Vic Vanstone: From Party Mum to Sober Awkward & Reclaiming Your Life

Your life can look completely “fine” and still be falling apart every Sunday morning. We’re joined by Vic Van Stone from Sober Awkward, who gets brutally honest about binge drinking that hides in plain sight: the ladette years, the party reputation you feel trapped inside, and the way anxiety after drinking gets normalized until it becomes unbearable. If you’ve ever Googled why can’t I moderate, sober curious, or hangxiety symptoms, you’ll recognize the pattern fast.

We talk about motherhood and mummy wine culture, and the particular kind of shame that hits when you’re staring down a brutal hangover with a baby crying in the next room. Vic shares the day she finally said out loud, “I’ve got a problem with alcohol,” and why asking for professional help, not just willpower, changed everything. One of the most powerful moments is a therapy visualization that reframes recovery in a single image: a chaotic merry go round of drinking and noise, and the option to step off.

We also get into what happens next: friendships that shift, boundaries that protect your sobriety, and why so many overdrinkers relate to ADHD traits and rejection sensitivity. Then we zoom out to the good stuff, like laughing without booze, sober retreats in Thailand, and building real community that makes an alcohol-free life feel bigger, not smaller. If this resonates, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s questioning their drinking, and leave a quick review so more people can find us.

Contact Us: 

https://www.meganwebb.com.au/podcast-1

meganwebbcoaching@gmail.com

Ali

insta:  https://www.instagram.com/idontdrinkfullstop/

Meg

website:  https://www.meganwebb.com.au/

insta: https://www.instagram.com/meganwebbcoaching/

Connect AF: https://www.elizaparkinson.com/groupcoaching

Transcript

Meet Vic Van Stone

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Megzi. Hi Allie. How are you going? I'm going good. That's good. Singing the hello again as usual.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

I know. Well, again, I'm very excited to um introduce a guest on our show. Uh I've been listening to you for about five years. And yeah, I absolutely used to chuckle around the lake uh listening to you and Lucy. So our guest today is Vic Van Stone. Woo woo!

SPEAKER_00 0:35

From Sobar Awkward.

SPEAKER_03 0:37

Welcome.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Hi guys. Thank you so much for having me on.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

Thank you for being here. We're really excited to have you. Um, yeah, so five years, Ali. How long have you I know? When did you start, Vic?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Yeah, I think it is actually you must have listened right from the start because I think it is heading up into about five years now, which feels weird. I still do it in my son's bedroom, eight million downloads later, which is crazy. Yeah, it's funny. I've been invited a couple of times, I've been to a few award shows, and they're like, Where's your team? Where's your producers? And where's that? I'm like, it's me. I am everything. I'm like Mrs. Rabbit in uh Pepper Pig, who does every single job in the town. So yeah, it's nice to uh nice to do it all on my own. Still chugging along. I've got a new co-host starting. Uh I recorded my first episode with her last night. I'm not giving anything away, but you will know her. And yeah, that's really, really exciting. So lots of changes happening, but I'm gonna get all the episodes in the bag with her before we release who it is. So yeah, really exciting stuff happening for Sober Rockwood in the next couple of months.

SPEAKER_03 1:45

Amazing. Oh, you're making us wait. That's not funny. I know.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

I'm sorry, it's really hard for me because I'm keeping secrets as well. But I think it's more fun, isn't it, to cause a little bit of uh excitement around it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Oh, that's great. Yeah, well, I as I said, I I kind of resonated with your story, Vic. And I um I feel with Meg, she was a bit like Lucy.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Yeah, okay, nice. Yeah, and it's a one party animal, one stay-at-home drinker.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

I mean, look, Meg can party, I'm sure, but I just you know, like the ladette, you know, I worked on mines, I was a landscaper, could drink anyone under the table, um, played pool, drove trucks. Yeah, you know, you name it. That was where I got my credit, was like you you can't drink, mate, I can drink you under the table type of thing.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Yeah, it's funny how we blame whatever culture we happen to plant ourselves in, but actually it's every culture, unfortunately. I could say the same about probably ballet. Yes. They're all probably getting absolutely hammered after the show. Oh it doesn't really matter, does it, where you are or where you're from, or what job doing, even though your environment sounds like really masculine and really boozy. But then whenever I talk about these, you know, boozy cultures and workplaces with people, it's like, oh yeah, estate agent, terrible drinkers, nurses, terrible drinkers, doctors, all of it. It's crazy, really. It doesn't really matter. I think if you're a drinker, you're carrying that in there with you, aren't you? And like, oh yeah, these are my kind of people. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 3:15

Yeah. Yeah. So I I did end up drinking at home because I was a binge drinker. And so if I went out towards the end, it was getting too risky that I'd end up um doing something stupid or people getting annoyed at me or um stealing the Domino's pizza bike and falling off it a few metres away with the whole people chasing me. Um, yeah, it was it was just crazy. So definitely an at-home drinker after that. But um, yeah. So we're all here for something related to the crazy drinking days. But we would love to hear a bit about your story, Vic, if that's okay. How you got to where you are today.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Yeah, so I grew up in a family of very normal drinkers. I always say that there was never really any alone drinking or what I would call problem drinking. It was always to excess, um, it was frivolous, always for a celebration, always with an excuse. Um,

How Binge Drinking Became Identity

SPEAKER_00 4:10

and I never saw drinking as a bad thing. I was like, I can't wait to join in this sort of cheerful pandemonium that my family are creating around me. And I was the youngest of four, my brothers and sisters were all drinking before me, and I just thought, well, this is what we do, this is how we have fun, this is how we relax. You know, we're brilliant entertainers. My parents still are at 88 and 84 the most incredible hosts, and that's just how they identified was as the people that were going to bring the fun, which I still do a bit actually, even in my sobriety. So yeah, I never really had a choice about alcohol. I always felt like that choice was kind of taken away from me because not because of anyone telling me what to do, but just because of the generational drinking, the culture, the media, the time when I was born. Like that has a lot to do with it. I started in that lat Ladette culture in the 90s. I felt like alcohol was always coming for me like an arrow to the heart. And I don't think I really had a choice. I was a perfect candidate to be a binge drinker because of all of the sort of inspiration and information that was being fed into my brain from a very, very young age, was like this is okay. So I never ever paused to question it until much, much later in my life, unfortunately. And that led to all sorts of you know, misbehaviour, as it were. You know, like you, I did loads of crazy stuff, recreational drug use. There was a little bit of hurt at school where some friends turned their backs on me, and that led me to being even more of an entertainer and wanting to make friends and actually keep them this time, which meant that I sort of abandoned myself for the sake of others a lot. What I mean by that is that I would go out at weekends and forget about my own self-worth and self-esteem because I was so desperate to people please and get people to like me that it meant that I could show them I was funny or show them how crazy I was and act out in various ways to prove a point, like you want to hang out with me, you don't ever want to leave me because I am gonna bring you a good night out. So that became my reputation. And when something's a reputation, you sort of have to stick to it because you don't take the time to look outside of it, and that's exactly what happened. You know, there was promiscuity, as I said, and lots of drug use. It was the 90s, lots of ecstasy and cocaine and all those things. I ended up having a big drug overdose in my early 20s, had massive anxiety, and actually gave up drinking for a year when I was 21, weirdly. Wow, yeah, because I just felt my body was poisoned. I had a bit of a what what they called in those days was a nervous breakdown, a menti B. And I just thought, well, I've got really bad anxiety, I just need to stop everything for a year. And my goal when I was really ill, I took 10Es and just like went mad and had to move back in with my parents. And my goal, my kit better goal when I was very mentally unwell, actually, was to have a pint of beer in the pub with my mates. So, my goal, very unwell, very, very sick person with huge, massive panic attacks every single day. All I could think of doing was I want to be normal again. And normal for me was to sit in a pub and have a pint. And I remember the day clearly I felt better, I'd been on antidepressants, and I sat in the pub with my mates. Of course, I had three pints, and then that carried on. So I never ever, I never took another drug again, but I never ever questioned my drinking habit still. I was involved in a tsunami, I was in a cult for a bit, I blew one of my fingers off with a firework. These were all the sort of side effects of my what we called a very normal drinking habit. Really, my drinking was really clever because I diluted it into the people I surrounded myself with. It kind of got absorbed into the crowd, and that meant I was able to get away with it, and no one picked me out and said, Oi, love, you've got a bit of a problem. So it just continued this crazy lifestyle until I got married and had children.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 8:17

Wow. And so when was what happened when you got married and had children?

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Did the drinking? Well, I knew. Well, I think in order to bag my husband, I knew I had to kind of grow up a little bit because he was quite normal, as it were. I didn't go out with someone just because they were good looking, which I'd done for the previous 25 years. Very shallow behaviours. But luckily he's quite good looking, too. But no, he's not like amazing. He's alright, he'll do. But I just knew that I had to act a bit more prim and proper just to get the ring on the finger, and then I could go wild again. But I was three months pregnant at our wedding, and our wedding was my first ever sober social event. Oh, of course, I gave up drinking on that day, and I was never a daily drinker, I was a very normal social drinker and did it with my mates. I always went further than everybody else, everybody else, and my hangovers were always worse because I was nicknamed the gulper. I drank quickly. A glass of wine lasted five seconds, and I was always up at the bar before everybody else. I was a real binge drinker, classic case. But weekend, so it sort of made it okay. I just thought, well, I'm not passed out on a park bench with a bottle of Jack Daniels attached to my hand, so I'm okay. And it's clever how we do that, really. We just say, like, I'm not that person, so therefore I can carry on. And I did that for many years. But when I met my husband, I'd always known I wanted to have kids, but I remember being determined to not let a baby crawl in the way of my personality. I was like, this is something I'm gonna do, I'm gonna continue to do, I'm gonna go out at the weekends, I'm gonna be a brilliant mum during the week, and I'm gonna let my hair down as my reward. So I was a perfect candidate for that mummy wine culture, really. And the first baby was born, and I went on the new mums group nights out that always started like a nice cheese and wine party that always ended me with, you know, somebody holding my ponytail as I regurgitated shots into the toilet. And it was always a bit more messy than me. I always remember for me, I just remember my friends would be sat sipping on a glass of wine with their pinky finger sticking out, and I'd be sort of rolling around on the floor by that point. So I was questioning it. I don't think I was really questioning it, but I knew that my hangovers were worse, and I could see pictures of my mother's group on Facebook the next day being like, Yeah, we're at the park and I've been for a run, and I'd be like, I can't even move my head, and I've got a baby crying in the room beyond my hangover. And I did all the tricks, you know, like expressing and oh, this is fine. I'm gonna express milk so that my baby doesn't absorb alcohol. It seems crazy now that I just thought that was okay. But anyway, the anxiety tended to get worse every single week. Every time I went out and let my hair down, it got worse. I'd wake up on a Sunday morning, like, oh my god, I I can't function, and I've got a child. And that shame and that guilt of not being able to take care of my newborn baby on a Sunday morning really ate away at me. Not enough for me to stop drinking, of course, because how could I do that? It was my entire identity. But it just kept creeping in. And then about four years in, even though I'd tried moderation a million times, I'd go out with great intentions of having one drink and then, you know, be knocking on the door at 2 a.m. with vomit on my cardigan. And I never really tuned into that. I just thought I need to learn how to drink better. I need to be a better drinker and be like everyone else who seems to have it together on a night out. And I was trying all sorts of stupid tricks like you know, fish on a Friday, eating chips to line my stomach, all that sort of thing. It never worked. I always was full of massive anxiety, and then I got pregnant again and had nine months of sobriety, like a little window into a different world, it was. And I was like, oh, this is quite nice. I can I've got an excuse not to drink. And even that is a kind of warning flag, isn't it? Like, I needed an excuse not to drink. That just shows the people pleaser in me right there. But six weeks after she was born, I had a toddler, I had a baby, you know, that's full on. When you're a party animal, that transition from being on the road and being completely independent to being in a flat in Sydney and Manley, I was at the time, and having two babies, it was, you know, really full on. I didn't

Motherhood Hangxiety And Shame

SPEAKER_00 12:35

know who I was anymore. And I didn't feel like, you know, I wanted to be this perfect mumsy mum. So I went out six weeks after she was born and got massively pissed. Uh it was my first time drinking since she'd been born, just at my local pub. And I woke up the next day feeling like I wanted to die, which is how I felt with my hangovers. I thought I cannot go through this day. I am gonna die of anxiety. And I normalised that for myself. I thought that was a normal side effect of drinking, and that was okay for years. And yeah, I walked into the lounge that day and just said to my husband, I can't moderate, I can't do this on my own, and I need help. And that's where everything changed. My entire life changed completely just from making that choice of allowing somebody else in who was a professional to help me understand what I was doing wrong.

SPEAKER_03 13:23

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

When was that? That was when I was about 41, so I'm eight years sober now.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Oh did your can I ask a personal question? Did your husband is he a bit of a drinker or did he did he sort of like in the mornings when you get home be like, Dale, like for fuck's sakes, like get your shit together?

SPEAKER_00 13:46

It's a great question. We drank when we were at uni together, you know, years and years ago. We didn't see each other for 17 years, and then we remet in Sydney and we drank together then. He was a more controlled drinker, I think, you know, and I was trying to keep it together a bit more then. So he didn't really see that I was suffering with anxiety every time I drank. But what happened very clearly during that four years of me trying to moderate and then having the second baby, I noticed that the way he looked at me, it had gone from I'm madly in love with you, to I'm worried about you. And I saw that change in him very clearly. And on a Sunday, he'd have to sit there, like holding my hand and me saying, Am I gonna die? And be like, What is going on here? Like, why do you feel like you're gonna die? But funny enough, we never really said, he never said you need to stop drinking. We just said, Well, this is the weird side effect that I'm getting. We never really I sound so dumb now, but like we never just said this has got to stop until that one day, and it was like, of course, this is what's causing the problem. But I think, you know, I think we just thought it was something that maybe wouldn't go on forever, or yeah, I don't know. But it was strange. I just I just don't think we clocked onto it being a drinking problem. And since then he's given up drinking too, like he's probably been sober for four years, but he doesn't count the days, of course, because he can lose weight or give up drinking like really easily. Yeah, he's one of those, yeah, really annoying. But yeah, we have an alcohol-free house now, and you know, he loves not drinking as well, so it's actually really been helpful, but he certainly was worried about me. But I guess we just didn't know what to do, and we didn't know that there were people like me around that were gonna get off the party bus before it crashed into a wall. We didn't know that there was this place between a pub and an AA meeting where people were still worthy of professional help. I just thought, well, you've got to be drinking vodka in the morning to be worthy of going to AA or getting a therapist. I just felt like this silly party mum who didn't have too much of a problem, but perhaps needed to slow down. And that's kind of where we thought I sat. But of course, after 12 weeks of therapy and unraveling all of the reasons why I drank in the first place, it became very clear. And actually, there's a couple of stories from my therapy. The first one is I went in and she said, Why are you here? And I just went, Oh, I'm just a bit of a party, mum, you know, ha ha ha. And then she went, No, no, why are you here? And I was like, Oh, I don't know. And they said, Really, just tell me why are you here? And I was like, Oh, I'm here because I've got a problem with alcohol. And it was like boom, mic drop sort of moment. I am here because I'm in a therapist's office because of alcohol.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

One of my very quickly turning points in there, because I find it's always helpful for listeners to hear the you know, the real points where something clicks in your brain and you go, Oh my god, I didn't realise that was possible. We did something called visualization where you sort of imagine a moment or a time and it helps you kind of move through something. They do it a bit with that inner child work and when you step back and greet yourself when you're 13 years old and all that sort of thing. We did this thing where she said you're on a merry-go-round and it's spinning, you know, like a child's merry-go-round, and all your family and all your friends, and everyone you've ever been at a party with, they're all on there and they're all drinking, they're all taking drugs, and there's loud music, and everyone's slurring, and it's absolute chaos. And you're on there with them, and it's spinning around with you as well. And she was like, Now step off. I was like, what do you mean? She was like, just step off the merry-go-round, stand on the edge and look on. I was like, Oh my god, I never had considered that that was a possibility for me. Just to step off. Like, how to simplify 25 years of binge drinking by just what in one sentence. I was like, I just remember my ears dropping, my not my ears dropping, they haven't dropped yet. I'm not old enough. My shoulders dropping from around my ears and just thinking, oh my god, I could have stepped off for any time. I just didn't know. And the feeling of ease just to step back and be on the periphery of the chaos was the first time I went, Oh my god, I am excited about this.

SPEAKER_03 18:13

Yeah, right. I love that. I was just picturing all the people that now no longer kind of drink in my world. Yeah. Um yeah, step off with you. Yeah, it's interesting. Or a bit after or whatever, because a lot of people don't want to lose that oh, but you know, everyone drinks, I'll be by myself. Yeah. But people will step at some point, like your husband has years later, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Yeah, totally. And the ones that step off with you, I mean, your relationships with those people just go from zero to hero, really, because you know who your people are, and it's very very clear, isn't it? I mean, some people I know still drink, and I don't begrudge them for it, but you know, sometimes you do need to step away from friendships, which feels really, really hard, and you almost feel judgmental, you don't want to be that person. But uh for me, my sobriety, it's always been about keeping it safe because it's so important to me, which is why I do everything I do because it feels huge. And I think just to keep it safe sometimes and having boundaries around it, it it it's much better for me, relationship-wise. And you know, people do sort of fall to the wayside here and there, then so be it. Nothing's forever.

SPEAKER_03 19:24

Yeah, exactly. But even without alcohol in your life, like Mel Robbins talks about this. Um we do naturally friendships. They do naturally fall to the wayside sometimes. There's there's certain cycles, certain seasons, uh patterns, and um, some of that has coincided with, you know, I lost my toxic friend, like we were toxic together, but naturally some other things shifted at that time. Like our kids were grown up, and it probably was you know, so for people that are scared of losing friends, it is a cycle that uh we go through anyway. Different people come into our lives at different times.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Um Yeah, it's not like a marriage. I think sometimes we just we're so locked in and we have so good memories with people, and especially when the kids are young and stuff, and you've got mates of mates, and I think for some reason as humans, we find it hard to accept the fact that relationships change, friendships more than anything else, and to be okay with that. And it can feel I'm I'm getting better at that because I do have a bit of like rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria. Whereas I find, you know, I do find friendships hard anyway. I always have. And I'm a bit full on and I can be a bit annoying, and then if someone doesn't text me back, I'm like, oh, I've done something wrong. Like I have perceived awareness that somebody doesn't like me and all that sort of thing. So yeah, I do find friendships hard anyway, and actually getting sober does feel like sometimes you've kind of put a bomb in all of your friendships on top of feeling those feelings anyway. So yeah, it can it can be quite tough that aspect of sobriety.

The Moment She Asked For Help

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Yeah, yeah. I I had listened to your um episode, Vic, with um Faye Lawrence.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Oh yeah, she's great.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

I I you know, I'm I'm also Googling am I ADHD, you know, because um I the same what I've felt was with the friendship thing and you know, the fitting in and always just sort of feeling a bit like on the outside and and then you know, like yeah, I I totally resonated with the um ADHD and and why we drank and the reasons why we drank and all that sort of stuff, and it's no wonder why we drank really, just yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

It does soften the blow, that little bit of you know, looking into that a bit. Because I think we as ex drinkers can often feel a bit of guilt and a bit of shame and a bit like, why did I do that? and like lost time, all of that stuff. And when you hear the relationship between ADHD and alcohol and how you're not able to switch off, it's not your fault that you want another one, it's just the way that your brain is wired. I definitely found that that episode so interesting because I am starting to correlate these things, the RSD, the ADHD, and all the other stuff. And it's so it's not a coincidence that most people that I know that are over drinkers and now are getting diagnosed with ADHD. It's actually kind of part of the disease, I think. It's part of the I'm not not of alcoholism rather than than ADHD is not really a disease, but it's just a way of being. And it helps me understand myself a little bit more. I did go for the tests. I did say in that episode I have been for the test, but they sort of said that I wasn't suffering with it. But I think with perimenopause, the symptoms are all starting to pour out a little bit. So yeah, I I wouldn't say I'm suffering either, but that doesn't mean to say that my life isn't chaotic in my brain. It is sometimes, but it does also mean I get a lot done in a day.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 22:52

So when you stopped, Vic, uh, eight years ago, what did you do to help you on that journey? So you said to your husband, that's it, I need to stop. What happened after that?

SPEAKER_00 23:04

I wasn't really sure what to do, honestly. I just remember Googling quite a few things and like I wanted to go into the jungle and do ayahuasca in the Amazon at one point. I was like, oh, that sounds like fun. Well, obviously I had two kids, so I couldn't do that. But I just phoned up a local therapist, and thinking that she would say, you know, this is for real alcoholics, like you're just a silly mum who's worried about nothing. But she just went see you Monday, and I booked myself in, and I had 12 amazing weeks of therapy where I understood the reasons why I drank, which was because of that people pleasing, and because of that identity, and you know, because of a bit of a bullying situation at school and influences. There was a lot going on. There was like this massive pie chart of things that made me a drinker, and in there it felt like my life was kind of spread out like a pack of cards, and I was able to pick out the bits that I wanted to keep of me and discard the cards that didn't feel like part of my life moving forward. And I remember sort of skipping out the door for me. Relapse actually was never really an option. It wasn't that I was I don't feel like I was physically addicted to alcohol, I feel like I was definitely mentally addicted. I mean, it was a real habit for me in the fact that my body wanted it in some ways. But once I had broken the mental addiction part, the thought of never drinking again, instead of it feeling like it was going to be hard, I just because my anxiety had been so bad for so long, I was like, Oh my god, I can't believe it. You know, I I'm was full of relief. I was like, I never need to do that again. It felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. And I know people, in fact, a therapist said to me recently, you know, Vic, with periomenopause, you've got a chance of relapse and blah blah blah. I was like, that is not on the cards for me. Like, that is not something I would ever consider doing because I've totally I recommend people doing this, like totally over-educating yourself about the drug in itself, as well as all the Quitli and podcasts and therapy and everything else that comes alongside it, to the point where I know so much about it now from doing the podcast and writing about it, it's like, well, why would I choose to do that? It seems like madness, even though it sounds hypercritical because I did it for 25 years, but I've learned so much about it and I've learned how my body reacts to it. And I could never ever put myself in that position again where I'm in bed with my finger or my pulse thinking I'm gonna die. It's just not gonna happen. So on the day that I left that therapist and said to myself, right, I'm never drinking again. I actually finished Catherine Gray's book. She's a guest on the podcast coming up. She wrote a book called The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober. And I remember I'd just finished that as well. And I was like, I remember shutting the book and going, okay, I could probably write a book because I felt like I was the only person in the world who was stuck in, you know, fallen between the cracks because I wasn't what we imagine an alcoholic to look like. I seemed to have it all together, you know. I'm just a mum living in Manley, living in Australia, posting pictures of my perfect family, but dying of anxiety behind this, you know, behind the four walls. And I felt like if there was if I was feeling like that, there was probably loads of other people feeling like that too. And that was always my inspiration was like, I not only feel like I can talk about this, but I knew I could make people laugh. And I was like, Oh, maybe I can try and combine these two in a way that gets people listening to a really good message. So I started writing my book on that day. My husband came into the office and was like, What are you doing? I was like, I think I'm writing a book. He was like, Okay, come on, get on with it then. And it's really honest, my book, because I never ever imagined in a million years that anyone would ever read it. It was like a diary for me about my life and the you know, the mum and the party animal colliding and meeting at one point in the book where these two very, very different lives crash into each other, and yeah, it just kind of everything sort of bumbled along from there. So sobriety not only became a huge part of my life, but it also became my job, which has been an absolute pleasure because you know I get emails from all over the world, people read the books, people are inspired by sober awkward, which is just incredible. I mean, you guys would get these messages too. It's like people need voices, and especially with humour, because then it pricks the ears of people that wouldn't normally listen. They're like, Yeah, I'm a party adam, but actually, yeah, I do feel like that too, and I do wake up with anxiety and dread, and I do want to change. And I do think that feeling's in everybody, anybody who's ever had a hangover and said to themselves, I'm never drinking again, and then it's in the intro of our podcast. Then they're waving a tenor at a barman by happy hour. It's really, really common.

Therapy Tools That Made It Stick

SPEAKER_00 27:55

So we're continuing these patterns. We know we don't want to do it, but by Thursday night, we're like, okay, let's just get back into it. Everyone else is doing it, it's fine. So sober awkward really isn't really preachy, it's more about questioning the role that alcohol plays in our lives and getting people to understand like it's not about the booze, it's not about how much you drink, it's not about when, it's about finding out who you were before alcohol and discovering this amazing, shiny getting up early, playing Scrabble person that comes after it, which is a really beautiful process to watch everybody go through and to be part of that is just really, really wonderful. And and I love to I never get bored of talking about it, but yeah, that's ended up kind of tumbling into everything I do, which has been really amazing. It's quite tiring sometimes talking about booze all the time, but actually, I need it too. I need the community, I need podcasts and quit lit still, and this is just my way of backing up, you know, the backbone of my sobriety.

SPEAKER_03 28:57

Oh, totally.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

I agree. And so, just for um everyone listening, what's the name of your book?

SPEAKER_00 29:03

It's called A Thousand Wasted Sundays for a good reason.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

I I I yeah, I've I've read it, and man, it it's as I said, like you're you and I, if we were drinkers, mate, we would have with our um logo Last Without Lager, to put you on the spot, can you give us a story about where you laughed without being drunk?

SPEAKER_02 29:27

Oh, yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Anything off the top of your head, like Last Without Lager, when was the last time you laughed?

SPEAKER_00 29:32

And have you been watching Laugh Out Loud or Last One Laughing? It's called it's a series with all British comedians when they put them in a house together and they're not allowed to laugh. Oh my god, that sounds brilliant. The Australian and the Irish versions aren't very funny, but the English one has got it's got some really classic comedians in it.

SPEAKER_03 29:50

It sounds funny just hearing.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Yeah, it's got that Sam Campbell in it, he's an Australian stand-up, and it's got loads of British stand-up, and they're all stuck in this house for six hours, and they're all really, really funny, but they're not allowed to laugh. And the funniest thing about it is that they all have these funny, not laughing faces who'll like walking around trying to grit and they're all trying to make each other laugh at the same time. And me and my family are watching it last night, we were absolutely crying. I laugh without lager all the time. And actually, I must say, I I have to mention this here because I have I run these sober retreats now in Thailand. So every year we have these amazing retreats. It's a holiday for sober people, so you go in 15 strangers, you come out with 15 mates, it's like absolutely brilliant, and all we do is like silent discos and quizzes and elephant sanctuaries and snorkeling and all this cool stuff together. And that week for me, I I've spent time with sober people in my eight years, which is amazing. It's my favourite thing to do. But having a week with people that don't judge you or just get it, or you don't have to explain yourself to you. I have never laughed more in a week compared to that week last year. Because it's just so like it's the first time that my I felt like my nervous system regulated because I'm with my people. It felt like my heart actually slowed down, the complete opposite to me lying in bed with a huge hangover anxiety. Because it's for the first time in years, I just oh my god, I can just relax and be authentic and be who I am because everybody understands. And I'm not joking, my face at the end of every day, I had this jaw problem the whole week. I was like, what's going on? They're like, Rick, you've been laughing all week.

SPEAKER_03 31:39

Yes, yeah, that's so good. Um, Allie and I met on a sober retreat in um Phuket. So amazing. We totally hear you on that. It was freaking hilarious. Oh, yeah, you should come. There should be a lot of fun. Oh my gosh, I'm rubbing at some time. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

Yeah, Sober Dave is doing it with me this year. We've we've teamed up. Yeah, so we've got an eight-day one. Me and Sober Dave are hosting, and then we've got another one which is just me hosting, but they're in the same two weeks in October this year. Yeah, it's all on the website, but yeah, the resort is bloody gorgeous. Where's it? Where is it again? It's in Krabby, um, which is yeah, not far from Phuket, actually. It's in this kind of luxury eco resort. I hire the whole place, yoga and Thai boxing and cooking, and oh, it's so fun. Yeah, God, you've got to come, it's the best.

SPEAKER_03 32:28

You know, I've said to sorry, I've said to Ali before that because I'm single and if I never meet someone, or even if I do, my future of travel is with sober women. Oh, yeah, great. So I will be there at some point. Yeah, wonderful. And there's so much on offer that it excites me that there's opportunities because I think in the past, before say technology, but just in the past, there wasn't those opportunities. And I think a life, you know, you didn't put travel in if if you were single or if, you know, um, it just wasn't part of it. So to know how great it is and how much how fulfilling and and it's also like it's something that's changing, you know.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

I did an article with the Sydney Morning Herald this week about it, about how there's a demand for um holidays for wellness, not so much retreats or you know, going away to a health retreat like you used to in the sort of 20s. Yes, yes, sort of 2000s. It was like I'm going to a health retreat. People just want to go and have fun. Yeah, and people want to have fun without alcohol. So we do all the same things. Like last year we went on a boat trip and it rained all day, like from the moment we stepped on the boat to the moment we stepped off, which was about nine hours, and they had an amazing sound system on there. So we put on some old Ministry of Sound Tunes, and we were all if anyone had passed us on a little long tail going past, they would have thought that lot are absolutely hammered.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Yes, like you're talking with this is exactly what we did. We we always like air guitaring to sons and roses, like there's pain of us, and we're fucking like cabbaging it, and these people must have been thinking, or probably even the guy driving the boat, the skipper was probably thinking, Oh, these fucking Aussies, bloody drunkos. And it was like we were all sober, and this is like what um, you know, that was my first ever, you know, because I live in Perth, we're close to Bali, that's how that was all the quickest, you know, go to Bali, and it was just a license to just get annihilated.

SPEAKER_02 34:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Um, but it was that my first time that I'd gone away with without drinking, and of course, you know, when you think like even back to being why I drank as well, was to to because I was socially awkward. Um what you were saying earlier, Vic, about being on a retreat with all we're all on the same level of like

Sober Friendships Boundaries And ADHD

SPEAKER_01 34:50

we're all awkward, but we're all authentically like awkward together, and then it's like it's made of you don't need that liquid fucking shit to to meet people or to connect because it's amazing how quickly you feel like like I you feel like going in there, oh my god, this is gonna be awful, no one's drinking.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

But the the the the moment is so fleeting where you push through that and go, right, hello, here I am. This is awkward, but yeah, within an hour, it's like okay, this is fine, I'm actually okay. And people really get to know themselves socially for the first time. That's what I loved about it. Was like, yeah, oh my god, I can be this. This doesn't have to feel because I've been feeling a lot of anxiety going out recently because I realized I was still trying to hold this sort of party mantle high and be like, I'm still here, even though I'm sober. And it's taken me eight years to have to really make a transition with my socialising because I realized I was still feeling massively anxious because I was trying to push through just to prove a point. And in the last six months, I did a brilliant episode um with Sober Dave actually about this a couple of weeks ago. It was I called it the sober pivot, where sometimes it takes years to go, okay, I don't want to spend time with people that are drinking anymore. It's a fact, and I know that's gonna cause some problems, and it means I'm gonna have to move away from a lot of friendships. And it's so bloody, you feel scared, but it's so bloody empowering making those choices, and it's since the retreat that I've been able to make those choices because I was like, no, no, my my social life doesn't have to look like that, it can look like this, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

Yeah, yeah, because I mean, deep down, we're all like you know, we didn't have I I mean, I found it easy to make friends at school, I was always funny, you know, and then when you know, like you gotta that's sort of how we were when we were growing up. We didn't need alcohol or drugs to fucking you know, hang out and be friends and play sport and just be kids, right? And then yeah, so sort of once you once you strip it back and actually get honest with yourself and take that out of your life, yeah, it takes a bit of time to get to know yourself because we didn't know I didn't know myself. Um so then to go away, you know, to go out. I mean, even now interviewing you, like far out, man. You're like so um you know, to to meet you and to to be on my podcast is just like I'm like crapping it, but it's a good crap, you know, because I'm not like I'm glad you've had a good crap. Yeah, I've had a good crap, you know. I'm holding my little crystal and I'm trying not to like be totally, you know, awkward and nervous.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

I I get that same thing. Like it doesn't matter. Like I get that when guests come on the podcast, people that I've respected and listened to for ages. Yeah, I'm an absolute ball of nerves. Like last night when I did my first episode with my new co-host, I was bloody shitting myself as well. But you it's amazing, you know, you get out the other side of those moments and you get through it, and it's not easy. I'm not saying it's easy, sobriety is not easy for everybody, but once you pop out the other side of those experiences, like it's like, oh my god, I can do this, and I'm all right, and I'm fine. And you do get through it. Yeah, I'm sorry I made you nervous. That's quite nice though.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

Oh no, it's it's good. Like, even when I write to you, I'm like, oh my like yeah, you're sweet.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

Honestly, you're uh you're bending my ears, cackling around the the lake, and I was just like, Oh, just it's funny that though, like when you meet people, when I did uh we did live shows in London last year, it was like 300 people in this amazing venue, and people really feel like they know you. Like they come up to me and like, oh my god, Vic, you're like my best friend. I've never seen them before, I don't know their names, I know nothing about them. It's just like this really weird dynamic. I'm like, hello, like

Retreats Books And How To Find Her

SPEAKER_00 38:45

they literally know what I've had for breakfast yesterday.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

Well, yeah, I mean, look, I we probably say, you know, where did where do people find you? Which, you know, please, where do people find you? But obviously, you know, you're you're a big fish in the uh the sobriety world. So the booze pond. Well, you can just you can find my book.

SPEAKER_00 39:09

Yes, the booze free pond, yes, yes. We're not drowned out quite yet. You can just go to soberawkward.com to find out everything you need to know. And there's the retreats are on there, and also we have a free community. We've got like 15,000 people on there now, so it's just people chatting about sobriety. It's called Cuppa, C-U-P-P-A, Cuppa.community. Um, that's a really good place to go and find other sober people and just have a laugh with them. But yeah, sober awkward is on all your platforms, and my books are you can listen to them on audiobook. It's a thousand wasted Sundays. And my last book came out about a year ago, which is called Mumming, a year of trying and failing to be a better parent. It's not so much about a booze, but it's about all it's like parenting uh and failing and being quite shit at it sometimes and shouting a lot, and how that is actually just part of the process and not to feel guilty about it. So, yeah, I always try and write everything with a bit of humour and a bit of darkness and a bit of light just to level it all out. But yeah, you can just Google my name, you'll find everything. Victoria Van Stone.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

Yeah, oh definitely. And thanks for doing your um so you're the first guest that we've asked to share a so laugh without lager moment. Oh, yes, perfect.

SPEAKER_03 40:20

Oh, thank you so much, Vic. We'll see you soon.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

Thanks, Vic.