Alcohol Minimalist: Change Your Drinking Habits! | Catching up with Sunnyside: Mindful Drinking with Ian Andersen

Show Notes

This week on the podcast, I'm catching up with  Ian Andersen, co-founder and CGO for Sunnyside, formerly Cutback Coach.

We're talking about the vision for Sunnyside and how people are using the app to support mindful drinking. 

From the website: "Some people think that cutting back on drinking is all about having less. But at Sunnyside, we’re all about having more. More rested mornings, more days when you’re feeling your absolute best, more energy and positivity. We’re not here to say “don’t go out” or “never drink”. We’re here to help you to enjoy your life AND wake up ready to shine your brightest."

"Sunnyside is a system for creating a more mindful approach to drinking to help you reach your goals. Our members are seeing major benefits, including a reduction in weekly drinks, improved sleep, a healthier diet, money saved, and an overall improved sense of well-being."

Resources Mentioned: 

Episode 23 (Cutback Coach now Sunnyside) 

Sunnyside.co/minimalist

Mindful Drinkers Community

Buy Breaking the Bottle Legacy: How to Change Your Drinking Habits and Create A Peaceful Relationship with Alcohol on Amazon or most online retailers. 

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Low risk drinking guidelines from the NIAAA:

Healthy men under 65:

No more than 4 drinks in one day and no more than 14 drinks per week.

Healthy women (all ages) and healthy men 65 and older: No more than 3 drinks in one day and no more than 7 drinks per week.

One drink is defined as 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor. So remember that a mixed drink or full glass of wine are probably more than one drink.

Abstinence from alcohol Abstinence from alcohol is the best choice for people who take medication(s) that interact with alcohol, have health conditions that could be exacerbated by alcohol (e.g. liver disease), are pregnant or may become pregnant or have had a problem with alcohol or another substance in the past.

Benefits of “low-risk” drinking Following these guidelines reduces the risk of health problems such as cancer, liver disease, reduced immunity, ulcers, sleep problems, complications of existing conditions, and more. It also reduces the risk of depression, social problems, and difficulties at school or work.

If you' are unsure about whether or not you have alcohol use disorder, please visit the NIAAA for more information. 

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What is Alcohol Minimalist: Change Your Drinking Habits! ?

The Alcohol Minimalist podcast is dedicated to helping habit drinkers and adult children of alcoholics to change their drinking habits and create a peaceful relationship with alcohol: past, present and future.

We are proof positive that you can break unbreakable habits and create a peaceful relationship with alcohol.

Becoming an alcohol minimalist means:
Choosing how to include alcohol in our lives following low-risk guidelines.
Freedom from anxiety around alcohol use.
Less alcohol without feeling deprived.
Using the power of our own brains to overcome our past patterns and choose peace.
The Alcohol Minimalist Podcast explores the science behind alcohol and analyzes physical and mental wellness to empower choice. You have the power to change your relationship with alcohol, you are not sick, broken and it's not your genes!

This show is intended for educational purposes and does not constitute medical advice. If you are physically dependent on alcohol, please seek medical help to reduce your drinking.

Hey, it's Molly from alcohol minimalist. What do you do in this October? I would love to have you join me in my more sober October challenge. What do I mean by more sober October, it simply means that we're going to add in more alcohol free days than you currently been doing, whether that's one or two or 31. It's up to you, you get to set your own goal and that's why it's more sober October. You can check it out and learn more at get got sunnyside.co/molly It's totally free. I've got prizes, I'm going to be going live every week to announce the prize winners. And it's just going to be an awesome event. So I would love to have you join me. You can learn more at get.sunnyside.co/molly and you can get registered today. Welcome to the alcohol minimalist podcast. I'm your host Molly watts. If you want to change your drinking habits and create a peaceful relationship with alcohol, you're in the right place. This podcast explores the strategies I use to overcome a lifetime of family alcohol abuse, more than 30 years of anxiety and worry about my own drinking, and what felt like an unbreakable daily drinking habit. Becoming an alcohol minimalist means removing excess alcohol from your life. So it doesn't remove you from life. It means being able to take alcohol or leave it without feeling deprived. It means to live peacefully, being able to enjoy a glass of wine without feeling guilty and without needing to finish the bottle. With Science on our side will shatter your past patterns and eliminate your excuses. Changing your relationship with alcohol is possible. I'm here to help you do it. Let's start now. Well hello and welcome or welcome back to the alcohol minimalist podcast with me your host, Molly Watts coming to you from a kind of gray, Oregon, but it was actually fairly dry today was sunny for a little bit. But I do want to update you all because I think it's important for those of you that are in the rest of the country and you probably think that you just hear me moan and whine about Oregon and how wet it's been but we have had we I finally saw this statistic, the wettest April on record in April this year. Okay, so it wasn't all in my head. It didn't just feel like it was really raining a lot. It actually was. So there you go. Anyway, today on the podcast, I am talking to Ian Anderson and is one of the cofounders of Sunnyside formally cutback coach. And we are just catching up. He's bringing me up to date on all the things that have been going on over there at Sunnyside for the last year or so since the last time they were on the show. And just want to have a conversation continued conversation about how people are making a decision to have a more mindful relationship with alcohol. And especially coming out of COVID. We are officially right coming out of COVID I hope so. But it's really changed people's drinking habits and we need to take it seriously and we need to decide to create this peaceful relationship with alcohol that I talk about all the time. So here is my conversation with Ian Anderson. Hey, Ian, how are you? Thank you so much for taking the time and being with me here on the alcohol minimalist podcast. You're very welcome. It's good to be back, Molly. Yeah, absolutely. So I gave a brief intro just coming into this to kind of set the groundwork for who you are. But we've had you on the show before you and I have worked together. Sunnyside is, you know, definitely partnering with alcohol minimalists right now and I really wanted to have you back on the show because over the course of the time that we've talked and worked on really mindset stuff around people's alcohol use and of course your wonderful app you guys have gone through a brand change and things are just really hopping and Bob and over there at Sunnyside formerly cut back coach so I wanted to catch up with you on the podcast so that we could talk about it and talk about the the philosophy behind it and what's been going on and then I do want to talk about a little bit more of the data and just I don't know we're gonna dig in. But let's start with the rebrand. All right, so cut back coach when I first talked with you guys, that was you know, the you were just getting going you're just starting this app and and even describe it a little bit because not everybody that's listening has even knows what we're talking about yet. Sure. So to start, let's start with cut back coach the the origin of where we are today. Cut that coach was designed to be a system that myself and Nick my co founder would personally use in our own lives to help us plan and monitor and essentially cut back on our own drinking. Without any pressure to quit, we wanted to create something that was that felt like a fitness tracker, or a neum. You know, kind of like knew specifically for alcohol, something that would help us build healthier habits and stay on top of our own health goals. Neither of us wanted to quit drinking. I mean, Nick and I both come from similar sort of backgrounds. We enjoy drinking in college and have both had moments in our lives where we felt like we were drinking too much and have I personally explored with, you know, taking periods of tricking off cutting back and by using sunny side now cut back which now Sunnyside, I do find myself. I mean, to be perfectly honest, drinking quite a bit less since starting this company. And a lot of it has to do with sort of the education and the tools that Sunnyside gives us. So I'll just go really quickly. But fundamentally, it's an app, it's a service that helps you plan track and monitor your alcohol consumption, no pressure to quit. And there's a coaching element as well, where we connect you with real human coaches only if you want it via text message. And our members on average cut back their drinking by 30% in the first 30 days, and it goes up to about 40% in 60 days, and it's it's only about 850 a month if you sign up for the annual plan. Yeah, it's awesome. I used cutback coach myself. And now Sunnyside I'm sorry to call it that. Sir, when I first started, I used it. And of course, you know, and I recommend it. And I tell people about it all the time. Because it really is it's one of the most just thoughtful useful tools for really setting a plan with intention to which is something I really like about the program is that it's not just tracking, like what you've done in the past, but also planning ahead for the future. Yeah, that's really important to us. And one of the things we're really proud of is our algorithm recommends a specific plan for you on a weekly basis based on your past tracking history, and on your original diagnostic that you set up. But we adapt to your goals over time. And we let you also adjust in case in case there's specific things going on in your life. If you're going to Mexico for a trip, we celebrate that and we want you to have fun. We just want you to put a plan in place so that you hold yourself accountable. And that's what we're really all about when it comes to mindful drinking is understanding how alcohol is impacting you in the moment and making the best decisions. Yeah, so Okay, so we're plugging right along, cut back coach, all's well, actually what I think is really interesting. You and I were talking about this before we jumped on. So the company actually launched in October of 2020, not as a reflection of what was already becoming apparent to the world that COVID was going to impact everybody's drinking but it was specific more to like a situation for Nick where he was on vacation and trying to figure this out for himself came back and then it but but talk about some timing and some synergy with the world because COVID definitely has changed many people's relationships with alcohol and not necessarily for the better. Absolutely, we did launch around October 2020. And I don't think at the time we even realized how helpful a service like cut back which was going to be or let's just say Sunnyside for people in the moment. It took a little while for us to find the research that was really showing how much substance use was increasing during the pandemic period. And what when we really started to get members on board and have these one on one conversations. It wasn't really until then that we realized COVID was one of the biggest triggers people were kind of generalizing the triggers into COVID. And what that broke down to was things like being at home, boredom, having to take on additional stresses with the family and sort of family management. And we didn't specifically around the study, but there were there were a lot of studies. What one of the ones that sticks out to us the most is how women were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. And I don't want to misquote anything, but I do believe it's because they often are the ones that have to take care of the family in situations like this. And women disproportionately saw substance use increase to problematic levels that we haven't seen in a very long time. So when we look at the demographics of Sunnyside, we did notice that a majority of our users are women. And maybe that's because of the need But it's definitely something that we saw correlate to the to the research trends that were out there. Yeah, you guys actually I was talking to GT there's you guys did a joint study later so after you know been around for a while and really kind of right out right before you became Sunnyside, officially a joint study with Ipsos that was really interesting. And this is what I'm going to read it specifically because I think it's very important. I want people to hear this really reflective I think of especially the pandemic drinking. The study found that despite many cities reopening 82% of people mostly drink at home, while out one out of three say they drink mostly alone, which is scary in him not scary, but you know, it's it's can lead to more problems, I think when it's when you're alone. In fact, Americans are drinking primarily to manage stress. 66% of Americans are drinking to reduce stress or unwind while only 11% are drinking to celebrate. And most Americans are also drinking at a higher clip both more frequently 50% Or are drinking more than three times a week and more intensely with 48%. Drinking three or more drinks at a time. Fine. Those are significant findings for any study, but especially with reflection on the pandemic and timely for Sunnyside timely, like I said, Yeah, indeed. The first thing that I want to say is like at Sunnyside, most of the folks that we work with do drink alcohol. And we most of us have been able to recognize ourselves in sometimes in these statistics. So that's to say, we do not judge people for drinking at home. But if people decide that they do want to cut back and change those habits, that's exactly what we're for. I do. I do agree that 82% of people mostly drinking at home does seem like a high number. I wish we had a better metric on how much that's increased since pre pandemic. But I can tell you for sure. I don't get involved in the coaching queue as much as I used to. It's a very delightful part of the Sunnyside experience. But I used to actually have the opportunity to chat with members who needed a nudge or some motivation. And I think probably the thing that people needed help cutting back on the most was the end of the day drink when they're unwinding at dinner. And maybe the kids are around. And what we noticed a lot of the conversations, where they went was I've been at home all day, I haven't left the house. And now I have to cook and take care of the family. So I'm going to have my nightly drink but over COVID That turned into one or two or three or four drinks every night. And it sort of became that that habit. And I think this is really where Sunnyside it fits the bill really well. People who are kind of falling into those habits and it becomes a norm for them for them are considering themselves alcoholics, they're raising their hand and saying I want to cut back because I'm starting to feel like this is a slippery slope. And I want support in that. And I don't want people to necessarily judge me and call me an alcoholic. And that's something that's really near and dear to us is trying to de stigmatize the idea that it's okay to say, I want to come back to my drinking and not and not be judged for that. Yeah, so 100% You and I, you know, we speak the same language when it comes to that. So that is 100%. And that's I you know, for myself, that was, I wish that Sunday you guys should have been developing this app like 20 years ago would have been really good at Oh, that's what you guys would have been like teenagers. Okay. But anyway, I turned from the same thing just from in, you know, one or two drinks or a night to three or four. And that's, you know, it's not it's just simply not a great habit to for yourself. I mean, I share a lot of the science over here on this podcast about why that's problematic. Not to mention the, the rebound anxiety that people have from it, you know, and that's one of the things that I think Sunnyside really helps with too. So we're, I'm taking you on all these different little tangents. But now back to it. We're back. We're like in the end of 2021. And suddenly I get an email from you and you say, Molly, we are completely rebranding cut back coach, and I was like, what why I like cut back to like the name of it. It's all good. What's going on? So tell me about the the mindset and the vision for the change from cutback coach to Sunnyside? Yeah, thank you. I appreciate the question. We do love the name the alliteration. It's kind of a cute name. It's very memorable. Yes, you can. You can remember it and search for it pretty easily. But the rebrand is fundamentally driven by our mission to be the best alcohol service for anyone that wants to build healthier habits and we We felt like that we were getting fairly consistent feedback that the name felt too narrowly focused on people that wanted to cut back on their drinking and, or that it felt judgmental, like we were telling people that they weren't drinking too much. Yeah. And you know, not everyone that uses Sunnyside actually has that intention. I will say the majority does, most people do. But we also want to be a service that once you hit your goals after cutting back that you can maintain, and so we don't always want to push people to cut back, you can join an alcohol health service like Sunnyside, just to start adding dry days into your week or to say when I drink I don't want to binge drink as much. So making small changes to your drinking habits can have pretty profound impacts. And it can help you decrease the the next day anxiety and help you really feel like alcohol is not slipping away from you. But that is something that you can enjoy. So we looked at a lot of names. We're we're sort of marketers at heart Nick and I are at by trade. So we took this rebrand very seriously. But Sunnyside to us really represents like a destination. It's it's even though it's different for everybody it's it's we can all relate to the idea of like finding a sunnier disposition in our lives and like making progress toward that goal. So it sounds a little cheesy and sometimes branding is but that's truly what it represents to us is making sure that we don't leave people out, but that we're all inclusive when it comes to alcohol health. Yeah, and it's going it's going really well for us. Honestly, our members didn't really care, which which you generally expect with a rebrand. But more importantly, it's really helped us expand the story. It helps us get more creative with our sort of marketing and branding, how we go to market and how we talk about alcohol health. And I think one of the more surprising things that I didn't expect, this is getting a little sort of nerdy on the on the business side, but it's kind of fun. It's the it's enabled us to have really a lot more natural conversations with leaders and partners in the alcohol space. Because when we were talking to folks, like let's just say we're talking to a big Non, a big non alcohol beverage company, and we're called a cutback coach, they don't really want to be associated with the business that's trying to tell people to cut back because they don't they don't do that themselves. But as soon as we rebranded to Sunnyside, they were like, yes, we we are absolutely aligned with your mission, we too want to help people find balance and mindfulness. So just that alone has helped us kind of establish ourselves more as a lifestyle brand, I would say something that people can use without having the requirements cut back on their drinking. I think that's awesome. I do I agree with that complete, I mean, I really can see why that would be so beneficial, especially within that the realms of other alcohol brands that are non alcoholic brands that are trying to because it's always about you know, there is such a negative association, right with using alcohol in terms of an overusing alcohol, and you can't ever decide to reduce the amount that you're drinking without someone asking you or thinking or you're worried that someone's thinking, Well, yeah, he must have a problem, right? I mean, so you don't you don't take actions, this is something that I think is really, obviously needs to be changed in a global way we have to not and that this kind of what I know the the blog post that I shared with you guys, and just knowing your alcohol number, it's like it this really shouldn't be anything like negative whatsoever. It should just simply be right, which is his we should be treating something that is it's as common sense, right? If you're going to include alcohol in your life, you need to do it in a mindful way. There's, I mean, is that really all that hard to understand, folks? It's like, you know, you wouldn't, there's just there's so many things that we can say ensure there is there is enough data that tells us that there are many people that are served by not better served by not drinking alcohol at all. And I'm you know, that's that's not not to be argued with. But that doesn't mean that that that's the only way to improve everyone's alcohol health. And the more that we set up the world in black and white, right and wrong, good or bad, the less opportunity we have to help to help more people. I couldn't agree more and I just want to share my my own version of that when, you know several years ago, I was working at a startup that was fantastic. And we we started we created a bit of a Hangout after work and drinking culture and I Um, you know that I think it's okay to also admit that alcohol kind of create is habit forming. I don't want to use the word addictive. We know it is technically. So I don't want to deny that either. But like, it became habit forming in the work environment that I was in. It was it made me gain weight, I was working out less, I would have more anxiety at work. And I decided at one point, like for my, for my own personal health, I'm just gonna take three months off. That's a lot. That's a lot. So I wanted, I wanted to make some big changes, I wanted to get back into shape, I wanted to feel like myself, and not not, I didn't want to prioritize. After work bars, I wanted to prioritize my own health. Doing that was hard. Because almost more because of the pressure that I felt from my friends and peers to drink. And also to have to explain to them what I was doing. It felt somewhat shameful. And looking back, I'm extremely proud that I did that. And I've done that. I haven't taken that much time off of drinking since then. But I certainly take weeks and a month every now and then just sort of reset. I personally don't think there's anything wrong with taking periods of time off of drinking to reset your own health and mental wellness. I think it's actually pretty critical. Yeah, so I'm right there with you. Hey, guys, just a quick break in this week's show with Ian Anderson from sunny side to talk with you a little bit more about sunny side. So I have known Nick and in the founders of Sunnyside for just over a year now I've been watching the company grow. And I have to tell you, I'm just so impressed. They are deeply mission driven. And they are building a service that's really dedicated to help millions of people create a healthier relationship with alcohol without the pressure to quit or feel guilty. So of course, you know this aligns completely with everything I talk about here at alcohol, minimalist. Think of Sunnyside as a digital coach that helps you set a plan for the week, and provides tools to track your drinks and measure your progress. All while using proven behavior change techniques to create lasting habit change. It's super easy to start, super easy to stick to. And it includes a 15 day free trial. So you can test it out. Head over to sunny side dot CEO slash minimalist to get started today. I'm a big proponent of including multiple alcohol free days in your week. I mean, it's just I never took a full month off. Let's not talk about way back when when I was pregnant. But intentionally I never took a full month off of alcohol until I had been really working on my habit for almost two years. Now because I would have never been ready to I would have never been mentally it sounded just like impossible. First of all, and it's it the the fear of not being able to do it kept me stuck in the not trying for a long time. Like I was too worried about the fact that it what what does it mean, if I try to do this, and I can't. So I really encourage people to meet themselves where they're at first, absolutely start there, start small, and then start adding alcohol free days in you know, adding about one alcohol free day a week is is just, you know, over the course of 50 to the course of the years, you know, 52 last days that you've been drinking, it's like yeah, you know. So yeah, we talked about sometimes we like to add up the the calories that you cut out, if you cut out one drink a day, I mean 365 calories times, like 125 minutes, right? 10s of 1000s of calories. So these, these small changes really do add up. And I just want to be clear, I'm not advocating for taking three months off of jerky, it's actually it's actually not necessarily what I want people to come away with. I think what you're saying is way more appropriate for where we think people should start, which is like trying to add one dry day in or trying to decrease the number of drinks per day. And I was going to say what my current pattern which is similar to NYX. And this is more just because I've I've tried to optimize my own sort of working style is I try not to drink during the week. But then I kind of I give myself a little bit of leeway on Fridays and then Saturdays maybe a little bit but it's Sunday. So and these are all things that I've learned from my past patterns. I don't I now have a certain way that I enjoy alcohol that maximizes my health and the enjoyment rather than, you know, bringing me like kind of kind of lowering my overall performance during the week. Yeah, yeah. i What's interesting is that I recently just decided this actually starting in q2 Because April is and Alcohol Awareness month i. So I celebrated Alcohol Awareness month here on the podcast by doing an alcohol free weekend. And I decided to start incorporate, I used to do just an alcohol free weekend per quarter. But I decided this year to take it up and do an alcohol free weekend per month. And I'm doing that mostly because of just exactly what you said, what I find myself doing is getting into this pattern of not drinking during the week and saving my you know, because I stick to low risk limits. So the low risk limits from the NIA a focus are seven drinks per week, seven standard drinks are less per week for women, and no more than three standard drinks in a day. Or men. Those are 14 Drinks standard drinks in a week, and no more than four drinks in any one day. And so for me, I stick to those low risk limits. That's what helps me in terms of my own mental just not having anxiety about my drinking habits. Yeah, what I, what I've, what I found is that I started falling into that kind of nothing during the week, and then, you know, on the weekends. And yeah, I wanted to challenge my thinking because for me, I definitely always want to look at the reasons why I'm including alcohol at all. And because there is, you know, the and I've no last time you guys are here, I bore you with the science, but there really is science to it about the fact that once you get past a blood alcohol level of point 05 5%, you're basically going to have that rebound, rebound anxiety the next day, you're going to significantly increase the possibilities of negative consequences as opposed to, you know, if you stick to that lower alcohol, blood volume, which is really one to two drinks, you know, what's really been interesting now is that I have become so in tune. And that's what I think Sunnyside offers people to is really the opportunity to become just more aware and in tune with their own mind and body with alcohol, I've noticed is that now, when I do make that decision to have a third drink, or whatever on a, you know, on a specific day, the next day, I can really tell the difference, I can really feel it. And so, um, you know, that's the kind of mindfulness I think that we want to create. I love that. And we find that I don't I don't think I've mentioned this yet. But when people start using Sunnyside, we encourage them to focus mostly on the tracking behavior and not really so much on the planning, although it is an element. And that's because a lot of people don't realize how many drinks they're having a specific session, they might they it tracking helps them realize that they're counting to a glass of wine is two glasses of wine as one glass, it helps us realize that an 8% Beer is actually captured count is two drinks. So when we talk about tracking, we're not just talking about counting, we're talking about pausing before the next drink lot, you know, sort of mindfully logging it, and then asking yourself, should I have water? Do I really do I really want to need this drink. Okay, if I do that I'm making I'm an adult, I might be making this decision. But maybe I should slow down because I know how it's going to impact me the next day. And I think a lot of people can relate to this just personally myself. I, I'll absolutely go for the 8% beer if I'm out at a like dinner or something just just to it's human nature. It's like, oh, cool, I can kind of like get away with having one drink, but it'll be twice as strong. So helping ourselves, not not beating ourselves up over those things. But rather, just building mindfulness around what we're doing is can be game changing for people. Now see, isn't this this and this just show our, our age difference? I am now like in this mindset where I'm like excited about the fact that there are really awesome IPAs that are like season, you know, like our session IPAs that are coming out and they're like, three and a half percent 4% alcohol because then I'm like, sweet, I can have two like they're not even they only get as one. So I just want to be clear. The really strong IPAs are really hanging over problems. Like I don't like you got to be. I recommend for taste, but not too many of them. I've been myself trying to stick with lighter beers. I'm not perfect, but the session beers are definitely the way to go for me. I think that's another way to be mindful. Stick with the lighter beers. Yeah, no, you know, that helps a lot. Yeah. Actually, I shared with my group. My, my Facebook group. Oh gosh, now it's been how long ago almost Well, I don't know nine months ago. I have to think about an October I think of 2021. I went up to I was gone for a weekend and I was having I was gonna have you know three drinks I was out but I had over the course and it was like over a six hour period time but 16 ounce drinks but I found out they were they were Elysian space as they were it was an eight point something beer. And so by the by the end of the night, not only was I feeling it, but like the next day I was like I was, I was off. It was awful. I felt terrible. I was like, This is crazy. First of all, I used to drink three to four IPAs all the time. But now it's like it was but yeah, but it was all because it was a higher ABV ABV, and I just didn't pay attention. And so it does it. It matters. You need to, you know, again, making mindful decisions. Okay, enough about my digression there. So tell me about some of the new things that are happening over at Sunnyside. I know you guys launched a community and I have shared it with my group that I'm sharing it here Now folks, you can go look it up. I'll put the link in the show notes. The mindful drinkers community over on Facebook. So tell me about that. And also just about some of the new improvements that are coming for Sunnyside? Yeah. Again, thanks for the great, great questions. So the mindful drinkers is a public facing community that we're putting together on Facebook, that does not require a subscription to sunny site. It is for anybody that wants to join a community and start talking about and building healthier habits. And then we are starting to, like employ some of the things that make Sunnyside great. So we do daily check ins with everybody, we are going to start doing some virtual meetups. And we recently posted a 30 day tracking challenge for May. This was sort of a something we did for Mental Health Awareness Month, trying to encourage folks to at the very least just check your drinks, we're not telling you to cut back, we're just telling you trying to show you the power of tracking. So there's a lot that we're doing to try to build up engagement there. It's been amazing, the response has been absolutely incredible. We're getting people that are really self regulating and self building conversations and dialogue. Very specifically, though, we are trying to make sure it's a group about mindfulness and moderation and not preaching sobriety. That's pretty important to us. But in the grand scheme of things that's sort of a side project, it's not really core to our product yet, although we are working on community within our product, we don't really have a timeline for that just yet, but to speak more closely to what we've been doing on the product because we work really hard on obviously improving the product. So since we last talked, we've improved the dashboard experience pretty significantly. We've made the planning process, the weekly planning process way better. It's slick, it's delightful, and you get way more information about why your plan is the way that it is. And then I think my favorite changes that we've made, which is kind of under the hood, and is very subtle and clever but extremely powerful. To with Sunnyside, you track your drinks over text message. And it used to be pretty rigid you have you used to have to say like Thursday to or Friday three. But we now have this natural language ability. So you can just say yesterday, I had two drinks and I loved I also enjoyed a glass of red wine. And it will track those. So it sounds really simple. But it really creates this more personal conversational style of interacting with the experience. And this is something that we were really trying to work on over time as part of Sunnyside is automated, it is a bot but we want it to feel very personal, like you're getting a experience of talking to a human. And then coming up with the product, we're working on major improvements to our coaching system. I can't give too many details about that. And we also have an app coming out. So wow, so an app so the app is coming. So this has got to be driven by customer feedback, even though I love the text based messaging. So actually, if I may, we do build our product improvements based on customer feedback. But an app isn't necessarily what people are saying people love the SMS element of the service and not not to like toot our own horn too much. And I can't give specific numbers. But the engagement that it drives as a long term utility is off the charts because it requires as little as one text message a day to improve your drinking habits. We're not asking you for 15 minutes, and running surveys and making you do studies it's very minimal touch points every day. However, we do want to and that feels pretty necessary these days. We just kind of did things a little backwards. And when we release it, it's going to be somewhat complementary to that SMS experience and then over time, we'll use it as an area where we can sort of supercharge the experience and we're really really excited about that. That's awesome. That's really awesome. I love it. I think it's going to be great and I can't wait to hear more about the about the coating as well. So that'll be cool. Tell me before we jump off here, just you know in a nutshell, if someone joins Sunnyside the program basically they get a they typically get a Free Trial. And then they sign up if they sign up for a year, it's a pretty affordable rate on a monthly basis, correct? Yeah, absolutely. So everyone who signs up gets a free 15 day trial, you can sign up with a credit card or you can sign up without a credit card. Most people sign up with their credit card. And then after 15 days, your credit card gets charged. If you don't cancel, that's pretty common. I do. I do also want to point out, we're super nice about refunds. If you write in and you're like, Oh, that was a mistake, or I'd like my money back. I mean, we don't want you to have to use a service that's not working for you. But with that said, most people are very happy with it. It's 850 a month, so it's $99 a year. Let me just do the math for that. Yeah, that's a 25 a month. That's our cheapest, you can also do a three month quarterly plan and a monthly plan which is $12 a month. And so the way we like to look at that cost is essentially, that's less than $1 a day, and it's less than the cost of two drinks, or maybe even less than the cost of a single fancy cocktail so and on average our members are because they're cutting out 30% of their weekly drinks. They're saving over $50 Every month, which adds up really quickly. So if you're ready to make an investment in your health regarding alcohol, mindfulness and moderation the cost is minimal. It's seems very obvious well it's really gonna pay for itself. That's kind of what you I think you're absolutely yes. The I mean, that's another part of it folks, is that that the app actually the the dashboard actually shows you not only how much you know your money you're saving but just you know how much it's good for your health, improving your sleep all of that stuff. So it's you know, it's all just it's great it's a really wonderful tool super excited I've been you know a proud supporter and somebody that I just you guys I just so happy with the growth of the company really love the mission behind it really glad that I got connected with you so early on back when it was cut back coach and I did like the I did like the alliteration, but hey, I'll send you a contact coach sweatshirt. How about that? Yeah, yeah, I can wear that but I'll steal that. No, no, I think I want to Sunnyside one now too. Okay. Okay. Anyways, I wish Nick well, and is doing great over in his Thank you. Yeah, he has a baby now. So he's been kept busy with that. That's exciting. Yeah, I also just want to thank you. It's been awesome to be friends with you through this. Your podcast is amazing. Your online community is amazing. So we just really appreciate the support and friendships from you and your fans. Absolutely. Well, I will link everything in the show notes folks where you can learn more about sunny side and also the mindful drinking community on Facebook, because both of them are just great tools to help you create that peaceful relationship with alcohol just easy, you know, easy things that you can do for you self changers and for people that are really wanting to take those next steps. So, Ian Anderson, super awesome to see you as always, and thank you for being here on the podcast. Thanks, Molly. Thank you for listening to the alcohol minimalist podcast. This podcast is dedicated to helping you change your drinking habits and to create a peaceful relationship with alcohol. Use something you learned in today's episode and apply it to your life this week. Transformation is possible. You have the power to change your relationship with alcohol now, for more information, please visit me at www dot Molly watts.com