Sunnyside Cuts Drinking by 33%, New Study Confirms w/ Sunnyside CEO Nick Allen
Hey everyone and welcome back to Journey to the Sunnyside. Today's episode is packed with some really exciting news. We're diving into the results of a third party study that analyzed over 46,000 Sunnyside members and their self reported drinking habits. The focus, how real time adaptive text messages are helping people change their habits around alcohol. And I'm thrilled to have Nick Allen, Sunnyside's co founder and CEO joining me today.
Speaker 1:Nick's going to break down some of the key findings, especially how effective this approach has been for mid aged women. So if you're curious about how behavioral science is making a real difference in building healthier drinking habits, and want to hear some inspiring stories on how Sunnyside is helping people make lasting change, then stick around. This episode, you don't wanna miss.
Speaker 2:Okay. Today, I'm here with Nick Allen. Nick is the CEO here at Sunnyside. I couldn't think of a more relevant guest to have here to share his story. And here's the thing.
Speaker 2:Everybody has a story to share. And before Nick was the CEO here at Sunnyside, he had a starting point. So first of all, Nick, thanks for coming on.
Speaker 3:Hey. Thanks, Mike. So excited to be here.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I love your story, so I can't wait to share it with everybody. So why don't you take us back before you're sitting in the seat you do with the hat that you have on and tell us where this entire journey started?
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely. So, you know, I like to think that my journey to founding Sunnyside dates back most of my entire life, honestly. My situation and growing up as a kid was profoundly affected by parents who struggled with alcoholism, and that grew in me an awareness about kind of my own habits that ultimately led me to trying lots of different things to keep my relationship with alcohol healthy, and ultimately finding myself to building a system for myself that was particularly effective in helping me manage my own drinking, and that ultimately became Sunnyside. Taking it back a little bit, I grew up in a household with two parents who are in recovery from alcoholism now. I started my childhood with parents who didn't have control of their drinking and for whom drinking was a pretty big problem in their lives.
Speaker 3:And so in my early childhood, I I remember experiencing the spiral of my parents kind of realizing that they didn't have control of of alcohol, waiting way too long ultimately to kind of get help, and thankfully finding their way to AA and kind of like the traditional route of complete sobriety. That had a profound impact on me as I was growing up. So I grew up in a household where my parents were in recovery and spending a lot of time engaging around the sobriety community as a way to kind of change their own lives, and also talking with me and being pretty open with me about their own struggles. And so what that meant for me, I was kind of like approaching my teens and starting to, you know, experiment with alcohol myself, is I feel like I kind of started on my journey with drinking with this kind of backdrop of understanding my parents' struggle, and that helped to bring to me, I think, an earlier than than usual awareness that, you know, I too have some of those habits that my parents did.
Speaker 2:What did some of those conversations look like, you know, before you started experimenting?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So, you know, I think for me, was coming home, you know, having one too many drinks here and there in high school, when I was just starting to kind of experiment, and instead of my you know, and expecting this kind of like hammer to drop from my parents, like, hey, you know, we struggled with this, so, you know, you can't do it. You need to, you know, completely avoid it at all costs. And rather my credits were took, and thankfully to their credit, took a much more understanding, and I would say like zen approach, where instead of saying like, no, don't do this, which for many people ends up pushing them in the direction of going and doing more of it was this was our experience with drinking, and these were some of the pitfalls that we ran into when we weren't being conscious about the role that alcohol played in our lives, and ultimately led to these kind of pretty major consequences that we would like for you to avoid.
Speaker 3:And so instead of like, don't do it, it was do it if you want to do it, but be thoughtful about it and be conscious that it can be really dangerous. Drinking can be a dangerous thing, both in the short term and for a kind of long term health and quality of life. And so I feel like as I was starting to jump into my own journey with drinking, I had that as a backdrop, and that was really kind of helped to shape my, you know, my relationship with alcohol over the last few couple decades at this point.
Speaker 2:I love this story. I love the fact that your parents took that approach, because as a parent myself, and you are as well, I'm sure you're thinking about that well ahead. And when is the time. But I remember a story. So Ian, who's also your partner, and I, he shared a story about you in Mexico.
Speaker 3:Can you share that story? Yeah. Definitely. So fast forward, know, I think, basically, over the kind of, you know, twenty or so years of my own journey with alcohol, I've had lots of ups and downs. So I've had moments where drinking has been, you know, really healthy and in balance with my life, and many moments where ultimately it's been out of balance, and I've and I've, you know, not had it under control at the way that at the level that I might have wanted to.
Speaker 3:And so that's meant experimenting with lots of my own personal systems to try and kind of get myself back on track and make sure that it doesn't become a bigger and problematic part of my life.
Speaker 2:Was that like a novel concept that you came up with? You're like, I'm gonna try and figure this out on my own?
Speaker 3:Well, funny. I think, like, a lot of people go through these these these these journeys of, like, creating their own personal systems, right, or their own rules, like I'm not going to drink on weekends, or, you know, I'm not going to have any hard alcohol. You know, there's often this like bounce back effect of when you've gone, you know, when when it's when you've had a rough night, or you wake up with a really bad hangover, or like the I'm never drinking again kind of mentality. And so I went through a lot of these kind of personal systems that, you know, ultimately were effective for a few weeks and then kind of like became less effective, and I reverted right back to the mean. Most recently, so getting to the Mexico City story, you know, about five years ago, my wife and I actually took an extended sabbatical and moved to Mexico City.
Speaker 3:And so it was the first time in our lives as a married couple where we where we were, you know, didn't have the structure of nine to five jobs. We had this kind of, like, free open time. And ultimately, found without that structure, it became really easy for us to, like, go out to lunch on a Tuesday and order a bottle of wine because why not? And, you know, continue into the evening with the afternoon cocktails and kind of alcohol became a kind of daily routine for us. And we had set out to have this trip that was really focused on kind of, like, health and wellness.
Speaker 3:We wanted this to be a reset. We weren't working. We were trying to kind of recharge and celebrate being together as a newly married couple, and we found that alcohol was just, like, not in balance with where we wanted it to be. And it wasn't, you know, I think importantly to to emphasize, like, it wasn't that we were spiraling out of control. It wasn't some, like, huge rock bottom moment.
Speaker 3:Rather, we were just kind of wanting to be present with each other and finding that alcohol was kind of detracting from our ex from that experience. And so having gone through a bunch of these personal systems, both both my wife and I, and realized that they were kind of notoriously flaky and not sustainable for the long term, I had a bunch of open times, so decided like, hey, I'm gonna try and like build the system that like doesn't fall apart in a few weeks. I'm gonna try to find a system that helps us to make a change, and more importantly, to sustain that change for the long term. And that was ultimately kind of the inkling that became Sunnyside after, you know, months of building and research and finding the tools to, you know, help my wife and I and ultimately now tens of thousands more people make a sustained change to the role that alcohol plays in their lives, whatever that might mean to any individual. Right?
Speaker 3:For my wife and I, that was moderation. It was not cutting alcohol out completely. For others, it might be, you know, a path eventually to complete zero. But the idea was that we wanted I wanted to build something that was flexible enough to meet people where they were and not kind of push one specific agenda on them, but rather help them reach their individual help them define and then ultimately reach their individual goals when it came to healthier drinking.
Speaker 2:I love the story of this because it's, like, unique, of course. But I also think, and I wanna ask you, you had to have been thinking maybe even without a rock bottom, even without outspiring out the control or whatever you wanna call in the category of normal that, you know, given your upbringing and your parents, was there just something inside you that just said there has to be a different way and just saying, have to give it up forever at this point, even if it's not causing issues, but in order to make a change? Like, what was the internal dialogue going on with that?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So so I think as I mentioned, like, you know, both my wife and I had come in had this awareness that, you know, we had family histories. We knew that, like, when not being careful about alcohol, it could sneak up on us and and kinda become a a bigger part of our lives than we wanted. And yet, the most part, like, we were having fun with it. Like, alcohol wasn't a negative part of our life.
Speaker 3:It wasn't creating issues in our relationship or, you know, in our kind of professional lives, etcetera. We were just waking up one too many days, just not quite feeling 100%, not quite feeling the energy and the relaxation that we wanted to because there was this kind of overshadow of hangover. And so, well, I think both of us kind of knew that this could become a problem for us. We weren't feeling the need to pursue a complete sobriety journey. And up until this point, that hasn't felt like the right path for me or for my wife, despite knowing that if we're not careful, it can become a bigger problem for us.
Speaker 3:And so I think that's the thing that was so kind of important in this and so different in the founding of Sunnyside, was realizing that there are probably many other millions of people like myself and my wife who had the ethic, that they wanted to make a change and to improve their relationship with alcohol, and yet kind of rejecting this all or nothing, one size fits all approach that in order to be healthier with alcohol, you have to go totally sober, which wasn't appealing for us. And I think what we've seen with Sunnyside is there's lots of people who want to make a change, who don't feel the need or are not quite ready yet for the idea of complete sobriety. And that's the gap that Sunnyside fills. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I couldn't identify more with that because before we even met or even knew about each other, you know, I went through the same different story, but same thought, thoughts in my own head about this and ended up writing a book because I felt like I had to address something for myself, which I felt like there were other people like me, which are I'm not that guy that'll leave a half a beer on the table every single time I go out and drink. And I'm also not the guy that just, like, waking up 3AM to take a shot of alcohol. So there had to be something where in the middle where there's also a middle ground as the solution and not an all or nothing, which, you know, I ended up writing about, which I think is what why we came together in this we're having this conversation, which makes it so fun. But so fast forward a little bit. You have this idea.
Speaker 2:You're you're playing around. Where was the point that you started to implement this and you're like, holy crap. This is actually working.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So so it started with a totally analog system where my wife and and I was reading a bunch of books around kind of habit change at the time, and, you know, there there was a study that, like, led me down this rabbit hole that I kind of stumbled across in in a book by Nir Eyal. It was about text messages as a intervention strategy for tobacco use, and basically found that text messages were particularly effective in helping people cut back and ultimately quit tobacco, and that the text nudges themselves were the thing that were particularly effective in making that change. So this was like, I was reading about habit change. I had this spark of text messages, which was pretty interesting to me.
Speaker 3:And then I went into this kind of deep dive study of all the research out there around alcohol interventions and moderation. But I think earlier than that, the learnings from this kind of literature that I was kind of obsessing over at the time, one of the key things was upfront planning and goal setting was kind of a proven evidence based strategy for behavior change, sustained behavior change. And then daily nudges was kind of another piece. And so my wife and I started in a totally analog way, in kind of a pretty organic way. Every Sunday, we would sit down together, we would look forward at the week ahead, and together we would plan which days we planned to drink, which days we planned to not drink, and on the days that we were gonna drink, we kind of set limits for ourselves to say like, hey, we're gonna have four drinks, but we're not gonna let ourselves go over that because, you know, that's when we start to know that we're not gonna feel great the next day.
Speaker 3:Right? So this wasn't a sobriety plan, but it was creating a roadmap for ourselves to stay accountable for the week ahead. And then over time, I built this really simple system. It was actually literally just me sending a text to ourselves. I had a Google Voice number, and I would text us every day and say, hey, the goal that you set for yourself was to not drink.
Speaker 3:You know, like, let's stay on top of that. Or, hey, today, you you know, you plan for a drinking day, but but this is your limit. Let's kind of let let's make sure that we stay accountable to that goal. So inherent in the system, you had this upfront planning and goal setting process that was happening every week. It was a reflection back on the previous week and looking forward to the week ahead.
Speaker 3:We had this simple daily text thing where I was sending a text to ourselves, then the thing that I didn't even realize at the time was we had this kind of peer based accountability. So my wife and I were planning together, and we had a shared sense of our goals. And so instead of just me saying I wasn't going to do something, it was us saying we weren't gonna do something or we were gonna kind of stay within specific limits. And that part ended up being really powerful also, where this was no longer a single player game. It was no longer like a system that only existed in my head, but we had these different parts that were kind of combining to be really effective for us.
Speaker 3:And what we found was, you know, a few weeks in, it was really working. We were able to cut our drinks down by, you know, thirty, forty, 50 percent. We were able to introduce non drinking days really effectively, and it changed the tenor of our trip, and ultimately it changed the output of our lives in a lot of ways, just kind of bringing alcohol into the appropriate place in our lives and sustaining that place. So keeping those changes now five years later, we're still in a much, much better place with alcohol than we were before we got started with this system.
Speaker 2:If you could put your finger on one benefit that you immediately saw when you started to make these changes and it started to work for you, what would
Speaker 3:it be? Yeah, think productivity, and I mean that in lots of different ways, both kind of personal and professional. What we found was as we reduced alcohol's role in our lives, it left a lot more time and energy to do the things that we were more intentionally focused on. And So when we weren't working, it was you know, we both started exercising a lot more. Exercise led to eating better.
Speaker 3:All of this kind of combined led to better sleep. And so these days waking up, you know, without the baggage of a previous day of drinking allowed us to just get much more out of our experience. It also made productivity professionally. Like I was in this kind of geek out phase of building the tool that became Sunnyside, and that became an incredible accelerant that we had these kind of bright, clear headed days to build and to experiment and to explore in taking our kind of personal system and turning it into something that lots of other people could use. Have you ever sat at the airport?
Speaker 3:Now I know you were in Mexico City, but have you ever sat at the airport at,
Speaker 2:like, a beach town in Mexico and watched the people that are getting off the plane versus the people getting on the plane? It's like refreshed. And so I'm imagining you were a good you were one of the smiling faces getting on the plane.
Speaker 3:That's right. Yeah. And I think what's so funny is like, you know, we were we were on a we ended up living in Mexico City for six months. And so it's the first two months, it was like we were on vacation mode. And vacation mode for a week where you're out sitting on the beach in Cancun, drinking every day, even that is tiring.
Speaker 3:And so then just realizing how unsustainable that lifestyle was for, you know, weeks on end was was kind of a a motivator that led us to so and it's also, like, changed the way we travel ultimately also. Right? Just not having alcohol be the reason for a trip. Right? Yeah.
Speaker 3:I just went back
Speaker 2:to my alma mater at University of Arizona, and I don't think I was ever up before 10AM, the four years that I was there. But I brought my kids there, and I was up at six or five, something like that.
Speaker 3:And I did a hike, and I was like, totally different experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but so if we're talking about a fast forward version of Sunnyside, we have this really exciting. This is part of the reason we're together is we're going to talk about this really exciting third party report But I wanted to set up a clip notes version of why
Speaker 3:Sunny
Speaker 1:works, habit formation and all the habit loop that goes into making lasting changes. Can you run us through that? Yeah, definitely. So the design of
Speaker 3:Sunnyside kind of grew organically, but from a lens of evidence based research for behavior change more broadly. And so the tenants and the pillars of the Sunnyside program are mapped directly back into proven and very well researched strategies for making sustained behavior change. And so we talked about planning and goal setting as kind of a key evidence based strategy wherein making a single decision for a kind of immediate choices ahead of you, rather than kind of like waiting until the end of every day to decide like, am I gonna drink or not, ends up being a really effective way to channel a point of high willpower at the beginning of the week into an accountability roadmap for the week ahead. So there's this goal setting component that is well proven for helping folks make change, and we try to break those goals down into micro increments. So we're not talking about, like, set a goal for two years from now and, like, hope you get there.
Speaker 3:We're talking about every single day, we've got a small step to take towards larger sustained change. And so this kind of the atomic habit approach of not necessarily just rising to the level of the goal itself, but actually kind of like succeeding to the extent that you have a system in place to achieve those goals, and I think that's really what Sunny Side is designed around. The second piece is text messages. So one of the things that I mentioned was quite a bit of research actually around text message based nudges as particularly effective in changing habits, and actually specifically for substance use. We I talked about the tobacco use study that was kind of one of the light bulbs that led led towards the design of the Sunnyside system, but there's actually quite a bit of research looking at text message interventions for alcohol use also that have found that tailored and adaptive text messages are particularly effective strategies for helping achieve sustained moderation.
Speaker 3:And so Sunnyside, the first version of Sunnyside was literally just texts. Like, know, you would text in how many drinks you had. We would text back feedback around those drinks, but it's evolved into this series of system of daily nudges, so holding you accountable, And it also stacks upon, you know, the existing habit of, like, checking your texts. So instead of, like, having to build a new habit around, you know, Sunnyside, we meet you under in your SMS inbox, and engaging with us on a daily basis is as simple as sending a text. So we reduced a bunch of the friction and allowed that research to come through in a productized kind of real world scenario, and that's been demonstrated to be really effective.
Speaker 3:And then I mentioned peer support. So the last kind of big piece of the Sunnyside program is another evidence based strategy of being alongside others who are working towards the same goals. And so the Sunnyside community is one of my favorite parts of the whole experience of building this business. We have thousands and thousands of people every day who are engaging with each other, supporting one another to reach their goals. And it's a reminder every day that people aren't alone on this journey, and this journey can be lonely.
Speaker 3:And so having folks to fall back on and having a support system, both when things are going well and and when things aren't going that well, becomes incredibly powerful. And so that's member to member, it's member to coach. Our coaching team are peers who are kind of graduated from the Sunnyside system and trained to deliver feedback and advice and encouragement. And so there's this magic human to human connection within Sunnyside that, again, is kind of an evidence based approach to habit change that has been demonstrated to be extremely effective and critical for resilience when it comes to changing habits. So it's not just about making the change, but it's about anticipating and bouncing back when things don't go right, and being ready to continue even if things feel hard, or if, you know, willpower is at a lower level than previously.
Speaker 3:Having those other people there for you makes it much easier to continue on the journey and to push through those difficult moments. So those are kind of the key pieces that, you know, that really make Sunnyside effective. And now we've got this research, as you kind of mentioned, that really demonstrates that, the sum of these parts is a really, really effective system for changing your relationship with alcohol.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, there's not a single person on Earth that couldn't explain what Sunny Side does better than you. So thank you
Speaker 3:for that explanation. Of course. Yeah, we're going
Speaker 2:get into this report and one side, one of the favorite things that I get access to is to be able to see the reviews that people leave every single day, the success stories and so I and you both get a live stream every single day to acknowledge that this works and it changes lives and people are they're not only their lives are impacted but everyone around them and we can even go down the generational level that, you know, they're impacting the their kids' future on changing what they're doing right now. It's really incredible but before we get into the results for the study, why shouldn't anybody care? Why why is this significant? What are these third party studies do? Tell us a little
Speaker 3:bit about that. Yeah, so what's really important for us as we're kind of building the system is like, we want to be responsible to the members that we're serving, and we want to make sure that we're doing right and doing no harm when it comes to delivering a system that can be very, very effective in making sustained habit change around alcohol. And so we've always known through self reported data from our members, as well as through the feedback that we're receiving to your point, that many people find Sunnyside to be extremely effective and to be the most effective system that they've ever tried when many people have experimented with a number of other systems and ultimately found their way to us. But critically, validating that efficacy, validating that the outcomes are real and sustained across the population gives us credibility and confidence to go and bring this system to many millions more people. The goal for us is to change the way the world drinks by helping millions of people connect the dots between healthier drinking habits and a more fulfilling life more broadly.
Speaker 3:And for us to do that responsibly, we need to demonstrate that this is scientifically valid, and that it works, and that the claims that we're making around the change that we allow people to accomplish are credible and validated. And so we kicked off this effort with a team of third party researchers to take a look at the data that we had collected over the course of the last few years, obviously anonymize, making sure that we weren't exposing any DII or anything along those lines, but in order to deeply understand how behavior is changing for people who are getting started with Sunnyside, and what that looks like over the course of their journeys with the system. And so it was an amazing study. I'm not a researcher, but it was incredible to be a part of this research process, and really demonstrate that the results speak for themselves. And this ultimately ended up being one of the largest ecological studies of alcohol interventions ever done, and so it's a pretty cool thing to be a part of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is cool, and I'm really excited to get into the actual point by point what the study revealed. So why don't I turn it over to you like I know nothing, which, you know, will give you some more chances to tell us what the results are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely. So the report was published in a journal called Clinical and Experimental Research. It's a peer reviewed journal that's very well respected in the space in terms of academic rigor, basically, when it comes to the outcomes that are being reported. We looked at self reported alcohol consumption during participation in our text messaging based online drinking moderation platform, so very technical title for kind of what Sunnyside does. And the high level result that we're most proud of was that we demonstrated in this research across 46,000 individuals who had participated in Sunnyside up until that point, we demonstrated a statistically significant 32% reduction in weekly alcohol consumption over the course of the first twelve weeks with Sunnyside.
Speaker 3:And so that's huge. That's a stat sig change across the population. We're helping people reduce their drinking by one third in the first twelve weeks, and importantly, we're seeing that that change is sustained for the long term, which is really cool to see. So we helped people increase the number of non drinking days, We helped people decrease the total number of weekly drinks. And we see some really interesting data across the population as well, which I'm happy to get into also.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that's kind of like what we've been seeing, but, you know, and what we had reported, but it's like next level to be able to hear a study that's done with no bias at all, to be able to come back and be able to confirm what we're seeing within the company.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And what's so cool is, know, I mentioned that we have plugged into this research community. There was a study that preceded this one, which was a lab study, a clinical trial that was looking at text message based interventions for alcohol consumption. It was called the TAMI study, tailored and adaptive messaging was the TAM, I'm not sure what the MI was, but basically it was looking at SMS based interventions. And what it showed was that tailored and adaptive text messages, AKA that text messages that adjust to your progress and give you different types of encouragement and messaging kind of over time as you're seeking to change your drinking habits, were the most effective strategy helping people make a sustained change.
Speaker 3:So we built on top of this research with this real world application of that idea of tailored and adaptive texts. And now we've got, you know, a clinical trial that supports this approach, and a ecological study of Sunnyside that validates that it actually works in a nonclinical setting, and that this product out in the world really make a huge difference when it comes to helping people with a more approachable and flexible path to changing their relationship with alcohol. We saw that the system was effective across heavy drinkers all the way down to people who were starting at a moderate drinking level, and particularly effective, actually, is kind of interesting for us, but particularly effective for women who started out with us. The results were actually even more pronounced for women when we looked at kind of how their habits changed and the absolute reduction in total drinks that they achieved over the course of that twelve week study period.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought that
Speaker 2:was particularly interesting on the amount of alcohol as we discussed, you know, before we hit record here because I think a lot of people and myself included at some point even before Sunnyside when considering moderation or Michael drinking, they say, you know, what amount is too much? There a line that I've crossed that I can't do that? So that report basically says say that again? Yeah. So so basically, what we're
Speaker 3:saying is that, you know, the Sunnyside system was actually shown to be more effective for heavier drinkers who kind of started at a self reported heavier baseline, and so even folks that were starting in, you know, well above what would be considered moderate drinking levels, Folks that maybe in the past might have been relegated to the sobriety or nothing kind of industry or kind of approach to alcohol treatment demonstrated that they actually could also make a sustained change and sustain moderation, which really important for us. I'll preface to say also, just by the way, as a caveat here, I have the utmost respect for the decision to go completely sober. My parents' decision to go totally sober had a profoundly positive impact on my life. So Sunnyside is not against sobriety, and I wanna make sure that that's extremely clear here. But we also know that many people, when presented with the idea of, like, go completely sober or do nothing, many people are choosing to do nothing, and they're leaving this massive opportunity to improve their lives on the table.
Speaker 3:And so Sunnyside is filling a gap for the people that are not interested or not maybe not yet ready for the idea of complete abstinence. And we have this effective strategy as a starting point for helping people make a change. So I just want to kind of put that out there because it's really important to me to understand also within.
Speaker 2:I think that's great that you would put that out there, you know, front and center because I think it's implied and I think the more options you have, the better, you know, you have because whatever option works for you is the one that's the right one for you and so, if sobriety is the right one for you, great. If moderation's, great. If maybe it starts with moderation and later, but it's moving forward because for me and my my own personal history, what really was the lack of optionality kept me from moving forward and I ended up having to create my own system similar to you and and that, well, if it doesn't exist, I guess I have to create it and and I didn't really know what
Speaker 3:the hell
Speaker 2:I was doing. I'll tell you that. If it's definitely a lot of trial and error but I think that's the idea of having the auction to to be able to choose what your goal is moving forward fits in really nicely to what I'd like to talk about right now, which is the concept of harm reduction when it comes to alcohol and how that relates to Sunnyside. Can you talk
Speaker 3:a little bit about that? Yeah, definitely. So maybe I'll start with kind of this the history of kind of the disease theory of alcohol as kind of it's evolved over the last 70 with the advent of AA. Basically, there's this school of thought that emerged and now has a great amount of societal prevalence and inertia, this idea that kind of like there's the alcoholic persona who needs to go completely sober, right? Drinking is a disease and sobriety is the only path forward.
Speaker 3:And then it's this kind of old school binary thinking went that there's like everybody else. And if you didn't fall into the alcoholic camp, then you were totally fine, you could drink as much as you want, and you didn't have to worry about it. And what we understand now, as we kind of look at the research around alcohol use, we've gotten a much more nuanced understanding of this is like alcohol use disorder, which is kind of the now technical term for alcoholism as previously defined, is a spectrum condition, right? It's not you have it or you don't, but there are varying degrees of dependence on alcohol. And for the most severely dependent, it is often true that moderation is very difficult, first of all, and that sobriety is the right path.
Speaker 3:But there are many others who fall earlier on the spectrum, less severe when it comes to dependence, and yet still diagnosable as alcohol use disorder or pre AUD, right, this idea of kind of at risk for alcohol use disorder, for whom moderation has been demonstrated time and time again through much research, sustained moderation is a realistic outcome for many of these people. So we now understand that like AUD is a much more nuanced spectrum condition than like, you you have it or you don't, this kind of old school binary understanding. And secondarily, we understand that alcohol use disorder is degenerative condition, right? Which means that the longer we wait to get started on changing our habits around drinking, if there's a risk of dependence, often the harder it can become to pull yourself out of that dependence, right? And so the model that we've had up until this point is like, wait until drinking becomes a big enough problem that you can't ignore it, and then like hope you can claw yourself back out by kind of going this route of sobriety has been the traditional model of care.
Speaker 3:And what Sunnyfed is doing and what broadly this harm reduction movement is embracing is this idea that the earlier we can get started on the path to a healthier relationship with alcohol, ultimately the easier it becomes to avoid the most common negative pitfalls of unchecked and prolonged alcohol overuse. So harm reduction is really about providing an alternative to this kind of all or nothing approach, but more importantly, it's about helping people, it's detecting earlier, it's building awareness about the impact that alcohol can have on our health, and it's helping people find pathways towards a more balanced relationship before the rock bottom moment, where often it's far too late. I'm not sure if Ian shared his story when he was on the podcast, but he's experienced firsthand. He lost his mom due to liver complications related to alcohol overuse. That's what happens when you wait until it's here, until it becomes a huge problem before you start to intervene and do something about it.
Speaker 3:And so we believe that we can actually save millions of lives by providing this kind of early pathway to get started that doesn't require complete abstinence. And the research around harm reduction is so prevalent actually at this point that even the National Institutes of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which is like the federal policymaking body around alcohol research and study, has changed the definition of what it means to be in recovery from alcohol use disorder to no longer require abstinence as part of the definition, right? So it's at the level that we know that sustained moderation is achievable for a large population of people who are working to change their relationship with alcohol. And now we just have to push back on the societal inertia of this binary understanding and embrace the fact that there's much more nuance in how we experience alcohol as a society, and therefore we need lots of different options to help people on the path to an improved relationship and a healthier life.
Speaker 2:Solves for the problem that everybody not sorry, I shouldn't say everybody. So many people say, I want to change, but that option just isn't an option. So what do I do?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And up until this point, it's been kind of go it alone. Right?
Speaker 3:It's been, you know, make a rule for yourself that maybe works for a little while and then often revert back to old habits, or just frankly, brush it under the rug until it becomes something you can't ignore. And our whole kind of idea with Sunnyside is to build, is to be like the front door and the starting point for anyone who has that inkling that they want to make a change. Even if and especially in many cases, sobriety doesn't feel like the right choice or doesn't feel like the right choice right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it doesn't have to have a rock bottom moment, you said there. You know, it doesn't have to become painful to make a real change. It doesn't even have to be a problem. It just has to be a problem for you or you just doesn't feel right to make that change and and you mentioned Ian.
Speaker 2:Ian is Anderson is the other partner here and we did an interview back. So if you're listening to the podcast, go back and let's do it because it was an awesome podcast episode.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. And so and I think, you know, one of the things that feels really kind of, you know, important with with what we're doing here is, like, when we just think about kind of how we've learned to address other areas of our wellness, right, whether it's diet, or physical health, or even like mindfulness and mental health, what we found to be most effective is shifting our focus to proactively managing these areas of health, rather than waiting until we're experiencing obesity or a kind of degraded physical or mental health before we start on the path to health in those areas. And we believe that alcohol should be very similar, right? Instead of waiting until it becomes a big problem, we wanna make managing drinking as common as managing diet and nutrition and exercise and mindfulness as components of our proactive wellness routines, right?
Speaker 3:So like, if we drink, we understand now pretty broadly as a society that alcohol has negative impacts on lots of areas of our short term health, not to mention our longevity. And with that understanding, it doesn't mean like cut it down to zero, but it certainly helps to kind of have an understanding of how much you're consuming and have some structure around when and how much you plan to drink in order to kind of maximize the enjoyment of drinking while also minimizing kind of the negative effects on both short and long term health.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think we covered some of the third party reasons why this works and the verification that it works. We covered the habit formation and the habit loop and all the features that do. But I'm gonna put you on the spot and ask you some anecdotal evidence. What's one or two of your most favorite stories when it comes to those Sunset users?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, there's there's just so many. Every day, we we get kind of reports of of how Sunnyside is changing lives, and I think the thing that gets most exciting for me is, like, this isn't only people that are saying alcohol was totally out of control, and now I have it, and now I have it in check. That certainly does happen with members in Sunnyside. But more, they're contextualizing the changes in drinking to the impact that it's having on other areas of their lives, whether that's the quality of their sleep, their mental health, kind of stress anxiety levels, we know kind of improve as kind of alcohol is reduced, not to mention relationships with family, loved ones, coworkers, professional productivity.
Speaker 3:And so every single day, we're getting reports that I tried lots of other stuff, and now I've been able to sustain a 50% reduction in my drinking, and here's what that means for my life. Right? Here's what that means for my relationship with my wife or husband or partner. Here's what it means with my relationship with my kids. Here's what it means for my sleep quality, my exercise journey, etcetera.
Speaker 3:And so the most interesting and exciting thing for us is, without needing to cut to complete zero, without needing to embrace this kind of all or nothing approach, people are feeling the benefits much beyond alcohol. Right? And that's why we really believe that this is kind of like a keystone habit, Starting with healthier drinking often unlocks generally a more fulfilling and healthier life. And that's what we're all about. That's really what we're here to help people to achieve.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I'm fortunate enough to have these conversations with some of our customers face to face, and it varies, you know? We've had, I've had a guest come on and it just helped them feel social at work events but not overdoing it, not the consequences the next day. She's pretty light drinker already but it really made her kill and control. I've had others where they lost family members and had some health concerns and it got them back to a place where they were healthy. Their blood work looks good.
Speaker 2:They're dealing with what they're going through in life in a more healthy fashion. Another who lost like 100 pounds and saved a lot. Amazing. I don't remember. It was something like $20.00 using the app.
Speaker 2:Something. It's incredible. So like the stories are so varied and it's really so gratifying to be able to have these conversations to hear the evidence outside of the studies of just people telling you, Hey, this really is changing my life, it works for me.
Speaker 3:And that's what helps us show up every day, right? Like, this is the population data where, like, ninety six percent report drinking less with Sunnyside. We now see this kind of validated study, but it's the individuals that really make this work so worthwhile. And so invite the listeners to come join us in the Sunnyside community and be a part of people making really transformational change in the areas of their lives that matter to them. And that's what brings us to work every day.
Speaker 2:So how do you see when we're getting ready to leave here? How do you see this evolving? What is this grand mission that you have for Sunnyside? And what do you want to bring to the world that you haven't already?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so as I mentioned earlier, our mission at Sunnyside is to change the way the world drinks and to help millions of people connect the dots between a healthier relationship with alcohol and a more fulfilling life. And so we choose these words really carefully, right? Like society's relationship with alcohol is pretty fraught if we look at, like, seventy percent of, you know, US adults regularly drink, as many as one in three drink more than a healthy amount. And we understand now better than ever that alcohol has this kind of direct impact on health relationships, longevity, right? It's a lots of new morbidity studies about kind of alcohol's impact on people's lives, and we've had this kind of broken one size fits all system where it's like, the default is what you drink, and then there's these problem drinkers who have to go to AA, but we don't have to worry about them.
Speaker 3:So we wanna change society's understanding of alcohol's role in our health and happiness, ultimately, and we believe that the solution that we're building can help millions and millions of people get started on that path. Sunnyside will be the front door for anyone who has that inkling that they wanna make a change to their drinking habits, even if they're not sure exactly what that looks like or exactly what that means. And we'll continue to build tools that help meet members where they are and reach their specific goals, whether that's somebody who's starting from a pretty heavy drinking pattern or a daily drinker, all the way down to someone who's having, you know, a moderate amount, but is feeling the impact of alcohol on areas of their lives that they wanna change. So we'll cover that full spectrum. We'll meet people where they are, and we'll link them with the appropriate tools, services, coaching, community to help them make and sustain a change at a global level.
Speaker 3:And so that's really what we aspire to accomplish as a business, but
Speaker 2:more importantly, as a mission driven organization. And quite a mission it is. And I think my favorite part of having you come here, and also Ian, come on, is for people to see that there is a deep seated background and personal connection to what you're solving for, what you want to provide for people. And also to to show that you guys actually care, and you're building a team that cares, and you're building a team that has empathy because they have personal experience for themselves, and that this is not just something some tech company building something without a face. It's real people.
Speaker 2:They really care. They want
Speaker 3:to build community and provide solutions. Yeah, and I think to a person at Sunnyside today, we are excited to dedicate our lives to this mission. I know Ian and I have, you know, this is our calling, and this is this is really why why we're here. And it's just so exciting to be able to kind of show up every day and make a meaningful impact on a mission that just matters so much to us individually, but also kind of, you know, to the type of impact that we can have on the world, ultimately.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm going leave it right there because I think that was perfectly said. So I want to thank you again for taking time. This is an awesome episode. I had a lot of fun, and thanks for sharing.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Thank you so much. It was great to be here, and I'm looking forward to engaging with more of the audience over the next months and years. Talk to you soon.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to Journey to the Sunnyside. And if you enjoyed this episode, the best way you can show your support is by going on whatever platform you're listening on and giving us an honest review. This is going to help others find us. And to be honest, it would mean the world to me. So if you can do that for me, I'd appreciate it.
Speaker 1:And thanks again for listening. 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.
Speaker 1: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. 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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