Master Alcohol Moderation with These Simple Steps (with Nir Eyal)
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. Join us as we welcome Nir Eyal, the acclaimed author of the book Hooked and Indistractable, known for his insights on habit formation and technology's role in our lives.
Speaker 1:In this episode, Nir focuses on mindful drinking, drawing from his own background to offer strategies for making intentional choices. So get ready to learn how to apply Nir's principles for habit design in your own life. Okay. Today, I'm here with Nir Eyal. And, if you can't tell, if you're watching video right now, my lighting is dark because it's eight p.
Speaker 1:M. That's because Near is on a different time zone than I am. So I did a bunch of jumping jacks and push ups to be here to bring this episode near. Tell us a little bit about where you're from and where you're at right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I grew up in The States. I grew up in Florida, but right now I'm in Singapore. I've been here for about four years and we're on other sides of the planet.
Speaker 1:How do you like living in Singapore? What's that like?
Speaker 2:I love it. It's fantastic. It's have you ever visited before? Have you been here?
Speaker 1:I have never been. So I'd love to know a little bit what drew you there.
Speaker 2:It's in some ways, it's like living in the future. There's a lot of things here that they have solved that, a lot of Western nations have not. There's no homelessness, like literally does not exist. Virtually no crime, no drugs, like no gangs, no, no guns. Like a lot of the stuff that, we wrestle with, they don't, it's just a health care is amazing and cheap.
Speaker 2:Education is, you know, best in the world. So they they just figured a lot of stuff out. And so it's a wonderful place to raise a family. It's not perfect. No place is perfect.
Speaker 2:It's not cheap either, but, we just really like it here. And we don't have family here. We just came because we wanted to explore it and then ended up falling in love with it. And so we've had a great time.
Speaker 1:Awesome. I love it. I mean, I'm super excited to have you here because we go way back to like 2015 when I went through Techstars and you were actually an investor in one of my companies. And full disclosure, Nir, you're an investor here with Sunnyside. So it's also equally exciting to talk about that.
Speaker 1:But also, you know, I wrote a book on habit change, and you were instrumental in helping give feedback to that. And before you even gave the feedback, I always looked at you because you are one of the four most leading habit experts out there, and you've authored a really couple great books, Hooked being one of them, the other one in Distractable, both bestsellers. And they focus on the intersection of psychology, technology and business. And I'm really curious, can you share with us what inspired you to go down this path and write these books?
Speaker 2:So for me, my fascination with behavior and specifically how products change behavior for me probably started pretty young. I used to be clinically obese as a child and then into early adulthood. I was not just overweight, I was actually clinically obese. I remember my mom taking me to the doctor and the doctor had this chart on his wall and he said, Okay, look, buddy, this is normal weight, the green zone. Here's overweight, the yellow zone.
Speaker 2:And here you are in this red zone. You're obese. And so the whole nine yards. And it was it was a really difficult experience kind of struggling with my weight and feeling like for much of my life that food controlled me. And to be honest, still to this day, I really have to watch.
Speaker 2:I'm always aware of of of what I'm eating because I think I kind of have that that tendency. But I remember also being fascinated by how products can manipulate and shape consumer behavior. Even as a kid, I remember thinking like about how interesting it was, how cereal boxes were designed with all those, you know, very bright colors and characters like the tricks rabbit looking down so that a kid walking through the aisles of the grocery store could look up at the tricks rabbit and catch their eyes. And so, like, I was always fascinated by by how products did that. And then, you know, I've you know, I think addiction is also a fascinating topic and how how a product can go from manipulative to addictive.
Speaker 2:I think that's super interesting. That's always been very addicted to, very interesting to me. And so I think that's where this fascinated fascination started. And then, later on, I started a couple of companies, the the second of which was in the advertising and gaming space. And so I had a lot of exposure to different, tactics that companies in those two industries, gaming and advertising, use to change consumer behavior.
Speaker 2:They're really the masters of changing behavior. Right? Advertisers don't spend all that money for their health. They do it because it changes consumer behavior. Gaming companies know exactly how to keep you playing those games.
Speaker 2:And so these were my clients. And so I had this front row seat to really understand the deeper psychology behind how these products and services are built. And so, that led me to, to to start writing a blog, and that blog actually became a class that I taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. And later I moved over to the Hassel Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. And then that class became my first book, Hooked How to Build Habit Forming Products.
Speaker 2:And I wrote that book really for me. I wanted to understand how products are designed to be habit forming, and I didn't find a book on the topic. There was lots of general consumer psychology books, but there wasn't any book that, this was it was published in 02/2012. So I I was sorry, it was published in 02/2014. I started writing in 02/2012.
Speaker 2:And this was when, you know, the companies like Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Amazon and Google and all these tech companies were leveraging these techniques. But there really wasn't a guidebook for how to use these techniques for the rest of us. And so my idea was, well, I wanna democratize these techniques. I want everyone to know how we can design habit forming products, not so that we can build more frivolity, but so that we can build more healthy habits. Right?
Speaker 2:Why is it only the gaming companies and the social media networks that can use these techniques? I wanted all sorts of products to to be able to use these tactics as well. And that's exactly what's happened. So from companies like, Kahoot and Duolingo who get people hooked to language learning to products like FitBod that use the hook model to get people hooked to exercise to Sunnyside that, you know, the founders, I'm so thankful that they found my work helpful and have used principles from my book Hooked to, to help people moderate their drinking and to, to live a more healthful life by having a healthier relationship with their their alcohol consumption. And they actually use both tenants, tenants of both my books.
Speaker 2:Not only did they use Hooked, which is about how to build healthy habits, they also use tenants from Indistractable, which is about how to break bad habits. And so I really think we can have our cake and eat it too because of the the amazing power of interactive technology. You know, we want to get hooked to the healthy habits. We want to get hooked to Sunnyside so that we can live a better life by helping us unhook right from from not being so dependent upon these bad behaviors, whether it's too much news, too much booze, too much football, too much Facebook. All of these things can be potential distractions if we are not in control of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's such a good story and it's such a needed book, and I don't know if you remember, and I'm sure actually you do because I keep reminding you when I write you. But do you remember in like 2015, you came on Growth Hacker TV and taught all the people building software's the hooked model?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah. That was
Speaker 2:a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Can't believe it goes so fast. Funny thing is, is that like, I'm shocked when you said that you were an obese kid because looking at you, you're just so fit, which is one comment. The next thing is that I know that your brain works differently than mine, because if you're looking at a cereal box and thinking about that, how it's designed to look up and all of that, I was looking at it just wondering how far do I have to dig my hand in to get to the toy at the bottom of it. So, yeah, you were a little bit more advanced than I was.
Speaker 2:But I was I was taught that stuff. I also was manipulated by it, obviously, because I was, you know, back in the I look back at, you know, the 1980s, the stuff that our parents fed us that we just thought was okay. It's crazy. Like, you know, the amount of sugar I used to eat every single day was just off the charts because we didn't really know like nobody talked about that kind of stuff back then. And so, yeah, so I fell for it.
Speaker 2:But I think also, I think where my take is a little different is that I think that there's, there's kind of a pleasure in victimization when it comes from this from this stuff, right? That we in a way, when we find ourselves distracted and I use the term distraction as anything that takes us away from what we plan to do. So whether it's overeating, whether it's over drinking, whether it's, playing too many video games or on social media too much, whatever it might be, any form of distraction, there's a there's a comfort to saying, well, it's the device's fault. And I think for a while I was definitely in that place. Oh, those mean advertisers look at them taking advantage of me.
Speaker 2:And I think, you know, as I as I grew up and I think my thinking became a little bit more sophisticated, I could see that there's nuance here, Right? That the job of these products and services is to make things people like. Right? Right. Like, you know, these these companies, we want them to make things that we enjoy.
Speaker 2:Are we gonna say to to, Netflix? Hey, Netflix, stop making your show so interesting. McDonald's, stop making your food delicious. Right? We we want these products and service to be good.
Speaker 2:That's the point. I don't want to live in a world without Netflix, without social media, without Dunkin Donuts, even though in excess, these things can be bad for us. And I think that's what I really like about Sunnyside's approach and why I decided to become an investor, because for the vast majority of people, strict abstinence of no, I never touch a drop of alcohol. That is not the way most people find sobriety. All right.
Speaker 2:The sobriety does not mean abstinence. That that is a misnomer. Think that's a real mistake in people's minds. And I think what it does, it it for many people, it does more harm than good. If abstinence is the way you wanna go, great.
Speaker 2:Right? Like, if that works for you, fantastic. But for the vast majority of people who are no longer addicted, they don't go full abstinent, right? They just become sober where they're not, know, they have a glass of wine with dinner. They can have a beer with lunch and that's it.
Speaker 2:They don't have to constantly be addicted, where it's an unhealthy dependency, where it harms the user that moderates over time when different circumstances in their life change. And they've learned new methods. Many of them are incorporated into the Sunnyside app that help them help them moderate their use in a more mindful manner. And so that's that's kind of the skill we all need to learn. We are not taught this in school.
Speaker 2:We're not taught how to consume media moderately. We're not taught how to consume, junk food responsibly. Right. And so I think instead of being a teetotaler and saying, no, it's all or nothing, as opposed to blaming the product and the devices and the companies, there is a middle ground where we really can't get the best of these things without letting them get the best of us.
Speaker 1:Yes. I 100% agree. And, you know, like, that's sort of what I found in my own journey is that it was like you either have a problem or you don't. And if you do have a problem, the only solution is, well, you gotta stop drinking for how long? Well, forever.
Speaker 1:And I'm really interested to hear I I understood what you were saying around there's a difference between total abstinence and sobriety. But could you could you, like, maybe condense that a little bit just so people can hear it in just, like, you know, a couple sentences? Because I I really thought that that was an interesting concept.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So a lot of the research, around addiction in general and addiction is a fascinating topic, and I think, you know, it's worth clarifying what addiction is. And addiction is a persistent compulsive dependency on a behavior or substance that harms the user. So by that very definition, if you are consuming a substance, if you are using a substance or a behavior in a way that does not hurt you, then you're not addicted. Right?
Speaker 2:And so and the fact is lots of products that addicts some people don't addict everyone. And if they addict them for some period of time, they don't addict them forever. So there's a lot more nuance, I think, to addiction than I think most people believe. The popular media narrative, unfortunately, and this is really what hurt us in the nineteen eighties. If you remember, you know, the anti drug commercials of the 1980s, it was just say no.
Speaker 2:Right? That's what Nancy Reagan told everybody. Just say no. It has to be strict abstinence. That's the only way to go.
Speaker 2:And that is not accurate. The the number one recovery program for addiction, the number one recovery program, It's not Alcoholics Anonymous. The number Alcoholics Anonymous has a very high, recovery rate of a grand total of about twelve percent.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Twelve percent, which is very good, which is very good. But there's something even better than Alcoholics Anonymous in terms of a statistical basis. The number one cure, so so to speak, quote, unquote, for alcoholism is aging out. Aging out. That people, as their life goes on, they find that they have things in their life that give them a will to live.
Speaker 2:That addiction comes from this need to numb ourselves from pain that we're not able to deal with. And that is the hallmark of all distraction, whether it's too much social media, whether it's too much alcohol, whether it's too much drugs, whether it's too much whatever. It's all about this need to escape psychological discomfort. We call these internal triggers. Loneliness, boredom, fatigue, stress, anxiety.
Speaker 2:That's fundamentally why we look for distraction from from our current circumstances. Now, what turns a distraction or a bad habit into an addiction is that for the vast majority of people, we have this circuit breaker that says, Hey, that's too much, right? I went on a binger and that was way too much or I'm using way too much social media. I got to get back to having a life and having, you know, spending time with my kids or I ate way too much food and now I got to diet a little bit to get back in shape. For most people, there's that circuit breaker that goes off.
Speaker 2:It says, Okay, time to auto correct for some people at some points in their life. That circuit breaker doesn't go off. There isn't that trip switch to say, Okay, you've had enough. Now we need to dial it back. But what causes that?
Speaker 2:What? Why is that circuit breaker broken? Well, it's never just about the substance. That's never the case because an addiction is a confluence of three factors. There's three things that that that create the right environment for an addiction, and that's the person, the person, the personal predilection.
Speaker 2:We don't know exactly if there's a genetic component. We think there might be, but it's very hard to separate biology with with circumstances and how people grow up. And that's one thing. So personal predilection, let's call that right, like tools you have to deal with discomfort and whether that's biological or taught, we're not exactly sure. So number one is the person.
Speaker 2:Number two is the product. You can't have an addiction unless there is that substance or behavior that you're partaking in. And then the third element, which is not discussed enough, is the pain. So the three things that you need for an addiction is the person, the product, and the pain. Meaning, when life circumstances are such that escaping becomes the rational thing to do.
Speaker 2:Ironically enough, like if your life sucks enough, there can be a situation where doing drugs to access to an addiction makes sense. Let me give you an example. I will tell you that if I was a homeless person on the streets suffering from everything that comes with being homeless. Being strung out is not that crazy, Right? It's a way to escape your present circumstances.
Speaker 2:So when you have a lot of pain in your life that you don't know how to cope with external circumstances that you as a person don't don't know how to deal with, you don't you haven't been taught that that those that toolkit and you have a product that you can then abuse readily. Well, that triangle now it takes shape and now you have the circumstances for addiction. Part of the research that we know this is the case. We know that after there's a very famous study done after the Vietnam War where all these Vietnam Vets, I think it was something like a third of of of U. S.
Speaker 2:Servicemen who had been to Vietnam, were when they were in Vietnam, when they were in the hellscape of war, they were addicted to heroin. And the Nixon administration thought that this was going to be a catastrophe, that all these people would come back to America with heroin addictions and that would destroy the country. That didn't happen. That when these servicemen came home, they just quit. They had what we call spontaneous remission.
Speaker 2:They just stopped being addicted. Well, why? The person didn't really change. The product didn't actually change because you could get heroin on the streets back then. It wasn't actually that difficult either.
Speaker 2:But the pain stopped, right? They weren't in that circumstance where they had to do horrible things in war. They had family members that eased their pain. They had children to tend to. They had careers to look after.
Speaker 2:They had lives that made life worth living. And so it's it's it's wrong to think that it's just the substance. You know, if that if that hypothesis that's, I think, most people's narrative is that it's all about the product, which does play a role, that it's just about the heroin, that just about the alcohol, it's just about social media, just about gambling. It never is. Right?
Speaker 2:Nobody in the history of mankind has stepped on a heroin needle and become a heroin addict. That doesn't happen. In fact, we know that millions of women who have cesarean section in The United States Of America, if you get a cesarean section, you are given fentanyl. Fentanyl. Fentanyl is incredibly addictive.
Speaker 2:And yet almost none of those women, like virtually zero of those women who are given fentanyl become fentanyl addicts. It just doesn't happen because that triangle of the person, the pain in the product aren't there.
Speaker 1:I love that. And I mean, that makes me think about the idea of likelihood to outcome. So like, you know, in a habit sense, and I'd be curious about your feedback around this because it's related to pleasure and pain. So I wonder how that fits in that triangle that you talked about. But the brain is looking for extremely efficient modalities to either relieve pain or get pleasure.
Speaker 1:And so, you know, you could go for a run and you already know that maybe, like, 80% of the time you're gonna feel better. Or you could do a meditation or breath work or some other activity to try and relieve the pain. And the brain is looking for the most efficient one. A % outcome, you know, that, like, some sort of substance is, like, immediate. It's gonna have an effect, and the brain is kind of attracted to that, and so is the person.
Speaker 1:I'd be curious, like, have you given that that idea much thought?
Speaker 2:Well, actually, it's interesting. So, yeah, I have given a lot of thought. And what we know is that it's not about pleasure, that addiction. You know, people who have not been addicted before, they think that people who are addicted just want to get high. It's about feeling good.
Speaker 2:And that's not accurate. Right? And addiction is not about feeling good. An addiction is about not feeling bad. Right.
Speaker 2:That's the common hallmark of addiction that the first time is fun. But after that, once you get addicted to it, you're about chasing that discomfort of not feeling bad anymore. And that's when it really turns from, from from a from recreation to an addiction. That's something that you have a very, very tough time disconnecting and begins to harm your life because you will do all kinds of things that you wouldn't otherwise do to keep not feeling bad. So that's very important to recognize that it's it's not about feeling good.
Speaker 2:It's about, the about escaping discomfort. And we see that not only when it comes to addiction, we actually see that, as a hallmark of of all human behavior, that if we really boil it down, it's almost like, remember that movie, The Matrix, when Neo goes into that room and he sees that boy with the spoon, do you remember that scene where he he he he he's like this boy is like twisting the spoon in that room. And the boy looks at Neo and he says, Imagine there is no spoon, Right? And that's when Neo starts to understand that he's living in the matrix. Well, there's something similar actually that happened to me when I started researching how we make decisions and the seat of human motivation, because we think that motivation is about carrots and sticks.
Speaker 2:Right? It's about the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of But that's not exactly true. That actually, neurologically, if you look at what's happening in the brain, all human behavior all human behavior is about a desire to escape discomfort. So what that means is that the carrot is the stick. Okay?
Speaker 2:Just like there is no spoon, the carrot is the stick. What do I mean by that? That the pursuit of pleasurable sensations, right? Desire, lusting, hunger, wanting, craving, are themselves psychologically destabilizing. There's a reason we say love hurts.
Speaker 2:It's absolutely true. Because desire, the way the brain gets us to do something, is not because it feels good. It's not about the current moment. It's because of the brain's memory about what felt good. It's about pursuing what once felt good.
Speaker 2:Right? And we see this with addicts. Right? They they're always chasing that first high that they never get again. Right?
Speaker 2:What we see when we we when we felt good, we're we're entranced by something and we want it. It makes us pain. It gives us pain in order to get us to pursue it. That's the kick in the butt that makes us go get it. And so what that means, therefore, and I think this is the real revelation that I had in in writing indistractable.
Speaker 2:If all human behavior is spurred by a desire to escape discomfort, what that must therefore mean is that time management is pain management. Money management is pain management. Weight management is pain management. All of it is pain management. It's all about pain management.
Speaker 2:And so that is the the critical skill that unfortunately we don't teach, which we need to start teaching, which is about how do we deal with discomfort. And I think the the current system, the current pedagogy of, you know, we deal with discomfort by trying to escape it. You go see a psychiatrist and they give you medication to try and numb that discomfort. That is a recipe for disaster. Because we know the best way to deal with discomfort is exposure therapy.
Speaker 2:That in fact we need to build mental toughness, physical resistance I'm sorry, physical resilience. So that when we experience discomfort, whether it's physiological or emotional discomfort, we know we have seen it before and we're fine. As opposed to, I think, what what is all too often done, starting with children. We medicate the hell out of everybody so that they can escape their discomfort, so they cannot feel pain, so that we can numb them. And I think that that tends to be the wrong approach that, not always, sometimes that is necessary, but the much better long term approach, to start with.
Speaker 2:Right? The first line of defense should always be skills, not pills. We should teach these new skills on how to deal with discomfort so that we know how to deal with that pain, and we don't try and escape it with more distraction.
Speaker 1:Yes. I love it, and I knew that you'd show up and teach me a few things. I already knew that the pain was definitely more convincing and stronger of an urge. And I think it is a little bit of seeking pleasure, but wording it like I wanna feel better. I wanna feel good.
Speaker 1:But underneath that is really, like, you know, trying to replace whatever whatever is there that's giving them discomfort. And so I actually am interested on the topic because we were talking about addiction labels and, you know, this binary view in the past of, like, either you got a problem or you don't. And if you want to reduce or even are reading a book or seeking a solution, oh, well, then you must have a problem, you know, was kind of the thing. And part of that was putting labels on that. And I know I've written on labels.
Speaker 1:I know you've written some things I probably implemented into my own writings, actually. And so what are your thoughts around like labels when it comes to especially specifically alcohol, you know, but in other contexts as well?
Speaker 2:It's it's a really interesting line of research that I think we are now starting to see the pendulum turn the other way, swing the other way that I think for a long time. We thought that having these types of labels was always good. And because it does feel good in the short term to say, I am an addict. Right? Because it in a way absolves you of some responsibility because it makes it sound like it's an immutable trait, that it is who you are, that you were born this way.
Speaker 2:And that's not exactly accurate. And in fact, there is a downside. There is a real downside to having these labels, because even though it feels good in the short term, as is often the case, right, with it's it's psychological candy. It feels good in the short term, but it's got some consequences in the long term. Right?
Speaker 2:Candy tastes delicious, but you're gonna get tooth decay and you're gonna gain weight if you eat too much of it. And so I think labels can serve us in certain contexts. But frequently they really do hurt us. And so the downside is when you label yourself as saying, I am an alcoholic, I am an addict. Which by the way, now we're start we're starting to see people are not saying that anymore.
Speaker 2:That in the the the addiction community, in the treatment community, we're not saying that person is a junkie or an addict or an alcoholic. We're saying that it's a person who who is doing certain behaviors, not a person who is a thing. Right? People we wanna think of people and ourselves as verbs, not nouns. Because when we label ourselves, we become much more likely to conform to that behavioral set, to that identity.
Speaker 2:And sometimes that can be a very good thing. For example, when you say, oh, I'm, I'm vegan, for example, or I'm a Christian, or I'm a Muslim, you become much more likely to act in accordance to that label. So a a Muslim doesn't say, oh, I wonder if I'm gonna have a gin and tonic tonight because Muslims don't drink alcohol. That is who they are. A vegetarian doesn't say, oh, I wonder if I'm gonna have a bacon sandwich.
Speaker 2:They don't eat meat. It is who they are. It's their identity. So in many ways, it can help them conform to that identity. The problem is when we have a label of something that that we believe we are that doesn't serve us, when we say, oh, I I I'm bad at time management or I have an addict I have an addiction or whatever the case might be.
Speaker 2:We it in many ways, when we fall off track, when we don't conform to that behavior, and that identity confirms that that's okay, then that can lead to a very slippery slope in a way. And when I say that that's okay, I mean, that I'm born with it, that there's nothing I can do, that I don't have agency. So that's the problem with labels. Don't attach yourself to a label that absolves you of agency. Oh, I'm a Sagittarius.
Speaker 2:And because Mercury is in retrograde, there's nothing I can do because, you know, that's just who I am. Right? That's the data I was born. That's not empowering. That's not giving you agency.
Speaker 2:And so that's what we want to be very, very careful of. And I think one of the big another problem is that when we have a label that's not serving us, we obsess about the label as opposed to focusing on the the the the task at hand. So for example, I hear this all the time. You forget your keys. If you're a person of my age, I'm 46, you know, you forget your keys and you say, oh, must be a senior moment.
Speaker 2:Well, guess what? When you were 20, you also lost your keys. It also happens. But you didn't think, oh, what about the senior moment? So the more we think, oh, I am a senior.
Speaker 2:A senior has to forget things because that's what seniors do, which is totally stupid. Right? That's ridiculous. You're thinking about the senior moment instead of where did you forget your keys? And so we see that happening with people who say, oh, I have ADHD or I'm an addict or because instead of focusing on the behavior at hand, you know, I I got distracted by something that must mean I have undiagnosed ADHD.
Speaker 2:You're thinking that as opposed to staying focused on the thing at hand. So we have to be super, super careful about these labels. They they can serve us, but oftentimes they can hurt us if we're not careful about how we use them. So the the the the the rule of thumb is to only pick the labels that give you agency, that give you a sense of control. So the the reason my book is titled Indistractable, and that's meant to be a noun, right, that is an identity.
Speaker 2:It's meant to sound like indestructible, is because that's an empowering noun. That is the kind of person who does what they say they're going to do. Right? So that that's that's an empowering point of view to call yourself an an athlete to, you know, that that that would be an empowering label. But to call yourself something that gives away agency, that gives away control, I would argue even if it's true even if it's true, don't label yourself as that.
Speaker 2:Don't do it because it's just such a slippery slope that really does not serve you.
Speaker 1:I 100% agree, I think that's such an enlightening way of putting it. I mean, to me, it's it's a limiting thing. It's a self self fulfilling prophecy if you keep saying it over and over again and you identify with it instead of maybe addressing it and moving on. And so that sort of actually so let's take away label. Let's say we're talking about very relevant here on Journey to the Sunnyside, the idea of mindful drinking.
Speaker 1:So, you know, we're going to take the labels away. We're going to say we're going to kind of adjust our habits and maybe swap them and replace them with new and better and healthier habits. What does mindful drinking mean to you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so so mindful drinking, I think, is the same as any mindful activity when it comes to, the difference between distraction and traction. Traction is any action that moves you towards what you say you're going to do. The opposite of traction. Distraction is any action that pulls you away from what you're going to do, what you said you were gonna do, away from your values, away from becoming the kind of person you wanna become. The difference is one word, and that one word is intent.
Speaker 2:Right? Whatever you intend to do in advance, not in the moment when you're, succumbing to your internal triggers to those uncomfortable emotional states, but whatever you said in advance and what you can look back on and reflect and say, Hey, that's the person I want to be. Then whatever you choose to do is fine. In my book, I'm not here to tell people what they should do with their time, with their attention, with their bodies, with their lives. That is your choice.
Speaker 2:And I think we need to stop moralizing and medicalizing these type of behaviors. Whatever you want to do is fine, but do it according to your values and your schedule, not someone else's. So if if drinking a little bit when you want to, that's in accordance with with your values in advance is what you want to do. Enjoy. Do it.
Speaker 2:There's nothing wrong with it as long as decided in advance. And so that's what's I think at the core of the Sunnyside strategy is, you know, Sunnyside doesn't tell you, oh, that's too much. Sunnyside tells you, you know, this is what you said you want to do. We're going to help you live up to that expectation. Right?
Speaker 2:I think one of the the meanings of life, the the purpose of life is to be the kind of person you admire, the kind of person you look up to. If you can become the kind of person you admire, you are living a great life. I think that should kind of be our our our our North Star, if you will. But it's not up to me or anyone else to tell you what an admirable person should be. You have to decide what does the person you want to become look like, and what do they what do they do?
Speaker 2:Right? And so saying, hey, I'm gonna go out on a Saturday night, and I'm gonna have three drinks. Great. Totally fine. Right?
Speaker 2:So that's what Sunnyside helps you do. It helps you drink with intent.
Speaker 1:Yeah. No. That's really good. And I remember a couple I I listened to a podcast of you a couple years ago that you said that you took a break from drinking. Update us here.
Speaker 1:Can you tell a little bit first, I guess, about what led to that? And then maybe, like, I don't know if you're still doing that or if there's an update to that. Why don't you just go away with that and share some?
Speaker 2:Sure. Yes. So just before COVID, I went to a dinner party and I had I think I had maybe maybe like two or three drinks. And I had just gotten the Oura Ring, which tracks your sleep. And I I went to sleep that night, and I I wasn't drunk or anything.
Speaker 2:It wasn't that that much alcohol. But, the next day I woke up and my Oura Ring told me that my sleep was horrible. I went from, like, an 85% sleep score to, like, 18. It was just a massive effect. Wow.
Speaker 2:And I had no idea. You're right. I was under this this impression, this myth that, a little bit of drinking was actually good for you. Right? That's what the French wine association tells people, which is totally bullshit.
Speaker 2:Yeah. There's no healthy quantity of alcohol. Like, it's it's not good for you.
Speaker 1:No. And Changing so fast the view on it. It's just unbelievable. Like, it's everything has been disproven, and it's even scary. You know, sometimes you almost don't wanna look at what No.
Speaker 2:It's so true. And and and and we should acknowledge this. Again, I'm not saying you shouldn't drink, obviously. Right? We just talked about that.
Speaker 2:But let's be honest with ourselves. It is poison. There's nothing healthy about alcohol, full stop. It's poison. Okay?
Speaker 2:It is a it is a known carcinogen. Don't tell me, you know, you're drinking red wine because it's healthy and, eating organic food. It's not. It's poison. But that being said, all right, there's lots of things that aren't so good for you that, you know, should be should be part of a healthy life.
Speaker 2:It's okay. Yeah. So it's not
Speaker 1:good for you. But we're going to have a cupcake every now and then because, you know, it's somebody's birthday or we just don't want it.
Speaker 2:Exactly. It makes life fun and everything.
Speaker 1:Every single meal or whatever, you know? So you gotta do
Speaker 2:And it it makes us realize, you know, it's with like with everything we talked with about with too much social media, with, too much alcohol, too much whatever. It's about the too much. It's not in in in moderation. There's nothing wrong with it, but let's not call it healthy either. So anyway, I was surprised to see what an impact it had on my sleep score.
Speaker 2:And so then I kind of I I kind of went extreme. I said, you know what? No more booze. This was also assisted by the fact that COVID was getting started. And I was like, well, I'm not going be going out anywhere anyway for for this period of So let's just experiment with no more alcohol.
Speaker 2:And, I found it not that difficult. Like, just I just I just said 100% abstinence. I didn't have a drinking problem, I would say, but I just I didn't I didn't need it anymore. And so I just cut it out 100%. And I did that for several years, actually, all through COVID.
Speaker 2:I think it was like maybe two, two and a half years. And then I decided to bring it back.
Speaker 1:You zigged when everybody zagged
Speaker 2:a little bit. Partially, I'll be honest with you, partially because I knew that, as COVID like I had written in distractible right before COVID as well. And I knew that as we had more internal triggers, as there was more craziness going on in the world, as the as we were all scared and, you know, indoors and socially disconnected, I knew that that discomfort that we talked about earlier, the loneliness, the uncertainty, the fear, the stress that would increase my likelihood of looking for escape. And so I wanted to at least excise one one thing that I didn't want to go overboard on, which was which was too much booze. So so I cut it out for a few years, and then I decided to bring it back also partially as an experiment.
Speaker 2:And I started giving myself kind of, constraints. So one thing I really enjoy is if I'm on a flight and I have to be away from my family and I have to, you know, go far away from home, I really love a glass of champagne on a flight. It's just I don't know. It's just something that brings me a little bit of joy. And alcohol feels better when you're at 30,000 feet anyway.
Speaker 2:So so I decided to bring it back within certain constraints, like in certain places, in certain times, I allow myself to drink, and I think it enhances my life. I think I I enjoy it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally. I mean, I kind of did the same thing at a different time for me, it was and I introduced it kind of an experimentation kind of phase also, but it was it was a little bit like, you know, I stopped for thirty days and I like, Well, why don't I go sixty days? And then I went for sixty days and I went for ninety days. And and actually, it ended up being about a year. But after a certain point, I just really didn't think about it all that much.
Speaker 1:And then when I went back, I for me, it was like the one time I just decided I'm going do introduce it was like and we spend our summers in Chicago, you know, when we did ever since we did the Techstars program with the growth geeks that you were an investor on, I've been going back to Chicago in the summers and on the river, you know, they have all these bars and everything. And that was just like the place. And so for me, like, that was my little experiment. And like, you know, do I want to have a drink here and there? And and quite honestly, like, I had it and I was like, this was it.
Speaker 1:It really wasn't like spectacular by that time, you know, and that I had built up in my head. So but you know what? It's really interesting because so you took this time off and then you had a little bit of time, you know, having some champagne in the air at 30,000 feet. But, you know, I remember also hearing you talk about something called the sober test. So are there Yeah.
Speaker 1:Sober test, tell us what that is. And then I'd really be curious to understand if there was something that you ended up, like, swapping your habit with that time or maybe, like, something shifted because of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the sober test says that, you don't know if you really like something unless you like it sober. Meaning, if you go to a bar and you don't drink, you just have seltzer water and a lime. If you actually like the environment, if you would actually be there without booze, that means you genuinely like the activity. What I found was that when I went to bars sober after I decided this, you know, that that time when I said, okay, I'm just not gonna drink and see what that's like.
Speaker 2:I didn't like bars. Yeah, they were super boring. Like, I've I've been married for a long time now. Like, I'm not there to pick up anybody. Like, it was just just dull.
Speaker 2:It's like just like, what the hell do you do if you're not drunk? And so that made me realize, wow, the only reason we're here is because we want to, you know, like we want to be slashed with which is which is fine if you know that going in. I guess what bugs me is when I feel like we're being lied to. Right? Like, so much of what we do is called mimetic desire.
Speaker 2:Renee Gerard had this beautiful theory that that basically everything you do is because somebody else says it's good, that human beings make very few independent decisions. And I can't think of a place where that's more true than around the culture of alcohol. Right? Like, we have a Bloody Mary for breakfast and we have a beer with lunch and we have a wine with dinner. And you like, I was actually it's funny.
Speaker 2:I live in Singapore now. Right? And, the other day, we had the Super Bowl. And here in Singapore, they were airing a Super Bowl at, like, 07:30 in the morning or something or eight 8AM. I can't remember.
Speaker 2:And I was walking to my workout around this time, super early in the morning, and there was, like, two or three bars full of Americans all watching the Super Bowl, and everybody was drinking a beer at, like, 8AM. It was so weird because they had been habituated to. That's what you do when you watch the Super Bowl. You drink a beer. Who the hell wants to drink a beer at 8AM?
Speaker 2:That's
Speaker 1:that's so weird. The airport. It's the Wild West at 6AM or 8AM before. Oh, you're at the airport. Time doesn't exist.
Speaker 2:Right. Yeah. Exactly. Or or like in the Las Vegas casino. That's why they block out the windows because they don't want you to see what time of day it is.
Speaker 2:And and so there's there's these there's these behaviors that we do just because everybody else is doing them. And I think that is dangerous because what will happen the reason this is so dangerous is because if you live your life thinking you're making your own decisions and you have your own preferences and your own tastes, And then you look back later after you've lived your life and you say, Wait a minute, I wasn't actually authentic to myself. That's not how I want to spend my time in my life. You will be full of regret. And that's one of my life goals is to minimize regret every day, every week, every month, every year, every lifetime.
Speaker 2:You you will always have some regrets, of course. But if you can minimize those regrets, then the antidote to impulsiveness, the antidote to doing things that other people want you to do or that you're doing just because you're escaping an uncomfortable emotion. The antidote to impulsiveness is forethought. Right? It's intent.
Speaker 2:It's thinking ahead. How do I want to spend my time? How much do I want to drink? How do I want to spend my money? That is, I think, the way to to to to achieve the ultimate goal, which is to be the kind of person you admire, is to think about what does the person I want to become look like?
Speaker 2:What do they do? That is where your values are based on, Right? It's really all about values. Values. What are values?
Speaker 2:Values are attributes of the person you want to become. Those are values. And again, I'm not here to tell you what your value should be. I'm here to help you live out those values, whatever they might be, so that you can look back at your life and say, you know what? That that was a life well lit.
Speaker 2:But you start you do that one day at a time. Right? You look at the day ahead and you say, what do I want this day to be like? How would the person I want to become spend their time? And that's how you live your life.
Speaker 2:And I think very, very few people have actually experienced the the bliss of living a day, even just one day, the way you want it. And that doesn't mean you're on a beach with a pina colada. You know, that that's that's a fantasy. That that's fun for, like, a little while. But saying, okay, the person I want to become is a kind of person who values supporting their family, that values being there for the people I love, that values taking care of their physical health, that values, proper rest and education and all the whatever your values might be.
Speaker 2:And then having that day planned out and just doing that day, even if that day includes watching some Netflix, playing a video game, having a drink, that's fine. If those are attributes of the person you want to become. I think where we have regret is when we we do things today because of impulses, because of societal influences, because of things that aren't authentic to us. And then we look back and say, that's not really who I am. That that doesn't feel good.
Speaker 2:I I regret doing that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the looking back, especially when I'm you're younger, you're not giving things as much thought, especially aligning your forethought to your values. You're probably not even thinking too much about that. And so I'm definitely like, I look in the past and I try to stay away from regret in the past, you know, but the way that you stay away from regret now is by giving it that forethought because just don't do stupid things, you know, without thinking about it is a big part of that. So back to really on part of what we were talking about here is so giving forethought, giving mindfulness to this. So like you are this expert that talked about, you know, using technology in changing our behaviors.
Speaker 1:And so do you believe that like technology like Sunnyside is really pivotal in a positive role in managing and changing unhealthy habits around alcohol?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And that's why I'm proud to be a backer the company, and I back similar companies who not just in the, you know, the, mindful drinking space, but anything that helps us use these these technologies, in a smart way. Because I think if you are not, if you are not conscious of this, if you are not conscious of the role that commercial interests have, you will be a victim to them. Right? Like, you know, the alcohol advertisers spend billions of dollars convincing you to consume as much as possible.
Speaker 2:And they don't give a shit if it ruins your life. They could care less, just like the media companies. CNN and Fox News and Facebook and, like, none of these companies care if you spend too much time or too much money or drink too much booze. That's how they make money, and that's not going to change. So it's not your fault.
Speaker 2:Okay. You didn't invent beer. You didn't invent social media. You didn't invent television. You didn't invent all the things that people do that take their lives off track.
Speaker 2:You know, you didn't invent that stuff. It's not your fault. But it is your responsibility because who else is gonna take responsibility for it? It's gotta be you. And so thank God we have these products, these technologies that try and fight fire with fire.
Speaker 2:Right. That we can use technology to to to help us live a better life. And so that's why I love companies like Sunnyside and what they're doing in terms of, you know, using the very technology that can distract you if you use it incorrectly to help you live a better life. And so I think that's going to be an absolutely critical skill because I think that the world is really bifurcating into people who allow their time and attention and their lives to be manipulated and controlled by others And people who say, No, I am indistractable. I decide for myself how I'll spend my time in my life.
Speaker 1:It's that's like just so dead on. And you know what? A lot of people don't even realize it is. People think, oh, you know, there's Budweiser commercials and, you know, there's signs and just like Coca Cola everywhere, Budweiser everywhere. But they really get into the narrative on how, like, our social and culture and values should be.
Speaker 1:So, like, just like you mentioned, people think that, like, going sitting on a beach, having a drink will make it somewhat better. That narrative has been, like, driven by the alcohol industry. And same with, like, you know, they do these commercials that are pulling at nostalgia, for example. So like sitting a guy sitting there with his dad having a beer on a step, because that's somewhat better as having that. And people don't realize that like the psychological strings that are being pulled constantly by the the alcohol industry driving that narrative.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's so true. So I'm curious. Exactly right. It's it's that association. Right?
Speaker 2:It's corona beer on a beach. Right? Like, you know, how many times have we freaking seen that? Right? It's it's the the the we see these we, you know, the Coca Cola and and and Santa Claus.
Speaker 2:Right? They they invented Santa Claus as we know it today because they were trying to create that association that every time you see this, you do that. That's completely artificial. Right? That's totally made up.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent. So I'm curious. So we talked about you being the invest an investor at Sunnyside. Is there, like, a behind the scenes story on how that came about? Like, how did how did that all happen?
Speaker 1:Is there can you give any details on that?
Speaker 2:Let's see. It's been a while now. I was a a very early investor. But if I remember correctly, I think the guys used, Hooked in the building of the product. And, I do these these office hours.
Speaker 2:Anybody can book time with me if they've read one of my books and they have a question, they can, you know, ask a question. And I think if I'm not mistaken, I think they booked time with me and they told me about the product. And I love their hook. You know, they walked me through the steps of their hook and how they applied some of the methodologies. And, I kinda said, hey.
Speaker 2:You know, if when you raise a round, will you let me know? Because I think it's super cool. So please keep in touch with me. And, we've been been in contact ever since.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's awesome. And, you know, I'm really excited because actually your introduction to them led to all us having a conversation on the podcast because I think it was over six months ago you introduced me to Ian, who's one of the founders. Ian and I were talking for a while. I used to run a podcast several years ago called Growth Hacker TV for anyone listening, which is actually near came on this the show.
Speaker 1:And we just started collaborating on how because I'm writing a book in the same space, how we could potentially work together. And here we are talking. So there's this like, you know, this, you know, circle that kind of just ended up us talking today. So I'm curious, though, because you mentioned, you know, they incorporated Hook model into Sunnyside. And I'd love to know about, like, the core concept of the hook model and, you know, why it works with Sunnyside.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the hook model starts with an internal trigger. We talked about those uncomfortable emotional states and how they drive all our behavior. So whether it's a good habit or a bad habit. In this case, the good habit is that when you are about to drink, the internal trigger is is uncertainty around how much can I drink, how much did I say I was going to drink?
Speaker 2:So the internal trigger is that uncertainty. You open the app. That's the action phase of the hook. Just open the app. The variable reward is telling you how much did you commit to drinking in that day.
Speaker 2:And then the investment is inputting what did you actually do. And then that loads the next trigger through the cycle next time. So if you say on this night, I'm gonna have this many drinks. Well, you're logging very, very quickly. You know, those I love how, easy and intuitive the app is where it says, okay, you log drink, and then and then they prompt you to log your next drink.
Speaker 2:And so it's not judging you. It's not, you know, making you feel like you're inadequate in some way. It's just helping you log those drinks so that you can do what you said you were going to do. And hopefully, the habit is created that every time you're out drinking, you're staying true to what you said you would do based on this interaction with the app. So that's the habit they're trying to create.
Speaker 1:I'm just curious to know, is there one, one feature that you find to be the strongest within the app, or do they all kind of work in symphony to be able to be, you know, strong in that way?
Speaker 2:Well, there's there's a lot to to, how well they've designed the product. It's it's, it's really well engineered. I think some of the things that they're doing that, help make it a sustained long term habit is that I think it starts out as something that you're using to track your drinks. But over long term, you're actually part of this community. And I think that's super powerful that whenever we can form what we call, rewards of the tribe.
Speaker 2:So whenever you can form a community of people that you are being helped by but also are helping others, that's incredibly important. So I know that's something that they've invested a lot in because, you know, this this is this is exactly what, where AA finds such success. The people who who who, find sobriety from AA, it's it's not necessarily just the people who are are being supported. It's really the sponsors. Right?
Speaker 2:It's about helping others. That those are the people who, you know, quote unquote, lead to recovery. And that's and we talked about why that's an absence model, which, you know, no criticism against that. If that works for you, great.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:But there also should be a community of people who are helping others moderate as well. And, if that's what you choose to do to be the kind of person who says, Hey, look, know, I used to drink too much and now I'm drinking in a way that's consistent with my values and consistent with the kind of person I want to become, helping others. Right? We're back to identity again, being the kind of person that's espousing a belief set that's teaching others, seeing yourself as someone who is helpful to others. That's super powerful.
Speaker 2:Right? This is why this comes from the psychology of religion. You know, every major religion has disciples, has, people who, who proselytize to others. Why? It's not just about growing the flock.
Speaker 2:It's also about cementing the identity and beliefs of the person doing the proselytizing. So that's, I think, a very powerful feature of Sunnyside is is this community they formed of people helping other people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I can speak from my own personal experience writing the book and documenting it online, you know, and I wrote it for people that don't identify with probably the leave a half of the beer on the table kind of person. And they don't identify with somebody that needs to be in the 12 step. And so what I call them in between drinkers or gray area drinkers. And as I'm writing that and documenting it, people come to me all the time, like, hey. I really wanna read your book or, hey.
Speaker 1:Like, identify so much with this. Like, do you have any suggestions you can do? And, like, quite honestly, like, that really it's not an ego thing. It just feeds the energy that, like, I identify with you. I know exactly how you feel right now, and, like, I wanna be able to support you.
Speaker 1:And that, like, I'm not getting anything out of it other than just, like, that engagement and that support is just like Yeah. I can see why that just drives people in different capacities, of course. And and you mentioned, you know, not to pick on any part of AA. I think that you would agree the right solution is the solution that works for that individual person. Right.
Speaker 1:Like so there's no one right solution. I'm curious from an investor and entrepreneur standpoint and also like consulting with some of these larger companies that you which I would love to dig in if we had time and ask a little bit more about those details. But I'm really curious, like, from a business standpoint, like, metrics would you look at something like Sunnyside and say, these are the important metrics that say this is working for people? Is it anecdotal? Is it data driven?
Speaker 1:I'm curious.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Oh, it's very, very data driven. So the the Sunnyside team is incredibly analytical about figuring out what is working for their customers. And so for them, a key hallmark of success, kind of their north star is about what percentage of their users keep coming back. Right?
Speaker 2:So a great sign of a product being valuable is engagement. Right? It's pretty common sense, right? If a product is good, if it's serving your needs and you keep coming back and using it, that that's telling you they're on the right track. So I know they they track that very, very closely, in terms of custom what they call customer churn.
Speaker 2:So if you use the app for a little while and then you go away, well, it obviously didn't didn't meet your needs. But if you stick around, you're using it week after week and you're engaging with it. By the way, it's very similar metrics to what a Facebook would would track as well. But, hopefully, this is building a good habit as opposed to maybe something more frivolous.
Speaker 1:Got it. Yeah. No. That's great. Well, this has been good.
Speaker 1:I actually, it's been more than good. It's been amazing because I like I learned a lot and I know anyone listening has as well. You really articulate you. Anyone who's listening to this should get your book. I actually love your indestructible.
Speaker 1:And I don't know if you remember, I sent you a screen when I reordered my home screen on my phone, and it hasn't changed since. So anyone listening, definitely do So but before we wrap up, I'd love to know, like, if there's anything looking into the future, any any current projects or ventures that you're that you're really excited about that you'd like to share?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I'm working on a third book. It's still too early to announce that. It's gonna be a few years until that's done, but I'm working on a new book. I'm always researching this area.
Speaker 2:I'm endlessly fascinated by human behavior. So if you wanna stay abreast about what I'm working on and read my latest blog post, you can subscribe at nearandfar.com. Near is spelled like my first name, n I r, and far. Near and far dot com.
Speaker 1:Well, you, Nir, so much for taking the time today, and, you know, I hope you have a great day there in Singapore.
Speaker 2:Thanks, buddy. Great seeing you. Take care.
Speaker 1:Alright. Take care.
Speaker 2:Bye bye.
Speaker 1:This podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the number one alcohol moderation platform, having helped hundreds of thousands 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% in ninety 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. 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 fifteen day trial.
Speaker 1: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.
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