How to Stay Close When Your Drinking Starts Changing w/ Dr. Darcy Sterling
episode
Journey to the Sunnyside | Mindful Drinking & Alcohol Health
47 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the main focus of the episode and who is the guest?
Welcome to Journey to the Sunny Side, the podcast that helps you build a better relationship with alcohol and uncover the secrets to mindful living. Each episode brings you real stories, expert insights, and practical tools to support your goals. Whether you're cutting back, taking a break, or thinking about quitting for good. I'm your host, Mike Hardenbrook, best-selling author, neuroscience enthusiast, and habit change expert. This show is brought to you by Sunnyside, a personalized science-backed program that helps you to drink less through habit change, coaching, and community. And for added support, we now have Sunnyside Met. A clinical option offering access to compounded naltrexone. A prescription medication that reduces cravings and helps prevent binge drinking.
Ready to start your journey? Get your free 15 day trial at Sunnyside.co. In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Darcy Sterling, relationship expert, licensed clinical social worker, and host of We Need to Talk. We talk about what happens when one person in a relationship starts drinking less, especially when alcohol has become part of how a couple connects. For many couples, drinking is woven into date night, vacations, and reconnecting at the end of the day. So when one person Starts wanting less of it, the other partner may feel judged, confused, or afraid the relationship is changing. Dr. Darcy explains why alcohol can sometimes become like a third person in the relationship, how to bring up drinking less without creating defensiveness, why support can turn into policing, and how couples can build new ways to stay close.
This is a practical conversation about communication, resentment, support, and what it looks like to grow without leaving your partner behind. Okay, Darcy, thanks for coming on today.
My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Yeah, I'm excited to jump in on some of the dynamics between couples as it relates to alcohol. And we're gonna get into that, but for people who don't know you, how do you describe your work that you do with couples?
I am a relationship therapist who actually doesn't work with couples. I teach individuals relationship skills and I teach them how to identify the patterns that get in the way of their relationships and how to run interference on those patterns so that they can. create the lives that they want to create.
I love that and thank you for clarifying that. Do you find that there is Are these both things that people have to do do should they do things as a couple and as an individual in order to kind of make the relationship work better? Or is it do you find that your approach tends to be it starts from the self and then that you bring that to the relationship?
Well, it's interesting that you asked that, because I'm married to a couples therapist. Um and there aren't too many people who do what I do. It sounds like I'm a couples therapist, but I'm not. I only work with one person at a time. But what I find is that it really only takes one person to Monumentally change the dynamic of a relationship because what's happening in a couple is that you're both co-creating these dynamics that exist. And if one of you just changes, even if just 10%, oftentimes the whole dynamic changes in a positive way. And we've all experienced that. Those of us who are in relationships have experienced that. Like when one of us is under stress, it absolutely impacts the couple, both of us.
So if that happens in a negative way, logic, it has to happen in a positive way also.
Yeah, totally makes sense. Can you give one example without naming names where somebody started changing and growing and the relationship had to adjust.
Of course. But can I just go back to what you also asked me? 'Cause it was a really good question. Nobody's ever asked
to it.
Nobody ever asked me that before. Should a couple engage with someone like me individually as well as then going into couples counseling? My answer is it depends. If the person so let's just take one partner at a time. If the person has done a lot of their own work, it may not be necessary.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main focus of the episode and who is the guest?
0:00–7:23
2
How does alcohol act like a “third person” in a relationship?
7:23–14:10
3
What are the three conflict‑response styles (fight, flight, freeze) and why do they matter?
14:10–20:32
4
How can partners bring up drinking less without triggering defensiveness?
20:32–26:51
5
When does support become policing, and how can couples avoid it?
26:51–32:39
6
What practical rituals can replace alcohol‑based connection (date night, end‑of‑day rituals, etc.)?
32:39–36:59
7
How can couples create new habits together while staying generous and compassionate?
36:59–42:17
8
What final advice does Dr. Darcy give for sustaining progress and staying close?
42:17–47:41