Journey to the Sunnyside

Welcome to Journey to the Sunnyside, the podcast where we have thoughtful conversations to explore the science of habits, uncover the secrets to mindful living, and of course, your own mindful drinking journey. This podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the number one alcohol moderation platform. And if you could benefit from drinking a bit less, head on over to sunnyside.co to get a free fifteen day trial. I'm your host, Mike Hardinbrook, published author, neuroscience enthusiast and habit change expert.

Welcome back to Journey to the Sunnyside. And today we're doing another one of these 10 Mondays. I'm Mike Hardinbrook. And today I want to talk about something that trips a lot of people up. And I know it was something that would trip me up and get me down in the dumps, basically.

And that is when you're starting to question your drinking, it's really easy to start looking around and making comparisons. And you know, you start looking around and thinking, why am I struggling with this and they're not? Or even worse, you might say to yourself, what's wrong with me that I even am having this issue that I'm wanting to make these changes? But here's the truth about all of this and doing this to yourself. Comparison will never give you the full picture.

And usually it is not the way you want to measure up with the progress that you're looking to get. And you really need to know that this is a personal journey. This is not one for you to make comparisons and say, you know, I'm almost to their level or whatever. No, this is about you setting your own goals and getting to that and what feels right for you. And the comparison will actually steal a lot of your joy as that expression goes.

And so right now we're going to talk about getting rid of those comparisons a little bit more in-depth about how it happens in our daily life and for you just to own your own personal journey and feel good about that. And so the first thing I want to get into is to put this into perspective for us. A lot of times when we're making these changes around alcohol, we can feel alone. We can feel isolated. We feel like something's wrong with us.

But here's a stat for you. One in four Americans report that they binge drink in the past month. And what binge drinking is, is basically in this term, for women, it's four drinks or more, or for men, it's five drinks or more within a two hour period. So when you have these stats and you realize that if you're in a room and people are having drinks, that one in four of those people might be having an issue in the same way that you are. And so if you think about it in that way, you're not alone.

This is not an individual issue. This is happening all around us. So now you can feel good that you're wanting to make this change. It's completely normal and you're not alone in this. So now that we know that, let's talk about the trap of social comparisons.

And this happens so often. I used to do this all the time and I can give you both sides of the coin as far as the story goes. So let's say you go into a party and you're looking around at a social event and you're trying to stay mindful for your drinking and maybe you're even struggling a little bit. And you look at somebody and they're having their wine and they're laughing and they look like they have it all together. And you're saying to yourself, why can't I be more like them?

But here's the thing about that is that you really just don't know what's going on behind closed doors. You don't know their story. And this is where I can get completely honest and open up about that. So I was that guy. I outwardly looked like I had everything under control in the social settings and I really didn't have much issues when I'd be out at a party moderating.

But what I really struggled with was when I got home. And people probably looked at me and thought, you know, he's got it all figured out. And that's not for me to sound boastful, but there were no external signals that were going on that were saying, you know, he's out of control or maybe he should dial it back. I had none of those, but I would go home and I'd open a bottle of wine and I continue to drink beyond where I wanted to be, whatever felt aligned to my goals. And that's where I was letting myself down.

So I want to make another comparison. And this is very common too. You see these picture perfect couples out there. Maybe you see them on Instagram all the time and they're always posting, you know, I love them so much and they're traveling here and they're doing this and all these couple things. You might even think, you know, I wish that I had a relationship as good as theirs is.

And then all of a sudden out of the blue, you see that they're now getting a divorce. The thing is we don't really know what's going on behind closed doors. And that really has to do with anything that we're doing, especially when it comes to alcohol. People are really good at making appearances look deceiving and the actual truth of it is that they might be struggling just like you. So stay away from those social comparisons.

Stay away from looking at people and thinking that they have it all figured out because very few of us in life have it all figured out. The other thing I want to talk about is in the marketing from the alcohol companies. This is a very one-sided marketing view. If you think about all the alcohol commercials, what do they show us? They show us good times.

They show us friends laughing, parties, people full of energy. But what don't they show? They don't show any of the downsides. They don't show any of the arguments that maybe happened because somebody had too much to drink. They don't show the DUIs.

They don't show legal troubles. They don't show maybe long term health consequences from overindulging over a long period of time. And here's the thing, I'm not here to demonize drinking. Of course, in small quantities, alcohol can fit into a lifestyle and even add enjoyment when you have control of it, when you don't feel like it has control of you. But it's important that we acknowledge that it's not all sunshine.

It's not all good vibes that the marketing or maybe that we're thinking when we see other people out there, that there is a flip side to this and that it's okay if you want to make changes. If you are not matching up to that marketing personality that they're showing out there of just going out, having a couple of drinks, being the life of the party, and then going home, getting sleep, getting up the next day. That's not as common as many of us think. The actual usual thing is that at some point or another, of us will have to dial back the amount we drink. So here's where I'm going with all this.

And I mentioned this is that this is a personal journey that saying drinking isn't bad. It's not something that you have to entirely stop unless that's something that is your goal. It's about recognizing that you want to make a change with this relationship with alcohol and make it normal having to make these changes. It's okay that you've reached a point where you feel that alcohol is in control, And it doesn't mean that you're falling apart. It just means that you're ready to take control back.

So alcohol is your personal journey. You get to define what your mindful drinking journey looks like. And because somebody else looks like they're doing fine, it doesn't mean that their experience is anything different than yours or anything like yours in the first place. So I want to make this video to normalize that this desire to change, that you want to take back control and bring mindfulness to your drinking. And that it's valid that it's okay that you're not any different than many people out there.

And then I'm going to leave you with one final takeaway. And that is this isn't a competition. Comparing yourself to others isn't a measure or a standard to hold yourself. In fact, it can hold you back. So the truth is you never really know what's going on with other people.

Instead, on your goals and focus on your progress and be proud of questioning it in the first place of wanting to make this change and what really matters to you. And hey, if you're looking for a little added support, that's what Sunnyside's here for and you don't have to do this alone. So if you want to check us out and not already using us, you can go over to sunnyside.co and take our three minute quiz to get an assessment on your drinking and your mindful drinking journey. And until next time, I hope you have a wonderful week, and I'll see you in the next episode.