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Writer's pictureMegan Belden

8. Choosing A Mindful Relationship with Alcohol

On today’s episode of 'Undimmed' Cecily talks with Sunnyside co-founder, Nick Allen, about both of their personal and professional journeys with alcohol. Nick grew up in a household with two parents who struggled with alcoholism before ultimately finding sobriety. While Nick has had his ups and downs with drinking, up until this point has not felt the need to cut alcohol out of his life completely. Disappointed with the exclusively sobriety-focused, all-or-nothing options available, he built Sunnyside as an alternative for those looking to change their relationship with alcohol but not necessarily quit entirely. Nick is on a mission to make managing alcohol consumption as common (and socially accepted) as managing diet and exercise as components of our proactive wellness routines. 


Together, Cecily and Nick highlight the importance of making informed choices about alcohol and maintaining open, honest dialogues within families and communities about drinking habits. They both emphasize the value of understanding one's relationship with alcohol and making conscious decisions to improve life quality without necessarily adhering to black-and-white sobriety perspectives.


Check out Sunnyside or follow them on Instagram @joinsunnyside


Please remember to rate, subscribe, review, and share the Undimmed podcast to help this content reach more humans in need of support or inspiration. You can also follow Cecily's @clearlifejourney on Instagram, subscribe to her Substack, or learn more via her website.


Credits:

Composer / Sound Alchemist: Laura Inserra

Audio Engineer: Mateo Schimpf

Social Media & Marketing: Megan Belden





Key Points

00:00 High School Drinking Memories

00:25 Introducing Nick Allen and Sunnyside

01:41 Nick's Early Relationship with Alcohol

02:20 Parents' Journey to Sobriety

08:16 Nick's Teenage Drinking Habits

16:41 College Years and Drinking Culture

22:13 Sabbatical in Mexico and Realizations

24:09 Creating Sunnyside

36:40 Reflections on Mindful Drinking

43:23 Conclusion and Future Plans


Transcript

This transcript is autogenerated.


Nick Allen  00:00

I remember distinctly in high school people were starting to experiment at different stages, that I kind of felt like always the one that wanted to go get alcohol when I was hanging out with friends on the weekends and in the evenings. And I do remember that there are other people that were saying, you know, we can have fun without drinking. And I was the one that was like, let's go find somebody who's going to buy it for us and, and make sure that we can accelerate the party or add liveliness to the party by bringing alcohol in.


Cecily Mak  00:25

You're listening to undimmed podcast about living a clear life without dimmers. I'm Cecily Mac. I first met Nick Allen in 2023. He's the founder of Sunnyside, a mindful drinking app built for people looking to consume alcohol with more intentionality. Nick and I met when he was pitching our fund wisdom ventures during an early fundraise. Full disclosure, we invested a small amount. Nick and I continue to explore ways we might help each other in supporting others in their version of a clear life journey. And getting to know him in this investment context. I heard bits and pieces about his experience of growing up in a family impacted by alcohol, his struggles with his own drinking tendencies as a teen, and later feeling some of the consequences of overdoing it. Knowing his path to a more mindful relationship with drinking inspired his sunny side work. I knew I wanted to hear his full story beyond the context of our investment. Well, welcome, Nick, it is wonderful to have you join me for the podcasts. We've been talking about this for a while, and I'm so glad you're here.


Nick Allen  01:47

Thank you, I'm so excited to be here.


Cecily Mak  01:48

Let's go back to the beginning and share with our listeners your journey with drinking, when did your relationship with alcohol start?


Nick Allen  01:59

When I really reflect back, and I've obviously spent a lot of time thinking about this over the last few years, my relationship with alcohol starts from when I was a young kid, I grew up in a household with two parents when I was under five that were struggling with alcohol addiction. And my parents waited way too long, ultimately, to get the help that they needed when it came to their drinking. And it had a profound impact on the life of myself and my sister. Thankfully, my parents actually found their own path to sobriety, when I was around five or six years old, they went the traditional route of AAA, they started going to meetings. And now you know, 35 years later, they are 30 plus years sober. And I'm still going to meetings to this day. And so I remember distinctly that inflection point of my parents going from kind of spiraling out of control, and really having multiple rock bottom moments, ultimately, to them cleaning up their act and making a conscious decision together as a couple to ultimately cut alcohol out of their lives entirely. And so as I was kind of growing up, yeah, that was the thing that that changed for me and put alcohol in my psyche, ultimately, if even if it was kind of subconscious, sure doesn't mean that I always you know that that I had a perfect relationship with alcohol right off the bat at all. But it certainly gave me a framework to approach my own drinking a little bit differently. I would say,


Cecily Mak  03:18

What do you remember if at all about those early years, and you say were five and your parents stopped? How did you recognize chaos, and a lot of us have kids. And I think I know myself, I thought my casual social drinking habits were kind of my business and not my kids. And that it was actually years later, when I found out that they noticed even at a young age, what do you remember about that time being a little one and seeing your parents before they made that shift?


Nick Allen  03:48

Yeah, so I would say that most of my memories are more abstract, they weren't connected to like, you know, my parents are in a certain mood or not relative to kind of drinking. But I do remember a kind of conflict in the household being significantly higher in the before days versus the after days. And so, you know, my parents had no now we're kind of getting drunk and fighting and yelling and that type of thing. And it created but unpeaceful or unrest in our in our household broadly. And afterwards, it's not that they stopped fighting. They still had those the the arguments and disagreements but just felt a lot more sane and constructive, and ultimately gave us a much more stable foundation to grow up. And then I think if they hadn't made that choice, that's awesome.


Cecily Mak  04:28

And so when they did make the change, it sounds like there was kind of like a clear moment. Did they do it together? Did one go first? And then the other? How did that unfold? And how did you know did they tell you right away? This is something that's happening or was this a kind of later on in your childhood, something that you've all discussed as a family? Yeah,


Nick Allen  04:46

it was actually much more later on in life that I ultimately got the details of the story. But my my mom was starting to have that evening and I think my both my parents were realizing that they were, you know, disagreeing a lot more when under the influence than when At. And so my mom started to actually kind of explore her own path towards cutting alcohol out of her life, she found a women's group that kind of ultimately led her towards AAA. And she kind of brought my dad along, I think my dad was also ready, but it required a little bit of a pull from her to do it together. And ultimately, the fact that they didn't do it together, I think gave them a deeper level of companionship that really reflects in what I consider a very kind of healthy relationship today. But this isn't some of these details aren't a story that I actually ever really got from my parents until now, really getting into this point in my life, where I'm thinking a lot about my own relationship with alcohol, I'm building a business around alcohol and health, and my curiosity has been piqued like never before, can really understand that story more in more detail.


Cecily Mak  05:46

That's great. It's really cool that I mean, I gather that you have a close relationship with your parents. And they're, they've been very supportive and very encouraging and open about their own process. And I also really appreciate that it was one parent, in your case, a mom who kind of trailblaze this, I hear this so much from families where there's usually one partner and a couple that has an inkling that something would be better off, if it changed, particularly with regard to habits of alcohol or drug use, or whatever. And so you've got one who kind of starts asking the questions, learning a little bit about how to make shifts. And most of the stories I hear the, the other partner realizes that there, there's a fork in the road here, they can either go on the past with their partner who's making these changes, or resist and not, and try to find a way to live and maintain relationship with very different relationships with the dimmer and particularly alcohol. And that can be really hard. So kudos to your parents for figuring out how to do it together. Yeah.


Nick Allen  06:57

And I think the thing that really makes me feel proud of their decision making in the way that they manage their processes, you know, looking back 30 plus years ago, and even though it said today, we've really lacked the vocabulary for kind of talking about alcohol outside of this, like rock bottom moment, kind of spiraling out of control, like, now it's a problem, and we should go do something about it. And so I think, for folks that have found this path, with this really kind of constraining language and this shame based model, to still be able to kind of like find the light and find that later life, I think is is something that I have the utmost respect for. Now, I do believe that there's an opportunity for us to change the language and to change the whole model of care here.


Cecily Mak  07:38

Amen.


Nick Allen  07:41

But it's gonna take some time, and there's, you know, baby years of inertia that we're kind of pushing back against here.


Cecily Mak  07:46

Yeah, well, I mean, I think that's one thing I hear from members of this community and podcast listeners and the like, is that we are offering some visibility into a different way that isn't so black and white, you don't have to be in one camp of A, you're now an addict. And you can never drink again, and you have this stigmatizing label for the rest of your life. Or you're not. And so you should drink responsibly, and blah, blah, blah, there's so many shades of grey, and people need to and get to find their their path. And it sounds like you have even multiple different shades of grey in your own core family system, which is amazing. Which, which takes me to you so so when did you have your first drink? Like what what's what's your journey with alcohol? Yes,


Nick Allen  08:32

I grew up here in San Francisco, and I had a pretty fast teenage years. And so I started, I had my first drink of alcohol when I was probably 12 or 13 years old. And it became apparent to me pretty quickly that I had some of those same kind of impulses that my parents did when it came to drinking. You know, I know now with 25 years of experimenting with alcohol under my belt that I do have some of those same tendencies where when I have the first drink, it's quite hard for me to slow down. And that sometimes that can lead to alcohol becoming a bigger part of my life than I want it to be.


Cecily Mak  09:05

You say it was an awareness that developed very early on. So when you were in those 12 1314 years, were you already noticing that you didn't have kind of a typical easy relationship with it. What were the what are the details around that for you as a kid?


Nick Allen  09:20

Yeah, I remember distinctly in high school, especially as kind of, you know, people were starting to experiment at different stages, that I kind of felt like always the one that wanted to go get alcohol when I was hanging out with friends on the weekends and in the evenings. And I do remember that there were other people that were saying, you know, we can have fun without drinking. Like, we don't need to go find the way and I was the one that was like, let's go find somebody who's gonna buy it buy up for us and, and make sure that we can accelerate the party or add liveliness to the party by bringing alcohol in. So that was definitely an awareness that was that kind of, at least subconsciously. I think I was picked up on pretty early, but also with the help of my parents, right. So I think to the credit of my parents also, and maybe an Indian Question of the piece that they've kind of now found in their own relationship with alcohol and their own history, you know, instead of kind of pushing sobriety in New York or being really restrictive when it came to drinking, or saying, Hey, don't do this, because we made these mistakes, and you, you know, can't drink. My parents actually took a really hands off, but guided approach, I would say, to my experimentation, so they weren't overly restrictive. They weren't saying no, no, no. And for the most part, they let me make my own mistakes with guidance, right. And so I would come home, pretty obviously drunk and do the classic high school thing to try and hide it. And instead of just coming down on me really hard, they would treat me with love that night, and the next day kind of helped me to realize like, hey, you know, that was pretty clear. And it's okay. But learn a little bit from our experience and understand that this can be a really dangerous thing if you're not being careful. And so I think that reinforcement in a non punitive way, allowed me to kind of spread my wings when I was in that experimental early phase of teenage years, but also, I think, actually started to contribute to a healthier understanding of my own habits, and maybe kind of intersection when it came to my own relationship. I've had lots of ups and downs over the course of my relationship with drinking. But that early understanding, I think, is ultimately what I give credit to founding Sunnyside now is, you know, this ongoing personal experimentation on what works for me, when it comes to keeping drinking front of mind and keeping it a positive part of my life, rather than something that becomes overly dominant.


Cecily Mak  11:34

And that's so cool. I mean, hats off to your parents for their ability to check themselves, I imagine and not punish or judge you as a kid. You know, I have two teenagers at home now myself. And we're in various stages of exploring all kinds of things and our family. And they're very social and very busy. And they love to go out and hang out with friends, you know, when several years older than the other, but they're both definitely teenagers. And it's interesting, we've similar situation in our, in our family, where I don't drink anymore, and had alcohol for coming up on seven years now. And at least one of my kids is experimenting. And surprisingly, he's quite open with me about it, he doesn't feel the need to hide it or lie to me. And we've had a couple of very honest conversations about alcohol and a whole range of circumstances. And it's all admitted surprising, honestly, I worried early on, that if I was, you know, as open as I am about my choices to not drink, it would be harder for my teens to be open with me about their journeys, and discovering their own relationships with these things. And it's actually been the opposite. I think, part of a clear life journey, or an alcohol free journey or moderated alcohol journey, or conscious drinking journey is the what we refer to as the emotional sobriety piece. Like, you actually want to have authentic and real relationships and communications with people, especially our nearest and dearest. And so it actually kind of makes sense that kids experimenting would actually feel really comfortable talking to a sober person, because maybe they're a little bit more predictable, or a little less likely to fly off with some unwanted news is you said your parents argued more before the years when they were they were sober themselves. So that's really, that's fascinating.


Nick Allen  13:44

And I would say, from my lived experience, you're absolutely doing the right thing, right. It's like creating this environment of safety. That doesn't require you to hide it away. Or if you really ashamed of it, or kind of tried to sneak around, I think it ultimately creates a healthier long term relationship with alcohol also, right, because now it's not, it's a little bit more normalized. There's less of this, like I'm rebelling against my parents kind of ideology around it. And I had the same thing where like, I ultimately got to a place where I could be really open and honest with my parents about drinking, and didn't have to hide it. Then when I went and started at university and lots of people were starting to, you know, explore alcohol for their, for the first time, I feel like it came in with kind of a grasp on what I knew and what I didn't know when it came to drinking and fun and the impact on on my health and life. Whereas I saw a lot of others who, you know, had been so restricted for so long that as soon as they got out of the house, they were just going totally crazy. And binge drinking and doing a lot of really dangerous things that I felt like I didn't have the need to do because I had been able to kind of introduce it in maybe too early, which you can definitely argue that but at least in a way that wasn't this like massive rebellion or release.


Cecily Mak  14:53

There's healthy conversation around it, right?


Nick Allen  14:56

Totally. Yeah,


Cecily Mak  14:57

this is I think of so important and It doesn't only apply to parents and kids, it actually applies to adults, which is part of why we're here. You know, there are wonderful, healthy uses of alcohol in the world today. There are also many unhealthy and destructive uses of alcohol. And the important thing is to make sure that we're all making informed choices and decisions on a day to day basis, and able to have an open conversation about it with people we trust until a certain age that's our parents, or, or, you know, at least our parents are in the middle of that constellation. I have a girlfriend who herself is sober and has been for many years. And I remember her telling me a few years ago about her 15 year old daughter coming home from a party wasted, got sick all over the rug and living room in the car on the way back, and just a horrible 12 hours of fighting the consequences of over drinking as a kid. And she was telling me how she really kind of nursed her daughter, and you know, was bringing her cold water and helping clean up her masks and really took care of her as if she were sick from any other ailments and didn't have an inclination to punish her yell at her or shame her for this. And then it sparked a week or two conversations around. That really sucked, didn't it? Here's here's how to not do that. Again. Let me let me tell you things I know about this experience. And so the daughter continued to go to her mom with really important questions for guidance over the years. It makes it clear like we can all make mistakes. And I think the same goes for adults. We don't stop making mistakes when we're not kids anymore. And if we can show up with authenticity and acceptance and love for our people, when they come for support instead of judgment and shaming. It's really a wonderful two way exchange. So so let's go back to you get to college, everyone's kind of figuring out and discovering alcohol for the first time you've seen this movie before you're kind of veteran in this way. Like, how did your relationship with alcohol evolve through your college years and into your 20s


Nick Allen  17:11

was the the kind of maybe comfortable backdrop of my parents, you know, being a regulating body for me in high school, I think ultimately was was a really beneficial thing for me in the early exploration. I went to a heavy drinking college and went to UC Santa Barbara, which is known for partying and drinking culture already. Yeah, exactly. And it was, you know, like, like me, even though I had experienced alcohol and some structure from my parents, you know, I was also living alone and on my own for the first time. And so those four years at UC Santa Barbara, I think are where I did develop some of the unhealthy habits of drinking, that took me a really long time to break. Basically, I lived a double life in college, I graduated the top of my class I was you know, really, really strong, you know, strong academically and cared a lot about what I was learning, the growth that I was getting from, from that experience. And also, I hung out with a guy maybe naturally found myself to a group of people that also had inclinations to drink very heavily. And so there was binge drinking, you know, multiple, multiple times a week, if not five or six nights a week in some stretches. And kind of a default expectation of being a little bit hungover kind of all times although hangovers at that point. Obviously, were a lot different than an hour. Yeah, exactly. Right. Like, like asleep in our hangover, or something, right? But it was, it was this really interesting dichotomy where I was showing up as the person that I think I ultimately wanted to be when I was in, in class, and you know, going to office hours and joining clubs, and being really involved in kind of student life. And then kind of going home and having this, you know, beers on tap at all times kind of mentality. And so I came out of that in my early 20s, and kind of continued that behavior. And so I see now that some of those outside of weakened binge drinking patterns, probably like, led to a slower start to my career than I maybe would have wanted, because I was just not showing up 100% In my early 20s, and kind of those first first career moments,


Cecily Mak  19:12

it was up because you were hungover, or because you were spending so many hours in the evenings drinking or what had, how did you actually pay a price?


Nick Allen  19:21

I think it was kind of spending a lot of time thinking about what I was going to do with my friends next. And probably also, although I think I was less conscious of it at the time, not showing up with 100% clarity when I wanted to be my best self in my work environments. And so I remember some times where I would where I would go and kind of party all night on Saturday, and it would take me till Tuesday or Wednesday of the next week to kind of feel right. And that just kind of seemed like the natural pattern. Right. And I didn't think too much of it. Although, you know, the backdrop of kind of these lessons of knowing that I had these risk factors, my parents did all this type of stuff, I think was starting to bubble. And so this was around the time, you know, probably could have mid 20s, I met a girl who became my fiancee who is now my wife and the mother of my two kids. And she saw some of those patterns as not as kind of acceptable as I had maybe had convinced myself that they were,


Cecily Mak  20:13

as girlfriends do,


Nick Allen  20:16

they do tend to do, and we kind of went on a journey together to finding a healthier way to be. So I think I've always kind of do many instances over the course of these ups and downs, I've, I've tried my own personal rules around kind of drinking more healthily, I've run experiments, galore of kind of doing things differently to make change. And I think the thing that ultimately led to the start, at least of a path to a more mindful relationship with alcohol was having someone to do it together with and to kind of hold each other accountable to my wife also comes from a household that has, it's from a family history that has some, let's say, fraught relationship with alcohol, she too, I think has kind of the, if she's not being careful about it, she can drink, you know, more than a healthy amount. And so I think we kind of came together, I was probably in a worse state, and she helped me get to a better place. But we also had some dating moments where like, we were both kind of going off the deep end, and then kind of found found our way together to to what I would consider a very peaceful relationship with alcohol today.


Cecily Mak  21:19

That's super cool. So when you guys, when you were in those early stages, and this is really for listeners who by the way, are in a similar spot in their lives, they're maybe examining your questioning or exploring a relationship with alcohol. You mentioned that you together started living a little bit more healthfully, that you were making changes even when you were dating, to not have such a putting words in your mouth, but a dependency on alcohol have a good time. What did you guys do give us some examples of the types of things that you shifted or activities you did, or how you changed your way of being together being social, to kind of minimize the role that alcohol was playing in that period.


Nick Allen  22:07

So it's in our early dating lives, we were in kind of what we call our like, drunken happy phase. And actually, we call it like our drunken fat phase, because we were drinking a ton. And we were eating out all the time. And we were just kind of having that like early romance experience for a couple years that was that was really oriented around kind of going out having fun and like not having, you're not taking ourselves too seriously. The inflection point really came when we both it was actually shortly after we got married. And ultimately, and we we both decided to leave our jobs. And to take a sabbatical. We had been both working very hard for four years, four plus years. I've been live for four and a half years in the early days. And it was a tumultuous and high intensity journey that also had a lot of alcohol infused into those early days. And we were both kind of ready to just take a break. And so we left our jobs, we relocated to Mexico City in late 2019. Ultimately, where this journey or this chapter, the journey started, I should say. And what was interesting is we've gotten to a place where we were in a pretty good pattern, when we were working, we had the fat and happy phase was over, we've really been focusing on our wellness and our fitness and, and you know, cutting back is kind of a natural result of that. But as soon as we moved, and we no longer had the structure of our nine to five jobs, and we had just a ton more open time. We were doing some really nice things we were spending a lot of time at the gym, we were going we were traveling around exploring Mexico in depth. And we're also finding that we would go out to lunch on a Tuesday and order a bottle of wine because why not? We were in this travel mode, and we didn't have responsibility. And it was this amazing release that we hadn't had in the past or for a long time. And so we were living this wonderful, joyous experience, and also realizing that the role that alcohol was kind of creeping up in our lives in a way that it hadn't for the last couple of years. We weren't spiraling out of control. We didn't have kind of a rock bottom moment that precipitated us to make a more profound change. But it was the thing that was just out of balance with the wellness and kind of rejuvenation goals that we had just started this sabbatical with. And so that was the thing that led us to starting to actually build a system around our drinking to hold ourselves accountable. And that's the very system that actually became Sunnyside.


Cecily Mak  24:30

So before we get into the details of Sunnyside which we want to hear more about of course you mentioned that you didn't have a rock bottom moment per se that you and your your now wife were in Mexico you were doing this kind of blend of having fun, but also investing in wellness and trying to be healthier people after working so hard. Can you shed a little more light on the just the time Extra what happened? Like, it might have not been a crisis or a DUI or an accident? But can you give us a little bit of color around how you decided you wanted to make a change? And then, what did that look like? How did you go about doing it at first?


Nick Allen  25:15

Yeah. So you know, I would say that, in reflection, the goal of the trip that my wife and I set out together to achieve was really a focus in presence, you know, we wanted to be together, we wanted to kind of understand a new culture together. And we wanted to explore an adventure. And one of the things that we were finding was that we were having a little bit more fun in the evenings. And that was preventing us from fully kind of maximizing the experience of this adventure. So we were waking up, you know, one to many times a week, just feeling like not quite ourselves, not quite energized, and activated to go out and see the world. And you know, and ended up having some ho hum days that just didn't feel like we were capitalizing on the fortunate experience that we had to be on this on this journey together. And so we were really kind of reflecting on why that was, and, and it became apparent that it was those, you know, a bottle or two of wine in the evening that we were having and enjoying ourselves. But ultimately, it kind of is impacting our sleep, it was clearly impacting the energy and mood that we were waking up with. And ultimately, it was kind of holding us back from the experience that we really wanted to have on this trip. And so that was the realization that kind of brought the lens over to alcohol as an area that we can we can optimize and improve to get more out of the time together.


Cecily Mak  26:36

And I have to ask, Where you juxtaposing those days when you weren't feeling that fantastic. alongside those when maybe you didn't drink the night before? Were you experimenting with drink free nights?


Nick Allen  26:47

So I would say we, as we started to connect the dots was when we started to kind of build structure around, you know, being more intentional about when and how much we were going to drink. Because ultimately, like in the first, maybe month or six weeks, we were drinking pretty much every day. And so there wasn't, there wasn't kind of that like this day was better than this day, because they all stay a little bit, right. That's exactly right. And so for us, the first part of the practice was actually like, hey, let's have some days where we plan ahead to not drink. And let's do that together. And that was a really actually key part of the story that brought us to the system that ultimately became Sunnyside was, we would sit down together on Sundays, we would look at our week ahead, and we would commit to ourselves like hey, we're not going to drink, you know, Sunday through Thursday, we're going to kind of give ourselves this space to, you know, do other things, and to maybe focus more on the days than the nights. And, and that simple act of like sitting together. And setting a collective intention for our weeks ahead was part of the thing that had a really profound impact for us. Both of us are the type of drinkers that easier for us to not start than it is for us to stop. When do you start? And so starting by focusing around the days where we didn't start ultimately was the linchpin that brought us towards a kind of healthier overall relationship over time.


Cecily Mak  28:09

Yeah, I get that. So I think a lot of people can relate to this. You're better off not starting then starting and trying to stop yourself. Because one of the wonderful and amazing things that alcohol does for us is take the edge off and make things seem a little bit more loose. And, of course, our judgment around not drinking very much one night is compromised by having a drink, which affects our judgment. So I think people really understand that you're not alone. I certainly remember that too. It was much easier to take a day or evening or weekend or week off and think I could somehow moderate. But going back to that I have to ask is I remember myself having goals like this, I'm not going to drink on school night weeknights, and then by Tuesday or Wednesday that just didn't actually hold up. And I'm curious how, how capable were you to of sticking to it from the beginning? Did you have starts and stops? Did you have to kind of find a certain range of comfort and feasibility that you could then inhabit? Or was it the solidarity of the two of you together that gave you a superpower that maybe you didn't have before? How did that actually work?


Nick Allen  29:21

Yeah, it was, it was a really interesting development for us. You know, in the early days, where we were kind of high motivation and high activation energy around this effort. Committing together upfront was enough to hold each other accountable. But after a few weeks, it did start to feel like a little bit more routine a little bit easier to kind of like, you know, start to ebb our way back into old patterns. And this is actually exactly where the kind of system that became Sunnyside came into play. And I don't mean to self promote so much as No,


Cecily Mak  29:49

no, we want to hear about it. I want to Yeah, we realized


Nick Allen  29:53

that having a kind of third party system to hold us accountable, was actually valuable. And so that started in really analog where we would write it down. And we would kind of make that commitment be something that was physical, and it was outside of our minds, or our kind of single conversation. And that turned into me building a really simple kind of automated tool for us to input our plans. And then, you know, get a call back each day that reminded us about, hey, what that plan was for ourselves. And so no longer Was it me or my wife, saying, like, hey, we said, we weren't gonna drink together, it was this kind of neutral third party system, bumping us the reminder, like, Hey, your intention for today was not to drink, like, let's stick to that. And that's amazing the power of just removing it from being, you know, first party accountability, if you will, like my wife and I having to hold each other accountable to this kind of like, system that was telling that was kind of bringing it back to us, that was a lot harder to lie to, and maybe a lot harder to kind of ignore or something like, Oh, we didn't really mean that. Right. It was it was kind of set in stone. And like, that is exactly what the first version of the Sunnyside product became, was, you know, record a plan, make an intention for each day, really pause and think about the week ahead. And then instead of like the system having to push an agenda on us, right, it wasn't saying like, Hey, don't drink today. It was it was intentional wording around like, this was your intention. Like, you may be feeling lower willpower now than you were on Sunday. But remember, like, you know, high willpower high intention version of yourself a couple of days ago, had this goal. And something about that nuanced change, allowed the efficacy of our system to really kind of persist for the long term. You know, now, we've been doing this together for almost, or actually over four years. And it continues to be a really effective way for us to stay on top of our drinking habits and keep mindful when there's lots of stuff pushing back all the time. Yeah,


Cecily Mak  31:59

that's great. And I get, I get emails from sunny side, and I noticed that there's a there's a pretty consistent Sunday, Monday routine Sunday, you set intentions Mondays, you kind of check in on that, is that is that pervasive throughout your whole user base, this kind of Sunday is the day that you set yourself up?


Nick Allen  32:17

Yeah, we've we've created this ritual. And it's amazing. Now we've got you know, 10s of 1000s of members every Sunday that are kind of coming together, and creating that intention at the same time, and really thinking about their week ahead, you know, we've layered in an element of peer coaching and community so you can engage with others around those intentions and around those plans. But ultimately, the the kind of core of the system remains this, create a plan up front, get daily nudges to remind you about the intention that you had for yourself, and now kind of engage around, you know, a community of people who are pursuing those same goals.


Cecily Mak  32:51

Yeah. And talk about third party accountability and the power of that you're really in it now. Because


32:57

you, you have a whole company and a team and


Cecily Mak  33:01

investors alike. So curious, do you ever have moments where you just kind of hand on face? What have I done? And now I really have to stick to this, like, what's your own journey been like now that you've, you're so public and open about these decisions?


Nick Allen  33:16

Yeah, you know, it's been really interesting. And I think it continues to be, for me a constant evaluation of my own habits when it comes to drinking, as well as making sure that we're doing right by the large base of members that we've built up around the Sunnyside brand. And so for me, that feeling of accountability is really amplified most by this population of people who are working on the same system together, right, the system that I happen to have created, but that is really now much larger than I think my own personal journey when it comes to to healthier drinking. And so it does help to know that I've kind of am a leader and a figurehead in this community to kind of stay on top of myself. But I am still consistently reevaluating my own relationship. You know, up until this point, complete sobriety still doesn't feel like the right fit. But I continue to have moments here and there where I have not stayed on my plan, or I've gotten a little bit bigger than I may have wanted to in a weekend. And the question is still there. And I think that that's a really healthy part of this journey. Right? Not to say like, Hey, I've, you know, had a few years of a much more healthy relationship with alcohol. So I've beaten the game, right. It's it's a consistent effort and a consistent component of the journey. Yeah. And you know, I don't close the door to sobriety down the road, if that ends up feeling like the right thing for me, as is the same for many, many other members in the community where often Sunnyside is the starting point. And sobriety is the goal. Yeah, and just as often it's not. And then both of those are really, I would say, beautiful and important journeys with great potential outcomes.


Cecily Mak  34:52

Yeah. I appreciate you just speaking to a question I've had which is how much you consider or just pure abstinence, whether you want to label yourself as sober or not, just because it's easier, I think a lot of people navigate the moderation journey, you know, for weeks, months or years. And then I hear often, there's a certain point where it just seems simpler and easier to abstain altogether. And it sounds like from what you're sharing that that is the path for some people, it might be the path for you. But one of the beauties of the Sunnyside offering is that you support a whole myriad of relationships with alcohol, there isn't one right way. I think that's something that I connected with you on from the very outset of our conversation. This doesn't have to be prescriptive, there's no one way. And and it


Nick Allen  35:46

doesn't have to be 12 steps, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. It doesn't have to be all or nothing right now, there's just so many different pads to take on this journey. And my perspective is, as long as you're on a path, and the role of you know, you're considering alcohol in the context of your health, and you're evaluating what that looks like, and how that relationship is evolving over time. That to me is the key. Because I think there's far too many people who drink and kind of don't consider it in the context of the impact that it has on both short and long term health outcomes. And that's the opportunity, right? There are many, many people who have found a path to sobriety. And that is kind of without question, the optimal path for maximizing health outcomes. But the vast majority of others who drink just, it's not on the radar yet. And the dots have not yet been connected between drinking and sleep, and mood and energy levels and anxiety, not to mention kind of long term health outcomes. And that's the population that I think if we can activate by creating a wider and more welcoming entry point that we can, we can really have a huge impact.


Cecily Mak  37:01

Yeah, and it's absolutely poetic that you just spoke to that the way that you did, because this is the eighth and final episode of season one of the undimmed podcast, there is no one right way to do this. Every guest has had such a different experience and journey and reason, and reflection and healing. And you know, all of the above and the way that you speak to your experience and the way that you're offering something to the world with which they can explore their own without a bunch of shame, or stigma or labels attached is fantastic. I think that that's that's really the invitation of this work is the literally 10s of millions of people who have some curiosity around their relationship with something. And that's all you need to do is be curious, have an awareness, keep your mind open, learn stuff, try things, you know, navigate us as best we can. So thank you so much for that. And I have one, one final question i i ask most of our guests, which is if you could go back to a version of yourself before you made changes, and in your case before you really committed to this more conscious mindful relationship with alcohol. So maybe you're drinking a bottle of wine or to everyday in Mexico? Or maybe it was in those years, when you were working really, really hard. And in a emerging late stage startup leading up to those times in Mexico. What would you tell yourself? That that version of you then knowing what you know, now?


Nick Allen  38:40

Yeah, so it's a really good question. You know, I think the key is, is really thinking, what I know now that I didn't know then was that it's possible to have just as much enjoyment with a lot less kind of external substance to power it. Right. You know, I think what I really found is that now having two, three, even four drinks, which I think is considered to be right up against the line of you know, quote, unquote, heavy drinking is a lot more enjoyable, both in the moment, and the next day than having, you know, 789 drinks, which was really typical for me, if not more, in that stage of my life. And so I think, as I've started to really reflect on, you know, my own relationship with alcohol, the, the key messages that I know now that I wish I had known where, how much is opened and unlocked. When you're consuming consciously, right, ultimately, and when you're focusing not just on finishing one and going on to the next but taking that pause and checking in and starting to kind of hone in on the realisation that like at a certain point, the next drink, makes your experience objectively worse and not objectively better. And I think you know, moderation is still hard, right? As we've talked about, but But when you really bring consciousness to that realization, that's the thing, I think that has been really key to, to my own journey. And I think the other thing that's that's key to me that I've also realized in not drinking more often than drinking is, how many people kind of are just going going with the motion, right? I think in my past, there was this, you know, I'm out at a work event on a Tuesday and like, there's free wine, so I'm going to drink it. And what I realized of late is kind of not drinking or choosing the soda water on those events, you see that there's this ripple effect of people around you that do the same. And so it's very funny to see that to go against the grain often is, it's harder to do. But it's really rewarding to kind of see that there's others around you that are thinking the same thing, but maybe not sure how to act on that on that realization. So yeah, another key lesson I've learned.


Cecily Mak  40:50

Yeah. And it often creates a space that's safe for people to make decisions that they might be inclined to, but afraid to make. I have this one memory myself of taking an investor meeting, quote over a drink in New York once when I was fundraising for a company that I was with. And I was in my first six months alcohol free. And I remember walking through Brooklyn terrified of how I was going to handle the situation, because the seal the deal moment was the single malt on the rocks with the investor. And I know how to do that, well. We got to the bar and the bar was closed. Because we were so early, it was like 430, in the afternoon or something. And we turned around trying to find the next spot. And we went to a little cafe that did had drinks as well, but also various healthy foods and whatnot. And I remember sitting down looking at the menu, and when the waiter came ordering the green juice and thinking it's totally cool that I ordered the Gene Green Juice, because we're in this kind of like hippie Cafe now. And the investor looked over at me said, You know what, that actually sounds really good. I'll have a green juice, too.


Nick Allen  41:59

I love it. Yeah, awesome.


Cecily Mak  42:01

I was relieved and excited. I think we even had an email exchange the next day about how correct we felt because we went to a closed bar.


Nick Allen  42:09

Yeah. And it's so empowering to realize that you're not alone on this journey. And others just total, the key message in this is like, you know, one in three people consume what could be considered an unhealthy amount, and like, a lot of that population is interested in, in making a change. And when you pull out the stigma, and you pull out the fear, and you pull out this kind of default on experience of drinking, it's it's viral credit spreads. And it's amazing how many people are kind of holding that same intention, right under the surface, if you can get to it. Yeah,


Cecily Mak  42:43

I mean, after years of worrying that not drinking was making other people uncomfortable. I'm finally myself and it sounds like you are to starting to realize in a weird way, it's actually of service socially, because there's probably someone else who's gonna be really happy, or something else if we opt out first. And so hey, you know, why not? Nick, I could talk to you for another hour, but we try to keep this podcast at a manageable length, we'll have to continue our conversation over lunch or coffee sometime. It has been so wonderful to have you. I'm so grateful for the work that you are putting into the world and offering the tools that you do and the perspective that you share. I know you're helping many visible and many invisible people as well. So thank you for that. Likewise,


Nick Allen  43:30

I've loved being a part of your journey as well. And I'm just so excited to continue to build our relationship and thank you for having me on.


Cecily Mak  43:37

Absolutely. Okay. Be well, my friend Nick Allen is co founder and CEO of Sunnyside. A program created to help anyone who drinks alcohol improve their health and wellness by building mindfulness around their consumption. You've been listening to unfound I'm Cecily Mac. If you like what you heard, please subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're moved to do so, please leave a rating. It really does help others find us. This is the last episode of our first season of the undimmed podcast. Thank you for being on this journey with us. We're already planning our next season and have a fantastic list of guests lined up. This summer I'm going to be focusing on finishing my book, undimmed awareness practices to reclaim power agency and freedom from unwanted habits. This is where I do a deep dive into what I refer to as the eight awarenesses mind my own approach that I've been co developing with the insights and learnings from many of you to how we can live a more conscious and present life If you can continue to connect with our other offerings, as outlined here in the show undimmed is part of a larger movement called Clear life. To learn more about clear life, you can go to my website, Cecily mac.com That's ce CILYM a k, or subscribe to my substack also under my name undimmed is produced by Joanne Jennings. Thank you so much. Joanne metocean mixes and masters the show, Laura and Sarah composed and recorded our music, and Megan Belden provides social media and marketing support. Thank you for joining us, be well. Oh, I got all emotional thanking you all right.


45:52

Should we leave? It's, it's up to you. I mean, I think natural is good. So I think it's great. Okay, I'm gonna stop recording

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