In this episode I talk to writer Clover Stroud about creativity, sobriety, life, love and loss and her new memoir 'The Giant on the Skyline - On home, belonging and learning to let go.' ( May 8th 2024) 

Clover Stroud is a writer and journalist writing for the Daily Mail, Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, and Conde Nast Traveller, among others. She lives in Oxfordshire with her husband and five children.

Pre-order 'The Giant on the Skyline-On home, belonging and learning to let go.'  Signed copies! Available to pre-order now. https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-giant-on-the-skyline/clover-stroud/2928377236977

Such a beautiful, affirming and honest conversation with Clover....so let's grab a cuppa and chat.

KX 

Connect with Clover: 

Website: cloverstroud.com

Substack: https://cloverstroud.substack.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clover.stroud/?hl=e

In this episode I have a fantastic chat with top sober sis, sober sexpert Tawny Lara, author of Dry Humping - a guide to dating, relating and hooking up without the booze. And basically, we talk about all of that. 

Tawny Lara is an NYC-based journalist and public speaker with 8+ years of reporting on the sober (curious) space, focusing on the role liquid courage plays in interpersonal relationships.

She is a podcaster, host of Recovery Rocks and has her own AF drinks brand Parentheses.

You can find all of these here

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/tawnymlara/

Substack https://substack.com/@tawnymlara

Grab a cuppa or a cool drink - it's getting hot in here!

Kate x 

In this episode I talk to the gorgeous Sarah Rusbatch, author of the best selling book “Beyond Booze” about all things grey area drinking and being a woman in midlife. We unpick the marketing, cultural messages around alcohol, discuss why midlife is a great time to quit the booze and start making ourselves and our wellbeing a priority. 

Sarah is a multi award winning Health and Wellbeing Coach, an accredited Grey Area Drinking Coach, a menopause accredited coach, a motivational speaker and a passionate ambassador for helping as many women as possible to live their best life.She's also an ex-Grey Area Drinker who finally quit booze in April 2019 and has NEVER looked back!

Grab a cuppa and let's chat!

Love Kate x 

You can find Sarah's website and book below. 

The first episode of Love Sober Podcast 2.0  with guest Dufflyn Lammers, relationship and recovery coach. 

We know that, as Johann Hari says, connection is the opposite of addiction and so this  season has a focus on relationships with self and others. 

We introduce ourselves and delve into a bit of our respective histories, and why we do what we do. Dufflyn got sober 30 years ago, before we had the language around grey area drinking. 

Dufflyn talks to us about how she helps women thrive in relationships once they stop drinking or identify as being in recovery. 

She will popping  on regularly to take questions about relationships throughout the season and you I will be exploring sobriety questions so please feel free to write in to  [email protected] if you have a relationship  or sobriety quandary. 

You can find Dufflyn at :

https://www.dufflyn.com/ 

https://www.instagram.com/dufflyn/ 

https://www.facebook.com/Dufflyn 

Grab a cuppa and let's chat. 

Kate x 

In this episode I have the privilege of talking to the gorgeous author Suzy Greaves about the vital skill of self-care and its foundational place in managing our wellbeing. Inner and outer care, self-respect, self-talk, boundaries and empowerment are just some of the topics we touch upon in this episode as Suzy shares her passion, compassion and wisdom. 

Suzy is a mother of two, an author, Chartered Psychologist and Coach. She specialises in self-care, helping people manage their stress, emotions, and energetic bank balance. It was her life experience of motherhood colliding with the terminal illness of her father that sparked her passion for self-care which she now teaches to her clients, young and old, to cope during periods of stress, loss and change and to boost their resilience in the face of future challenges. Suzy is the Psychology Expert for wellbeing brand Neom Organics and is a founding member of the ‘Nourish’ app. She figure-skated her way through her childhood, growing up on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, and now makes her home in the hills of Hertfordshire, UK. Her first book ‘The Self-Care Revolution’ published by Aster came out in 2017, 'Stand Tall Like a Mountain: Mindfulness & Self-Care for Children and Parents' and 'The Little Book of Self-Care’ came out in 2019. ‘Self-Care for Tough Times’ and her first children’s book ‘This Book Will (Help) Make You Happy’ were published in 2021. Her first journal And Breathe,  Sit to Get Fit and her new deck of cards, “The Little Box of Self-Care” came out in 2022. Rest to Reset is hot off the press now, just in time to shake off the winter blues and boost the rebirth of Spring.

Join Suzy’s Wellbeing Community at:

Instagram: www.instagram.com/suzyreading/ 

Facebook: www.facebook.com/SuzyReadingPsychologyAndYoga/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuzyReading  

www.suzyreading.co.uk

Grab a cuppa and let's chat. 

Love kate x 

In this episode I talk to sober legend Veronica Valli, creator of the Soberful Program and author of Soberful, about our experiences of the midlife so far and in particular the perimenopause. For too long women's bodies have been ignored in the sobriety conversation and we intend to change that! You can't mindset your way out of hormones! Midlife is a cluster of stresses and transitions for women and we talk about why sober is a super power for this period of our lives to enable us to thrive, process and prepare for the next phase - our Second Spring. We want to invite you to this brand new, one of a kind workshop for sober and sober curious women in midlife, Hot Sobriety. 

Hot sobriety was created by therapist and author Veronica Valli, creator of the Soberful program & Kate Baily, author, coach, Menopause Doula and co-founder of Love Sober to help women understand their cycles, support their sobriety and live a healthier lifestyle.

SELLING FAST - GRAB YOUR SEAT HERE! 

This unique online masterclass combines up to date research-backed menopause information with Sobriety Lifestyle Coaching to guide women towards bossing their midlife transitions and thriving in Perimenopause, Menopause and Beyond.

Why midlife is a unique time for women
The best way to support your hormonal changes in sobriety
 How to transform your past into wisdom
The Hormone Collective and how it works
The link between hormones, stress and alcohol 
How to deal with anxiety
Liver Health & Hormones
How to use the Holistic Health Sheet
Tools to help you take control, understand your needs and thrive in your midlife.

Grab a cuppa and let's chat...

KX 

Resources: Second Spring by Kate Codrington.

In this episode I talk to Courtney McMahon, the Radical Wellness Founder about her sober journey. She shares her beautiful insights, her wise tips and a weird synchronicity about how we can be connected with exactly the right people to inspire us and not know it (no spoilers!) 

Courtney is a Holistic Sobriety Coach and founder of The Radical Wellness. She helps individuals make (seemingly) radical lifestyle changes that improve their overall health and empower them to trust their intuition so they can remove the booze, break the loop of self-sabotage, create healthy habits and start living a life they love.

Courtney is certified in Holistic Health and Addictive Behavior Coaching. She has been sober since June of 2019. She lives in Connecticut with her husband Tyler and their two dogs, Leo and Olive. 

She is a beautiful soul and a sober sister - check her out! 

Kate x 

Find Courtney Here: 
www.theradicalwellness.com
https://www.instagram.com/theradicalwellness/
https://www.tiktok.com/@theradicalwellness

In this episode I talk to bestselling author of We Are the Luckiest and founder of the international recovery community The Luckiest Club Laura McKowen about her new book Push off From Here. 

The stories and advice McKowen shares are specific to alcohol addiction, but the tenets are universal in their application and useful no matter what challenge you face. With profound honesty and boundless compassion, Push Off from Here provides an actionable framework for healing what pains us and proves that a life of sobriety can be synonymous with a life of magic, peace, and freedom.

When Laura McKowen was two years sober, she received an email from a woman whose sister was struggling with alcohol addiction. McKowen had barely climbed out from the dark place the woman’s sister was in, but she made a list of the things she most needed to hear when she was deep in her own battle.

No matter how far astray you’ve gone or how many times you’ve tried and failed before, as long as you’re still sitting here, breathing, and reading these words, freedom and joy are still possible.

In this episode we explore her Nine Truths.
1. It is not your fault. 
2. It is your responsibility.
3. It is unfair that this is your thing.
4. This is your thing.
5. This will never stop being your thing until you face it.
6. You cannot do it alone.
7. Only you can do it.
8. You are loved.
9. We will never stop reminding you of these things.

In Push Off from Here, McKowen delves deeply into each of her nine points: what they mean, how they work, and how every person can live them. She addresses topics such as the correlation between trauma and addiction, the importance of radical honesty, letting go of the illusion of control, the value of community, a reminder that healing is a continual process, and that the process is a gift. Whether you’re just starting out or have been sober for decades, McKowen instructs us to be kind to ourselves: Change is messy and progress is rarely linear, but we can always push off from here.

It's a gem so grab a cuppa and let's chat.

Love Kate x 
Buy the book: 

Connect with Laura at The Luckiest Club

In this episode I look at the subject of hope and how to practically cultivate a hope practice.  "an optimistic mindset based on the expectation of positive outcomes.'' It's one of those tools that can be a bit overlooked,  easily mistaken for a lofty virtue or a whimsical fancy or naivety but  it is in fact a badass resilience tool. In this episode I am taking the chapter from our book Love Your Sober Year and delving into hope and actionable steps to cultivate hope and why it's such an important part of the sober toolkit. As I always say, mental health tools, are life tools, are sober tools. In the words of my first and most enduring girl crush, the wonderful Kate Bush in Cloudbusting, ' Oooooh... I just know that something good is gonna happen, and just saying it could even make it happen...' YEAH BABY.

'Love Your Sober Year' is a seasonal guide to sustainable alcohol free living. It starts in Spring so it's the perfect time to grab your copy and start or continue your holistic sober journey. 

And a wee favour - If you liked the book please could you leave a review on Amazon? It really helps. Thanks so much x 

So grab a cuppa and let's chat. 

Love 

Kate xxx

In this episode I chat with Janet Gourand, founder of Tribe Sober, an international membership program which connects and supports people wanting to quit alcohol and then go on to learn how to thrive in their sobriety. Now 71, Janet got sober in her 60s and is a true inspiration showing just how choosing an alcohol free life later on in our lives can be done, happy, fulfilling and rewarding - by reframing and by reclaiming our lives and choices as women, we can boss this sober game, the getting older game and call BS on the limiting cultural narratives of both that we are quite frankly, OVER. 

Janet has had many years of experience of corporate life in both Europe and South Africa.  When she decided to stop drinking alcohol, she could find very little available support in South Africa. Janet got sober by her own efforts and by attending a workshop in London. As her journey continued, she decided to use her professional background in training and development to design and facilitate her own Tribe Sober workshop in order to help others to do what she had done.

She is married with one son and a chihuahua called June. Originally from London Janet relocated to Cape Town in 2001.

Website is tribesober.com and all social media and weekly podcast is "Tribe Sober"

In this episode I 'soul dive' with the gorgeous Sarah Levine, who is an holistic mindset coach for women in recovery and a writer working on her memoir. We met through the process of doing best selling author of 'Drink', Ann Dowsett Johnston's course ' Writing your Recovery' and share our experiences of how writing in recovery and writing our recovery has been a therapeutic foundational piece of The Journey. We talk writing, Internal Family Systems and why we as women need to reclaim our story telling and connect with each other. 

Smart Recovery advocates having a  VACI as part of the sober toolkit - (Vital Absorbing Creative Interest) and psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi conducted extensive research into states of Flow and how creativity boosts resilience and helps post-traumatic growth and healing. 

So let's grab a cuppa and chat 

Kate x 

Links and resourses:

Ann Dowsett Johnston Course - Writing Your Recovery (starting 18th Jan 2023) https://writingyourrecovery.com/register/

How to find Sarah: