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When most people hear the word sobriety, they think labels, meetings, or giving something up. For Jeanette Hu, it meant something very different. She spent years drinking daily— and when she tried to change, she didn’t fully connect with the traditional path. So she became a psychotherapist and started studying belief, identity, and the emotional role alcohol plays in our lives. That led her to build what she calls the Four Pillar Sobriety System—not based on willpower or labels, but on understanding why alcohol has a hold in the first place. Let's get into it.
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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.
When most people hear the word sobriety, they think labels, meetings, or giving something up. For Jeanette Hu, it meant something very different. She spent years drinking daily. And when she tried to change, she didn't fully connect with a traditional path. So she became a psychotherapist and started studying belief, identity, and the emotional role alcohol plays in our lives.
Speaker 1:That led her to build what she calls the four pillar sobriety system. Not based on willpower or labels, but on understanding why alcohol has a hold in the first place. Let's get into it. Jeanette, thanks for coming on today.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I'm super excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:I think we have some really good conversations ahead of us, some aligned philosophies, and so I really wanna get into that. But before we do, I'd love for you to share a little bit of your story. And can you take us back to when alcohol was in your life? What did that look like? Maybe frequency, maybe emotionally and mentally.
Speaker 2:Yeah of course wow it's go back for a long time I was someone who drink every day for over a decade actually my first drink was when I was 15 and when I had that first drink I just fall in love with it. Then from there I was drinking every day for between age 15 to 30. And at the beginning alcohol was my best friend. I love it. I just feel like everything is good it helped me be more socialized it helped me relax it helped me have a good time.
Speaker 2:To be honest the first maybe five to six maybe even seven years there's no complaint I don't think it was an issue for me and he'll over time slowly I start to feel like alcohol is taking start to take more than it gave me I think one of the thing that make me realize that is at the very beginning, when I first started to drink, I found alcohol helped me with connecting with others. During social situations, I have a drink, this social lubricant, I feel connect with other better. But towards the end of my drinking career I realized alcohol was actually getting into the way of my relationship. I started to be very forgetful. I started to miss my commitment.
Speaker 2:I start to just not present. I start to think more about alcohol rather than the people in front of me and that's when I start to maybe I should cut back, right? Should be easy. Then I tried, it's not easy. And then I started with this years, I think three, four, five years, quite a few years of just struggle.
Speaker 2:At the beginning when I was drinking and happy with my relationship with alcohol there's no issue. Once I started to be unhappy and it decided to change then I realized oh I couldn't. I couldn't just cut back. So there's a lot of shame, feeling of being alone like wondering what's wrong with me why can't I just stop and feeling ashamed to tell others what I was going through and feel like I was broken for not be able to stop that was it was a really dark time before I finally figure out how to I call it outgrowing alcohol. How to start to learn to live life with less alcohol.
Speaker 2:So that's my story in a nutshell.
Speaker 1:I think anybody listening here can relate to one part or another, or maybe all of that, because anywhere from it wasn't a problem until it was, and then I was like, oh my gosh, it's actually hard to make a change when I make the commitment. Because a lot of people, they may need to see that they need to make the change. But for many of us, we know we need to make the change, but it's a lot harder said than done. And so take me back to that struggle point when you thought, I wanna make a change. What were some of the initial struggles that you were noticing that made you feel like, oh, I can't change and I'm different.
Speaker 1:That's the other thing that I think people relate to is that, like, you have we all have this feeling like this is a problem that's unique to us and that we need to hide and that the truth of the matter is it's very common. And fortunately, we're having more conversations around it, but alcohol is addictive. There's nothing around going around. That's the truth of it. And so for us to think that we're different because we find it challenging to make a change is crazy.
Speaker 1:But take me back to some of those initial struggles because you found your way out of it, but I think you're hitting up against walls along the way.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Definitely. So I don't know about you or people who are listening that what is the first thing that people tell you when you start to notice that you're struggling with alcohol or people around you notice there's a drinking problem? I know for me that otherwise is you should stop drinking or you should drink less. Actually, that's the advice I got when I went to see a doctor and get the diagnosed alcohol use disorder.
Speaker 2:That advice was very helpful. You should start to drink less. I was like, I know.
Speaker 1:I have a funny I have a funny story about a guy that I recently met. I went I met him because I mountain bike. And he owns mountain bikes, and we went out for a ride. He's asking what I do, and I told him about the podcast. I told him about Sunnyside, and he was like, when I wanna drink less, I just drink less.
Speaker 1:And I was like, you're wouldn't be the person to use this because you just obviously don't get it and you're in a different category.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:So that's not not the best, like, most relatable kind of person or somebody giving you that advice either.
Speaker 2:I think, yeah, the advice is coming from someone who doesn't really understand the struggle, feel like, oh, if you realize it's not good for you, why don't you just stop? And the problem is, as you shared that it's not that easy it's easier said than done so I think that's my struggle that everybody is telling me that I should stop drinking and by the way I agree I should drink less but the problem is I don't know how and I remember the society I just feel like people make it sound like you should be able to stop or there's an expectation if it's a problem we should be able to fix it otherwise you are alcoholic like kind of thing but as a therapist and as someone who walks through this journal and work with people the truth is it's not like that we don't just turn us rich and stop but because we have as a society we seem to have that narrative or misunderstand misunderstanding of you should be able to stop. So it caused a lot of unnecessary suffering for the people who are going through that journey, feel like they are broken, that they are doing something wrong, that they are alone.
Speaker 2:And I think that's a lot of my own experience, that internal tug of war to feel I know I need to drink stop drinking, and I also don't want, and I don't know how. That's going on for a very long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I know that along the way that you looked at the traditional routes. So you saw AA, which you have said that you respect AA and that and that they're the 12 step, which are one in the same, but also broken apart at times. But you said that you felt drawn to something that helped you understand your stealth self instead of taking on a label. What were your thoughts back then?
Speaker 1:And I'd also be curious to tag on, are they the same today?
Speaker 2:What is what was my thought back then? I remember my first AA meeting. It was not bad. Like, it was in a college camping. It camping it was bright.
Speaker 2:The room is bright. The people are really friendly. There are cookies. There's like homemade cookies. So it was a good experience, but I never went back.
Speaker 2:What was my thought back then is I couldn't resonate with calling myself, introduce myself as an alcoholic. I actually don't believe in that. I know I'm struggling with drinking but I don't think that label can define me. And the idea of admitting that I'm powerless, that's another thing that just not resonate with me. I'm an immigrant.
Speaker 2:I came here like I have this belief of that I'm in control of my own life, that is I'm in charge. I have agency and everything in life I believe in that including with alcohol. So I believe well it's really hard for me to change it but doesn't mean that I'm powerless. And that's a huge between me and AA. That's why I never go back.
Speaker 2:But I know AA have helped so many people and I truly respect it, that sense of community and availability. But just personally, it's not for me. And for now how now years passed since my first AA meeting, that was probably seven, eight years ago. Have anything changed for me? I think I have even more respect for AA even though that's not a route that I worked.
Speaker 2:But I start to realize that the framing they call it powerlessness. Now I realize it's more about acceptance, accepting that alcohol is causing issue in my life and I want to look at it. So now that's hard not to answer that question if that makes sense. I still don't identify with the powerlessness framing, but I start to be able to see now more nuance in AA's language than just outright reject it.
Speaker 1:I think that's such a good insight there. And I'm with you. Like, I didn't identify with the entire framing. I didn't identify with the labeling. I didn't identify with an all or nothing forever mindset in a lot of ways as well because I know that life changes.
Speaker 1:We change. We're reborn in so many different ways throughout our lives. And but I really love that you said that, the framing, because acceptance is something that I think is important for everyone. And when you have acceptance also, we also have to realize that we can't control everything. We have to take a better approach because otherwise, if it was just all about control, it would just be like that drink less mentality.
Speaker 1:And I'm curious to know, based on that, is that what led you toward psychology and belief work instead of it just trying to quit harder?
Speaker 2:Yes and no. That to the question of is that lead will lead me to psychology work. I think I was always drawn to psychology that I always know that beneath my drinking there was something else that is causing all the pain and the suffering. Drinking wasn't what lead me to psychology, it's that pain beneath it that drinking is coworking up that lead me to study psychology. But in my but I'm super grateful that I take this route because it's in grad school, it's in my training in clinical psychology, I start to understand my own relationship with alcohol much more.
Speaker 2:While the first thing I learned in grad school is that every behavior, there's a reason that why we do it even when the behavior seems illogical or counterintuitive, including drinking. A lot of people from outside in seeing alcohol causing problem in a person's life, they're like, why are you still drinking? But if we look beyond that, that drinking always serves a purpose for the person who is drinking. So,
Speaker 1:yeah,
Speaker 2:I think I lost track of the question.
Speaker 1:No. That's alright. No. I think, you know, as far as, like, your work with psychology and your experience maybe with your first AA meeting and your own personal internal struggles, what started to about psychology started to maybe set light bulbs off of this is what's going on and this is what's going on. Was that in parallel your studies also with your transformation?
Speaker 2:Yeah. My study is actually parallel with my own journey to sobriety. That I've before I enter graduate school, I was trying that approach of cold turkey, willpower through it, tough love to myself like beating myself up while you're still drinking approach but it's in my journey in study becoming a therapist parallel with my own journey to sobriety that I start to become very curious about the reason why I drink like logical reason actually behind this seemingly illogical behavior of drinking. Then I start to understand that the reason that just quit doesn't work for me is because behavior is only on the surface. There are actually invisible force that drive my desire to drink.
Speaker 2:The first one is actually human need that the need to relax, need to connect, they need to take care or cope with those kind of painful feeling that I was dealing with. So to say just quit, just drink less without addressing all those things that lead for me to drink it doesn't quite work. And in term of the belief work that after I start to understanding there's a human need behind my drinking I also start to see there's a perceived benefit. Like the reason I want to drink is because part of me believe that alcohol will help me in certain ways. Whether it's help me to relax, help me to have a good time.
Speaker 2:So that's how I get into that.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's great. Moving forward as your role as a psychotherapist and somebody who's also lived it, I'd love to know your opinion on why do smart capable people still stay stuck in drinking patterns, even if they genuinely want to change? I know you said that, like, we all are pursuing something, but is there, like, a pattern that you see with the people that you work with?
Speaker 2:Why does smart people still stuck in there?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well. Smart and capable.
Speaker 2:Smart and capable. Yes. Definitely. A lot of smart and capable people still stuck. And because being stuck have nothing to do with your capability or how intelligent you are.
Speaker 2:I feel like a lot of people stuck because our because we are using the wrong way, wrong method to try to cut back, Like, the mainstream way of cutting back or quitting. Quitting is tough love. It's going quick. Cold turkey is going abstinent, and that's not something that works for everyone. So I believe that the reason we stuck is not anything wrong with the person who are stuck, but a misalignment between what the person need and what the approach they are using.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so good. And actually it leads me into something that I don't know your opinion on. So I'm going to ask you on this because I know that you help people with sobriety and that's the route you took, but what's your opinion? Can a lot of these things that you work with people, can it be applied in the same way to people that are interested in cutting back and reducing their usage? Maybe the outcome down the line is they decide to leave it behind.
Speaker 1:But I don't know your whole opinion around people that might feel like it's an issue, but might not necessarily wanna jump right into saying, wanna go sober.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Definitely. One thing that I missed when we talk about AA is another thing that didn't resonate with me is that our our nursing approach. That I in my community, we talk about the goal is to break the old drinking pattern and build a joyful fulfilling alcohol free life. And how we define alcohol free is actually not completely abstinent.
Speaker 2:It's actually a life free from alcohol's hold. Whether that means moderation or abstinence that's actually up for you to find out each of us to find out what work for us. So I really believe in experimentation kind of mentality that we are here to experiment to find out what works and what doesn't. And the only way for us to find out what works is go through many things that doesn't quite work. That's how I believe it's really is an experiment.
Speaker 2:So what I like to encourage my clients, people I work with to do is do a thirty day experiment actually to try how it feels. And by the end of thirty day we don't decide whether we're going to quit forever or go back to drinking we decide for another thirty days. So it's really about experiment and find a sweet spot for you depends on your goal. Everybody want different things by cutting down on drinking. I never met a person whose goal is I just want my ultimate goal is never drink.
Speaker 2:There's always a reason behind it whether it's to feel more peace, more confident, more connection, more space in your life. So we aim on that and experiment with how much alcohol we want to have in our life to help us meet that emotional goal. So that's how I approach that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely love it. Obviously, I think it's so good because it's just based on your experience knowing that the all or nothing for you didn't work. So there has to be other people that are just like you. I love that you looked at a solution and you knew that, hey, this is one way, but it's not the way that I connect with. And for you, you created one that actually works for you, and now you're sharing it with others, and they get to define those goals.
Speaker 1:And that is so aligned with everything that we talk about here on the podcast. I'm not surprised, but I didn't know for sure and I'm so glad that I asked that question.
Speaker 2:I'm glad you asked too. We do have very uplined value and approach.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. And, for me, as you said that, you know, what not every you haven't really met anybody that absolutely just I just never want to again, for me, it was like, I just never want to have to think about it the same way I used to think about it. And I also don't my goal was never to stop drinking fully. It was to no longer drink daily, which I know you can identify with daily drinking. I was just like, I don't want to do that anymore.
Speaker 1:And it's been seven years now. I've never gone back to daily drinking. Has it always been perfect? No, it's never always been perfect. None of us are, but I have always stuck to the goals that I always asked of myself when I wanted to make those changes.
Speaker 1:So I love I just love the flexibility that you're saying here.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Definitely. I I truly believe there's no one size fit all solution in this journey. It's very personalized and unique to each of us.
Speaker 1:Yeah. For sure. I've always had had the mind of whatever solution works for you is the right solution, and that the more people and solutions in this space, the stronger it is to support people that need the help. It's some there are some people in this space that feel very competitive with each other for whatever reason or not. And to me, it's more like looking at one hospital sets up on this corner and then there's another hospital on the other corner.
Speaker 1:Like they're not competing because the demand it's needed and whoever gets to them, the more help there is the better.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I see it the same way. I love how you put it.
Speaker 1:Thanks. Okay. So I want to, before we go, I want to get into your four pillar sobriety system. I know it's not based on labels or shame or willpower. So tell us a little bit about what makes a difference and kinda like an overview maybe of the four pillars.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Of course. So the fundamental belief I have about changing our relationship with alcohol, I already get into that a little bit, I believe we don't drink just because of alcohol. We drink because alcohol is meeting a need in our life and that we have the there's a perceived benefit that we believe alcohol will help us meet that need. So from there and also because we believe that alcohol can help us fulfill that need and over the year we keep drinking, we become a worry practiced of using alcohol to meet that need.
Speaker 2:So that's actually an invisible loop that behind why drinking become feeling out of control. That's how I see it. And another actual element that many people don't talk about that I believe that keep people stuck is is limiting belief that an mentality of once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic or because I tried and I failed, I must couldn't I must not be able to create a fire kind of mentality. That's how I believe what keep us trapped. Based on that four things keep us trapped I come up with a four pillar.
Speaker 2:The first one is actually value. It has nothing to do with drinking. It's what you want in life. Like what you earlier shared that you want to be able to not drink every day and imagining to make the space for most things that matters to you. And for me, it's a sense of spaciousness and freedom to not have to think about it all the time, to be able to explain the things I love and have alcohol pick take us nice room.
Speaker 2:So first one is value. What matters to an individual person in their life, whether it's family, whether it's connection, whether it's adventure. So to focus on what you want rather than what you don't want, which is to drink to drink too much. So that's the first pillar value. The second pillar is belief rewrite.
Speaker 2:Earlier I said we drink because there's perceived benefit. But I call it perceived benefit because that's not a real benefit. It's a perception. Perception. A lot of time we have different belief around alcohol what can do, what alcohol can do for us.
Speaker 2:But what we don't realize is drinking to help us achieve certain things usually come with a heightened cost. So my goal in the second pillar is to help people become more informed consumers. I see all credit card. Like, there is it's really good. We will get a credit card.
Speaker 2:There's the immediate benefit that you can buy a lot of thing you love. You can feel a certain way. But there's a hidden, like, fun print about what they're gonna charge you later. And with alcohol, there's a lot of fun print. And we in a society that glamorize drinking a lot of time, we don't fully realize the fun print.
Speaker 2:So the second pillar of our belief is really about education and help people really realize what is the pro, what is the benefit, and what is cause around alcohol. And surprisingly, once per a person fully realize how much the cause is, the desire to drink actually drops automatically. One of the thing I really like to share that worked for many of my client is a lot of us drink to have a good time. I don't know whether you had that experiment, but for me, I drink to have a good I don't drink to be hammered. Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:But as I learned the science, I realized, yes, when I have the first drink, I will have twenty to thirty minutes baths, but there is a heightened cause the next day that the good feeling is coming from dopamine like surge and also growth made surprise so we feel like a buzzing and we feel relaxed but what comes up have to go down so the next day our dopamine is like in the gutter and our glutamate is overdrive so we end up having up to two weeks with feeling low key anxiety will feel less motivated and just generally not feeling good. So it doesn't mean we should stop drinking but we should it just means that we should become informed consumers to know what is the cause and decide in the moment whether I actually want that. So that's the first pillar. The second pillar, belief rip. And the third pillar is skill expansion.
Speaker 2:A lot of time alcohol do serve a purpose in our life whether it's to help us connect or relax. If we want to remove alcohol, we need to have a new thing to replace it. We can't just take it away. We need to learn new ways to relax, to have fun, to connect, to socialize. So in my journey, in my community, we really focus on developing new alcohol free skills to replace alcohol so that a person can continue to thrive with limited amount of alcohol.
Speaker 2:And finally, it's about mindset. Earlier I said there's a limiting belief. A lot of us feel stuck because once we try to quit once we try to cut down or quit drinking and realize we couldn't do it, then we start to feel like, I'm an alcoholic and broken. But here is about changing that mentality. That mentality is not true.
Speaker 2:It's a learning process. Like anything else, cutting down drinking is about learning how to live a life with less alcohol. They're going to be trial and errors. It's going to take experimentations between before you figure out your work, what works for you. So really is to employ embrace that that idea.
Speaker 2:I'm here to learn. I'm here to experiment. And as long as I'm continue trying, I will either get the result or I will get information for me to do differently next time. So that's the four pillar. Value, belief, skills, and mindset.
Speaker 1:I love it. So if all the ones that you work with people, is there one that either tends to be more difficult or more impactful where things just start to click for them all of a sudden?
Speaker 2:I just I would say at different stage, different pillar would matter more. But the thing that makes most different, I would say is the mindset pillar. Mhmm. So many people come in with the idea with the belief they are broken, they are doing something wrong because they have tried many different times and they didn't get the result they want yet. So they people are really good at beating themselves up and that pillar is about changing that to help a person realize no you didn't fail You're not broken.
Speaker 2:This is just a process we all go through learning how to ride a bicycle. We all fail. We all fall down for at least a few times. And no you'll never hear a person say, oh, you fought the third time. You can never learn how to ride a bicycle.
Speaker 2:Don't say that. But with alcohol, we say that to ourselves. Like, tried three times. I'm still drinking. What's wrong with me?
Speaker 2:So it's about shifting that. So people have start to approach this journey differently since shame is not helpful. Shame is one thing that really doesn't work in this journey. I know when I'm shaming myself, and I want to drink more, not less.
Speaker 1:Isn't that all the truth? I literally just did a podcast last week where I do these one these solo podcasts, and one of it was talking about David Hawkins' power versus force, his book, and he has different levels of the map of consciousness. And the lowest of all the emotional in his map, emotions is shame and guilt is the next one. And those are the least serving, I think he I can't remember exactly that wording, but just isn't that the truth? But for some reason, we bring that all with a different mindset when it comes to drinking.
Speaker 1:And so 100%, I believe that I can I'm not surprised that mindset is the one that is I imagine they all work together, but mindset is the one where there's this shift because then with the right mindset, you can start moving through with action.
Speaker 2:Exactly. It give a give people a new way to approach this journey to move through and to bounce back. Like, we all have a few times we drink when we didn't mean to or drink more of them than we meant to. That's totally okay. It's not about where we fall.
Speaker 2:It's about our ability to bounce back. And the mindset give the people the more ability to bounce back.
Speaker 1:Well, Jeanette, thank you so much for coming on today. Thank you for all the work that you're doing in this space to help people. Thanks for sharing your story from where you were and how far that you've come. If anybody is listening and wants to find out more or maybe reach out to you, where could they find you?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Of course. So my website is www.sobercuriosity.co, and that's where they can find me. And I have a free seven day journal prompt to help people get started in their journey. So that's where you'll find me.
Speaker 2:And thank you so much for having me. This is such a lovely conversation. I truly enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:Oh, me too. I loved it. So if anybody listening wants to reach out to Jeanette, you know where to go. Thank you so much again.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Mike.