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You can stick to your plan most of the week, make better choices, feel more aware—and still wake up after one off night and think, “Nothing’s changing. I knew I’d end up right back here.” That moment has less to do with the drinking, and more to do with the thoughts that rush in after. In psychology, these are called cognitive distortions—mental habits that make a single slip feel like proof you don’t actually have control, or that your progress isn’t real. In today’s episode, we go through ten of the most common distortions that show up around drinking, including why your brain zooms in on the bad night and ignores the good ones, why feeling guilty doesn’t actually mean you’re off track, and why these thoughts tend to show up strongest right when real change is happening.
Want to drink less with no pressure to quit? Visit https://ctbk.co/4doo5dq for a free 15-day trial of the Sunnyside digital app.
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Listen to Journey to the Sunnyside Podcast: https://bit.ly/4bxCqT3
Subscribe to Sunnyside’s YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/3zuoID4
CONNECT WITH SUNNYSIDE:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joinsunnyside/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joinsunnyside/
- Twitter: https://x.com/joinsunnyside
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@joinsunnyside
ABOUT SUNNYSIDE: Sunnyside is the #1 alcohol moderation app that helps you drink less without any shame, guilt, or pressure to quit. Optimize your alcohol habits to achieve benefits like sleeping better, losing weight, feeling more energy, and saving money. We know that an all-or-nothing approach doesn’t work for everyone, so we focus on helping you set your own goals, celebrate small wins, and build a lasting system of accountability. As a result, 96.7% of our members see a big drop in their drinking after 90 days.
Disclaimer: This podcast is not intended as medical advice, and the views of the guests may not represent the views of Sunnyside. If you’re concerned about your health or alcohol use, please consider seeking advice from a doctor.
Want to drink less with no pressure to quit? Visit https://ctbk.co/4doo5dq for a free 15-day trial of the Sunnyside digital app.
--
Listen to Journey to the Sunnyside Podcast: https://bit.ly/4bxCqT3
Subscribe to Sunnyside’s YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/3zuoID4
CONNECT WITH SUNNYSIDE:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joinsunnyside/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joinsunnyside/
- Twitter: https://x.com/joinsunnyside
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@joinsunnyside
ABOUT SUNNYSIDE: Sunnyside is the #1 alcohol moderation app that helps you drink less without any shame, guilt, or pressure to quit. Optimize your alcohol habits to achieve benefits like sleeping better, losing weight, feeling more energy, and saving money. We know that an all-or-nothing approach doesn’t work for everyone, so we focus on helping you set your own goals, celebrate small wins, and build a lasting system of accountability. As a result, 96.7% of our members see a big drop in their drinking after 90 days.
Disclaimer: This podcast is not intended as medical advice, and the views of the guests may not represent the views of Sunnyside. If you’re concerned about your health or alcohol use, please consider seeking advice from a doctor.
Creators and Guests
What is Journey to the Sunnyside?
Journey to the Sunnyside is a top 1% podcast, reaching over 500,000 listeners every week. It’s your guide to exploring mindful living with alcohol—whether you're cutting back, moderating, or thinking about quitting.
While Sunnyside helps you reduce your drinking, this podcast goes further, diving into topics like mindful drinking, sober curiosity, moderation, and full sobriety. Through real stories, expert insights, and science-backed strategies, we help you find what actually works for your journey.
Hosted by Mike Hardenbrook, a #1 best-selling author and neuroscience enthusiast, the show is dedicated to helping people transform their relationship with alcohol—without shame, judgment, or rigid rules.
This podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the leading platform for mindful drinking. Want to take the next step in your journey? Head over to sunnyside.co for a free 15-day trial.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in our episodes do not necessarily represent those of Sunnyside. We’re committed to sharing diverse perspectives on health and wellness. If you’re concerned about your drinking, please consult a medical professional. Sunnyside, this podcast, and its guests are not necessarily medical providers and the content is not medical advice. We do not endorse drinking in any amount.
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another one of these ten minute Mondays. And before we get going into the holidays here full swing, we have Thanksgiving this upcoming Thursday. There's gonna be a lot of opportunities for times to slip up, to break our commitments. And here's the thing, is that perfection, that's not expected.
Speaker 1:Of course, we wanna give it the best that we can and do everything we can to be successful, to meet our goals, and to stick to our commitments. But we're all human. We're all people just doing the best that we can. So today, I wanna talk about something that shows up quite often in this big journey that we're on around alcohol, and that is the story that starts running around in your head, especially in these times when the possibility of slipping up can happen, and that's why I wanna have this conversation. And so some of these thoughts that I'm talking about are usually based in guilt and shame kind of direction, but there's actually psychology I want to talk to you about called cognitive distortions, and we're going get into that because there's 10 of those.
Speaker 1:But first, let's just go through a couple of these examples of thoughts that I'm talking about. Like, I actually said I wasn't going to do this again and look where I am now. Or other people seem to figure this out. Why is this so difficult for me? What's wrong with me?
Speaker 1:Or maybe this is exactly why I don't fully trust myself around alcohol, or maybe finally something like I wasn't even having a good time. You know, I was, like, ready to call it a night. Why didn't I stop? So these are all thoughts that are very typical. And the funniest thing about this is that if you heard someone else saying these things out loud.
Speaker 1:Right? Or maybe if you could step out of your own thoughts and out of your own body and observe yourself, you'd probably tell yourself, take a breath. Right? And I might even go as far as to tell myself, which, by the way, before I say this, only because I'm telling to myself, I would never say this to somebody else, but I would tell myself, hey. Get a grip.
Speaker 1:You're being dramatic, to be honest. So from the outside, though, that's not really the case when we're in our own heads and our own thoughts and from the inside. All of this that we're telling ourselves feels very believable and even almost factual. And I mentioned something called cognitive distortions. So these are things that tend to show up in these moments when we break our commitments and get in our own heads.
Speaker 1:And these are really common mental habits where the brain takes one moment, turns it into something that's bigger, a harsher story than it actually is. And so there are 10 of these I'm gonna walk through today that show up specifically around drinking, especially when we had more than we planned. And the reason I'm going to run through these is not to give you a big fix. It's not to replace your thinking with positive thinking. It's to take notice of them and be aware of them when they show up.
Speaker 1:Because when you can name these actual distortions that show up in your thoughts and you recognize that it's going on, you might not confuse them with the truth. Okay. Number one is all or nothing thinking. We mentioned that sort of thing here. This is a little bit different, but it if it wasn't perfect, it was a failure.
Speaker 1:That's basically the definition of this. So I planned two drinks and I had four. Yeah. Freaking blew it. I I'm just gonna restart all over again here.
Speaker 1:It really didn't mean anything up until this point. And people really do get this hard on themselves. So this thinking style deletes any progress and replaces it with a pass or fail logic. And there's no space for better than before thinking. So we want to recognize that.
Speaker 1:Number two is overgeneralizing. One night becomes the whole story. I messed up last night. I always do this. Nothing has really changed up until now.
Speaker 1:So that one moment turns into a personal pattern even when the rest of the week was a totally different story. All right. Number three is mental filtering. This is going to sound a little bit similar to overgeneralizing, but it's different. So your brain highlights the slip up and hides the progress.
Speaker 1:So for example, you stayed on track all week, but Saturday, there was a mess up and that's all that matters. So the progress it's happening, but you don't feel it because emotionally, the slip up, it takes the center stage. Number four is discounting the positive. This is where the progress really doesn't count. So this, yeah, but kind of attitude.
Speaker 1:So I stuck with my plan, but it was an easy week, so it doesn't really count. So this blocks momentum. You improve, but you're not letting yourself feel the improvement. And number five is jumping to conclusions, which is pretty much making assumptions, assuming that you know what others think about you or how things will end up. So for example, they saw me drinking four drinks and I already talked to on my Facebook about doing mindful drinking.
Speaker 1:And I'm sure that they now think I can control myself, for example. Or maybe just I know how all of this is gonna end up, you know, as far as going out and having drinks or something. So these are thoughts that aren't based necessarily on evidence. They're just guesses, predictions that are disguised in our own mind as certainty. Okay.
Speaker 1:Number six is magnification, turning a manageable moment into a looming big problem. For example, last night wasn't just a slip up. This is gonna be a real issue for me just based off yesterday. So it's the mind moving fast forward, full speed into worry instead of staying with what actually happened in observing in that way. Number seven is emotional reasoning.
Speaker 1:So it's this formula of I feel it, so it must be true kind of thinking. So for example, I feel guilty, so I must have done something wrong. I had too much to drink or I said something stupid or whatever it is. If you're feeling it, that's what you're thinking is going on. Or I feel out of control or I feel like I should have done better.
Speaker 1:So that must be my reality. Now feelings, they do matter, but feelings are something that don't automatically make everything in your life become backed. Okay. Number eight is should statements. So expectations disguised as criticisms.
Speaker 1:So for example, I should be doing better by now. And they also worse for shouldn't. I shouldn't need this much effort to change. So these should statements, they don't guide our behaviors and they add a lot of pressure to ourselves. Number nine is labeling.
Speaker 1:So turning a moment into part of your identity. You know, I keep messing up or I keep slipping up. Maybe I'm just not a disciplined person. Maybe I'm a weak person. So instead of noticing a behavior, you're assigning yourself a label based on that behavior.
Speaker 1:And I've said this all the time that our behaviors, yeah, they do make up part of who we are, but they certainly are not our identity and our identities are better placed with labels if you want to use labels at all. I'm not even a big fan of them in general. Alright. Number 10 is personalization and blame. Taking on way too much responsibility or and I don't really think this applies to our audience that is listening here.
Speaker 1:None at all. So for example, like everything in the night or I ruined the night because I overdid it. Or the other end, it's not even my fault. It just, you know, it's what happens when I drink. It's not my fault.
Speaker 1:And both block reflection, one with shame, the other with denial. Alright. So we just went through 10 cognitive distortions as it relates to mindful drinking and a lot of the inner dialogue that we have. And for most of us, really, a lot of it is not the drinking that makes us feel stuck necessarily that actual action. It's a lot of times the thoughts and the meanings that we attach to it.
Speaker 1:And even though these thoughts are normal, they show up because we actually do care, but you don't have to argue with yourself like this. You don't have to feel worse because of these things. You just have to notice them more when they happen so that you realize that it's not necessarily the truth. It's not the fact. And sometimes you can just use the expression, this is just a thought.
Speaker 1:I don't have to turn it into my story. Alright. Thanks for hanging out with me this week. I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving. I hope you enjoy yourselves and spend time with the loved ones and also make sure to be kind to yourself, be good to yourself and love yourself until next time.
Speaker 1:Cheers to your mindful drinking journey.