We Recover Loudly - Serving Essential Hospitality Conversations

S2 Episode 011 - Shannon Michelle - From Serving Spirits to Spirited Sobriety and Inclusivity

• Michelle Righini • Season 2 • Episode 11

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This week on We Recover Loudly, we pull back the curtain with Shannon Michelle, whose journey from pizza counter to cocktail shaker has taken a turn towards sobriety and a quest for inclusivity in the bar industry. Her candid stories serve as a beacon for those navigating the rewarding yet tumultuous waves of hospitality. From the personal cost of burnout to her transformation into a charity-minded business owner, Shannon's reflections are a testament to the power of vulnerability and the strength found in choosing a life less intoxicated.

Navigating a career in hospitality can be like mixing a complex cocktail – it requires balance, a dash of creativity, and the occasional bitter note to appreciate the sweet. We examine the silent struggles faced by many behind the bar, discussing the importance of recognizing the warning signs of mental health in our team and the necessity for compassionate leadership. 

We also discuss - 
- Burn out and neurodiversity
- The fear we can feel around asking for help, and how this can esculate destructive behaviours.  
- How important boundaries are, and that we should be championing them in our teams, and ourselves.
- The importance of mentorship.

We discuss the burgeoning trend of low and no ABV cocktails that Shannon champions.  This conversation is an inspiring a celebration of personal growth, professional evolution, and the realization that sobriety might just be the best decision you can make!

For more information on We Recover Loudly and to reach out for speaking engagements or support email hello@werecoverloudly.com

@werecoverloudly
www.werecoverloudly.com

This episode is brought to you by our proud sponsors:

Low No Drinker Magazine @lownodrinkermagazine

www.lownodrinkermagazine.com

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of we Recover Loudly. Today I'm joined by another one of the amazing US based no one low trailblazers Shannon Michelle Now Shannon. She's an experienced cocktail professional based over in North East Florida. She has over a decade of experience in top tier bars throughout Jacksonville and she's gained loads of recognition and awards. For example, she's a speed rack veteran.

Speaker 1:

Much like our previous guest, alex Jump, who is on the other week, shannon is currently running events and cocktail education workshops with her company Brassering Cocktails, and she has a particular emphasis on low ABV cocktails Sober herself for four years now, which is insane, amazing. Shannon advocates for inclusivity for people who are sober or just sober curious, and has been involved in the focus on health no one low tour as well, sharing that message. In addition to her work behind the bar, shannon serves as the marketing and events manager for Mover and Shaker Co. This is an industry centred lifestyle brand and working there she's had a pivotal role in the brand's charity alignments, raising money for various causes within the hospitality world. So Shannon is a fierce advocate for her seat at the table amongst her peers now in sobriety and she does not feel that her change in drinking habits should in any way change her ability to work within the industry in the same space that she used to take up. Shannon, thank you for coming.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for quite the introduction. I almost like that. I almost like teared up a little bit thinking about it, but thank you. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? Every time I do an intro, people have been kind of going like, whoa, it's only you don't really realize how much you've achieved until it gets read back to you and you go wow, yeah.

Speaker 2:

It's like every time you go to update your resume and you're like typing things in and then you suddenly got a list of stuff and you're like, oh my gosh, like I can't believe I actually accomplished some of these things in the small amount of time. It's crazy to think about and, yeah, it's hard to take a step back and look at it all from a distance. So, yeah, that was really cool, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean also. It's sometimes a little bit depressing to think how am I old enough to have done all of these things, like when I talk about my experience in the industry? Now it's like 15, 16. Is it 17 years? Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2:

I know, I know I get tripped up about my age all the time, just even trying to calculate it like the math in my head when people ask me, and then I'm like, oh my gosh, I've really been doing this for 11, 12 years. I've been in the actual service industry since I was 15 years old. So telling people that you have 16 to 17 years of experience now is just like oh my gosh, I can't believe that we've been doing it for this long and we're still enjoying it as much as we do. Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Oh, actually, you've just highlighted something very important about our industry. We all start at around 14, 15. So I think that's why we can still be relatively young and have these years of experience, because our industry is not very good when it comes to age appropriateness and starting.

Speaker 2:

Yeah right, when you just get stuffed in, it seems so glamorous when you're so young to be in the restaurant industry, and then you find out very quickly that that is not always true.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's definitely yeah. There's definitely a different side to it, which we will get into it for sure. So did you start working in bars when you were that young, or were you in waitressing, or what were you doing?

Speaker 2:

I started out my hospitality career as a counter girl at a pizza restaurant, so I wasn't even old enough to serve tables yet. You had to be 18 to serve tables. But I worked at like a little to go counter and sold pizzas to go for people who came and picked it up. It was actually like quite a busy job. It was crazy. It was in an area that like really abused that restaurant but gave me a lot of good experience and I was actually there until I was 20 years old. I was there for like five years.

Speaker 1:

That's so cool. By that age they must have given you the keys to a building at least.

Speaker 2:

I thought that they should have. Yeah, at that point I worked my way into serving and then I really, even at that point, at like 19 years old, I was like I really want to bartend. So what happened? Why I left that job. Like I'd probably still be working there to this day, had they given me everything that they want. This is the type of person that I am. But I wanted to bartend and they gave it to somebody else and I left that job and started somewhere else. So but yeah, it was a great job. It was just beer and wine as far as bartending goes. But even like back then, I knew that I wanted to be physically behind the bar.

Speaker 1:

What was it about the bar that was calling you?

Speaker 2:

I think, like as a server, I am an awful server, I don't. I don't know what it is about waiting on tables. That really just makes me feel like I can't be myself. And there's something very like promising about being able to stand behind a bar and you've got this kind of like distance between you and another person. But you can still kind of like reap all those same benefits as you were at a table by, like you know, learning who somebody is, fellowship, fellowshiping with them on certain things.

Speaker 2:

But you get to be a little bit more yourself because it's like I don't know about you but like, when I go out to eat, I'm typically a bar person. Like I like to sit at the bar and I feel like bar people are a different type of person. They all kind of go in with that same kind of mentality that's a little bit more casual, a little bit more laid back of an experience and they can really kind of like sit there and enjoy themselves with no fear of like judgment. So I think that was really just like what got me attracted to the bar in general, like, and then later on it was you know a thousand other things.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's. There's something I think about also as a bartender. I mean, you're doing something that not many, not a lot of people can do. So we're in a server and this is no disrespect to server but there is an element arrogance that, well, I could do that, everyone can do that, whereas bartenders, there's this mysticism about what they do and I think there's almost a respect level that isn't given to service in the same way. You know what?

Speaker 2:

I mean, yeah, well, you're like, you're multitasking, like not only are you doing like the server's job and I explain this to a lot of people that, like I work with in the restaurant it's like I'm not just doing the server's job, I'm doing like the job of somebody in the kitchen too, and I have to communicate with people and make sure that they're getting good service.

Speaker 2:

So it's like server and then some more like responsibility and more skill and like time management. And I can you know, like you said, like I am an ADHD kind of like individual and like being able to multitask and do things with my hands and speaking and like being able to kind of like track what I'm doing throughout the day has really lent itself, I think, like as a positive for me and is something that I am like really good at, because like my brain is firing off, you know, at all points at all times and like it feeds into that like really really well. So I think that's why there's so many neurodivergent people who are just in the service industry as gen like in general, because it's like it gives you so much activity to do, so much stimulus to do at one time. Thank you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it really is. I mean, I got diagnosed last year. There's so many people that I've previously worked with that have also been diagnosed, and it's one of those that you just kind of go. Of course it all makes sense, and it's definitely working behind the bar and being able to constantly have my brain occupied, because when it's not occupied, I'm thinking about things like oh, I wonder what Brad Pitt's children are doing. Or oh, I wonder about what's the best recipe for a souffle. You know, like my brain would just go to places that there's no reason for it to be there, or what is the longest shark. And that's when you start Googling stuff, when you're supposed to actually be working. So bartending is just fantastic for that, because you have to have the ability to balance and remember so many different ingredients and measurements and just conversations and who had a tab and who's next, and Johnny's here and he wants his usual, and it gives you such an adrenaline rush, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it really does. Like there's nothing like the serotonin boost that you get after, like you've dealt with you know 80 people at one time and you're like, oh my gosh, like I just killed that service, like because you know my brain was just like working like a typewriter and like it's cool to like be in that spot and like feed you know what some people might think is like a downfall and in other ways, and you're just kind of like ruling at it and taking back that space for yourself it feels good.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it really does. I definitely even just describing it right now, my ears have started to tingle, kind of like, thinking about like you know, when the tickets come and you line them up and you're like right.

Speaker 2:

Oh, my God.

Speaker 1:

It's such a rush and I don't get that same rush now on the desk job. I can't lie, no.

Speaker 2:

I'm so sorry for your loss.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, excel doesn't quite hit in the same way, but you know, anyway, as part of like that side of bartending, the excitement and the fun and the buzz, there is this other side of the industry, which is something that I discuss a lot on this podcast, and that is the darker side. But somebody like yourself, somebody like myself who thrives in an adrenaline space, there's several things that can happen that will really throw me off. So I don't deal with negativity very well. I've got. You know, it's very common to have something called rejection sensitivity disorder.

Speaker 1:

When you have ADHD and it's wearing. When people criticise you, it hurts to your very core and that's not a personality trait, that's not like something that you can train out of a person. It's something that this part of the part of your condition and the other thing is not knowing when you've had enough. So I, the normal cues that are normal at normal sorry for using the word normal that a person might have to say I'm tired, I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, someone like myself, I don't get those cues. I'll just keep pushing until I completely broken and completely burnt out. You know, and I was just curious as to whether you had any experiences like that working. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I definitely think, like with my extensive like history in the industry, like I definitely just thought those things were normal, like pushing things off for myself, whether it's a meal or water, or you know, just really genuinely like taking care of yourself. And I didn't really notice that in myself until I was in management and it was kind of like you have this plate in front of you and your plate is one size and you keep like adding things to your plate and you're like, oh, this plate looks good, like you know what's another like role, what's another like this or that, and you start adding more things to your plate and you don't really notice it until it's, you know, busting at the seams and that's when it's too late to like to change over to a new plate. You know, like I was doing that with myself and with my one of my previous bartending jobs. I was there for eight years as the, as the bar manager of a really great cocktail bar that I dearly love still, but it came to a point where my mental health was not great. I would walk into work just expecting for bad things to happen and you know like I was in this point of my life where I really wanted to control everything that was happening there. It was post COVID. I had worked all the way through COVID as the bar manager and like into this newer role of beverage director, as my beverage director was leaving and it was just like, how much more stuff can I really continue to stack on here until I bust at the seams Because I wasn't happy?

Speaker 2:

I developed, you know, a lot of weird disorders that I have never had before and it just like it wasn't until it was almost too late for me where I had to like put that, that limb off, so to speak, or, you know, take my plate back or throw it in the trash, and I did and it was really really hard to do that. But yeah, it's just so easy to like ignore all the signs that are there. You know, like your home life starts to really kind of fall. First, like for me, it's always laundry. Everybody always has like that one thing that when they start slacking on it, that's like should be a red flag.

Speaker 2:

Mine is not doing my laundry at all and just going and buying new clothes. It's another thing like I spend a lot of money when I am depressed or when I'm not feeling it because, like, I need some sort of like, I need something to stimulate me, and I was doing a lot of that and it was just so irresponsible and like I don't even know what happened. I think it was just me saying that I need to leave so many times that my friend was like, when are you going to do that then? And I did, and I don't regret it. I miss them a lot, but you know, it was just one of those things where I had gotten so far that, like you, can't turn back around.

Speaker 1:

And it's difficult because I don't think that in well, in my experience, you don't feel like you can say I'm so my plate is about to fall, Like the things are coming off my plate.

Speaker 1:

I can't handle it and do that safely without there being the repercussion of well, Susan can handle it. So stick it on Susan's plate and before you know it, there's certainly and we spoke a little bit just before we start recording as well about being a female in a very male dominated industry and while there is far more diversity in our industry now, it is still very much manned by a masculine archetype and you know the top level is still very male heavy. So I feel there's a female certainly. I shared about this before that I felt that I had to match that masculine energy and and more so. So it would be a case of, you know, put it all on my plate, bring it on, and actually you don't feel safe to say that you're not able to take more because of that fear. And did you communicate with them like anybody at work, that that was how you were feeling, or?

Speaker 2:

Definitely, like my close, my close coworkers knew that we were like a really really small staff.

Speaker 2:

So there was about eight of us all together that really worked there and most of us had worked there together, you know, for a long time or we have known each other for such a long time. So, like my close friends knew about it, you know, my best friend who also worked with me, she was the one that kind of pushed me to really kind of make that change in my life. And when I, you know, when I approached my boss about it one of the like proprietors of the company, it's that like age old kind of thing where he was like, you know, I would have had no idea, Because you're doing a good job, like you're excelling it, all of these things and you know, I would have never known that your life was going in this other direction because of it, and that's not how things should be. So, as as flattering as that can sound, you know, like you're doing such a great job at it, it just is it did not work with how I wanted to live my life. Like from that point on.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I really relate to that, and previous guests have said exactly the same. We have this ability in our industry to, I think, because so much of it is about the show, the character, the masking, potentially more so than it is in other industries. It's a bit like a sales thing as well, and we push ourselves as an entire culture to forget everything. Check it at the door, get to work, check it on the door, put on the smile. It's not about you anymore. Customers are always right.

Speaker 1:

Vulnerable management is something that's been talked about a little bit recently, and how our leaders and our managers actually need to show vulnerability and need to be someone like yourself to say well, you know, actually I'm finding it really hard right now, and that if we're more vulnerable in that respect, then the younger generations coming through you know it will allow them to also have that space, because you know you're totally right.

Speaker 1:

I could have asked the help so many times in so many situations, but I was too fearful to look like a failure and instead I pushed myself to breakpoint to make sure that no one realised how much I was failing, and that's when my drinking really started to increase, because I would constantly put myself in situations that I really needed help. But I was so ashamed of the fact I needed help, specifically stuff which was like back office stuff you know what's it like and rotors I hated doing like the rotors and all of the paying, the spreadsheets and stuff like that, you know. Again, late diagnosed ADHD suddenly realised why, but it really increased my drinking. I really I take responsibility for my drinking but at the same time that was definitely had an impact.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that can definitely be like something that's triggering to like an addictive personality. You know, like where you think you're lacking at and one point like you make up somewhere else. Or you know you try to act as normal as possible and a lot of the times, like I know that, like when I was drinking, a lot of that went into like socialising and being out with people and that was kind of like how you kept up with like the Joneses, so to speak, or like kept up appearances.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. Do you think if you'd had a vulnerable manager, would that have had any impact on you? Or I don't know whether or not, if I had a vulnerable manager, I would have saw that at the time as a weakness in my opportunity to take them down.

Speaker 2:

Just planning, just plotting and planning in the background to just take it over. You're like I got this.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because that's how we are, isn't it? That's how we're cutting the industry's cutthroat? I'm sure it's kind of frozen.

Speaker 2:

You're like, well, I can do that and I get, you know, three extra dollars an hour. Okay, you know we're we're scrapping over pennies here. I don't think I. I talk about this a lot and it's it comes from like a place of maybe not management but mentorship, and I never had a female mentor, or in my life all of my mentors have been men and they definitely kind of push this narrative that you know to be strong and to keep going and to not really talk about it, because it's just how you know, instinctively, that's just how men deal with business. You know, no shade, no, nothing, but like that's just kind of like how it is, especially in the bartending realm. It's still very like macho for them, and so I definitely like fed off of that.

Speaker 2:

I don't think that's how I managed.

Speaker 2:

I know that's not how I managed.

Speaker 2:

I think, from like my standpoint, I was also like I took on a lot of responsibility because a previous manager not being able to to take on those things, so I was the one that was, you know, always offering more help to be there and then offering more help to my staff as well. But you know they'd be the first ones to tell you that, like if we were ever in the ships or ever you know needed something. Like I was the first one to respond. Like I took that very, that responsibility, like very close to heart and knew that. Like I chose the position that I'm in to be a help and be an aide to everyone else and tried to provide the mentorship in a way that I probably would have enjoyed in my career for them. So maybe not like a super strong mentor, but at least somebody who appreciated the amount of work that it goes into to do the job that it is that we do and the respect for the job and the respect for the individuals that we all are as as humans just working there together.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, definitely, I think that I think there's there is a real difference between being a manager and being a mentor, and I think that that's exactly what we need in our industry now. It is that mentorship and it is people kind of being honest about where they went wrong and being honest about doing things that they would have done differently. I definitely know, throughout my career I tried to be that way frequently, but also as a chronic people pleaser and as somebody whose character is very much, you know the quite co dependence. Again, my character is the kind of character my personality I'm learning is very common in our industry. We attract people who like to please others because we like to serve, we like to make people happy. It makes us happy and again, I think, for me, the thing that I was never taught in the industry which would be good to come from a mentor is boundaries, and having a boundary was, if anything, viewed as being a difficult employee.

Speaker 1:

What do you mean you won't stay later than your rotor. What do you mean you won't come in on your day off? What do you mean you're not responding to a WhatsApp on a day off? And I had no boundaries at all because I felt that that meant I was the best manager in the world, and that includes with team members, and I used to think being a good manager meant that my team would come to me for anything and everything and you know that they would consider me, like you know, the matriarch of this ragtag family of lost boys, almost kind of thing. And it's only now I'm a bit, now I'm older, and I look back and I realize that how dysfunctional that was. And, yeah, I was wondering if you'd had any similar kind of experiences.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that that is exactly like how my experience was with not just at that place, but, you know, at many other places that I've been to before. To you, like, you're almost like a martyr for a business that like and for me. I woke up one day and was like I'm, you know, basically out here killing myself and bending over backwards for these people, but in reality, it's these people over here that are benefiting from it, and these are the people who could care less about the things that I'm actually doing. And I wish I would have set more boundaries prior to ever walking into management. I wish I was more of a selfish or human being, a more of an adult human being when I got into management.

Speaker 2:

When I started managing that bar, I was 24 years old, which is nuts. I should not be managing a bar 24 years old, no matter the experience that I have. I'm glad that I did, but, like it was, I did not know enough about the cruel things that this industry can do to you and the cruel things that people can do to you when the bottom line is all that they're worried about. I wish I would have known better, so hopefully this can help somebody else out there who was looking to get into a management job at 2324 years old. Stay where you're at for a little bit. You're going to want to go back there eventually. I know that I did. I'm working as just a bartender right now and I absolutely love it outside of my own business, but yeah, I don't ever want to do management ever again. That's the only thing that I learned from being in management.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, yeah, that really, that really rings true. I remember being 21, 22, working at Hawksmore, which is a really well known restaurant in London, and being desperate to be an operations manager, even though it's just a waitress. And again, our industry If you've got that I don't know like kind of drive slash, just, I don't know pigheadedness, almost in my instance, you will get those roles very young because there are there are there are vacancies for it and I think what we have is this pattern, this continual pattern and again it's been shared by multiple guests on this podcast of starting the industry very young. You know, 15, 16, by 2021, I'm managing somewhere. By 2324, I'm drinking every day, I'm completely burnt out, I've got mental health problems now and by 26, 27, I'm out and it just keeps happening again and again and again. So if it keeps happening, I mean, where does the responsibility light, as it our responsibility to have boundaries, or do you think the industry has a say in this?

Speaker 2:

I think I think, if we kind of leave it up to our business owners and you know, current management and everything like that will never see change, just because, like that cycle will continue to breed on and on and on and over and over again.

Speaker 2:

It's really, I think, like at these more, like these bigger opportunities to shine, any kind of like trade event or trade advocacy events, just letting people know that like what it is that you can be doing out there, could be very different, like you could change your relationship with this.

Speaker 2:

You know, job or career, and I think it's it's people who are showing up currently at like things, like tales, to address these things, and those are what's going to be opening, I opening to a lot of people and I also just think that, like I think that's really here in the states that, like COVID kind of opened up a lot of people's eyes to how they should be treated. I know for me, it definitely changed my opinion on how I should be treated. It showed a lot of holes in the system that I was where I was working at, showed a lot of holes and people's personalities. It really kind of like shown a light on a lot of the inconsistencies that happen in this career and I am very grateful for that, as much as I am very upset that we had to suffer if there's something like that at the same time, but it was definitely like a big building block for the trends that we're seeing now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in the UK we have COVID, we also have Brexit, so we lost a lot of the people that were holding the industry together at, you know, very similar times, and there doesn't that nothing seems to have been put in its place to attract people, like you say, because it's it's. It's a systemic cultural change that needs to happen, that we need to really look at what we're offering people and rather than it be a case of like, well, it's because there's not enough people applying for the jobs, but it's like, but why? Why not? And I think you're right, covid really kind of shone a light on the businesses that weren't operating in a way that was sustainable, and we lost a lot of incredible people as well, I think, to other industries, people who went to find jobs elsewhere and thought, hang on a second, I'm getting paid the same money and I'm working less hours and I'm being treated with respect and I've got a career progression.

Speaker 1:

Why would I go back? You know right, there was, we're not. We're not necessarily, I don't think, is an industry, yet we're in the space that we're really kind of selling anything particularly appealing as on a grand scale, you know, and that's what needs to change.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it's hard, I feel like where at least where I'm at like I don't see a lot of younger people really chomping at the bit to get back behind the bar, maybe in serving positions, just because that seems maybe a little bit safer for them.

Speaker 2:

But you know, behind the bar despite you, know how people will sometimes talk to you back there.

Speaker 2:

There's also a matter of, like, people don't want to be harassed at work all the time and as a bartender, like we are very open to that. And then it's also about, like, a lot of restaurants aren't paying their bartenders what they need to be paid to be doing the job it is that they're doing. Oftentimes you're the first person that's in and you're the last person to leave, and then at the end of the day you see your bank account and it's just not reflective of what it is that you're doing. So, like, what am I really doing this for? Is it to be this kind of like queen or king of this restaurant land that I've made up in my head that, on the grand scale, like does not really matter to anybody else but me? And it's like, why are we putting ourselves through this kind of gringer and how do we change the perspective of the business owner to start treating us and paying us fairly for like what it is that we're actually doing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think that when I started in the industry which was a painful amount of years ago because it means I'm so old when I started in the industry and as a waitress, there were such a fight for the role and it was really competitive and you pushed for the best jobs in London and it was the same on the bars and everything felt quite cool and rock and roll and you knew that behind you was somebody else chomping for your position and it gave you. I'm just gonna say there was a fear, which is probably not the best way to go into work, but there was. There was a that, if there was a fear that you were going to lose something, and you loved it and you loved the job and there was training and there was kind of there was a respect level which I think I feel has disappeared and I'm not really sure how we're going to get it back. To be honest, yeah, it's, it's.

Speaker 2:

It's overwhelming to think about, because I do want to see the longevity of a career like ours, and you know I've very much experienced the same thing that you're talking about.

Speaker 2:

You know, like I used to have so much pride for the position that it was that I was in, and so much pride in like taking things on and being, you know, the best at the best place, and now it's just like I could really give you know, like I could really care less about that idea.

Speaker 2:

Like I realistically just want to be somewhere where I feel safe and I feel like somebody is going to take care of me and if I make my rent at the end of the day, then I'm happy. I'm not really just I'm over trying to fight for, for something that isn't necessarily tangible anymore and I just hope that there's somebody out there like I again like going back into like mentorship. Like it's we have to lean on our mentors and the people in the industry who are making social change big social change rather than cocktail change. Like I don't want to sit in on a class anymore about like why lemon and lime juice are different and how they work on a molecular level. Like I want to talk to somebody who is going to tell me, you know, what I, what I should be asking for out of life and what I should be expecting, or what I need to do to make my life better and still also stay in this industry at the same time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely that's. That's. Yeah, you can't, this is a podcast, but if it was a video, you would see me cheering right now to that statement, because we spent so much time learning about the difference between lemon and lime. There is differences, I will give you that, but you know I'm not in the denier. Yeah, yeah, we're not denying there is a difference. All right, everybody.

Speaker 1:

But so much time learning that stuff and so much time learning about you know great varietals and how to make whiskey and you know all these things which are amazing to know, and I love knowing all of those things. It's like a superpower. But we never, ever, ever got to spend any time, like you said, learning about boundaries, stress management, how to have a balance shift, harm reduction, what to do if somebody you know does upset you in shift. You know how to come back from that, what to do when you're criticised. You know none of that's taught at the moment on a wide scale. I know there are organisations like burnt chef not nine to five child focus on health, which is someone that you're associated with, but it's. It's such a shame that we've had to come to this place to to kind of do anything about it, and it's certainly not on a large scale, yeah it's.

Speaker 2:

It's one of those age old things where you kind of have to like burn everything down in order to build back up, and I think that our industry is in a very serious rebuilding phase and I'm happy to be a part of it or at least help push it along in any way that you know that we possibly can.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, definitely. It's great to be a little carpenter right now. Happy happy balance, boundaryed carpenter. Well, speaking of good things that are going on in the industry, there no a low trend the surge of people like yourself, like myself, who are choosing to no longer drink but to still occupy space in the industry and, in fact, demand the same space that we used to have, which I love. That about you you are just over four years sober, so would you, you would have stopped drinking before COVID.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, 2019, the end of 20, or towards the like summer 2019 was when I quit. And then I actually like in January of 2020, before COVID kind of like started circulating around the States I did bar five day, which is like a comprehensive spirits test let's put on by the same people do like bar smarts and that was such a big test of sobriety I think that was almost harder than going through COVID as a newly sober person. It was insane. But yeah, stopping before COVID was kind of like the real test, right Like it was nuts.

Speaker 1:

Did you? Was there like a moment that you thought you know what, I can't do this anymore? Or was it just a culmination, like we've had people on this podcast and one of the things? The reason I'm asking is because I think that people need to realize that you know, everybody's day one, or everyone's decision to have a day one, is different and it doesn't always have to end. You know the way that mine did, and sometimes it does end that way. So I think it's quite useful for people to relate to other people's stories if you're happy to share.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean I guess I could start. I'll start it off sad and then I'll end it. So for me, like I'm somebody who's like very in tune with their intuition, which I think is like what a lot of like especially women we kind of like tend to listen to, and for me, I always had reoccurring dreams that I was going to like lose my life in a tragic car accident, and it was a like repetitive dream that I used to have the same way, like over and over and over again, and I, you know, had it in my head that I wasn't going to make it to 30 when I was like in my twenties and almost kind of was like I just know that I'm like living fast and I'm going to die young and that's just kind of like what it is and I'm okay with it. And then, like setting settling into that was kind of like unsettling once I started to get closer to 30. So I started dabbling in like little spurts of time of not drinking, just to see like what it would be like, and I started noticing a lot of things about myself. A lot of my anxieties were coming from drinking, when I thought that they were actually helping with my social anxiety and just kind of like anxiety in general. I think that's kind of like a common misconception that we all have that drinking can help lower your anxiety. For me it made me delusional and kind of just like not a great person to be around with. You know, after hours. Like I was the life of the party for a very, very, very long time and then that just kind of suddenly started spiraling into somebody who was not okay with themselves. So I decided to change that.

Speaker 2:

I went to I'm a part of Camp Renamuck. Every year I went to Camp Renamuck, which is like a week long trip in Kentucky where you get to like go to distilleries with like 200 other bartenders. It's a great like networking tool and I'm so fortunate to be a part of like the family that it is. But I went there one year. I was a camp counselor, so I was responsible for the lives of six other women and you know kind of like helped spearhead them into this new family and showed them around.

Speaker 2:

And then I was drinking on top of it and I've had one really, really bad night and I remembered it and I woke up and was like, when I get back home, like I'm just I think I'm just gonna like call it off. So I went home, I did a competition, I just like judged a competition, and after that night I did not drink any alcohol at all. I kind of just like ended it there and I instantly just like felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders. I don't have those same like recurring dreams.

Speaker 2:

I know that sounds like silly, but, like you know, making it to 30 years old was such a like a big moment for me. I felt like and I really celebrated it because of that fact like I never expected myself to get there and I owed a lot of that to not drinking anymore and I wouldn't take it back. I wish my story was like more fun and like I had some like crazy like cop car chase in there or something, but no, I just realized that I wanted to. I wanted to continue to live my life and do it the best way that I know possible, and that included just not drinking anymore.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, thank you so much for sharing, and I think you know that's that's really. I think a lot of people can relate to that. I, I've almost had a bit of shame about how I came into recovery because, like you know, no one's going to write a movie about it and actually my drinking was just very sad. It was very lonely, it was isolating, it was at home, it was alone, it was in the darkness, it was after work and it was because it was the only thing that I knew to do to switch my head off, which was screaming at me how inadequate I was, how terrible I was, how I messed everything up that day and I was going to fuck it all up again tomorrow. And you know, like, weirdly enough, they don't make movies like that, because, and that's it, you know, I think there is there's. It's quite interesting that there is a glamourization of our industry and there's there's always a glamourization of the of the rock bottom.

Speaker 2:

And I think sometimes you think, well, if it's not, it doesn't look like it looks on the TV and therefore maybe I don't need to stop you know, right, yeah, and I run into people all the time Like I I started going out and drinking at bars by the time that I was like 18, I was a regular at clubs and you know was just kind of like out and was like a fun party girl and you know, I really like fed into it and I loved it. I liked the attention from it, I liked being able to meet people from it and because of it and that kind of like segue it into bartending and it fit really nicely together. You know, like it was this whole like persona that I had as this person and it just didn't, it didn't fit me anymore. But at some point it just it just doesn't fit anymore and I am so happy to like got out of it and had people to pull me out of it.

Speaker 2:

But I run into people all the time from the past and they're like well, we didn't know that you had a problem. Like there's no way that you had a problem. Like you were always, you know, this way and you weren't one of those people that we had to worry about. And it's like, well, I feel like those are kind of the people that you should be worried about. Like why am I doing such a great job at masking my problem? Or why am I like, why am I so quiet? Or why do you see me all the time and you don't think that's a problem? Like I'm literally in your bar five nights a week and you don't see that as an issue. That is also an issue, you know. Like it's just like these little things that you start to pick up on down the road.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think one of the things I really advocate is for managers to take the time to know their employees so that they can notice those little differences. Because, yeah, you look back and you can realise the signs. And when you mentioned about the not doing the laundry, one of my signs now I look back was that I stopped putting make up on before I went to work, so, and then I would stop putting make up on at all. And you might think, oh, it's just makeup, but I love putting make up on and I mean I used to go to town when I lived in London working in restaurants, like I would full drag, full drag up and it was part of my identity and my eyeshadow always matched my socks and you know I stopped wearing make up and if that had, that was a huge signal that I was not in feeling in myself. And actually, if that had been, maybe if I'd been asked at that point, you know I probably would have told the manager to fuck off, to be fair.

Speaker 1:

But you know, again, I think there's real value in managers say, oh, we haven't got time, I've got time to do a review, I haven't got time for this, I haven't got time, I've got to do all these other things, but if you just take that five, 10 minutes to get to know your team member and notice the nuance, you know, are they smoking more than they normally do? Are they yawning more than they normally do? Are they suddenly started eating differently or have they stopped eating? You know, that was another big one for me. I stopped eating because I just didn't care. And why would I eat? Um, there's, you're on your phone a lot, you know. There's all these little things that I think that we can maybe make a bit more effort to notice, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

And I think, knowing the people that you are working next to quite often times more so than you see your own family, like you should be able to recognize those things of people and you should be able to have that conversation. It's just always like people use the excuse of it being kind of like an awkward or maybe not their place to step in and have that kind of conversation. But you have, you have most of these people for 40 hours a week. Like who? Who better than you to start the conversation about it? Who should know them better than you that sees them every day and writes their schedule and you know, has their phone, their email, their address? You know you've got all of these kinds of resources to go and check up on them or just make sure that they're doing okay and they're just not being used, and or they're just, you know, don't care.

Speaker 2:

I'm not really sure which one it is, but I I know that like that definitely could have saved me a lot more than what it was, which was I was celebrated for being a party girl. My nickname at work was Rampage for years, because I could party as hard as everybody else. You know that is an epic nickname I still often I get. I get referred to as Rampage, but that's just like past, like 26 year old Shannon, like that's what we're referring to her as, because she was a subhuman individual, like it was just not not really functioning as the same way as a normal or, you know, not normal, but you know what regular people might assume is normal. She was a different, she's a different person.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, right and it, but it gets celebrated, it does, it gets celebrated, it gets a pat on the back and it works until it doesn't anymore. But yeah, there are changes happening and it is exciting talking about changes. So you've been sober for four years. You must have noticed a real shift in the way that the bar industry is starting to look at those types of products and no one low and especially, it feels, especially in the US, as there's quite a little tribe gathering and becoming a real, yeah, a real loud voice and in the space yeah, how has it?

Speaker 2:

changed. You know, at first it definitely felt like it wasn't going to change and then I think at the past, like two years or so, really just like the more that I started being vulnerable with my sobriety online on like social media platforms like Instagram has been really great for that, I think, just being able to like share those stories. Through those stories, I've met so many more people who are of the same like mind or have similar stories as me and I'm just I think we're just realizing that it's just not as uncommon as it used to be. And then, on top of that, there are people who, because of these people stepping forward and talking about their stories and sharing what it's like, there are more people who are now kind of dabbling in this kind of like sober lifestyle or non-alcoholic lifestyle themselves, and that's been really cool to see.

Speaker 2:

I feel like I've been able to like dip into other people's lives and their stories or be a part of their stories because of it and helped people you know get to the spots where they're at right now, which has been really cool. The community is incredible. I feel like I have more sober friends now than I have unsober friends, and that's not like by me having to have them as friends. It's just that, that's just how my friends are acclimating to life now and we've had similar experiences and they just like are kind of over it. They're over dealing with it and it's been really really cool to like share in it with everybody else, because it's not easy when you're doing it by yourself.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it's so ironic because you feel that when you come out as sober, or you come out and saying you have a problem with alcohol, or you come out and you label yourself an alcoholic, you feel that that is the moment that you lose everybody, especially in our industry. And what's actually happening, which is just so incredible, is that the absolute opposite of that's happening. You've got people going like, oh, not really interested, why, are you telling me, because it just doesn't even affect them in the way that you thought, and you just make these brand new connections and these brand new friends. And my life now is full of people who are sober and I do a 12 step programme, so I've got loads of sober friends. My life is so full of life now because of the thing that I thought was actually going to take me away from everything. It's ironic, but in a beautiful way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I feel like that's the first thing that I tell people when somebody approaches me about them wanting to try sobriety, especially within the hospitality realm, is that you're going to lose friends. But those people weren't your friends and you'll realise that six months later, and it's going to be painful and it's going to suck to realise that this person that you felt like was so ingrained into your everyday life was really only using you as, like, something to lean on or some sort of tool to help them feed their own vices. Whatever it may be and that's not fun for anybody to hear but the door that that opens to allow you to be your truest and most vulnerable self will then attract the correct people into your life and it'll keep the people who actually care about you close to you and those people will never disrespect you like ever. Like my friends that I've kept through my sobriety from, you know, rampage days to now, those are some of my closest friends because they've seen both sides of me. They've seen the side of me who was having reckless fun with abandon, and then they've also seen this person who is protecting their peace and really like grown from it and developed into the person it is, who they're supposed to be.

Speaker 2:

So is getting sober fun? Yes and no, it can be. It has its perks. I think the perks definitely like outweigh the the cons of it. And I don't I hate to say it, but like I don't miss the people that I was surrounding myself with when I was at my lowest. I don't, and nobody else does, from what I have heard. You know like it's just one of those things that sucks in the moment, but you move on and you find out where you're supposed to be.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely yeah, they're. They are the glasses come off type thing, and you realize the reality of the people that you thought were these incredible connections and that it wasn't based on anything real than I heard yesterday Somebody, such as in a meeting, that some sobriety allows you to slip into the skin that you were meant to be in all along, and I just thought that's such a beautiful way of thinking about it. It's also difficult because a lot of us, we drink for a reason, you know, and the reason is to escape the person that we think we are, or the person that we're trying to be, or the person that we feel that we should be, because of somebody told us to. And there's actually such a sense of relief, when you get over those first few months of sobriety, to be able to sit.

Speaker 1:

I mean that for me, was when I was one day, one sober and I was an absolute mess and I was shared with somebody, you know, and I was. All I want is just to be able to sit and be peaceful. That was all I wanted. You know, my whole life was in flames and I was desperate for just a peaceful head, just to be able to sit in peace. And you just said you know you're the protector of your own peace and that, for me, has been one of the best things about sobriety Like I can have a peaceful mind, but I have ADHD, so it's vaguely peaceful, but I have a mind now that I know, like, that I've made good decisions and I haven't hurt anybody today and I haven't hurt myself today and I've been. I haven't been anybody other than who I needed to be today.

Speaker 2:

Right, you know, and that's so funny Not on its own, I think is like more addictive than any other kind of like substance. Is that like you get so attached to feeling good and like knowing that you've done good and like you, that becomes you know. The reason why you get up every day is like how can I be better than the person that I was yesterday? Like how do I beat yesterday's score?

Speaker 2:

As a human being, as an individual, like that's the only thing that I'm ever worried about is like just making that step to be better than yesterday, and like sobriety has absolutely helped me with that and gotten me to like a clear, headed space, to where I know who it is that I want to be and the type of friend that I want to be and the type of partner that I want to be, and just, really just kind of everything honestly, and that is why I'll bet I you know we could now we could almost not be at this, this spot right now because, like maybe we wanted to have another beer. I mean, I was a beer and shot. Girlie, I don't know about you, but you know, like that extra beer and our extra shot at the bar really was just like hindering me from the life that I'm supposed to be living.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, I drank everything, but, yeah, beer and a shot. I love that, though addicted to feeling good, it's so true. A few days ago I got a cold brew coffee, which I love, but for some stupid reason I bought a massive one. And I never drink caffeine and I felt horrendous because of the caffeine, obviously, and like I just felt jittery and I wanted to vomit and I wanted to cry and I wanted to call my friends and and it was so weird and I knew it was the caffeine that did it, because I'm so used to not feeling horrendous, but it was so unsettling. Yeah, I just thought, fucking hell, this is nothing. I felt like this, like, and then so I was so settled, I actually it was the worst. I mean, I got over it eventually, but I'm so happy.

Speaker 2:

That is like coffee, caffeine my partner and I. So my partner is also sober. He quit drinking before I did and you know, caffeine is one thing that we definitely took to after we stopped drinking, and so caffeine for us is like how far can we push ourselves drinking coffee before we feel like a crazy person? So that's like a fun game that we play with each other.

Speaker 1:

It's like the worst game ever, a game I would lose.

Speaker 2:

It can get really dicey, but it can get really. You know, sometimes there was like days where I would put like a shot of espresso into my cold brew and just see. You know what's going to happen today. Am I going to?

Speaker 1:

I'm going to leave where I'm not exactly.

Speaker 2:

It lives inside of me all the time. It just only needs coffee and ice cream. That's what it's screaming out for all the time.

Speaker 1:

Love it. Well, that's it. You know we're talking to somebody the other day about, like you know, sobriety is a trend. There is this kind of trend and you know there's a lot of these sober accounts now on social media and they're all doing yoga and they're all good people and they all eat. You know they're all vegan and they all pay their bills on time and you know, like there's almost like dialogue now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah but like you have, because when you're sober you also become godlike. And again, I think it's nice to know that. It's not true. You know I'm sober but I still am not always a nice person and I swear, and I don't always eat five vegetables and fruits each day. And you know rampage over here is busy mainlining it's espresso is in her bowl and that's okay. You know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, okay, any kind of not a slammer says it looks yeah, any sobriety is good and, yeah, you're right, I think it does definitely like with you know the rise of Instagram influencers or that strive for being perfect and perfect in your sobriety, and what does that look like? And for a lot of people, they do get that kind of like combination. I was like, oh, like you are like working out and like you're like, you know you're, you're doing this and you're doing you know breathing, you know steps and you're doing all of these things that are relaxing. And it's like, no, I'm watching real housewives on my couch and you know chugging cold brew and eating as many different types of cheeses that my refrigerator has inside of it.

Speaker 2:

Like I'm not like as much as like this part of my life is good, like to be put on a pedestal at the same time. Like that's not how, that's not relatable. Like that's not how people you get people to come and ask you the right questions. You know it's not. You're not, you're not letting yourself be approachable in that way and like I always want people to know that. Like I'm very much still that same girl. I'm just doing it differently and I'm still, you know, playing video games and you know listening to music on my couch by myself or with my dog, like I'm still doing those things.

Speaker 2:

I'm not you know, backpacking somewhere or a pike gang like I can't, I wouldn't, I use long not these lungs.

Speaker 1:

Exactly. It's like we're not saints. Yeah, oh, my days. Yeah, we'll talk about the merchandise on that, because I think that would be a good Last question what's next for you, what you're working on, what's happening, what's going on in your world?

Speaker 2:

Right now. I mean I have, like I stepped away from bar management and now I'm kind of like trying to run my own show with my events company, so I am also in tie tied to that. I'm also trying to do some like cocktail education with a big focus on like low ABB and no ABB, which seems to be like a hit here in town, which I never really thought it would be. So I've got a couple of like classes on the books, which feels really good. I've also you know, nick and I and my partner we travel a lot. We've got a lot of traveling to do. So we're about to leave for Kentucky again to be back at camp, kind of doing a lot, lots of different social media stuff for them.

Speaker 2:

And you know we've got DC in November for a black restaurant week, which is going to be really awesome. Also going up there with Alex for her focus on health. We're doing our no one low stop there and then we're kind of like really getting into what does the no one low tour look for 2024, which is really exciting. I think that, like we've made such an impact at all of the places that we've been to this year, we've got more and more brands wanting to get behind us and support us. I think that we could really turn this movement into something super positive and something that people want to get up and go out for, which I'm very excited for. We've been talking about seminar stuff and just more of what that looks like from the education side, for for all of us, yeah, that's, yeah.

Speaker 1:

That all sounds amazing and totally aligns with what we're doing with. We recover loudly. So I know for a fact that our conversations will continue as the months go on and there definitely has to be a UK stop, at least one UK spot on that, no, and no.

Speaker 2:

Sure, we, we tried, alex and I tried to do pull something off in London last year and it just didn't work out. It wasn't aligning the way that we needed it to be. But we definitely want to get over there and get to you in some sort of fashion. I would absolutely love to be, you know, in London with everybody and hanging out anywhere in Europe like please take me, set a plane and ready, pick me up.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, I'm up for joining your the Europe leg. That sounds like a lot of fun. Anyway, any brands listening in right now who would like to sponsor London and Europe 2024 slide into my DMs.

Speaker 2:

We are available.

Speaker 1:

We are sober and so available.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I will show up on time and not cause problems. We are, like the perfect people to hire for this job.

Speaker 1:

We will actually talk about the brand and not just drink it and then forget where we're meant to be.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, it's so nuts, right like it's so crazy, that you could actually accomplish all of the things in a row, just not drinking.

Speaker 1:

That's great, oh yeah sobriety is a super power people. Oh, shannon, look, it's been so lovely to talk to you today. Thank you so much for your time and I can't wait to see what happens next for yourself and for everything you're working on. It's really exciting, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much. I also I forgot to. I am doing. I'm doing something kind of like crazy. I'm in a competition this at the end of the month and my cocktail that I submitted is actually a low ABB cocktail for this brand, so I am fingers crossed that it's working well. I think that the more that we start talking about not just like the no ABB spirits kind of world, but also the low ABB, the better and big brands should be supportive, just as supportive as the smaller ones, because they should want people to stay out and continue drinking their product, just in a different way and a responsible way, and also in a tasty and delicious way. So I forgot to mention that, but I'm very excited. I wasn't. I was worried that they weren't going to choose my cocktail and they chose my cocktail and I was like, oh my gosh, so big steps, hopefully, big, big steps.

Speaker 1:

I love that. Yeah, again, you know, like the competition circuit is something that I remember and had a massive amount of love and admiration for, and it's something that we need more people like yourself and like you know, andreas and Noah, to come in and be like right, we've got rid of the alcohol, we've kept the flavor, so let's get to work and make something exciting and it's it's just. Yeah, I think that the next few years are going to be really, really transformative and, again, it's great to have them. It's great to have people like you at the forefront, using all that creativity and talent to make it really special. Well, thank you.

Speaker 2:

I'm happy to just like creatively work in a different way that I hadn't been used to before and, yeah, the more that we start taking over these spaces where we once thought that we weren't able to go into, just the better that it'll be for everyone. I think not a single person doesn't benefit from low ABV or no ABV, so it's been really cool.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely, we will have that seat at the table. Still, people are well. Thank you so much, shannon, for all your time today and thank you will definitely look forward to carrying on following your journey.

Speaker 2:

Yes, thank you so much. It was such a it was such an awesome pleasure to be here and to chat with you. I loved it.