Journey to the Sunnyside | Mindful Drinking & Alcohol Health

Want to drink less? Use the 80/20 rule to find the one routine worth changing. See an example week go from 15 drinks to 12 with one simple plan.

In this 10-Minute Monday, I borrow Joseph Juran's "vital few" from factory quality control and apply it to a drinking week: count your drinks, find the routine that carries the most, and turn it into an if-then plan. You'll hear what the research says about tracking and if-then plans, three ready-made plans, and an experiment to try this week.

Learn more about Sunnyside: sunnyside.co/podcast
Daily Restore...

You’ve decided to skip the drink. So why are you still thinking about it? In this 10-Minute Monday, I explore three surprising studies involving Tetris, a joystick, and imagining something you’re looking forward to. I break down what researchers found about cravings, automatic responses, and drinking less—and share a simple exercise you can try this week when you’re debating that next drink.

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Whether you’re going alcohol-free, cutting back, or just getting started, what do you want to get out of October? I’m sharing five ways to make this month useful, including what to notice about your drinking, how to keep going when plans change, and what’s worth carrying into November. Plus, the surprising research on people who tried a dry month and didn’t finish it.

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Why do you keep wanting a drink, even when you’re not enjoying it that much? I’m joined by Dr. Jud Brewer, a neuroscientist, psychiatrist, Brown University professor, and New York Times bestselling author of Unwinding Anxiety. We talk about how your brain learns to want alcohol, why that wanting can outlast the enjoyment, and how curiosity can help you change a habit you’ve struggled to think your way out of. We also get into a question I’ve wanted to ask for a while: Do we actually love the taste of wine and whiskey, or have we learn...

Most of us have had nights where two drinks somehow became four, or one glass of wine turned into most of the bottle. In this 10-Minute Monday, I break down seven situations where it’s especially easy to drink more than you intended, why they can change the way you drink without you really noticing, and the psychology behind a few of them.

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Having a drink and deciding to keep drinking aren't always the same decision. In this 10-Minute Monday, I look at what starts to change after that first drink, why what you wanted at the beginning of the night can shift as the night goes on, and how planning ahead can help. If you've ever wanted the first couple of drinks but wished you'd skipped the last one, this episode explains why that distinction matters.

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Alcohol and fun can become so closely linked that it’s hard to tell what the drink is adding and what was already enjoyable. In this 10-Minute Monday, I explore how that association can follow us into different stages of life, what research reveals about alcohol and social connection, and how understanding the difference can help whether you’re drinking tonight or choosing not to.

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Percy Menzies was there at the beginning. A pharmacist by training, he helped launch naltrexone at DuPont in the 1980s and later served as an associate product director when it was approved for alcohol dependence. He believed they had a medication that could change millions of lives. Instead, he watched it run into resistance from doctors, treatment centers, and some of the most powerful organizations in the field. Percy eventually left DuPont and founded the Assisted Recovery Centers of America, where he built his own treatment model around the medication he had spent years trying to get people to...

What if you like your life, but you’re still drinking more than you want? Nothing has fallen apart. Your family is good, your career is going well, and you’re handling everything that needs to get done. So why does alcohol continue taking up more space than you’d like? In this episode, I explore why this question can be so confusing and why the answer may be more ordinary than you think.

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For years, Gen Z has been described as the generation turning away from alcohol. New data tells a more complicated story: more legal-drinking-age Gen Z adults are drinking, while Boomers are drinking less often and having fewer drinks when they do. Licensed marriage and family therapist Merrilee Burke returns to talk through what these shifts might mean, how younger adults may be drinking differently, and why moderation appears to be growing across every generation.

Read the IWSR article behind our conversation.

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Have you ever looked around a room full of successful people drinking and thought, if they’re fine, I must be fine too? But what if some of those same people are looking at you and reaching the exact same conclusion? Today, we’re talking about how we can become each other’s proof and quietly create a version of normal that nobody ever says out loud.

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Today we have a special guest host, Sunnyside cofounder Ian Andersen. Ian is someone I work with every day, and over the years he’s become a good friend. He cares deeply about the people we help here, and he’s also thought a lot about alcohol and mindful drinking in his own life. Ian recently sat down live in New York with Sunnyside member Erica Campbell. Within a few weeks of starting naltrexone through Sunnyside Med, Erica had cut her drinking in half. The change happened so quickly that she had to start figuring out everything underneath her drin...

I’ve been working on a new way to understand why we can genuinely decide to drink less, then make a completely different choice a few hours later. In this episode, I introduce that idea, look at the science behind what shifts in the moment, and explain why the gap between intention and action is more predictable than it seems.

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Carol Look is a psychotherapist, bestselling author, and one of the early pioneers of EFT tapping, with more than 25 years of experience using it with stress, anxiety, cravings, trauma, and behavior change. In this episode, we break down what tapping actually is, what the science says, and how it may help when the urge to drink shows up. Then Carol walks me through it live. We tap through an alcohol craving and a real source of stress in my own life, and I could feel the shift. If you’ve ever wanted a practical tool to use when a cr...

I spent years trying to understand why I drank, from stress and anxiety to things that went all the way back to childhood. Some of those insights were real, but knowing why didn’t automatically change what I did. In this 10 Minute Monday, I look at the gap between understanding a behavior and actually changing it, and why sometimes the first useful move is much simpler than finding another explanation.

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Véronique Ory never had a dramatic rock bottom. She simply started noticing that alcohol didn’t fit her life the way it once had. In this conversation, we talk about how yoga and greater awareness changed her relationship with drinking, the difference between restricting yourself and genuinely wanting something less, and why we often wait for something bad to happen before giving ourselves permission to change. We also explore what’s underneath the feeling of “I deserve a drink,” how old habits can stick around after we’ve outgrown them, and what it means to build a life you don’t c...

Why does alcohol start sounding good again just a few days after I was sure I wanted a break? In this 10 Minute Monday, I look at fading affect bias, self-licensing, and why the good parts of drinking can become easier to remember than the parts that made me want to change.

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Master life coach and recovery specialist Colleen Freeland returns to explain why drinking less often starts long before the first drink.

We talk about nervous system regulation, emotional goal setting, the biphasic effect of alcohol, and why arriving at the evening less depleted can change how much you want to drink in the first place.

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Ever catch yourself replaying the same conversation over and over, wondering if you said the wrong thing? Or lying awake with the bigger questions, like whether you're making progress, whether you're doing this right, whether you've already done damage? In this episode, I break down why your brain gets stuck in these loops, why some brains hold on longer than others, and why alcohol can feel like the fastest way to make the replay stop, even when it's the thing you're replaying.

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Dr. Larry Freeney has spent thousands of sessions in the counseling chair, and he keeps meeting the same person: someone whose life looks right on paper and still feels off. He's a PhD counselor educator, a licensed counselor supervisor, a father of five, and a Spartan Death Race athlete. We get into why most of us can only name about seven of our emotions, how language changes what you can actually perceive, and what to do once you've named the real feeling under a hard day. Plus the small exercise Larry gives people to figure out which of their...

Have you ever wondered whether you’re simply wired to struggle with alcohol? In this episode, we look at what decades of research say about addictive personality, inherited risk, and the traits that may make some people more vulnerable than others. I also explore why the way you answer that question can shape what you believe is possible for you. If you’ve ever thought, “Maybe this is just who I am,” this episode is for you.

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Today I'm welcoming back Colleen Freeland. She's a master life coach and recovery specialist who helps high-achieving women cut their drinking without labels or lifelong abstinence. Whether you caught our episodes last year or you're meeting her for the first time, we start with her story, and it's a good one. Drinking nightly, three years in AA, and the single conversation that cracked her identity open. From there, it gets bold. Colleen has become increasingly outspoken about challenging the disease model of addiction, and she brought receipts. We get into why the "alcoholic" label can actually make drinking worse...

Drinking less at home comes with a different set of challenges. There is no bartender, no natural stopping point, and no one else setting the pace. The bottle is close, the pours are bigger, and the routine can take over before you have really decided what you want. In this episode, I share eight simple swaps that make home drinking less automatic.

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Drinking less is not only about what you do. It is also about what you tell yourself in the moments that matter. In this episode, I share 10 sentences for cravings, good stretches, rough nights, and the moments when you start questioning your progress. Simple reminders that can help you keep your momentum, give yourself some grace, and make the next choice a little easier.

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If you’ve been drinking more than you want to for a while, you may quietly wonder whether the fog, memory changes, and lack of energy are permanent. In this episode, Mike breaks down what the research actually shows about brain recovery, how quickly change can begin, why life may feel flat at first, and whether cutting back still helps if you don’t quit completely. The good news: your brain is still responding to what you do next.

Research & Resources

Today I’m joined by Megan Klein, founder of Little Saints. Megan built Little Saints after realizing the cocktail ritual she loved was starting to cost her more than she wanted to pay. She didn’t want to give up going out, having fun, or raising a glass at the end of the day. She just wanted alcohol to take up less space. In this episode, we talk about the work-hard, drink-hard pattern, why non-alcoholic drinks are not just for people who quit, and how to drink less without losing the ritual or the party. If you’ve ever wanted...

Most people know drinking less can improve sleep, hangovers, and energy. But the bigger changes are usually the ones you don’t expect. In Part 2, we go deeper into the benefits that start to compound when alcohol gets smaller. We’ll talk about why the good parts of the night stick around, how your effort starts to count more, why you see more of the room in social moments, and how alcohol can affect recovery, congestion, relationships, wine o’clock, and self-trust. The real motivation is what starts coming back: clearer memories, better mornings, easier follow-through, and that quiet feelin...

Dr. Richard Louis Miller has spent more than 65 years in psychology, mind-body health, and behavior change. He is the host of Mind Body Health & Politics, the author of multiple books, and a longtime voice in the connection between the mind, emotions, stress, and the body.

In this episode, Dr. Miller shares a simple but powerful idea: the mind is a tool, not the boss.

We talk about how easy it is to get lost in thought, pulled into automatic patterns, or convinced by the next craving, urge, or feeling. Dr. Miller explains why awareness...

Most people know the obvious benefits of drinking less: better sleep, fewer hangovers, maybe more energy. But those are not the most interesting changes. In this two-part episode, I’m talking about 14 unexpected ways life can get easier when alcohol gets smaller. We’ll look at the hidden domino effects most people never connect to drinking: morning anxiety, caffeine loops, food cravings, stomach issues, memory, confidence, relationships, wine o’clock, and self-trust. The real motivation is what starts coming back: clearer mornings, easier decisions, more follow-through, and that quiet feeling of being able to count on yourself again.

CONN...

In this episode, I’m joined by Coach Jennifer Salzman, an ADHD advocate, mindfulness practitioner, and alcohol-free life coach. Jennifer spent years feeling uniquely flawed before receiving an ADHD diagnosis in her 40s. Looking back, she began to understand why alcohol had felt like such a reliable form of relief. We talk about the connection between ADHD and alcohol, why drinking can feel like relief for an overwhelmed brain, and why willpower often isn’t the right tool for change. Jennifer also shares how mindfulness, self-awareness, and ADHD-friendly strategies can help people interrupt autopilot habits and feel more in cont...

In this episode, I’m looking at why certain moments seem to come with alcohol already attached. A celebration, a game, a vacation, a hard day, a party. Most of us picked up those meanings long before we questioned them. This is about the invisible scripts that make drinking feel normal, and the simple question that can help you decide whether the script still belongs to you.

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A lot of people know alcohol is taking up too much space long before they do anything about it. It might be the drink after work, the second drink that wasn't planned, the weekend rule that keeps bending, or the feeling that alcohol is doing more emotional work than they want it to. In this episode, I'm joined by alcohol coach Austin Karr, founder of 100 Days, to talk about one of the most useful questions you can ask about drinking: not just "How much am I drinking?" but "What job am I asking alcohol to do?" We also talk...

In this episode, I talk about the social side of drinking less, and the fear that changing your drinking might change how you show up with other people. Will I still be fun? Will the night feel different? Will people notice? And do I have to change everything just because I'm changing this one thing? I also share a story from Thanksgiving that helped me see how a night can still feel full without letting it turn into a morning I regret.

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My guest is Dr. Josh McConkie. He's an emergency physician and a military veteran, and he flew medevac missions in Iraq. We get into the moment when toughing it out stopped working for him, and what it was like to come home after that. We also talk about why alcohol becomes the go-to coping mechanism for so many high performers, and why shame keeps people stuck while ownership moves them forward. This one ranges a little wider than usual. But if you've ever told yourself, I can handle it, this episode is for you.

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In this episode, I’m talking about the moment most moderation advice skips: what happens after the first drink. For many people, the first drink is a decision. But the second drink is momentum. Once alcohol starts creating that feeling of relief, connection, confidence, or release, the next drink can start to feel less like a choice and more like a way to protect the feeling. We’ll look at why alcohol can feel different early on than it does later, how the first drink can change your decision-making, and why “I’ll just decide later” often falls apart in the exa...

In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Darcy Sterling, relationship expert, licensed clinical social worker, and host of We Need to Talk. We talk about what happens when one person in a relationship starts drinking less, especially when alcohol has become part of how a couple connects. For many couples, drinking is woven into date night, vacations, and reconnecting at the end of the day. So when one person starts wanting less of it, the other partner may feel judged, confused, or afraid the relationship is changing. Dr. Darcy explains why alcohol can sometimes become like a third pe...

In this episode, I’m digging into alcohol cravings and one of the biggest traps people fall into when they’re trying to cut back: negotiating with the urge. Maybe just one. Maybe only tonight. Maybe I’ll reset tomorrow. We’ll look at why cravings can feel so convincing in the moment, what’s happening in the brain and body when the urge to drink shows up, and how a simple practice that can help you pause without fighting yourself. This isn’t about being perfect or forcing yourself into an all-or-nothing approach. It’s about building the skill of notic...

Most people trying to drink less focus on the drink. But for a lot of high-functioning people, that's only half the pattern. There's a whole cycle underneath it. You overdo it, you feel off, you recommit, you clean things up, you get that "I'm back" feeling. Then slowly, without really noticing, it starts again. And because life isn't falling apart - you're still working, still parenting, still showing up - it's easy to miss. You're not in crisis. You're just spending a lot of energy recovering from the same thing over and over. In this episode I want to...

A lot of people think the hardest part about changing their drinking is the alcohol itself. But honestly, for a lot of people, the real exhaustion comes from the constant mental negotiation around it. Should I quit drinking completely? Can I moderate? Am I overthinking this? Why does it feel so hard to “figure out” alcohol when everyone else seems fine?

In this episode, I explore why our brains become obsessed with finding a perfect, permanent answer around drinking, and how that search for certainty can actually keep us stuck. I talk about the psychology behind all-or-nothing thin...

In part two, Sunnyside co-founder and CEO Nick Allen continues his conversation with Dr. Jeffrey Egler, Chief Medical Officer at Noom, with a deeper focus on behavior change. They get into why willpower usually fails, how systems and structure make habits easier to sustain, and why tracking, micro habits, community, and even medication can help create momentum. If you’ve ever struggled to make healthier choices stick, this episode offers a more practical way to think about lasting change.

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