If you are tuned into the fitness/podcast world, you have probably heard of "Sober October".

Joe Rogan and his circle of podcast/comedian friends have done a lot to popularize the trend by taking October off drinking alcohol.

And I think that Rogan’s onto something. He talks about how cutting alcohol completely supercharges your sleep quality, eliminates systemic inflammation, and repairs liver function, and how mental fog creeps in when one or two drinks become drinks every night. He himself says, “I feel my best when I don’t drink.”

If you want a done-for-you framework to guide you through the process, I have a practical, performance-focused roadmap to help you do it:

-> Sober Warrior 30-Day Challenge – “Sober October 2026” Edition​

You get workouts, nutrition, mobility, CBT-inspired daily action steps, guided coaching, community, and more!

But I also want to give you three actionable steps to get this going, whether you sign up for my Challenge or not. I’m both a former pro football player and a current master’s student in addictions counseling, so I look at sobriety through both the real-world grit side and the clinical science of habit change side:

Number one: the “five-minute buffer.”

In cognitive behavioral strategy, we look at habits as loops. If your routine is sitting on the couch at six and cracking a beer to “switch off” from work, your brain is going after what we would call the transition ritual, not just the alcohol by itself. So when you have the craving, you can say, “Hey, I’m going to have a mandatory five-minute buffer.” So I’m going to drink a large glass of water, do mobility work, walk around the block. Breaking that automatic physical sequence gives your prefrontal cortex time to step in and choose a different path.

Number two: if you decide to eliminate alcohol, your body loses its artificial down-regulator.

When you’re coming home, and you’re used to having a drink or two or more (like I very much used to), and you stop - your body loses its (artificial) down-regulator. So what would happen when I tried to quit drinking is I’d get restless. So instead, we can do a short restorative physical anchor. The 8-Minute Hip Fix mobility routine I include with the challenge is a perfect example, because your body needs physical stress relief, and it also signals your nervous system that it’s time to wind down.

Number three: track the metrics that you wouldn’t normally track.

Normally, people are looking at the scale; they’re going to lose weight.

(That is a nice side benefit. If you cut it out for a month and you’re drinking pretty regularly, a lot of times you will lose weight. Not guaranteed, but it definitely does happen. It’s a lot of empty calories.)

But there’s a lot of other benefits too. Alcohol heavily disrupts your REM and deep sleep cycles. That leaves you chronically inflamed. It leaves you slower to recover. Even if you’re lying in bed for eight hours, you’re not sleeping deeply. So what you can do is keep a simple log when you cut alcohol: morning alertness (do I feel great today, or do I feel like trash), workout recovery speed (am I feeling good when I come back next time, am I still sore and need more rest), and even things like improving patience level with your family. (For me, that’s a huge one. I’ve become so much more patient and present since I’ve been alcohol-free, over six years now, and I bet you if you talk to my family, they’d say I’m practically a different person.)

So there are three takeaways you can implement for Sober October, whether you join my challenge or not.

If you want the whole done-for-you framework to guide you through the process, check out the Sober Warrior 30-Day Challenge – “Sober October 2026” Edition.

You’ll probably spend less on the challenge than you would going out and getting a few drinks with your friends. And if you don’t feel better by the end of the month, I’ll refund you.

We kick off on Thursday, October 1, though, so that’s less than two days away. If you want to lock in your spot, click the link below to see all the details and sign up:

-> Sober Warrior 30-Day Challenge – “Sober October 2026” Edition​

— Forest Vance

Former Pro Football Player

Certified Personal Trainer & Owner, FVT Warrior Wellness

M.S., Human Movement | Current M.S. Candidate, Addiction Counseling

Founder, the Sober Warrior 30-Day Challenge​