Journey to the Sunnyside

Mike: 00:00

Welcome to Journey to the Sunny Side, 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. Today is a different kind of episode.

Mike: 00:33

I'm joined with good friend and colleague, Ian Anderson, one of the co founders over at Sunnyside. And today, we take a deep dive into the story behind Sunnyside's approach to mindful drinking without pushing anyone to quit and why this method is effective for 96% of our members. Ian and I also share our personal journeys with alcohol, highlighting the challenges and wins that have brought us to where we are today. So join us for an in-depth conversation around the world of mindful drinking and

Mike: 01:08

Okay. Today I have Ian Anderson. Ian is the co founder and chief growth officer, which means that he's responsible for getting the word out about Sunnyside. And I don't know, about 8 months ago, Ian and I connected. We're both entrepreneurs.

Mike: 01:24

We both come from a software background, but our paths converge because we both share a value and mission, which is to help people with mindful drinking in that journey. And a lot of that relates to back to our own background. And whether it's to cut back, whether it's to take a break or maybe even completely walk away, we both share a mission to really help people improve their lives on that goal. So today I wanna share some stories. Ian's gonna talk a little bit about what's going on in Sunnyside.

Mike: 01:58

And thanks for stepping out from behind the curtain, Ian, to share. And I'm excited about this one because it's just gonna be a little bit off of our learning format.

Ian: 02:06

Yeah. Thanks for having me, Mike. It's, it feels long overdue already. We're several episodes into the podcast. I'm excited to be here and, talk to you about whatever's relevant, you know, probably a little bit of the Sunnyside background and and my my story.

Ian: 02:24

And, also, hopefully, we can have the guests learn a little bit more about you, our our podcast host.

Mike: 02:29

Yeah. Absolute I mean, it's gonna be fun because we we have these types of conversations every single day. Exactly. Kind of all day long. So it's gonna be fun to be able to share

Ian: 02:37

a little bit of,

Mike: 02:38

you know, what goes on and how we got to where we are right now. So I I would say a good starting point for you is to before Sunnyside, before everything took off, what kinda led you to the point that you you went down this path? What brought you there?

Ian: 02:56

Yeah. Thank you. Well, I the word takeoff is we're still pretty early in the sunny side, you know, story. I appreciate it. We we still have big goals, ahead of us, so we can talk a little bit about that.

Ian: 03:09

But, yeah, I think we're doing something pretty special with Sunnyside, which we'll talk a little bit about. I think, you know, where my personal story and the Sunnyside start kind of converged was in 2020, my co founder Nick. So this was right at right before the pandemic was starting or right during the, the beginning of it. My co founder Nick Allen came to me. He was in Mexico city with his wife, and he said we had known each other for several years kind of through, the San Francisco tech scene and and companies that we had worked at.

Ian: 03:41

He said to me, he's like, Ian, I have this idea. I'm in Mexico, and I just wanna start, like, cutting back on my drinking a little bit. I looked for an app that would help me do it. And I found nothing because all I found was these apps that were counting sober streaks and focusing on sobriety. And I think there's a real opportunity here to help people like me who still wanna drink alcohol, but wanna build a healthy relationship, start to do that with something as simple as an app.

Ian: 04:09

So that was sort of the those were the first conversations that we had, and I'll talk a little bit more about that. But why that was so important to me at the time is I had just taken some time off of work, a little bit of a sabbatical. I had come back and really wanted to, like, think about starting a company. I kinda knew what that meant. I had never done it before, but here's Nick Allen coming to me with this idea.

Ian: 04:31

So the, the, the wheels are starting to turn. But why it really mattered to me is because my family and background has been deeply impacted by alcohol, for, for many generations. It's a lot of story, but I'll, I'll paraphrase it a little bit. And of course you can dig in if it's, if it's interesting, but, generally speaking, or like high level, 3 of my grandparents passed away due to alcohol related issues. On my dad's my dad's mom, apparently fell while at work and hurt herself and and died from those, those, the resulting injuries.

Ian: 05:10

It was largely believed that she was, under the influence at the time. My dad's father, was a successful home builder in Arizona, but became addicted to alcohol in his and in his later years, even called my father at at some point and said, Stan, I'm gonna I'm ready to drink myself to death. I'm just paraphrasing, but that's what he told his his son over the phone. And sure enough, a couple years later, he died from complications due to alcohol. On my mom's side, my mom's mom, she, it's largely believed that she had schizophrenia.

Ian: 05:48

Possibly it was diagnosed properly. I'm actually not quite sure, but my grandfather who's still alive, he, he, he thinks for sure that she had schizophrenia, which may have led her to drink or vice versa. I believe that's also, they can kind of be inter intermingled in complex ways. She sort of separated herself from the family, took to drinking as her focus, created quite a bit of conflict in the family, and eventually fully separated and died when my mom was relatively young. And then my grandfather, he's still alive.

Ian: 06:26

He struggled with alcohol a little bit. It's not something that's often talked about in the family, but he, he did as well during during that period, but he's been sober for many years. And the the one that's, like, the one that's the closest to me is my my mom when and my dad actually. So when I was, several years after I was born, I, I was, I have a twin brother. We grew up in Northern California.

Ian: 06:50

My mom and dad both took to drinking in ways that they had never done before. And for my, my father, it was something that he would do after work. He the way he told me is that it started with a couple beers and then it turned into a 6 pack a night, and then it turned into a 12 pack a night. And he he told me in recent years that he he that habit of doing sort of downers in the evening led him to also doing uppers work as a construction, con construction carpenter. And in that industry, apparently, you know, 30 years ago, that was not uncommon.

Ian: 07:28

So he was being sort of dragged down into this spiral. He eventually stops drinking because he saw what was happening to my family. He stopped cold turkey with the support of AA. And, after a couple rough starts and stops, it it wasn't just overnight. I think he had intended to do it, a couple times, but eventually he stopped cold turkey.

Ian: 07:49

AA was his route. I'm super proud of him for doing that and super thankful for the community that AA gave him at the time. My mom, on the other hand, she was a very different kind of drinker. She was, like, truly a closet drinker, and she would, literally go under her closet and come out out of a different person. Closet.

Ian: 08:07

Not closet. Sorry. Bedroom. And this was at a time that I was in some pretty formidable young years around 5, 6, 7, 8 years old. I shielded a lot of that trauma because I had a twin and because that's kinda what happens.

Ian: 08:22

But, around 7 years old or, sorry, around 9 years old, my dad took us out of the family because he was clean at that point. My mom sort of separated from the family, very similar to what her, her mom did. So you can kinda see learned patterns and behaviors there. And she died when I was 11. I hadn't seen her, for 2 years.

Ian: 08:41

Well, I saw her once within those 2 years, but we knew that it was coming. We got updates from the, from the hospitals telling us that she was in the hospital again, that if she didn't quit drinking, this would be the last, her last chance. And so, you know, the call came in 2,000, sorry, when I was 11 years old. And, we it was pretty uneventful at that time because I was not very close to her and didn't really consider super much a very big part of my family. But as the years have progressed, I've, you know, I'm in my late thirties now and I've done therapy.

Ian: 09:14

I've, realized the impact that that has had on me. And, that's all to sort of, I know that's a kind of a dark story, but I think it's important for our listeners to understand that Sunnyside comes from a place of deep personal compassion and, lived experiences. I, at some point when I was younger, I thought to myself, I'm gonna make a generational shift in my family. I'm not gonna bring my family down when it comes to alcohol. My brother's very much on that path.

Ian: 09:45

My twin brother, and my older brother and sister, I would say, are very much on that path. We haven't had anybody with, problematic drinking as far as I know of that has had ramifications on their families. And, that's, that brought us to Sunnyside. That's brought me to Sunnyside. And the coincidence that Nick came up with this idea when I was looking to possibly start a company and given my personal background, all of this felt very serendipitous.

Ian: 10:11

So I'm extremely proud of what we've built at Sunnyside, and we still have a long way to go. We're we're we have big plans to make this a company that can help anyone who wants to take a a break from drinking or cut down on their drinking a little bit, or maybe even eventually quit, but doesn't know where to start. This is the starting point. And we want that to be the starting point for tens of thousands of people, if not millions of people.

Mike: 10:34

Yeah. I mean, first, I'm sorry that you had to go through some of that. That's really difficult stuff. But I

Ian: 10:39

also am glad that

Mike: 10:40

you can share it because I think everyone in some way or another is affected by alcohol in a negative way, whether it be through family or their own personal experience. So I think it's, it's really relatable and sort of backs up what you're doing here because you're, you're coming from a place of experience and emotion and seeing how it can reach and affect other people. So, so Nick calls you big surprise from Mexico saying, hey. I wanna change how I'm drinking, which, I don't know if that was actually the case, but basically

Ian: 11:19

Oh, that that's very much the story. Yeah. It very much is.

Mike: 11:24

I mean, I think I the last time I went to Cabo, you see the people getting off the plane going out look very different than people that are getting on the plane leaving.

Ian: 11:34

Yeah. Yeah. Well, to next credit, let let me be clear. He was on a 6 months sabbatical with his wife. So it was it was more like, we're drinking wine every night, and then we're realizing that that's kinda digging into our days and, you know, we we'd rather be more alert and be more intentional with our drinking.

Ian: 11:49

So he was like, I wanna be able to, I wanna try planning my drinks, something that he had never really considered before. So he felt pretty novel at the time. So, yeah, it wasn't like he would go down there to rage. Yeah.

Mike: 12:00

I don't

Ian: 12:00

know if there was anything wrong with that.

Mike: 12:01

Trying to be a I was trying to be a little bit sensational on it, but, you know, I've definitely yeah, guys. I I can relate because I've done a lot of travel, and usually when travel is, you know, alcohol is usually involved with that outside of the norm.

Ian: 12:17

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So as we intended to on this podcast, I mean, well, let me, let me introduce you, Mike.

Ian: 12:27

Can I? So, Mike, you're, you're the host of our podcast and, newest member of the Sunnyside team, which is amazing. And you wrote a book called, no no willpower required. Then there's a a second piece to the title about alcohol.

Mike: 12:42

A neuroscience approach to change your habits with alcohol.

Ian: 12:45

Yeah. And, yeah, it's it's, now a 5 star rated book on Amazon. And that's one of the ways that we really connected initially was you wrote about your sort of approach and belief system to alcohol health, which exactly matched what we talked about at Sunnyside. I think for our listeners, it would be great if you're willing to share a little bit about your background and how you got

Mike: 13:04

there. Yeah. For sure. I mean, we both have, like, a personal background to alcohol. Mine's a little different.

Mike: 13:10

Mine's more personal in my own experience. And so, you know, I went through college and high school. I pretty much did the typical drinking thing. And then as I got older, in grad school, I started drinking in the evenings because I wanted to feel like I was still cool. And it then soon became a habit.

Mike: 13:29

So as I actually progressed into being an entrepreneur, I really didn't have a whole lot of accountability. And so without that accountability, the habit progressed. And at some point, I got to a questioning point of asking myself, do I really wanna continue drinking in the evenings? It wasn't crazy. I wasn't getting blacked out drunk.

Mike: 13:49

I wasn't, like, waking up in the morning and drinking, but it was like a habit. You know? Like Mhmm. I would wake up in the morning, feel kind of crummy, go out for a run, get all my work done. Then by the afternoon, I'd start to think that was a tough day.

Mike: 14:02

Maybe I'll reward myself with some wine in the evening. And then that just turned into a a a real habit. And but I didn't identify with, alcohol use disorder or having to go to AA and say that, you know, the only option is for me to stop drinking for the rest of my life. It just didn't align. And, unfortunately, because that didn't align, I would go 30 days, you know, and then I'd kinda slip back into it.

Mike: 14:31

And I figured there has to be another way, but unfortunately, that prolonged it. What not having an answer, direct answer at the time really did prolong, me making impactful changes with my habits. And so, with the help of my naturopathic doctor, he said, well, let's take some supplements that might help you. Let's do some mindfulness practices. And I started doing research on habits.

Mike: 14:57

And I went 30 days, and I just said, you know what? I'm gonna go 60 days because I feel so good. And I went 60 days. And then after that, I said, well, what what I don't wanna just go 90 days. And over time, what I realized is that I just didn't step out of that hamster wheel long enough to make long standing changes and then being mindful about it.

Mike: 15:19

When I did decide to reintroduce alcohol, I was I was not doing what I was before, which is basically, I was never taught how to go in I was never taught how to drink. It was go out, drink as much as you can, as fast as you can in college and in high school. And I realized that if I, if I bring more mindfulness to it, if I bring more planning to it, if I have coping mechanisms for when, I have cravings, then I I actually can change my relationship for, the long haul. And so what I realized so so I did. And so several years went on.

Mike: 15:55

I was I was back in software. We were probably doing similar things in different types of industries and companies, you know, you and I, but, basically, I came to I always thought there's somebody there's a book in everybody. And so I just started writing the book for myself. I was never drawn to wanna write a business book, even though I probably could have written a business book. I just wasn't drawn to it.

Mike: 16:19

So I started writing for myself and then I realized, you know, if there's just one person like me that felt like they didn't have a place to go writing this book and actually giving it the effort that it should and publishing it, it'll make it all worth it. So I don't care if I'm a best seller. I don't care if I sell, you know, 100 of thousands of copy, if I just help one person. And what I found is I was really mission driven by it. And all I thought about was how are ways that I can help?

Mike: 16:47

How are ways that I could make this better? And through, a mutual investor in one of my companies and your company, Near AL connected us. And so we just started talking. There was no, like, agenda just to connect. And that was kinda like, you know, the story of it all.

Ian: 17:07

And we have an episode out with Nir Eyal, which is amazing if you, if you haven't heard it. Mike, you mentioned you said something that I loved, which was you you set out on a mission to help even one person. Right? That that was your mindset. And what I'm sure you're realizing as we have at Sunnyside, we we created Sunnyside, essentially.

Ian: 17:29

The first version of Sunnyside was absolutely built for what we would use. And, of course, we built it out to include more features and round it out. But it still is really very much product design for us and people like us. So have you noticed that like, is it only one person that's benefited from your book, or are you seeing that there's a large community around this that and, like, have you been surprised by the response?

Mike: 17:54

Yeah. I was really surprised. I actually started before I published a book. So I started funny, you know, if I wrote the book long handed in a journal starting, which I'll never do again, by the way. But I started taking pictures of the pages and say, I'm writing a book about this for these types of people, which I call in the book in between drinkers.

Mike: 18:11

People that don't that aren't the I'm gonna leave half of my beer on the table and never think about it. You know, I remember thinking, how did those people do that? And it's not for the people that are, you know, really just full full blown, like, the only way for me right now is to stop with this. For the people who I in interviewed Andrew Tatarski said there's about a 100,000,000 people that are struggling with substance abuse that don't fit in that category of the traditional, use disorder. And so I really wanted to write it for that.

Mike: 18:42

And, yes. So what I found is that a lot of people even got guys that I haven't connected with since college wrote me and said, hey. I read your book, and it's really amazing and it made a difference. And I I know with Sunnyside, you probably get that all the time.

Ian: 18:58

Oh, this

Mike: 18:59

is just, it's like the best feelings in the world.

Ian: 19:01

It's the best feeling. I I I wanna talk about that too, but I wanna, riff off of something that you said and and just relay to what you said. I don't want people in this listening to this thinking that, I haven't that I'm I'm, like, a teetotaler, and I'm, totally sober and I've never touched alcohol. And so just to tell a little bit of my own story, I I been just trained through college as well. And looking back on that, I look back on college as a really fun period.

Ian: 19:32

And I graduated in a, in a good way at college with a degree in information systems management. I don't think I put myself in harm, in college, but why we were binge drinking in college, I don't really know. I think it was very much just the culture that you're pulled into in college. And we think that we're invincible. But what people don't really understand at that age is that, and now I'm probably getting in out of my depth here, in terms of expertise, but alcohol can take a hold on you even in a small way.

Ian: 20:05

So coming out of college, you can build these habits that become ingrained in you. So as you enter the work, environment out of college, it's super normalized to you that going out is the thing to do. Well, though, I should say drinking when you go out to socialize is this thing you do. For me, when I was it was about 2018. I was working for a company.

Ian: 20:27

It had I was working with a bunch of new people at a company, and we, we, we became fast friends and there was a bar across the street. And, like, work honestly wasn't that hard at the time. So I'm working in San Francisco at a pretty good job, with a bunch of people that I just am I love. We're we're all becoming fast friends. And I'm I find myself without even really thinking about it.

Ian: 20:50

I'm I'm down I'm going out 2 days a week now, getting pretty drunk with my friends and up sometimes 3 days a week. And, the turning point for me was I was asked to be interviewed for, to be on camera to talk about a product or something. I don't know what it was. And I got the video back. And I was like, I don't recognize that guy.

Ian: 21:12

I, I even told the editors, I said, pull pull my video. I don't wanna be on camera. I look I look bloated. I I felt I felt gross. And, I thought to myself, well, maybe I'm not eating healthy.

Ian: 21:25

Maybe I'm not working out enough. But, like, I knew that what I really needed to do was, like, build healthier habits in my life. And the first thing that I decided to do was stop drinking for 3 months because, I was drinking too much. I mean, I'm I will admit that. And I was having fun with it, which is sort of, like, the the risky part of it.

Ian: 21:46

But what I wasn't having fun with is how I felt and how I looked and how I wasn't performing at my best in terms of just like physical and mental performance. So I took 3 months off and like, that's just the way I operate. I don't necessarily think people need to take time off, but sort of similar to you, I knew that 30 days was kinda like, meh. That that's that's hard, but, like, 90 days was really gonna stretch me. I felt amazing after 90 days.

Ian: 22:13

And, I lost the weight. I felt I felt normal, and I felt I felt sharp again. And I think, one thing that I remember telling my brother at the time after not drinking for, like, 2 weeks, not even that long was like, I told him, I I feel like I have a cheat code. Like everyone around, I I was at, like, some work event and everyone's drinking and was hungover the next day. And I was perfectly wide eyed in the morning with tons of tons of sleep.

Ian: 22:39

So the, for the first time in my life, I was really starting to correlate alcohol with, anxiety with health and weight and also with performance the next day and sleep and recovery. I never really correlated those things before. So that felt really powerful. I was educating myself on how alcohol was impacting the rest of my life. Something that Sunnyside members, it's the first thing they realized when they joined Sunnyside is they're, they weren't being, they weren't educated around alcohol.

Ian: 23:04

They were just consuming out of habit. One of the outputs of this experience for me was I started tracking my several habits in a spreadsheet, which I've learned wasn't that novel. Like, it was sort of the start of, like, the biohacker community where people started tracking their habits. So I had this spreadsheet and I would I was tracking my food intake for a while, which I don't really do it anymore to track calories. That's a little, that's a little, over the top.

Ian: 23:31

But it was helpful. And then I was tracking alcohol intake. I was tracking recovery. I was tracking like meditation, other habits I was trying to form. So what's just fascinating about that is I was doing what became the underpinning of Sunnyside, the foundation of Sunnyside, which is tracking your drinks.

Ian: 23:45

And I was starting that on my own, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one out there. By tracking my drinks, I was building awareness around triggers and volume of alcohol consumed and also how it impacted other areas of my life. Again, it's exactly why when you join Sunnyside, we say, Look, we have a really easy proposition for you. Just try tracking your drinks for 30 days. We're not gonna pressure you to cut back unless you want to.

Ian: 24:08

We're not even gonna really tell you to do much every day. We just want you to track. And this becomes the foundational habit for people to make long term change around alcohol. It's gonna help you understand your triggers. It's gonna help understand help you understand how much you drink.

Ian: 24:22

And it's it works profound in profound ways on people. I, I know there's science behind it, but take the science out of it and just trust that that's the simplest, like, tiniest little thing that you can do to start changing your, relationship to alcohol. In my opinion, if you, especially if you don't wanna start cutting back is tracking your drinks. Do it in a spreadsheet, do it on a calendar on your fridge to do it in Sunnyside. However you do it, just start it and you'll you'll start to reap the rewards.

Mike: 24:52

Yeah. I mean, first to the story, I can relate. I thought maybe you were gonna say when you look when you got on the video that maybe you had an anxiety attack because that would probably be the second thing that you could say other than saying you didn't like us. Because I I to elaborate on my background would, like I said, I was an entrepreneur, but that didn't mean I didn't have things that I had to do. I just didn't have to answer to a boss.

Mike: 25:14

And there were times when I got on, like, a webinar or something, and I just had, like I had no idea that the alcohol was causing these panic attacks on these, like, speaking engagements.

Ian: 25:25

But back

Mike: 25:25

to what you were saying about Sunnyside, that's one of the best things that I really admire about what you guys are what we're doing, which is, which is making it in about an experiment and meeting people where their goals are gonna be, because it's such a complex and personal relationship. Everybody has their own individual goals. And like I mentioned earlier, that the obstacle for me was that the barrier of entry was way too high. And in PR and maybe like, you know, I, for me, what worked is stepping out for 60 days, but that barrier of entry might be really difficult for some people. It's definitely not easy.

Mike: 26:06

And so just taking a, hey, let's have an experiment together, see where you're at and see where you wanna go. I mean, it doesn't, it's about as low pressure as you can get.

Ian: 26:18

I mean, now we're talking about the societal stigma around alcohol and the black or white nature, black and black and white nature of alcohol health. And we we should get into that a little bit because I think a lot of people that joined Sunnyside have similar feelings. So my take on this is, and it, it goes actually back to my dad. So my dad joined AA, and I'm super happy that he did that. And he got the support that he needed.

Ian: 26:48

And I'm not gonna talk down on AA, but I'm just gonna give some facts here and some opinions. I think AA is something that people join when they hit rock bottom. And not we don't know what rock bottom is for everybody, but it is a very low point. And I I think most people don't wanna go to AA. They go because they realized they don't have any other option or they don't think they have any other option.

Ian: 27:13

So you're joining a community of people that have hit rock bottom with their alcohol use disorder. And then there's systems within AA that, I'm I'm I'm not the expert on this, but that can make you feel guilty if you slip up and you you kinda don't maintain your your streak. I also know that the success rate of AA, while it has collectively helped more people overall in the world than probably any other system when it comes to alcohol health, the success rate is relatively low. I don't wanna give the exact number because I don't wanna misquote it. So a lot of people still think today that alcohol health is nothing, as in I'm okay, or it's AA, as in I've hit rock bottom.

Ian: 28:01

Therefore, most people won't go try out AA because it's not for them. It's like, it's literally not for them. So then most people don't actually seek help. And you you mentioned Andrew Hu, not, Andrew Tatarski's, 100,000,000 people that are suffering from their relationship to alcohol. You, I think you, you and he might have said substance abuse, but I think for the sake of this conversation, it's a 100,000,000 people that are having a bad relationship with alcohol and could benefit from making a change.

Ian: 28:31

Those people are not going to make a change. They're not going to go to AA. So we still have a pretty black or white approach to alcohol health in the US, but I'm very, happy to say it's changed a ton in the last 3 years. I know you've seen this too, Mike, and you've talked to several people now that have already talked about this, but the rise of the non alcoholic alcoholic drink movement. It's the fastest growing segment in every beverage company out there.

Ian: 28:58

And there's a reason for that. It's because consumers are changing their habits around alcohol and trying to drink less. The n I triple a has updated their definition of recovery to remove, the requirement of abstinence, and younger generations are drinking less. So there are these things happening within society and culture that are indicating a shift toward a new understanding of alcohol. However, I think there were some recent reports that just came out that said alcohol consumption has not decreased overall in the past several years.

Ian: 29:28

And in fact, coming out of the pandemic, we're at an alarmingly higher rate than ever in terms of deaths from alcohol. So we still have a massive problem when it comes to how do people even get started with alcohol health. So, there's this black or white nature that still exists. But at Sunnyside and the work that you're doing, we're here to tell people that don't have to, quote, hit rock bottom. You don't have to quit drinking in order to change your relationship with alcohol.

Ian: 29:55

Lowering the barriers to entry is the best way, but that's exactly what we're all trying to do and allow people to dip their toe in and just experiment. Like you said, it's a perfect, perfect word to use, experiment with trying a different approach to alcohol and see how it changes your life.

Mike: 30:12

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting that it hasn't gone down, but, you know, one of the one of the studies I read that basically said that 20% of the really heavy drinkers account for 50% of the alcohol consumption. And alcohol companies really know that and focus and target their marketing on that to normalize drinking to continue that on. So it seems like, potentially, you know, that demographic might not ever change in some regard, which might cause it not to significantly reduce very quickly anyways.

Ian: 30:42

That that's a crazy stat. 20% represent 50% of the alcohol consumption? Yeah. I mean, maybe that doesn't surprise me if I, if I think critically about that just for a second, but that is pretty alarming. I wanted to ask a little bit more about the anxiety thing.

Ian: 31:00

I think that's something that's incredibly interesting to our our listeners and of course, Sunnyside members. What's do you wanna dig in a little bit more from what you meant about that? And

Mike: 31:13

yeah. Well, I'll, I'll tell you one little story that I didn't actually realize until I was later an adult, but so in college, obviously, I'm going out, you know, you know, I got this big presentation. It'll be fine. I, you know, I I got this, you know, the Mhmm. The overconfidence.

Mike: 31:29

And so, when I was a senior, I had to give a presentation to the, like, the large So there must have been at least like 3, 400 people in there. And in the middle of it, I cut it off, like in the middle and just kind of passed it on to the next person. Cause I just bull on, you know, froze. And, so then I had a little bit of problems with speaking later on in life because of that, because I was a little traumatized by that. But looking back, I realized it totally, I had no problems when I, in youth, like I was like, you know, president of a class and like, I was like, I was vice president of my fraternities to have presentations and stuff.

Mike: 32:11

And then I think it just like probably one big night and it was a little bit higher than it was normally. And it just kicked it in overdrive. And looking back, I realized it was totally the alcohol and the alcohol, like it pushed it on. Like, it made it worse because then I didn't realize it was the alcohol. But, yeah, like one of the 2 things that I noticed when when I reduced alcohol or gave it up for a while, I took a break, was sleep improved and anxiety went way down.

Mike: 32:42

Totally. Yeah. So

Ian: 32:45

there are, Alcohol is very much tied to anxiety as as you're saying. And the common pattern that we see with people joining Sunnyside is I mean, this is this is common with so many people. I drink I drink 2 glasses of wine a night to help with my anxiety. That that's the pattern that that's the habit that people get in. And we know that it does have a short term effect on helping decrease anxiety, But even one drink, can start can impact your sleep in a negative way and cause more anxiety the next day.

Ian: 33:23

At higher levels

Mike: 33:24

It's 20% decrease per drink after the first drink on

Ian: 33:30

your sleep effectiveness. So every drink you're drinking after the first one is making you sleep worse.

Mike: 33:38

Yeah. Just effectively. By 20%.

Ian: 33:40

That that feels obvious, but it's good. It's good to say it. And then bad sleep gives you, makes you tired and anxious the next day, just by the nature of that. And alcohol also makes you more, more anxious the next day. The term that we use, that's kind of a playful one is hangxiety, the hangover anxiety.

Ian: 34:02

It hurts your performance. It gives you stage fright. I mean, that sounds awful. I'm sorry you had that experience. I had, a mini panic attack, like, a year and a half ago during a Zoom call, and it had nothing to just do with alcohol.

Ian: 34:14

I think I was just fasting that day. Yeah. Like like low blood sugar. And just the just thinking about that, that, that weird fear that happens in that moment, it's it's terrible. And I know that people are having that experience every a lot of days in because of their drinking habits.

Ian: 34:31

So I think it's really one of the the things we really focus on at Sunny Side. Not right away, mind you, but we try to introduce dry days. A lot of people haven't had a dry day for a long time, and that might sound kind of crazy to some people, but there's different styles of habit drinking. There's binge drinking on weekends, which is more what I fell into. And then there's, the daily habit drinker.

Ian: 34:54

And the daily habit drinker That's

Mike: 34:56

where I was. Yeah. Yeah. The day Like, you know, go as an entrepreneur, the only way I could say I'm gonna cut off my thinking and working was I'm gonna open that bottle 1. That was the that was the only way I could really say

Ian: 35:08

it's quitting. To get your mind to calm

Mike: 35:11

down and stop racing.

Ian: 35:12

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. I'm still, I still have a problem with that. Like, I I'm, I'm constantly thinking and thinking, so it's been definitely new, in the past couple of years, it's been a shift for me to say, like, I just don't drink on the weekdays, but I love I love that new that new version of, how alcohol fits into my life.

Ian: 35:30

And then I still enjoy drinks on the weekend. Usually mindfully, I'm not always I'm not perfect. Sometimes I'm with friends and I overdo it a little bit, but I don't beat myself up over it because I have sort of a different approach.

Mike: 35:42

Nobody has a perfect record. That's something I always like to say. I'm like Yeah. I mean, people I wrote a book on alcohol and I'm like, look, I don't have a perfect record. Like but I'm not I don't drink like I used to, which was the goal.

Ian: 35:54

Yeah. And at Sunnyside, we keep everything positive, which is most people love. Some people wish that we were, like, a little more like a a mean coach, but we're not gonna do that yet. So generally speaking, what that means is if you drink a little bit more than your plan had been set for the day, We help remind you that, like, today's a new day. Learn from your experiences, try to journal down what you might have done differently.

Ian: 36:22

So the next time you're in this situation, you can make positive change. And more importantly, make the next couple of days extra healthy. Like, give yourself get get do a little bit of give and take for yourself. Yeah. And actually, I was gonna I was I was mentioning dry days.

Ian: 36:37

Dry days become really, really critical for helping people understand how drinking impacts their anxiety and their recovery. So it sounds basic, but for a lot of people, it's, it's, something they haven't done for a long time. We have had a couple of people at Sunnyside say after a couple weeks of being with us, you guys are amazing. I just had my 1st dry day in 3 years. Normally I have one to 2 glasses of wine a night.

Ian: 37:01

I feel so proud of myself. Like, this is the start of me making some big changes to my, to my health. And then as you start to see that less drinking, improve sleep, decreases anxiety, you can start to correlate these things and start to sort of, this is not really habit. I mean, it's sort of as habit stacking where your new habit of having a dry day on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday turns into better recovery on, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and you start to work out more in the mornings. So now you're you're stacking your habits.

Ian: 37:28

And when you start have habit stacking, you're really empowering yourself, to, sort of keep these habits and hold yourself accountable. I bet your book goes into a

Mike: 37:38

ton of this too. Yeah. Well, definitely on the the anxiety side of things, and it's also like the habit swapping with a reward tied on the end of it. But I think what

Mike: 37:49

a lot of people don't really understand, and this isn't

Mike: 37:51

to demonize alcohol, but it's so that people understand what's going on is that the anxiety and the sleep issues is actually a symptom of withdrawal even in moderate use. And so, like, everybody thinks that withdrawal is gonna be this, you know, a heavy drink or shaking and all that. But, actually, these are just symptoms of of using a drug, which is what it is. And it usually lasts you know, it starts to peak at 12 to 24 hours. And so, actually, your sleep stop just affected the night that you drink.

Mike: 38:19

It'll probably be affected the next night. So you need to give it a little bit of time because you might be frustrated and wake up the next day without that reward of feeling refreshed. So I think it's really important to understand, like, what's going on, you know, when you're making these changes.

Ian: 38:33

I I love that you brought that up. I think, you probably understand the science of alcohol better than I do. I'm just trying to get better at it. But so you're saying that we're actually going through mini miniature withdrawals, which totally makes sense. If you if you just opt for a second to think about it, it totally makes sense because alcohol again, we're not demonizing alcohol.

Ian: 38:52

We never do at Sunnyside. We're all mindful tears. But, technically, it's a poison. And that, you know, there's been science that shows and new studies coming out, updating recommendations around alcohol use that say no amount of alcohol is healthy. So what we wanna do at Sunnyside is just, we wanna educate people and make sure they understand why alcohol does the things that it does.

Ian: 39:15

But I wanna ask you, Mike. I, one thing that I sort of learned and found really empowering is to, at some point, realize that when alcohol when I'm having a drink and I want to have another drink after that, and then another drink, and the more I drink, the more I want to drink. I think a lot of people think something's wrong with them. That they're like, I'm broken. And I don't have control over this drinking that I'm doing.

Ian: 39:43

But isn't that exactly the nature of alcohol? Isn't it basically doing things that are making you want to have that next drink?

Mike: 39:51

Yeah. I mean, it's a reward system. So, like, let's say you're on this cycle and, you're feeling the effects of the anxiety the next day, and your likelihood to outcome of an action, which means like what you do and that what's the likelihood that you'll achieve what your desired effect is. So the likelihood that if you have a dream is almost is gonna be a 100% that you're gonna feel a little bit better on your anxiety on the short term. And so, you know, you get that to that peak.

Mike: 40:23

I think it's actually about educating people about so they're not quote unquote chasing the dragon, which many of us just do because you feel good, so you just wanna keep feeling good or even better. And with diminished, ability to make decisions because first of all, you're drinking. 2nd of all, you have decision fatigue from a day if you you're drinking in the evening, so you're making poor choices anyways. So you're not gonna be making the best decisions. And so when you feel good, you're gonna wanna have the next one and the next one.

Mike: 40:53

And I think it's really about educating yourself about where is that buzz where you get the euphoria and where does that pretty much end and there's no added benefit to the way you feel and more negative for the next day?

Ian: 41:11

You know, I mentioned that one of the ways that we help people to gradually understand their habits is by tracking. We, we do a lot of other stuff at Sunnyside as you get into the program, but curious what you would, advice you would give to people who are trying to break a daily, habit of drinking 2 glasses of wine. Like what what's one of your secrets to, like getting your 1st dry day or breaking the habit?

Mike: 41:39

I think it's about the, I think the first thing that you really need to do is flip the, the script inside your head. So a lot of people like to say, well, I can't drink tonight, or I can only have 2 drinks or, all these things that we like to talk about that are in a framing of restriction. And I think you need to reframe it to what are all the benefits that you could get if you stick to your commitment that you want to. First number 1, I think when you get to wanting that commitment, you need to write it down so that you remember at that point when you were wanting to make a change, because you can easily have a short term memory of like, if you start to feel better or whatever. Look back on that and say, yeah.

Mike: 42:22

That's exactly how I felt. But then also, like, focus on, like, tomorrow, I'm gonna get an hour earlier. I'm gonna go work out. I'm gonna feel great. I'll come, you know, whatever it is for me, for me, actually, I started making commitments to go mountain biking really early in the morning.

Mike: 42:40

And so like, first of all, I made a commitment, so it makes it difficult for me to break it. And then when I'd go and I'd be on the top of a mountain, I think I could be, I could either be hungover in bed or I could be up on the mountain laughing with my friends and having this great time. So there's this great reward tied to it and, like, more that I'm getting and not that I'm losing it.

Ian: 43:04

I love that. I was I was gonna say something similar. So for myself, it takes a while to get into these habits, by the way. So, like, if you're joining Sunnyside, you might not be able to just flip this on, but we're gonna help you kinda get to this place. I have, I like, I I notice how good my day is if I get a nice hard workout in first thing in the morning.

Ian: 43:25

And I like to do it early just because I like I like getting it done before work starts. I feel so much better the rest of the day. I feel dialed in. And I know for sure there's some science around the dopamine hits that I'm getting doing the workout. What I find myself doing to sort of help regulate, sort of desires around drinking, for example, not that they're very strong on the weekdays these days, but is thinking about how good I'm gonna feel the next morning.

Ian: 43:54

And it when you're kind of in that downtime in the evening, that can feel a little boring. But by focusing on how you're gonna feel the next morning and thinking about how good you felt that the morning of, at least for me, it really helps just put me in a healthy mindset and it, it makes me sort of stack rank things in my head and, like, alcohol is gonna come way down here because I'm I'm putting these other things in terms of priority in that moment. I think a lot I think also combined in that is, I think you talked about this with Andrew a little bit, and we talked about it at SunnySide, but urge surfing.

Mike: 44:30

Yeah. Mindfulness practices, you gotta have, like, totally you gotta have prepare for when your your triggers or your cravings come.

Ian: 44:38

That's the

Mike: 44:39

other thing. It's key.

Ian: 44:40

I love that. Yeah. And so urge surfing is I'm sure I'm gonna butcher this a little bit. I my understanding is it's simply, mindfully recognizing the urge to drink and trying to wait about 20 minutes to what what did Andrew say? Surf surf the urge.

Ian: 44:56

Let the ups and downs come in. And, a lot of people find that after 20 minutes, the urged goes away. And you can couple that with a walk around the block. You could couple that with a meditation, a really good non alcoholic drink works wonders, even just the spark, the sparkling water and NA beverage and, n a wine, if that's your opinion. I haven't really got into n a wines.

Ian: 45:21

Those help fill the ritual. Try to do that for 20 minutes, surfing the urge, focusing on your pot, like positive mindset for the next day. And that's a really good way to start approaching your 1st dry day is I I love how you put that. You have to have, like, a little mindfulness toolkit. You can't just go in with no mindfulness at all.

Ian: 45:40

You gotta you gotta be prepared with a couple little tools.

Mike: 45:43

Yeah. And you gotta you gotta put the one that speaks to you. You know, there's a bunch of them. You can do urge sur surfing. You can do meditation.

Mike: 45:51

You can go for a walk. You can exercise. There there's a ton of them out there, but do the one that, like, speaks to you just because it's like somebody says I meditate and it helps me. Like, do the one that you're, like, really called to so that you feel better and that you enjoy doing it and it's not a chore because then you're just in like, you'll avoid it. You know?

Mike: 46:10

I think the urge surfing is the easiest one because you just allow you you recognize the craving or the urge or whatever, and, and you let it get as big as it wants to get. And you just have the mindfulness that it's going to pass. I'm going to recognize that it's there. I'm gonna let it swell up to this wave and I'm gonna let it, you know, come back down. And I'm gonna give it some time.

Mike: 46:34

And and that's one that you can pretty much do anywhere. Like, even if you're at a restaurant, you know, and you're getting this urge because person across from you has the wine, you can go in the bathroom and just, like, you know, do a

Ian: 46:44

little bit

Mike: 46:45

of this or so, you know and then the, to your point about the NAA, like, that works for a lot of people and I've heard the expression, don't change the ritual, change the ingredient.

Ian: 46:55

I love that. Yeah. Don't be surprised if you become, you create a new obsession around, trying and collecting non alcoholic beverages. I re I know that this has happened for a lot of people, because there's so many out there. There's a lot of cool breweries, creating craft beer.

Ian: 47:12

It's, Victoria. Right? That is sort of

Mike: 47:16

leading the tour. Waters at

Ian: 47:18

dry out list. Yeah. Yeah. Check out her her work too. And she we have a podcast for her.

Mike: 47:30

And on her podcast.

Ian: 47:31

Yeah. Sorry. Listen to our podcast.

Mike: 47:37

Hey, actually, I got a question for you. So I'm, I'm curious to know, so you, you guys had the idea, you got things started. Was there like one big assumption that you had at the start that once you got into everything, and this could be business, This could be about what people wanted, about outcomes. Was there one big assumption that that was totally off that you were surprised by?

Ian: 48:02

How many can I give you? Right.

Mike: 48:07

Many as you want.

Ian: 48:08

There's 2 that's a really great question. I love that. It's sort of like geeking out on Sunny Side, but also on the business tech side a little bit. I'm gonna give you 2 that come to mind for me. Okay.

Ian: 48:20

So the first version of Sunny Side was built on a text message platform because Nick, my cofounder, and I, while we are rather technical marketing nerds, we're not really developers. I've done some HTML coding in my life for those who know websites. But I could not create an app if you asked me to. So Nick wanting to build something quick and scrappy just to test to do a proof concept, built a two way SMS system. So for those of you using Sunnyside, you know that we still use text message.

Ian: 48:53

I think the big assumption was we're gonna use text messages to then develop an app. And there it's just gonna be a testing playground for us. It turns out, text messages were very, very engaging for our customers. They loved it. They loved re not receiving push notifications.

Ian: 49:10

They didn't have to download an app. And it created this really personal conversation. Because, what we did initially, and we still do, you can text in your drinks for tracking, but you can also text a coach. So in the same interface that you're building this daily habit around tracking, you also talk to a human if you if you want to. And then we started digging into text messages, or I should say, like, maybe these, studies kind of fell into our laps.

Ian: 49:34

It turns out there was a study done on smoking cessation that showed a very big impact with, in terms of text message use, helping people cut back on their smoking. And I think there may have been one on alcohol as well. But then we, finding that our members were loving text messages, we partnered with a university, I believe, to do a 3rd party study on Sunnyside to, study the efficacy of text message intervention in terms of helping people decrease their alcohol consumption. And that study found a 30% reduction in weekly alcohol use after 90 days, looking at the Sunnyside platform as the, sort of system. So my assumption was that we were gonna move quickly from SMS as a test on onto an app.

Ian: 50:19

Instead, we've kept SMS as sort of the magic of the system to create a personal experience, a discreet experience, a low barrier to entry. And we have the app now iOS only, but Android coming out very soon. If anyone's listening, The app is there to introduce higher fidelity experiences. So we have a community, we have, resources and we have analytics and more to come. But the magical, like interplay between app and SMS is, something we.

Ian: 50:51

I'd like to say we expertly found, but we also stumbled upon a little bit and we, we consider ourselves to be pretty fortunate that we found that combination.

Mike: 51:00

Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean, on the study side, it also anecdotally, I can tell you that I have a friend he's like an executive investor type, very like, you know, he's very structured, but he, he does, he admittedly say that, you know, alcohol is his bias and not like out of control, but definitely something he needs to kind of dial back. And I was having a conversation with them and I was like, hey, listen, we're doing this challenge this month, which by the way, anyone listening, sunnyside.co/mike. We're doing this challenge. Why don't you you can you can use Sunnyside.

Mike: 51:36

And and so then, he said, yeah, I'll check it out. I hope not much of it. And then we talked like a month later and he did sign up. And he was like, and he was like, it works. And I don't know what it is, but the text messages, I can't leave my text messages on into the red.

Mike: 51:54

Like I'm that structured. So I don't know what it is about the text, but it will, it, that's what made it work for me.

Ian: 52:00

Yeah. I love that. We we've had people say, I feel like I'm actually being that that it's, it's a person, even though some of it's automated, you know, a lot of the automated text messages, but they feel accountable to this person in their text message list, which is just fascinating. So it seems like an interesting way to create accountability. That's a great anecdote.

Ian: 52:22

We we do get a lot of people saying, I'm here because of the text messages. Admittedly, we also get people saying I left because of the text. But that's the burden that's on us to continue to kind of refine that experience and make sure that, it's amazing. You know, we're still a young company. We're we're doing decently well, but we know that we need to create the right modality for each person.

Ian: 52:42

We don't want Sunnyside to be one size fits all. We want it to be a personalized experience. So, yeah, we are working on ways to optimize, the text messages. The other thing that comes to mind for me is something that I've been thinking a little bit about. So this is getting a little bit into the weeds of sort of marketing and branding, but, the term mindful drinking, we we have claimed that term.

Ian: 53:03

We ranked number 1 for it on Google almost. Sometimes it's number 1, sometimes number 2. We love that phrase. It it represents the destination of where we want people to be after they sort of cut back on their drink and build re rebuild their relationship. They be you become a mindful drinker.

Ian: 53:19

But as Sunny said, we don't like we don't love labels. And so we've also realized that the term mindful drinking might be a little too sophisticated, in terms of not really being what people are thinking about when they wanna cut back on their drinking. So it's it's just this thought process I've been going through. Like, are we is that something that we will continue to lead with? I I think it's absolutely it's it's I like I said, it's the destination that we want people to get to.

Ian: 53:45

But, as as a growing company, we're still thinking about, like, how do we make sure that we're talking to the right people at the right time so they can get the help that that they need with Sunnyside? And so we're just doing a lot of thinking about how we continue to iterate on that. It's just kind of a it's a really interesting problem, challenge for me and the team to tackle. And one of the ways we've been doing that, to learn our way there is we've been doing more customer interviews lately. We get a ton of customer automated customer feedback through our through the app and the community and the coaching, but it's been a while since I've gotten on the phone and talked to customers.

Ian: 54:22

It's been brilliant. I absolutely love talking to the customers. And, we've had a few of them actually start to graduate from those calls and do podcasts with you too, which is another really great outcome. But by talking to customers, we're gonna continue to better understand their language, how they found Sunnyside, and what's the best way that we can continue bringing, you know, alcohol moderation, alcohol mindfulness, whatever the right terms are. We we wanna make sure we're using those terms so that we can get the most people interested in Sunnyside.

Mike: 54:52

It's hard. It's hard to do it when you don't believe in labels, but you still have to talk about it because I ran into the same issue with my book. It's like, okay, I have to identify categorization. Yet, I also have a chapter that says, I don't believe in labels because I think they're self limiting. And I think that you really can define who you are and what you wanna be and not based off of what, you know, somebody coined a term or something like that.

Ian: 55:16

Yeah. This goes a little this cuts a little deep for me. And I'll I'll, I'll try to keep this short, but my dad, passed away last year. And he, up until the months before he passed away, he was still talking to my twin brother and I about his alcoholism. He'd been sober for 30 years.

Ian: 55:39

And he still had he was still carrying these this heaviness with him, these regrets, these things that he wanted to apologize to us about, that he had already apologized to in the past, whether it was his mind forgetting or just, like, deep, guilt and shame that he felt. And I think this this gets complex, but I don't think he was an alcoholic when he died at all. Like, not even close. He was a great man who had stopped drinking 30 years ago to help his family live a better life. And, I think it's the programming that he went through at the time that gave him that label, that permanent label.

Ian: 56:19

Once an once someone once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, you're always fighting. Man, that is, I think, a dark place to live and something that I wish hadn't burdened him. Obviously, that was his own journey, and maybe that was better for him. But, yeah, I think to me that's that's why labels feel scary to me is that they can kind of bring people down long after the initial, I don't know, label, like after the initial label was applied and like was actually relevant.

Mike: 56:49

Yeah. It's it's such a complex issue. So it's hard to put a label that's broad sweeping on on an entire group of people,

Ian: 56:57

you know? Yeah. And why, I mean, it, it, that, that phrase, that term alcoholic carries so much baggage. So for someone to have to call themselves an alcoholic when they haven't drank for 30 years, That's a lot. I'll I'll just, I mean, I'm not again, like, this is one of those things that I have a lot of opinions about, but not super well educated.

Ian: 57:18

It's more of like personal experiences. To talk about.

Mike: 57:22

I mean, I think we both, like, I think we both agree, like, if it works for somebody, that's the solution that works.

Ian: 57:30

But I agree. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a good point. I have seen people on, you know, there's a, there's a big social, there's a big community out there on social media.

Ian: 57:39

And I have seen somebody say, I don't know who it was. I wish I did say, I like calling myself an alcoholic. I like the label so that it kind of keeps me on the right path. And so that I recognize who I am. And then I've I've seen others absolutely push away from that and say, I'm not gonna call myself in that, that, that label.

Ian: 57:57

I'm not even gonna call myself sober. I'm gonna I'm simply somebody who's not drinking at the moment. Because even sort of being calling yourself sober can have connotations and, implications when it comes to how people think about you.

Mike: 58:10

Yeah. I mean, I think the one thing that we're, like, both adamant and passionate about is the offering more options, that there's not only one option. And, part of that is like, you kind of have to stand your ground if you have another option because, the way the traditional abstinence model works. And I found this out by talking to Andrew Tarski is that basically, if they don't support it, they, they see it going on and they don't, and they don't try and support what they're doing, then they're basically not part of what they're on. So with it, there's a lot of very like, vocal people that, that don't really align or see, see the vision with some of, the other options out there.

Ian: 59:00

Yeah. And the bo the, the, the community that's been through AA that's rather vocal and like has a pretty strong standing and belief system. It's awesome. It's it they support each other and it's they have a firm belief in the way that alcohol should sort of be in your life and some terminology that they use. I think that's awesome that it's helped so many people, but I think it does turn off a lot of people when they because I think at the end of the day, AA is still kind of all or nothing.

Ian: 59:30

When you go through the AA programming, that's sort of what they're preaching. It is absolutely what you're preaching, actually. It's all or nothing. And, those people that go through it, like I said earlier, might need that and probably do need that. But it certainly turns off a lot of people from everyone who go to AA.

Ian: 59:49

And I again, that's why it's really important for us to look in at other options in the market, not just Sunnyside. There's medication that can help you, curb your binge drinking. Therapy has been shown to be highly effective at helping people understand their triggers and therefore, issues with substances. And, of course, like, a perfect combination of all of those would be using a, app like SunnySide, going to therapy, and maybe even trying your other medication, talking to your doctor about alcohol, if that's the path that you're on. But, a lot for a lot of people, the easiest thing to do is sign up for a free 15 day trial of SunnySide and, start learning how to sort of build healthier habits.

Ian: 01:00:29

It's really cheap money back guarantee. And, you determine your own path after that. You, you use Sunnyside as the way to start and you, you decide if that's all you need or you decide if you need more.

Mike: 01:00:43

Well, if you plug that, I'm gonna say, and if you get my book, which I'll I offer to all the Sunnyside users for free, it's gonna give you a bunch of mindfulness practices that stack really well on top of, what Sunnyside does and gives you a little bit of understanding on the physical level and everything. And so I that I think that's why we've always been so aligned because the 2 combo really, really nicely, and we both just share that vision that, you know, that it there you can choose your own path to change and get to where you wanna go. Yep. Oh, that.

Ian: 01:01:17

Yes. Thanks for adding your book in there. That's what I meant. Yeah. The perfect combination is, is Sunnyside plus Mike's book.

Ian: 01:01:26

Well, Hey,

Mike: 01:01:27

I have guests on here all the time and they get to plug their books. So I'm gonna

Ian: 01:01:30

take a

Mike: 01:01:30

moment to be able

Ian: 01:01:31

to do it. It sounds good.

Mike: 01:01:35

Okay. So we're coming up on the end of the time. This has been a lot of fun. I like the new format too, just to be able to go back a little back and forth and Yeah. Reach out.

Mike: 01:01:43

We, and we get to do this during the day. So it's just, us hanging out, having fun, but, I think why don't you do like share any of, like some future facing things or some things that you're excited about for your, you know, going on at Sunnyside?

Ian: 01:01:56

Yeah. I'd love to. I mean, one of the main things, I know it sounds kind of hokey, but we're investing in this podcast because we're seeing a lot of, positive reviews and feedback. And I think the education that we're bringing to people is incredible. And so we're gonna continue to, to build this out, elevate it, and just make it amazing.

Ian: 01:02:13

That's obviously on you, Mike and me with support from me. But the thing that I think we're most excited about is we are releasing our Android app very, very soon. That we people have been asking about this for a long time. We know that a lot of people that are using Sunnyside are using only the text messages and the web interface. And with the app, you get a much more comprehensive experience.

Ian: 01:02:34

So, I'm really, really excited that we've been able to work hard on this in the last couple of months and bring it to market to help a lot more people, improve their relationship to alcohol with Sunnyside. We don't have anything that we're doing specifically for alcohol awareness month, but April is alcohol awareness month. And I would say that, that's one of the reasons I wanted to come onto this podcast, this month, just to educate people a little bit more on Sunny Side than where we're coming from, but also with Andrew Chitarski kind of in the mix. We're hoping just that at the very least we're bringing some really good content to people, during alcohol awareness month. And then I think the next thing that's probably on our radar in terms of like interesting moments for, like, people to start using Sunnyside would be it's a little ways off, but sober October is sort of the, the cousin to dry January.

Ian: 01:03:28

And that's happening obviously in a couple months, several months away from now. But I think it's, if if anybody's sort of listening to the podcast and thinking about giving Sunnyside a shot, obviously, you can hop over to our website in any time. But the sober October moment is also a really neat time to join a huge community of people taking a more mindful approach to drinking within that month. It doesn't have to be sober, of course. And we, we tend to see a lot of interest around that time.

Ian: 01:03:53

So I, keep your eyes open for that.

Mike: 01:03:56

Yeah. And, well, I'm gonna toss in another project that we're working on, which I'm, I'm working on a, a digital video course. And, we were able to bring in Nir Eyal to who's, one of the foremost experts in habit change. And so he's gonna talk about some neuroscience and, science backed methods as far as like habit change, addressing triggers. And so I'm pretty excited about that project draw now, and we're gonna be able to offer that to everybody

Ian: 01:04:22

Nice.

Mike: 01:04:22

Who's listening here for absolutely free.

Ian: 01:04:24

Sweet. I was just gonna ask. That'll be a totally free offering. Right? Yep.

Ian: 01:04:29

Yeah. Cool. Yeah.

Mike: 01:04:30

Great. All right, Ian. Well, Hey, this was fun. If anybody's watching the video, Ian is in a cabin in the woods right now. So, you know, after this, I'm sure you'll go out and have some Zen moments.

Mike: 01:04:44

That's right.

Ian: 01:04:45

Thank you. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Well, it's been a pleasure, Mike. Let's do this again.

Ian: 01:04:49

I really enjoyed it, and, thank you.

Mike: 01:04:53

This podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the number one alcohol moderation platform, having helped 100 of thousands of people cut out more than 13,000,000 drinks since 2020. And in fact, an independent study showed that Sunny Side reduced alcohol consumption by an average of 30% in 90 days. 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.

Mike: 01:05:24

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. That's sunnyside.co.