Show Notes
This week Vic is joined by journalist and podcaster Katie Herzog to talk about the winding, messy road many of us take trying to figure out our relationship with alcohol.
Katie shares what her drinking looked like during Covid, how it quietly ramped up behind closed doors, and the strange mental gymnastics of hiding drinking from partners and pretending your fine and dandy, when really... it's all falling apart.
They talk about the moment when drinking stops feeling fun and starts feeling lonely, the awkward reality of not quite connecting with AA, and the long search for something — anything — that might actually help.
Eventually that search led Katie to Naltrexone, a medication used to reduce the brain’s reward response to alcohol. For Katie, discovering it changed everything. Over time it helped rewire the habit loop, take away the obsessive pull toward drinking, and slowly create something she hadn’t felt in a long time… freedom from alcohol.
The experience was so transformative that Katie went on to write a book about it, exploring the science, the stigma, and why conversations about medication and sobriety can be so surprisingly controversial.
It’s an honest chat about finding your own path, challenging recovery dogma, and the strange relief of realising there might be more than one way to get sober.
Find out more about Katie and buy her book here - drinkyourwaysober.com https://www.amazon.com/dp/163774739X https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Drink-Your-Way-Sober/Katie-Herzog/9781637747391 follow her on twitter here - @kittypurrzog
💛 Resources & Links
📘 Victoria’s memoir – A Thousand Wasted Sundays A brutally honest and hilarious look at motherhood, anxiety, and ditching the booze. 👉 Buy the book here
🎧 Listen to more Sober Awkward episodes 👉 www.soberawkward.com
🫖 Join The Cuppa Community Our private, supportive online space for sober folk 👉 www.cuppa.community
📘 Get the Sober Awkward Guide Our downloadable toolkit for ditching booze the awkward way. 👉 The Sober Awkward Guide
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More from Sober Awkward
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You’ve been absolutely fine all day. You haven’t thought about alcohol, you’re feeling quite pleased with yourself and then suddenly it’s 5pm and your brain goes = WINE.
This week on Sober Awkward, Vic and Ulrika tackle a drinking style that often flies completely under the radar, the stay-at-home drinker. Vic was the loud one. The social one. The drinker making questionable decisions in public and collecting stories she’d rather forget. Ulrika was different.
This Thursday on The Awkward Bits, Vic is back on her own and wondering whether one of the reasons sobriety feels so bloody terrifying is because we make it MASSIVE before we’ve even started.