One for the Road: The Quit Drinking Podcast

Christmas mornings used to start with a Bucks Fizz at 10am and a turkey carved with a few fingers missing from the bird. Not anymore. In this bonus Christmas special, Sober Dave is joined by William Porter, author of Alcohol Explained, for a proper survival guide to the festive season without booze.

They cover how to handle Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, how to say no to a drink without over-explaining yourself, why family arguments go better when you're the sober one in the room, what to do if you're spending Christmas Day alone, how to fill the dead zone between Boxing Day and New Year, and how to actually make Dry January stick instead of imploding on February 1st. If you're sober curious, on day one, or just nervous about the holidays, this is the episode to keep on your phone.

You can also look at Williams website here https://alcoholexplained.com/

Thanks for all your support throughout the year, and I want to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Dave 

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.

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

https://nacoa.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

Instagram - @TheDaniellaMartinez

https://www.instagram.com/thedaniellamartinez/

www.instagram.com/grownuphustle

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soberdaveonefortheroad

More information about Sober Dave's 1:1 Coaching: https://www.soberdave.co.uk/

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

Will Gordon was a teacher. He had a wife, a family that loved him, a job he was good at when he showed up. He also drank a 750ml bottle of vodka most days, hid it from his wife in water bottles around the apartment, and parked on a side street in the mornings pretending to drive Uber so he could drink alone in his car.

By 36 his skin was yellow, his stomach was full of seven litres of fluid, and a doctor sat his parents down and told them he had two weeks left. He needed an emergency liver transplant. The rule said he had to be six months sober. He wasn't even close.

What followed was an 18-hour surgery, a colon that ruptured days later, half a year on a stoma bag, dialysis, and finally a kidney transplant too. Will is now sober, back in the classroom, and using whatever time he's been given to talk openly about how it happened.

You'll hear about: drinking through a 125-day relapse window; what alcohol withdrawal in the morning really looks like; why willpower alone isn't enough; what life is like after a transplant; why a clear head matters more than a "fixed" body.

If you're questioning your drinking, this one's for you.

If you feel so inclined, please subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration, insights, and a reminder that you're never alone in this fight.

- YouTube: [The Willpower Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/@TheWillpowerPodcast)

- Instagram: [@thewillpowerpodcast](https://www.instagram.com/thewillpowerpodcast/)

Thank you @sobedave for letting me share my story. I am forever grateful.

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.

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

https://nacoa.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

Instagram - @TheDaniellaMartinez

https://www.instagram.com/thedaniellamartinez/

www.instagram.com/grownuphustle

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soberdaveonefortheroad

More information about Sober Dave's 1:1 Coaching: https://www.soberdave.co.uk/

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

Jo Preston Hart's dad was an alcoholic who died falling down the stairs drunk when she was 18. For years she told herself she was nothing like him. He drank every day, she thought. She only drank at weekends. Three months into sobriety, her mum sat her down and told her the truth: he didn't drink every day either. He was the life and soul of the party, just like her. He got violent, just like she sometimes did. That conversation broke something loose.

Jo's drinking had started at 15 in a backstreet South East London pub, waking up in a police cell three weeks before her 16th birthday. Then raves, pills, cocaine to stay awake so she could drink longer, blackouts every weekend, bottles hidden in the boot of the car clanking for weeks, and a broken arm from a night she still can't fully remember.

In this conversation, Jo opens up about growing up with a violent alcoholic father, her first sober Florence and the Machine concert, the Christmas she woke up with an egg on her head after head-butting a wall, hitting the f-it button a week before her one year sober anniversary, and the voice that told her don't tell the sober group — you want to drink.

Nearly two years alcohol free and stronger for the relapse, not weaker. Jo's story is for anyone who has ever wondered whether one slip means it's all over.

https://www.instagram.com/jo.prestonhart/

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.

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

https://nacoa.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

Instagram - @TheDaniellaMartinez

https://www.instagram.com/thedaniellamartinez/

www.instagram.com/grownuphustle

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soberdaveonefortheroad

More information about Sober Dave's 1:1 Coaching: https://www.soberdave.co.uk/

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

She started drinking at 14 with peach schnapps and orange juice. At 51, her liver enzymes were 322. In between, Melissa McGovern was a Wisconsin theater kid turned New York actress turned mom of two, deep in mommy wine culture, grey area drinking her way through a pandemic and the death of her best friend T. Scott from alcohol-related liver failure.

In this episode, Melissa tells Sober Dave the full story. The first drink. The "no off switch" she felt from day one. The four months sober she gave up the day COVID hit New York. The "just order a pizza button" she pressed for 15 months after losing her best friend. And the bloodwork that finally stopped her cold.

What followed was an epic comeback. Now sober, 30 pounds down, and host of The Sober New Yorker podcast, Melissa shares what it took to actually break up with alcohol for good.

https://www.instagram.com/thesobernewyorker/

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-sober-new-yorker/id1751183180

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.

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

https://nacoa.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

Instagram - @TheDaniellaMartinez

https://www.instagram.com/thedaniellamartinez/

www.instagram.com/grownuphustle

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soberdaveonefortheroad

More information about Sober Dave's 1:1 Coaching: https://www.soberdave.co.uk/

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

Todd Kinney is an attorney in Omaha, a husband, a dad of four. From the outside, his drinking was completely normal. The right job. The right house. Weekend drinking only. No mornings, no shakes, no real consequences anyone could point at.

Inside it was a different story. He drank faster than everyone else. He had no off switch. He was hiding empty beer cans in different trash cans so his wife wouldn't see how many he'd had. He cycled through the same shame loop every Saturday morning, and he genuinely thought he was the only person on Earth feeling it.

Then his 14-year-old son asked him a question at a baseball game that he couldn't shake for weeks. A few months later, his wife whispered something at a dinner table in Arizona that changed everything. Todd is now nearly five years sober.

You'll hear about: why high-functioning drinking is its own kind of trap; the 450 attempts at moderation that never stuck; the question his son asked that wrecked him; what really sat underneath the shame; why none of the bad things he feared about sobriety actually happened.

If you're a parent quietly questioning your drinking, this one's for you.

 My website:

https://www.toddkinney.com/

 The Book:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=i+didn%27t+believe+it+either+book&crid=2299C4Q69JNMC&sprefix=i+didn%27t+believe+%2Caps%2C156&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_17

 Instagram: 

https://www.instagram.com/tkinney111/

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.

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

https://nacoa.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

Instagram - @TheDaniellaMartinez

https://www.instagram.com/thedaniellamartinez/

www.instagram.com/grownuphustle

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soberdaveonefortheroad

More information about Sober Dave's 1:1 Coaching: https://www.soberdave.co.uk/

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

Phil Briggs was 54 years old, drinking three bottles of wine and two double gins a night, mostly alone, mostly in front of the television. He called it the party for one. His friends never saw the worst of it because by the time he got home from the pub he'd already mastered the art of looking normal in public. Then he'd open the second bottle. And the third.

In the last week before he quit, he drank 200 units. On his last night he drank 51. By then his mum had died on a hospital bed in front of him, his marriage had ended, his work had dried up in the pandemic, and he could have wine delivered to his door in eight minutes.

Phil is now six months sober. He talks to Dave with brutal honesty about how hard the first few months really were, the nights he sat on the sofa cuddling his dog and sobbing, and what finally turned it around.

You'll hear about: how grief and lockdown collided into the heaviest drinking of his life; the moderation games that never worked; the wine delivery apps that finished him off; the sober community that pulled him through; what changes when you finally just stop.

If you're sitting on the fence, this one's for you.

Phil’s websites:

www.camouflageconsultations.com

www.philbriggsmakeup.com

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.

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

https://nacoa.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

Instagram - @TheDaniellaMartinez

https://www.instagram.com/thedaniellamartinez/

www.instagram.com/grownuphustle

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soberdaveonefortheroad

More information about Sober Dave's 1:1 Coaching: https://www.soberdave.co.uk/

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

Carrie Anne Stephens was 19 when her mum died of alcohol addiction. Her mum was just 47. The earliest memory Carrie Anne can recall from childhood is hiding under a coat, aged four, while chaos played out at home. Outwardly, the family was well-kept. The house was perfect. The kids were always turned out properly. Inside, it was something else.

In this episode, Carrie Anne tells Sober Dave the full story. The forced loss her mum suffered at 19 that she never recovered from. The hypervigilance that became second nature. The bolshie teenager who moved in with friends to do her GCSEs. The hospital room where she had to sign a do-not-resuscitate at 19. The 28 years of caring for her dad. And the moment after he died when she finally asked, what about me?

Now a NACOA volunteer, fitness coach, and mental health worker, Carrie Anne is opening a recovery hub and starting to live as herself for the first time.

https://www.instagram.com/carrie_annstevens/

https://www.instagram.com/mindbodybalanceacademy/

https://mbbhub.co.uk

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.

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

https://nacoa.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

Instagram - @TheDaniellaMartinez

https://www.instagram.com/thedaniellamartinez/

www.instagram.com/grownuphustle

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soberdaveonefortheroad

More information about Sober Dave's 1:1 Coaching: https://www.soberdave.co.uk/

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

Anna Donahay spent 15 years in Soho ad agencies, falling in and out of bars from 6pm to 9pm every night, then stopping at Tesco's for a bottle of wine on the way home. She was the woman building campaigns that sold alcohol to women just like her.

Then her youngest daughter looked across the kitchen during a family game and said, "Daddy, why is Mummy behaving so funny?"

Coming up to four years sober, Anna now hosts The Big Drink Rethink and uses her insider perspective to call out exactly how the drinks industry hooks young mothers, teenagers, and exhausted professionals. She quit without AA, without rehab, through a slow-burn approach of blips, restarts, and tiny commitments to herself.

You'll hear about: drinking on the manufacturing track at Rover in her early twenties; the maternity grief that pulled her back in; texting her husband to come home earlier so she could start the wine; and the philosophy that finally worked, making alcohol irrelevant.

If you've ever wondered how a "good drinker" finally stops, this one's for you.

You can listen to The Big Drink Rethink podcast on all podcast platforms – or through this link: The Big Drink Rethink

And you can connect with Anna via:

Website: thebeliefscoach.com

Instagram: instagram.com/bigdrinkrethink

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.

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

https://nacoa.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

Instagram - @TheDaniellaMartinez

https://www.instagram.com/thedaniellamartinez/

www.instagram.com/grownuphustle

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/annadonaghey

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soberdaveonefortheroad

More information about Sober Dave's 1:1 Coaching: https://www.soberdave.co.uk/

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

Kate Bailey was sweating alcohol on a bus, too shaky to take the tube home. She'd just spent her sister-in-law's 40th dancing drunk in a garden until 3 a.m. By morning, she felt like a ghost. That was her last day one.

Eight years later, Kate is one of the leading voices in British sobriety. Co-founder of Love Sober, podcaster, author, and coach for midlife women rebuilding their lives without alcohol. The road there ran through a childhood with an alcoholic father, a bleak attempt at AA at 28, a 13-month sober streak that ended with a bottle of fortified liqueur, and a promise she's kept ever since.

You'll hear about: hiding behind the "good girl" mask; what happens when motherhood collides with wine culture; perimenopause and relapse; the inner child work that finally cracked her open; and the moment she said "I will never leave myself again."

If you've ever wondered what eight years sober actually feels like, this one's for you.

https://www.instagram.com/mskatebaily/

Facbook: https://www.facebook.com/lovesober.cic

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.

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

https://nacoa.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

Instagram - @TheDaniellaMartinez

https://www.instagram.com/thedaniellamartinez/

www.instagram.com/grownuphustle

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soberdaveonefortheroad

More information about Sober Dave's 1:1 Coaching: https://www.soberdave.co.uk/

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

At 15 years old, Simon Maguire lost his mom and alcohol became how he coped.

What started as relief slowly turned into years of drinking, weight gain, and hiding how bad things had become.

By 38, everything was catching up and something had to change.

Story-Based Episode Summary

Simon’s story begins with loss. After his mother passed away, alcohol quickly became more than something social. It became a way to numb emotions he did not know how to process.

Through his teens and into adulthood, drinking became a constant. On the outside, life looked normal, but behind the scenes it was escalating. Alcohol, food, and later painkillers all became ways to cope. By his late 30s, he was drinking heavily, taking codeine, hiding it from those around him, and feeling the impact on his family, especially his kids.

The turning point came from a moment he did not expect. A simple comment from someone at work forced him to face the truth. That led to a conversation with his wife that changed everything.

What followed was not instant, but it was real. Step by step, he began to quit drinking, rebuild his habits, and take control of his life. From early mornings in a boxing gym to completing an Ironman, his journey shows what is possible in sobriety.

This is a real story of alcohol addiction, recovery, and choosing to live alcohol free.

• Using alcohol to cope with grief and trauma
• How alcohol addiction develops over time
• The connection between drinking, food, and emotional coping
• Hiding alcohol use and recognizing the signs
• The moment that leads to quitting drinking
• Early sobriety challenges and building new habits
• Fitness and transformation in recovery
• Life after alcohol and building an alcohol free identity

More information and connect with Simon:

www.simonmaguire.co.uk

 https://www.instagram.com/keynotemaguire/

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.

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

https://nacoa.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

Instagram - @TheDaniellaMartinez

https://www.instagram.com/thedaniellamartinez/

www.instagram.com/grownuphustle

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soberdaveonefortheroad

More information about Sober Dave's 1:1 Coaching: https://www.soberdave.co.uk/

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