have a couple of drinks in the context of friends, 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:59.240 you have great conversations, you meet new people. You maybe 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:02.160 don't have to get super caught up in this idea 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:05.039 that like removing alcohol is going to vastly improve my health. 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:11.920 There have been a lot of conflicting reports about drinking 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:14.759 and health over the past few years. So for most 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:17.600 of time, scientific bodies said, you know, if you have 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:19.720 one or two drinks a day that could actually help 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:22.240 your heart health. But in the last halful of years 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:24.760 that has totally been flipped and now a lot of 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:28.280 people are saying no alcohol at all that is going 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:31.960 to vastly improve your health. Now, I do think there 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:35.360 is a bit of nuance in this topic. For example, 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:38.240 take me, I do not drink at all. I've been 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:40.600 sober for eleven years, and the reason for that is 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:43.840 because my favorite drink it was always the next one. 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:46.360 And if you drink like that, you can rack up 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:49.840 some life problems. But on the other hand, most people 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:52.760 are having one to two drinks every now and then, 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.320 and I think a big question is is that enough 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:59.240 to really hurt health? So I'm going to read a 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:03.240 couple of stats here. Gallup recently found that drinking is 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:05.680 at an all time low. So when the seventies up 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:09.080 through about twenty twenty, between sixty to seventy percent of 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:13.920 the population drank. Now the figure is fifty four percent. 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:16.880 We also have wineries that are closing in Napa Valley 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:19.600 because not enough people are buying wine. And I recently 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:21.760 spoke to a friend who owns a restaurant in la 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:24.320 and she said that a lot of LA restaurants are 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:28.520 struggling because no one is drinking anymore, and restaurants make 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:32.680 a lot of money from alcohol sales. So big question 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:36.600 here is drinking bad or can it be even good? 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:39.239 I have a friend, his name is Dean Statman. I 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:41.840 used to work with him at Men's Health magazine, Very 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:45.600 fitness minded, healthy guy, and he saw all this stuff 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.440 out there about how not drinking is the answer to health. 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.800 So we decided to jump on the wagon. He lasted 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:56.120 about three months because he found that although his health 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:59.360 scores on his fitness tracker did improve, a lot of 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:02.400 really interesting things happened to his mental health and his 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.040 social life. He wrote a piece about it in GQ. 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:09.760 It is called why my twenty twenty six resolution is 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:13.519 to start drinking again. All right, Dan, thanks for coming 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:14.000 on the show. 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:15.480 Pleasure to be here. 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:20.680 So let's back up a little bit. It's summer of 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:25.520 last year and you decide you're gonna stop drinking. Now. 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:28.200 I think the context it's important for this is this 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:31.680 wasn't like, oh I got a duy, I got arrested, 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:34.720 I'm going through a divorce. What prompted all this? 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:36.880 No, none of those things. Thank God. 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:41.840 I've been a journalist, a magazine editor for literally my 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:42.680 entire career. 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:45.800 That's how we met because we both were we both 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.880 worked at mental health and Overlapdorek. Yeah, and as you know, 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:51.200 you know, you can work in wellness, but it's not 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:54.120 like I guess, I don't know, like maybe accounting or 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:58.000 something where you really do have this this constant it's 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:01.000 every day is different. Like as these sort of wellness 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:04.120 trends come and go, you're covering them, you're learning about them. 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:06.280 A lot of the time, you're actually sort of trying 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:10.720 things out yourself. And I think I had just seen 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:13.400 the space evolved so much as it continues to do. 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:18.000 There's so many ways you can optimize your wellness. And 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:21.239 you also have I will point out because of your work. 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:23.039 You work out all the time. 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:26.039 Yeah, a lot of hit classes, a lot of running, 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:27.400 and then there's the stuff that I just sort of 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:31.840 personally love, you know, playing soccer every week. I got 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:34.440 again just by virtue of covering this stuff, got like 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:37.120 really into meditation for a while, got really into like 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:41.000 saw on a cold plunge, red light therapy. I've been 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:43.400 doing a bunch of higer archs, races recently, and this 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:46.479 is all throughout you know, also just just drinking like 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:50.640 an ordinary person. So I think at a certain point, 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:51.760 I just you know. 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:54.839 I did. I kind of got swept up. 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:58.760 In this like aura around the NA movement where you've 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:02.760 got you know, Tom Hollands, Biro and Lewis Hamilton has 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:05.080 like a tequila or a gave or whatever, and then 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:07.960 plus the other a dozen plus celebrities that have like 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:12.920 non alcoholic beers and spirits and things. Now you know, 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:14.640 it's back in the day, it was like everyone had 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:15.719 their like vodka. 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:17.479 Now it's no alcohol vodka. 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:17.800 Yeah. 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:20.640 I think at one point, actually the situation from Jersey 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:24.560 Shore had like a protein infused vodka which was which 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:26.880 is quite funny if you pay attention to nutrition science. 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:27.760 Did you drink it? 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:28.000 Oh? 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:31.280 Hen no, no, no, no, I mean no shade to him. 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:33.720 I think he actually is sober now. 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:37.040 Yeah, he's sober now too much of the protein vodka. 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:40.240 So I guess I just thought, like, why not give 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:42.320 this a try, Like I'm already doing so many other 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:45.240 things for my health, for my wellness, why not just 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:48.720 sort of add this. The science I think has moved 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.040 past the point now where it's like, you know, it's 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:54.039 healthy for you to drink a glass of red wine 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:56.360 a day or whatever, Like we know now that that's 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:57.120 really not. 0:05:57.000 --> 0:05:59.320 True from a physical health perspective. 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:04.279 Yes, physiologically it's it's not a plus, it's it's likely 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:06.800 a minus if you're sort of guess going past a 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:11.320 certain point or probably in any any quantity really, which 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:13.200 is also really interesting, just by the way, about the 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:17.840 new nutritional guidelines that the FDA just came out with, 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:22.200 because they actually removed specifying the number or the amount 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:25.680 of alcohol that is considered healthy, opting rather to just 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.400 say drink less, which is quite interesting because if you're 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:29.080 aready drinking an. 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:30.720 Absolute shit load, like what is less? 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:32.599 Yeah, if you're having fifteen drinks a day, you're like, 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:35.440 you know, yeah, fourteen, all right, you're following the guidelines 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:35.960 of fourteen. 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:39.000 Yeah, yeah, you're just following the FDA's guidelines. Yeah. 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:41.360 So I decided to just give it a try and see. 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.800 I lasted about three months, which is not very long. 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:50.000 And the reason really at its core was that I 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:56.279 didn't realize going in how alcohol is not just about alcohol. 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:59.400 You might be pulling one lever, but it affects so 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:02.559 many there are things it's not just like my night's 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:05.640 going to be exactly the same, except my beer didn't 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:08.320 have any alcohol in it. It's got sort of roots 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:11.200 that just go so much further than I had imagined. 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:16.080 I was noticing how not drinking was affecting my friendships, 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:21.120 my marriage even and kind of just my general like 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:25.280 mood Outlook, you could maybe even go so far as 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:27.960 and say mental health. Maybe had I done this for longer. 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:31.800 Yeah, I thought that was most interesting. Is you said 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:33.280 like you weren't as happy? 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:37.680 Yeah, hundred percent. I think. You know, I'm someone who 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:39.040 I work from home. 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:41.880 I'm writing most of the time, which is, as you know, 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:46.240 it's a very you know, solo activity, and so I 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:49.120 used to really look forward to those times when I would, 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:52.880 you know, go play pick up soccer with the guys 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:54.840 that I had in New York and we'd go grab 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:57.720 beers afterwards, or or just going out on a weekend, 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:01.560 whether it's a Friday night going out to dinner with 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:04.720 friends and then going to a bar afterwards, or just 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:08.240 going to bars and bar hopping. It's someone's birthday, or 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:09.760 you go out and then you decide like, hey, let's 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:11.760 go somewhere else after this instead of just going home 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:15.000 that just got kind of decimated. 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:18.920 Yeah, I feel like the big point here is that 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:24.080 I think there's a massive difference between drinking alone at home, 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:27.160 you know, watching Netflix or whatever, and the context in 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:28.960 which you were doing it in, which is I have 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:31.760 a group of friends, We're going to this dive bar, 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:35.000 or we've just finished this game of soccer. And in 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:37.120 the piece, I liked how you got into the fact 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:41.160 that in the context of a bar when you're drinking, 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.760 the conversations almost changed, where you had a great example 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:48.160 where you're like, you know, on after the first beer, 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:49.760 I'd be like, hey, guys, we should all go to 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:53.320 this music festival in Virginia. Let's roll. I got this right, 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:58.480 and that those moments didn't happen as much when you 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:01.120 stop drinking. You did say that you would still occasionally 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:03.840 go to bars, but you were like the non alcoholic 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:06.480 beer and it just kind of it just changed things. 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:08.000 So what was that like, and like, how did that 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:10.239 manifest itself in those actual situations. 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:13.400 Yeah, I mean, I'll give a great example just from 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:15.400 a couple of days ago, even because now obviously that 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:18.440 I'm you know, not doing that experiment anymore. So, my 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:21.400 wife and I were out in the sort of like 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:23.559 area of Zurich that we hadn't been to before, so 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:26.440 sort of like industrial part. It's very much like like 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:29.040 Short Ditch in London, kind of like a little Brooklyn 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:31.800 sort of, and we were out looking for furniture. It 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:33.840 was sort of a long day, and then we were 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:37.640 about to go home and we saw this like just interesting, 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:41.440 sort of mysterious almost looking bar. From the outside, it 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:44.440 looked like a almost like a little sort of warehouse, 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:46.559 but it was like clearly marked like as a bar 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:48.960 and had some cool like neon in the windows. And 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:51.280 we were just passing by and on the way to 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:53.080 the train, and I was like, do you want to 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:54.440 just grab a beer before we go? 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:56.559 And she was like, yeah, let's do it. So we go. 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:59.800 Inside and it turns out it's actually this huge like 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:04.040 badminton hall and there were like like eight games of badminton, 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:07.960 like full court badminton going on in this like giant hangar, 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:10.480 and in the front there was this bar, and it 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:12.920 was so weird. It was almost like a kind of 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:16.960 like like Nashville like honky Tonk kind of theme, but 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:20.400 it also had this like Japan sort of inspur It 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:23.080 was very and visually it was very like, it was 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:25.439 very cool. It was sort of like Wes Anderson meets 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:28.120 like kill Bill kind of aesthetic is the best way 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:30.199 I can put it. And I was just like, I'm 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:32.600 so glad we found this spot. And then we started 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.520 talking to the bartender about the badminton and turns out 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:38.600 it's this like badminton club and we ended up booking 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:40.120 a court for the next weekend and that was last 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:42.560 weekend that just passed, and so my wife and I 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:46.440 went and played badminton and we've never done that with 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:49.440 each other before. We've never really done anything like that 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:52.200 with each other before, because I I run a lot, 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:54.800 I left a lot, I like to race this ovary solo. 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:57.880 I play soccer. She doesn't play soccer, you know, she 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.400 has other things that she does. But we never had 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:03.520 that kind of like intersection, and so had we not 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:05.960 gone in for a beer, we wouldn't have found this 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:08.240 cool badminton place, and we wouldn't have done this like 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:11.040 great activity together as a couple. And then afterwards we were like, 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:13.880 that was so fucking rad, we have to go back. 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:15.640 And so now we're going to go back totally. So 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:18.160 I think that's just one example of like alcohol kind 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:22.800 of leading you down the rabbit hole to unexpected things. 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:25.880 And if I wasn't drinking, I mean, this is another 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:28.520 great example, Like I would have never said, you want 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:30.160 to stop for a beer before we go home, because 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:32.120 like in my mind at least, I'm sure other people 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:32.720 will disagree. 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:34.240 Like what's the. 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:37.760 Point I think for me? So I don't drink. I 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:42.800 went sober eleven something years And the important point is 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:45.600 that this was not prompted by like I listened to 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:48.920 a four hour podcast that told me alcohol is associated 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:51.480 with all these risks. I was like the guy who 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:53.560 you know would wake up and go where did I 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:58.640 park my car? And when you drink like that, that 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:01.760 can come with some reapers, obviously for your health, but 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:05.440 obviously for your life, for your social for your social 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:11.439 relationships and things like that. I rarely miss alcohol. When 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:13.520 I first got sober, I thought I missed alcohol. What 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:18.920 I eventually realized is I didn't actually miss alcohol because 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:21.280 I knew that if I have one drink, it's going 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:23.800 to lead to X number more and that's not going 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:28.280 to be good. What I missed was the setting of 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:31.520 bars in the sense that you walk into a bar 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:36.640 and everyone's relaxed, and it like levels this playing field. 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:40.040 There's not like people have a warmness and it's not 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:42.640 awkward if someone's sitting next to you to just start 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.400 talking to the dude next to you, Whereas if you're like, 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:47.880 you know, I don't know a counter of a Wendy's 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:49.559 or like sitting there, like you start talking to the 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:51.040 dude at the Wendy's. Next year, he's gona be like, 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:53.040 what the hell are you talking to me, dude? But 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:55.960 it's in that bar setting, it's like people there's like 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:59.720 a certain sort of social comfort there. There's a warmth, 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:02.640 there's a sense of like with my work obligations, I 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:06.320 could just be like, Okay, now I can just finally relax. 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:10.720 And I do think that bars are unique in giving 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:13.720 us those situations where it like I would just feel 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:15.720 like I let off. And so for me, like after 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:19.160 getting sober, I've been like, Okay, where can I find 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.160 that that isn't a bar? That's not always easy. Which 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:24.080 I'm trying to say is like bars have this like 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:28.480 unique sociality to them that doesn't necessarily come from a 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:31.040 place that isn't serving alcohol, And it sounds like you 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:34.960 realized eventually through this experiment, oh, I was getting something 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:38.600 akin to that as well. And then when that got removed, 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:40.440 you go, well, why the hell is my mental health weird? 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:42.439 Like why am I not why am I not having 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.000 these wacky conversations with my friends? Why are we not 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:46.719 like connecting as much? And it all went back to 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.480 the fact that you had a beer in your hand, 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:51.400 and you were the type of person that would just 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:53.240 have one or two, right, I. 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:56.000 Mean you described like the bar kind of environment perfectly. 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:59.360 And then in a very stark contrast to that, like, 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:02.920 during that three months stint, I ended up in a 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:05.000 couple of situations where I was standing in you know, 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:09.920 typical literal social circle of you know, five six people talking, 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:13.559 no one's drinking. And this wasn't just like people happened 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:15.240 not to be drinking in that moment, but like people 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:16.920 who aren't. 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:19.440 Drinking for health reasons or whatever reasons. 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:23.560 Really yeah, but it felt like there was just this 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:25.160 sort of in the In the piece, I called it 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:28.720 like a LinkedIn coded coldness, because it almost felt like 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:32.320 we were like waiting in a room before going into 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:34.720 like a job interview, Like I felt like everyone had 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:37.160 their kind of pr face on, and it just it 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:42.480 just felt weird, and maybe it made me sort of 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:47.200 in the moment, feel like, well, I don't like this 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:49.840 whole life about drinking thing. It seemed to me that 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:52.040 like if you were someone who just drank like and 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:54.360 did not sort of do it to a problematic extent, 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:56.160 that it was just something that you did. It wasn't 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:58.040 like a part of your personality, like, oh this is 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:01.080 d he does xx and drink like it's not something 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:02.680 you mentioned, It's just something that's whatever. 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:03.280 You drink water. 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:06.160 But I found that people a lot of the time, 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:11.280 the people I was encountering who who were specifically sober 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:16.000 in the wellness scene were like people who it felt 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:18.920 like that was like an important part of their personality. 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:21.400 Like it seemed like very few conversations went by without 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:25.000 people sort of like announcing in some form or fashion 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:27.720 that like or like making it known that they don't drink. 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:30.840 And I just think that it it kind of made 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:35.800 things conversations just feel a little more like edited, maybe 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:38.800 is a good word. Guarded guarded, Yeah, And I think 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:41.760 this really clicked for me when I connected with an 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:45.720 anthropologist for the piece, Ben Tannenbaum, who you know, like 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.560 looks into this stuff for a living, and he kind 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:51.600 of told me about this concept of costly signaling, which 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:55.000 is essentially this idea that like one of the reasons 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:57.760 that alcohol sort of serves as like a social lubricant, 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:00.200 as we say, is nothing to do with actually like 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:03.160 you know, getting drunk and sort of letting your guard 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:06.000 down because of that, but more this idea that like 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:10.920 cost costly signaling basically is this concept where you do 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:14.480 something to sort of inflict like a incur a cost 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:19.520 quote unquote like upon yourself, do something like negative to 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:21.880 yourself as almost as like a social buy in, so 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:23.560 that people sort of trust and see that like, oh, 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:25.680 this person's let their guard down. So in this case, 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:28.040 it's alcohol, because alcohol is something that's like you know, 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:31.600 not necessarily good for you like health help wise, but 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:36.400 it's one of the ways we sort of subconsciously or 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:39.880 subliminally like let people know like, Hey, I'm just I'm 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:41.200 just here to hang out, you know what I mean, 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:42.680 Like I just want to like chat to you, get 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:45.720 to know you, like there's no ulterior motives here. And 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:47.960 I think that's one of the reasons why alcohol does 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:50.720 sort of serve as this like social lubricant, and then 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:54.600 in the absence of that, you really feel it when 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.440 you're kind of paying attention to that. 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:00.520 Yeah, there's a book that I love. It's called Chapel 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:02.440 on the River and it's about it's written by this 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:06.080 lady whose name is Wendy Bounds. She's a friend and 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:09.960 after nine to eleven she moved up the Hudson River 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.679 to a town called Garrison, and she was a reporter 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:15.240 for the Wall Street Journal, and she took a job 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:18.639 at this bar called Guidance. It's like this old pub 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:22.800 in this town, and the book really focuses on the 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:26.399 relationships that were built in this bar in this little 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:28.480 town and how it was really the focal point of 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:31.239 the town. So you would have people come in, there 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:33.800 were regulars. The place didn't serve any hard alcohol. It 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:38.920 was beer only. And she wrote about how people would 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:43.560 come in who had totally different viewpoints politically, totally different backgrounds, 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:48.439 but in that setting any disagreements were really dropped. Like 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:50.480 people would give each other shit, they'd rip each other 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:53.080 about whatever, but it was like people would just connect 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:56.320 who otherwise would have never connected. And that could really 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:59.440 only happen in that bar setting. And I think that 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:02.760 that to your point about the anthropologies you spoke to. 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:05.600 It goes back to that idea you pointed out of 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:08.480 costly signaling, and I think when you look at for 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:11.920 most of time, bars were these places where people would 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:15.680 go to connect. I do feel like since twenty twenty 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:19.040 the rise of sort of the health wellness podcast sphere, 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:23.639 which grounded I'm part of, I think that's tapered off 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:28.560 and we're realizing that in the sort of quest for 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:31.560 optimal health. Then you pointed out, like the perfect Whip score, 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:34.960 which tracks a million different data points, we have lost 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:37.840 these things that are so much harder to measure, which 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:40.840 is the interactions we're having with the people around us, 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:43.720 the people that we maybe don't know but could have 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:46.359 an opportunity to know. And something gets lost in that. 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:49.960 Yeah, one hundred percent. And look, I still wear the 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:53.679 golden handcuff over here. I maybe don't check it as 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:57.080 often as as you're supposed to because it could be depressing. 0:18:57.760 --> 0:18:59.640 Now that you're drinking, You're like, I can I can't 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:00.359 look at the dude. 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:02.800 I mean, everyone who's ever worn a whoop and has 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:04.800 had a beer in their life. Notice that, like the 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:08.360 effect is it's incredible, like it it'll drop your recovery 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:12.600 score faster than you know anything. I think part of 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:16.639 this too was again being in this in this space, 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:18.760 you obviously also come across a lot of people who 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:21.080 are doing who are kind of taking things to the 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.480 maximum and spending most of their time doing things that 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:28.280 are like optimizing their body. And at a certain point 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:31.000 I was like, we're all, you know, not to get 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:32.879 like grim or anything, but like we're all gonna die, 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:34.760 Like we haven't gotten to the point yet where like 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:38.520 immortality is something we've discovered. And so with the assumption 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:41.280 or the understanding that like we all do have the 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.680 sort of limited time here, it's like do I want 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:48.840 to be spending most of my time in the garage 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:52.040 tuning the car and washing the car or do I 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:54.520 actually want to be out there like fucking driving it 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:57.879 and you know, enjoying it. And so I think I 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:01.439 got to a point where somewhere in those three months 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:04.760 when I just realized, like, you know, kind of cost 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:08.040 benefit here, like what am I gaining by not drinking? 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:12.840 And absolutely I was gaining things. I mean, whoop could 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:15.680 tell you that, like I was waking up feeling great, 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:21.840 no more hangovers. I save so much money. I just 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:24.680