Three years in the Club Soda Club

Three years ago this week I ordered a club soda and a lime for the first time and meant it.

I didn't take a photo. I didn't post about it. I just figured I'd try it for a while and see what happened.

Three years later, here we are.

And the weird part? I almost forgot it was coming up.

Year One Is the Highlight Reel

Year one is the fun one to talk about. The sleep changes. The savings stacking up in the Jamo Fund. The morning you realize your eyes don't look tired anymore. The first time a bartender says "good for you" instead of "c'mon, just one."

That's the content everyone writes. It's the before-and-after. The transformation post. The part people screenshot.

But that's not the part that actually changed my life.

Year Two Is When You Stop Counting

Somewhere in year two, I stopped keeping track.

Not on purpose. I just… stopped. The math that used to be a daily game — how many days is this now, how much have I saved, how much better do I feel — faded into the background. The Jamo Fund kept growing, but I wasn't refreshing the balance anymore.

The thing that started as an experiment quietly became the default.

And that's the part nobody warns you about: the day you stop counting is the day it actually worked.

Year Three Is the Compounding

Here's what I didn't see coming.

The savings bought a gym membership. The gym built the habit. The habit changed the body. The body changed the confidence. The confidence changed how I showed up in meetings. The meetings changed the business. The business changed the trips. The trips changed who I took them with.

None of that shows up at day 90.

You don't get to see it at six months either. You get flashes: better mornings, sharper workouts, more money in the account than you remember putting there. But the full picture? The way every single good decision stacks on the one before it? That takes time.

Three years is when you look up and realize the whole thing has quietly rearranged your life.

What I'd Tell Day-One Me

If I could go back and grab past-me by the shoulders, I wouldn't talk about sleep or savings or any of the stuff on the brochure.

I'd tell him this: The person you're going to become in three years already exists. You just haven't met him yet. Every day you order the club soda, you get a little closer to him. That's the whole game.

That's it.

Not willpower. Not discipline. Not abstinence.

Just slowly walking toward the version of you that's already waiting.

produced by Scott Nixon

Billy Ritter didn't know about Club Soda Club until recently, but he's been drinking club soda for 8 years. His entry point was simple math — waking up feeling terrible, day not starting until noon, drinking again by five.

That's maybe 4 or 5 productive hours a day, with the rest belonging to the addiction. What pulled him out was realizing that life is entirely about change, and that you can always get out of the wave. The hardest part wasn't putting down the drink — it was reprogramming the story he told himself every single day.

His advice: do a 30-day challenge. Anything. Because if you can do it for 30 days, you can do anything.

Drop 001 in its natural habitat — South Florida, sunshine, a Pellegrino, and zero hangover on the horizon.

Terracotta and Grape doing the talking. The tees are built for weather like this — soft, easy, the kind of shirt that gets better with every trip.

If you haven't grabbed yours yet, now's the time. Spring break, summer, rooftop season.

Know someone who's thinking about it? There's no membership requirement.

Part-time members, full-time members, "I'm just curious" members. All welcome. So whether you've got a friend who's been saying "I should probably cut back" every Sunday morning for the last six months, or a friend who's already all-in on the alcohol-free life and just hasn't found their people yet — send them your link . They subscribe to the free newsletter, you both win. No pressure, no program, no weird pamphlets.

Basically, if they've ever ordered a club soda (or anything else non-alcoholic) and felt like they had to explain themselves... they're already one of us.

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