In this week’s Be Battle Ready Podcast, I sat down with Clifford Stephan, founder of Booze Vacation, to explore how taking a step back from alcohol can radically improve your health. For most of our lives, we get away with more than we realise: Late nights, poor food choices, a few too many pints, scraping by on patchy sleep, training hard and assuming recovery will somehow take care of itself.

In our twenties and even thirties, the body is remarkably forgiving. But as I often remind my athletes, ageing doesn’t tap you on the shoulder. It creeps, quietly and consistently, until one day you wake up and notice the tyres are bald, the engine’s rattling, and the warning lights you’ve been ignoring suddenly matter.

That’s exactly what happened to Clifford. Despite being active, health-conscious, and successful in the high-pressure world of Silicon Valley, something wasn’t right. He trained. He ate well. He followed various lifestyle protocols. Yet he increasingly felt exhausted, foggy, and far from his best. Eventually, a diagnosis of sleep apnoea and the prospect of strapping himself into a CPAP machine jolted him into action. As he told me, “I felt like Darth Vader… and I just thought, what the hell is this?”

It forced him to confront a question many midlife athletes eventually face: What’s really going on under the bonnet?

Listen to the full podcast

The slow drift into 60 to 70 per cent living

Clifford made a powerful observation during our conversation. Most men he works with aren’t alcoholics. They’re not out of control. They’re simply stuck living at 60 or 70 per cent without realising it. Day to day, everything feels “fine enough”. But fine isn’t the same as good. And it’s certainly not the same as performing, recovering, or thinking clearly.

Over years and decades, alcohol quietly erodes the base layers that drive health and performance: sleep, hormones, metabolic function, stress resilience, recovery, and cognitive sharpness. Because the decline is gradual, most people never notice it happening. As Clifford said, “What you could get away with in your twenties and thirties is very different in your forties and fifties.”

He’s right. A younger body is like a new car. You can skip the service, ignore the clunks, run it hard, and somehow it still performs. But a classic car? That needs attention. It needs maintenance. And if you neglect it, things deteriorate quickly.

Alcohol speeds that decline faster than most people recognise.
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Alcohol doesn’t ruin your life. It just quietly lowers it.

For Clifford, alcohol wasn’t causing chaos. He wasn’t getting into trouble. He wasn’t binge drinking nightly. In fact, he drank less as he got older. But even modest drinking chipped away at the margins he needed to function well.

After experimenting with every lifestyle strategy he could think of, he reluctantly took a full year off alcohol. That “booze vacation” changed everything. Sleep improved. Belly fat dropped. Mental clarity returned. Stress reduced. Work performance climbed. Training felt better. Life felt lighter.

As he explained, “I wasn’t looking to drink less. I was trying to over-engineer my workouts and diet so I could keep drinking. But once I stopped, it blew the lid off everything.”

The big point is this:
Cutting back doesn’t create the same impact as taking a proper break. Two to four weeks won’t undo decades of disrupted sleep, altered hormones, cravings, and recovery issues. But three months? Six months? A year? That’s where the body finally recalibrates.

Sleep: the unseen casualty of casual drinking

Training load, intensity, and discipline get all the attention. But at 40, 50, 60 and beyond, sleep is the real linchpin of performance and long-term health.

It influences everything: recovery, appetite, inflammation, hormone balance, mood, motivation, and body composition.

When Clifford tracked his sleep with an Oura Ring, the data was unmistakable. Even two or three drinks on a Friday and Saturday were enough to wreck his sleep for most of the following week. Heart rate variability dropped. Resting heart rate rose. Sleep disturbances increased. Metabolic health shifted in the wrong direction.

That poor sleep then created a cascade:More cravings, more stress, less training consistency, lower productivity, poorer food choices.

Sound familiar?

This isn’t about demonising alcohol. It’s about acknowledging that the margin for error shrinks as we age. The habits that once felt harmless start costing us more.

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Identity, habits, and the myth of moderation

One of the most insightful things Clifford said was this: people aren't just hooked on alcohol. They’re hooked on the role alcohol plays in their identity. It’s tied to celebration, connection, friendship, relaxation, reward.

So when someone decides to drink less, they’re not just changing a behaviour. They’re rewriting part of who they think they are.

Clifford helps people change that script using simple but effective reframing. Instead of saying, “I’m trying not to drink,” he encourages clients to say, “I’m on a booze vacation right now.” It’s lighthearted yet powerful. It sets a clear boundary without judgement and gives people a positive identity to lean into.

It’s a smart move, especially in midlife when our sense of self can either limit us or protect us.

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The bigger picture: health span, not lifespan

One of the strongest themes in our conversation was the difference between living longer and living better. Health span matters more than lifespan. The goal isn’t to simply avoid death. It’s to avoid the final slow, painful, dependent decades that come from poor lifestyle choices.

Clifford sees this all the time. Men who feel “fine” at 45 wake up at 55 with serious metabolic issues, hypertension, sleep disorders, or cardiac risk. Often, alcohol sits quietly in the background, amplifying every vulnerability.

As he put it, you only get one body, and you only get one shot at this.
Once the damage accumulates, no amount of wishful thinking can undo it.

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So where do you start?

You don’t need to quit alcohol forever. You don’t need to “go sober”. And you certainly don’t need to become the person preaching at your mates across the dinner table.

What you need is clarity.

Try one long break. Track your sleep, notice how you feel, let the benefits guide the next decision.

And above all, remember what Clifford said:

“You only get one body and one shot at this.”

He’s right.
You have adventures to live, fitness to protect, independence to maintain, and a health span worth fighting for.

Change doesn’t need to be punishing. It just needs to be intentional.

And if you want to stay strong, sharp, mobile, and capable into your sixties and seventies, getting smarter with your drinking might just be one of the most powerful tools you can use.

Ready to build a foundation that lasts?

If you want structure, accountability, and a smarter way to train as you get older, join the SWAT Inner Circle. It’s your tactical hub for staying strong, mobile, and Battle Ready all year round.

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Thanks for being part of the tribe — I’m here to help you stay Battle Ready! ​ Simon