Randy Quit

... drinking.

This is a more personal episode for us, particularly for Randy. As you know, we like alcohol around here, especially whiskey. In this episode, we chat about that and the presence it's had on our podcast and in our lives.

Can we have a "healthy relationship" with alcohol? What does that look like? How does that question get answered for each of us in honest ways? How do we responsibly balance our autonomy with the example we want to set for others?

Also, what kinds of conversations do we want to cultivate? (Hint: they're not necessarily churchy conversations or purely academic conversations, but conversations you might have in a bar.) What does this mean for the show going forward? And maybe most importantly, is there such a thing as a good mocktail?

The NA spirits we mixed in this episode are Monday "whiskey" and Martini Rossi Vibrante.

You can find the transcript for this episode here.

Content note: this episode contains some mild profanity.

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Chapters

• 5:03 Beverage Tasting
• 10:04 Main Segment

Transcript

NOTE: This transcript was auto-generated by an artificial intelligence and has not been reviewed by a human. Please forgive and disregard any inaccuracies, misattributions, or misspellings.

Randy  00:06

I'm Randy, the pastor half of the podcast, and my friend Kyle is a philosopher. This podcast hosts conversations at the intersection of philosophy, theology, and spirituality.

Kyle  00:15

We also invite experts to join us, making public space that we've often enjoyed off-air around the proverbial table with a good drink in the back corner of a dark pub.

Randy  00:24

Thanks for joining us, and welcome to A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar.

Kyle  00:41

So today, we've got a little bit more of a personal episode for you guys. We're not interviewing a guest. It's just Randy and I are talking and we're talking about something that is important to both of us and important to him in a unique way recently. So we are a pastor and philosopher walk into a bar. And we have I think, one time before now talked specifically about that bar part. It's an aspect of every one of our episodes, we always feature alcohol. And we've only once really dove into what that means to us. And Randy recently made a decision that's going to impact our take on that and its presence on our show a little bit. So in this episode, we're talking about alcohol, and Randy has something that he wants to share with you guys.

Randy  01:19

Yeah, I quit alcohol, some of you are perceptive and could tell by the some of the little comments I've made in a couple of past episodes. But I quit drinking alcohol in September of 23. So it's been five months now. And we felt like alcohol is a consistent presence on this podcast, both in title theme, we do tastings, because doing tasting is fun. And we figured it would set us apart a little bit as a podcast of all the many podcasts in the genre that we occupy, whether whatever that is progressive, Christian podcasts, and things are going to change a little bit. We don't know exactly how they're going to change with tastings or whatnot. We're figuring that out. But we wanted to just share this with you and also talk about in process through my process of why I did this. And I feel I don't know about you, Kyle. But I feel a little bit of a responsibility. Since alcohol is a part of the show. And alcohol can be a destructive force. It can also be really wonderful in many ways. But I feel a responsibility personally to just air this out with you listeners, because I feel like we're together in this work community. And I know that many of you have drank some of the whiskies that we sample or some of the beers that we've sampled, or you have great interest in them. Or maybe even I think we've talked to a few people who have gotten more interested in alcohol, and cocktails, and whiskies and all that whole fun world because of it. So I want to be transparent and honest about why I quit. So we can feel a little bit more responsible as that continues to be a theme on our show. Because we're not going to be a pastor and a philosopher walk into a mocktail. We're gonna be a passion for walking to a bar, I still go to bars, I still hang out. But I just don't drink, right,

Kyle  03:07

yeah, we're not changing the title of the show, or the overall theme of the show, we're going to talk more about what the bar has really meant to us. Anyway, all that's gonna stick around. But yeah, it's important, there is a little bit of a responsibility to be fully transparent about our thoughts about this and about our own alcohol consumption, which maybe we've never been fully transparent about before, I can totally understand the listener, thinking we both drink a whole lot. And so we're gonna talk about that. I also hope hopefully, in the conversation, we'll zoom out a little bit and talk about some of the bigger issues related to alcohol and being a Christian and how it impacts you know, how moral norms are affected by trying to set examples for out there, all that stuff, I think is bound up with this. So let's just see how it goes. Here we go. So we've sort of been lying to you for a little while, like you've been hearing tastings on our show that you think are current and they're not because Randy hasn't been drinking since September of last year. So what we did is canned a bunch of them with our friend Tim, who sent us a crazy amount of really good bourbon. Cheers to Tim and we have a few left of those. So you're still gonna be hearing Randy drinking for the next several episodes, but he has not fallen off the wagon.

Elliot  04:24

That's gonna be so sad.

Randy  04:25

Ya know, I, I shared with a friend. I don't know what two weeks ago that I stopped drinking and they're like, wait a minute, I just listened to you drinking something. Like yeah, sorry, that's a little sleight of hand. We we basically Tim sent us a bunch of really wonderful whiskies when he found out that I was quitting. And we did a bunch of tastings within about a month span. So I hit the booze hard. But it was fun and delightful to taste those. And yeah, we've we just haven't wanted to take the tastings out. We're trying to figure out what we do with that space and that time, we're still trying to figure that out that'll be evolving. But sorry about tricking you a little bit. So first thing that we do on every episode, some listeners, skip them. Kela hates when I say that because it curves people to skip them, but some people love them. We do a beverage tasting on every episode of this podcast and today we are doing our first ever mocktail taste. Tastes. I

Kyle  05:19

know there's some folks out there who are annoyed by the phrase mocktail, or the word mocktail they think they should be called non alcoholic cocktails. And to those people I say you're wrong. Cheers. There's

Randy  05:30

a lot of things to get mad about. Cheers. Now this smells so much like a Manhattan. It's ridiculous. Yeah, so

Kyle  05:38

the goal here was to make something that kind of approximated a Manhattan. We use one of those non alcoholic whiskies I think the brand is Monday. And a non alcoholic vermouth like thing that I don't even know if it says remove on the bottle, but that's kind of what they're going for. It's colored the whole thing red. Yeah, it looks a little bit like cough syrup. Thankfully, it does not taste like cough syrup. This to

Randy  06:02

me after having not drink any Manhattan's or any alcoholic beverages for five months. Tastes incredibly similar to a Manhattan it doesn't have that whiskey, flavoring and robustness and burn to it. But you said that they put capsaicin in here a little like that's,

Kyle  06:19

that's typically what they put in these non alcohol to give you

Randy  06:22

that little back in the throat burn, which it's accomplishing just a little bit. Yeah,

Kyle  06:25

it's it's there. It's a very different burn than ethanol, obviously. But it's something to make you think that might have been alcohol.

Randy  06:33

They're trying to give you the whole experience. Yeah. Which this is not terrible. It's really not bad.

Kyle  06:38

And wine is generally better wine like things are generally better because you can remove the alcohol from wine and still have something that's recognizably wine. So vermouth is a good place to go for non alcoholic stuff, because it is a fortified wine and you're going to have something that at the end of the day tastes fairly similar to the original. So we made like a sangria out of this. It was pretty good when my wife was pregnant. Yeah,

Randy  06:58

that's fun. LED Have you tried it?

Elliot  07:01

Yeah, it's tasty. I mean, it's sweet. It feels a little bit tamer. Like I said, when we were off air like I found that adding a double ride to a mocktail. But short of that is really, really good. Yeah,

Randy  07:18

I mean, it's a it's a tasty beverage, that my thing with mocktails that I've been finding in these last months is that I don't think they're worth the money, like mocktails are not cheap, but they're not. Whether you go to a restaurant or you buy the ingredients yourself and mixing them up like you have you've done, which I appreciate. I am happy with sparkling water, as opposed to spending stupid money on something that is fake. So

Kyle  07:41

I have before us a non alcoholic whiskey and rye whiskey, just regular. And they're approximately the same. There I was a bit more but yeah, these bottles tend to run like $40 Plus, yeah. Which is the price of a pretty decent bourbon. So yeah,

Randy  07:57

to me. I mean, it kind of defeats the purpose. But I haven't like we add new year's eve le abroad over regular drinks and some ingredients for a cocktail. And I was grateful to have something special to sip on.

Elliot  08:09

Yeah, it's almost more of a delicacy. The bummer is, you know, if you spent that same amount on alcoholic drinks, that you would get something that is really, really great. But if you if you're going without alcohol, like it gets there, you just have to know that you're going to spend a bit more in the process. Yeah,

Randy  08:24

it's a treat for me. It's every once in a while it's fun to have something a little bit fancier to sip on. Yeah, in general. I know there's nothing. There's no like fun booze in it. That sounds so alcoholic. But there's just a difference to where I'm like Nah, I'm good. I can give me a Lacroix I'm fine. But

Elliot  08:44

there are occasions when it's just fun to have something to sip on. And that's part of not drinking that I've been experiencing these last several months is you feel like a weirdo sometimes as this wave of na drinks me the more and more people are making these choices and you know, discuss some of the reasons but it's like, you get it all in front of you. And it's really compelling for a lot of reasons for different reasons for a lot of people not to drink. So with that rising cultural tide, I bet the Homebrew and a making your na moonshine. That'll be the next big thing. So thing in this space out. It's probably easier than distilling, right. I mean, you're basically dealing with aromatics. I don't know anything about

Randy  09:18

hydroponics. So I mean, maybe but distilling creating alcohol is not a complex process. Yeah, you just have to have the right equipment. This stuff is like making a fine tea. You know, like it's complex, and I don't know, but I'd be very interested in

Kyle  09:34

all those non alcoholic home brewers out there right to us. Yeah, well,

Randy  09:38

let's let's end this tasting before it gets really brutally too long. So thanks for the mocktail Kyle. Yeah, cheers.

Kyle  10:04

So Randy, maybe we should start by talking about what the bar theme has meant to us from the beginning. Because it you know, it's obviously literal, in the sense that we feature a beverage every episode, we have made it literal. Yeah. And we did that very intentionally. Because again, we both are and taboos were taboos. And because there weren't that many other podcasts in our space that did it. There's couple, but for the most part, it seemed unique. And honestly, I wasn't aware of any of the others that did it when we made the decision to start this podcast. Yeah.

Randy  10:33

And I'd like to think that we have like, somewhat above average. Yeah,

Kyle  10:37

like to believe that too. But that's, you know, the, the literal alcohol was never the essence of the bar thing. So let's just talk a little bit about what that meant. And still means and probably will continue to mean going going forward. Yeah, I

Randy  10:53

mean, I think the first thing I meant is just a catchy title. Right? Me and Emily, were I think we'll still be like, wrestling over who made came up with that title, at nauseam but um, yeah, some one of us came up with that name, a pastor and a philosopher walk into a bar, and it just stuck. But then we realized that we both do enjoy whiskey quite a bit. And this can be something that differentiates us. But I think the main thing that we enjoy about that theme is we don't want conversations that you have a church, right? Nobody wants that. Right? We got to praise the Lord for churches, and for conversations in churches, I happen to, to lead a church, we all should. It's great to have conversations in church. But that's not what we're trying to do with this podcast. We don't want to have academic conversations that are pure, just intellectual, you know, rigor happening, that that would have a shelf life. And it sounds boring to me. We want to have the kind of conversation that you have about spirituality, philosophy, life and everything in between, at a pub or at a bar, because unique conversations happen in those environments. When you say,

Kyle  11:57

yeah, totally. Yeah. I like the way you framed that it's not walking into a church. It's not walking into a university classroom. It's walking into a space where everybody's welcome. Yes, theoretically. And nobody is judged. And the conversation can be about anything, and anyone can participate in it. I think that's what we're going for.

Randy  12:15

And it gets a little passionate. It gets a little emotional at times. Yes, yes. It's, you can have different differing opinions. I've heard this over and over again, from our listeners is that they love it when we the fact that we can disagree with one another about substantive things, and still just move right on. Right? Yeah, that's the kind of thing that you can do at a bar over drink.

Kyle  12:34

Yes. And there's also in my experience in bars, which I've almost exclusively gone to with groups of friends. I've never raised the Lord. That just goes to there's, there's like a nice equalizing thing that happens when you have a diverse group of friends that go to the bar together, where my tendency to be an academic is, like, tempered, a bit tempered? Yes, yes, it's sanded off by the by the non academics around me in a very good way. Because I have a tendency to take things as far as they can go on the idea side, and that can be really unhelpful and really unproductive in the context of a real conversation with another human being. So yes, it's very important when we're talking about spirituality and theology, to not let it go to extremes

Randy  13:25

like that. Yeah. In those kinds of conversations, you know, you have that philosophers capacity to go a little bit to drill down further than, than is needed in regular conversation, while spiritual conversations or theological conversations can take a bit of a heavier tone than they need to. Does that make sense? Yeah, they they can be scary. They can be, you know, offensive, yes, readily because of our how much stock and emotions and weight we put into our, our theological or spiritual opinions and thoughts. But when you're sitting in a bar, everyone has spiritual or theological thoughts, whether you're an atheist or you're a fundamentalist Baptist, right. Yeah,

Kyle  14:04

totally. And another great thing I like about it is that there's always a joke just under the surface when you're in a bar with friends. So if something gets too pedantic, you just tell the person in a funny way that they're doing that, right. You're being that person that you're not allowed to be here, rein it in. Yeah. And that's rules. Exactly, yes, unspoken social rules of what kind of behavior and what kind of speech is welcome here. As

Randy  14:29

we describe this, I feel like we might be hitting this kind of close like, this is the reason that I enjoy our conversations. The reason that I enjoy our conversations with our guests, or together is because of the tone of the conversation, even as much of the content Yeah,

Kyle  14:44

yeah, totally. And every now and then, you know, we'll need to do a really serious episode where the tone is a little different. We've done that. And recently we did it and we didn't feature alcohol for that very reason. Because it's the tone is that the evil stuff? Oh, yeah. And it because you know, the tone needed to be a little different, a little more heavy. and that kind of stuff can happen in a bar like space too, but you might have to treat it a little bit uniquely each time. So we're not leaving any of that behind. Correct. That's all going forward. We're just treating alcohol a little bit differently, or Randy is treating alcohol a little bit differently. And that means the show will to, to some extent, yeah,

Randy  15:16

in one of my main things, and quitting drinking alcohol is that I don't want to be that pretentious guy that quits drinking alcohol, that also then makes everybody else feel like they should

Kyle  15:27

quit drinking the baby Christian that suddenly that's all they can talk. Yeah,

Randy  15:31

I don't want to evangelize. I'm not an evangelist for teetotaling. This is a very personal decision. I'm completely comfortable with whoever drinking. It's just again, this is a very personal decision. So please stop me if I get that obnoxious air to me of superiority or judgment, even though it's really easy. It's really easy deal for me.

Kyle  15:52

So why as much as you want to share, why did you make this call? It's

Randy  15:57

super simple. And this is like the confessional part, this is healthy stuff. Part of making a life decision like this is that you actually have to have the humility enough to like own your shit. I just developed an unhealthy relationship with alcohol over the years, I don't know how long I've been, like regularly drinking alcohol, but it's probably like close to a decade, I would say. And over the last several years in particular, I've just become uncomfortable with my regularity of drinking, it turned from drinking with friends, and then it went to enjoying a drink on my own. Then it went to like having a hard day, you know, in ministry and feeling like, Okay, I'm just gonna go have a drink, so I can sleep tonight. To that I'm gonna have needed one to two drinks. And then it eventually just turned into like, pretty much every night, I have several drinks, at the end of my day, to just unwind. And it became this ritual that I really enjoyed, to be honest and couldn't really, there was nothing involved my spiritual director when I told them, because he knows that I struggle with anger, said, Oh, are you quitting because you're an angry drunk, or you've gotten into trouble with your wife, or your kids or whatever. And I was like, no, never nothing like that at all, you can ask my wife. But I've just noticed over the last couple of years, there's been moments where I'm like, I need to, I need to scale it back a little bit. Hopefully, everybody who drinks has moments like that where like, you reflect a little bit, right. And I did that several times. But every single time I do that I eventually whether it takes weeks or months, never any more than months. For me, I always wanted to finding my way back to my old habits that I'm uncomfortable with. And eventually I did that. And I would just like I have no personal integrity, I didn't respect myself, after several times, like I did the same thing with smoking cigarettes when I was working in restaurants. Before I was in ministry, I started smoking cigarettes, because that's what everybody did. And I loved it. And I got hooked in on it. And that probably took me a dozen times to try of trying to quit to actually quit. And I haven't had, you know, a puff of a cigarette and probably I don't even know, shoot 15 years, probably somewhere with alcohol. So I just felt like I want to, I want to scale back. And I did that several times. But I'd always wind up back in the same place. And so it just helped it. I felt ashamed of myself in some ways that I wasn't able, I felt like I was unable to control myself and to not even control myself because that sounds like a raging alcoholic, but just unable to establish a healthy relationship with alcohol like I wanted. And the last time was probably May of last year of 23 when I just said I'm okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna scale it back again, I'm going to do a time of no drinking. And then I'm going to reintroduce it in a in a healthier rhythm. And I told myself if I can't do it this time, I gotta be done. And sure enough, I went back on, you know, couldn't do it. And just was like, Okay, I've got to be done, though. If I'm gonna have any integrity, any pride in just my, the way I live. It got to the point where it just like I have to I have to quit drinking. Yeah, I don't think I can scale back and establish a healthy relationship with alcohol without actually just stopping.

Kyle  19:09

Right? Has that changed your views at all about what a healthy relationship with alcohol might look like? Or whether one is really possible or feasible? I

Randy  19:18

think it's different for everybody. I know for me right now, the only way for me to have a healthy relationship with alcohol is to not have none whatsoever. Because I've just I've proven over time that I can't I don't have the self control to do it at this point in time. My hope is I don't know if this is going to be a lifelong quitting alcohol. The more I experienced my body and life without alcohol the more I think I'm I might be done forever. But I'm not. I'm not saying that I'm might not have a drink with one of my kids when they when they get married or have a kid or have a celebratory moment or whatever. I'm not saying that but for a good long time. I'm going to be done drinking alcohol because I can't but again, that's something that you have Like everyone should who drinks alcohol? Everyone should evaluate. Do I have a healthy relationship with this? Do I feel like I'm in control? Do I feel like I'm making choices that I'm proud of? And that I'm going to be happy that I made 1020 years? 30 years from now? Yeah,

Kyle  20:16

yeah. And it seems like some of that's pretty subjective, right? Because you're looking at your own life and saying, Do I feel good about this? And you clearly didn't. Some of it's probably kind of objective too, right? Um, you talked about being healthier, and their objective ways to measure their objective ways. They're depressing, objective ways to measure the effects of alcohol on your body, which I know you want to talk a bit about. So can I ask, would you have considered yourself an alcoholic? Yeah, you

Randy  20:43

can ask that? I don't think so. But I don't know. I mean, a psychologist would have would be way more qualified to answer that if I answer some questions. But um, I've never had any physical. I've never felt any physical attachment. I've never, you know, I could go days without drinking and be totally fine. But there's this mental thing that I couldn't get over. So I don't know if that I started to move into a place where I felt like my relationship with alcohol was unhealthy, right? Not out of control, but also not able to control it in a way that I feel like has integrity. Yeah, totally. And another thing is, like, I have four kids, and my oldest is, she's in her second semester of junior year in high school. And if you know, high schoolers, high schoolers, drink sometimes, or a lot, or not at all. And I'm not saying anything, my daughter is not a drinker at all. But she's in venues where she has that opportunity regularly. I have three boys that are all just barely younger than her. They're, you know, either in high school or middle school. And they've started asking questions, and they notice me and my wife drinking, and they, in many ways, me and my social network, which you both are a part of, kind of glorify alcohol in some ways, you know, like, we talked about it in very romantic ways. We, I think we drink it for the right reasons we truly enjoy it, we want to, we're not trying to get hammered every time we we drink all that stuff. But at the same time, it's, it's romanticizing it to my kids. And, you know, as I've looked into what alcohol does to you, I mean, the statistics say, easily the younger you're exposed to alcohol, the younger you begin drinking, the more of a likelihood you'll have have established, being alcoholic and having a problem with alcohol. And that's something that I want to take seriously. My daughter's looking into colleges, I just did a college visit with her last week. And she's going to be in these environments where she's going to start doing these cost benefit analysis. And I just want to I'm, I'm excited to not be a person who is going to encourage her to drink by my own actions. I feel a little bit of responsibility with our listeners, but I feel a huge responsibility with my kids, right? And that doesn't mean that every parent needs to quit drinking. That just means that I hope that as parents, we're thoughtful about what we're conveying to our kids and telling our kids without even telling them with our habits and with the way we with our relationships with alcohol, if that makes sense. Yeah. What are your guys thoughts on that? Yeah,

Kyle  23:16

no, that's that's a? That's a good question. Because I've, you know, my kids are two, two and a half and four months at the moment. And the two year old already recognizes bourbon, because, because I explicitly taught him to recognize my man. Like, well go to the liquor store, and I'll say, what's that? And he'll say, bourbon,

Randy  23:37

raise them up. Now, he

Kyle  23:37

thinks everything is bourbon. So

Randy  23:41

be careful with him at like Sunday school, or even just like at the school.

Kyle  23:44

I know. And before that, he knew how to cheers. And it's the cutest thing ever. He'll hold his little sippy cup up and cheers you so cute. But you know, that does give me a little bit of pause, right? I want to make sure that he understands that appropriately. Also, you know, I want to have the kind of parenting style where nothing is ever off limits. And if he ever asks a question about something, I just tell him the truth, because I think if he's mature enough to know enough to ask, then he's mature enough to hear the answer. And if he ever asked me say, Can I have a sip of that? And he was not too but like, you know, old enough that it wouldn't do any serious damage to him that I'd probably say, Sure. And he would go and run away. And that'd be better than saying no, and trying to withhold it, because then it's mistakes. What we've

Randy  24:23

done with our kids, yeah, right. But that comes back to bite you when one of your kids turns out to actually enjoy alcohol. Right, which I have.

Kyle  24:31

You Yeah, so this is something I should probably think more about at some point in the next 10 or 12 years. Yeah. So I'm glad you brought it up.

Elliot  24:38

I see this both ways, like the the idea that the kids need to see us engage in unhealthy relationship with alcohol 100% And so I guess a lot of that's going to be dictated by what that like, if I feel like I have a healthy relationship for them to see that in whatever form it is, is a good thing. I know I still I continue to think about, you know, it's it's not at this point at all or nothing for me, but it's definitely present on my mind, whenever I'm in a situation where there are drinks that it's like, I know that this is, you know, it's kind of like just it's like eating the Big Mac. And it's like, that's, there's a, there's a cost here, and I want my kids to recognize that as well. I'm trying to think if it's something that I could compare to other things that could be misused, you know, like, an extreme would be like the the parent that is teaching their kid how to how to properly handle a weapon in a sporting context, or

Randy  25:37

are you have cigars every once in a while?

Elliot  25:40

Yeah, how to drive a vehicle, like, I want my kids to see that I have a healthy relationship with this thing that is dangerous, but but to understand, like, you know, the car has some real utility. It's not objectively bad, unless we want to like, we'll do the environmentalism episode later, but alcohol stuff because there is such a cost. And I think that that that awareness is only growing. You dig deeper into it, and like, nobody's nobody's discovering that. Oh, actually, this isn't quite as bad as we thought it was like, it's just

Kyle  26:13

worse than we thought. Yeah.

Elliot  26:15

So yeah, it's something to keep grappling with.

Randy  26:17

Yeah. I mean, pastorelli, even I smoked cigarettes up until even past when we started started the church that I started. And one thing one of the thing that like, was the drove the nail in the in the coffin for me, as far as smoking will I smoke or not, is I started to notice people who were part of our church or young people who were part of our church, starting to smoke. And as soon as I saw that, I was like, I need to stop smoking. Like I already wanted to stop. But then when I saw other people around me starting to smoke, because I think probably me and my friend who started this thing, this church thought it was cool. That's when I felt like this huge responsibility that I do not like, I'm in control of what I do. But I'm not in control of what they do. And I don't want to give them that that permission. It's the same thing with being in ministry or having a podcast where we're actively and publicly drinking. That's the responsibility, I feel. I hope that there's no one who started drinking because of our show, to be totally honest with. So let's

Kyle  27:14

drill into that a little bit. Because there's something I think we need to be careful to balance here and not go a little too far with this kind of point. And I know that you're not doing that. But I've heard this point made too forcefully in the past, particularly by fundamentalists I went to college with because they were all teetotallers. And one of the seemingly because they had a bunch of arguments about you know, it was actually grape juice in the Bible and not want so that all the really shitty shitty arguments to but one of the more forceful ones, or it seemed forceful to me at the time, and it seemed to be the linchpin for most of them, was this kind of example based argument, I have to be an example for others, I have to avoid, as they would say, even the appearance of impropriety. Yes. And they had Bible verses that they would Marshal to support that. And what they meant was, if anybody else did what I did, and was unsafe doing it, then I shouldn't do it. And that, to me, is both irrational and also, weirdly, a weird way to frame a moral question. It's kind of it runs counter to what we all know of as a good life. And what I mean by that is, if we envision what a good life would be, a good human life would be, for most of us, it would include risky activities, probably all of us to be honest, in some way, it would include activities that if other people were to do them under different conditions, with different characters than we possess, they'd be dangerous activities for those people. And to some extent, they're dangerous activities to us. But of course, we would want them as part of a good life because a life devoid of them would be flat, it would not be the kind of life that any of us would look at and say that was a flourishing existence. And this notion of a good life lies at the basis of most moral theories. And so when I heard my friends in college make that point, it just seems strange to me, because you could you could replace alcohol with so many things in that scenario, or in that, you know, point that they were making, and ended up with a really weird risk avoidant, hesitant, cowardly, in some ways existence that none of them would would aim for or reach for, right. And so the point I would try to make was that look, you don't base your moral decisions on what just any old person would do in the circumstances you're in you base your moral decisions on what a virtuous person would do. In the circumstances, you're in on what a moral exemplar would do. You aim for that, and you hope other people will aim for that too. And so I feel no qualms whatsoever about having a podcast with alcohol in it because I'm not holding this up as an example. My behavior is not an example for you. I hope, please don't let it be.

Randy  29:52

Charles Barkley. Is that to Charles Barkley say something like that. There's a huge night there was a huge Nike commercial 30 years ago where he gets went on the camera and he's like, I am not a role model. Half the people love to have to be excellent.

Kyle  30:05

Excellent. I would probably like it, I don't know. But you know, I do hope that we're aiming at similar moral exemplars, and we could name some of them. And a lot of those people incorporated alcohol into their life very successfully. So, yeah, I just want to avoid that kind of extreme version of, you know,

Randy  30:23

my main thing in because I've been around a number of pastors, who, when they saw me having a beer at a restaurant or whatever, they would literally not have a beer or a drink in public at all. And I was like, No, I have no problem with it. And I've been around guys who have like, literally hidden their body over their glass, just because they saw someone they want someone they knew or was part of their church. I didn't appreciate that as well, kind of like in what you're saying, however, alcohol is a different thing. For me. It's there is an inheritance. If you're not in control, and intentional about the way you drink and the way you relate to alcohol, it's going to be really bad for you. Like it's like life changing bad. You know, marriages have been destroyed because of alcohol and family relationships have been destroyed and people are on the streets because of alcohol. People are dead because of alcohol. That's for me, where I just personally feel like this is a show where we have romanticized it to the level that I'm I want to be responsible with what how I present myself and how I present myself with alcohol. There's just a little bit of a different level for me, because of the alcohol and because of the way we talk about it and featured on our show. Yeah. And that's a personal thing. Yeah. Don't put that on you at

Kyle  31:43

all. No, I think I can understand where you're coming from. i There are things that I totally acknowledge that I've romanticized it, because it is romantic. Yes, it is. And there are other things. It's difficult to draw like moral parallels, sometimes or moral analogies can be quite difficult. Because there's always some small way in which they're different. And so you know, drawing a good analogy that makes a good forceful point is very difficult. And it keeps philosopher ethicist up to do one that springs to my mind that I know has issues. We could we could talk about risky behaviors all day, right? There's actually I realized this recently, there's actually a measure of risk called the let me google it because I'm gonna forget

Randy  32:33

this is crazy how relatively Manhattan II that tastes.

Elliot  32:39

It almost helps for me to not like not try to call it anything like yeah, this is this is just a tasty beverage. Great, spiced

Randy  32:50

coffee. Yeah, I would do the same thing. Except it tastes so much like a Manhattan to me. Good. Yeah.

Kyle  32:55

Is that weird for you? Like, does that give you any temptation to go home and make no temptation?

Randy  32:58

Okay, but it is weird that like, I don't, I wouldn't want to have this all the time. I wouldn't. Well, yeah. Because it's like sugary and all that shit. Yeah. But also because part of the part of the reason that I don't feel like I'm gravitating towards mocktails is because I'm trying to I don't want to have a replacement for it. Like, I don't need. I appreciate it when somebody is hosting a party, like a friend of mine, just this last weekend didn't ask me what kind of na beer like, I appreciate that. That's thoughtful. But at the same time, I'm totally fine with a glass of water and lemon. Like, that's my favorite drink anyways, I'm totally fine with just not being having the same kind of thing in my in my hand.

Kyle  33:39

Yeah, totally. Okay, so there's this measure of risk. It's called a micro mort. And it's basically

Randy  33:45

that's not real. It really is. Believe it or not,

Kyle  33:49

it's basically a unit of risk and it's defined as a one in a million chance of death. So one micrometer like or more Yeah, is you have one

Randy  33:56

sounds like a Despicable Me character, something.

Kyle  34:00

There's another one I can't remember the name of that's basically a half an hour of your life. So doing X behavior equals hour, yeah, one half hour.

Randy  34:11

And so there's just so many of those things, by the way, many half hours taken off.

Kyle  34:15

And it's difficult to find like reliable lists of these but like books have been published comparing these, you know, risks of things that you might not expect. And some of them are quite like jarring. And I came across it during COVID Because I read some articles that were comparing trying to make it real for people how serious it is to go outside without a mask, and be like, Look, you're you're risk if you're in this age bracket and you live in this location, like your risk of getting seriously ill and actually dying from this or killing someone else is like, dramatically higher than you would think. And then like also, when things were were coming down, and we're getting safer and there was a lot of pushback on like, you know, alleviating some of the restrictions like removing mask requirements and stuff. It's also useful to think of it then because we regularly take on risks in our daily lives that are much higher at that point than going out into a restaurant without a mask was, for example, if you drove yourself to the restaurant, you're taking on much more risk than you are now. Right? Masculine doing masla. So we're humans are super bad at thinking about risk and thinking about it accurately, or knowing the things that we do without thinking and how they could impact our lives or the lives of others. So in trying to think of a good analogy for alcohol, as I experienced it, the thing that sprung to mind, and this is gonna piss off some listeners, I know that is football, because it plays a similar romantic role in the life of many Americans. And it is extremely dangerous. And we know this and the more just like alcohol, the more data we find out about it, the worse it is, to the extent that I'll never let my kid play football. And yet, I would not, you know, suggest to someone else that they ought not to play football above a certain age if they can consent, right? And I would not want to let's say I made that decision, which I have. I'm not going to expect any of our listeners to then like model that decision. Because again, I think we should all be aiming for an objective norm of what a good life looks like not any particular person's subjective experience. Yeah, like that kind of norm. So yep.

Randy  36:18

So speaking of risk, let me just Can I can I do the really annoying thing of please talking through a few of the health effects? Yeah, I'll bring Yeah, it

Kyle  36:28

might be good for some people to know. And I'm gonna tune out. So go for it.

Elliot  36:34

I'm just curious, right, like, how much of how much was this a part of your decision? Or is it like at the point where you've made the decision? Now, there's all this fun data that you get to dig into that kind of just backs up and like, your process? I'm really curious about this dynamic.

Randy  36:48

Yeah. I mean, I feel like most people know that alcohol isn't good for you, you know? Yeah. I, but

Kyle  36:55

there are some myths that are worth puncturing. And they're, they've been myths for good reason. Because up until very recently, they were reasonable, for example, that a few drinks a week are actually good for you good for your cardiovascular health, which there are still studies, recent studies that suggest it might be but they have all these sorts of problems. So that those are risks worth discussing.

Randy  37:15

Most, most scientists and doctors will say, will now say like, it's better to drink. There's an emerging consensus that nothing is better than a little even. Yeah,

Kyle  37:25

it's kind of like what they say about lead. There's no safe. It's not it's not actually that bad. But like, yeah, there's no like health benefit. You're drinking alcohol, unless you're like, born in a very specific region of France or something. Yeah.

Randy  37:39

But Elliot, to answer your question, when I was drinking, I mostly took Kyle's tact, which he just said of like, I'm gonna tune out because I don't really want to know what this is doing to my body. But I could see the effects and I could feel the effects. That's what got me to the to that place. And then once I quit drinking, it became really like, okay, now I want to expose myself to all the things that alcohol did to my body, because I want to not go back to it. But honestly, it's just scared me about what I've spent the last 10 years of my life doing to my body, to be honest with you. So let me just hit some high level stuff. If you want to, like really go into the science of what alcohol does to your body, listen to another podcast and find some actual experts. Andrew Huberman is a Stanford professor who talks about this stuff has a great podcast, there's a million of them. And really, if you're struggling with alcohol, you should go listen to them. Like that's the serious thing. But just in my like, a lip doing a little bit of research and all the stuff that I found is all on like academic journal reviews, basically, or a doctor talking about this on a podcast. So first of all, alcohol is a known toxin and carcinogen. We know that toxins are bad carcinogens caused cancer. It's serious business. Researchers from Oxford University conducted this research over the course of 30 years. So this is a substantial research. And they were they looked at like 30 or 40,000 people. And they found that drinking literally shrinks the size of your hippocampus, which your hippocampus is the portion of your brain that's responsible for memory learning and emotions. And the amount of alcohol you consume is directly related to the amount that your hippocampus will shrink. But participants who drink literally low to moderate drinkers, one to two drinks a day which is about seven to 14 drinks per week, obviously if you do the math, their hippocampus is are still shrinking, but the more drinks you have like they said, a person who has four drinks per day and that a drink in this study is a beer basically that's the amount of alcohol and yeah, it's

Kyle  39:38

usually that are like, you know, certain like a shot of liquor or something

Randy  39:42

right. So in most of the in Manhattan's I would make myself there's that's two or three drinks in one drink, to be honest with you. Because I like my drinks tasty and boozy. Right, right.

Elliot  39:54

That's interesting, I think about like, the shrinking of the hippocampus, like, piece of the anatomy But the way that most men would value that, like compared to like another piece of their anatomy that if it shrunk, like immediately none of us are drinking.

Kyle  40:09

Actually, there probably, there are. I suspect there are real links between, I wouldn't be surprised. And but then so that's, that's, that's

Elliot  40:17

the part where all liquor brands go out of business. But yeah, hippocampus really? Yeah.

Randy  40:21

No big deal.

Kyle  40:22

I can't see that. Yeah,

Randy  40:24

yeah, yeah, no. So the research says that participants who drink for drinks per day, were about six times more likely to see their hippocampus shrink, as opposed to non drinkers. So the way I saw this happening in my life was not at all for a long period of time. And then in the last year, I would say, I just started knowing, or

Kyle  40:45

what's the word? We're witnessing it and actually, having that word was what a small hippocampus would do for you. Yeah.

Randy  40:57

No back, but I know I did notice myself not having as crisp of a memory. And I didn't notice, like I literally would start taking cold showers on Sundays, when I had to when I had to preach, I'd give my sermons mostly by memory. And that's the only way I really can do it. Well, and I had noted I noticed brain fog setting in more than I had in the past. And it was easy for me to associate that with with age, because I'm 45 years old. But that's feels a little bit too young to get brain fog in to start forgetting things. And I just started kind of sensing this relationship between my my memory being a little bit not as sharp as it was, and my drinking habits to be honest with you.

Elliot  41:36

I'm curious about any notes on that one. Now that you've been without a drink for, whatever, five, five months, yes, I

Randy  41:43

feel sharper for sure. In particularly in the morning. But I feel sharper. In general, my body just feels different. My brain feels clearer, my brain feels sharper, my body feels more energetic, more lively, more healthy, my body has the biggest effect that I can feel it and I've lost over 20 pounds in the last five months. That's remarkable. Since I stopped drinking, and I haven't done much anything else. But so I was

Kyle  42:05

gonna ask you, is it like part of a whole workout regimen? Or the No, no, I

Randy  42:10

was working out while you know, I've tried to be healthy, besides the whole booze thing. And so I haven't increased my my exercise much at all, and the hippocampus growing back. So I don't know about that. We'll see I don't think scientists and my wife, but just a little bit more in our brains, even for people drinking one to two drinks per day, which is considered low to moderate alcohol consumption, seven to 14 drinks per week, they say it doesn't matter if you do it, one to two per day, or if you do it for per Friday night, and then another three on a Saturday, it doesn't matter. It's just how much you drink per week. On average. There's evidence even for low to moderate alcohol consumption, there's evidence of thinning in the of the neocortex of the brain, which just means your brain is losing neurons. If you drink low, even low in low to moderate ways, which means your memory is in a sharp your your ability to learn on the spot slows down and all the other stuff. I'm not a scientist, I'm not a neurologist. So I can't get into detail. But this stuff is like peer reviewed consensus. Very

Kyle  43:19

controversial. This is not enough. We're not No, you're not crazy heck science here. So yeah, there's

Randy  43:23

there's a good amount of data that says consuming alcohol increases your risk of cancer. And that's pretty much unanimous as well. In particular, there are many studies that show that anywhere from six to 14% increase in risk of breast cancer, which is a real correlation, they say it but it's not just breast cancer. There are many scientists who are now saying we need to start talking about alcohol, like we've been talking about cigarettes, because we have converted as a culture over the last 70 years, probably, to where we know that cigarettes causes cancer, there's a direct correlation. And scientists say we know just as much there's just as much of a correlation between cancer and alcohol is a really between cigarettes and in cancer. We just don't talk about it like that. We don't talk about alcohol in the ways that we talk about cigarettes. So they'll even say now to be a little sensation was I can at least amount of sensation. They say that for a woman drinking a whole bottle of wine is the equivalent of smoking 10 cigarettes. And for a man, the equivalent of drinking a whole bottle of wine is the equivalent of smoking five cigarettes. That's just a bottle of wine. Now, you throw in hard liquor there. And it's basically like we're all just regular smokers, which most of the people that I know who drink in particular who drink whiskey in good, good spirits. Wouldn't be comfortable being addicted to smoking or smoking regular smoking cigarettes regularly. That's something that science, I think you're going to be hearing more and more in the next five to 10 years. This correlation between alcohol and cancer. It's a real thing. And

Kyle  44:55

so how Yeah, how, how much did that factor into your decision? In

Randy  45:01

a fair amount, you know, like, I find myself making different decisions as I age. Basically, I can just tell you like, it's not just alcohol. It's how much I exercise how much sleep I get how I want to treat my body because I'm, I'm noticing I'm feeling in my feet and my knees and my wrists and my, you know, all sorts of things. I'm reaping the karma is coming back to me, I, I lived in ways that was wasn't crazy, but I just did not care about what I did to my body. Basically, when I was younger, and I don't mean that I partied. I mean that I did stupid things behind the speedboat and jumped off of things that I probably shouldn't jump off of, and I ran in, whatever you know, like things that just wear down your body, I'm just noticing, I want to make different decisions that increase my body's health and life as I age into my 50s 60s 70s, whatever. And alcohols, it's been looming over me of like, I need to change this. And I'm not getting any younger, like the time to actually form new habits. That was motivated quite a bit by my health, I would say. So this is all a bit, I'm a

Kyle  46:05

little concerned that we may have overplayed the risk of cigarette smoking versus moderate alcohol consumption because they're not comparable, okay? Like if you're ill, they're not coming from hard alcoholic, they're probably kinda comparable. But like

Randy  46:20

I saw someone, I saw a professor say that having one or 10 grams of alcohol is the equivalent of smoking 10 cigarettes. But then I saw a different study that said, way less than that, which is the bottle of wine is equivalent to 10 cigarettes for a woman or five cigarettes for a man. That's why I went with that one, because it was way more conservative.

Elliot  46:39

I think in the scope of misinformation on the internet.

Kyle  46:41

That's probably not true.

Randy  46:44

But I do want to I, if I conveyed that that's a one to one between cigarettes and alcohol. I wouldn't want to convey that because I don't I don't think he did. So kind of this has been mostly about me and my decision and all that stuff, which is great. But tell us about your relationship to alcohol and what this what this does to you.

Kyle  47:00

Yeah. So I mean, it is romantic to me, as we said before, and part of the reason for that is that I didn't I was in a teetotaller culture all the way through college I grew up in, you know, the state that produces bourbon and never had a bourbon until I moved away from it. And had to kind of drink secretly at the Applebee's when I was in college with like my two friends who would also willingly drink secretly, because if our campus pastor found out it would have been a really big deal,

Randy  47:30

you move from the bourbon state to the beer store.

Kyle  47:33

I did and I hated beer until not that long ago, I because I never had any good beer. And so when I sought out my first whiskey, it was a very, you can imagine the nerd that I am, I did it very intentionally, I did a bunch of research. And I kind of had this thing for Scotland anyway, because of some family ancestry, and some stuff with my dad. And so I thought this is going to be like a really kind of meaningful experience my first scotch and it was, I sought it out. And I was like, this is a good first one to try went to the bar. It was great. I mean, it just kind of grew from there. And I loved it immediately. So it wasn't like an acquired thing. It immediately tasted really good to me. So. And it's always been about that it's always been about, it's just one of many things in my life, where I try to get the finer versions of it just for pure aesthetic enjoyment. There's nothing else to it for me, my dad, my dad was an alcoholic, but it was before I was born. I know that's a weird thing for an alcoholic to hear that you could be an alcoholic in the past. But that is how I would describe it because I never witnessed and take a drink alcohol, much less be drunk. But it was it was serious. And it affected my parents marriage. And so there was something that was taken very seriously in the home and probably contributed to my never having a drink until I was living alone in grad school, and surrounded by people who drink regularly, but none of which were alcoholics that I know of. And so I have a large liquor collection. And I really, when I get into something, I would get really into it. And you would think based on looking at my bar and this podcast that I drink all the time, I maybe have a drink a week, on average, maybe two in a week where I and the reason is, I just I just don't think about it. Unless I'm with people or in a in a setting where it would be nice to have. I just don't think about it. I'm much more likely to eat some chocolate and drink some milk at the end of the day. I don't think to pour anything. You're not 12 years old dude. I don't know dude, I love milk. So like sugar is much bigger deal for me than if I Yeah, if I could successfully cut out sugar I'd be happy but I have the same relationship

Randy  49:50

with sugar.

Kyle  49:53

And that's a huge part of Yeah, for sure. So I'm more or less have cut up beer because I kind of Got bored with it. And also because of the calories, because most of the beer I was drinking is super sugary stuff. And that's what I like. And it's just really bad for me. It's amazing how quickly you lose weight and feel better when you cut out just something like that that's doing like that. And soda, like, makes a huge difference all by itself. So I don't feel like I have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. I feel like it's something that's firmly in the category of that's fun and enjoy it. And I hope that's clear to my kids. As we age and who knows how long I'll actually be into it, because it's also a very expensive hobby. So that's my relationship with it. I want listeners to know that. And again, don't use me as a as your example. If that's not you, you know, do what's right for you. One thing that I do find somewhat encouraging that I was just reading about in preparation for this episode is that apparently, the current youngest generation is shrinking significantly less than the generations prior, it's actually shifting. So the overall average for like, the United States has stayed more or less constant for like, 40 plus years. But it's increasing for people over 55. And going down by about the same amount for people under 35. I was Yeah. And then the the biggest drinkers are like the people in the middle, the old millennials, older millennials, and Gen Xers.

Randy  51:24

Okay, that makes sense, because I was gonna be like, bullshit. Like, I don't I noticed more and more people around me drinking, but maybe that's because

Kyle  51:32

I feel the same. Yeah. Although I will say like the the beer and whiskey geek communities that I'm a part of are all expecting the bubble to burst any moment. In fact, it already has for beer. I mean, it's just crashing pretty much interesting. And so I I do wonder if like, the thing Elliot was talking about the non alcoholic thing will be the next obsession or what people need to or not, but it does seem younger people are less interested. And they're also less likely to abuse it to drink regular. That's awesome. Previous generations, maybe some of this stuff we've been talking about as having something to do with that. I

Randy  52:05

don't know. Yeah, I mean, we have, there's so much we haven't talked about, right? Like the social aspect of it, is the thing that you notice when you're not drinking. I was never comfortable with this when I was drinking. But the idea of like, if you go to a dry wedding, everyone rolls their eyes, right, right. Or this idea that you can have a party or gathering without alcohol. In order for it to be actually like a genuinely fun time you feel really Baptist if you do that. But there's, you know, we live in Milwaukee, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin is like the drunk estate in the country. I'm almost certain of that. And there's a real reality that I started noticing where like, I felt like a weirdo and kind of an outsider. When I the first wedding that I was at I officiated but then hung out at the party, it was a great time. But there's a bar at the at the wedding. And that's where most people congregated. And I got looks like people kind of looking at me if I had just a water. Right, right. It could have been just my self consciousness because it was the first time in years that I had been without a drink in that kind of environment. But it's just an interesting social commentary. When you actually reflect on how did our social group our friend, group or family, whatever, what's our relationship collectively with alcohol? And are we comfortable with that? Are we comfortable with what we're doing with ourselves? And also what we're telling to our the people around us? Yeah, it's just an interesting thing that once you stop drinking, or once you start thinking about it, it's just one of those things. That is, it's a real dynamic. Yeah.

Kyle  53:27

And I'm somebody who thinks that like the social lubricant function of alcohol is actually a really useful can be in certain contexts. And interestingly, I think caffeine can play a similar role does it very differently, but people go have coffees together for a reason. Part Part of the reason is that it's one of the few spaces you can freely congregate without having to make big plans and be excluded or whatever. But, you know, the drinks that you have there plays a role in that as well. Caffeine has mind altering effects, very different from alcohol, but significant. And I'm actually very pro the mild intoxicating effects of alcohol for its social usefulness. and I both enjoy it, but also think that it's, it plays a nice, covering roll over some some differences that would otherwise impede intimacy and connection, it helps people get past certain barriers, if you need it to get past those barriers. That's a problem. But like, as an introduction, like, I have people that I'm acquainted with, I wouldn't call us friends. But we mostly get together over shared interests. And if we're ever going to become friends, something like that's going to be necessary. We're gonna have to have some conversations after like two or three drinks, that will then create a connection that can be something more, but honestly, without alcohol that often can't happen. Yeah, and I think that that would be a loss if that didn't happen. Yeah.

Randy  54:49

And I can tell you for me, like one of the, this is funny, and it tells you what like, the things I enjoy in life, but one of the biggest losses of not drinking for me has been The experience that we share in this podcast, and I, it's not just in this podcast that I do this, I have other friends in my non podcasting time, where we will sit around and have a whiskey and talk about the flavor profile and what we love about or what we hate about it, all this stuff. I love that stuff. Like I love tasting things, and getting the nuances and the complexity and being able to name it. That's, that's a muscle that I've built over time, that I really am sad to let go. But I've also found myself getting really into expensive coffee. You know, I let myself go a little bit with splurging on the best coffees that I that I can find. Because coffee does the same thing. Really. Like there's, I've, I've got a coffee from our local spot, shout out venture brew, that it tastes like you're eating blueberries when you're drinking this coffee, it's friggin incredible. Same, I want to do the same thing with tea because you can do the same thing. You can expand your palate and you can taste the different nuances and the regions and the different varietals. That's the kind of thing that I miss that I'm trying to get back into my life, not an aggressive fashion, but it's just the thing that I loved about drinking. It's

Kyle  56:08

fun to really geek out about something that has a huge sensory array for

Randy  56:12

me. Absolutely. Yep, totally get that. So how do you think this is gonna affect our show? How are we going to have you thought about how we're going to do tastings? I haven't really thought about it, because it's like Kyle and Elio, probably it

Kyle  56:24

means it'll be fewer tastings, I expect, there will probably be episodes that don't have any. I think it might be fun to occasionally bring on a guest like we do with Tim, to have a tasting with somebody else. Maybe you'll hear a little bit more from Elliott

Randy  56:40

or maybe if there's a philosopher theologian or a pastor or something that is really enjoys alcohol as well. We can do that. Yeah.

Kyle  56:46

Now, you know, the tastings were never the essence of the show that were always a fun aside, and they will continue being a fun aside that is probably less frequent.

Randy  56:55

And just in case you're angry with me listeners by ruining the tastings. I understand first of all, but second of all, I've been an advocate for just me sitting back during the tasting time and letting Kyle and Elia continue as normal. That's that would be fine with me. Yeah.

Kyle  57:07

Which which may may still happen. You should know if you send us booze at this point. You're sending it to me and Elliot. Which I'm fine. Totally feel free to do. Yeah, so we didn't know going into this how? I don't know significant it would be to how many of our listeners I still don't know, really. But I'm very interested in your feedback. If this hits a chord with any of you let us know about it either in either direction. If there's anything we got wrong or missed, let us know about that.

Randy  57:35

Yeah, if you're an aficionado, aficionado, aficionado, this is a mocktail, I promise. If you're aficionado of whiskey, bourbon, any kind of beverage. Please still interact, Kyle and Elliot would love to get any, you know, thoughts or recommendations or if you want to send anything, we still love that. And also, if you struggle with alcohol, I want it this is the sounds corny and cheesy, but I just want to say like, think hard about it and talk to the people that you need to talk to make, let's be willing to make some tough decisions for the sake of our health for the sake of our lives for the sake of the people around us. But all that said, nothing's nothing besides the tastings every once in a while we're gonna change about this podcast. And I'm excited to be honest with you, listeners, I'm excited to just have this dynamic where we're a community and we're just kind of engaged in each other's lives a little bit totally. And I'm excited to move on from this.

Kyle  58:31

And thanks for being so transparent about it, of course.

Randy  58:47

Thanks for listening to A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar. We hope you're enjoying these conversations. Help us continue to create compelling content and reach a wider audience by supporting us at patreon.com/apastorandaphilosopher, where you can get bonus content, extra perks, and a general feeling of being a good person.

Kyle  59:04

Also, please rate and review the show in Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen. These help new people discover the show and we may even read your review in a future episode.

Randy  59:12

If anything we said pissed you off or if you just have a question you'd like us to answer, send us an email at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.com.

Kyle  59:20

Find us on social media at @PPWBPodcast, and find transcripts and links to all of our episodes at pastorandphilosopher.buzzsprout.com.

Randy  59:28

See you next time.

Kyle  59:29

Cheers!