Removing 95% Of Drinking From My Life

KL Wells sits down with Steve Cary, who has been part of the Voices InCourage team from the very beginning.

Steve’s journey with alcohol is similar to so many people – self described as a “social drinker.” Ten years ago, he started doing “Dry January,” which gave him insight into what it felt like not to have drinks on a regular basis. As he aged,  he realized that his body didn’t handle alcohol well anymore. He experienced depression, anxiety, and increased stress.

In September 2022, Steve decided to remove 95% of drinking from his life.

Take a listen to Steve’s interview about his new lifestyle, his story of changing routines, habits, and creating a new identity for himself.

This is an interesting podcast from a new perspective. If you’re looking for solid advice on getting through this same situation, take a listen now!

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Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

Removing 95% Of Drinking From My Life

Thanks for joining us. I‘m super excited about this interview. I‘ve been waiting for this one. I know you will enjoy it too. We have Steve Cary with us. He is part of the Voices InCourage team and has been from the very beginning. He is the man behind the scenes in so many ways that keeps all the parts and pieces going at an accelerated rate. He keeps it all together.

However, he’s a human being walking around out in the world too. He has his own story of his journey that I thought would be helpful for people. We normally talk about people who are in the depths of addiction or alcoholism, and the loved one’s journey through this, but what’s the everyday person’s journey in terms of alcohol? His story is important to all of us. I‘ve invited him to share his story with us. Welcome, Steve.

Thank you, KL. It is wonderful to be here, especially as somebody who has been working behind the scenes. I’ve had the advantage of participating vicariously as everyone else shares their story and inspirations and all the trials and tribulations that go with that. It’s inspiring to hear those stories. They are so powerful. I have a ton of respect for the people who are willing to do it. I’m grateful to be here because I have a voice. Perhaps what I have to share may help somebody else out there.

At the very least, I am probably representative of many people out in the world who don’t talk about this type of thing. This is a positive opportunity to talk about the theme that we speak about all the time, which is shame and stigma surrounding the topics of addiction, substance abuse disorder, and anything negative around the use of alcohol or drugs. Those things are shunned.

It has been interesting to do this journey with you while we do Voices InCourage too. I‘m going to turn it over to you and ask you to tell your story, and what has been your journey to here.

I’ll try to break it up into bite-sized chunks and keep it organized so it’s interesting. A little bit of background about me, I am over 50 years old. I’m in that time of my life where I evaluate a lot of things about health, well-being, and my place in the universe. One thing I’ve been thinking about for years and well before you and I met is drinking in general. I would categorize myself historically as a social drinker. In the corporate workplace days and during travel, there are always client meetings. You go out and have a few drinks. That was part of the journey and the exercise. It was fun.

I was always somebody who thrived in those types of situations and looked forward to it from a social perspective. Another example would be if I did a presentation in front of a bunch of people, a speech, or anything where there are a lot of people and I put a lot of effort into it, I would have a massive endorphin rush and high. I’m an extrovert by definition. I gain energy through my interactions with people. What I discovered over time is I had so much energy after these events that I would have a hard time focusing. I could not focus. My mind was going too quickly. It’s almost like too much adrenaline.

The natural thing to do after that was, “Let’s go out for some drinks,” because that one thing accomplished so many things I was looking for. Number one, it reduced the noise in my head. I could relax a little bit. It perpetuated that feeling of well-being, all the positive elements of that moment, and all the emotions. It would continue well into the night if I continued drinking. It would not go away. To me, that was stacking behavior. I never gave much thought to it, but it was a natural way that I’ll continue drinking for an event that was followed by a dinner that had social drinking.

I’m not talking about binge drinking. I’m talking about social drinking that could go on for hours. I would thrive in those scenarios. I never questioned whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. I realized this was contributing to my professional journey. I did not label it as negative, and not necessarily positive either, but that was a normal everyday part of my life. That continued for years.

One thing that got me thinking about drinking, in general, was this movement, which is Dry January. I started doing this ten years ago. Every January, I will stop drinking for the entire month. That was my first real clue into what it felt like not to have a drink on a regular basis. It wasn’t something that I ever thought was a problem. It was something like, “Let’s take a break.” The first week, I wouldn’t notice much because all my behaviors and habits are changing. I would have to adjust differently.

It was more of a challenge because I need to find replacements, but after about seven days, all the positive things started to creep in. My sleep would improve. I would feel more relaxed. I forget that I used to drink. That happened. All the automated behaviors I had that week disappeared. I started to find replacements for them. After three weeks, it was like, “This is great. I’m focused, driven, and motivated. Everything is good.” I took that away as, “There’s something powerful and useful about this.”

February would come, and I would always have this debate, “Do I want to drink or not?” There was the seed. That one thought said, “Do I want to have a drink or not?” I had that every February when I did this. I didn’t realize how powerful that thought would be. I’ll come back to that because what typically happened after that is I would have a drink, and then two weeks later, life would go on. I would slowly revert to the way things always were. Vacations would come up in the summers. You go somewhere sunny. You’re on the beach. You’re having drinks in the daytime and so on.

By the end of the year in the holidays, I’m like, “I’m tired of this. Let’s change again.” We’re back to January. That was a loop. I had some powerful insights every January. It stuck with me. As I got older, I started thinking about this more deeply. I had this question nagging me in the back of my mind, “Do I really want to drink?” That would come up every so often. It was usually a result of I would have a drink. I’m like, “What am I getting out of this?” It was usually during a vacation or after a time when I had been having a drink every day. That incremental drink didn’t do anything for me.

I would question, “Why am I doing this?” That combined with that question I asked myself on the 1st of February, “Do I want this drink?” Those started getting at me. With the effects of aging, you metabolize and handle alcohol differently. That was my case as I got older. How I handled drinking changed. My body didn’t like it. I never suffered from headaches and traditional hangovers. I’ve had those but that wasn’t a thing I dealt with. There was an insidious little hangover-type symptom that I did not associate with drinking until I started doing some research.

That symptom was depression, anxiety, increased stress, and that big bucket of negative emotions. Those are killers for me because I’m highly optimistic. I like to be around optimistic people. I seek out those interactions in life. When I would be by myself, I had this mood set in because it wasn’t the night before I had a big event. It’s like last weekend, I went somewhere and had a bunch of drinks over the course of three days but now it’s Wednesday. Why on Wednesday am I feeling low or down? Feelings of well-being are not there. I’m just anxious.

Do you remember when you first started to pay attention to that or recognize it?

I do not. It happened off and on throughout the years, but I wasn’t paying attention to these things before taking off in Januarys. That was ten years ago. In the last five years, I started to examine it differently. For me at least, once I start looking into it, I dig back into my history and start to examine events. I start to make some associations and say, “I didn’t enjoy work at that time. What was happening? Work was stressful. What else was I doing?” I was self-medicating because we had to let a bunch of people go from work or something like that. I started making reverse associations.

To answer your question, within the last five years, it became a predominant theme in my awareness. Within the last three years, I do remember having a conversation during my anniversary with my wife. We had this discussion that night. I had this idea, “I’m not sure if I want to drink anymore.” That was a topic. I do recall that vividly.

Let me get back to the more concrete points that I investigated. What I’ll come back to is during October or September 2022, I had this moment and this decision. It was easy, and I’ll explain why that is. I had this decision where I said, “I’m not going to stop drinking black and white, but I’m going to stop drinking 95%.” That’s the new rule that I set up for myself that clicked. It was easy. What happened is I did some research and learned a bunch of things about the physiology of the body and also the brain, and how alcohol affects your body and brain. I found some real concrete evidence.

I’ll tell you about who I learned it from. He has a podcast. His name is Andrew Huberman. He has a podcast called Huberman Lab. If anybody would like to look at this, the episode is Number 86 What Alcohol Does to Your Body and Health. I listened to this one day as I was walking my dog. They’re long podcasts. It’s probably over the course of several days. There are a few things that stood out to me because they described my symptoms. He makes this distinction about drinking.

You can be a casual drinker of 1 to 2 drinks a night, or you can be a binge drinker and have 12 drinks on a weekend. What that does to your body is the same. There’s the person who imbibes heavily on a weekend but doesn’t do anything else that week. Let’s say they go out and have a huge bender. They have 12 drinks on a weekend. The result in your body physiologically and your mental health is very similar to his research of somebody who enjoys drinking two drinks every night.

I did not know that.

I did not either. That was a huge knock on the head for me. I put myself in a category. My self-identity was a social drinker. I realized, “I’m doing something that’s contributing to my body’s health. Let’s find out what that is,” but that was the base of his argument. He wasn’t trying to convince people not to drink. He’s saying, “Here’s what the science reveals.” He’s a PhD professor who studies this stuff.

What I paid attention to was something strong in my mind, which I alluded to earlier. I would feel higher levels of anxiety, stress, depression, and things that are out of character with my default level of personality and state of being. I hated it because I’m pretty ambitious too. If I was on a Wednesday after a big weekend, and I’m not motivated and I don’t feel like I can accomplish the things that my ambitions lead me to finish my projects, that bothered me. That would fuel further my sense of anxiety.

What I learned from the Huberman Lab podcast is that when you drink, a couple of things happen. It increases your cortisol. I don’t want to restate what the scientists do because I’m not a scientist. I paid attention to this. It increases your overall baseline levels of cortisol and other stress hormones. That happens when you’re drinking, but it also happens when you’re not drinking.

A couple of things happen. When you’re not drinking, your baseline stress and anxiety are higher. You are prone to diminished mood or sense of well-being when you’re not drinking because the baseline levels of your body chemistry are lower like dopamine and all those other things. Your baseline is lower. To get back to your baseline, you want to have some drinks to get back there.

That was the moment when I said, “I didn’t know any of this.” I realized I’m contributing to this by casual drinking. If I already had this idea that I don’t want to drink, the perfect storm was saying, “Don’t do it,” but then I had this thing, which is I don’t like black and white choices. If I stop drinking, that sets me up for failure because I’m going to have a drink sometime, then I haven’t accomplished my goal. I gave myself a loophole. That is, “I’m going to remove 95% of drinking from my life.” That worked for me because now I’m satisfying it. I can handle the outcomes of drinking. At least what I’m finding is it doesn’t contribute to my body’s health as it used to. My moods are elevated. I feel good 99% of the time now.

When I do drink, it’s highly intentional. It’s a choice-driven exercise. I am accepting of the results and the consequences but mainly, I’m making a very intentional decision beforehand. That has led to all sorts of other outcomes as well. As you reflect backward, you realize that so much of your previous behavior was reflexive based on habit and ritual. It hasn’t been that difficult to remove it because so much of it was based on habit and ritual, but science gave me something powerful to latch onto.

Part of the habit and ritual was after a long day, a difficult day, or a difficult anything, let’s have a drink because that’s going to make you feel better. I knew that the reason it was a difficult day, to begin with, was probably because of other stressors and anxiety. I knew that drinking wasn’t going to solve it. Beforehand, I was like, “This is going to make me feel relaxed.”

It did but I didn’t attach the consequences of the next day or I would go right back to the anxiety and stress of the previous day. I’m not only deferring it until later. I’m compounding it if I drink for that reason. I have a very profound and strong reason not to drink in those moments, “Let’s address why you’re feeling stressed or why it’s a difficult day.” Find a different reason to manage that.

If you do want a drink at that point, you could but I tend to look at it now as, “Let’s not use those reasons and situations to find a drink because it doesn’t help to help to serve me. If I am going to have a drink, let’s have those moments be ones I’m going to be enjoying.” Those are the moments when I like it. I don’t want to give those up like having good wine with dinner. After I go mountain biking, I like to have a beer. It is the most refreshing thing in the world. I’m going to do that. I feel good about those situations.

That’s how I came to this new framework. I wanted to share it in this interview. There are so many people like me. There are a couple of things I’ll categorize. You’re a social drinker. It’s accepted. You don’t think much about what the impact is, but the bigger thing is drinking is okay to talk about when it’s associated with positive things in life like social drinking, football games, and all the other things.

As soon as it crosses that line where it might be a problem, we shut up. We do not talk about it. For me, it’s a razor’s edge, whether it was a problem or not. If I had something bad happen in my life, I would probably fall right over the edge to the bad side where I would self-medicate. I have had that in the past during stressful times. Imagine if something difficult happened. I can imagine it would be so easy for me to fall in that direction. As I realized, the challenges compound. You want to continue drinking the next day.

Two drinks a day could easily turn into three and could turn into four, and there’s no stopping that. I don’t look at myself as any different. I have the benefit of those bad things. Either they did happen and I handled them differently and made adjustments, or bad things didn’t happen. I look at myself as more of a lucky survivor versus somebody who has superior control and willpower.

One of the things that I am hearing you say and catches my attention is this nagging question that kept rearing its head. That eventually led to, “I need to do some research on this.“ Gathering information doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to make a change. A lot of people know they shouldn’t smoke cigarettes but they still do even though they know it causes cancer.

It’s interesting that you gather the information. It informed and influenced your ability to look back in retrospect and see, “What was happening to me when I’m a naturally positive guy? For me to feel lower, depressed, and anxiety–ridden is not my natural state of being. What’s the one thing that’s in my life that might contribute to that?“ The other thing is to think about it through this lens. This is how I think about things. Is this a coping strategy? There are so many more coping strategies for stress, depression, and anxiety.

Culturally, it’s easy. We have been enculturated to grab a beer, a glass of wine, or something along those lines. As you brilliantly said, when life shows up and knocks you right on your ass big time, if your only habit of strategy in handling stress and anxiety is to grab a drink, you’re already primed to go down that rabbit hole. Expand your skillsets. There are so many more things that we all know we can do or if we don’t, learn what we can do to be able to navigate our stress, anxiety, and potential depression. We can be at an agency for what we create in our lives.

I’ve learned a few of these from you through our regular conversations. You do have a choice. That’s one of the lessons that were in my mind probably at a subconscious level. When I was thinking about this big idea, “Do I want to drink or not?” behind the scenes was, “I’m in control here. The choice is mine. Am I going to make a decision?” Either way, it’s a decision to continue as is. “Am I going to make an adjustment?” I like the idea of looking at it as an adjustment. I’m going back to this big question, “Am I going to stop drinking or not? You are on a wagon or not.”

I felt like I was setting myself up to fail. I want to make this adjustment and a choice to say, “Here’s a path that can lead me to success.” I also have the confidence that as you go through it, the benefits would stack and compound. That would make that decision easier over time, but that was the idea that you start with a decision, move in a different direction, and do that research.

Another thing that helped me is that I have this identity. One of them is my personality, which is I’m optimistic and have a positive mindset. That’s a very strong self-identity that I carry. When I didn’t feel that way, it was in a clash. That was a grounding thing. Some other identities I have that contributed to making that choice easier is I’m super active. I consider myself an athlete. I do things that athletes do.

This was a decision that leaned in that direction. I have this crazy goal. I did not make up this term. I’ll come back to who did. It’s to participate in the Centenarian Olympics, which is to be able to do some type of Olympic event when you’re 100. If you want to do something physical at the age of 100, you have to train when you’re 90, but if you want to be able to participate in those events at age 90, you have to train at 80 and so on. I’m training now for the rest of my life. I’ve got my routines baked in. I do a lot of different things. The identity of being somebody who’s going to be healthy at age 80 or 70 was a big part of making this decision because it’s an investment in that future version of me.

That’s such a great thing to bring up. You have an identity of who you are. You’ve lived it for so long that when you’re out of your identity, it’s like, “What’s going on?“ The other thing relative to being a Centenarian Olympian is this aspirational and compelling vision that inspires you to want to do the things that you would do to prepare for something like that. This whole notion of a compelling vision is very powerful too. That has great energy behind it because when we do those kinds of things, nothing is going to throw us off. When the challenges show up, we’re still going to figure it out because we know where we’re headed in terms of the compelling vision.

This is something that I implemented more recently as opposed to when I made this decision. This is a reinforcement one. When I introduced myself earlier, I talked about how I’ve always been a social drinker. That was a subconscious identity. It wasn’t a badge I put on myself but behaviorally, I did because I was always willing to go out and socialize. I did have that badge but I’ve changed it or re-written this down. I categorized myself as a social drinker. I’m now somebody who seldom drinks. That’s my identity. For me, that’s new.

Even when I’m talking to somebody I just met, I’m trying to avoid telling them this story. If it’s something that has to do with drinking, my way of talking about it is, “I seldom drink.” That’s a new type of identity. It’s like putting on a new outfit. I’ve been putting that on. It helps form this idea of who I am, how I behave, and the behaviors I engage in because it makes all the decisions much easier. They’re habits because they’re repeated behaviors. That’s one thing I’ve done. It helps me to think about how I introduce myself or how I think about myself, but it changes self-perception.

There are two things that you’ve said here that are powerful. One is intention. You’re being choiceful and awake to make the choices that are an intentional reflection of your identity. You’ve chosen to adjust your identity based on who you want to be in the world, what you’ve learned, and what it is you aspire to create at 100 years old. That is the power of being a human being. We get to change. That’s life. Life shows up. There are moments when we have a choice, whether we continue doing the same old thought patterns and the same old behavior patterns, or whether we consciously and intentionally make a decision to move to the next best version of who we want to be.

It’s all of the affirming feelings, emotions, and also physical senses of how you spend your time. We only spend time in the present moment. How I feel at any given moment is my state. More and more, I’m feeling good as a result. It’s being aware of that. Those are things that compound.

I haven’t been a drinker for a long time. I can’t even tell you when I stopped drinking. I don’t remember a decision about stopping drinking but what I can say is it’s not a part of my identity. I‘m similar to you. I didn’t have the gene or whatever it was in terms of alcoholism. I chose other ways of handling my childhood trauma, the stress in my life, the anxiety, and the moments throughout the course of my life when I was depressed. It isn’t a thing. What I am curious about because I have faced this myself through the course of the last 10 to 20 years is this. Are your friends showing up any different now that you’ve changed?

For the most part, no. I attribute that to a couple of things. One is I have good friends. There are a lot of friends I’ve known since high school. We’re all aging. We’re all going through similar body transitions where we don’t handle it the same way. The one thing I’ve discovered is as I’ve shared this story selectively with people who have shown interest to hear about it, not everybody wants to hear about working out and stuff like that but if they show interest and they will talk about it.

I’m discovering that more people have that affirmation where they say, “Me too. I no longer can do this.” They usually haven’t looked into it at the level I have because I went down the rabbit hole but they will readily admit, “I can’t handle it. I can’t process it. My buddy doesn’t agree with it the same way.” It’s usually a welcome conversation because it validates something that they have been thinking about but maybe they have not shared externally.

That goes back to the motivation of wanting to share this with a broader audience. There are so many people who have been like me. If it’s a problem, we talk about it, or if it’s perceived as a problem. Right away if you say, “I stopped drinking,” and if you don’t accompany that with, “I’m getting in shape. I’m turning over a new leaf. I’m going to stop drinking,” that’s a good-for-you celebration.

If it’s like, “I decided to stop drinking,” there’s a shadow of a doubt that goes with that proclamation that says, “What’s going on at home?” There are overtones of shame and stigma even with the idea of no longer drinking because that is like, “There’s a problem.” I’ve sensed that in discussions with people. There’s a reluctance to talk about stopping or severely moderating because it implies there’s a problem.

I’ll share a story that just happened. I had a family member reach out to me. They were asking about the podcast that I referenced earlier, “Steve, can you send a link to the podcast that influenced and changed how you thought about drinking?” That was what they said. They said, “It’s for my friend. She has shown some interest in it. I sense she might be struggling.”

The conversation of struggling in the context of drinking implies a problem, and then it was just hushed. Even though there isn’t a problem, there’s the idea that there could be. We’re having private conversations. It’s confidential. We’re not talking about it openly. I want to lead by example like so many other people are, but in my community of friends and people I know, I’m very open about it.

I’m saying, “It could have been a problem. There’s a short distance from where I was to maybe it could have been, but let’s talk about it in the absence of a problem. Let’s have an open discussion.” That’s difficult for people. I haven’t had any issues with my with anybody in my circles challenging the idea. I haven’t had any pressure, negative feedback, or peer pressure to continue drinking. We live in a time where that pressure, at least in my group, has gone away.

I know that there are probably other people that may not have the depth of relationships that you might have. Over time, I’ve had people that I’ve known for a long time. On the front end, they’re like, “You don’t want to have a drink?“ I’m like, “I‘m good.” They’re like, “Come on.“ They would feel okay. I was like, “I‘m good.” I don’t feel compelled. I don’t want to do it. Sometimes on a couple of trips, I would be the only “sober“ person in the room. I woke up the next morning ready to rock and roll. That’s who I wanted to be. All of this is informative and helpful to have conversations and open up the conversations about, “Do I want to drink? How does this serve me?“

If I want to adjust and minimize how much I’m drinking, it’s okay but the shame, the stigma, and the judgment that are attached to drinking in particular are pervasive. I‘m not sure that people are conscious as to why. By being bold enough to bring up a conversation around alcohol, as much as possible drop the judgment around it. It’s more like curiosity, “Does this serve me or not serve me?“ Figuring that out in the course of being a human being is super helpful.

Curiosity is an excellent and safe way to frame it. I’ll share one more story. This was the end of summer when I went away on a three-day weekend out to the beach with lots of friends. I was one of the people who were drinking. I was not ready to go the next morning. There was an individual at that event. He was a friend of a friend but he’s the same age, cohort, and everything. He did not drink. It was interesting because when the topic first came up, we didn’t know why he stopped. There’s a question mark. I had an opportunity to drive with him. We went mountain biking and rode in a car together.

I was curious at the time because I was thinking about it on that day. The story behind it was very similar and almost exact to the story I’m sharing here. I got tired of it after the holidays that I didn’t drink in January, but in his version of that, he’s like, “Let’s extend it for another month.” February came up and then March. He is like, “I’m going to stick with not drinking.” That was his version. That was his story.

I was appreciative of his sharing that because this was somebody I identified with at every level. He was an athlete. He was super fit. He could do anything he wanted to. I was like, “This is a cool guy I want to hang out with.” His story was empowering but also as I reflected later on, I first approached it from the point of view of, “Why did he stop? Was something wrong?”

I even had that bias going in. I discovered the other way around. Approaching it from a point of curiosity is a good way. Most people who have gone through it are going to share their journey because it’s an interesting one and it’s still not talked about. That was an empowering and informative point of view for me. It helped me get to the point where I was now.

This notion of curiosity is very powerful because it allows us to explore people’s decisions and thoughts. It drops judgment. If you can show up in a genuinely curious way, then you want to understand what’s the thinking and the information. I‘m immensely curious about people. I want to know, “What was the thinking that helped you make that decision? What information did you get to make that decision?“ One of the reasons why I wanted to have this conversation is because we’re all evolving. Your evolution and journey around your experience with alcohol are in so many ways the journey of a lot of people. I‘m very grateful for you sharing this.

Thank you for giving me an opportunity to talk about it. I am not unique in this. I’m one of the hundreds of thousands of people out there. In my immediate friend group, it’s something that’s probably pretty consistent too. I can only imagine that as you extend that group out further, there are many people who are thinking, “How does this serve me? Do I want to have a drink?” Back to curiosity, I’ve often had this phrase in my mind of chasing curiosity wherever it leads me. It’s not original to me but that’s one I hooked onto when I heard it a while ago. I love that idea. It opens up to explore ideas without any sense of judgment or bias.

In so many ways, working our way through this individually and collectively chasing curiosity, which I like that one too, is mission critical. As we wrap this up, is there anything else that you would like to share? How could people get ahold of you if they’re in this space? Maybe they don’t have somebody that they feel safe having this conversation with. They do feel there’s too much judgment around this in their circles.

There’s one thing I’ll add that I talked about earlier. It’s important. If you’re in the category like I am where you gain energy in social situations and you’re an extrovert, it doesn’t have to be an extrovert but there’s another couple of buckets that people fall in that I learned about with alcohol and how it affects you. For many people, it sedates them. They get tired. It’s time to go to sleep. The other bucket is you’re not sedated. Your alertness levels go up. You’re not going to bed. You’re the life of the party. That’s me. If you’re in that situation, that’s going to be a factor in this.

It’s probably even contributing more. You’re going to allow yourself to drink more things. That’s another little warning bell that went off on my mind, “You’ve been lucky so far.” If you’re having these discussions in your mind, here’s the platform that we have built together. Reach out to us on our website. We will have a place where people can click on a button and talk to us. You can type in a message, talk, and share your voice. If you want to leave a video message, you can. We will answer you. This is a safe place by definition. It’s who we serve. There’s no judgment. You’re not alone.

I would extend it out personally as well if you want to have that discussion with me. I’m happy to do so. If you want to reach out to me in general or see what I’m doing, I have a platform I launched at the end of 2022. It’s called TheSteveCast.com. What I’m doing there is I’m sharing five minutes of motivation in my newsletter where I share all sorts of technical things, video stuff, marketing, and how to do X. It’s distilled down to what you can do in five minutes.

If you’re a lifelong learner and you want to enjoy something you can do but don’t want to be distracted, my goal is to share. Here’s something new you can do. Here’s something practical you can do it with. Make use of it so you’re not getting distracted by these shiny objects. You can take tools and turn them into a process. That’s where I’m going with that, but it’s more important that if you have this type of conversation in your mind, find us at VoicesInCourage.com and talk to us. We will listen.

I’m looking forward to the day when people can do their thing in terms of reaching out to us, asking questions, and touching base in a safe place. Thank you. I‘m looking forward to revisiting this with you and finding out what you’ve learned along the way and what your journey has revealed to you because it’s an unfolding journey. What you know now is not what you’re going to know a year from now. It’s helpful for us to share our journeys and the unfolding of them. Thank you. Thank you to our audience. Everybody, be well. Take care. We’re here for you. We love you.

Important Links

• Huberman Lab
• What Alcohol Does to Your Body and Health – Huberman Lab episode
• TheSteveCast.com

About Steve Cary

Steve works as a marketing strategist and consultant, and is based out of Eugene, Oregon.