Journey to the Sunnyside

Mike: 00:00

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, inspire 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 15 day trial. I'm your host, Mike Hardenbrook, published author, neuroscience enthusiast, and habit change expert. Welcome to another one of these 10 minute Mondays.

Mike: 00:37

I'm really excited to get these going. They're kinda energizing me every single week. And if you're enjoying them as well, please send me your feedback to mike@sunnyside.co. I love to hear from the listeners. I'd love to hear the feedback.

Mike: 00:51

And if you're enjoying these, let me know so I can keep making them. And today, I'm going to get into the 4 steps of how to talk to your partner about this new journey that you want to embark on around alcohol, and I wanna make a clear distinction. Talking to your partner about this is getting them on as an ally, as a source of support, but you are not asking them to join you along this journey. That is something for them to decide. And if in talking to them, you inspire them to wanna join, that would be wonderful, of course, but don't expect it.

Mike: 01:24

Don't think that that is necessary for you to make change. But we're gonna talk about the best way to approach this inside your home because the set and setting is extremely important to your success, and part of that is talking to the person that you spend the most time with. Step 1, set the stage with your why. And we wanna normalize this conversation. Many of us will hold shame, embarrassment, hesitation when it comes to alcohol simply because our cultural narrative says that this is a normal part of society.

Mike: 01:57

And if you step out of the norm, that means that maybe you at some point, you cross the line or you have a problem, but this couldn't be further from the truth. This is in the same category as somebody saying, hey. You know, I'm eating too much sugar and junk food, and I wanna remove that because it's not good for my health. I want to start exercising more. I want to optimize myself at work because I wanna perform better.

Mike: 02:22

And I want you to emphasize that when you come to this person to say, hey. I'm about to start this journey. You wanna start with your why. So you wanna explain your motivation, and that makes it understandable for the other person of what your end goal is. So if it's in personal growth, if it's in health, if it's in achieving goals that maybe this is getting in the way, whatever the reason is, you get to explain it.

Mike: 02:46

But it's important that you actually define what that motivation is, why you're making this change, and then you can get into how they can help. And the example line could be something like, you know what? I've noticed that my sleep hasn't been so good. I've been waking up in the middle of the night. And during the day, I'm really cloudy headed, and my productivity is just way down.

Mike: 03:06

And I'm actually seeing a pattern that I think it's related to those evening drinks that I've been having more and more regular. So it's my plan to start cutting back on that, and I'm gonna start an experiment. So you really just have to explain your reasoning. It's not that you actually owe it to them, but it's for them to understand what you're working towards. So let's move to the next one, which is step 2, outline your goals.

Mike: 03:32

So you want to define what that goal is. So you could say, right now, I'm drinking 5 nights a week, and I'm really looking to only cut it back to having drinks on the weekends. And that means that during the week, I'm just no longer going to drink. And the goal for that is to see if I can improve my sleep, improve my mental clarity, get some more energy. And maybe I can start hitting some of the goals that I'm doing by relating it to this change in my habits.

Mike: 03:59

So my goal is to do this experiment and see what happens. And this is the point, I think, early on that you wanna make a clear expectation with them that you are not asking them to join you on this journey. You just want them to understand what your plan is and understand the reasons that you're taking these steps. So the goal could be like, hey. You know, my goal is to feel more energized, to feel more clear headed, and I'm excited to see how this change helps me achieve that.

Mike: 04:29

And I appreciate you listening to me as I lay this out. So step 3 is define the support. So you wanna discuss ways that they can support you with specific suggestions. However, at the same time, you want to define it in a way that they don't feel burdened by it, but that they can help you with this. So some examples for them that they could support you would be for example, for me, it was to either lessen the amount of alcohol that we had in the house, or it was if we wanted to keep the alcohol here.

Mike: 05:00

We didn't just, like, put it on the counter. Maybe it was away in the cupboard. So it would reduce the amount of potential triggers by seeing it. And you could just say, hey. I'm not asking you not to have it, but, like, let's maybe store it in a place that's not so obvious, that's not so top of mind.

Mike: 05:16

Another thing would be avoid trigger phrases. For example, if your partner comes home and says, you know, oh, man. It's been such a tough day. I sure could use a drink. Maybe you could ask them to just say, hey.

Mike: 05:27

Listen. I understand that that's, like, kind of a default thing that we've always done, and then we share in a drink. But maybe when you come home, you just kinda keep that to yourself for a little while because that would lead to less temptation for me to think, oh, you know what? I'm stressed too, and then you'd have to resist it. Another would be to offer alternatives as far as activities go that don't involve alcohol.

Mike: 05:50

Maybe before your default was to go out and have a drink together, and asking them to be more open when invited just as a level of support to do little things. Maybe just go for a walk, try a new hobby, do art, go to the gym, whatever it be, and maybe even take it a step further and then to invite you to these activities that don't involve alcohol. And you can always say, hey. Listen. This is an experiment.

Mike: 06:17

I'm not asking this from you forever. And if it actually goes well, this habit's gonna become more the default, and you won't even need to support me in these ways because it will become the new normal for me. So you can always remind them that you're not asking for forever commitment, that this is an experiment that you're trying. And then another level of support that's really important to say is that you are not asking for them to police you. You wanna emphasize that you're not asking for them to monitor your actions, but instead to support in specific ways that you define that will help you get to this goal.

Mike: 06:54

Alright. Number 4, which is to anticipate the journey. And one of those is to acknowledge that there is going to be challenges and mention this, that there's gonna be maybe some ups and downs and that you're asking them for a little bit of understanding during that time and to support you to make this huge change in your life. Another is long term view. So explain that, as I mentioned before, that as time passes, these habits become more ingrained.

Mike: 07:21

There's gonna be less need of support. There's gonna be less challenges along the way, and it's gonna become the new normal. It's going to be just the default mode for you. So you could say something to the effect of, you know, as I get further along in this this experiment, I hope it to become more second nature. And, eventually, we're gonna do all the same things without any added support from you.

Mike: 07:43

And you wanna reiterate the fact that you're not asking them to join you on this journey. You're only asking them to be a little more sensitive, supportive, and maybe careful with their actions in regard to this effort, to this journey that you're making right now. This might make people very uncomfortable. It really just depends on the relationship with your partner, maybe previous conversations. But many people feel so uncomfortable having these conversations, but getting allies on your side, especially your partner, is just so, so important.

Mike: 08:18

And before I go, I wanna emphasize that normalizing this conversation, this is not something that you should feel shame about. This is not something that you should be embarrassed about. This is something that you should be proud of that you are taking pause and saying, listen. This doesn't align to where I am right now and where I want to be, and I'm going to make the adjustments, and I'm going to get allies on my side. They're gonna help and support me to get to where I want to be.

Mike: 08:46

So feel good about this. Have these conversations, and I can't wait to hear from all of you. Please email me, mike@sunnyside.co, and I hope you have a great week. This podcast is brought to you by Side, the number one alcohol moderation platform, having helped 100 of 1000 of people cut out more than 13,000,000 drinks since 2020. And in fact, an independent study showed that Sunnyside reduced alcohol consumption by an average of 30 percent in 90 days.

Mike: 09:18

And as one of our members shared, Sunnyside helps me stay mindful of my drinking habits. It's not super restrictive. So if I'm craving a glass of wine with dinner, I just track it and I move on with my week. If you could benefit from drinking a bit less and being more mindful of when and how much you drink, head on over to sunnyside.co to get a free 15 day trial. You'll get access to everything that we offer, including tracking and planning tools, coaching from our experts, a vibrant community of people just like you, and the motivation and advice to stay on track with your health goals, all with no pressure to quit.

Mike: 09:55

That's sunnyside.co.