Journey to the Sunnyside

Beej Karpen is a mindfulness-based coach and IFS practitioner who helps people change their relationship with alcohol in a more compassionate way, without shame, labels, or all-or-nothing thinking. She created Mindful Drinking 101 in 2020, has led more than 35 groups, and has spent the past 12 years running the first Moderation Management Women’s meeting In this episode, we talk about what is really happening underneath the urge to drink, why shame backfires, how IFS changes the way people understand inner conflict, and why the part of you that wants relief is not the enemy.

CONNECT WITH SUNNYSIDE:
Listen to Journey to the Sunnyside Podcast: https://bit.ly/4bxCqT3
Subscribe to Sunnyside’s YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/3zuoID4
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 health 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.
We now offer Sunnyside Med, a new program that provides access to compounded naltrexone, a medication that can reduce alcohol cravings at the brain level, offering a more clinical pathway for people who need it. Sunnyside Med is a complete, holistic approach to help you drink less or quit, including coaching, community, habit change, education, and more to help you create longterm change while the medication does its work.
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.

In this episode I talk about one idea from my conversation with Nir Eyal that I think is genuinely useful for anyone trying to drink less. He made a point about pain and signal that applies directly to what happens when a craving shows up — and it's a lot more practical than just white knuckling through it. A craving is real. It's uncomfortable. But it's not a command. This episode is about what to actually do in that moment.
Nir's Book, Beyond Belief: https://a.co/d/0bOchJVG
CONNECT WITH SUNNYSIDE:
Listen to Journey to the Sunnyside Podcast: https://bit.ly/4bxCqT3
Subscribe to Sunnyside’s YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/3zuoID4
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 health 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.
We now offer Sunnyside Med, a new program that provides access to compounded naltrexone, a medication that can reduce alcohol cravings at the brain level, offering a more clinical pathway for people who need it. Sunnyside Med is a complete, holistic approach to help you drink less or quit, including coaching, community, habit change, education, and more to help you create longterm change while the medication does its work.
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.

Nir Eyal is the bestselling author of Hooked and Indistractable, and he has a new book out called Beyond Belief. What I liked about this conversation is that it gets at why so many people stay stuck, even when they already know what to do. We talk about what belief actually is, how it shapes what we notice and feel, how labels can quietly become identity, and why some forms of positive thinking can actually keep people stuck instead of moving them forward. At the center of the book is this idea that beliefs are not just thoughts in the background. They shape what we think is possible, and often they are doing a lot more to drive our behavior than we realize.

CONNECT WITH SUNNYSIDE:
Listen to Journey to the Sunnyside Podcast: https://bit.ly/4bxCqT3
Subscribe to Sunnyside’s YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/3zuoID4
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 health 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.
We now offer Sunnyside Med, a new program that provides access to compounded naltrexone, a medication that can reduce alcohol cravings at the brain level, offering a more clinical pathway for people who need it. Sunnyside Med is a complete, holistic approach to help you drink less or quit, including coaching, community, habit change, education, and more to help you create longterm change while the medication does its work.
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.

Over the last few years I've had the chance to sit down with researchers who study drinking behavior from a lot of different angles — psychology, neuroscience, habit formation, public health. And the thing that keeps striking me is how often what the research actually shows doesn't match the way most of us think drinking works. Not slightly off. Sometimes completely backwards. In this episode I walk through seven of those findings. The ones that surprised me most — and honestly, a few that changed how I think about the habit entirely.
CONNECT WITH SUNNYSIDE:
Listen to Journey to the Sunnyside Podcast: https://bit.ly/4bxCqT3
Subscribe to Sunnyside’s YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/3zuoID4
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 health 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.
We now offer Sunnyside Med, a new program that provides access to compounded naltrexone, a medication that can reduce alcohol cravings at the brain level, offering a more clinical pathway for people who need it. Sunnyside Med is a complete, holistic approach to help you drink less or quit, including coaching, community, habit change, education, and more to help you create longterm change while the medication does its work.
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.

Welcome back to Journey to the Sunnyside. Today I’m joined by Merrilee Burke, a licensed marriage and family therapist with over 20 years of experience, specializing in alcohol moderation, trauma, and eating disorder recovery. Merrilee reached out because she’s been noticing a shift with clients lately in how they talk about sober curious and alcohol-free culture. Not some huge backlash, but enough of one to make it worth exploring. So today we talk about what’s changing, why some people may be pushing back, and what they may really be reacting to underneath it all.
CONNECT WITH SUNNYSIDE:
Listen to Journey to the Sunnyside Podcast: https://bit.ly/4bxCqT3
Subscribe to Sunnyside’s YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/3zuoID4
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 health 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.
We now offer Sunnyside Med, a new program that provides access to compounded naltrexone, a medication that can reduce alcohol cravings at the brain level, offering a more clinical pathway for people who need it. Sunnyside Med is a complete, holistic approach to help you drink less or quit, including coaching, community, habit change, education, and more to help you create longterm change while the medication does its work.
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.