Video summary
Mark Manson shares his personal journey of quitting alcohol, a decision influenced by seeing Huberman's podcast on the subject and conversations with friends who had recently stopped drinking. As someone who was a heavy drinker throughout their adult life, transitioning from partying in nightclubs to enjoying drinks at fine dining restaurants, Manson realized that while he remained functional socially, his physical health began to deteriorate significantly. A doctor informed him that his blood work indicated the markers of a man thirty years older than himself, prompting him to clean up his diet and reduce alcohol consumption. This period coincided with friends experimenting with sobriety and advice from a health coach who suggested trying three or six months without drinking, leading Manson to eventually quit completely at the end of July the previous year. Initially planning to stop for only three months, Manson found the experience so beneficial that he extended his goal to cover all of 2023 after finding New Year's Eve drinks overrated. He notes a common pattern among former heavy drinkers where they attempt sobriety but eventually relapse; both speakers admit to cycling through periods of abstinence and returning to drinking, often attributing their return to the belief that they had "done enough" or gotten it out of their system. However, Manson emphasizes that for those whose dependency was lifestyle-based rather than clinical addiction, quitting is one of the easiest goals compared to others because society does not assume a problem exists if you do not consume alcohol. The primary benefits observed include vast improvements in energy levels, focus, motivation, and sleep quality, with Huberman noting it can take six to twelve months for heavy drinkers' brains and internal organs to fully reset after decades of consumption. The speakers highlight the subtle but profound impact of moderate drinking on daily functioning, which is often overlooked by those who drink heavily because they expect to feel impaired anyway. Manson describes a shocking realization that even two or three glasses of wine could leave him feeling twenty percent worse for days afterward, not just due to hangovers but from a general lack of energy and motivation. This effect was so significant that he felt compelled to quit entirely rather than continue moderate consumption. Interestingly, the trend toward quitting alcohol appears spontaneous among his social circle; friends who hadn't been seen in months suddenly mention they have also stopped drinking without prior discussion, suggesting it is becoming an emerging movement within productivity-focused communities and even Gen Z demographics. Cultural perspectives on alcohol consumption are shifting dramatically between generations, with data showing that younger people engage less frequently in sex, drugs, and alcohol compared to previous cohorts by age eighteen. While some criticize this decline as boring behavior or excessive phone usage, Manson argues against the nostalgia for past excesses, pointing out how young adults once viewed painful experiences like losing an eye at a bar party as badges of honor rather than tragedies. His Master's dissertation on anti-alcohol advertising among students revealed that many peers treated these negative outcomes as rites of passage to be shared and celebrated in conversation. Ultimately, the consensus is that for individuals in their thirties or those seeking better health and productivity, eliminating alcohol opens up significant resources—time, money, calories, and mental energy—to invest in genuinely meaningful aspects of life.
Read the full video transcript
speaking of keeping yourself on the
straight and narrow you recently quit
drinking alcohol recently right yeah
welcome to the club welcome to the club
thanks man I actually I saw your video
I don't remember if it was right before
I quit or right after but it was you
know there was it was one of those
things where there was a series of
events over about two or three weeks
um I saw your video I saw the huberman
put out his podcast about alcohol which
was very eyebrow raising
um
had a couple conversations with friends
who had quit alcohol recently and and
then I had a personal event which
um
like I've I I've been I was a heavy
drinker pretty much my entire adult life
what does that what does heavy drinker
look like
uh I mean I was a party Hound right so I
anytime I went out
you know when I was younger any bar or
club or party I went to I drank a lot as
I got older that kind of turned more
into restaurants fine dining
um
trips vacations it was just alcohol for
me always if you took something fun
alcohol made it more fun and if you took
something boring it made it less boring
so
I I I pretty much always found some sort
of justification like you know it'd be
great right now a drink
um so
but it it I think for me it hit and I
I'm a very functional drunk
um so I it never you know I know some
people have it causes a lot of problems
in their personal or professional lives
um
for me it it was always it never
interfered massively where it actually
started to interfere for me was in
physical health uh
I started getting a ton of weight
um
I went to a doctor got blood work done
the doctor was like
[ __ ] this is the blood work of a this is
a blood work of a man like 30 years
older than you uh you might want to like
take a look at your habits
um
so all that was kind of going on the
background I I started losing weight
cleaning up my diet that also meant
drinking less and then
uh
and around this time I you know some
friends of mine were kind of
experimented with quit quitting drinking
uh I had hired a health coach who was
kind of encouraging me to
maybe give it up stop for three three
months or six months
and then I remember I went to an event
and it was event I signed up for and
paid for and
I ended up hanging out at the bar the
first night I ended up hanging out at
the bar with a few guys that I had met
and just got absolutely
plastered like just [ __ ] shit-faced
and I was so drunk I couldn't I couldn't
get up and go to the event the next day
and I remember just laying in in bed in
the hotel room being like this is the
dumbest [ __ ] thing like I paid
thousands of dollars to be here and I
feel so awful I can't even
I can't even be here right
um
so it was kind of in the air you know it
was percolating and
um so I gave I gave it up end of July
last year
initially I was gonna do three months
the three months was so amazing that I
was like okay I'm gonna go to the end of
the year
went to the end of the year drank it New
Year's
just to see what it felt like
um
overrated and so my my goal for 23 is to
actually go do do all of 2023 without a
drink let's [ __ ] go dude that's so
good it's the exact experience that I
had as well so throughout most of my 20s
running nightclubs thousand events stood
on the front door big party boy similar
to yourself and then I realized this
isn't really serving me again was
propelled by a very bad hangover one day
and thought right that I mean just this
the memory of this hangover will get me
through the first month and then I only
have another five to do after that
committed to six went back to drinking
didn't really like it all that much
wasn't very enamored with it found that
the progress I made when I was sober was
more addicting than the enjoyment of the
party when I went back to drinking came
back onto drinking did another six
months then thought right well I I must
have done my sobriety stint now I must
have got it all out of my system went
back to drinking for like a month and a
half and this is once every two weeks
this isn't me drinking consistently and
thought this sucks and then did a
thousand days and that was what I did
the the video about but yeah it is
such a game changer for a vestigial
party boy to go through because you just
open up all of this
consistency
time money calories to spend on things
that you genuinely care about energy
everything that you care to care about
in your life gets better when you go
sober and this is from two people who
had their drinking like relatively under
control right alcohol is the only drug
where if you don't do it people assume
you have a problem and the problem that
both of us had was lifestyle or
productivity slash Health based but it
wasn't dependency based so it's the
easiest of the letting goals you know
compared with almost everybody else that
attempts to go sober and if they can do
it we definitely can do it yeah for sure
and it I vastly underestimated
the effects it would have on my energy
my focus my motivation uh one of the
things that stood out to me that
huberman said in his his episode is he
said that if you've been a heavy drinker
and I think researchers Define heavy
drinker as I think it's 15 drinks a week
um which for some people is one night
out yeah right I'm like uh yeah that's
that's that's an average that was an
average week in my 20s uh he said at
least 15 drinks you know if you've been
a heavy drinker for
uh
multiple years
he said it can take six to 12 months for
the out for your system to actually
entirely reset for your brain to go back
to the way it was your internal organs
to go back to the way they were and I
was like God damn I've been doing this
basically since I was like 18 right like
so half my life almost two decades and
um
yeah it's incredible it's incredible it
was I'd say within a few weeks
waking up with more energy sleeping like
a baby
um
you know and one of the things you know
I had cut back quite a bit before I quit
completely I'd say I'd cut back to
drinking maybe two three times a month
and when I drank it was like just two or
three glasses of wine and it's funny
like something I feel like something you
notice when you cut back that you don't
notice when you keep drinking heavily
like when you drink heavily you just
expect to feel like [ __ ] so when you
feel like [ __ ] you're like oh yeah well
of course I drank I drank a lot but when
you drink very moderately
it actually showed me how much it
affects you like I would go out and have
two glasses of wine with dinner
and Not only would I feel
maybe 20 percent worse the next day I
would feel 10 percent worse the day
after that and that was shocking to me I
was like whoa this is actually it's not
about hangovers it's about just
General lack of energy and motivation on
a day-to-day basis and it lasts for
multiple days so
yeah it's been an eye-opener I think
it's underrated I'm also
I feel like it's becoming a thing
um I'm
I've been really shocked and surprised
how many friends of mine who without
talking like people that I haven't seen
in six months
I hang out with them and they're like oh
I quit drinking by the way and I'm like
what me too holy [ __ ] like that is
that's probably happened three or four
times just in the last year uh
completely spontaneously so I feel like
it's something that is becoming almost
trendy
um among
I guess people who care about
productivity and
accomplishing things so one of the
interesting things it would make a good
bit of sense for someone that's in their
30s like me and you perhaps to dial this
back especially if you're not going out
and trying to pull every night and going
to clubs and stuff right what is maybe
even more interesting is the trends that
I'm seeing amongst younger people people
who would have taken their sense of
self-worth from their degeneracy like me
and you might have done and even those
people even the Gen zetters are also
seeing going out and getting absolutely
lathered as
not exactly a high status
Pursuit
yeah it it's funny I've seen this a few
times on social media over the last few
years but I always find that amusing it
inevitably it's
somebody posts a chart and it's like
alcohol consumption uh sexual activity
maybe illicit drugs thrown in and it's a
chart of like Generations like how how
much each generation had done it by age
18 and it's it's a consistent Trend
downwards yeah
um
and gen Z does it the least of all the
sex drugs and alcohol less than any
other generation before and the people
who post this chart they like complain
about the kids they're like wow kids are
so boring these days there's like on
their phone all the time they should get
out and have some real thoughts I'm like
having some heroin and unprotected sex
come on now kids where are you I'm like
I'm like I'm like
I'm like turn into a criticism like when
I was growing up it was it was you know
everything was like Don't drink don't do
drugs don't have sex and that's all we
wanted to do it's um it's really funny
how it's like somehow flipped almost
yeah I mean the behavior that me and my
housemates considered high status 15
years ago when I was at Uni would have
been how drunk you got the night before
whether you woke up in a bush if
somebody got an injury I actually did my
Master's dissertation on this it was the
effectiveness of anti-alcohol
advertising on students at Newcastle
University and what I discovered was
that a lot of students saw these
painful experiences as Badges of Honor
they were almost like a rite of passage
that everybody went through you know if
we were
21 year old Mark and 21 year old Chris
ring each other and say man how was last
night you go dude it was amazing John
lost an eye and you're like
what like that would be that would be an
unironic
way that we would go about talking about
stuff what's happening people if you
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peace
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