The ConverSAYtion
The ConverSAYtion is simply a couple of middle aged men sharing company and conversation. Psych and K take their time sorting through so much to say about society, culture, relationships, education, finance, technology, health, and more. Inspired to find engaging ways to entertain and enrich the lives of their listeners is their primary pursuit. Join them as they invest themselves in providing value to their audience. Welcome to The ConverSAYtion.
The ConverSAYtion
Paired Cravings: How America Programmed Us to Drink
"You don't gotta do it if you don't want to." This simple phrase sets the stage for an unexpectedly profound conversation about our relationship with alcohol, societal pressures, and the journey toward sobriety.
When host Psych decided to quit drinking after watching the 1984 film "Ice Pirates" (a correlation that becomes a running joke throughout the episode), he discovered more than just the physical benefits of abstaining. Three weeks into his alcohol-free journey, he shares honest reflections about unnecessary caloric intake, wasted time, and the realization that he wasn't truly enjoying alcohol as much as he once did.
Perhaps most thought-provoking is the examination of the double standard between alcohol and tobacco advertising. Why can alcohol companies freely advertise their products on television while cigarette commercials have been banned for decades? The hosts don't shy away from discussing the political and economic interests that maintain this status quo, suggesting that powerful lobbying has created a system too entrenched to easily change.
Whether you're sober-curious, taking a break, or simply interested in understanding the psychological and societal forces behind drinking culture, this episode offers valuable insights into how we might develop healthier relationships with alcohol by becoming more conscious of the influences around us. Because ultimately, you don't gotta do it if you don't want to – it's just a suggestion.
you don't gotta do it if you don't want to. You don't gotta do it if you don't want to. You don't gotta do it if you don't want to, it's just a suggestion.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love it's always the last one. Yeah, the last one just makes the strings, it tickles the charm.
Speaker 1:Hey, hey, so, uh, so, true story, we have not done this in a while. That's to do with the new format. But hey, for those of you who just joined us for the first time, I'm Leonard Kaye, that's Syke. This is the Conversation Podcast and today we're just going to continue our new format. I've got an article, a news article, that I'm going to present. Syke has no idea, never heard of it. He's going to talk about it Before we begin new bottle day. This ties directly into what my first article is pertaining to. It's called Chateau Diana. It's alcohol-removed wine from California Contains less than 0.5% alcohol by volume. So there is alcohol in this. Alcohol removed, yeah, just not successfully.
Speaker 2:No, that's never the case. It's like removing caffeine from coffee you can't get it all out.
Speaker 1:But when you decaffeinate coffee, what are you talking about? Percentage-wise, it's minuscule, minuscule. So is 0.5% minuscule, it's less than a percent, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for the science. That's math. It's less than a percent. I mean, if you're court ordered to not indulge or consume alcohol, this would put you over the edge. Yes, yes, yes. But if you want something that tastes like the real thing or similar to it, we're gonna find out if this is super classy cracked it myself. There we are do we want?
Speaker 1:do we want to let?
Speaker 2:it breathe. Let it breathe in the glass. Yeah, let it breathe in the glass. Oh, it sounds like wine.
Speaker 1:It sounds like wine. It's got the color of grape juice.
Speaker 2:It's some really fine Welch's. What does it smell like? Okay, it smells awful.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, it smells like cheap wine.
Speaker 2:Does it take you back? Cheers, let's find out.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's super flat and tasteless. It's weird.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's like they it's real dry. They removed it and that was one of the reasons I got that, because it said it was dry but uh, but yeah, I mean super like, like dry and flavorless, like they took out the alcohol and sucked up the taste along with it almost no aftertaste at aftertaste at all no, but honestly, if you, I, if this is where you're at in life and you, just the whole concept of alcohol-free booze has always been kind of funny to me, because it's like are you, are you, are you trying to trick yourself?
Speaker 1:Are you torturing yourself? Do you really like the taste of shitty beer so that you get a non-alcoholic beer because you know? I mean, what's the this here is this is not great, um, but I guess if it's all you have for whatever reason, it's passable.
Speaker 2:I think it's just a replacement behavior. Yeah, somebody wants to to quit or stop drinking and take a break, but maybe still wants to go out with people that are drinking and kind of look like they belong.
Speaker 1:Wants to go out with people that are drinking and kind of look like they belong or fit in perhaps I could see that I I could totally get the psychological emblem of that and like, and I could also get needing to have something. So that you're not. They're not like craving alcohol, which is why I go through like a case of sparkling waters a week yeah, yeah, it could be that oral fixation, but I appreciate you bringing this by.
Speaker 2:You know that I'm taking a little bit of a break from the alcohol.
Speaker 1:And let's get into that. Let's get into that. So let's just jump into my first article here. Let's and I mean you can't really see it, so I'll just read it to you. The headline is Local man watches the Ice Pirates for first time. Swears off alcohol very next day. The podcaster, known by his listeners as Psyche, recently viewed the 1984 film with co-host Letter K, who had reportedly seen it many times previously and considered it a true sci-fi classic. When asked for a quote that following morning, sykes stated I can't believe I was okay with watching something that featured a subplot about space herpes. Sykes was also quoted saying I thought I was just watching a space pirate movie. I didn't realize I was watching my sense of taste unravel in real time. Letter K fondly recalled a moment during the film, stating he looked at his glass, then at the screen and whispered one of you is lying to me.
Speaker 2:Was this local news or national?
Speaker 1:This didn't make it past my computer screen.
Speaker 2:That's a pretty good synopsis.
Speaker 1:Yeah, chat GPT helped me write this, by the way. Oh good, good, good, no, it sounded good. So, yes, you were not drinking alcohol, which is why I brought the alcohol-removed wine and that brand. I mean, we obviously have a problem with alcohol in this country. We do, we super do, and I am a participant in that. But so what I mean? I mean it's got. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong and tell me if I'm right.
Speaker 2:It is coincidence that you decided the day after we watched the ice pirates to stop drinking yeah, that was kind of like the last hurrah and I'd been working my way up to to that point. So for me, and probably for you too, we've had just about everything, right, we've tasted just about everything, I mean, with the exception of probably extremely rare, hard to find you know 50.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you start to, you know when you start to get way up there. But as far as the majority of spirits and wine and beer we've consumed and enjoyed and I was at this place where I was consuming unnecessary calories, it was I just cleaned out my garage and having a having a beer in my hand or drink at my hand while I was doing so kind of helped pass the time and I was enjoying myself, but I wasn't necessarily enjoying the actual consuming of the beverage portion as much as I did. So when I got to that, when I knew I was at that point, that was the time to take a break. If I'm no longer enjoying this but still doing it, well then this is unnecessary. It's an expensive habit.
Speaker 2:Alcohol's poison I was poisoning my body and I was. I wasn't feeling as great. I wasn't drinking to the, to the point where I was hungover or losing days or just wasting time. Not, in fact, I was, and I'll show you later. Take you for a tour in the newly revamped garage and but be that as may, I needed to step back and go. You know what? I don't need this for a while.
Speaker 2:Right, I was. I was gaining weight that I didn't want to gain, and now it's, you know, and I, I wasn't going to start working out again until I stopped drinking, because that both of those things are counterproductive. So I can fit alcohol in occasionally if I wanted to, and I don't think it wouldn't be a problem, like if my wife and I were going to sit down and enjoy a film or a few shows and open one bottle and have two glasses each. That would be, and that would be it. Great, you know, and if that's going to happen once a month, so be it. But if I'm really going to start training and start getting back into what I was once doing, it couldn't be. It can be a majority of the week, sort of thing. Yeah, it can be a majority of the week sort of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I find that my alcohol consumption I need to start parsing it down a little bit because it affects my training. Like, I mean, I'm a little hungover right now because I joined a troupe of aspiring radio drama podcasters and we did a table read last night and then I hung out with the, the head of the whole production, talked to him about, you know, about writing and stuff, because I'm a writer, uh, and I had had had had three shots left off of a bottle of tequila that I had bought in a couple of weeks ago, and had a bottle of milliere beignet, and and then, and then I had one more glass of of amethysts, uh, uh, soccer mom wine, you know, she buys the cheap gallo, the big bottles of the pinot grigio it's always that.
Speaker 2:What that last glass?
Speaker 1:that's what it is, and that's that last drink.
Speaker 1:You would have been fine if you'd stopped well, probably, and I feel, okay, I'm not terrible, but uh, but um, but yeah, it always is, and that's what it is for me, because once I start drinking, I like the way that it makes me feel I do, I do enjoy it and I do enjoy the way that it kind of slows me down and and I and I find a bit of wonder in things that I probably wouldn't enjoy so much if I was of full clarity. That's one of the reasons I think I like it. But yeah, it's a rabbit hole. You can't gauge how to perfectly stop. Let yourself kind of sober up, have some water, go to bed, because that's what it is. Going to bed drunk is what really really gets you. That's the hangover. And it's always that last glass, if I can always tell myself I'm just gonna have one more, no wait I've already had my last one that would be ideal, but I can't figure that out, or at least I don't do it.
Speaker 1:And then so here I was, uh, at 12 30 this morning, with one last glass of of wine, watching the terrifier which is awful, by the way, like it's a. It was a crowd-funded horror movie. They've made three of them now. No plot. What was the name of it? It's called terrifier. Terrifier, yes, uh, the production value was there, like you mean, you know the, the, the visuals, the, the villain, I mean just everything was like a lot of visually striking stuff but literally has no plot. It's just they just drop a bunch of people into a into, like a, a small section of city, with the killer, and he just starts killing people. And so Terror, fire, terror, fire of city, with the killer, and he just starts killing people, and it's uh, terror, fire, terror, fire. T-e-r-i, f-f-i-e-r is that how you spell it?
Speaker 2:oh wait, I got you there it is there's a seek, there's sequels.
Speaker 1:I told you there were three of them the, the, uh. The third one just came out and it's and it like it like broke ticket sale records for like the highest indie horror movie in in in history.
Speaker 2:So it's got 5.5 stars out of 10 out of 10. That's not what I would give it. 83 000 people have rated it. Yeah, the popularity is has is climbing. It's on.
Speaker 1:It's on the upswing because probably because the third one is, I think it's probably getting ready to come out in video.
Speaker 2:This is the first one 2016. Yeah, fairfire 2 2022 has 6.1 stars. They're getting better. And the third one just came out last year. Yeah, and it's 6.3. Yeah, they're, they're rising, they're climbing.
Speaker 1:They all have a higher rating than the new snow white movie, but so I I was. I couldn't finish it last night. I finished it this morning and I can see the draw. For, like pure horror fans, and I could see the draw, but I only decided to give it a shot because I was drunk and that's.
Speaker 2:I do like the, I do like the feeling that alcohol provides, and I do find that when I'm consuming it moderately I am a little bit more creative. I start ideas start flowing, and I have to be careful not to let those fleeting thoughts and ideas go. I have to make sure I record them in some way shape or form, whether that's a note on my phone, or I do prefer to handwrite things and come back to them, or or make lists of things that I I want to tackle in the future. Not necessarily an urgent to do list, like well, like my, my ice maker that just stopped making ice right, that's something I want to get going again. But more like aspirations, dreams, future projects, future endeavors, to, to, to try to put together, you know that's.
Speaker 1:That's funny because, uh, I'm the opposite. I, you know, if I'm writing or if I'm doing anything creative, I only get results. If I'm dead sober, like when I'm the sharpest, I start, start drinking to just to shut, shut that all off. Okay, I'm gonna give myself a little bit of an escape and it might be so. So, according to, according to uh, chat, gpt, the uh, the drinking and quitting standards in the us, in the last two years and trends, 63% of adults report drinking alcohol. Binge drinking is on the rise. Reportedly, one in six adults engage in binge drinking monthly, and that is technically five drinks for men within two hours, which seemed fast, it does. I mean it's? I remember we went to reno last year and I had those four martinis in like 90 minutes and I was fucking yeah well, a martini, what you have.
Speaker 2:That's more like two drinks. That doesn't count as one drink I suppose.
Speaker 1:and it was dirt dry martinis, yeah, uh, one in three drinkers say they've tried to quit or take a break from alcohol at some point. I would think everybody at some point has gotten their heads. I need to stop for a while. I mean successfully or not, yeah, For me it was easy.
Speaker 2:I've been off for three weeks now and it was just cold turkey. I'm not. I'm not addicted, I don't have a physical dependency, not an alcoholic. I didn't have any withdrawal symptoms or anything like that or night sweats or things, things of that nature. It was just easy. And it wasn't like all of my thoughts the day after I quit were consumed with when I was going to get the next one, or how was I going to, or when this ends, what I'm going to have. That's not where my mind was at.
Speaker 1:I find myself craving a drink when I'm idle. And I get idle in a couple of different ways, like if I'm doing something, I'm working on writing, or you know, right now I'm helping these guys with their podcasts, I'm doing passes on their scripts, and after a while, you know it gets too much or it's tedious, it's. You know, it's a lot of work, it's a lot of mental work and I'll slow down or I'll stop, and then I'll be like hmm, yeah, I could go for a drink. Go for a drink right now.
Speaker 1:And that's usually how that hits me. I find that certain things make me crave drinking and I asked ChatGPT about about the cravings. It's weird to me, like for me I'm watching like an old detective movie. You know philip marlow or you know humphrey bogart, you know they always got those. Those guys always got a, always got a half drunk bottle of rye or bourbon in their desk, right. That's a. That's kind of ape. So you play along. I get the cravings, like man. When we were watching Lucifer the TV show Lucifer, which is like a serial detective show but one of the buddy cop detectives is the devil. He was always drinking like straight bourbon and man, that show was hard for me because I was like oh man, that sounds good.
Speaker 1:Right now Chat GPT says that this is a thing it's called paired cravings. It's something to do with the psychology of the way that society is built around us and marketing companies have spent generations building this concept of paired cravings, so that it's very common for people to do things like crave beer while watching sports and crave wine while cooking a nice dinner. And of course, you know, stress and whiskey are like hand in hand. The power of suggestion and it's the way that we were raised, the power of suggestion and it's stuff. It's the way that we were raised. You know, stress and stress and whiskey is because all of the movies and tv where people are like I'm stressed out and I need this, I need a belt of this whiskey bottle and of course, you know sports, they just you know the whole masculine macho, uh, advertising gimmick of beer. You know it may all make sense but it doesn't make it any easier.
Speaker 2:There's programming in the programming.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, yeah, they've, they've they, because how long does it take for them to build this, this societal psychology of of when I'm, when I'm engaging in this or if I'm thinking about this man, I can really go for a beer, my hand's moving towards the beer. You know, that was one of the big things that people who analyzed the fall of Bud Light. Bud Light had built up this huge brand around this blue collar rust belt middle of America, this blue collar, uh rust belt middle of america, kind of kind of redneck bro, kind of no, no, you're working man. Lifestyle. And they went and did the thing with the dylan mulvaney and it sent everybody off because it shattered the read, their, their reality. Now, now they've got this ink, this thought in their head that, uh, you know, I'm watching sports and uh, and, or, or or, I just got done doing all this, this, this work in the yard and thinking about a bud light. But wait a minute, transgender people drink bud light too.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, I know it's that association and that I think that's the the real downfall of the whole bud Light thing. Not necessarily what happened, but because what it did to the collective psychology of the way people perceived their interaction with that product.
Speaker 2:Sure, it's kind of like same thing. When Lululemon came out with men's clothing, right, yeah, men had it stuck in their heads. My wife wears that, that, yeah, my girlfriend wears that. That's a store where women and girls go to for active wear, for yoga pants. It's for them, it's not for me. And so actually I was at a.
Speaker 2:I was at a banquet or end of season into the soccer season party for for the girls that I coach and I don't know how I can't. These parents, end of the soccer season party for the girls that I coach and I don't know how I came, these parents of one of my athletes just stopped me and it looked as if they were having a discussion husband and wife having a discussion, borderline argument, a debate, a friendly debate. And it was about Lululemon. Borderline argument, a debate, a friendly debate, and it was about lululemon. And they brought me in and wanted me to almost settle, whatever it was their thought.
Speaker 2:So the the question was posed to me would you ever wear lululemon? And I told him at the time, no. And I told him why, much of what I just shared with you about the identity of it, and just no, I don't think that's for me, and about the clothing, I don't necessarily believe that they're making things with a man in mind, and so, yeah, we went from there. Yeah, bud Light. It's taken them a while to kind of recover from their identity crisis.
Speaker 1:I don't think that they have. They're not taking back that top spot. In fact, I think that's the number three selling beer now.
Speaker 2:Well, alcohol sales are down everywhere for everyone. In general, right now, people are just drinking less than they have, so that's part of it. Alcohol is not making as much money as it once did. A lot of the younger younger generations are not consuming, or consuming less. People in the older generations are are giving it up it down, but it's not down hell.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, 2.8% in the last year.
Speaker 2:Those are not the numbers that you want if you're Budweiser. No, no, no.
Speaker 1:Of course not. So here's a question about drinking. We've established that the media has spent generations training us to want alcohol. At what point does somebody think, wow, that should be illegal, like cigarettes, there's no cigarette ads on television, right? Somebody made it illegal because cigarettes are dangerous. And then they have the whole thing about marketing to children and stuff like that. But you're telling me that kids are turning their eyes when the beer commercials come on during a baseball game.
Speaker 2:I don't think there's any going back because we've already been down this road right. We already had the prohibition well, that's, that was completely.
Speaker 1:That was completely prohibiting the sale of alcohol. You can still buy cigarettes, but what is a pack of cigarette in california like? A pack of reds is like 16 bucks, it's about the same of a carton of eggs so you could buy.
Speaker 1:You can still buy cigarettes. They didn't make them illegal, but they made the. They tried to deprogram society by making the, the, the visual media, advertising of cigarettes, less. You can still be in magazines and stuff. But so my question is how important is the sale of alcohol to this country that we don't see a need to deprogram our dependency on it? Should it be illegal to advertise poisons on TV?
Speaker 2:I think, yes, it should in an ideal world, right? If you know something is toxic, if you know something is essentially a poison and not beneficial in any way, shape or form to the human body, then, yes, ideally yes, that we wouldn't have, we wouldn't partake, we wouldn't encourage it, we wouldn't market it or sell it. I think we're going to have to get to a place where we can divorce ourselves from the special interest groups and the corporations that are so generous, generous with their donations and how they, they fund the people that are making the laws and the land that we, we live in. We're too entrenched in this, we've, we've locked in, so we would have to, we would have to find a way to undermine, uh, undermine the, the, the foundation of what we have built our current lifestyle on you're, so you're.
Speaker 1:You're saying that. You're saying that we can't stop because the? I don't think we can because the political elite have become fat cat rich off of the lobbyist dollars that are keeping these industries in power.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I don't. I don't see that ending anytime soon so yeah, so you.
Speaker 1:So what you're saying is you're not going to see somebody take a stand and be like we need to stop.
Speaker 2:No, uh, beer commercials no, I don't, because I was just reminding myself myself of the, uh, the amendments that pertain to alcohol. That was the 18th amendment back in 1919 and the 21st amendment and which is, yeah, I remembered because you have to be 21 to be 21 to consume. In 1933 that repealed the 18th amendment.
Speaker 2:So we went down this road a century ago, yes, think about that a century ago a century ago we went down this road and we decided, uh well, we tried and it didn't work, and there's so many things that came about it. Well, you know what? While I was over three weeks ago, I got a little moonshine.
Speaker 1:So dumb Little moonshine little moonshine.
Speaker 2:Moonshine. The creation of moonshine during the prohibition was led to nascar and all these things that we we enjoy. You know, people transporting alcohol from state to state to the, the speakeasies back then smoking the bandit yeah, all all of this, so the duke's hazard.
Speaker 1:You're missing the point of what I'm trying to say. Cigarettes have never been illegal, correct. But now advertising them on television is Correct. Why is it not the?
Speaker 2:same for other things that are known flat out known to be harmful.
Speaker 1:I think part of what did cigarettes in was their dishonesty. Oh wait, what you mean with the ads, with the, the doctors saying that camel?
Speaker 2:unfiltered, were the best. Yeah, I think because of the way they they put everything out there, the way that they framed what their product is and isn't, especially when they made it an attractive option for miners in an attempt that they would ease their way into it later. They weren't open and honest and transparent about the effects or the ingredients or how harmful it was and what it did, and so in their case, I think that that's kind of they're being admonished for their, their, their past wrongdoings as a result I think that, but alcohol is the same way.
Speaker 1:I mean you're trying to tell me that a beach full of hard body, super sexy people are all pounding fucking beers yeah, those are.
Speaker 1:Those are the nickel of ultra commercials they are nuts, which is funny because, you know, back when, uh, back when, like miller light came out and stuff, uh, the only way to sell it was to get a bunch of like sports personalities, like retired sports personalities, behind it. The regular miller was being sold by the bikini babes and and and the hard body dudes, but the light beers, the lower calorie ones, were being sold by, you know, by the uh, by the old sports commentators and stuff yeah, there's not.
Speaker 2:I, I get your point and there's not. There's not a lot of rhyme or reason to it from the outset, looking in, because, but they're not. They're just not the same. They didn't alcohol and tobacco didn't travel the same, the same road. I think. If, if tobacco I think it is possible, where we could address tobacco in one of our amendments, I think it is possible I don't know what the consequences of that would be. I'm certain there would be an uproar, an uprising. I was watching this old man driving on the way to work yesterday with a pipe in his mouth, just a crack pipe, no, no.
Speaker 2:An actual tobacco pipe. He, he was just. He was an old man just had his pipe just hanging off, hanging out of the side of his mouth and enjoying some pipe tobacco on his drive to his destination. I thought that was interesting, a little bit unusual. I don't typically see that Usually people driving are smoking cigarettes if they're going to, I think, people that enjoy cigars, which I know you and I like to indulge in every once in a blue moon there are people that are cigar connoisseurs.
Speaker 1:I've been thinking about ever since I went to Vegas and had that cigar at the Monte Cristo Club. I don't know, I feel like I'm getting the taste for it again. Okay, so a pack of cigarettes. A pack of Marlboros, as of April 2025, can be as expensive as $14 a pack. Be as expensive as $14 a pack, which includes almost $3 in state excise taxes. A dollar per pack in federal excise tax and then, of course, sales taxes. They're taxed as much as gasoline. I think they're taxed way more than gasoline. How much is?
Speaker 2:gasoline taxed. Oh a ton, especially here in california.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everywhere else you can get gasoline for closer to three dollars a gallon yeah, whenever I hear about what the national average of gas is, I was like fuck you, yeah, yeah, uh, sales tax, blah blah. Looks like it's 60 plus 18 cents a gallon. I don't think it's as high as you thought it would be, plus sales tax, which, in where we are, it's what? Nine and a quarter percent. How many cents? 0.596 cents for state excise and 0.184 for federal. So, yes, we're paying $0.60 a gallon for state taxes on gas and for somebody like me who has to buy gas once every four days, we pay a lot of taxes on gas federal excise.
Speaker 2:California gasoline prices include a state excise tax, currently 58 cents per deal well, this says 50, 59, 6, 59, 6 yeah, with the it's not including yeah, a bunch of it, but which is a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. I went to go get, I went to go fill up the other day and I just rolled into a gas station, saw the price and rolled myself right back out I've never been, I've never run one to price shop gasoline.
Speaker 1:It's always been funny to me like people like you know it's it's. It's 10 cents cheaper down the road here.
Speaker 2:Well this place was. The first place I went to was 570 a gallon, almost 580. And the other places were like 50 cents less right, so you're filling up your tank. That's a decent amount.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 10 gallons is five bucks, but when I say that out out loud it doesn't seem that that big of a deal. No, it's not.
Speaker 2:No, it's not a. It's not that big of a deal, but I don't want to continue to to patronize a place that I think is taking advantage in marking up oh yeah, and of course you know you.
Speaker 1:You get off the freeway and that gas station has the cheapest gas and it's the most expensive. But if you drive three blocks in town you can find something that's 30 40 cents cheaper there's a place by in and out burger, the 76 station, and they have.
Speaker 2:They discount their gasoline after 10 pm. They have nighttime, nighttime gasoline prices. What's between 10, I think it's 10, 8, 10 pm and 4 am and it's it's significant. It's something like 30 cents off a gallon.
Speaker 1:What is it like? A danger discount?
Speaker 2:They get less traffic during that time, and so they're looking to sell.
Speaker 1:That doesn't make that's odd. I'd have to see the data on how that increased there. Hey, honey, it's 10 minutes to 10. I'm going to get up real quick and go get gas because it's 40 cents cheaper a gallon. I'll be back.
Speaker 2:You stay in bed. I wouldn't necessarily go out of my way to do that, but if you are already up and moving about, think about how many people work swing shift or graveyard. They work the third shift and they either uh they're, they're coming home or they're on their way to work and they can just make that. It's right off the freeway, it's right there by by in and out, so you get something to eat, you fill up your gas tank for well, you're not getting in and out, they close.
Speaker 1:They close at nine o'clock close at nine o'clock.
Speaker 2:Okay, I thought they 9 o'clock, don't they? I thought they were open until 2. Are they open until 2? 2 or 1.30 at least, yeah, later, like a half an hour later on the weekends they're open late. They might have changed.
Speaker 1:I don't know if they're COVID, I don't know why I thought it took a toll on them. Yeah, so 10.30 a good tool. So 1030 AM to 1 AM as their standard hours.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Okay Well maybe it's just I'm never up that late, unless I'm so drunk I can't drive anywhere to get burgers and I'm watching terrifying and they don't and they do not deliver.
Speaker 2:Like five guys. Oh, it's just a some. I forget. I forget how recent this story was. Maybe we could look it up. It was somebody from the pentagon was wanting five guys and they wanted to get five guys for their team. And they called five guys and they were insisting hey, we're gonna place a relatively large order. Uh, get the food to us. And five guys was like no, we don't deliver. And like what are you talking about? They kind of made a big fuss of it. You know there's, you know somebody, somebody's got a corner office somewhere and the pentagon was like well, how dare you?
Speaker 2:I've worked for the government, I'm running the pentagon, I run this country and you give me my food. I need a fucking cheeseburger. And they came back with the same answer and no, we're not doing it, we're not delivering. We want and I respect places like that, because when you prepare quality food, that food should be enjoyed shortly after the dish has been completed. You can get five guys. If you just get Uber Eats, you can, but apparently somebody in the Pentagon couldn't ration.
Speaker 1:Wanted somebody to get in their personal vehicle with 40 burgers and drive to the Pentagon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of logical problems with that particular story. There were solutions that people in the Pentagon should have been able to explore to get them their lunch on that particular story. There were solutions that people in the Pentagon should have been able to explore to get them their lunch on that particular day. I'm not touching that Absolutely not. Yeah, now I'm kind of wondering when, when the story took place.
Speaker 1:It sounds like some some shit somebody made up to to get influencer cred. So, yes, it sounds like some some shit somebody made up to get influencer cred. So, yes, so yes, to bring it home on my, my, my article about this podcaster who quit drinking. Uh, you, uh, how long do you? So you're already seeing the benefits? Oh yeah, you're saying I have more time?
Speaker 2:I feel better, I'm accomplishing more stuff, I'm not hurting my body. I am yeah, not that I wasn't. Like I said, if I know I'm locked in with a particular task, if I'm just doing something mundane and just not very enjoyable on its face value, you know, sometimes it can kind of help pass the time. You know, if I'm just ridding my garage of recyclables and trash and just trying to unearth the floor that I know exists under there when we bought the house, then, yeah, a beverage in your hand kind of helps pass the time. Uh, if, if I am, if I'm not doing that, then I might.
Speaker 2:I might just be aimlessly wandering, but times I'm most creative, like mentally, or usually late hours, late late at night, nobody's, nobody's around, nobody's awake, no distractions. If I'm sipping a glass of wine or if I have, if I have a spot of of whiskey, that's, that's great. Now, those ideas. If I were to go to take those ideas and try to realize those ideas, then I should put that away. I would actually try to accomplish something that meaningful with, like when I detailed my car last weekend, which took an enormous amount of time. There's no.
Speaker 1:Guinness Book entry for that, by the way.
Speaker 2:So using everything I used and using products that were new to me. You know a whole bunch of chemicals, right? You're using chemicals and they're just specifically designed for various materials and there's directions and instructions that you have to follow to get the best results and and to also make sure that you're not harming your vehicle. If I was drinking while I was doing that, that might not have gone over so well, especially since I wasn't proficient in using everything that I did, so I'm glad I was off of trying to do that, but it did kind of. When I went out there, it kind of felt like, hey, I'm in the garage, you're missing something, right?
Speaker 1:Something goes, that's what it is, something We've trained ourselves, like you, right, something goes, that's what it is, something You've trained, we're trained, we've trained ourselves. Like like you talked about mundane tasks Like I can't do taxes unless I'm drinking. You know, I don't know, and I tried not this year, but last year, I tried to do it dead sober and I didn't like it, like my whole being, my brain, fought back it's like, dude, you're not doing this right, at least taxes are only once a year.
Speaker 2:It's not like, yeah, every time you mow the lawn and if you're doing that once a week or if you're, you know, if you find that once a day, you have, you're doing something that requires, or you think you're required to have something that's, you know, that's too much. Yeah, no, I don't. I've, yeah, I haven't done, but it was easy to do. When I was on spring break yeah, because it was I'm going to clean this garage on. The garage is going to be perfectly clean, you know, after this break is done and I was just hammering away at it and uh, yeah, idle time. I agree with you with idle time.
Speaker 1:Idle time definitely can interfere with one's sobriety if you, if you don't make an effort or if you don't have a plan I need to spend more time doing stuff, but man, I got so much stuff going on that I also need to just decompress, uh. And so, yeah, I find myself not wanting to do things, and then it's like, well, just sitting there.
Speaker 2:I could probably put in the effort necessary to open a bottle of wine. Yeah, the Pentagon attempted to get Five Guys to make deliveries, but Five Guys declined, famously sticking even had a large banner placed outside the restaurant that stated absolutely no delivery in all caps here. This unwavering stance actually led to increased business from Pentagon employees who had to pick up their orders.
Speaker 1:But still you can. You can get food delivery from Five Guys.
Speaker 2:You can, but we know what that cost is right the surcharge, and now the healthcare insurance of the driver, and then the tip, and by the time you get your burger and fries and a drink, it's approaching $40.
Speaker 1:I don't care about that. What I'm trying to say is no burger place offers delivery, so so who the fuck cares that this burger place doesn't? They're, they're, they're dying on a hill that nobody's fighting for. So I find that really stupid. Uh, he picked, picking, paid for a banner, all right. So now this is a that one got you huh.
