Tribe Sober - inspiring an alcohol free life!

Tribe Sober - inspiring an alcohol-free life! This week my guest is Staci Danford - this is the second time she has been on the podcast - you can have a listen to our previous conversation here. Staci is a neuroscientist who loves working with the sober community. In this episode she shares some really practical and useful information about our brain. In this Episode Staci’s husband walked out on her just before her 50th birthday – she was devastated at the time but now the years have passed she is able to look back and see that event as a catalyst for change… a real Wake Up Call Realising that she must take responsibility for her own happiness she went to grad school to study neuroscience Staci has no issues with alcohol but her father was an alcoholic – the whole family had tried to convince him to stop for years but only when he decided to stop himself did it work.. We talked about rehab and Staci explained that the success rate is a shockingly low 13.8% She explained that our brain tricks us into thinking that alcohol is making us happy but in fact it is a depressant – if you’ve been drinking for years then the alcohol will have altered the balance of your brain which is why you become increasingly dependent. When we understand how our brains work we can work with it – and that’s when the magic will happen – a great analogy is to think of how we use our computers – we work with programs that are installed in our computers – not against them! Understanding our brains means that we can understand ourselves better and see what we are gaining by ditching the drink – we need to create a “pattern interruptor” We mustn’t try to alter multiple habits at the same time – far better to focus on just the one Here at Tribe Sober we say “Just chase one rabbit at a time – if you chase several the chances are that they will all escape!” Staci advises that we focus on our successes “today I resisted a drink” and don’t look too far into the future (or avoid the F word as we say at Tribe Sober!) If you listened to Tribe Sober podcast episode 55 which was called “The Happy Brain” with Loretta Breuning, you may remember that she recommended setting an overall goal and dividing it up into smaller goals – this will keep our happy chemicals flowing as just aiming for a mini goal will trigger dopamine and of course we’ll feel good when we reach it. Staci is in agreement with Loretta and used the marathon analogy – if we sign up for a marathon we don’t immediately go out and try to run 26 miles – we design a training program and divide it into daily sessions – running a bit further every day.. You can find a great example of this on Episode 15 of the Tribe Sober podcast with one of our Sober Springers Kai – he did SS, achieved 66 AF days, then aimed for 100days, then 6 months, then a year – and now 3 years later he still hasn’t had a drink – but still doesn’t say its forever! Staci explained how our primitive lizard brain will go on autopilot unless we intervene – she calls her Lizard Brain Earl and calls him out if he tries to hijack her behaviour! She confirmed that our 66 day Sober Spring Challenge is long enough to create a new neural pathway to change our drinking patterns She also said that the “secret sauce” of Sober Spring was the community support We discussed the fact that our “drinking neural pathway will always be with us (if we’ve been drinking for years) – and that its easy to reactivate if we start trying to “moderate” after a period of sobriety. Staci loves our Goodbye to Alcohol letters and suggests reading them regularly to remind ourselves how bad the drinking got! She came up with a list of quick tips to boost our happy chemicals We start our annual 66 day challenge in September - called Sober Spring here in South Africa but can be Sober Autumn as well Membership also allows you to find your people as we welcome you into our supportive community - and this month new members will get a complimentary Sober Spring Challenge Just go to tribesober.com and hit the "join our tribe" button to read more about the benefits of membership More info Subscription membership for Tribe Sober join up HERE To access our website click HERE If you would like a free copy of our "Annual Tracker" or our e-book "66 Days to Sobriety" please email [email protected] If you would like to come to our Saturday afternoon Zoom Cafe as a guest and meet our community just email [email protected] Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today Read more about our 7-step program and subscribe HERE Help us to spread the word! We made this podcast so that we can reach more people who need our help. Please subscribe and share. If you enjoyed the podcast then please leave us a 5 star review on Apple podcasts, take a screenshot of your review and DM it to Tribe Sober’s Instagram page - we'll send you something special to say thank you! We r

My guest this week is Kathryn Elliott who has been interviewed for a previous podcast focussing on Binge Drinking Kathryn and I were both heavy drinkers…. and we’ve both had breast cancer These days we are both sober… and passionate about empowering other women with the knowledge they need about the link between alcohol and breast cancer. Knowledge which will make them think twice next time they think about having a drink. In this episode:- We talked about binge drinking which many of us get into when we are teenagers… and then keep the habit going until we are much older For example Kathryn was a binge drinker from the age of 15 to 46! Through her work as an alcohol mindset coach she has discovered that binge drinkers share similar traits:- A) Started binge drinking at an early age B) Celebrated by their peers and society for this behaviour C) Their binge drinking not perceived as a problem… more a rite of passage We agreed that many people are unaware of the definition of binge drinking – they tend to think it’s about the kids knocking back 15 tequila shots in a nightclub but in reality it’s more likely to be an older woman sitting at home alone drinking a bottle of wine. So to be clear the definition of a binge is 4 standard drinks on one occasion for a woman and 5 for a man If we are binge drinking on a regular basis our liver will not get adequate time to recover – which is why low risk guidelines suggest going alcohol free for several days a week Kathryn explained the psychological profile of a binge drinker - a fast drinker, without an off switch, often blacking out and unable to get control of it over many years in spite of setting rules. We also agreed that willpower was ineffective when trying to control binge drinking – so many of us have tried "the rules" – I’m only having 2 glasses of wine tonight etc but once the first glass is drunk all the bets are off! The only thing that will work is a mindshift, working on our limiting beliefs so we can see alcohol for the poison that it is Kathryn and I are both breast cancer thrivers and we were equally shocked with our diagnosis - neither of us had any idea that there was a link between alcohol and breast cancer Kathryn began to do her own research into the link and was shocked by what she found… also shocked as she realised that this was never a topic of conversation with her friends nor had she ever seen a health campaign highlighting this She was also shocked to discover that even low to moderate amounts of alcohol will increase our risk of breast cancer Just 3 standard glasses of wine a week can increase the breast cancer risk by 15% Each additional drink will add another 10% to that risk During her research Kathryn came across an American campaign called "Drink Less for your Breasts" which was impressive and had so much information The research was showing patterns… links between early binge drinking habits that could show up as breast cancer later i Both Kathryn and I had estrogen driven breast cancer – and alcohol does increase the amount of estrogen in the system We agreed that the lifestyle choice to be alcohol free that we have both taken feels empowering… We can’t guarantee that we’ll never get a recurrence of our cancers but we can be confident that we are doing everything we can to avoid it So Kathryn and I chatted about our binge drinking and our breast cancers and then moved onto our third topic which is educating corporates about the health risks of alcohol Kathryn is running seminars for leaders and employees in workplaces to help them understand how alcohol impacts their emotional, mental and physical health. I think this kind of initiative is well overdue and certainly would have welcomed it during my corporate career which involved a work hard/play hard culture! A lot of Kathryn’s clients are executives who’ve had alcohol issues which had either been enabled through the workplace or had been completely ignored. That prompted Kathryn to go into workplaces and approach the topic of alcohol, bringing it into a conversation about, wellness, mental health and productivity. Such a brilliant way to start an ongoing dialogue about the subject She gives practical tips about taking a break from alcohol and mindful drinking as well Kathryn also shares her personal story which a lot of people can relate to She currently promoting a "Sip Smart" campaign for the festive season so do contact her if you think your workplace would benefit from more awareness around this topic Workplaces are also getting more diverse which means a lot of employees don’t drink so events need to be inclusive and offer a wide range of non alcoholic drinks as well I asked Kathryn whether it had been a hard sell to convince companies to let their staff watch her talks and webinars She explained that so long as she’s not telling people they drink too much and/or they must quit the management are quite comfortable with her just sharing information A lot of the people she ta

My guest today is an extraordinary young man – his parents were both heroin addicts and he became an addict himself. His rock bottom included jailtime, homelessness and self mutilation. In the episode Both of Jared’s parents were drug addicts but although life was chaotic they did manage to parent Jared until they got arrested when he was 12 years old Then he went to live with his aunt who “rescued” him as he put it Sadly his mother died of her heroin addiction when he was 14 years old which led to him using alcohol to cope with the pain of losing her Jared describes himself as a “functioning alcoholic” from the age of 15 years old At the age of 18 he started using Oxycontin as he was very against heroin due to his parents' experience He didn’t know what Oxycontin was but it was a pill made by a pharmaceutical company so he assumed it was safe He quickly became addicted and discovered that its very similar to heroin and in fact he switched to heroin Whereas alcohol had helped him feel more confident and enable him to socialise heroin completely numbed his feelings As he says cocaine or acid can amplify emotions whereas with heroin he felt he was purchasing 12 hours of oblivion Jared continued to use heroin but as he puts it “ the effects diminished as the consequences increased” These consequences included selling his possessions to get heroin and by the age of 22 he was homeless and living on skid row Heroin was still effective in completely numbing him from reality – the reality that he was homeless, penniless and without a family member to turn to… However by the age of 25 reality was getting through so he began taking multiple drugs to block it out The consequences got more serious and he ended up spending time in jail and suffering serious health problems He would black out and wake up with injuries – once he lost a toe, another time he woke up with a serious facial injury That was when he finally decided to consider the idea of getting clean He managed to get sober via a state funded rehab where he lived for four months There are only four state funded rehabs in California and many more for profit rehabs On the subject of rehabs Jared gave us some shocking information about corruption in the rehab industry, Quote from one of Jareds article “the rehab industry has become nothing more than a glorified insurance scam with a terrible success rate… ..despite making billions upon billions of dollars Can you imagine paying $30,000 for something that doesn’t work 90% of the time? Yet new rehabs are popping up almost daily with no sign of slowing” When Jared got clean he longed for tangible things, he wanted a job and somewhere to live… he had no idea of the intangible benefits that would come his way – a sense of self worth, the ability to love himself and the joy that comes from helping others Apart from helping others to get clean Jared is influencing policy decisions and feels there is currently a political will to change the current situation People and companies are leaving California which is reducing tax income, forcing politicians to come up with solutions That’s why he feels that politicians are open to dialogue with someone like him… someone who understands addiction and homelessness from the inside Jared has plenty of ideas to bring about social change which he writes about in his book the Crooked Smile which will be published in 2024 His articles can be read via Substack, he is on TW @jaredklickstein and his email is…[email protected] More Info Tribe Sober membership – you can join up HERE. To access our website, click HERE. If you would like a free copy of our “Annual Tracker” or our e-book 66 Days to Sobriety, please email [email protected]. If you would like to come to our Saturday afternoon Zoom Cafe as a guest and meet our community, just email [email protected]. Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today Read more about our program and subscribe HERE Help us to Spread the Word! We made this podcast so that we can reach more people who need our help. Please subscribe and share. If you enjoyed the podcast, then please leave us a 5-star review on Apple podcasts. Take a screenshot of your review, and DM it to Tribe Sober’s Instagram page – see PS below for instructions. We’ll send you something special to say thank you! We release a podcast episode every Saturday morning. You can follow Tribe Sober on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. You can join our private Facebook group HERE. PS: How to Leave a Rating/Review in Apple Podcasts (on an iOS Device) Open the Podcasts app. EASY. Choose “Search” from the bottom row of icons and enter the name of the show (e.g. Recover Like a Mother) into the search field. Select the show under Shows (not under Episodes). Scroll down past the first few episodes until you see Ratings & Reviews. Click Write a Review underneath the displayed r

On this weeks solo episode I talk about our Breaking Free program which we run four times a year. Registration for the current program is open until 13th October - more info here. We limit each Breaking Free group to 20 so you’ll always get personal attention In this episode:- I talk about the warning signs of alcohol dependence as well as the benefits of an alcohol free lifestyle The Breaking Free program has four components… Four pieces of a puzzle that come together to create a transformation… The first piece of the puzzle is Community Support so we connect you with the other people on the Breaking Free program We put you in a chatgroup with where you’ll also find some TS team members to answer any questions you may have The second piece is our 4 hour Masterclass – a group session which we hold via Zoom. Another opportunity to get to know the other people on the program as everyone will share their story at the beginning of the session. By the end of the Masterclass you’ll understand:- The importance of a mindset change and the damage alcohol does to our health We’ll be sharing our tried and tested sobriety toolkit and you’ll end the session feeling motivated and excited about the changes ahead. While the Masterclass will give you an overview of the Tribe Sober approach to thriving in sobriety the online course will enable you to dive deeper at your own pace. You’ll get all the theory and training you need to overturn your limiting beliefs around alcohol which is the key…. Just as we’ve been programmed into thinking that alcohol is an essential part of our daily lives our online program will de-program you and enable you to understand that you will be happier and healthier without it! The third piece is our online course which includes videos, podcasts, articles and book recommendations so you’ll be able to throw the book at your sobriety – you’ll be able to treat it as a 3-month project that will change the trajectory of your future. The fourth part of the puzzle is the personal support. You’ll have a 1.2.1 Zoom call with me so that I can hear your story and give you some personal guidance My colleague Sue will catch up with you midway through the course to get a progress report and Last but not least you can book a session with our Coach Lynette who will discuss how you are applying the theory of the Breaking Free program to your daily life So that’s the four pieces of our Breaking Free puzzle, four pieces that will come together to create an alcohol free lifestyle that you love.. Apart from creating a program that will get results we’ve created a program that is flexible and will fit in with your busy lives…. All of the 1.2.1’s can be scheduled to suit your convenience, the online course can be worked through at your own pace so the only timeslot you need to fit in is the four hour Masterclass. While we’re on the subject of time that’s one of the unexpected benefits of sobriety….. when we no longer spend time drinking and recovering from the drinking we find ourselves with extra time on our hands…. As well as the energy to do something constructive with that time! Registration for the current Breaking Free program is open until 13th October - more info here. More Info Tribe Sober membership – you can join up HERE. To access our website, click HERE. If you would like a free copy of our “Annual Tracker” or our e-book 66 Days to Sobriety, please email [email protected]. If you would like to come to our Saturday afternoon Zoom Cafe as a guest and meet our community, just email [email protected]. Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today Read more about our program and subscribe HERE Help us to Spread the Word! We made this podcast so that we can reach more people who need our help. Please subscribe and share. If you enjoyed the podcast, then please leave us a 5-star review on Apple podcasts. Take a screenshot of your review, and DM it to Tribe Sober’s Instagram page – see PS below for instructions. We’ll send you something special to say thank you! We release a podcast episode every Saturday morning. You can follow Tribe Sober on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. You can join our private Facebook group HERE. PS: How to Leave a Rating/Review in Apple Podcasts (on an iOS Device) Open the Podcasts app. EASY. Choose “Search” from the bottom row of icons and enter the name of the show (e.g. Recover Like a Mother) into the search field. Select the show under Shows (not under Episodes). Scroll down past the first few episodes until you see Ratings & Reviews. Click Write a Review underneath the displayed reviews from other listeners. You’ll then have the option to rate the show on a 5-star scale and write a review (you can rate without writing too but it’s always good to read your experience).

My guest today is Recovering Attorney Lily Lily was my guest on the episode which came out on May 6th – its already had 2,000 downloads and we had some great feedback from that one – if you missed it then have a listen to Lily sharing her story here Lily is a coach these days and one of the things that she helps people with is Relationship Coaching so today we’re going to focus on Sober Dating If your romantic relationships have always been lubricated with alcohol then this could be a skill you’ll need in your toolkit as you build your alcohol free life In this episode:- Lily’s full drinking story can be found on our previous episode which came out in May but she gave us a summary She began her drinking career as a teenager and it continued during her legal career. She became a daily drinker, frequently drinking alone and experiencing blackouts At 37 she reached rock bottom – in fact as she says in her previous interview she had a series of rock bottoms, one of which involved drinking alone in her apartment all weekend She felt hopeless, useless and miserable and finally reached out for some help Reaching out for help is actually the hardest step of all - so if you’re worried about your drinking then reach out to tribe sober today – just go to tribesober.com and hit join our tribe and we’ll show you how to quit drinking and build an alcohol free life you love So Lily got sober in 2018 and she’s been sober ever since – if you want to hear how she did it catch the previous episode As we switched to talking about relationships Lily explained that she’d been shy as a child so as a teenager alcohol helped her to fit in – to feel part of things It helped her to feel prettier, funnier and more vivacious, especially around men As she got older alcohol would always be a major player in her relationships She would drink before the date… which often took place in a bar If her dates didn’t drink like she did then that could be a problem Lily believed that alcohol made everything a bit brighter, a bit easier and less awkward – she just couldn’t imagine her life without it She certainly couldn’t imagine dating without it! During her first year of sobriety she didn’t date at all She believed the advice she had heard about focusing on sobriety and avoiding any major life changes during that first year. Major life changes like changing jobs, moving house and of course starting a new relationship Lily had to focus on learning to love and look after herself before she would be in an emotional state to look after someone else She had the insight that she had been using men a bit like she’s been using alcohol – the highs of a new relationship giving her a dopamine hit and making her feel good just like alcohol did As Lily moved into her second year of sobriety she went on her first sober date She knew the guy, they both liked and respected each other and they had things in common Although that relationship didn’t develop into anything serious Lily felt proud of herself – proud that she had shown up as a very different person By this point she felt so much clearer about who she was, what she wanted and what kind of person she was looking for We talked about the risk of relationships between people in recovery and how they can crash and burn The common struggle may create a bond which means you feel that you’ve found your soulmate but it makes sense for you both to get that year of sobriety first to avoid any risk of relapse We talked about the dangers of cross addiction and how we can transfer our love affair with alcohol to food or shopping or sex I asked Lily how a sober person should start looking for a new relationship once they had completed their first alcohol free year Apparently there are sober dating apps/websites – in fact a quick google search came up with a list of 8 sober dating apps which I’ll add to the shownotes https://resurgencebehavioralhealth.com/blog/8-best-sober-apps-for-people-in-recovery/ Although Lily met some good people via dating apps when she was drinking these days she feels more comfortable getting to know people first via a shared interest or through friends We talked about the best way for sober people to use the regular dating apps and agreed that it’s far better to disclose that you don’t drink alcohol in your profile – even if you get fewer matches it’s far better to know in advance that your sobriety may be a problem for some people! The people who don’t match with you because of your sobriety are very likely to have a drinking problem themselves so they would not be right for you anyway! First dates very often involve sitting across from each other eating and drinking but as Lily says an experiential date will take a lot of the pressure off – taking a walk, going to a dog park, going out for breakfast One of her best first dates was a trip to a museum I asked Lily what she had learned from her experience of sober dating She’s learned to listen to her intuition – that gut feeling that tells h

Belle got sober back in 2012 and was one of the first people in the Sober Space, one of the first to share her own story and to try and help others to make a change… In this episode:- Belle was not interested in alcohol as a teenager, she’d actually noticed what it did to people and didn’t like what she saw As she got into her twenties she started to drink the odd beer Interestingly she would never buy a six pack – somehow she knew it was a better idea to buy a single beer at a time Way before she had developed any level of dependence she recognized that alcohol “spoke to her” as she put it… A decade later her consumption stepped up until she was drinking four or five times a week, three or four drinks at a time As she hit 30 she was finding it harder to moderate She started taking AF beers to social events and alternating between her alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks A decade later she decided that she needed to take a break from alcohol to prove that she wasn’t an alcoholic In her late 30’s Belle got married and felt she had a “partner in crime” as she put it Drinking wine with dinner at home and ordering a bottle when they were out didn’t seem at all excessive They would order wine by the case and it felt very “grown up” and sophisticated Belle’s husband drank the same amounts that she did but in fact he didn’t think about alcohol in the same way that she did This realization actually didn’t surface until she quit when she realized that he could take it or leave it – he was a “normie” as she puts it Belle was used to taking a few days off the booze now and then when her workload got heavy or she had to get up early but when she decided to quit for a month she only got to 7 days That was when it hit her that she might have a problem Her second attempt at taking a month off alcohol also failed so she decided she had to approach this differently A friend of hers sent her an anonymous blog from someone who was trying to quit Belle loved the idea of blogging… and getting responses from people who were on the same path She created a blog on wordpress and posted her first entry She got an encouraging response the next day and found it “surprisingly helpful” People were giving her advice and confirming that yes those first couple of weeks were hard and suddenly she realized she wasn’t alone There was actually a roadmap to this sobriety journey! Back in 2012 there were no real alternatives to AA or rehab She had never felt “bad enough” for those options so imagined she would just have to struggle along as a grey area drinker Her blog was such a revelation that she wasn’t alone in this and that there were other people out there who she could connect with She blogged for a year and then started to offer online support via daily emails I asked Belle for her personal benefits of sobriety and she listed sleep, being able to count on herself and feeling proud of herself – for making such a big change with a ripple effect. Her anxiety and irritability reduced and overall she was surprised at the positive impact this change had made to her life She remains unconcerned about questions about her alcohol free lifestyle as she feels that people are actually not that interested If asked she just says “I’m not drinking these days as it was affecting my sleep” and finds that nobody ever takes it further… In 2016 she wrote a book called Tired of Thinking about Drinking which was the name of her blog If you’re familiar with Belle’s work then you will know all about Wolfie – that was the name she gave the voice in her head urging her to drink I loved Belle’s analogy about the toddler in the supermarket yelling for a donut…. If you give him a donut he will just repeat that behaviour next time… The trick of course is to deny the donut that first time and even though it might get noisy and embarrassing in the supermarket the child is unlikely to repeat the behaviour as it didn’t work So we have learn to say no to Wolfie – say no to that voice in our head telling us we can have a drink! So what can we learn from Belles inspiring story…? Just like Belle so many of us try to take a short break to prove we are not alcoholic! I think that accounts for the popularity of Dry January… most people can grit their teeth and white knuckle it through 30 days using willpower alone but of course making a permanent change is about changing our mindset So many of us realise that we do have a problem with alcohol when we try to take a break and find it really hard – that’s why it’s so important to take regular breaks Belle uses the analogy of underwater swimming, as she says we can hold our breath but we'll only get so far…without tools, strategies and support it's going to be hard for many people to clock up more than 7-9 alcohol free days We agreed that a 30 day break is just not long enough to learn anything or to experience any real benefits – that’s why we offer our 66 day Challenge which you can start anyday in September – just go the tribesobe

My guest today is Kirsty Mulcahy from Soberbuzz Scotland Her work is focussed on supporting people to go alcohol free – she also coaches people who are sober and are asking themselves what comes next… In this episode:- Kirsty started drinking at the age of 14 The first night she drank she ended up in hospital having her stomach pumped That one weekend changed the trajectory of Kirsty's schooling Previously she’s loved school and was doing well but after the stomach pumping incident she hung out with the people she’d been drinking with – she needed to “fit in” We agreed that even when we get older we still have the need to fit in and one of the fears of quitting is around out identity – who will we be if we don’t drink! Who will my people be? We agreed that we are both blessed to be working in the recovery community where we have found our people and get purpose from helping people to change their lives Kirsty left school early and went to leave abroad at the age of 17 She drank heavily and took recreational drugs until she was 21 Returning to the UK she had the intention of returning to live overseas but she fell in love and had a child At the age of 27 she separated from her partner and became a single mom That’s when she realized that she had a problem with alcohol…although she didn’t stop until she was 41 14 years of knowing but not changing.. 14 years of thinking this isn’t right but feeling trapped because she had no idea HOW to make a change I so identify with this and in fact the average time that someone takes from the realization that they have a problem and doing something about it is 11 years So if you are in that place of knowing that you have a problem but feeling trapped please reach out today… there is help available, go to tribesober.com and hit join our tribe! Apart from not knowing how to quit drinking Kirsty's whole identify was wrapped up in being the party girl There was also a dark side to the partying which was when she drank alone When Kirstys mom died suddenly she was 33 and her drinking became heavier She had no sober people in her life, no role models showing her that an alcohol free life was possible She had been to an AA meeting in her 20’s but was unable to relate to the people she found there Apart from the shock of losing her mom Kirsty had to cope with a lot of extra responsibility and she no longer had childcare for when she went to work She had no coping mechanisms so turned to alcohol Kirsty tried putting various rules in place around her drinking but ended up breaking them She had lots of “rock bottoms” but found herself moving the goalposts For example she thought that if she ever woke up in a strangers house the morning after she would quit But she did…and she didn’t quit One of the things that prevented her from getting help was the shame… she just didn’t want to tell anyone how bad it had got Another factor that kept her trapped was the thought that people would realise that she had a problem if we stopped When we give up smoking we get congratulated but when we give up drinking we just get lots of awkward questions! Like many of us Kirsty was high functioning and managed to hold down a job and maintain her parenting role.. She also poured huge energy into keeping everybody happy so that no-one questioned what was going on in her life Without her mom to look out for her Kirsty felt very alone… there was nobody close to her to see just how bad her drinking had got…nobody to advise her Her final rock bottom came in December 2017 when she woke up surrounded by empty bottles and drug paraphernalia… She got on her knees and asked for help… She couldn’t do this anymore… If YOU ever wake up feeling exhausted and hungover… and decide you can’t do this anymore please embrace that moment, it’s your turning point so don’t ignore it, reach out for some help Kirsty reached out for some help that day.. she signed herself into a crisis centre When she returned home she went cold turkey This was a big risk – when she saw a doctor she told her she could have died… after drinking 2-3 bottles of wine plus spirits a day she actually needed a medical detox Thankfully Kirsty did survive although she describes her detox as “hell” As she clocked up some alcohol free time she began to realise that it was not drugs or alcohol that she craved… it was love… When we ditch the booze and go alcohol free we learn how to love ourselves again It starts with the pride we feel as we achieve some sober time and stay on track Kirsty had to figure out how to care for herself She went to bed straight after dinner to avoid thinking about drinking, she drank lots of water, she ate well, she began to be truthful with her friends and she began a journaling and gratitude practice She took it hour by hour in those early days and it began to stick The more time that passed since her last drink the more space she got in her mind She got space to reflect on what she really needed A beautiful space as she calls it F

In this episode I interview an important member of our Tribe Sober team - Jane Rivera. She came along to a workshop in 2016, ditched the drink and remains a valued Tribe member, inspiring others to change their relationship with alcohol. In this Episode Jane tells her how her mindset has gone from "wanting to die" to "can't get enough of life" She was introduced to alcohol at an early age as her parents bought a pub in the UK She moved to Joburg as a teenager but struggled to settle and went off the rails A happy marriage and two beautiful children still didn't stop her from hitting the wine Jane finally realised that she would have to make a change when she felt her husband and kids pulling away from her She heard Janet on the radio and booked a workshop She left the workshop thinking she would stay alcohol free for a while and then start drinking moderately These workshops are now called Kickstart Masterclass and are available via Zoom - more info here After a few months of AF living Jane was feeling great and accepted that she would never be able to have "just one glass" She now loves her AF life, is close to her family again - and loves helping people in our community She has recently relocated to Norway - an adventure she could never have coped with back in her drinking days! More Info Subscription membership – you can join up HERE. To access our website, click HERE. If you would like a free copy of our “Annual Tracker” or our e-book 66 Days to Sobriety, please email [email protected]. If you would like to come to our Saturday afternoon Zoom Cafe as a guest and meet our community, just email [email protected]. Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today Read more about our program and subscribe HERE Help us to Spread the Word! We made this podcast so that we can reach more people who need our help. Please subscribe and share. If you enjoyed the podcast, then please leave us a 5-star review on Apple podcasts. Take a screenshot of your review, and DM it to Tribe Sober’s Instagram page – see PS below for instructions. We’ll send you something special to say thank you! We release a podcast episode every Saturday morning. You can follow Tribe Sober on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. You can join our private Facebook group HERE. PS: How to Leave a Rating/Review in Apple Podcasts (on an iOS Device) Open the Podcasts app. EASY. Choose “Search” from the bottom row of icons and enter the name of the show (e.g. Recover Like a Mother) into the search field. Select the show under Shows (not under Episodes). Scroll down past the first few episodes until you see Ratings & Reviews. Click Write a Review underneath the displayed reviews from other listeners. You’ll then have the option to rate the show on a 5-star scale and write a review (you can rate without writing too but it’s always good to read your experience).

So my guests today are Dave & Susan Kenney - they believe that understanding the brain is the key to recovery and are the pioneers of Actualised Recovery – an approach which combines neuroscience, psychology and lifestyle medicine. After running their own residential recovery program for a decade they have now pivoted to training recovery coaches. In this episode:- At school Dave had excelled at sport but had struggled academically leading to him being called “lazy” Now that he understands so much more about the brain he sees that as a sign of his brain not working properly as he really wanted to do well.. and in fact believes that all children and adults want to do well He got into university on a sports scholarship and became an educator In 2008 as educators Dave & Susan noticed many kids struggling socially, academically and with addiction Although back then they knew nothing about the brain and hadn’t even heard of neuroplasticity they started to wonder whether it was possible to change a brain They came across the work of a neuro psychologist called Daniel Amen – He had published a book called “Change Your Brain, Change Your Life” The book is about neuroplasticity which is our ability to rewire our brains Dave explained the concept that the brain drives behaviour – a concept which has been fundamental to their work and which they decided to apply to the world of recovery and The brain drives our patterns, our cravings and our choices so if we change our brains we can change our behaviour Dave explained that he sees the brain as the hardware of a computer and it’s no good addressing the software if the hardware is faulty So meditation, CBT or any other kind of therapy is not going to work if the brain is not working properly Dave came up with the analogy that trauma can be likened to a virus on a computer … causing our brains to dysfunction He also made the point that not everybody becomes addicted to alcohol – the people who do get addicted have a brain which is chemically predisposed to getting relief from alcohol If we impact and change the brain we can enable the person to create better habits and change their behaviours The catalyst for applying their knowledge to the recovery world was hearing about a friend who had lost her son to suicide which galvanized them into setting up their own recovery centre for 12 years they ran a private residential recovery program based on this Brain First approach – helping thousands of people and living on campus themselves Dave would interview patients on arrival and ask them what they would choose if he could give them anything – nine out of ten said happiness We discussed the futility of chasing short term goals to be happy – whether that’s a shot of tequila or a new car Dave shared his favourite word with us with is:- Eudomonia: which is living a life of long term values – the premise being that happiness and wellbeing come from how we live our lives rather than the pursuit of material wealth or power For Susan the definition of happiness is a life led with purpose Their approach fits with Maslows hierarchy which has purpose and self actualization at the top but physiological needs at the foundations – Susan explained that most patients would be dehydrated on arrival so no amount of therapy was going to work until that was put right They would work on basic health and then the therapies and treatments could come in There was an essential family component to their recovery program which often involved coaching the family how to agree boundaries rather than making threats We talked of the importance of changing patterns in early recovery..- you can’t just take away the alcohol and carry on with the same behaviour… So many of our patterns involve coupling various activities with alcohol – for example cooking dinner while sipping a glass of wine – we have to work on replacing this habit until we can cook happily without the wine “The more a neuron fires the stronger it wires” in other words our new habits will get stronger over time Dave & Susan closed their clinic when Covid hit and have now pivoted into training recovery coaches – using all the knowledge they built up working in their clinic over the years Dave's definition of recovery coaching is simply to enable people to live their limitless lives They have an internationally certified Recovery Coaching program – an 8 week online program Unlike many programs they don’t believe that a recovery coach needs to have gone through their own struggles to be a good coach The rationale being that coaching is about asking the right questions and listening deeply to the answers rather than sharing our own stories One of their students made the interesting point that people should be trained in recovery coaching before life coaching as understanding the brain and why people do what they do should be the foundation for the kind of goal setting that a life coach would do… Susan & David are both graduates of

Even though we offer our members a lot of support already we’re always on the look out for new benefits. So these days apart from yoga, meditation, coaching, hypnotherapy, art therapy and accountability groups we can offer our members a functional medicine coach. A Functional Medicine Coach can help us with the transition between drinking a building a healthy lifestyle. We all know vaguely what we need to do to be healthy but a Health Coach will personalise that plan for you and then ensure that you put it into action! So Tribe Sober’s new Functional Health Coach is called Laura Gujadhur We began by clarifying the difference between functional medicine and conventional medicine. Laura explained that conventional medicine is disease management and treatment of symptoms whereas Functional medicine looks at the root cause of disease An example would be going to a conventional doctor with a rash – that doctor would be unlikely to ask you about your diet, your stress levels and whether you’ve had allergy tests -he would probably give you a cream to calm down the rash but he wouldn’t have got to the root cause of whats going on So functional medicine looks at the root cause of disease and illness and starts from there Conventional medicine is something we resort to when we are already sick Whereas functional medicine encourages you to work on your health so that you don’t develop chronic diseases… You become the architect of your own health Laura’s interest in health and wellness began about 5 years ago when she quit drinking A member of her family was diagnosed with depression and immediately put on anti-depressants which didn’t sit well with Laura About that time she had stumbled across a book called The Ultra Mind Solution by Dr Mark Hyman In this book he explains that when he heals someone’s gut and sorts out the imflammation the cognitive function improves and depression and anxiety go away As an ex nurse married to a doctor this came as a revelation to Laura – they never learned anything like this in medical school Laura decided to approach functional medicine in the same way that she had approached sobriety – she would read everything she could get her hands on After all Annie Grace’s book “The Naked Mind” had been such an eye opener for her and made her realise that Big Alcohol are inundating us with false messaging Her research into Functional Medicine made her realise that conventional medicine was simply driven by Big Pharma and that she had been naïve not to question it during her medical training and career. Laura’s decision to quit drinking for a month came after a party when she woke up with a hangover and thought…enough She white knuckled her way through the month and used the time that she saved (by not drinking) to read everything she could. Her belief systems around drinking had already been overturned by The Naked Mind and she realized that she couldn’t go back to drinking Laura threw the book at her sobriety and like so many others who have succeeded she treated it like a job. She told her husband she wouldn't be entertaining or going anywhere for three months as she wanted to concentrate on her reading. We all learn differently so it can be helpful to reflect on our personal learning style as we approach the difficult task of giving up alcohol and learning to navigate society without it. There are 4 distinct learning styles identified by Honey & Mumford in 1986. Activist Theorist Pragmatist Reflector So we all learn how to navigate our alcohol free journey in our own way and shouldn’t be comparing our progress with others… just keep trying and it will come together. Back to Laura. What I found interesting was the fact that once she’d done all her research and reading she was absolutely ready to make a firm decision and her mantra was:- "Never Question the Decision" I think that’s such a helpful strategy which will stand her in good stead if she has a craving or is under pressure from others to drinking… She approached her sobriety with the same gusto and enthusiasm that she used to approach her drinking- focusing on what she was gaining rather than losing by leading an alcohol free lifestyle. However Laura did go into full blown sugar addiction when she quit drinking and wishes that she’d had a functional health coach teach her how to transition which would have resulted in her feeling a lot better sooner. These days Laura is qualified as Functional Health Coach. She talked about the 4 pillars of health Diet/Exercise/Stress Reduction and Sleep and emphasized that a Health Coach could ease the transition into the alcohol free lifestyle and help to avoid a cross addiction. As she said we all know broadly what we should be doing to stay healthy but the value of a health coach is that she will ensure that you implement and stick to the right eating plan and exercise regime. We agreed that coaching is super valuable to keep people on track - especially for women. Laura feels that many women t

My guest this week is Tribe member Suzanna Poroski - a dance, a choreographer, a singer and a piano player! She's recently celebrated her first Soberversary so I began our conversation by her to introduce herself In this episode:- Suzanna’s first experience of alcohol was at the age of 14 when she got into her father’s brandy Rather than being repulsed by the taste of it she actually drank it until she blacked out As Suzanna said enthusiasm for alcohol after the very first drink is a warning sign of possible problems in the future She also remembers leaving school at lunchtime to drink beers at a friend’s house Her father was a drinker and her parents divorced when she was 13 - Suzanna left home at an early age Fiercely independent with an obsessive need to be liked she would go drinking with her friends in bars at the age of 16 – then bring people back to her place for drinks Drinking and driving was normalized in her friendship group Suzanna worked as a choreographer at Club Med in Bermuda and created a rule around her drinking She would only drink every second night – just like the teenage drinking, making rules around our drinking are a sign of dependence Suzanna describes Club Med as a breeding ground for alcoholics - when she left at the age of 30 she assumed that her drinking patterns would go back to "normal" As a child of an alcoholic Suzanna was familiar with the 12 steps from her Alateen meetings so when her own drinking started to escalate she went to AA As a dancer she was under huge pressure to stay slim so also struggled with her eating patterns so she went to Overeaters Anonymous as well! She did achieve period of sobriety via AA but also had some bad drinking episodes Like the time she was driving a rented car and woke up after a blackout with no memory of where she’d parked the car Or the time when she was so shaken by a drunk driving episode that she had to sleep with the lights and tv on for fear of lying in the dark and going into her own head as she puts it – the “bad neighbourhood” I think she called it! She was in New York on 9/11 so although she wasn’t directly affected just like the rest of the world she was shocked and horrified Suzanna lost her job as a result of 9/11 which meant she could stay in her apartment – eating drinking and watching Netflix – trying to numb her feelings She got to a point where the drinking just wasn’t working anymore so she managed quite lengthy spells of sobriety but always went back to drinking In 2014 she lost her business so once more turned to Netflix, drinking and food to cope She did manage to quit drinking but replaced it with an obsessive running routine – 5 miles a day and only missing a few days in 17 months She managed almost 3 years in sobriety with AA and then had a slip up… At Tribe Sober we often talk about “uncoupling positive experiences from alcohol” – the classic one here in South Africa is “I can’t enjoy the sunset without a glass of wine” – of course we have to replace those patterns with more healthy habits like “watching the sunset with an alcohol free drink”! So back to Suzanna’s slip up – she’d cleaned the house, done her hair and make up and was waiting for some guests to arrive – everything was good and she felt an irrational urge to celebrate with a drink that had been left over from a previous party… That’s when she started to wonder if AA was no longer working for her She dived into the quitlit and started to explore different approaches At the same time she felt her body was no longer tolerating alcohol like it used to… and giving her physical feedback that life would be better sober She still had a mental struggle going on, the cognitive dissonance that so many of us are familiar with – our conscious mind telling us to quit and being challenged by our subconscious beliefs that we need alcohol to enjoy our lives At Tribe Sober we talk about our “Not This” moment Suzanna had her "Not This" moment when she was walking along a beautiful beach but rather than basking in the beauty of her surroundings her mind was occupied with finding a little bar where she could drink her wine This made her so angry she decided she was done As she said “alcohol is insidious – the way it slowly becomes your everything” Suzanna talked about the Tipping Point that we get to when we’ve been trying to quit drinking for years and then one day something shifts and everything falls into place All the Sober Stretches you’ve done, all the quitlit you’ve read, all the conversations come together and bring about a shift.. We hear this a lot at Tribe Sober and as Suzanna said it’s the reason why we must never stop trying – it will work in the end I love what she said about her personal Tipping Point “it came in quietly, I didn’t tell anybody, I just knew…and I felt a quiet strength” Suzanna discovered Tribe Sober via this podcast As a result of the podcast she emailed me for the pdf of our Annual Tracker – if you’d like an Annual Tracker just email membe

My guest this week is Annie McDonnell - an Australian executive with a difficult start in life followed by a 20 years career in the wine industry. These days she's thriving in her alcohol free life and inspiring others as a Sober Coach. In this episode:- Annie’s father had a drinking problem and her parents had a difficult marriage – in fact her mother left the home when Annie has just 14 Unsurprisingly Annie felt angry and abandoned and it was about this time that she discovered that alcohol which became her best friend Unsure of her career ambitions Annie chose random subjects to study at university – one of them being Viniculture which she loved She went on to join Australia's burgeoning wine industry and loved her job Of course she got to hang out with her best friend alcohol every day and a tasting at a 9am sales meeting was not unusual! Annie enjoyed this lifestyle throughout her 20’s and 30’s but in her 40’s she crashed and burned She’d known that she had a problem with alcohol for years but just couldn’t imagine life without alcohol I was the same and we agreed that it was the fear of life without our best friend alcohol that keeps us trapped I sometimes wish I had a time machine that I could put some of our new members in – those people who are struggling – scoring a few alcohol free days and then giving in to a craving.. In early sobriety its impossible to imagine just how different your life will be if you make this change Annie came up with a great analogy about rocks – she said that when you are drinking it feels like you are carrying a backpack of rocks and when you stop you put it down….and life feels so much better, so much lighter you marvel at how wrong you were to fear alcohol free living It does take a few months of hard work but then you are free and your life starts to evolve in the most extraordinary ways so people need to have faith just like my favourite MLK quote Take the first step on the staircase even if you cant see the top – if you're ready to take that first step just go to tribesober.com and hit “join our tribe” and we’ll take care of the rest! Annie described her “not this” moment which came in her mid forties as a result of severe anxiety which had left her unable to drive, unable to see people or even to lift a spoon to eat some soup.. "Not this" moments come to us when we are at rock bottom, we know we just can’t do this anymore Annie signed up for a 100 day challenge and felt great relief that she didn’t have to think about her drinking for 100 days That’s a great attitude to go into a challenge with – we have our annual 66 day challenge starting on 1st September so if you’d like to join that just go to the homepage of tribesober.com Annie and I talked about the power that we begin to feel as we become more aligned with who we really are in sobriety – we take control and no longer feel that things are just “happening” to us Like many of us who have been sober for a few years Annie felt pulled towards helping others so she trained as a Sobriety Coach and we talked about the Sacred Walk experience that she offers You can find Annie at her website powerfullysober.com, on LinkendIn of via email [email protected] More Info Subscription membership – you can join up HERE. To access our website, click HERE. If you would like a free copy of our “Annual Tracker” or our e-book 66 Days to Sobriety, please email [email protected]. If you would like to come to our Saturday afternoon Zoom Cafe as a guest and meet our community, just email [email protected]. Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today Read more about our program and subscribe HERE Help us to Spread the Word! We made this podcast so that we can reach more people who need our help. Please subscribe and share. If you enjoyed the podcast, then please leave us a 5-star review on Apple podcasts. Take a screenshot of your review, and DM it to Tribe Sober’s Instagram page – see PS below for instructions. We’ll send you something special to say thank you! We release a podcast episode every Saturday morning. You can follow Tribe Sober on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. You can join our private Facebook group HERE. PS: How to Leave a Rating/Review in Apple Podcasts (on an iOS Device) Open the Podcasts app. EASY. Choose “Search” from the bottom row of icons and enter the name of the show (e.g. Recover Like a Mother) into the search field. Select the show under Shows (not under Episodes). Scroll down past the first few episodes until you see Ratings & Reviews. Click Write a Review underneath the displayed reviews from other listeners. You’ll then have the option to rate the show on a 5-star scale and write a review (you can rate without writing too but it’s always good to read your experience).

Jeff Graham founded the Bac2Zero sobriety group. Like many of us in the recovery space Jeff’s initial sobriety goal was simply to quit drinking. As he recovered his health, energy and creativity he decided he wanted to help others to do the same. He describes sobriety as freedom – freedom from a world that was once filled with dread, regret and fear. Although his goal started out simply as one of abstinence, his life has since grown into a life filled with dreams, hope and happiness. In this Episode Jeff enjoyed his first beer at the age of 16, it wasn’t so much the buzz he enjoyed as the status – he felt like he “fitted in”. Much as he enjoyed the social side of drinking he also discovered that he loved to drink alone – he would come home from a night out and have some drinks on his own – he felt like he needed some “Jeff time” as he put it Many of us are like this – and even in sobriety some of us can still get triggered when we get home from a social event – even when we were drinking AF drinks! I would work hard to behave myself at a social event and then down a bottle of wine when I got home! Jeff was into beer and from the age of 23 and was drinking a case of beer a day – of course his friends were all drinkers His parents were both alcoholics and that’s why he was drawn to beer rather than spirits – he thought it was “better” – but of course it’s all ethanol! He started hiding his beers in the garage – so his wife and kids had no idea how much he was drinking or quite how bad it had got Someone asked him recently if sobriety was “hard” – it made him reflect on just how “hard” it was to be a functioning alcoholic – how hard it was to hold everything together. He got to the point when he knew he would have to cut down but he couldn’t face it – so he just started hiding his drinks more effectively! We talked about the buzz and how us drinkers love to maintain the buzz – in fact recent research has shown that the buzz only lasts for 20 minutes and then we carry on drinking to top it up After some beers Jeff would not go back to “normal” – he would feel lower than normal and reach for the beer to compensate He was starting to drink earlier in the day but always telling himself that “tomorrow” would be different. Eventually he ran out of lies – admitted defeat and booked himself into rehab for a week He needed this stay in rehab to draw a line under his drinking and to make a statement to his friends and family that he wanted to make a change We find that many of the people who come to our workshops are able to make use of the tools and community to draw that line under their drinking habits and to make a change Jeff needed the accountability that came with rehab – he just couldn’t do this alone He didn’t actually learn much in rehab but he did a lot of self-reflection and of course met other people with the same problems When he was sharing his story he heard himself saying things that he hadn’t really registered before – that happens at our workshops – people get emotional when they share because they only realise just how unhappy alcohol has been making them when they tell their story out loud. Three months out of rehab he had a relapse – he wanted a reward, a last “hurrah” as he put it That did indicate that he still had work to do on his mindset – if we still see alcohol as a reward then it means it will always be hard to resist and we will suffer from FOMO Once we see alcohol for the addictive toxin it really is we will lose our desire for it which is the key to sustaining our sobriety After his relapse Jeff took his recovery more seriously – he started to listen more and began journaling to process his thoughts and emotions. He feels that it’s really important to get the negative thoughts on paper so then we can analyse them – it’s all part of being honest with ourselves. Of course when he stopped drinking he had to find other things to do – he learned that he couldn’t just wait until he had a craving and then find something else to do – he had to plan it in advance Jeff learned that he needed a schedule of activities and I think that’s great advice Try lots of different things and keep yourself busy until you find a routine that really works for you As he says it’s no good telling him to call someone if he gets a craving – it’s too late by then! Like myself he loves talking to people in recovery and getting new insights We talked about discovering purpose and the way we have both found more purpose in our lives from running sobriety groups – he set up Bac2Zero to inspire others on the journey Interviewing people for Bac2Zero keeps his schedule busy! He has some great analogies – sobriety is like a haunted house – scary to enter alone but can even be fun if you are with someone else! And the traffic lights! - sobriety is not a red traffic light! It’s a green light to freedom, health and happiness – yes there may be a while stopped at the amber light going through an adjustment period but the green l

If I had to describe a typical Tribe member then I would pick a lady in her 40’s or 50’s – successful career woman with a family. Noody would dream that this lady had a problem with alcohol but in fact she’s been worried about her drinking for years. My podcast guest this week pretty much fits that profile...Tribe member Claire B In this Episode: Claire's parents didn’t drink much so her first experience of drinking was as a teenager – 18th birthday parties – vodkas and a sweet concentrated orange juice was her drink As she says she went straight for the hard stuff but of course had to add sweetened orange juice to make it palatable just as I did with my whisky and coke As a trainee nurse Claire would drink when she went out but would never drink alone and it was not problematic in those days In her early 20’s Claire moved from the UK to SA and was struck by the drinking culture – wine at lunchtime and in fact she celebrated her first birthday in SA with a champagne breakfasts! She embraced this culture and thought it was great! The first time she began to worry about her drinking was in her late 20’s when she came home from a very boozy lunch and found herself wanting to have another glass of wine That became a habit for Claire – going out for drinks and then carrying on the party alone when she got home She realised that like so many of us she didn’t have an “off” button –that’s definitely a red flag… as is drinking alone Other warning signs are – regularly drinking more than the low risk limits which are just one and a half bottles of wine a week, trying (and failing) to cut down, again and again - …..also when all your social activities revolve around alcohol etc I asked Claire if she tried to cut down or set rules for her drinking – she explained that she wanted someone else to set rules for her – she was actually looking for a reason to stop drinking She thought she’d found one when she relocated to China as she wasn’t expecting alcohol to be so readily available and she remembered welcoming that situation However she found that alcohol was available and in fact she drank a lot during her 3 years there She found herself engineering situations where she could drink and as she said the subject took up “a lot of her bandwidth” People often ask me if they are drinking too much – I explain that if they are thinking about it, even if it’s a niggling thought at the back of their mind…. Then that’s probably a sign that they should take action, even if they are not drinking huge amounts Quite simply if it’s on your mind.. you’ll be happier without it! Those of us who’ve spent years trying and failing to moderate know only too well that it takes up far too much mental space – and when we get sober we can find peace Claire tried the odd alcohol free challenge but found the thought of quitting drinking for ever extremely scary She began to feel that there were 2 Claires – the sensible one and the other one who was egging her on to drink more Many of us experience this inner struggle between our rational conscious mind and our subconscious which is holding limiting beliefs about alcohol Limiting beliefs like “we can’t have fun, relax or socialize” without it Beliefs which are the result of decades of exposure to marketing and peer pressure convincing us that alcohol is essential to a happy life! Claire and I both drank for decades and agreed that our neural pathways for drinking were more like Superhighways than pathways! When we start to build our alcohol free life we are looking to replace that Superhighway with an alcohol free pathway which will in turn become a Superhighway if we stick at our sobriety and continue to do that work Claire came up with a lovely analogy that her sobriety was like a garden…and just like a garden is never finished and it takes work – just like her sobriety If someone asks her advice about a family member who might be drinking too much she’s not afraid to point out red flags I so agree with her that we should speak openly rather than just say “oh I’m sure they are fine” which is the usual response from people That’s why I’m so grateful to Tribe members like Claire and others who have come on this podcast to share their stories It means people can hear that having a problem with alcohol does not mean that we are like the homeless tramp which society likes to portray as the alcoholic They can hear that people with a problem are just like them.. and more importantly that it is possible to make a change and to be so much happier and healthier without alcohol Claire is quite sporty and as she got into her late 40’s and 50’s she would often take a break from alcohol for a few weeks to prepare for a race…but always went back to drinking One day she heard me talking on the radio about our Sober Spring – a 66 day challenge we do every year It appealed to her because she loves a Challenge So she signed up but was not really planning to participate in the chatgroups but then she realized that s

My guest this week is narrative therapist Tessa Freeman. Narrative Therapy is very much in line with our approach at Tribe Sober - because it’s about separating a person from their problem It’s about ditching the guilt and shame along with the alcohol I’s about enabling people to realise that they should not label themselves or see themselves as broken or the problem or powerless Tessa and I have both had a lot of experience of working with groups and agreed that the magic of community is that we can gradually replace our addiction with connection. In this episode When Tessa lost her father she needed support so had some narrative therapy This piqued her interest to such an extent that she decided to train as a narrative therapist herself She is now a Narrative Therapist specializing in addiction Tessa explained that (a bit like coaching) narrative therapy is based on the fact that the client is the expert and the therapist walks alongside them (rather than in front of them) When working with alcohol dependent clients Tessa will always separate the problem from the person which will reduce any feelings of shame We agreed that addiction can be very isolating but once we join a group we realise that we are not the only one and we feel so much better – eventually connection with the group begins to take the place of the addiction At Tribe Sober we encourage our members to write a “Goodbye to Alcohol Letter” and you can see some examples on tribesober.com under the podcasts, blogs and more menu Tessa also uses an analogy explaining that if two women who had been in an abusive relationship with the same man were to meet – they would have an instant bond and realise the damage that relationship had caused. That makes me think of that beautiful quote by CS Lewis “friendship is born in the moment when one person says to another “you too? – I thought I was the only one” When I first started working in this field 7 years ago I was amazed by the bond I could see developing so quickly between our members – complete strangers from all over the world but their common experience enables them to be vulnerable and open with each other We talked about the shares that take place at the beginning of each of our Tribe Sober workshops – when each participant will share just how unhappy alcohol has been making them – these shares demonstrate the power of story telling…. Story telling is of course the foundation of narrative therapy and Tessa explained that we make sense of our lives by the stories we tell ourselves…. And when we share our stories we are bearing our souls and showing who we really are….and also demonstrating the power of vulnerability We talked about the many false narratives in the public domain and Tessa gave us the example of her friend explaining that if Tessa wanted to have children she would have to have to start drinking because – as her friend put it:- "It takes a vineyard to raise a child" These kind of stories are so common that eventually we internalize them and look for confirmation bias to convince ourselves they are true This way they become limiting beliefs Which are shared by our friends and that’s how a global trend like “mommyjuice” is born I asked Tessa to explain how she would use narrative therapy to overturn this belief that her friend was holding The belief that it takes a vineyard to raise a child Her approach would be to deconstruct the belief ie to stay curious about it and to challenge it Tessa would take her friend back to a time before she drank when she didn’t hold this belief She would ask her to think about who she is without alcohol Tessa would help her friend to externalize her story by searching for good stories – a period in her friend's life when alcohol was not present She would also remind her that in fact she parents for most of the day without alcohol and she would help her to explore alternative ways of reducing the stress and then to co-author a new belief which would alter her friends identity It’s so important to remember that you are never the problem, rather you are the person with a problem Focussing on the clients strengths make it easier to separate them from the problem It’s about building and strengthening the alternative stories we can hold about ourselves Many of us who were/are alcohol dependent have low self esteem from all those years of trying (and failing) to cut down or quit so focusing on our strengths will help to rebuild our feelings of self worth. I often say that the path to sobriety is about learning to love and nurture ourselves again, about learning to put ourselves first rather than last! I asked Tessa what she had learned during her time working in the addiction field She told me that when she started her job she was expecting to be working with a lot of homeless or unemployed people so it was a big surprise that most of her clients were high functioning with good careers. That’s when she realized that addiction was not a rarity – in fact it had

My guest this week is Faye Lawrence who is the founder of Australia's largest alcohol-free community for the sober and the sober curious. Their focus is not so much on the “not drinking” bit but more on the socialising without alcohol bit – which is a real struggle for most people after they quit. They do dinners, bush walks, sober singles nights, live music and ever roller discos. It sounds like a way to find your vibe as a newly sober person. Another reason I wanted to talk to Faye was because Research is now showing that there are definite links between Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) Faye was recently diagnosed with ADHD and was keen to talk about it In this episode:- Faye Explained that she’d been in therapy for years but it wasn’t until she stopped drinking that the healing began She calls sobriety a "portal for growth" - at Tribe Sober we often call it a "springboard for self development" The combination of alcoholism on both sides of her family and the influence of the boozy Uk culture resulted in Faye beginning to drink at 13 She loved partying and found it enabled her to switch off her overactive brain She began working in London which of course meant joining the Work Hard/Play Hard culture Fay had kids quite young and then relocated to Australia Her drinking calmed down a bit after she had children but then ramped up again when she separated from her husband She felt isolated as had no family in Oz and hadn’t yet established a friend network With 2 young children and a full time job she was struggling to cope Her kids alternated between Fay and her ex for weekends and when her kids were away Faye just wanted to get obliterated for the entire time For the next 20 years Fay was stuck in the moderation trap – that dreaded cycle that so many of us know The cycle of trying (and failing) to cut down Now and again when she had overdone it she would go to alcohol counselling or an AA meeting or to her GP for naltroxene but her denial was strong and of course she didn’t WANT to give up Such a crucial point Faye made there – its no good trying to quit drinking because we think we should or because our partner or doctor has told us to – we have to WANT to quit and realise that we will be so much happier and healthier without it She describes herself as a functioning alcoholic – keeping the career and family going and ticking all the boxes But going to work with terrible hangovers multiple times a week In 2017 her relationship broke down and the kids left home – she was an empty nester and home alone That’s when she hit her rock bottom That’s when she realized she was no longer in control She didn’t care whether she lived or died She didn’t even want to drink and she realized the alcohol was no longer doing what she needed it to It wasn’t enjoyable, or quelling her anxiety or giving her a break from her overactive mind This made me think of the saying that “sobriety delivers everything that alcohol promised!” In spite of her rock bottom she still couldn’t stop drinking Faye’s trigger for change was a trip to her therapist who told her that she looked terrible and had to get some help She got admitted to hospital for a detox Faye pointed out that people will be listening to her story and thinking “well I’m not that bad” – she used to think like that but now she realizes that it’s a slippery slope If you’re on the slippery slope please be smart and step off it as soon as possible – go to tribesober.com and hit join our tribe right now We both love the modern recovery movement and the fact that nobody has to walk into a room full of strangers and say “I am an alcoholic” these days There are so many different paths to sobriety these days which mean that nobody has to wait until they hit rock bottom We both relish the mental peace that sobriety brings – no more endless negotiating with ourselves about whether to drink or not! After her detox Faye threw the book at her sobriety – she took meds, she joined sobriety groups, she want to a counsellor and went to AA She decided to do whatever it took She decided to go into this with an open mind Keeping an open mind is so important – somebody asked me about our Zoom workshop the other day – she was nervous about attending and asked me what on earth we talk about for 4 hours! I suggested she attend with an open mind…and she loved it! We panic because we think we can’t survive without our wine but once we join a community and see how other people are loving their alcohol free lives we change our thinking! Our next Zoom workshop is on 22nd July so just go to tribesober.com and hit our services if you want more info It made me smile when Faye said that “she’d never done adult life” – apparently our emotional maturity stalls when we start to drink heavily… Both Faye and I started drinking in our teens so we both had to learn adulting! You heard Faye mention that it was 17 years between realizing that she had a problem and stopp

My guest this week is Homeopath Sarah Davison who is a natural menopause expert. She helps women with stress and all aspects of menopause so was able to explain why the menopause and alcohol don’t mix! In this episode:- Sarah was enjoying her corporate career until everything went pear shaped in her 40’s The combination of family and work pressure mixed in with hormonal changes knocked her for six. She felt completely stressed out and anxious – and so weak she could hardly climb the stairs Sarah hadn’t even heard of the word at the time but now she knows she was in perimenopause The silver lining of this perfect storm was that it made her question her life She’d been going to a homeopath for years so went to see her to get some help. The results were so amazing that she decided to leave her job and go back to college to study. She did a 3 year full time degree course in homeopathic medicine Sarah explained that homeopathy is a complete system of medicine in its own right – used by 450M people globally. Natural and non toxic with no side effects it can be used to treat physical, mental and emotional illnesses. It stimulates and reactivates our self-healing mechanism and our bodies will choose the wisest way to do the healing Quite simply homeopathy allows our amazing bodies to heal themselves There is plenty of evidence showing the efficacy of homeopathy Sarah explained that Menopause is only ONE DAY – one year after the last period 10 to 14 years before that day is Perimenopause and after that day we become post Menopausal Many women in their forties suffer from anxiety, depression insomnia and take medication for it – not knowing that it’s the Perimenopause The average age of the Menopause is 51 I loved Sarah’s take on the 3 ages of women and will be stealing that one from her! Women evolve from maidens to mother to crone but I share Sarah’s view that a crone gives the impression of an old and bent woman and that is not what mid life women look like! So lets reframe if from maiden to mother to QUEEN – the Queen stage can be from 40 to 80 That’s when many women come into their power – we see it in our Tribe Sober Community all the time – women ditching the booze and then discovering what they really want to do with their lives To join a community of Queens then join Tribe Sober via this link! I found it fascinating to learn that Estrogen makes us compliant which may explain why so many women who drink are people pleasers Exhausted from looking after everyone else they start using alcohol as a form of self care and a reward! The problem with that strategy is that by the time we become post menopausal and our Estrogen levels drop we may have become dependent on alcohol We may be drinking wine on a daily basis which will be sapping our energy and motivation to try new activities and step into our power Sarah pointed out that drinkers are often very sensitive people who use alcohol as an emotional anaesthetic, especially if they have some unresolved issues If you are prone to hot flushes be aware that alcohol will congest your liver and make them worse- if you want to have the “best” menopause that you can then don’t drink I asked Sarah how we could heal our liver and gut after years of drinking She pointed out the our liver works as a dustbin and eliminating the toxin alcohol will overload it. What I didn’t know was that the liver also de-activates hormones – old hormones – so if it can’t deactivate estrogen we end up with too much estrogen floating around which causes an imbalance. The evidence between alcohol and breast cancer is stacking up and estrogen driven breast cancer is quite common these days I had that type of breast cancer and am sure that my heavy drinking was partly responsible Sarah pointed out that bitter foods are great for the liver – particularly beetroot and leafy green veg so lets keep drinking our green juices! She also reminded us that a healthy gut is very important for menopause and that we should eat a wide variety of foods to nourish our microbiome Many ladies in our community found that their alcohol dependence began to worry them during menopause Sarahs belief is that menopause brings up unresolved issues and says that in her own case it was anxiety and digestive issues These get amplified so people may drink more to self medicate and cope. She came up with the clever analogy that of the ground shifting under your house If you’ve been papering over the cracks in your walls for years then the ground shifting would worsen until you could no longer avoid seeing them Rather than stressing about this Sarah suggests that we reframe it as a GIFT – a second chance to deal with our stuff! To contact Sarah go to her website which is https://thrivehomeopathy.com/ You can book a curiosity call to discover whether she can help you She’s also on LinkedIn as Sarah Davison and on Facebook as https://www.facebook.com/NaturalMenopauseExpert Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sob

My guest this week is Tribe member Brad who has struggled with his weight and his drinking. I love his story about how he heard about Tribe Sober when he was in the chemist picking up his meds! In this episode:- Brad's drinking story is tied up with his weight loss story and as we heard from the recent podcast with Adam Sheauble there is a crossover between the two addictions and how we deal with them Brad had picked up a lot of weight in his 20’s and his psychologist and nutritionist both made a case for him to get a gastric bypass paid for by his medical aid He lost the weight and was warned to be careful with alcohol as the food addiction could transfer to alcoholism. Last week I interviewed Dr Vera Tarman who is an eating disorder specialist who tells us more about bariatric surgery and alcohol Brad knew he was drinking too much so he took a year off and felt great – he even managed to have couple of drinks on special occasions during that year but didn’t go back to drinking regularly At the end of that year Brad had a drink and basically he never stopped He’d finished his MBA and felt there was a vacuum where his studies had been – a gap to be filled.. Contributing to this was the fact that he had left his corporate job after 18 years as he was trying to start his own business So he started to fill this vacuum with booze We have to be so careful not to leave a void when we quit drinking – we need to keep super busy at first so that there’s not much time to sit and think about drinking…. Then when we do start to make progress with our sobriety we need to find a hobby or interest to keep us engaged and keep our happy brain chemicals firing For more on this listen to my interview with Dr Loretta Breuning – episode 55 So back to Brad who was filling the gap in his life with booze – which really got hold of him this time He did try AA – 15 different groups and 40 meetings but he just ended up convinced that he wasn’t an alcoholic as he wasn’t as bad as the other guys By the end of 2019 his partner had had enough and they broke up. This led to him living in a tiny apartment without much furniture or any appliances and that’s when his drinking was at its worst He was drinking spirits as well as litres of wine In the midst of that he met his current partner and they both decided to stop drinking. He managed a few months but succumbed to a bottle of whisky when house sitting for a friend Brad started to drink in secret after that, his partner didn’t know about it He tried the Sinclair method using Naltroxene but although Naltroxene blocks the buzz we get from alcohol Brad just drank more until he did get a buzz February 2022 brought a couple of aha moments – his partners mom explained that her husband had thought he could outsmart the booze but he didn’t manage to do it The second aha moment was when a psychiatrist refused to give him meds while he was drinking heavily Said it would be like throwing a cup of tea on a forest fire! He went back to the doctor who had put him on naltroxene and said he was going to completely quit rather than cut down and got some Antibuse which he took for 3 months… and it worked! During the next 3-6 months Brad weaned himself off all of his medications He focused on his work, his relationship, his health and he got a puppy….Benji Benji is ageing alongside Brads sobriety so he gets called the sober doggy – a great idea I think! Brad had a plan to have a drink on his first Soberversary but after about 7 months he realized that was not a way to celebrate We agreed that alcohol gets far too much credit for the good times! A lady he met in the chemist while he was getting his Antibuse recommended Tribe Sober to him He loves being part of our Tribe and feels that the community chat keeps him forwarned about the pitfalls he could face Brad is a great asset to our Tribe as he always had great advice to give to people who are new or are struggling His advice to newbies is to track their drinking and figure out what its costing them…such an eye opener Even if youre not ready to stop yet it will raise your awareness Take a break for a month to test your dependence – you can sign up for a 30 day or a 66 day challenge with Tribe Sober Just write to us at [email protected] and we’ll get your started! Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today Read more about our program and subscribe HERE Help us to Spread the Word! We made this podcast so that we can reach more people who need our help. Please subscribe and share. If you enjoyed the podcast, then please leave us a 5-star review on Apple podcasts. Take a screenshot of your review, and DM it to Tribe Sober’s Instagram page – see PS below for instructions. We’ll send you something special to say thank you! We release a podcast episode every Saturday morning. You can follow Tribe Sober on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. Yo

My guest this week is Dr Vera Tarman who is a specialist in addiction behaviour and treatment. Dr. Vera is internationally recognized for her education in and publications on various areas of addiction and more specifically food addiction. She’s had her own issues with alcohol but when she stopped drinking she started eating until her weight rose to 250lbs.. it was the eating addiction that “brought her down” as she puts it… In this episode:- Vera had a difficult childhood. Her mother was an alcoholic who died when Vera was just 15..and her relationship with her father was not good so she left home at 17 She was “floored” by the speed of her mother’s decline and vowed that she would never drink However she did take drugs – she mentioned LSD and pot but also stresses that this was back in the 70’s when drugs were not as toxic as they are today By the age of 19 she had switched from drugs to alcohol in spite of the vow she had made Within a couple of years the alcohol had taken hold and she would always drink to get solidly drunk She stopped drinking to get through college but when she stopped drinking..she started eating – and it was the food that “brought her down” as she puts it Her eating had nothing to do with enjoyment – she was making herself numb, eating and purging..- she described it as “frantic” and with hindsight can see that her addiction to alcohol had simply transferred to her eating habits… there is so much sugar in alcohol of course Dr Vera describes alcohol as sugar on steroids! In her 20’s she was stuck in the dieting yo yo – losing the weight and then gaining it back - eventually gaining 100 pounds – she was bulimic She reintroduced alcohol to her diet and tried to control it – as she says back then she had no idea of the peace of mind she could gain by ditching it altogether. Steadily her weight increased to 240 lbs – she kept losing weight and regaining it and it wasn’t until her late 40’s that she had a breakthrough…. That was when she accepted that treat sugar was an addiction – she couldn’t have a little now and again, she would have to quit completely.. Over the course of the next few years she went on to lose 60 or 70 lbs After the sugar she quit flour (bread muffins pizza etc) and lost another 80 lbs and finally she quit grains and lost the rest of her excess weight – never gaining it back She describes losing the weight as a great relief as it had been making her miserable in so many ways and she never felt healthy or well In fact these days she stresses that addicts mustn’t fear living a life of deprivation … you are living a life of deprivation now …so reach out and get help and find freedom We talked about the fact that with alcoholism we can quit alcohol completely but obviously we have to eat some food – Vera made the very interesting point that she hasn’t quit food but she does quit food products – processed food Vera’s approach of gradually shutting out various food groups is an interesting one – when I asked her what she DID eat she listed some of them – yoghourt, cheese, salmon, meat, vegetables She spoke of her pleasure in eating these foods and doesn’t feel at all deprived…as she put it she doesn’t have to eat bread or sugar any more, she can enjoy real food instead – her palate has switched from craving sugar and carbs to appreciating healthy foods Vera is not a cook but stresses that its quite easy to eat well – as an example yoghourt is easy to make and so are roasted veg I explained that we give our community advice to eat fresh fruit rather than candy if they are craving sweet things in early sobriety If you’d like more info on the science behind this advice then listen to Tribe Sober podcast episode 31 from January 2021 to hear nutritionist Mary Ann Shearer Vera described addiction as “a craving which leads to an obsession that then becomes difficult or impossible to stop” We should ask ourselves “Am I obsessed with something that is affecting my life negatively?” She explained how we can go from enjoying a gentle buzz to wanting a drink to needing a drink – needing more and more to get the same result… Continual use of alcohol can “flatten” our dopamine receptors so we eventually need alcohol just to feel normal. Dr Vera explained that some people get a more intense buzz of pleasure when they begin to drink and that… If your dopamine receptors are naturally “flat” you may need something to feel ok I asked Dr Vera how we can boost our dopamine naturally – before addiction our dopamine is “built in” – it’s about anticipation and looking forward to the next thing We all have a natural curiosity that makes us want to try new things – that’s why we encourage Tribe members to get a project to keep the dopamine triggered We agreed that social support was essential in early sobriety– we can’t just isolate and watch tv – we have to connect with others and keep that dopamine perking! That’s why a project that connects you with other people works so well We talked about usi

This weeks podcast is a solo episode from Tribe Sober's founder Janet Gourand. We've launched a brand new program to help people who a ready to Break Free from the Booze In this episode Are you fed up of being trapped in the Groundhog Day of Daily Drinking? Many of us drink socially in our 20's and 30's and then it becomes problematic in our 40's and 50's 20% of social drinkers will become dependent over the years.... it's the science We looked at some warning signs of alcohol dependence:- Not being able to keep within the low risk limits - a bottle and a half of wine a week Drinking alone or Drinking and Driving Blackouts! Waking up at 3am feeling anxious Drinking more to get the same effect When all social activities involve alcohol You drink for the buzz You've tried (and failed) to drink less many many times We get to the stage where we know we are drinking too much but have no idea HOW to stop We feel trapped and we know we have to break free We've designed a program to help you break free from the booze.. Sobriety will give you a new lease of life, improve your physical and mental health, less anxiety, better relationships, better sleep, better skin and sparkly eyes, weightloss, personal growth and finding your purpose BREAKING FREE PROGRAM I've collated all the contacts, resources and learnings from 7+ years of running Tribe Sober into one package It's a world class program which is exactly what I needed when I quit drinking After seeing so many people change their lives over the years we've realised that Tribe Sober is so much more than a membership, or a challenge, or a course or a coaching program - it's a place of transformation So we're inviting you into our place of transformation Breaking Free is for you if you are ready to put yourself first and invest money, time and attention Breaking Free is not for you if you are not ready to put yourself first....or maybe you're just not ready Are you going to take the Sober Road.... or stay stuck in Drinking Alley - check out this article. "Faith is taking the first step on the staircase even if you're not sure where it's going" - Martin Luther King Have faith in us to guide you up that staircase as we know the destination is well worth the effort The "staircase" is a hybrid recovery model, taking the best elements from the Tribe Sober offerings and combining them to create a powerful and effective program - let me describe the components COMPONENT ONE - community support with the Tribe Sober community COMPONENT TWO - a four hour group workshop on Zoom COMPONENT THREE - Kickstart online course COMPONENT FOUR - personal support - 2 Zoom calls with Janet and 3 coaching sessions with For more information just go to this link. Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today Read more about our program and subscribe HERE Help us to Spread the Word! We made this podcast so that we can reach more people who need our help. Please subscribe and share. If you enjoyed the podcast, then please leave us a 5-star review on Apple podcasts. Take a screenshot of your review, and DM it to Tribe Sober’s Instagram page – see PS below for instructions. We’ll send you something special to say thank you! We release a podcast episode every Saturday morning. You can follow Tribe Sober on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. You can join our private Facebook group HERE. PS: How to Leave a Rating/Review in Apple Podcasts (on an iOS Device) Open the Podcasts app. EASY. Choose “Search” from the bottom row of icons and enter the name of the show (e.g. Recover Like a Mother) into the search field. Select the show under Shows (not under Episodes). Scroll down past the first few episodes until you see Ratings & Reviews. Click Write a Review underneath the displayed reviews from other listeners. You’ll then have the option to rate the show on a 5-star scale and write a review (you can rate without writing too but it’s always good to read your experience).

My guest this week is an extraordinary woman – she was drinking alcohol at the age of 12 and shooting up with meths at the age of 17. Not only did she get clean but she went on to qualify as a lawyer and eventually she was appointed a federal judge! In this episode:- Mary Beth has a traumatic childhood which included an abusive stepfather She felt instant relief when she picked up her first alcoholic drink at the age of 12 While still at school she was smoking pot, taking pills and acid and by 17 was shooting up meths In spite of this hectic drug use she managed to get accepted at college She was at college and working part time when everything fell apart – due to the combination of a life threatening rape and an abusive boyfriend Mary Beth used meths for the next decade, not getting clean until the age of 32 During this decade she was working her way “down” the corporate ladder as she puts it Due to her drug use she was working in jobs way below her ability She hit rock bottom when she lost yet another job and couldn’t raise the energy to put together her resume to get another one Her partying days were long gone and most of her drug use took place when she was alone….at the kitchen table She had tried some therapy but as she puts it “the drugs had put a wall between me and myself” so therapy was ineffective. Her partner was also threatening to leave her so she decided to go to rehab The rehab was based on the 12 steps and was not a good fit for Mary Beth – she was an atheist and certainly wouldn’t agree that she was powerless Whenever she raised her objections to any of the 12 steps she was closed down and told that this was the only way she could recover As a result she kept quiet and became very selective in the ideas that she took on board. She became master of the reframe so instead of Step One which is I am powerless over my addiction she would agree that she was powerless to moderate. So many of us spend years stuck in the “moderation trap” so accepting that we are powerless to moderate will save a lot of heartache, it’s a major step forward! I referred to the podcast interview I did with British journalist Sam Delaney who built his own hybrid recovery model. That podcast was episode 153 Exactly what Mary Beth did…and in fact what she recommends to others I loved what she said about recovery being hard but it gets easier… whereas active addiction is much harder and can last forever! We agreed that this journey is about progress not perfection and that very few people get is right from day one – Mary Beth certainly had a couple of slip ups during the early months Of course the secret is to keep trying, to remember that there is no such thing as failure, only feedback. Mark up your Sober Stretches and never question the decision. If you’d like a copy of our Annual Tracker just email [email protected] and we’ll send you one Early sobriety was an emotional rollercoaster for Mary Beth and it was a couple of years before she felt stable She had trauma to deal with, severe anxiety and PTSD If 2 years seems a long time then remember the rule that it takes a month of recovery for every year that we drank – for more on that go Tribe Sober episode 61 – there you’ll find my interview with rehab doctor Dr Dawn In spite of the long road to recovery Mary Beth began to get her career back on track within a few months She started with a part time admin job, then a higher level full time admin role and then a supervisory role At six and a half years sober she was accepted back into Berkeley Law School. She went on to work as a lawyer in a big law firm and in 2014 was appointed a Judge. She took early retirement in 2020 and these days she gives her time to advocacy in the recovery space. As she says we need to be patient – everybody expects recovery to be faster than it is but we need to remember that:- Just as addiction rewires our brains in a negative way the positive habits we build in recovery will build new pathways. Mary Beth’s book is called from Junkie to Judge and is available from Amazon The book is a memoir which includes guidelines as well as some advice for families. Please follow Mary Beth on TW – I’ll put her handle in the shownotes but its @MaryBethO_ Her TW feed is great and packed with useful info Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today Read more about our program and subscribe HERE Help us to Spread the Word! We made this podcast so that we can reach more people who need our help. Please subscribe and share. If you enjoyed the podcast, then please leave us a 5-star review on Apple podcasts. Take a screenshot of your review, and DM it to Tribe Sober’s Instagram page – see PS below for instructions. We’ll send you something special to say thank you! We release a podcast episode every Saturday morning. You can follow Tribe Sober on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. You can joi

I’m recording this a couple of hours after hearing the appalling news that Eusebius McKaiser has died at the ridiculously young age of 44. He was a national treasure for South Africans – an author, a journalist and broadcaster. One of the smartest public intellects in the country he was a fierce defender of truth and justice as many politicians found out to their cost! He was also a warm and generous friend.So instead of the planned episode I wanted to say a few words about my friend Eusebius and re-release one of the podcast interviews he did for Tribe Sober. The story starts back in 2001 when I relocated from the UK to SA. I started to watch national tv, trying to get my bearings in this beautiful and complex country. I spotted Eusebius on a talk show and was impressed. I read a couple of his books and listened to him on the radio. I discovered he’d been to Oxford University on a scholarship and had won a global award as a Debating Champion. I first met him in person more than a decade ago… Ironically I was drunk at the time! We were at the Franschhoek Literary Festival where I’d been drinking wine most of the day. This didn’t stop me dragging Long Suffering Husband to the Elephant and Barrel Pub in the evening. I spotted Eusebius in the bar. He was with deep in conversation and I didn’t want to interrupt. However husband knew I was a fan and he nudged me towards him – not quite sure what Eusebius thought about this drunken Brit lurching at him but he was very kind. For obvious reasons I don’t remember much about that conversation but that was the evening that our unlikely but enduring friendship was born. I finally ditched the booze in 2015 and set up Tribe Sober. Eusebius signed up for our Dry January Challenge and one of the mailers included my Goodbye to Alcohol letter – he asked me to come to Cape Talk and read it out on his Show. So I did and we got plenty of calls from people who knew they needed to say Goodbye to Alcohol. I’ll put a link to that radio program in the shownotes. Apart from reading my letter we raised more than R10,000 for Earthchild within 30 minutes. Just like me he loved the work done by NGO Earthchild and for the last 8 years he helped me to fundraise more than R300,000 which enabled more than 1000 underprivileged children to get a year of yoga and lifeskill classes. I then became a regular on his show and many of our current and past members found us via Eusebius. He loved the work we did at Tribe Sober and often promoted us on his social media. He came to two of our workshops in Joburg. The first one as a participant and the second one as my co-facilitator. We looked out for each other - he coached me to be a better speaker on the radio and I convinced him to start his own podcast when he left Cape Talk. Have a listen to this episode we recorded about 18 months ago In this Episode The sober curious movement is growing – we have an endless variety of AF drinks, many online sobriety groups and even our own magazine Hola Sober. Eusebius believes that people should be free to make “bad choices” in life but did agree with me that education is important. Alcohol is a legal drunk which damages our health and drinkers need to be aware of that. When tobacco advertising was banned the information about the link with lung cancer was all over the media – if alcohol advertising was banned we would hear a lot more in the media about the link between alcohol and 7 different types of cancer. Women need to know that drinking more than 3 glasses of wine a week will raise their breast cancer risk by 15% We tackled a couple of sobriety myths – first of all the myth that we can’t have fun without alcohol – the truth is that once you have navigated those early difficult months of sobriety then it’s easy to have fun without booze – and lovely not to have to pay the price of a hangover the next day! Our subconscious minds have been convinced by a combination of marketing and peer pressure that we need alcohol to enjoy ourselves – to deprogram this thinking we need to spend a few months socialising without alcohol – its not easy but treat it as a challenge and you will get there – your subconscious will eventually get it! The second myth we busted was the myth that we need the buzz of booze to be creative – Eusebius wrote some of his early essays when on his way down from heavy drinking sessions but feels he has done some of his best writing since he’s been sober. We talked about the social pressure to drink which is relentless and hard to cope with when we are in the early stages of sobriety – alcohol really is the only drug we have to justify NOT taking That’s why CHALLENGES are so great – especially our January Challenge – we can just say “I’m raising money for charity by doing a Dry January” – nobody can really argue with that one! We get more confident dealing with peer pressure to drink as time goes by and eventually many of us are proud of our sobriety and eager to talk about it! Eusebius always

I got hooked on podcasting quite early on as I’ve been lucky enough to have some great guests and I’ve learned so much from them. Many of our members have been kind enough to inspire others by sharing their stories on the podcast and as a result we’ve attracted new members from all over the world. So staying with podcasting my guest this week is Podcast Business Coach and Weight Loss Guru - Adam Schaeuble. His story is similar to mine in that he resolved his own issues and then went on to help others to do the same. Adams problems were about food rather than alcohol so have a listen to his story. In this Episode Adam shared his personal transformation story with us We agreed that many of the methods he uses to help his community can be used in the Tribe Sober community The first step - asking for help - is the hardest - we have to put our ego to one side and reach out Adam uses a strategic approach with his clients - gets them to plan 28 days in advance and look for "danger zones" We discussed the importance of not letting a "slip up" derail you - just get back on track straight away Anchor points are essential - they give you a dopamine hit to keep going forward - at TS we have milestone badges! Adam explained the difference between motivation and inspiration - we need to be inspired if we are going to succeed If you don't feel inspired then get some coaching - if you come to the coaching session "motivated" you will leave "inspired" He shared his transformation timeline with us - and stressed the importance of finding a new purpose at the end of the journey That’s exactly what our amazing coach Lynette has been doing with 10 of our Tribe members – guiding them along the Path to Purpose via her group coaching program. We’ve taken some of Adam’s great ideas and created a Sobriety Battleplan so if you’d like a copy just email [email protected] and Sue will send you one. More Info Subscription membership – you can join up HERE. To access our website, click HERE. If you would like a free copy of our “Annual Tracker” or our e-book 66 Days to Sobriety, please email [email protected]. If you would like to come to our Saturday afternoon Zoom Cafe as a guest and meet our community, just email [email protected]. to join our mailing list click HERE Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today Read more about our program and subscribe HERE Help us to Spread the Word! We made this podcast so that we can reach more people who need our help. Please subscribe and share. If you enjoyed the podcast, then please leave us a 5-star review on Apple podcasts. Take a screenshot of your review, and DM it to Tribe Sober’s Instagram page – see PS below for instructions. We’ll send you something special to say thank you! We release a podcast episode every Saturday morning. You can follow Tribe Sober on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. You can join our private Facebook group HERE. PS: How to Leave a Rating/Review in Apple Podcasts (on an iOS Device) Open the Podcasts app. EASY. Choose “Search” from the bottom row of icons and enter the name of the show (e.g. Recover Like a Mother) into the search field. Select the show under Shows (not under Episodes). Scroll down past the first few episodes until you see Ratings & Reviews. Click Write a Review underneath the displayed reviews from other listeners. You’ll then have the option to rate the show on a 5-star scale and write a review (you can rate without writing too but it’s always good to read your experience).

This is a solo episode to celebrate my 8th Soberversary - I'm focussing on 8 mistakes to avoid Mistakes I made myself and larned from. In this episode:- Mistake number 1 - Waiting for Rock Bottom TIP NUMBER ONE: Do it now! If you’re listening to this then the chances are that you are either already alcohol free (well done you!) or you are contemplating making a change. If you are in the contemplation phase then you should know that the average time people spend in that place is an incredible 11 years! Alcohol dependence is like an elevator and it’s only going down. The longer you leave it the worse it will get so Do it Now! Mistake number 2 - Trying to Moderate TIP NUMBER TWO – Forget Moderation! People who can moderate just do it naturally – they wouldn’t be listening to this podcast. They might have a glass of champagne at a wedding or a glass of red wine with a special meal but alcohol is not really on their radar. I’m guessing that’s probably not you (!) so redirect that energy you put into controlling an addictive drug into building an alcohol free life that you love! Mistake number 3 - Fearing failure TIP NUMBER THREE – Progress not Perfection should be your strategy. Drop me an email [email protected] and ask for one of our trackers and log those alcohol free days. If you have a slip up then learn from it and get right back on track. Remember that there is no such thing as failure, only feedback. You’ve only failed if you stop trying! Mistake number 4 - Worrying about other people TIP NUMBER FOUR - Find a new Tribe In our alcohol drenched society it can be hard to be the odd one out, especially if you are an introvert as many problem drinkers tend to be. So for the first few months at least join a new tribe – a sober community of people just like you. You will be blown away by the warmth, vulnerability you will find. Read some quitlit and listen to recovery stories on podcasts as well. Mistake number 5 - Being influenced by marketing, movies etc.. TIP NUMBER FIVE Reflect on the limiting beliefs you hold about alcohol. Examples of limiting beliefs are… I need alcohol to have fun, to socialise, to relax, to de-stress, to reward myself for a difficult day, to celebrate a good day…the list goes on. Work on overturning those limiting beliefs and see alcohol for what it really is – a poison which is linked to 7 cancers and 60+ diseases. Read Annie Grace’s book This Naked Mind for more on this or come to one of our workshops. Mistake number 6 - Waiting for happiness to strike.. TIP NUMBER SIX Be aware that your brain is still recalibrating and healing as your natural dopamine receptors crank up again (they’ve got lazy as the wine has been doing their job for so long!) When you quit drinking you can’t just leave everything the same except for the drinking - you’ll need to reconfigure your life/routine and get new interests Recovery is about so much more than “not drinking” - that’s just the start… After guiding hundreds of our members through this journey we’ve noticed that it takes about 6 months to change the habit and then another 6 months to “do the work”, and learn how to thrive in sobriety. Most importantly get a new interest/hobby to keep your happy brain chemicals triggers – go to meetup.com to see the many interests that people have…and go to udemy.com to find a course to sign up for. Mistake number 7 - Being depressed about quitting – TIP NUMBER 7 Get excited about this life changing opportunity. You are going to look better, feel better, sleep better and be full of energy. Just take a look at some of the testimonials on our website if you’re not convinced! Realise that you’ll be gaining so much more than you will lose! Realise that addiction is a gift - as Laura K says in her book title we really are the luckiest - only people who have become dependent are pushed right to the wall and forced to question who they really are and what they really want out of life Quitting is an opportunity – not a problem Mistake number 8 - Trying to do it alone TIP NUMBER 8 Find your people! When I got sober 8 years ago AA was pretty much the only gig in town, and AA is not for everybody. These days there are so many alternative paths to sobriety. There is a modern recovery movement as more and more people wake up and decide to fight back against Big Alcohol. We are the trailblazers and have decided to no longer poison our bodies and brains to contribute to the outrageous profits of the liquor industry. It does take courage and confidence to do this but we’ve got plenty of that… and we’ve decided to become rebels rather than sheep! There are sober communities on Instagram and TikTok as it becomes cool to run your back on alcohol. So go on line and explore – find your people. We’d love you to join tribesober which you can do by clicking this link You can pay your subs monthly so try us out for a while – its easy to cancel if you decide that were not your people after all! You can also join our free 5 day Sobriety

Vanessa is a writer, photographer and wild water swimmer. Like so many of us she began drinking in her teens. That was the beginning of a habit that started off as fun but evolved into something much darker over the years. In this episode Vanessa divides her drinking career into phases:- the Fun phase (15-19) the Social phase (19-30) the Fairly Desperate phase (30-39) the I Need to Quit phase (39 onwards) This pattern fits pretty well with the theory that 20 years of regular drinking will result in alcohol dependence If you’d like to hear the science behind that theory then have a listen to my interview with Ken Middleton – episode 23 of Tribe Sober podcast – November 2020 Vanessa tried to moderate and did manage to cut down for periods. However she was still binge drinking now and again so the dependence was still there. Along with her moderation attempts of course she had some rules She started a rule when she was at University and kept it going ever since. It was the 3 day rule. She would never drink more than 3 days in a row. However she realises now that her 3 day rule actually kept her in a cycle of drinking and then withdrawal. Here in South Africa there is a culture of binge drinking at the weekend Vanessa explained that in her office they used to refer to Thursdays as "Steak Knife Thursdays" as everyone was “on edge” waiting to start drinking. It was Covid that opened Vanessa’s eyes to the nation's love affair with alcohol. Several alcohol bans meant that many people had to be creative about sourcing their alcohol. She describes the moment during Covid when she had just a tot of whisky but it released such a strong craving that it made her realise she would have to make a change. Vanessa discovered Tribe Sober and loved the support of the international community. She did Dry July and loved watching the alcohol free days stack up on her tracker. As she learned more about the harm that alcohol does she felt more and more motivated to go alcohol free. So she did Sober October but still had periods of binge drinking. At the beginning of 2021 Vanessa decided to try coaching – as a member of Tribe Sober she had been offered a free coaching session so decided to take it up. She loved her coaching sessions with Lynette and by session 2 she had ditched the booze completely We agreed that Lynette’s philosophy that we must get “comfortable with being uncomfortable” is a powerful one By riding the discomfort and pushing through we will experience emotional growth and grow new neural pathways One of the goals that Vanessa set during an early coaching session was that when she reached her first Soberversary she would share the strategies that had enabled her to quit. That’s how her stunning book was born…TOTS which stands for the Other Twelve Steps It is full of gorgeous illustrations which came from the doodles she would make during her coaching sessions – doodles she would develop further as she reflected on her learnings She calls TOTS a string of sparkling gems and I couldn’t agree more If you’d like a digital copy of TOTs just email [email protected] and we’ll send you a copy In TOT’s you will find a description of the Hero’s journey along with its transformative challenges Just like the hero we may stumble and fall on our journey but if we keep trying we will succeed Our reward will be the gift of elixirs which will enable us to help others to do what we’ve done Vanessa also refers to the book "The Artists Way" by Julia Cameron in TOTs We agreed that this book can be the key to unlocking our creativity and doing our daily morning pages can be a life changing habit Vanessa described the benefits of alcohol free living as exponential but a huge one for her has been the energy Now she no longer has to try to control her drinking and manage the after effects she has so much more energy and mental strength This made me think of my interview with William Krause two episodes ago… when he said that redirecting that energy we wasted on controlling alcohol is the key to unlocking the life of our dreams ​Vanessa referred to her coaching sessions as the key – I love the way she describes the power of coaching – she says it’s about “having someone in your story with you”. If you’d like to connect directly with Vanessa then you can email her [email protected] and If you’d like to experience the power of coaching then join tribe sober – new members are entitled to a coaching session with Lynette Just go to tribesober.com and hit join our tribe More Info Subscription membership – you can join up HERE. To access our website, click HERE. If you would like a free copy of our “Annual Tracker” or our e-book 66 Days to Sobriety, please email [email protected]. If you would like to come to our Saturday afternoon Zoom Cafe as a guest and meet our community, just email [email protected]. to join our mailing list click HERE Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. I

My guest this week is Lily Shanks from Dallas. Lily describes herself as a recovering attorney. After graduating from a top tier-law school, Lily practiced commercial litigation in a Big Law firm but although she was able to indulge her passion for expensive cars and shoes the stress resulted in a daily wine habit. She got sober and left her corporate job to train as a coach. These days Lily specializes in recovery and relationship coaching and coaches her clients to create their best, most fulfilling lives, starting from the inside. In this episode Lily discovered alcohol at a young age – via the liquor cabinet of one of her friends parents. It tasted disgusting but she knew it would change the way she felt…so she persevered and found ways to disguise the taste As a shy teenager who wanted to be popular she found that alcohol gave her the liquid courage she needed She was the only child of older parents she felt she had to be perfect… to do everything right.. Lily also felt she had to be independent and not ask for help These two beliefs led to a feeling of loneliness – a feeling that continued as she grew older The loneliness was a feeling that would last until she got into recovery and learnt how better to connect with people – when she learned that connection was the opposite of addiction As a straight A student Lily would worry about the possibility of getting a B Her drive for perfectionism helped her to graduate, get through law school and get a highly paid job at a top firm However she was always chasing the next thing, the next box to be ticked – buying a new car and more shoes even though she didn’t need either – she thought it would make her feel better which it did but only for a very short time She was doing the same with alcohol – drinking more and more in the hope that it would make her feel better but of course as it’s a depressant it only made her feel worse. Like many of us Lily was under the illusion that alcohol was glamorous and fun and cool..until one day it wasn’t. As early as 5 years into her legal career Lily started to sense a misalignment.. she wasn’t feeling fulfilled in her job and thought that the alcohol was helping to ease this uncomfortable feeling She took a years sabbatical and got her yoga teaching qualification and taught full time which she really enjoyed Yoga had helped her cope with her stress and she loved the fact that she was able to share that with her students Eventually Lily felt under financial strain so she returned to practicing law – (yet her finances always ran to buying wine!) She was using wine at the end of the day to self medicate her stress and eventually she could feel it affecting her work performance – some days she struggled to get to work as she was battling a severe hangover Like many of us Lily became an expert in disguising her drinking problem – so much so that former colleagues and friends were surprised to hear she’s in recovery Like many of us she did a lot of her drinking alone on the sofa at home In Jan 2018 she tried to take a break for Dry January but couldn’t notch up more than a few alcohol free days…and she always intended to go back to drinking at the end of the month Doing a challenge like Dry January is when a lot of people realise for the first time that they are dependent When you join Tribe Sober the first thing we do is put you on a 30 day alcohol free challenge so that we can help you to assess your level of dependence and what kind of help you need Short challenges are great to test your dependence but the true benefits of sobriety don’t come in until you’ve been alcohol free for a few months so it’s important to push through and keep going Like most of us Lily imposed some rules around her drinking as she tried to moderate – yet of course after 2 or 3 drinks there was no off switch She finally ended her drinking career in 2018 – finishing it with a few months of intentional heavy drinking before accepting that she would have to make the change She had a series of rock bottoms - including a ladies wine tasting trip and a weekend drinking alone in her apartment She also felt mortified when she saw several recordings on a security camera of her arriving home very late at night obviously the worse for wear Waking up hungover every morning she finally accepted that she needed help She took some time off work and started being honest about the problem… with a friend, with a doctor and with her therapist The key to change is honesty – we have to accept to ourselves that we have a problem and then reach out for help – this is the most difficult part of the whole journey Once we’ve reached out and found some help the journey can begin If you’re still procrastinating about getting some help then do it today – reach out to tribesober.com and we’ll help you get started on this life changing journey – just go to tribesober.com and hit join our tribe As Lily said we have to be ready to keep an open mind and try something different She ha

My guest this week is Will Krause who is an author, entrepreneur and academic. He helps addicts to quit using and then to go on and lead the life they were meant to live – he gives them hope As you will hear he is passionate about analysing why people do what they do as he believes this is the key to change. Will also believes that we can actually use this key to unlock the life of our dream In this Episode Will had an early tragic experience of addiction when his younger brother died He was depressed and frustrated as he had no idea how he could have helped his brother On reflection Will decided that he was an addict himself – not to a substance but to perfectionism Will did many courses but one day one of his professors came to him and explained that it was time he switched his focus from facts…to finding out WHY people did what they did This advice along will his brother’s death was the catalyst to him studying addiction and discovering what addiction really is… and that it’s actually NOT what we’ve been taught it is! He talked to us about the many homeless addicts in Seattle and points out that they all have exceptional skills that we cannot even comprehend – skills to survive and to score their drugs Most of us would not last more than a couple of days if we had to live that kind of life We talked about functioning alcoholics and how skilled we are at keeping the show on the road – holding down the high powered job and managing a family Whether it’s a homeless addict or a functioning alcoholic they can both redirect their skills and energy to leading a life that will give them purpose As Will explains we need to give people HOPE – hope that there is a way out We discussed the disease model which neither of us subscribe to Yes alcohol consumption does change the brain but according to neuroscience our brains are meant to change! Falling in love changes our brain as well! The brain has simply learned a habit – a habit that can be replaced by a healthy habit Will compared this with Alzheimers which IS a disease and takes away parts of the brain… Cancer is also a disease… where cancerous cells take over and cause tumours Will describes addiction as a “learned coping mechanism” When we unlearn it and stop drinking we’ll go through a difficult period as we replace the harmful habit with new and healthy ones In our experience here at Tribe Sober most people take between 3 and 6 months to get through this transition We agreed on the importance of having a tribe even when we no longer drink… if we leave we can easily fall prey to our previous thought patterns and start wondering if we are able to have "just one drink now" Spoiler alert – we probably can’t! We do get quite a few returning members to our Tribe, people who’ve discovered that without the connection they flounder.. Will talked about the importance of knowing WHY we do what we do He helps addicts to understand Why they do what they do and also that they have an exceptional brain Addicts are able to see the world differently When addicts understand this, and realise that they can use their skills to turn their life around they begin to feel HOPE Will feels that those of us who have struggled with dependency are the lucky ones – we can get through the pain of our addiction and find our purpose on the other side Once we understand why we do what we do we can go on to discover our purpose If we just stop drinking without understanding WHY we drank we won’t be able to find our purpose and we may go from one addiction to the other As we often say at Tribe Sober there is so much more to recovery than “not drinking” – we have to create an alcohol free life that we love, a life full of joy and purpose – a life we don’t want to escape from! Will has a book coming out called “Unlearning Addiction” The premise of his book is that addiction is a learned behaviour that we can unlearn – we can replace it with healthy habits which will lead to us discover our purpose The book explains why we do what we do – it gives the hope that people need, along with the tools to change He kindly offered to share the manuscript with anyone who contacts him and mentions Tribe Sober – Contact him at [email protected] to request the manuscript More Info Subscription membership – you can join up HERE. To access our website, click HERE. If you would like a free copy of our “Annual Tracker” or our e-book 66 Days to Sobriety, please email [email protected]. If you would like to come to our Saturday afternoon Zoom Cafe as a guest and meet our community, just email [email protected]. to join our mailing list click HERE Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today Read more about our program and subscribe HERE Help us to Spread the Word! We made this podcast so that we can reach more people who need our help. Please subscribe and share. If you enjoyed the podcast, t

My guest this week is Ashleigh who came to a workshop way back in 2018 and has been thriving in her sobriety ever since In this episode:- Ashleigh's first scrape with alcohol came when she was expelled from school at the age of 15! In her 30's she recognized that there could be a problem when she found herself making lots of rules around her drinking - rules that she promptly broke! Her point that she wasn’t a tramp living under a bridge highlighted the fact that society says we are fine until we get to that stage – her family weren’t quite sure why she going alcohol free Ashleigh decided to step off the slippery slope before things got any worse She realises that the majority of the people she knows are drinking too much but they don’t even realise At the workshop Ashleigh learned about the toxicity of alcohol and began to join the dots between her constant tiredness and her daily glasses of wine At the end of the workshop she knew it would be pointless committing to "moderation" - she had to go "all in" - she knew she had crossed the line with her drinking and there was no looking back She felt confident leaving the workshop - she had her toolkit, some new information and people to connect with - she felt she could do this At the beginning she treated herself to hot chocolate, coffee and cake etc. - but as time went on she weaned herself off the sweet things - and has now lost 10kgs! She talked about the importance of Sober Firsts – the first wedding, the first flight, baby shower and of course the first time we try sober dancing! Ashleigh has experienced many benefits of sobriety - she is certainly less anxious and more confident these days So the workshop was a real turning point for Ashleigh - at the age of 43 she has celebrated five years of sobriety and has a completely different future ahead! Now that she is more knowledgeable she realises that the majority of the people she knows are drinking too much although they don’t even realise She talks about all the euphemisms we use for hangovers and how no one wants to "let the cat out of the bag" as she puts it No-one wants to acknowledge that as a society we have an alcohol problem Ashleigh fully recognizes that if she hadn't taken this step she could have been in a very different place in 5 years time - alcohol is a very "slippery fish" as she said! More Info Subscription membership – you can join up HERE. To access our website, click HERE. If you would like a free copy of our “Annual Tracker” or our e-book 66 Days to Sobriety, please email [email protected]. If you would like to come to our Saturday afternoon Zoom Cafe as a guest and meet our community, just email [email protected]. to join our mailing list click HERE Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today Read more about our program and subscribe HERE Help us to Spread the Word! We made this podcast so that we can reach more people who need our help. Please subscribe and share. If you enjoyed the podcast, then please leave us a 5-star review on Apple podcasts. Take a screenshot of your review, and DM it to Tribe Sober’s Instagram page – see PS below for instructions. We’ll send you something special to say thank you! We release a podcast episode every Saturday morning. You can follow Tribe Sober on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. You can join our private Facebook group HERE. PS: How to Leave a Rating/Review in Apple Podcasts (on an iOS Device) Open the Podcasts app. EASY. Choose “Search” from the bottom row of icons and enter the name of the show (e.g. Recover Like a Mother) into the search field. Select the show under Shows (not under Episodes). Scroll down past the first few episodes until you see Ratings & Reviews. Click Write a Review underneath the displayed reviews from other listeners. You’ll then have the option to rate the show on a 5-star scale and write a review (you can rate without writing too but it’s always good to read your experience).

My guest this week is very special member of our Tribe Sober Team I first met Lynette LeRoux when she came to one of our workshops more than 5 years ago She was in a dark place back then but the workshop was the catalyst she needed to change everything Lynette has been transforming and enriching her life for the last 5 years – she’s found her passion and qualified as a Coach and for the last 3 years she has been working for Tribe Sober as a Coach In this episode Lynette first tasted alcohol at the tender age of 9 – she’d got hold of some tiny bottles of whisky and brandy which she kept near her bed. She would take a sip when she went to bed as it comforted her Going off to boarding school at the age of 5 left her with lingering feelings of isolation – a feeling that those little sips chased away. As she reflects back she realises it was a way to feel nurtured and held She didn’t drink much in her teens but in her 20’s she met a guy who loved his whisky and she began to drink regularly Lynette had never really felt comfortable in her own skin so alcohol helped her to socialise Her relationship deteriorated due to her partners drunken rages and he left her when she was pregnant She coped well over the next few years and began to develop her career The usual after work drinks culture prevailed and Lynette fell back into her old patterns She would drink excessively at the weekends as well as after work sometimes Like many of us she would resolve to stop or cut down but nothing really changed Then she met her current husband who hardly drinks at all He thought she drank too much so she tried hard to make a change She managed some sober stretches but as she got into her 40’s the alcohol came back into her life Even though she was drinking Lynette tried a lot self development programs during this period Looking back she realises that she never tried to integrate her learnings into her daily life If we don’t apply the learnings then the courses are really a waste of time and nothing will change As she moved into her 50’s Lynette became more dependent on alcohol She felt she was losing connection with her husband and her friends Always looking for the quick fix she decided to study plant medicine As part of Lynette’s ongoing odyssey for a quick cure for her problems she came across our one day workshop She attended the workshop but true to form she never really engaged After the workshop she didn’t apply the tools or connect via the chatgroups So nothing really changed and three months after the workshop she hit her rock bottom Driving to work and struggling with an awful hangover she had a “not this” moment Followed by a “if not this then what?” moment Out of desperation she looked at her Tribe Sober workshop notes and decided to reconnect Lynette went to the coffee meetup and engaged on the WhatsApp group After reading other peoples messages for a while she decided to reach out She posted a message that she felt really low Another member explained that she felt that way because her brain was recalibrating and healing This really resonated with Lynette and became her mantra She began to study coaching and started to see that a different way of life was possible As Lynette has been coached herself and has coached many people I asked her to explain why coaching is so valuable She explained that coaching helps us to get perspective on our life and our mind Coaching enables a growth mindset as we move towards our future self We talked about the benefits she has gained from 5 years of sobriety The biggest benefit for Lynette was reconnecting with herself and then developing her passion for coaching She’s learned so much about her beautiful brain and she’s learned how to feel She’s learned that emotional pain is a sign of growth and she must learn to get comfortable with being uncomfortable That's a lesson she’s taught us all here at Tribe Sober We agreed that there is so much more to recovery than “not drinking” As Lynette said tha's just 10% of the work – and we will never thrive in sobriety if we don’t tackle the other 90% We talked about anhedonia which is the low mood that sometimes hits us in early sobriety For more on dealing anhedonia check out Lynette’s video on our you tube channel and the Tribe Sober podcast interview with Dr Loretta Breuning, episode 55 on Apple Podcasts We talked about the Path to Purpose which is a brand new Group Coaching that she has created this year On 30th April her first group of 10 people will begin the program.. and find their Path to Purpose The program will last for 8 weeks It will include content but also leave space for co creation. Space to tune into the needs of the group and deal with what comes up One of the outcomes of the program is that the participants will have a self coaching program which will enable them to continue their development If you’d like to know more about the Path to Purpose program then click here The next program is fully booked but you can join the wait

My guest this week is an incredible woman – a Queen as she calls herself and quite rightly too! Both Leah’s parents were addicts and she was actually born with crack cocaine in her system. Not many of us would even survive such a start in life but Leah not only survived she thrived.. She survived being born as a crack babyShe survived a sexual assault andShe survived alcohol dependence These days she is an Activist and Public Speaker - campaigning against sexual violence In this episode: Brought up by her maternal grandparents Leah felt different from her friends as school… As she gradually began to learn more about her mom she felt abandoned and resentful Especially as her grandma didn’t ever want to talk about her mom Leah struggled to understand her parents addictions until she began her own healing journey Then she realised that in fact her parents had done their best with the tools available to them at the time Considering her tough start in life Leah was doing ok until she got sexually assaulted By a guy she had dated once and then rejected Angry about his rejection he began to stalk her and one day he got into her apartment and raped her She felt the cops wouldn’t help her so didn’t report it at the time Leah felt angry, frustrated, guilty but had no coping skills so she turned to alcohol She’d stayed away from drugs and alcohol because of her parents but this event just pushed her over the edge As a child of addicts it was the only coping technique she knew She spent a whole year drinking heavily to numb out her feelings Eventually she did report her rape to the cops but they blamed her as it was someone she knew – that just made everything worse As she sank further into alcohol dependence a friend convinced her to go to therapy to process her feelings She also went to Al Anon to try to understand her parents better Leah managed to stop drinking and has been sober for a decade 8 years after her rape she was astonished to receive the results of her rape kit The rape kit contained the evidence collected by the police when she reported the crime Apparently the police hadn’t passed on the kit for testing as she knew her assailant In spite of the fact that 57% of rape victims know their perpetrator! This led her to do some research on the incredible backlog of rape kits in the US – hundreds of thousands of them sitting on shelves untested while the assailants walk free Leah decided to become an Activist in the fight against sexual violence These days she has a voice and is raising awareness by campaigning and public speaking Leah has written an incredible 8 books! Her latest one "Unapologetically Me" is about the internal conflict of being the daughter of addicts – and the love/hate relationship with her parents Writing is part of her healing journey Leah talked about the difference between surviving and thriving At Tribe Sober we say we want people to thrive in their sobriety, not just survive The difference between those two states is of course that:- Surviving means just staying afloat, getting by without drinking, just existing and meeting basic needs whereas Thriving in sobriety means flourishing - experiencing positive growth and progress in various aspects of life. Leah has turned her Pain into Power which is what many of us at the Tribe have done and is why we say that Sobriety is our Superpower! Leah said something interesting about trauma… If you don’t do the work to heal you can often feel as if you are just “waiting for the other shoe to drop” Step into a place of healing and the shoe won’t drop Leah got through the worst and is now ready for the best! You can follow this incredible woman on social media and her website is https://www.leahmforney.com/ More Info Subscription membership – you can join up HERE. To access our website, click HERE. If you would like a free copy of our “Annual Tracker” or our e-book 66 Days to Sobriety, please email [email protected]. If you would like to come to our Saturday afternoon Zoom Cafe as a guest and meet our community, just email [email protected]. to join our mailing list click HERE Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today Read more about our program and subscribe HERE Help us to Spread the Word! We made this podcast so that we can reach more people who need our help. Please subscribe and share. If you enjoyed the podcast, then please leave us a 5-star review on Apple podcasts. Take a screenshot of your review, and DM it to Tribe Sober’s Instagram page – see PS below for instructions. We’ll send you something special to say thank you! We release a podcast episode every Saturday morning. You can follow Tribe Sober on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. You can join our private Facebook group HERE. PS: How to Leave a Rating/Review in Apple Podcasts (on an iOS Device) Open the Podcasts app. EASY. Choose “Search” from the bottom row of i

My guest this week is Ken Middleton I first connected with Ken a couple of years ago after discovering his brilliant articles. He was first a guest on this podcast back in 2020 and we’ve been friends ever since We have a shared passion to highlight the drawbacks of drinking and the joys of sobriety. As a firm fan of his articles I was delighted to hear that he was going to publish a book. He involved me in the development of the manuscript and has even included my story! The book is called Bamboozled and is published TODAY In fact I have a message for you from Ken – he says buy the the book today (April 1st) and you’ll find an April Fools day surprise – a nice one! The book is available on Amazon so go check it out while you are listening The subtitle of Bamboozled is “How Alcohol Made Fools of Us All” and it’s a great read. After doing this work for 7 years I know a lot about the subject but even I learned a lot from this book In this episode Unlike myself and many of my podcast guests Ken didn’t come to sobriety from a place of addiction – he came from a place of curiosity. He wanted to see how he felt without alcohol He was always a high performer in his sales job but knew that he wasn’t always operating at 100% As he settled into his sobriety his performance at work shot up by 30% He came to the conclusion that alcohol drastically reduces our potential Ken talked about the compounding effects – for example when we drink we only get two cycles of REM when we need about 7 Drinking regularly means the fatigue will build up and up over the years I can really identify with this – when I hit 60 I felt tired all the time but resigned myself to the fact that this is what aging felt like Seven years of sobriety has changed everything for me and I wake up full of energy My exhaustion was nothing to do with my age but everything to do with my alcohol consumption We talked about comparisons and how dangerous it was to compare ourselves with hard core alcoholics – so we end up feeling that we were not “that bad” Of course the comparison we should be making is with the best version of ourselves we could be So the question to ask is not Am I an Alcoholic? - rather ask Am I living my best life? Ken explained that functioning alcoholics are the ones with the most to gain from ditching the booze They have been expending huge amounts of energy just keeping the show on the road I know I did – performing well at work, managing family and a social life is not easy when you’re feeling anxious and worried about your drinking problem that you are too ashamed to talk about Ken summarises the science of alcohol dependency in detail in an article I will put in the shownotes but here are the key moments:- Alcohol spikes our endorphins Our brain likes to stay balanced – in a state of homeostasis so releases dynorphins to dampen down those endorphin spikes The dynorphin level then outweighs the level of endorphins (as our brain wants to get back to homeostasis asap) That’s why we get that dip about 20 minutes after our first drink… our buzz starts to fade so of course we reach for another drink to compensate which results in more dynorphins released…. And so it goes on As many of us know as time goes by we need more alcohol to get the same feeling, the same buzz So far so good but our body is smart and it adapts to our behaviour and this is the dangerous bit.. Our subconscious will begin to associate everything we do leading up to the drinking as a pleasurable experience – and learn.. So when we are driving home from work we are already anticipating opening that bottle of wine so the dynorphins will be released IN ADVANCE Making us feel low and craving the alcohol And the really scary bit is that drinking consistently over time will result in us not being able to enjoy things WITHOUT IT Our brain will have rewired so it can no longer produce dopamine on its own That’s why early sobriety is so hard – our brain has not yet re-calibrated to trigger our happy brain chemicals naturally and without our chemically induced alcohol high we feel very flat – if you are at the at stage please hang in there Listen to my podcast interview with Dr Loretta Breuning – episode 55, how to combat those early sobriety blues Ken made the very good point that if we’re reluctant to ditch the booze we can just carry on drinking but listen and learn and you’ll soon start joining up the dots and realising… WHY you wake up at 3am feeling anxious WHY you’re constantly tired and depressed WHY you’re gaining weight and sleeping badly Once you understand what’s causing these things and realise that you don’t HAVE to keep suffering your desire to drink will diminish Reading Kens book Bamboozled is a great place to start with your education about alcohol His goal in writing this has been to help people realise the what they are losing out on when they drink – even if they are not dependent Alcohol will always prevent us from reaching our potential In the book he talk

My guest this week is Gregg Champion Gregg has been in recovery for over 20 years after nearly ruining his life with drugs and alcohol. These days he’s a Recovery Coach and a highly valued member of the Recovery Community in California. 7 years ago he founded Start Up Recovery which is a transitional living facility built on his own values as well as lessons learned during his own recovery. In this episode You heard Gregg say that he was an alcoholic before he picked up his first drink – that’s a very interesting statement which would apply to many drinkers with unresolved childhood trauma Greggs father was killed in a car crash when he was four which left him feeling angry and abandoned As he grew older he became addicted to anger, fantasy and attention That all changed when he took his first drink as a young teenager, a drink that soothed him and took the pain away At 15 years old he was crossing the border into Mexico to drink in bars and chat up girls – he just wanted to be a grown up Gregg chose to study at Arizona State University as it was known to be a party university Alcohol and Drugs were always present during his College years but it was normalised and as Gregg says there were always people “worse than me – doing more booze, more drugs” These comparisons are so dangerous – why do we always compare ourselves with people who are in worse trouble - when we should be comparing our ourselves to who we could be if we were leading our best life Even if alcohol doesn’t destroy us it will always prevent us from reaching our potential Gregg topped off his University years by getting his first DUI on Graduation Night… That set the tone for the following 2 years when we was arrested 7 times! He went from overnight stays in prison to 2 night stays and finally the prospect of a 5 years sentence. Gregg got a job in broadcasting which involved shift work ending at 3am which meant he was mixing with other users after work He got into a cycle of selling drugs and then over-using and over-drinking to overcome the shame of being a drug dealer! He got busted at an airport carrying drugs – the judge told him that if he saw him again he would be activating his 5 year suspended sentence. Gregg partied on regardless but got busted a second time by an undercover cop at a party Back in a jail cell he heard a voice telling him to call his mother – which he did She told him to go to church so he went, he went to confession and told the priest everything He finally realised that Greggs Way was never going to work so he listened to the priest and went to an AA meeting It was his moment of truth – the time he had to decide between two paths He chose sobriety and his AA sponsor told him to take boxing lessons – he would need a punchbag for all the anger which would emerge in early sobriety! Gregg did 90 meetings in 90 days – as he said when we stop using there is a great gaping hole in our life that we need to fill with something We can fill it with 90 meetings and follow the 12 steps or We can join a sobriety community – go to tribesober.com and hit join our tribe if you’d like to check out our membership program As Gregg says we have to find our Sober Tribe He stayed sober for 3 years by using the first 3 steps but couldn’t bring himself to open the Pandoras box of step 4 One day he listened to a speaker at the AA meeting and the things he heard really resonated with him The guy had been sexually abused at a young age and Gregg was able to finally admit to himself that this had happened to him as well Gregg began to work with this person who told him that he was blocked because although he had sobriety he hadn’t got recovery It’s so true that there is so much more to recovery than not drinking! I loved the expression that Gregg used:- “Not Drinking is the ticket to the Show, the Band hasn’t even started playing yet!” So his new sponsor used a process called Uncover/Discover and Discard which you heard Gregg describing during the interview Applying this framework to all 19 things on Greggs “shame” list liberated him He now uses this process with his own clients and calls it "Unpacking the Backpack of Shame" In 2016 Greggs media career was stalling so he began to look at alternatives All he wanted to do was to be paid for being himself Sharing his story at an AA meeting one day he met a lady who told him he would be a great group facilitator This encouraged him to put together a talk and visiting rehabs to share tell his story He trained as a recovery coach and used his experience to put together a coaching curriculum 7 years ago his coaching business evolved into a Transitional Living Facility They do 1.2.1 and group coaching to address that all important question “I’m Sober Now What?” He has a Wellness Director facilitating practices like breathwork, acupuncture and soundbaths Each client has a therapist Of course Community is at the heart of everything and every day starts and ends with a meeting You can find out more about

My guest this week is a young South African woman who is focused on mental health advocacy. Tribe member Anele Ndlovu has been through a journey with her own mental health when she turned to alcohol for solace. She’s the Founder of an initiative called “Tea with Anele Ndlovu” which focuses on women’s empowerment and leadership. Anele is a member of Tribe Sober and recently celebrated her six month soberversary! In the episode Like many of us Anele discovered alcohol when she went to Varsity but it was very much a social thing It was all under control during her 20s and early 30’s – only in her late 30s did it become a problem We heard a similar story from last weeks guest Sam Delany That got me thinking about one of my favourite articles by Ken Middleton who explains the science behind alcohol dependence If we drink regularly then over the period of a couple of decades we will move from liking alcohol, to wanting alcohol and finally to needing alcohol. So that explains why some people can drink happily throughout their twenties and most of their thirties but then it switches from a social lubricant to self medication So back to Anele who got retrenched in June 2020 – this was a real blow for her as she loved her career and her identity was very much tied to her job. She felt lost and found herself using alcohol to numb her pain even though she was well aware that this was a red flag of alcohol dependence. Like so many of us Anele began to try to control her drinking – setting rules – rules about not having alcohol in the house – which worked until about 5pm when she started getting fidgety so went out to buy some! Her family were worried about her drinking so she found herself hiding it She would tell then she was going for a walk and then find herself sitting in a bar Or going to the liquor store and then sitting in the part with her drink Getting home from these walks she would shower and go to sleep Of course her family knew what was going on but had no idea how to help Anele also tried hanging out with “Moderation Mary” as we call her in Tribe Sober but obviously that didn’t work either Finally she realised that she would have to quit so she went to AA for a while This really helped her at the beginning but as her alcohol free life began to take shape she decided that AA would not work for her long term She made it easier on herself during those first few months by not going out much – and explaining to her close friends that she needed their support, she needed them to be her accountability partners Anele is now 6 months sober with absolutely no desire to drink again She is a proud member of our Tribe Sober 6months+ whatsapp group – people on this group have navigating those early choppy waters of sobriety and are now discussing the next stage of the journey The stage where we create a beautiful alcohol free life – a life we don’t want to escape from We talked about sobriety benefits and having more energy is a big one Anele explained that she was always tired when she was drinking Alcohol saps our energy (and our motivation) so when we’ve been sober for a while we’ll begin to rediscover our enthusiasm for life We’ll want to explore new projects and we’ll have the energy and TIME to do that. If we’ve been drinking for years then the fatigue will have built up – easy to confuse this tiredness with the ageing process but just wait until you start enjoying high quality sleep and you’ll feel amazing! Anele had always kept a journal – when she was drinking her journal entries were often angry ones but these days she uses it to celebrate her wins and to process her emotions – she’s feeling all the feelings and she’s learned to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. I asked her for some tips for newbies – she made the very good point that if you are thinking about your drinking and if you are listening to this podcast then it’s a sign you need to take action. Did you know that the average timeframe that someone waits between accepting that they have a drinking problem and acting on it is 11 years! That 11 more years of worrying and becoming more dependent! We know that reaching out for help is the hardest thing of all but why not do it today – go to ts.com and hit join our tribe – or email me [email protected] You’ll never regret it and it could just change your life You can follow Anele on Instagram – her handle is ndlovu_anele More Info Subscription membership – you can join up HERE. To access our website, click HERE. If you would like a free copy of our “Annual Tracker” or our e-book 66 Days to Sobriety, please email [email protected]. If you would like to come to our Saturday afternoon Zoom Cafe as a guest and meet our community, just email [email protected]. to join our mailing list click HERE Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today Read more about our program and subscribe HERE He

Sam Delaney is a journalist and broadcaster. I contacted him after I found his article in the Guardian saying that he is having more fun than ever now that he is sober – and he is 7 years sober just like me! Sam hosts two podcasts himself – one of which is called The Reset, a podcast in which he chats to guests about mental health, addiction and recovery He has just published a new book called: Sort Your Head Out - Mental Health…without the Bollocks In this episode:- Sam’s drinking career got off to an early start when he would go to the park with his friends at the age of 12 – drinking cans of warm beer taken from parents houses He thought nothing of it – it was just what kids did – totally normalised We agreed that times have changed and that a lot of teenage drinking came from the fact that we had so much time on our hands in those days Time to drink, to smoke weed and getting into fights was a kind of hobby to pass the time! Of course these days kids spend much of their spare time online which has a positive side to it In real terms the stats tell us that the UK streets are safer than they were in the 1980’s, in spite of constant headlines about knife crime Sam’s drinking didn’t become problematic until his late 30’s when his lifestyle hit a perfect storm The combined pressures of his career, young family, hectic social life as well as maintaining his Jack the Lad identify left him exhausted Exhausted mentally physically and emotionally We talked about the “false narratives” that are common among drinkers and Sam’s internal narrative was that he was doing this for the family The drink and drugs were acting as fuel to get him through the day and night – the fun was long gone Another false narrative was that it wasn’t harming anyone – whereas in fact his wife was becoming increasingly worried If she expressed her concern he would become hostile and tell her not to try to control him We agreed that the term “rock bottom” was yet another false narrative and that the last thing we should do is wait for the rock bottom Far better to step off the slippery slope as soon as possible rather than think you are fine until you get to that place! We agreed that drinking feels like freedom at first but for some of us it becomes a prison and makes our life very small We lose the ability to enjoy everyday pleasures The example of not seeing the point of a walk in the country unless the destination was a pub says it all! Towards the end of his drinking Sam would wake up each morning feeling awful and resolving not to drink that day – but of course he always did. He was trapped in the Groundhog Day prison of daily drinking He indulged in yet another false narrative – the one about if you’re drinking expensive wine then you must be a connoisseur rather than someone with a problem Of course whether a bottle of wine costs £20 or £8 its still ethanol! One day he booked a session with a therapist at the Priory and that started his recovery I love the fact that he chose what he calls a “hybrid” approach – a bit of AA, a bit of therapy, a lot of reading and most importantly community support and sharing. The modern recovery movement offers a pathway for everybody – and there is no reason why we can’t mix and match the various approaches We need to throw the book at our sobriety and do whatever it takes! With 7 years of sobriety Sam can look back on his journey and realises that he’d been white knuckling for the first couple of years It was only a work crisis that made him re-evaluate and realise that he had to go deeper He’d been isolating and realised that he had to “do the work” Part of that work has been connecting with people in recovery and having conversations for his podcast or his articles I’ve done pretty much the same and learned so much from my podcast guests One of his revelations during sobriety was that it wasn’t a binary choice – he didn’t have to choose between the Jack the Lad drinker lifestyle or the “sober serious hippie talking in psychobable” as he puts it He could still be Jack the Lad but it would be a sober Jack the Lad with a bit more self awareness and self compassion I loved what he said about how boring drinking becomes after a few decades – about how nothing different ever happens Whereas sobriety is a real adventure and most people have no idea of how awesome their alcohol free life will be before they embark on the journey! He made the very important point that when we ditch the booze we can examine our life and discover what we do that are legitimate sources of fun - what is still fun...even without the drink? Sam mentioned Christmas and Football as examples of alcohol free fun! Conversely what did we waste time on because they were only bearable because they were accompanied by alcohol?! Alcohol actually dumbs us down which can result in us spending time doing stuff or hanging out with people we don’t really enjoy For Sam the realisation that he actually had much to enjoy in his everyday life onl

My guest this week is Adrienne Stillman Krausz, a lady with a very sophisticated palate. Her passion for fine food and wine began when she lived in Paris during her formative years. Adrienne went to college in the US but while her fellow students were downing beers and jello shots she was heading downtown to drink expensive craft cocktails. She lives in the Nappa valley with her husband Jake who is a 2nd generation wine maker and as a couple they turned their talents to the alcohol free space. In this episode I think Adrienne is quite unique in that she has "a foot in both camps" as she puts it I love the way that together with her husband they are busy sourcing and curating the very best AF products – with the same care that would go into fine wines As they say on their website they believe that everyone deserves a good drink, whether it has alcohol or not! Adrienne admits that she did sometimes go overboard on the craft cocktails and as a newly married couple two bottles of wine was the norm most evenings She did begin to feel the after effects of that wine in the morning and never really bounced out of bed feeling great As they started to think about having a family Adrienne stopped drinking during the week However that meant that the weekend drinking affected her more Coping with fertility problems led Adrienne to give up drinking completely She also had to give up eating various foods with led to bouts of FOMO when she was socialising She got a taste of what us ex drinkers go through in early sobriety! Happily Adrienne became a mom and now has a 9 month old baby That’s when she noticed the mommy juice culture Hanging out with some other moms she was surprised to hear plans to drop off the babies and so they could drink some cocktails She noticed that some wine brands were targeting moms and we agreed that wine was sometimes seen as a “parenting aid” Mommyjuice gives our children the message that it’s so difficult looking after them that we need wine – not to mention the more general message that we use wine as a coping mechanism Adrienne’s interest in alcohol free drinks began when she met a sober coach who recommended that she try them. She was very sceptical and her expectations were low – she couldn’t really see the point However when she started tasting the various choices she was blown away by the quality Together with her husband they started researching – and were both inspired. She feels that the US is just scratching the surface but there is a lot of innovation going on Adrienne and her husband concluded that there were some great choices available but that the AF space was difficult for the consumer to navigate – so they decided to become “curators. They would be retailers of alcohol free drinks but only of drinks that they had sampled and enjoyed They would be two experts providing advice and education around their products They launched the Dry Goods Beverage Company in Summer of 2021. Their best sellers are the alcohol free wines and she particularly recommended Copenhagen sparkling teas – perfect as an aperitif as its crisp and refreshing. Adrienne explained that these teas provide the depth and nuance that the AF wines sometimes lack She also reminded us that AF spirits should always be mixed rather than drunk neat. That’s why the cocktail recipes are so important. Adrienne has kindly offered our listeners a 10% discount on their products so just use the coupon code TribeSober The website is drygoodsdrinks.com and they are @drygoodsdrinks on Instagram More Info Subscription membership – you can join up HERE. To access our website, click HERE. If you would like a free copy of our “Annual Tracker” or our e-book 66 Days to Sobriety, please email [email protected]. If you would like to come to our Saturday afternoon Zoom Cafe as a guest and meet our community, just email [email protected]. to join our mailing list click HERE Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today Read more about our program and subscribe HERE Help us to Spread the Word! We made this podcast so that we can reach more people who need our help. Please subscribe and share. If you enjoyed the podcast, then please leave us a 5-star review on Apple podcasts. Take a screenshot of your review, and DM it to Tribe Sober’s Instagram page – see PS below for instructions. We’ll send you something special to say thank you! We release a podcast episode every Saturday morning. You can follow Tribe Sober on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. You can join our private Facebook group HERE. PS: How to Leave a Rating/Review in Apple Podcasts (on an iOS Device) Open the Podcasts app. EASY. Choose “Search” from the bottom row of icons and enter the name of the show (e.g. Recover Like a Mother) into the search field. Select the show under Shows (not under Episodes). Scroll down past the first few episodes until you see Ratings

There have been dramatic changes in the recovery space over the last decade Just 10 years ago you were either a normal drinker or you were an alcoholic and you went to AAWe now understand that alcohol dependence is a spectrum with many different stages between the merely sober curious and the problematic drinker ven if you are that problematic drinker you don’t have to go to AA any more -we now have a modern recovery movement with many different pathways to getting sober Part of that modern recovery movement is driven by young sobriety influencers – just like my guest today Claire Comai of Rehab Studios In this Episode Claire got sober at the tender age of 24 so her drinking career was very short but it was pretty intense! She first tried alcohol at about 15 and just loved it – as she says she was obsessed with it straight away and the only reason she wasn’t drinking all day every day was because she lived with her family and had to go to school! She drank when she was at high school and would blackout all the time Claire had health consequences and got herself into risky situations She had absolutely no off switch and felt something change in her brain after that first drink She went to uni in Montreal, a huge university where no restrictions were put on drinking Worried about her frequent blackouts Claire put lots of rules in place but of course like most of us she usually broke them! She ended up in hospital several times after drinking sessions and began every day with a hangover She used to see an addiction counsellor every week but all they did was to set new rules for her drinking Then came the intervention – she was helping her sister move apartments and discovered the rest of the family waiting there – sitting in a circle By this point her family were desperately worried about Claire’s drinking so had gathered together to let her know how they felt This intervention was a real eye opener for because she knew she was hurting herself with the drink but had no idea how it was affecting the people that loved her Her parents were very emotional but what really struck her was the fact that her younger sister had been staying awake at night worrying about her – when as the older sister Claire should have been a role model The intervention worked and she threw herself into sobriety – she went to AA and got a Sober Coach She did feel that she had been pushed into sobriety by her family and felt annoyed that her drinking career had been so short but over the months she began to feel better and better We agreed that the first few months are really really had but then it gets SO much easier and the benefits start coming in If you are in early sobriety and don’t have a community you should know that connecting with others on the same path makes a huge difference It’s really hard to do this alone so please reach out – just go to tribesober.com and hit join our tribe – or drop me a line at [email protected] Claire was usually the youngest person at the AA meetings and would often be told that she was so lucky to be getting sober at 24 -gradually she began to believe them! She now has more than 3 years of sobriety but still goes to meetings about twice a week – like us she believes that connection is the opposite of addiction and we must stay connected Even if we have a supportive family and lots of friends they won’t really understand us like other people who have struggled – they may innocently try to convince us that we’ll be ok to have just one glass of wine now, that’s something people in your sobriety group will never do! Like many of us Claire began to feel passionate about sobriety and began to speak out – to be a younger person in the world of recovery sharing her story We always advise our members to get a project in early sobriety to keep those sobriety blues away – if you want to know the science behind this strategy then listen to Tribe Sober podcast episode 55, my interview with Dr Loretta Breuning. Claire is a great example of how having a project can keep you motivated and on track Her project is a apparel and jewellery brand called Rehab Studios Like many of us she is an all or nothing person and has thrown herself into designing and managing this wonderful project Check out Claires website which is called https://www.rehabstudiosny.com/ - she has some lovely items on there and she ships worldwide You can find Claire at rehabstudiosny on TikTok and Instagram, More Info Subscription membership – you can join up HERE. To access our website, click HERE. If you would like a free copy of our “Annual Tracker” or our e-book 66 Days to Sobriety, please email [email protected]. If you would like to come to our Saturday afternoon Zoom Cafe as a guest and meet our community, just email [email protected]. to join our mailing list click HERE Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today Read more

I learned recently that only 10% of podcasters manage to publish more than 100 episodes so today I wanted to mark the fact that the Tribe Sober podcast is still going strong after 150 episodes! Yes it’s hard work getting out a weekly episode but it’s also been such a pleasure connecting with some fabulous guests and of course getting feedback from listeners all over the world. I’ve taken a deep dive into our podcast archives and highlighted the top ten most popular episodes At number 10 we have 3 podcasts with 1,700 downloads! 10. The Happy Brain with Loretta Breuning That was Dr Loretta Breuning – author the Happy Brain. I always learn a lot from my guests and my conversation with Loretta led me to a personal lightbulb moment which actually changed the advice we give to our community. It’s common to experience a low mood in early sobriety – a spell of anhedonia. It certainly happened to me so I discussed this with Loretta She taught me that we don’t have to just grit our teeth and get through this difficult patch – there is a way out! A way to trigger our happy chemicals and banish those early sobriety blues It’s fascinating stuff so do have a listen to the interview – Tribe Sober podcast episode 55 on Apple podcasts or via this link 10. “Take a Break” Another episode that came in at 10th place with 1,700 listens was the episode called “Take a Break” – 3 Tribe Sober members talking about the benefits of taking a break from the booze. We believe in Challenges here at Tribe Sober - every year we run 2 #Sober66 Challenges as well as our Dry January Fundraiser. On this episode we hear from 3 ladies who did a 66 day Sober Spring - why did they sign up? what was it like? what tips do they have? Have a listen to Claire, Helena and Pam and if you’re inspired you can go to tribesober.com and sign up for the next #Sober66 which starts on 20th March Find this episode on Apple podcasts Tribe Sober episode 75 or via this link 10. Rebranding Sobriety with Susan Christina The third episode at number 10 is my interview with the fabulous Susan Christina from Hola Sober. Susan Christina is on a mission to rebrand sobriety and make alcohol free living as attractive and glamorous as we thought drinking was She’s an advocate for the modern recovery movement and wants women to take back their power! Susan Christina publishes a gorgeous 100 page online magazine call Hola Sober, packed with features and inspiration – I’ll put the link in the shownotes https://linktr.ee/holasober The episode with Susan Christina is called Rebranding Sobriety – episode 67 on Apple or via this link 8. Casey joins up the dots... between drinking and anxiety Next up is an interview with Sobriety Coach Casey Mcguire Davidson with 1,800 downloads Like me Casey was caught in the corporate workhard/playhard culture as well as the mommyjuice trend…using alcohol to cope with stress and anxiety and becoming more dependent over the years… But somehow we both found our way out of that trap and now we are finding joy in helping people to do the same We talked about the strong women we come across in our sober communities – and how many of us managed to hold it all together through the drinking years. Once we are liberated from the shackles of alcohol addiction there is no stopping us and we go on to achieve great things. We agreed that yes Sobriety is definitely a Superpower! Catch Casey on Tribe Sober podcast episode 66 on Apple or via this link 7. Is your Lizard Brain the Boss with Staci Danford Coming in at number 7 is neuroscientist Staci Danford which also has had 1,800 listens Staci is a neuroscientist who loves working with the sober community. In this episode she shares some really practical and useful information about our brain. Staci explained how our primitive lizard brain will go on autopilot unless we intervene – she calls her Lizard Brain Earl and calls him out if he tries to hijack her behaviour! She confirmed that our #Sober66 Challenge is long enough to create a new neural pathway to change our drinking patterns She also said that the “secret sauce” of our Challenges is the community support Our next #Sober66 Challenge starts on 20th March so just go to tribesober.com and you’ll see the sign up box on the homepage You can catch Staci’s episode on Apple podcasts, episode 57 or via this link 6. Why we need to ditch the drink in mid-life with Lori Massicot Next up in our Top Ten is Lori Massicot, also with 1,800 listens. Lori Massicot a midlife sobriety coach. I discovered Lori when I found her podcast – it’s called “to 50 and beyond” – it’s a podcast aimed at women in mid-life where she highlights the beauty of aging and the freedom that comes along with alcohol free life. I was 63 when I finally ditched the booze so as you can imagine we had a great conversation about how giving up alcohol is one of the best things we can do for ourselves as we get older. Let’s remember that 20% of social drinkers WILL become dependent over the years That’s exa

Professor David Nutt was sacked by the UK government in 2009. He was dismissed for reporting on the comparative harms of various drugs. He claimed that ecstasy and LSD were less dangerous than alcohol which didn’t go down well as the government would not even acknowledge that alcohol was a drug in the first place! In 2010 he published a landmark study in The Lancet – a study that ranked the harm done to users and society by a range of drugs. His study put alcohol as number one – as more harmful to society than heroin and crack. Since leaving his government position Professor Nutt has been chairing Drugs Science, an NGO which does ground breaking research and provides independent, evidence based information on drugs. He’s been engaged in some fascinating research into alcohol, cannabis and psychedelics and for the last few years he’s been working on the development of a drink which has just been launched in the UK – called Sentia. Sentia is a new type of drink that doesn’t contain alcohol but aims to recreate its relaxing effects. The blend of botanicals in Sentia does this by enhancing the activity of a neurotransmitter called GABA in the brain. Since recording the interview I’ve been lucky enough to sample Sentia and can report that not only is it delicious but it certainly does hit the spot and deliver a gentle buzz. I drank mine neat with lots of ice and enjoyed the spicy bitterness. Our lucky UK listeners will be able to order it right now and hopefully those of us in the rest of the world will get to sample it soon. In this Episode David’s interest in the effects of alcohol began during his career as a doctor. Like most doctors he would see patients who had been damaged by alcohol practically every day His goal has been to produce a drink which provides the buzz of alcohol without the harm Sentia replicates the positive effects of alcohol (sociability and relaxation) without the negative effects (aggression and dependence) Alcohol affects the brain a bit like a sledgehammer whereas Sentia is much more targetted The benefits of alcohol kick in after one or two drinks when it affects our GABA system which keeps the brain calm But if we push the dose up to more than two drinks then it affects other brain neurotransmitters and can lead to more-ishness, craving, binging, amnesia and hangovers So the Prof has found a way to minimise the unwanted effects. Sentia has been designed by a world-renowned team of botonists, innovators and scientists and it only targets the GABA system The fact that the herbs which have been used to create it can be found in nature and have been used for centuries means that it’s exempt from food safety testing. We talked about the fact that if alcohol was invented today it would never pass any of the rigourous food and drink safety tests which new products have to go through David reflected that alcohol seems to have a special and privileged status in the world and came up with the interesting comparison with the fact that guns seem to have a privileged place in US law He also pointed out that alcohol kills more people than guns each year! I googled this stat and discovered that 45,000 people died from gunshot wounds in 2020 whereas alcohol related deaths average around 140,000 a year in the US alone - 3M worldwide I asked the Prof if Sentia was safe for those of us in recovery – he made it clear that Sentia is not a medicine or a therapy However it will not create dependence and it will create a feeling of relaxation He sees it as a good alternative for people who are vulnerable to alcohol dependence At Tribe Sober we always say don’t drink alcohol free drinks if they trigger you so we would advise the same approach with Sentia The advantage of Sentia is that it’s not fake alcohol so probably is unlikely to trigger ex drinkers Sentia is available in the UK right now and you can read more about it on the website which is sentiaspirits.com International distribution has its challenges but the first step may be to get it manufactured in the US and it could be sent as a concentrate to other countries – watch this space and we’ll keep you informed David took us through what happens in our brain when we drink alcohol First neuro transmitter to get hit is GABA – which makes us feel calmer, more relaxed and more like socialising Drinking more than a couple of glasses will trigger dopamine, a stimulant which will make us want more and is why we go on binges It also releases endorphins which contributes to addictiveness and lack of control Carry on drinking and we start to block the most important neuro transmitter - Glutamate which keeps us awake Glutamate is vital for consciousness and for laying down memories – so that’s why we get blackouts Blocking glutamate can lead to brain damage, withdrawal and is responsible for hangovers. I told the Prof about the 6 hour walking talking blackout that finally made me decide the quit He confirmed that blackouts are a huge red flag as there is a dan

By the time single mom Molly Desch was in her thirties she was hitting the alcohol hard. Newly divorced she dived into the online dating game with enthusiasm and with hindsight she can see it was much too soon. She got very depressed and found herself in a suicidal state but she fought back…she ditched the booze, did the work and is in a very different place today. In this Episode Molly was a rebellious teenager so the drinking started back then By her late twenties Molly was drinking heavily but never questioned it as it was so normalised In her thirties the drinking got really bad – freshly divorced she got back into the dating game far too soon As a single mom she was trying to keep it all together but felt she was going downhill fast Working from home she would be drinking in the mornings while she was doing online meetings with colleagues Hit by a serious depression she found herself sitting in her car with a loaded gun as she contemplated suicide Her son called her at that moment and begged her to come home She did go home and immediately called her mom who came to stay with her Molly knew she had to quit drinking but had no idea how she was going to do that and felt terrified at the prospect She went to AA which did help although she rebelled against the concept of being powerless and the rigid structure of the steps. After 3 months she left AA which is when Covid hit – that helped her stay sober as she couldn’t go anywhere She managed her first year of sobriety but was not really doing the work – just not drinking.. Perhaps that’s why she had 3 relapses in her second year Her last relapse was during her leaving party at a job she had been at for a decade – her colleagues put on a Happy Hour for her and she went completely over the top THAT was when she realised that she had to do the work and she threw herself into it with great enthusiasm She spent hours in the library – perusing the non fiction shelves and pulling out any books that appealed to her Molly was trying to discover who she was and what she actually wanted out of life She devoured self help books and loved the quitlit memoirs Her favourite book was "Braving the Wilderness" by Brene Brown We agreed that the Artists Way by Julia Cameron was a great way to unlock creativity and we both do our morning pages Molly did lots of journaling which allowed her to build new habits, build a sobriety toolbox, discover who she was and finally began to love herself She learned to set boundaries and began a daily meditation practice as well as yoga Molly got in tune with her intuition and started paying attention to it She takes pleasure in everyday activities like gardening and walking her dog Her top 3 benefits of sobriety are better relationship with her kids, waking up in the morning feeling great and getting to know who is she really is and what she wants out of life One of the ways that she sustains her sobriety is by staying open to opportunities – one day she received an email about a coaching course and decided to jump on a free call to find out more The call led her to qualifying as a coach and quitting her job so she could focus on building her coaching practice These days Molly is thriving in her sobriety and loving her work as a coach – to find out more about her coaching go to her website which is asyouarelifecoaching.com You heard Molly say that she had notebooks all over the house. She’s now taken the content from those notebooks and created a beautiful workbook about taking back control and redefining how you want to live – it’s called Wine Stole My Dreams – if you’d like a copy then just email [email protected] and I’ll send you one. More Info Subscription membership – you can join up HERE. To access our website, click HERE. If you would like a free copy of our “Annual Tracker” or our e-book 66 Days to Sobriety, please email [email protected]. If you would like to come to our Saturday afternoon Zoom Cafe as a guest and meet our community, just email [email protected]. Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today Read more about our program and subscribe HERE Help us to Spread the Word! We made this podcast so that we can reach more people who need our help. Please subscribe and share. If you enjoyed the podcast, then please leave us a 5-star review on Apple podcasts. Take a screenshot of your review, and DM it to Tribe Sober’s Instagram page – see PS below for instructions. We’ll send you something special to say thank you! We release a podcast episode every Saturday morning. You can follow Tribe Sober on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. You can join our private Facebook group HERE. PS: How to Leave a Rating/Review in Apple Podcasts (on an iOS Device) Open the Podcasts app. EASY. Choose “Search” from the bottom row of icons and enter the name of the show (e.g. Recover Like a Mother) into the search field. Select

This weeks podcast guest is Meg Geisewite who has written an excellent book shining a light on some of the many Lies and False Promises that alcohol makes. She’s called her book "Intoxicating Lies" and she shares her own highly relatable story while busting myths about alcohol that have shaped the limiting beliefs of many drinkers. Her book uncovers surprising insights into the alcohol industry and our society’s obsession with the mommy wine culture. In this Episode After college Meg did some modelling and as she puts it she was "the poster girl for Alcohol" – she was Miss Budweiser and the Guiness Girl to name just two of her modelling gigs Fully buying into the false messaging from Big Alcohol that we need alcohol to have fun As she got married and had children she found herself sucked into the mommyjuice culture – seeing it as an essential parenting aid. The turning point for Meg came when as she puts it “My alcohol use was no longer recreational, it was medicinal” This is a red flag of dependence for so many of us If you’d like our free PDF called “30 signs you need to take a break from alcohol” then just email me – [email protected] For Meg the shift from pleasure to medicinal came as she went through a particularly stressful time in her life She felt “dutiful yet dead”, people pleasing and taking care of everybody’s needs but her own. At this time she was seeing wine as a reward when she could finally grab some “me” time Of course she now knows that this perceived “reward” was just adding to her stress and anxiety and as the external stressors reduced she found herself with a nightly wine habit She plucked up the courage to tell her therapist that she was worried about her drinking – only to be told that she was simply thinking about it too much That ill judged advice resulted in Meg drinking for 2 more years We agreed that whatever your therapist/doctor/friend says to you about your drinking if it’s on your mind then reach out for some help and advice Go to tribesober.com and hit join our tribe to join a sobriety community who can enable you to change your relationship with alcohol We agreed that the stigma needs to be lifted from women and their drinking and we need to talk about it more openly Of course that’s what Meg is trying to achieve with her book and what I am trying to achieve with this podcast Society likes to put people in boxes and pushes the false belief that if we are not homeless alcoholics then we are fine In fact we are likely to be somewhere on the Alcohol Use Disorder spectrum which is vast Rather than compare ourselves with down and out alcoholics we should be comparing ourselves with the best version of ourselves we could be Meg’s moment of truth came when she found herself resenting her kids staying late at school to do sport as it was interfering with her wine drinking time She realised that she was no longer in control and this scared her That’s when she joined Sober Sis – thinking that the 21 day reset would enable her to drink moderately She just wanted some tools to help her to drink ‘normally” Of course “normal drinking” is yet another intoxicating lie – once we’ve crossed the line into dependence we need to quit drinking completely and stop hankering after moderation Moderate drinkers just moderate, they don’t have to join a reset program! We agreed that in fact Sober Sis 21 day reset program appeals to a lot of people who are dependent but believe that they can moderate The important thing is to bring these people into the conversation and that’s what we do with our 5 day Bootcamps – just go join our free Facebook Group called Sobriety Bootcamp and you’ll be ready to participate in the next one For Meg the veil of lies about alcohol began to lift as she read This Naked Mind by Annie Grace She felt great at the end of her 21 day challenge and decided to stay curious and continued on a 90 day challenge That’s the way to do it – step by step – we avoid the F word at Tribe Sober – the thought of giving up alcohol Forever is just too daunting at first – so go for 30 days, then 100, then 6 months and then a year. After an alcohol free year it’s highly unlikely you’ll want to start drinking again – unless you are still harbouring a false belief that alcohol can add something to your life We talked about the importance of mindset and Meg told us that 6 of the ladies in her sober community were going on a trip to Paris – although they had 6 months of sobriety they still felt that alcohol would enhance the experience – as she says they are stuck in the “deprivation” mindset which means they are still relying on will power to stay sober. After 100 sober days Meg began to get glimpses of just how awesome an alcohol free life could be and kept asking herself “what if I kept going?” – it’s so important to stay curious She did and now she is three years alcohol free We agreed on the importance of being in a sober community as we progress further in our journey – Meg talks about the

Most of our Tribe Sober members are quite mature – like me ;-) They drank socially in their 20’s and 30’s and it was only later in life that they found themselves becoming dependent. But now and again we come across a younger person and my guest this week is Ellen Newstead who is in her early 30’s. She was smart enough to realise at an early age that alcohol was messing up her life and that she would be happier and healthier without it. Ditching the booze at 30 changes your future - and that’s exactly what she did. Ellen’s drinking career was short but it was intense and she very sensibly decided to get sober for her wedding – which she did, and she’s never looked back. In this Episode Like many teenagers Ellen was quite shy with self esteem issues and found that alcohol helped her relax and have fun She enjoyed the buzz and was soon chasing that feeling Her first experience of drinking was Alcopops which are between 4 and 8% alcohol If you listened to last week’s podcast you will have heard marketing expert Nigel Jones explain how we are groomed by the alcohol industry to drink alcohol from a very early age – groomed to be their lifelong customers Of course alcohol tastes unpleasant to a first time drinker – so they get round this problem by flavoring the alcopops to taste like cola or lemonade Teenage girls are particularly vulnerable to the harmful effects of Alcopops and drinking before the age of 18 will increase the likelihood of dependence as we get older When she thinks back to those years of teenage drinking Ellen realises that for her “fun and alcohol” became so closely linked she couldn’t imagine one without the other – a situation that continued for the next decade For many of us alcohol is perceived as the “gateway to fun” and Ellen talked about the “false promise of alcohol” Millions of us bought into this false promise and it took me decades to realise that alcohol is just 10% ethanol and 90% marketing! The fun comes from the people who are with and the environment you are in When Ellen went off to Uni she was expecting to find lots of other enthusiastic drinkers but soon realised that not many of her contempories were in her league – she was the ringleader - always the one wanting to make every social event about drinking! By her second year at Uni she had found a weekend job in a bar and had started to enjoy drinking alone, at work and at home By her early 20’s a bottle of wine a night was the norm She went through a period of unemployment when she was 25 and that was when she totally “lost it” as she puts it She treated the pub as a social club and went there every day, she met someone who invited her to his house to continue drinking and sleep over if she needed to She would often drink to oblivion and wake up not quite knowing where she was Ellen would lie to her boyfriend and parents about where she had spent the night Fortunately Ellen got a job which put some kind of structure into her life so her drinking was confined to weekend binge drinking Then came Covid so home drinking became the norm as the pubs were closed As she no longer had access to the pub she recreated her comfort zone in her spare room A home pub – complete with beer mats, signage and bar snacks! The pubs were busy delivering containers of alcohol people’s homes so the drinking could continue in spite of lockdown As the UK gradually opened up again drinking was allowed in outside in beer gardens Ellen was so excited by this development that she drank to blackout the first 3 times she went to the pub! In spite of this she maintains she wasn’t physically addicted – her addiction was more psychological If you listen to Tribe Sober podcast episode 48 you can hear Molly Watts explaining why only 10% of dependent drinkers are physically addicted – for the rest of us its psychological Ellen began to hover around rock bottom – she lost her wallet, she lost a weekend, she was refused service in a bar… More importantly though she was beginning to lose patience with the chaos that alcohol was creating in her life – the constant threat of blackout or doing something stupid was wearing her down She was coming to the conclusion that alcohol was taking away an awful lot more than it was delivering After three boozy weekends which she describes as “hideous” she decided to quit completely She didn’t even contemplate moderation so unlike many of us she didn’t have to waste years in the moderation trap When she decided to quit she was 30 years old with a wedding coming up She told her friends and family and the fact that nobody questioned her decision would indicate that they realised that Ellen had a drinking problem She’d been scrolling IG and was excited to find a vibrant, diverse community with lives like hers but all the better for not including booze She did a few sober stretches and started to sample the benefits of sobriety She found a sober role model in Millie Gooch – Millie is the same age as Ellen and explained how to naviga

Nigel Jones is the founder of “9 kilometres before 9am” which is what he’s been doing ever since he decided to quit drinking. He’s a sobriety coach and has written a book called Walking Back to Happiness which is a lovely title and describes the feeling we get as we begin to thrive in our sobriety. Nigel’s professional background is in marketing and PR so he has a deep understanding of the power of messaging and the effect it has on our subconscious mind. As he says we are in effect being “groomed” by the liquor industry to be loyal and lifelong consumers. In this Episode Nigel’s first drink strong cider at an early age – obviously it tasted disgusting to him and he was very sick – which made us reflect on the craziness of forcing ourselves to drink something we hate just so that we can acquire a test for it! Going to Uni was when the party really got started and daily drinking became his pattern. That mix of affordability, availability and the heady feeling of being away from home means that the party starts for many of us at this stage of our lives. Nigel developed a career in marketing and PR – a profession where alcohol is “baked in” to the job and you wouldn’t climb that career ladder if you didn’t take clients out for drinks or let your hair down with colleagues at the end of the week. Work hard, play hard culture as in every corporate that I’ve worked in. Nigel drank for 35 years and certainly identified as a “drinker” – but as he got older he felt his body was not coping with it very well. He was constantly anxious and not sleeping well. He began to worry that he wouldn’t see his 60th birthday if he carried on like this. Like many of us Nigel had know for years that he was drinking too much but always pushed these thoughts to the back of his mind He spoke about the Tribalism of being a drinker and how hard it is to step away from the pack. Not only do we feel vulnerable but our drinking buddies feel that we are holding a mirror to their drinking Leaving the Drinking Tribe is hard – it goes back to our roots when we had to stay with the tribe for protection. The way to cope with this is of course to join a Sobriety community and I must have had this in mind when I called our community Tribe Sober! If you think its time to transfer from your Drinking Tribe to Tribe Sober then just go to tribesober.com and hit join our tribe! Nigel made the decision to quit one morning in December He’s had many Day Ones but never got further than 6 days in This time he approached it from a completely different angle Rather than seeing himself as a drinker trying to use willpower to become a non drinker…. In marketing speak he re-branded himself as a non drinker from Day 1! That’s what we’d call a massive reframe here at Tribe Sober! That was a gamechanger for Nigel – he realised that his failure to stop for 35 years was simply because he was using the wrong technique! He used the analogy of a mountain – rather than starting at the foot of the mountain on Day One – with a long and intimidating climb ahead of him He started at the top of the mountain - as a non drinker – on Day One! Of course he had to work on his belief system to change his identity from drinker to non drinker He began to identify as a non drinker who leads a healthy life, gets up early, exercises, meditates and lives in the moment So he began to do all the things a non drinker would do He used the power of intention – he had the intention to be a non drinker Nigel explained to me that the power of intention is when:- What you intend to do becomes the deed, the deed becomes the habit, the habit becomes the character and the character can become the destiny Nigel is 2 years sober and loves the alcohol free lifestyle – he’s in his 50’s but he feels like he’s in his 20’s! We agreed that Sobriety is a Superpower He has 3 daily goals – up at 5.30am, walk 9 kilometres befoe 9am, meditate for 15 minutes – and don’t drink alcohol today. So simple but so powerful! Nigels top 3 benefits have been – living in the present, health benefits and connecting on a deeper level We talked about the power of subliminal marketing and Nigel told me about a campaign by Guinness back in the 1950’s which was targeting pregnant women – telling them that Guinness was good for the baby! As a marketing profession Nigel understands the effect it has on the subconscious mind and how we are in fact “groomed” to drink alcohol and be a lifelong customer of the liquor industry. We agreed that governments are complicit in this machine which sometimes feels like a gigantic conspiracy. In spite of all the manipulation Nigel does believe that we can change our beliefs. If we think that we can never stop drinking that’s just a false and limiting beliefs. All beliefs they can be learned and unlearned. Nigel has written a book explaining how he did just that His book is called Walking Back to Happiness – available on Amazon His website is 9kmby9am More Info Subscription membership – you can join

After running Tribe Sober for 7 years and helping hundreds of people to ditch the drink and embrace alcohol-free living I've learned a thing or two. My biggest insight has been that sharing our stories around alcohol is the most powerful way we can help others - that's why the heart of this podcast is recovery stories. This week I'm doing a solo episode - 7 reasons to do an alcohol free January - and 14 tips to get you through. In This Episode REASONS TO DO AN ALCOHOL FREE JANUARY A dry month is a great way to test your dependency - if you can't get through a month without booze then you need to make some changes Alcohol is so toxic that just taking a month off will have significant health benefits Alcohol is linked to liver disease and 7 different types of cancer - 1 glass of wine will raise your risk of breast cancer by 15% Alcohol will weaken our immune systems - and put us more at risk of becoming infected with Covid 20% of regular drinkers will become dependent over the years - drinking more than a bottle and a half of wine a week may damage your health A month off alcohol will reduce your anxiety, freshen up your looks, help you lose weight and enable you to get some good quality sleep Making a donation to our January fundraiser will give you a dopamine hit (giving makes you feel good) and enable you to receive online and community support for 31 days - you can sign up here SOME TIPS TO GET YOU THROUGH Shake up your daily routine and exercise every day Be ready to cope with your emotions - if you've been numbing your feelings with alcohol they will come to the surface Use a journal to track your progress, note your triggers and process your emotions Listen to music, make a soundtrack for your January Challenge - a real mood changer Have your go-to drinks -drinknil.co.za are offering 10% discount on all their alcohol free drinks for people doing our Challenge Find your tribe - its hard to do this alone - check out our membership program here Please donate to our Earthchild Fundraiser - and get 30 days of community and online support - sign up link is here MORE INFO To access our website click HERE EPISODE SPONSOR This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today. Read more about our 7 step program and subscribe HERE. Please subscribe and share this podcast so we can reach more people who need our help. Thank you

Tribe Sober - inspiring an alcohol-free life! This week’s podcast is released on New Years Eve so by the time you get to hearing it the festivities will be drawing to a close and your thoughts will be turning to 2023. We want to help you to make a healthy start to the new year so we've launched our 8th Annual Fundraiser which will provide you with online and community support for an alcohol free month - and enable you to help a disadvantaged child. Talk about a win-win! We believe in Challenges here at Tribe Sober - every year we run our Sober Spring Challenge - and then another one in January. On this week's podcast we hear from 3 ladies who did Sober Spring 2021 - why did they sign up? what was it like? what tips do they have? Let's hear from Claire, Helena and Pam:- In this Episode Like many of us Claire had fallen into the routine of drinking a bottle of wine every evening - and she wanted to make a change. Claire who wasn't sure that an online community would work for her - she thought she might be the "wrong generation" but in fact she loved it. She posted comments daily and felt a deep connection with the other challengers. She didn't find it that difficult. She had been "thinking about it" for so long that one she actually took action and signed up for the challenge she was more than ready - and got straight through 66 alcohol free days without a slip up! Then we heard from Helena who has struggled with drugs and alcohol for years but who is now making real progress. She was fascinated by the idea of a 66 day challenge and the fact that a new neural pathway can be created in this time. Pam explained that she had been worried about her drinking for a while and that the challenge finally made it clear to her that "moderation" was not going to work for her. Our Challengers had plenty of useful tips to share - "make a plan" was a big one - Claire explained that visiting an exclusive game farm carrying a huge bag of AF drinks may have bemused the staff but it enabled her to stay on track! Journalling was another important tip - buy a notebook, process your emotions and log your progress during the Challenge. Treat your Challenge as a research project - listen to podcasts, read the quitlit and learn everything you can. We often have a vague feeling that we need to do something about our drinking but a challenge will enable you to dip your toe in the waters of sobriety and take action - SIGN UP FOR THE JANUARY CHALLENGE HERE "Alcohol is the only drug we have to justify not taking" so doing a challenge is a great "reason". If you have to explain to your family and friends why you are not drinking you can say "I'm raising money for charity by doing a Dry January!" An alcohol free month will enable you to experience some benefits of sobriety but to really experience the joys of alcohol free living you need to keep going a bit longer. You will meet others on the challenge who will be keep to extend the challenge to 66 days, 100 days - even six months! Another great tip we heard from our Challengers was to reconfigure your day - shake up your routine a bit and you won't miss alcohol so much! If you are listening to this and it's not January don't worry - we've got you covered - all you need to do is to go to our tribesober.com and hit Join Our Tribe and we'll put you on our 30 day starter challenge for new members. More info Subscription membership for Tribe Sober join up HERE To access our website click HERE If you would like a free copy of our "Annual Tracker" or our e-book "66 Days to Sobriety" please email [email protected] If you would like to come to our Saturday afternoon Zoom Cafe as a guest and meet our community just email [email protected] Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today Read more about our 7-step program and subscribe HERE Book a Discovery Call with me to find out if our membership would help you Help us to spread the word! We made this podcast so that we can reach more people who need our help. Please subscribe and share. If you enjoyed the podcast then please leave us a 5 star review on Apple podcasts, take a screenshot of your review and DM it to Tribe Sober’s Instagram page - see PS for instructions - we'll send you something special to say thank you! We release a podcast episode every Saturday morning. You can follow Tribe Sober on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram You can catch our FB live on Saturday mornings (11am SAST) and you can join our private Facebook group HERE Thank you for listening! Till Next Week Janet x PS How to leave an rating/review in Apple Podcasts (on an iOS device) 1. Open the Podcasts app. EASY. 2. Choose "Search" from the bottom row of icons and enter the name of the show (i.e., "Recover Like A Mother") into the search field. 3. Select the show under Shows (not under Episodes). 4. Scroll down past the first few episodes until you see Ratings & Revi

Tribe Sober - Your guide to alcohol-free living! After running Tribe Sober for 7 years and helping hundreds of people to ditch the drink and embrace alcohol-free living I've learned a thing or two. My biggest insight has been that sharing our stories around alcohol is the most powerful way we can help others - that's why the heart of this podcast is recovery stories. This week I'm chatting to a truly inspirational woman - Janna Kretzmar - Founder of the Earthchild Project and Fair Lady Magazine's Social Entrepreneur of the Year In this Episode 2023 will be the 8th year that Tribe Sober has collaborated with the Earthchild Project for the Dry January Challenge Over the years we have raised more than R300,000 so in this episode we discover how that money has helped 880 children Janna tells us how she came up with the idea to start the project in 2007 - and why she thinks it's been such a successful project She worked on an eco project in Brazil and read a book by a yogi about a project in schools in India - these were her influences She realised that it was important to partner with the schools/teachers for the long term - not just come in for short term projects Earthchild Clothing paid the salary of their first facilitator so that's how they got their name We talked about the power of positive role models in communities and how she is developing young leaders Earthchild provides yoga classes, gardening lessons, eco clubs, hiking clubs - connecting the children with their bodies and the environment The children come from communities with high levels of gang violence and unemployment - yoga provides a tool to help them cope with stress Some of the children who started yoga classes when they were 6 years old are now young leaders working in the Earthchild Project More info Subscription membership for Tribe Sober join up HERE To access our website click HERE To join our Dry January Annual Fundraiser click HERE - a small donation will provide you with community and online support during January Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today. Read more about our 8-step program and subscribe HERE. Help us to spread the word! We made this podcast so that we can reach more people who need our help. Please subscribe and share. We release a podcast episode every Saturday morning. You can follow Tribe Sober on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You can catch our FB live on Saturday mornings (11am SAST) and you can join our private Facebook group HERE Thank you for listening! Till Next Week Janet x

This week’s podcast guest is Jason Lewis Williams who popped up on Tribe Sober's Facebook Group last May and has been inspiring us ever since. At the time of recording we are approaching the festive season and the global marketing machine is on steroids – encouraging us to shop until we drop and of course to swim through the whole period in a sea of booze. We are encouraged to drink and to celebrate and then to drink a bit more – until January of course when we are all supposed to be plunged into despair as we white knuckle our way through a miserable Dry January without our constant companion alcohol. The manipulation is endless – until we decide to see it for the BS that it is… Jason has certainly got to that stage and a recent post from him says:- Who else is positively looking forward to waking up sober on Christmas morning? There's one thing I'll say for having had a drinking problem, when you get rid of it normality feels so good, particularly on occasions where you would have been so messed up In this Episode Jason adored his father – who was an alcoholic. Looking back on his childhood he now wonders if he was subconsciously picking up that alcohol is how you deal with stress – how you deal with life! He’s definitely got a point there and I think it’s easy to forget how perceptive our kids are – they see us role modelling drinking as a coping mechanism and will begin to see that as normal behaviour Jason had a difficult time as a teenager – seeing his mom battling with years of ill health before she died. By then he was drinking to deal with his pain. He failed his exams at school and went to work in a clothes shop where he found it easy to indulge his all day drinking habit. His mom left him some money so he was able to take his A levels and go to University – where his drinking ramped up another notch As an 18 year old Jason was drinking a lot and feeling quite grown up – but now that he is the father of an 18 year old he realises that he was not grown up at all – and would hate to see his son in the same situation Through his 20’s and 30’s he drank consistently – keeping himself “topped up” as he put it – I know what he means and certainly had many holidays where my goals was to keep the vibe going as I called it! Jason’s dad was what he calls a “proper alcoholic” who even resorted to drinking after shave when there was no booze available As he says this is “a dangerous benchmark” We agreed that comparing ourselves to severe alcoholics is counter productive and that we should be comparing ourselves with the best version of ourselves that we could be So if you’ve heard the massive amounts of booze that Jason was getting through please don’t think that you are fine – because you don’t drink like that. The fact that you are listening to this podcast implies that you are sober curious so you should explore that and take a Sober Year Make 2023 your sober year – use our “christmas2022” coupon to get your 20% reduction on Annual Membership – after all if you don’t like the alcohol free lifestyle you can always go back to drinking! Jason was often at the doctors with various ailments which he knew in his heart were related to his drinking – one of his ailments was gout which used to put him in bed for a couple of days a month He used to blame his gout attacks on eating cakes – in his denial he wasn’t going to link it to alcohol even though there is a definite link between beer drinking and gout. Of course he lied about the amount he was drinking to the doc but even so was told he was damaging his heath I think as drinkers we get used to feeling “under par” – as I got older I felt more tired, more anxious and generally inspired – but I put that down to ageing. Now that I am 7 years sober and 7 years older I feel amazing – just because I stopped poisoning myself on a daily basis! Who knew? Jason would complain to his friends that he was drinking too much but they told him he was “fine” – of course they had no idea about how much he was drinking because he did most of his drinking alone Never rely on your friends or family to advise you about your drinking – they will either be “normal” drinkers in which case they will tell you to “cut down” and not understand why this is impossible – or they will tell you that you are “fine” because they won’t realise how much you are drinking or they drink too much as well. Listen to your heart instead, if your drinking is on your mind then it's a sign you need to make a change. Keep a drinking diary – if you are drinking more than a bottle and a half of wine or 6 beers a week be aware that you could be harming your mental and physical health. If you cannot keep your drinking within this limits then you need to quit. Just like me Jason spent a decade trying (and failing) to moderate – failing to such an extent that his drinking just got worse and worse We talked about the Groundhog Day routine of daily drinking – waking up feeling terrible and vowing not to drink that day

This week’s podcast guest is Tribe Sober member Judy Cook. A Headmistress who describes herself as a Functioning Alcoholic – loving her job and still managing to run her school efficiently even though her alcohol dependence was increasing. Like many of us Judy has been blown away by the benefits of sobriety and the warm connection we find in the Recovery Space. In this Episode Judy was a late developer when it came to alcohol – at the age of 18 she couldn’t see the point of going to the pub unless you were thirsty! However by the age of 28 her wine habit began to get established – a drink when she got home from work (as a reward) and a glass while she did the cooking.. Alcohol is so insidious – the way it creeps up on us – that’s why it’s so important to do a regular dependence check with an alcohol free challenge – go to tribesober.com and join our annual fundraiser for your dependence check – 30 days of online and community support People were either “normal drinkers” or they were “homeless alcoholics” who needed to go to AA – there was no recognition that it was a spectrum… a slippery slope that we could step off before we lost everything! Over the years alcohol became her best friend and she was undaunted about the prospect of ending her 32 year marriage because she always had her “wine” to keep her company Such a red flag when we build a relationship with alcohol and our ideal evening is to stay home alone with a bottle of wine – that’s why we encourage our members to write Goodbye to Alcohol letters which you can find on tribesober.com under the “podcasts and more” dropdown menu Judy found lots of reassurance that drinking was normal – after all everyone on tv dramas was drinking, there were press articles saying that “red wine is good for us” You heard Judy say “Why didn’t anyone tell me that it was poison?” and I so empathise with that – if you know my story then you will know that I nearly drowned in my bath due to an alcoholic blackout when I was in my 20’s – but nobody told me I should get help – on the contrary we turned it into a funny story Judy made sure to book holidays where the alcohol was included – and even took a suitcase of bottles with her on one trip! Meals out were more about the wine than the food of course. She talked us through her arrival home from work – husband waiting with a glass of wine, the first of many – evening of drinking would end with a glass of wine by the bed Waking up she couldn’t remember what they had eaten or watched on tv the previous evening Her first thought on waking was around how much wine she had in the house and how many bottles she needed to buy Judy’s wake up call was when she woke up with tingling in her fingers and toes This is a symptom of alcoholic neuropathy. Alcohol is toxic to nerve tissue and can damage the nerves which transmit signals between the body, spinal cord and the brain. Yet another example of the toxic nature of alcohol. So Judy’s mind was made up – she had to stop – now it was about the how – AA was out of the question as she didn’t want to bump into anyone she knew so she went onto FB and found Sober Coach Simon Chapple I love the way the modern recovery movement has evolved over the last decade – Judy may have stayed stuck in her drinking if AA was the only solution but now there are so many options I loved her story about picking up her little dog and her mobile and going into the woods for a long conversation with Simon She skipped home from that call feeling SO much lighter – and that’s exactly how we feel one we’ve shared our story – the relief is huge and we know there is a way out As Simon told her she had already started her journey by reaching out for help Reaching out is the biggest step so if Judy’s story is resonating with you why not take that step right now and reach out to tribesober.com and hit “join our tribe” I’m always telling people to make sobriety their priority and throw the book at it – do all the things Judy is a classic example of the transformation you can expect if you do that – she devoted 18 weeks to studying sobriety like an exam – she read books, she listened to podcasts and most importantly she connected with others on the same path – sometimes doing 2 zoom meetings a day She was “excited” about getting sober which is a massively important reframe – once you realise that ditching the booze is an opportunity to open up your life in ways you cannot yet imagine the feeling that you have a "problem" gives way to excitement Once we realise that we are going to gain so much more than we lose everything changes! Just like many of us Judy became passionate about sobriety Like me she was a bit older when she got round to stopping and saw it as a "Now or Never" decision Going alcohol free is absolutely the best thing we can do for our health and happiness as we get older Judy got into meditation which she found a great help – and still meditates every day She loved her first sober Christmas but was a bit wor

This weeks podcast guest is Chuck Schad who is the founder of the Inner Theater – which offers mindfulness and meditation programs. He is passionate about meditation which enabled him to stop drinking and change his life. Chuck shares his story with us and he ends our conversation with a five minute meditation which will enable you to breathe and take a pause if you get triggered to drink. In this Episode Chuck and his wife came of age in the late 60’s when he began to dabble in meditation – he even studied it with a Vietnamese Monk But then life got in the way – 2 kids and 2 busy careers meant that meditation got shelved for a while A difficult period in his life led Chuck to step up his drinking The combination of a business failure and a son with a drug problem sent him to AA for help with his alcohol dependence AA wasn’t the right fit for him and he sometimes had a beer on the way home to calm his nerves! He was feeling totally strung out so went to his doctor who prescribed Benzos for the anxiety Chuck then became addicted to Benzos – and had to go to hospital for help to stop The combination of alcohol and Benzos is not a good one – as we heard on last weeks podcast interview with Janet D Chuck began reading about Eastern meditation and then began to meditate daily with Sadhguru He began to feel so much better that he began to give talks about meditation at local libraries His passion for meditation grew and he was offered a job running sessions at an Inner City Clinic Meditation changed everything for Chuck – it gave him distance and made him realise he didn’t need external help for his problems – he had the answers within You’ll hear Chuck explain that we have between 20,000 and 70,000 individual thoughts every 24 hours but meditation enables us to flip the coin and watch these thoughts – to be the witness and break the spell! It enables us to take a step back, to settle ourselves down and to learn how to “self soothe” Chuck and I talk about the demands of corporate life – and the fact that some progressive organisations are hiring him to run meditation sessions for their employees He talks about using of meditation in recovery and we discuss the value of reframing – just as we say at Tribe Sober that “getting sober is an opportunity to change your life” – he says that “Recovery is an Invitation” You can find Chuck at the innertheater.com and his Facebook page is Chuck Schad Our conversation will end with Chuck doing a meditation which can enable you to PAUSE if you get triggered and feel like having a drink So even if you’ve never meditated before please give the meditation a try – it’s just 5 minutes but if you close your eyes, get comfortable and listen to Chucks soothing voice you’ll be in a different state afterwards and may well be able to resist any cravings to drink Keep this podcast handy on your phone so that you can quickly tune into the last 5 minutes and do the meditation whenever you need it More Info Subscription membership – you can join up HERE. To access our website, click HERE. If you would like a free copy of our “Annual Tracker” or our e-book 66 Days to Sobriety, please email [email protected]. If you would like to come to our Saturday afternoon Zoom Cafe as a guest and meet our community, just email [email protected]. Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today Read more about our program and subscribe HERE Help us to Spread the Word! We made this podcast so that we can reach more people who need our help. Please subscribe and share. If you enjoyed the podcast, then please leave us a 5-star review on Apple podcasts. Take a screenshot of your review, and DM it to Tribe Sober’s Instagram page – see PS below for instructions. We’ll send you something special to say thank you! We release a podcast episode every Saturday morning. You can follow Tribe Sober on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. You can join our private Facebook group HERE. PS: How to Leave a Rating/Review in Apple Podcasts (on an iOS Device) Open the Podcasts app. EASY. Choose “Search” from the bottom row of icons and enter the name of the show (e.g. Recover Like a Mother) into the search field. Select the show under Shows (not under Episodes). Scroll down past the first few episodes until you see Ratings & Reviews. Click Write a Review underneath the displayed reviews from other listeners. You’ll then have the option to rate the show on a 5-star scale and write a review (you can rate without writing too but it’s always good to read your experience).

This weeks podcast guest is another Janet - Tribe Member Janet D Janet joined us in August 2021. She used all the tools, stayed connected and got through those first difficult months. As you will hear she’s now thriving in her sobriety tells us she’s planning to be a Tribe member for Life! We love it when our Tribe members decide to Pay it Forward and help other people to do what they’ve done. It certainly affirms our decision to be sober when we see how some of the newbies struggle – and of course we continue to get inspired by the hobbies and interests we see our sober members pursue. In this Episode Janet’s father was a drinker and her mother was hooked on prescription drugs By the time she was only 4 years old Janet would notice how her fathers personality would change – and by the time she was 8 she realised that the alcohol was responsible She tells us the story of watering down her dad’s beer and gin to prevent the mood swings – I find that really sad and can picture that well meaning little girl emptying out the alcohol and replacing it with water Janet would go to the pub with her older brother at the age of 15 but wouldn’t drink very much The combination of her exposure to alcohol as a teenager and her genetic link to a father who drank she had two factors that would pre-dispose her towards alcoholism However it wasn’t until much later in life that she began to struggle with alcohol Up to 40 years old she was fine so she was definitely a late onset drinker Janet had a high flying career and had her children relatively late in life. It was only when she gave up her job to stay at home with her two young children that the alcohol consumption increased. She slipped into the pattern of a couple of glasses of wine while preparing kids for bed – and then sharing more with her husband when he came home from work A bottle of wine each evening with more at the weekend when they socialised With hindsight Janet can see she was in denial about her drinking – she never thought anything of it Her consumption increased when she discovered the winebox (which was the downfall of many of us I think!) – no more recycling worries or watching the level in the bottle go down! So like 20% of social drinkers Janet had become dependent As Ken Middleton explains in this article about the science of alcohol dependency “if you drink consistently for a long enough period of time, the chances of you having a “problem” are almost guaranteed” Ken also explains that for many of us the heavy drinking doesn’t really take hold until somewhere between the 16th and 23rd year That would certainly apply to me who started as a teenager and was definitely hooked by my 40’s whereas Janet D didn’t start until she was 40 and was hooked by her early 60’s As Janet says she had drunk her “quota” when she gave up – those of us who started early had definitely had their quotas by the age of 40 which seems like a great age to quit! A Doctor said to me once that we can get away with quite a lot of unhealthy behaviour until we are 40 but then we must start taking care of ourselves I think ditching the booze is absolutely the best thing we can do for our health and happiness as we age Janet explained that she did try to give up after having surgery but found it really hard as she was white knuckling it This experience taught her that she could probably give up drinking if she put her mind to it but it would be really hard and pretty much a lifetime struggle That’s the mindset we are so keen to overturn here at Tribe Sober – we don’t believe in “white knuckling” which involves willpower. We help our members to change their mindset about alcohol so that their desire to drink will diminish So rather than a lifetime struggle we believe it’s a matter of six months of hard work and then it's done – then we have to reconfigure our lives and learn to navigate our alcohol drenched society but certainly within a year we can change our lives! In 2021 Janet was captured by Moderation Mary who convinced her that if she put a few rules in place she would be able to “moderate” This moderation phase is definitely a red flag of dependence but its also a sign of the start of the contemplation phase – Janet had moved out of the denial phase and knew something had to change. She took a complete break before the moderation attempt hoping to “reset” her drinking habits but while this is a nice idea in theory we have to accept that once we’ve crossed the line into dependence the word moderation should be banished from our vocabulary! Those of us that have tried moderation know only too well that it takes just a few weeks to get back to our previous drinking patterns Alongside the drinking there was something else going on in Janet’s life. She had always suffered from sleep issues and from 1994 to 2021 she took Diazapan every night to help her sleep Rather rashly she decided to come off the Benzos at the same time as quitting alcohol which resulted in two sleepless weeks! T

Connie McMillan is an author and a Sober Coach.. Her book is called “From Alcohol Fiend to Sobriety Queen” and that pretty much sums up her journey. After years of heavy drinking she decided she was tired of the hangovers and broken promises so she did something about it – she put down her glass and took back her power! In this Episode Connie didn’t start drinking until her 30’s but alcohol made quite an impression on her – she describes it as “an awakening” The alcohol took hold quickly and she married a heavy drinker She saw alcohol as a way to escape, to feel pretty, to feel courageous But it also brought her down – even making her feel suicidal at times Like many of us Connie had tried to stop many times and of course made plenty of “rules” “I won’t drink this weekend “or “I’ll just drink wine because I don’t like wine” She told her husband about her decision to stop drinking during a dinner at a restaurant – he was not supportive and she ended up drinking more than ever that evening Her marriage eventually ended in divorce which was hard but looking back she can see that she lost herself – to alcohol and to the marriage Connie explained how she managed to stop drinking and it’s quite a story! She had been praying to God for help with her drinking problem but was still struggling One night she brought her favourite bottle of alcohol home and put her glass in the freezer to chill. When the glass was frosted she poured the alcohol in and took a sip. She choked on it… but thought nothing of it, waited a few moments and took another sip She choked again! She believed that this was the sign from God that she had been waiting for – he was helping her so she resisted taking another sip and didn't drink again Connie has also transformed her mobile bar service from alcoholic to alcohol free drinks and its thriving! That was 8 years ago! We both agreed that when we get sober our life will unfold in ways we never imagined Connie explained that even if we come from an alcoholic family we can break the “generational curse by showing how an alcohol free life can be lived We talked about the power of vulnerability and the fact that most of us are brought up to hide our vulnerability and that’s why the recovery community is such a relief to many of us – we can be authentic and ask for help if we need it In 2018 she released her first book which has a great title – its called:- "Alcohol Fiend to Sobriety Queen: 25 tips to Putting Down the Bottle and Picking Up Your Crown" – available from Amazon - I’ll put the info in the shownotes Connie’s book led to speaking engagements and she is keen to share her story which she knows will help others She also has a podcast called Sober Confessions She is a Sober Coach and is planning to coach people who are already sober but are looking for the next stage I think this is a great idea – we need to see our sobriety as the foundation for self development – and coaching can help us to find our purpose and fulfil our potential I asked Connie for some advice for people who know they need to make a change but don’t know how to get started and she had some great advice She suggests hanging out in Sobriety Rooms in Clubhouse – no need to say anything, just listen to other people stories – and read some quitlit books Once you realise you are not alone in this you will feel more confident to reach out to sober communities Here at Tribe Sober we recommend that people just listen and learn to start with – you don’t even have to stop drinking but we can guarantee you’ll get inspired to give alcohol free living a chance! More Info Subscription membership – you can join up HERE. To access our website, click HERE. If you would like a free copy of our “Annual Tracker” or our e-book 66 Days to Sobriety, please email [email protected]. If you would like to come to our Saturday afternoon Zoom Cafe as a guest and meet our community, just email [email protected]. Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today Read more about our program and subscribe HERE Help us to Spread the Word! We made this podcast so that we can reach more people who need our help. Please subscribe and share. If you enjoyed the podcast, then please leave us a 5-star review on Apple podcasts. Take a screenshot of your review, and DM it to Tribe Sober’s Instagram page – see PS below for instructions. We’ll send you something special to say thank you! We release a podcast episode every Saturday morning. You can follow Tribe Sober on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. You can join our private Facebook group HERE. PS: How to Leave a Rating/Review in Apple Podcasts (on an iOS Device) Open the Podcasts app. EASY. Choose “Search” from the bottom row of icons and enter the name of the show (e.g. Recover Like a Mother) into the search field. Select the show under Shows (not under Episodes). Scroll down past the first few epi