The Gray Area Drinker Who Couldn't Stop At One: Sober Jo's Story

Jo, also known as Sober Jo, is a sober coach based in Jersey in the Channel Islands. Before she quit drinking she was the MD of a marketing agency, a former brewery rep, and by her own admission a booze bully who would have laughed in your face if you turned up to the pub on a soft drink.

She takes Dave through it. Growing up on an island she describes as filled with alcoholics clung to a rock. ADHD she didn't have a name for yet. The London marketing-agency years where work hard and party harder was the culture. A pregnancy loss that broke her open and pushed the drinking from social to something she did alone at home to numb out. Coming back to Jersey for what she calls a self-rehab and going straight into a job at the local brewery, where she could match the lads drink for drink and was proud of it.

Then the blackouts started catching up. A Christmas client party in 2018 she still cannot remember leaving. Waking up the next morning to find her husband had slept in the spare room and her neighbour had a story to tell her about the night before. The pit-of-your-stomach moment where she thought, I am bored of my own bullshit.

So she did what most of us wouldn't dare. She told her whole office she was quitting drinking for a year and turning it into a charity challenge for Friends of Jersey Oncology, knowing she would let herself down but never let a charity down. Her mum did the year alongside her. She raised over fifteen thousand pounds. And at a wedding in the Cotswolds three months in, someone offered her a gin and tonic, she said no thanks, I'm drunk on life, and meant it.

Jo is now over three and a half years sober and coaches women through the same path. This one is funny, raw, and full of practical hooks for anyone wondering whether their relationship with alcohol is quite as casual as they have been telling themselves.

This episode of One For The Road is sponsored by https://tweaklife.co.uk/ Further information and links attached below.

If you want to connect with me via Instagram, you can find me on the instahandle @Soberdave https://www.instagram.com/soberdave/

or via my website https://davidwilsoncoaching.com/

Provided below are links for services offering additional help and advice and for Jo.

www.soberjo.com

https://www.instagram.com/realsoberjo/?hl=en

https://www.facebook.com/RealSoberJo

https://twitter.com/realsoberjo

https://www.linkedin.com/company/sober-jo/

https://alcoholchange.org.uk/

https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/advice/alcohol-support-services

https://nacoa.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

Instagram - @TheDaniellaMartinez

This season's podcast is sponsored by a great new start up called Tweak Life. They have built a well-being hub full of useful information and tweaks that can help you improve your mental and physical health and finances. There is a wide range of topics covered which includes mindfulness, eating well, exercise. managing addictions, improving finances, mortgages and even menopause.

This is free to use, just go to https://tweaklife.co.uk/ for more information.

https://www.instagram.com/tweaklifeuk

https://www.facebook.com/tweaklifeuk

https://www.linkedin.com/company/tweaklifeuk/

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.