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Finding Freedom: A Conversation with Kate Bee of The Sober School · Sober Readings

• Scott Hayes: Welcome back to Sober Readings, the podcast where we explore recovery literature, personal stories, and paths to living a sober life. I'm your host, Scott, and today I have a special guest joining me. Kate B. is the founder of The Sober School, an online community and coaching program that's helped thousands of women rethink their relationship with alcohol and build fulfilling lives without it. Kate's own journey to sobriety led her to create the sober school. Where she shares practical tools, mindset shifts, and encouragement for anyone who's curious about living alcohol free. Through her writing, coaching, and speaking, she's become a leading voice in the modern recovery movement. And in today's conversation, we'll talk about Kate's story, the inspiration behind the sober school, common challenges people face when giving up alcohol, and what lasting recovery can look like in everyday life. This is a wonderful conversation with Kate B. That you are not gonna wanna miss. So thank you for joining me. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Kate B. Hi Kate, welcome to Sober Readings. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. It's good to be here. I've read so much about ⁓ about you and about the Sober School, and I'm really, really excited to get into ⁓ to get in getting into hearing more about you and about ⁓ the sober school that you started. Thank you. So I generally start off my my podcast episodes with ⁓ Serenity Prayer. Is that okay? Yeah, go for it. And feel free to join me if you'd like. God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change. Courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. So Kate, ⁓ can you can we start off by you telling a little bit about yourself and and maybe get into a little bit about what it was like, what happened and what it's like now? Yeah, sure. So I have been sober for thirteen years. ⁓ since April 2013. And the problem with my drinking was that it never really looked like a clear problem ⁓ to outsiders. And I and that's one of the things that kept me stuck for so long was that I wasn't doing any of the things that I thought were signs of being a problem drinker. I still had this great job, I was turning up for work every day. I Had a sort of very normal-looking drinking on the outside. But increasingly I was drinking more and more at home on my own. In fact, that was my favorite way to drink, unsupervised, unobserved, just doing my own thing. And I was drinking a lot through loneliness, through not really knowing what else to do with myself, but also kind of telling myself that this was fine. This is what people. This is what people do, ⁓ especially people with stressful jobs and successful lives. So I think my my drinking just you know, in many ways it was problematic right from the very beginning. I always felt like I drank in a different way from my friends. I always wanted to order another bottle for the table. I always look forward to anything ⁓ related to drinking, anything where alcohol was going to be present. But the thing that really made me stop in the end wasn't a rock bottom moment. Unl unless you would count suddenly realising, ⁓ I can't stop for more than a few days at a time. That was a bit of a wake up call because I'd always been able to do that before. But I just had this very really dark feeling inside that my foot was on the accelerator. I was crossing these lines that I thought I wouldn't cross. And I just knew something very bad was gonna happen if I continued. Even though on the outside, like I said, my drinking perhaps didn't look that alarming, but it was. So do you I can relate to so much of of what you just said. You know, in the end, drinking alone, because I wanted to drink the way I wanted to drink, without someone telling me no, or you shouldn't be doing that. And then there's also embarrassment in that, you know, like I would be out to to dinner with my wife and I'm always thinking about the second bottle of wine like you're talking about. And and, you know, it's embarrassing to ⁓ to drink like that sometimes, you know, and and then justifying justifying my drinking. Well I'm a grown man, you know, I I stayed in this I stayed in this cycle of of drinking for a long time because, you know, in the end I lived alone and and I would drive home and say, I'm not gonna do this again today. I'm not gonna do this again today. And then justify it in my mind, well, you're a you're an adult, you're in a grown you're a grown man. You can you can have a drink. You know, and then ⁓ of course it jumped r jumped me right back into that cycle. It sounded like was your drinking progressive? yes, it was towards the end. ⁓ especially so January 2013 had started with me saying, ⁓ I'm gonna do dry January. And ⁓ it had just started to become quite a big thing here in the UK. ⁓ people would stop drinking for the whole month. And I thought, well, this will be really easy. There won't be any temptations. I know loads of people who are doing it. And I went away on this health and fitness boot camp over the new year because I was so extreme about everything. I wasn't just gonna not drink, I was gonna eat perfectly and exercise perfectly. I was gonna be this perfect human. And you know, that lasted all of like four days. And then I got back, went back to work, had this terrible week at work. And come Friday morning, I just knew I was gonna buy some bottles of wine and I was gonna drink all Friday evening, all a Saturday, and I'd recover on the Sunday. That was the only way I had with coping with my stress, feelings, overwhelm, everything. And then 'cause I had drunk then when I said I wasn't going to, it was like yeah, it was like my like I just kind of like s the car sped up. And so I drank quite heavily throughout that January, drank more in February, in March. At the time I was working ⁓ for a TV program and I would work these really long shifts and a lot of them were night shifts. So I would start at 9 p.m. and finish at 9 a.m. And my rule had always been, we never drink between shifts, and especially not when you finish the night shift and it's the morning. But all that had gone out the window. And and it's it's crazy to drink between 12 hour shifts because by the time you've got home, you had a shower, you barely have time to sleep. Never mind drink and recover from drinking. And I had this one day when a friend of mine who lived near me, she drove me into work and we got in this lift and this like elevator. And as we got out, she said, Gosh, that guy next to us really smelled of alcohol, didn't he? And I was like, No, I'm pretty sure that's me. And yeah, it that was just such a big wake up call for me. Yeah, you mentioned ⁓ i extreme h extreme you know ⁓ behaviors. ⁓ talking about eating and your health and I can I can totally relate to all that and I think I think what happens with a lot of people is that we make these decisions well I'm gonna eat healthy and I might like put it I'm gonna eat healthy for a month, which is you know, f for me it's it's too big of a of a goal. I need to do it just for today, which I know now, but back then I didn't know that. Or I say I'm gonna I'm gonna do like you said, like dry January. Like that's too long for me, you know, I need to focus on today. And and really what happens is that leads to disappointment. You know, people say the just like, you know, in the new year, all right, I'm gonna join a gym, I'm gonna go to the gym this year. And they they make a a goal of going every day. And then when they go for three days and then stop and miss a day or two, then they're disappointed because they haven't reached that goal. And it's just too big of a goal. It's just too much. You know, rather than say, I I'm gonna go to the gym once a week and then maybe maybe twice a week in a month from now. You know, so it also it it always leads to disappointment for me when I make, you know, a big goal like that. Yeah. It's a very human temptation to do that though. Yeah, and then you you mentioned you wanted to quit but you ended up drinking ended up drinking more. Like instead of doing dry January, you end up drinking way more, not only in January, but for the the coming months. Yeah, completely. Because I had such an all or nothing mindset. And actually I think perfectionism is something I have done a lot of work on and continue to do so. But that contributed to that, well, if I cannot do this perfectly, then I am not going to do it at all. Which ⁓ really doesn't get you very far in life. So you mentioned something about willpower. Tell tell me a little bit more about that. How you think your willpower fails you? Yeah, I think that ⁓ at that time I had I had no idea that there was more to stopping drinking than just stopping drinking. ⁓ I I really thought it was a willpower issue and that part of the reason I was in this mess was because I lacked discipline. I was weak, I couldn't control my drinking. ⁓ and that sat really ⁓ awkwardly with me as someone who was always pushing to do quite well in other areas of life and I considered myself to be quite high achieving. So I don't know exactly where along the line I'd pick this up or whether it's just really present in our culture, but I I I truly thought that not being able to control your drinking was a a sign that you didn't have enough willpower. And then in order to stop drinking, you needed a constant willpower to resist it every single day. And that's part of why I would give up so readily, because I could see I didn't have that in me and it sounded really miserable. Whereas what I know now is that yes, you do have to have will to change. And you know what? There will be some crunchy moments where you need some willpower. But ultimately, in in order to build a long term sustainable alcohol free lifestyle, you've got to do that deeper work. Looking at things like, well, why do I drink? ⁓ I'm using it as a coping mechanism for XYZ. Okay, well, we're gonna have to work on finding some other ways of coping with that. I never did any of that work. I I never really looked at what I was drinking to escape from or How I was trying to use alcohol to heighten certain feelings. I never even stopped to question that. So it seemed to me that alcohol was this absolutely wonderful thing. I romanticize it. And so it in it required incredible willpower not to use it. Whereas now I feel much more just kind of neutral about it. And it's easier to not drink something that you feel neutral about. Yeah, I think you're right in that ⁓ society definitely romanticizes drinking. I mean, we see it everywhere. We see it in commercials. It it's just it's just romanticized everywhere in everything we do. And I don't know about you, but I grew up like that. I grew up with my whole family drinking and it was a part of everything and it made things seemingly better. People would talk more, people would you know, just just everything everything seemed better ⁓ when we were drinking and so it was it was normalized and I think That's what society has done is normalize drinking in every part of our lives. So when you mention the crunch times, which I have them, I'm I don't know about everybody, I'll speak for myself. I have them where where, you know, in my mind, you know, I start to fade into this area of like, you know, dark thoughts and ⁓ a drink would make this better and I don't want to deal with my emotions or thoughts. Do you have those now? And if you do How do you get through them? I don't have them anymore. And I think that might be because I've been sober for so long. Even when I've had really and I've been through some very difficult things in recent years, it's I I yeah, I think you're you create new neural pathways over time and your brain learns, okay, actually when this happens, this is how we cope with it. It creates these new pathways, these new routes to go down. So I wouldn't say my coping mechanisms are perfect. I still overly ⁓ rely on sugar, for example, when I'm going through a really tough time. But I also have a lot of other tools in my toolbox. So that's where I am now. But I would say that it took a while to get there. It took a while to not associate yeah, having a terrible day at work with drinking or having ⁓ you know, a health scare or all these other things, I almost had to practice that. And over time you you build those sober muscles. J just like just like with anything really, I think it needs practice. And that's the overwhelming thing when you're at the beginning of the journey, realizing, yeah, some of this stuff, it's it's almost skills that I've got to learn. And those skills might take a bit of time. Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think and one of those skills is communication skills, you know, and and having the courage to actually communicate how I'm feeling what's going on inside me to other people. You know. Yeah. ⁓ so can you tell me about now and in early sobriety for you, what was your daily routine like? What what new habits did you have to create? What did you do on a daily basis to keep you sober? Yeah. Well, it's interesting you mentioned communication there because that was a big thing for me. I all my previous attempts at stopping drinking had been more or less on my own. I had gone to some AA meetings. There weren't many where I lived. And unfortunately, I think I had a slightly ⁓ unhelpful experience there, just because on the day I went, A couple of people shared these really dramatic rock bottom stories. And of course, me being me, I walked out going, Well, I'm not like them. I'm fine. And so I sort of decided, ⁓ well, that that's not really ⁓ the place for me. Wrongly or rightly, but probably wrongly, like looking back with the wisdom of hindsight. But that meant I was very alone. And one of the things that really changed for me completely by accident when I did stop drinking is I stumbled across a blog written by someone who's just a little bit older than me, but she sounded so like me and she'd stopped drinking. And so I started following her. And this was, you know, 13 years ago in the days when lots of people were writing blogs anonymously, and you could find them and comment on them. And so I decided I was going to do the same thing. I started writing my own story. And I was, yeah, I was a journalist, so I really enjoyed writing. It was very cathartic way for me to process stuff. And I began commenting on other people's stuff and they commented on mine. And I think without realizing, I created this community and almost this accountability, even though it was online and in a slightly sort of clunky way of communicating. And for the first time ever, I felt seen in what I was doing in my goals. So to answer your question about my daily routine, I used to do something at either end of the day. I'd start the morning by connecting, either with by reading someone else's pose, like what they were going through, or by reading a book. I I must have read eight every sober memoir there was on the planet. And then planning ahead, like what I was gonna do at the end of the day, because it was always the end of the day that was was harder for me. Deciding, you know, am I gonna go ⁓ like go to the gym? Am I gonna go try and meet up with a friend? Like, well, what are we gonna do? 'Cause I don't wanna go anywhere and end up drinking. So I was I was really yes it sounds so boring. I was planning ahead. Connecting and working on my sobriety, which was something I hadn't done before, which sounds so silly now, but I just hadn't put any effort into it. I hadn't treated it like this project, this thing that needed nurturing and needed care. And it did. So you said you started a blog early on in in sobriety. Did you have a sponsor at that time? I didn't. Okay. And so what what are some of Some of the things that you would that you would blog about? Where with did like did you how vulnerable did you get in in this blog? yeah, pr pretty vulnerable. It it was kind of me sharing my drinking, my experiences, ⁓ what I was doing to try and stay sober, because I was so new to it. I I I truly felt like I was the only person in the world who drank in the way I did. And by that I mean drinking huge amounts and then getting up the next day and doing this Oscar-winning performance of a normal person who is feeling just fine. And it was so heartening to me to share that and have other people go, Yeah, I I get that. And even though I wasn't getting that in person, which probably would have been more powerful, the fact that I was getting it online, that just worked great for me at that time when I was very ⁓ sort of fragile and and shy and I could hide behind the anonymity of this blog to share stuff that to me I we always so embarrassed and ashamed of and and to have that met with compassion was just very therapeutic. What keeps so many people away from sobriety, what keeps so many people drinking is that feeling of I'm alone, I'm different, nobody can relate to me. And and that's why I asked about the blog and how vulnerable you get because I think what happens I go to AA and so in AA meetings and I'm sure you know, like people get vulnerable. People they have have the courage to say things that they normally wouldn't tell other people and and what happens is people in the meeting can relate to those things. You know, and that's how and I think that's you know, that's probably how what happened with your blog is that it gave women courage to come out themselves and tell their story and then And then in that in doing so, they rela they they, you know, would realize that they're not alone. Like you're not alone. That wow, other people are actually doing the things that I was doing and and they've been able to stop drinking, you know, and and it's amazing how that kind of snowballs from one person to the to to the next. absolutely. And what I do now with the sober school, having moved on from my anonymous personal blog, is essentially the same. people don't realise that when they come ⁓ to join the sober school that they're often like, Well, I don't really need a community. ⁓ that sounds nice, but whatever. And actually it's a thing that everybody raves about later is that they have been able to make this connection. And yeah, obviously I'm doing it all online and ⁓ it's possible for people to do that without revealing their name, their face, all of that stuff. And and I think sometimes people need that to get started. But at the heart of it is connection. I just I think that's so important. However you get that, you need that connection with someone else. Otherwise you continue with this story that we've we've talked about that we're the only ones and and we're not. And I'm and and I'm glad you brought up writing and how cathartic it can be. And I will shamelessly say that I I wrote a book. I wrote a memoir ⁓ about five years ago and and The same exact thing. Like it was so therapeutic and cathartic for me. And I I and I just tell my friends, like, Yes, you all should write a book because it's like it's this huge fourth step, you know, where I'm writing out my entire life and taking responsibility for it and then and then and then putting it out into the world and publishing it. And it's so scary and it's so fearful, but man, did it really, really help my sobriety. Yeah, I love that. that's that's amazing. I have thought about trying to write a memoir myself. I don't know. Maybe I will do it. So I'm so impressed when someone says they have actually done it. I encourage you to do it. It is definitely ⁓ definitely helpful. So you brought since you brought up the sober school, let's talk about that. I'd like to hear, can you tell me more about how it started, how the concept of of the sober school came up and and how it works. Yeah. So after I stopped drinking, as I said, kind of bringing together this very ⁓ haphazard approach to recovery, ⁓ but was kind of working for me. And ⁓ you know, and I started following these blogs and people said, ⁓ you need to read this, do this, all this stuff that was that was working t for me. And I began to have these kind of breakthroughs around the rest of my life, and I decided I wanted to Change career. I wasn't happy in the job I was doing. And so I enrolled in this course about how to find your perfect career. And back then I had never taken an online course. I I didn't really know what it what that was. But it was ⁓ this really cool course and it had this Facebook community, and you'd meet on I don't know if it was Zoom or something else. And I remember when I was in in doing this course and I was buddied up with someone, ⁓ as we were kind of holding each other accountable, I remember thinking, wow, I wish there was something like this for ⁓ people, women like me, who maybe don't want to go to meetings in person, like for whatever reason, people who would quite enjoy this online aspect of it. Cause I just had a feeling about that. And so so I sat on the idea for quite a long time, sort of waiting for someone else to do that. And then this one day I was on a train, I was reading a newspaper that someone had left on the seat next to me, and it w there was an article in the newspaper about this new funding body that had been set up in the UK, and they were offering small grants to people who had an idea for a business with a social ⁓ mission. And I like ripped out this article from the newspaper, went home, put in an application, and to my amazement, I went through this process and ended up winning a grant to actually make the sober school happen. And I think because I'd convinced these people to give me a grant to start this and they thought it was a great idea and they thought I would do it, it It it well, it got me to do it. I really truly believe I wouldn't have done it without that grant. I'm so grateful to them. ⁓ it really held me accountable. And so I pulled the trigger on this idea I'd had to create an online course with practical stuff, like things for people to read, learn, watch, and an online community that people could participate in anonymously. I grew up in the rur rural England, I know what it's like not to really be able to go to a meeting without traveling to for a long time. Or maybe you're like me and you go to one or two meetings and it's just not quite the right fit for whatever reason. And and wrongly or rightly you decide that isn't for you. I think, yeah, I just wanted something online for people. And it didn't really take off for quite a long time, but Interestingly, during 2020, 2021, when we suddenly all moved a lot more online, suddenly people kind of said, ⁓ yeah, this is actually something I'm looking for. And and yeah, so now the sober school's been going for ten years. I actually only work with women. it's just a gut feeling I had in the beginning that ⁓ sometimes I think women need the safety of a a single sex space. And my website's horribly pink in places and girly. It seems to repel the guys anyway. I never have men coming to me saying, ⁓ can I join? They just know. ⁓ yeah, and that's kind of how we've ended up where we are. That's amazing. And what I thought about was was ⁓ when you well the word that came to to mind was ambition, you know, and and fear. And so and I think that's what some of us ⁓ maybe a lot of us get from from sobriety is ⁓ is the ability to work through that fear an ambitious idea like yours, like the sober school comes up. ⁓ maybe in the past I might have said, I don't know I don't know how to do that. Like I can't do that. Why do I think I could do that? You know? But then in sobriety Well why can't I do that? Okay, let let's take the first step in figuring out how to get this done. And then you apply for this grant and then ten years later here you are helping thousands of women. It's amazing. Thank you. Yeah, I it was such a good example. Yeah, we were talking earlier on about how you can't picture the future. You just take it one day at a time. And the sober school has been a great lesson for me personally in taking things one step at a time. So when I started, I didn't even know how you'd made a thing called a website. And I just had to figure it out bit by bit. And and I didn't know if people would be interested in what I was doing. I had this inkling from writing my blog previously that there were people out there. but yeah, it I just I truly feel it it was like the universe telling me, giving me all these signs that this was the right thing to do. And because I was sober and alcohol-free, I could actually listen to those signs and and take action. Even applying for the grant. I could have so easily forgotten about that, but you know, it was just one step of many that made this come together. Yeah. Yeah, and I can I can relate to that even with this podcast. You know, when I started this podcast, I had no idea no idea what I was doing, no idea if anybody would be interested in listening. But what I did know is that what so what I do is on a daily basis, I read like Daily Reflections and Pot and and the twenty four hours and You know, just sober literature. And what that did was help it continues on a daily basis to help me in my sobriety because I get to read this stuff, you know, and it just keeps it in the forefront of my of my mind every day. And then ⁓ you know, it starts to to catch on and start you know, people people tell me they enjoy it and and it's it's really interesting how that works. I love that. Yeah, and you're protecting your own sobriety with that. and I feel with the sober school I have done that as well because just constantly surrounded by reminders of how difficult life is for people who are drinking and also how amazing it is when you stop drinking. ⁓ I find that really heartening. Yeah, and I love that that ⁓ the sober school gives gives women an alternative to AA because I think, like you said, it's not for everyone. I mean it I can tell you it is for me. It's changed my life and and I've I've formed relationships with people that I never thought I would have and you know, I I I go to a six forty five AM meeting every day, which seems nuts to most people, but I you know, I get up early and I go to this meeting and it just puts it right there in my face in the morning and it's it's a beautiful way to start my day. You know, and ⁓ and and so the sober school I love that it gives people an alternative, you know, for ⁓ you know, because AA's not the only way to stay sober. There's everybody's got their own path in sobriety. I just think it's really cool that that ⁓ there is an alternative, you know. Yeah, thank you. And I'm I'm really heartened to hear you say that because I think ⁓ like you say, we're all different. It would be amazing if one approach worked for everyone. And maybe we all need a mix of different approaches at at different times. And Things have changed a little bit, and I'm sure you've noticed this over the years. People are having more conversations about stopping drinking. It's not such a big deal anymore. But at one point, if you certainly in the UK, if you didn't want to go to AA, there was really nothing apart from maybe a rehab centre, which costs you know thousands of pounds. So there was there was just nothing else out there. And I am pleased that now there are a lot more people talking about not drinking and how great it is. you know, there's so so much information out there now. But I think we just deserve to have more options. yeah. It th this is a really important thing. It's a really important part of life. If you're struggling with alcohol, you absolutely deserve to find the help and support that that resonates with you specifically. It's interesting. Last night ⁓ I was speaking with a friend and he he's he's not an alcoholic. ⁓ him and his wife are neither of them are alcoholics and and ⁓ he stopped drinking three and a half years ago just for an experiment to test, you know, and and I've known him for that long or longer and so he knew that I that I stopped drinking and and ⁓ he just tested it for a month and then two months and then now here he is at three and a half years later and we were s talking last night and he's like, It's amazing. Like I have no reason to go back. You know, just weighing the the pros and cons of it. Like there's so many negatives associated with with you know his drinking and he wasn't even drinking that much. But but still there's like the positives totally outweigh the negatives. I I think s so many people are coming to that conclusion. Or perhaps but you perhaps society has shifted a bit and so people are more comfortable saying, you know what? Like alcohol just doesn't work for me. It gives me a headache. Or I'm ⁓ kind of similar to you. I ha I have a friend. Who has stopped drinking, and I swear she only had one glass of wine anyway. But she said, you know what? When I drink this glass of wine, it interrupts my sleep. It has such a big effect on me. So why would I do that? I'm already tired from my kids. And I just thought, yeah, a few years ago, I don't think someone would have been as confident to say that. But now that's that's acceptable. You know, we can do what we like. Yeah, what do you think is causing this movement? Because I know a lot of the younger generation now is is kind of leaning towards not drinking. Yeah. I'd like to think that we live in a slightly more emotionally attuned society. mental health is not as much of a big stigma. ⁓ it still is stigmatized in in some places. But I think We're just more willing to have conversations about how we take care of ourselves, about self-care, and realizing that alcohol is this drug that has been normalized and glamorized and romanticized, but it has this dark side to it. It has all these consequences. And in this world we live in where we're we're concerned about ultra-processed foods and you know, getting enough sleep and we're wearing ⁓ fitness watches and trackers. I think it would be a bit crazy if we were consider c still blindly pursuing alcohol as the answer to everything. So so maybe we're just more concerned about health in general. ⁓ I'm not so sure. But but also for the younger people, I think they are wise enough to know that everything they do is photographed now. I I grew up as I think you did in a time when I made some really big mistakes, but no one was around to put it on Instagram or Facebook. So you have to be careful about that nowadays. ⁓ thank God for that. Yeah. ⁓ thank goodness. Yeah. There's some topics here that you wanted to explore and one of them, and I think I I bring this up because I think a lot of women are probably going to listen to this. And so it says why so many women ⁓ I'm sorry, alcohol and menopause. Do you want to say more about that? Yeah. I so I work with a lot of women in perimenopause or they're they are just kind of entering menopause. And I think when you hit that time in life, your hormones are changing, ⁓ your your sleep is changing, it's more interrupted, you're questioning many things about who you are and and where you're kind of going in life, and alcohol is Can seem more appealing at that time because it seems like this quick fix, this quick sticking plaster, but it tends to have a much stronger impact and the consequences of drinking can become a lot more severe. I work with a lot of women who say, you know, I just I just I have two drinks now, and the next day I feel like I've been hit by a bus or I hardly slept all night. The consequences of it are much greater. So I think it makes sense that women sometimes start drinking more in their 40s, 50s. They've probably got other stresses like a much more responsible job, maybe teenage kids, aging parents. We can see the appeal of it, and yet the consequences of it become a lot more severe as well. And I think I am certainly hearing a lot more conversations about. stopping drinking in the context of menopause because it it does have such a big impact on women. So I I think that's you know, that's great to see. We're not just talking about, you know, masking over it, pushing on through. ⁓ yeah, people are really questioning how they look after their health at that time in life. Yeah, and all although I can't relate to menopause, I I can certainly rel relate to the relief, ⁓ especially at night, that ⁓ that a glass of wine would bring. And I would always tell myself, Well, this is gonna help me sleep. And if I have two, then I'll just sleep long or if I have three, then I I might sleep through the night. And you know, obviously that was not the case. I would I would always wake up at, you know, any any hour, multiple hours of the night. So ⁓ yeah, that's that's really interesting. And ⁓ that that actually makes symptoms worse. ⁓ completely. And the hard one about sleep is it can take a little while to fix itself. I don't know what your experience was of that, but if you are using alcohol to knock yourself out at night, as many people get into the habit of, when you take that away, you might go through this adjustment phase of not being able to get to sleep and then maybe still waking in the night, which again for some people can seem evidence. that ⁓ this sobriety stuff is rubbish. This isn't making me feel better. Look how much I'm struggling. But you know, I promise, in the long term, as I'm sure you found, Scott, you become a much better sleeper as a sober person. It just takes a while. Absolutely. And that's a good segue into the next topic that that you wanted to explore here was what changes in the first ninety days without alcohol? Sleep patterns for sure. Yeah. ⁓ I think you're on a bit of a roller coaster for those first ninety days. for some people, when they stop drinking, your anxiety can spike a little bit. ⁓ you're probably a bit stressed anyway, because you are juggling such this big thing, you're taking this big pattern, this big habit out of your life. And so initially you are you're maybe tired, you're grumpy. You're dealing with cravings. I like, I understand. I have so much empathy now when I look back on myself who kept trying to stop drinking for a couple of days and thinking this is awful. ⁓ so the beginning of your 90 days might be a bit of a rough ride. But the thing is that if you continue, you do see these improvements to. Your body, like to the way your organs are functioning, to your mental health, that anxiety does creep back down again. you're sleeping better, you're eating better. And when the with a 90-day ⁓ kind of period of time, you get enough time to practice some of these new habits that you've got to establish. Like if your Achilles heel is a Friday evening, well. Think how many times you can practice not drinking on a Friday. And it's that kind of practice and those routines and rhythms that you've got to you've got to work on and improve. ⁓ but I know when I got to 90 days, it really felt like so good. That was the longest period of time I'd ever done. And I just I felt like my My health was so much better. I was stronger, fitter, sleeping better, drinking more water. It was a really high moment in my life. Yeah, I wanted to mention dry drunk, you know, and I'm sure you've heard the term. And so I've heard this when people put down the drink and and think, Well, that's the answer. I just need to stop drinking or drugging or whatever it is I'm doing. I just need to stop that and I'll be okay. And then they're not. You know, because they're a dry drunk because You know, in the program we say, Well, you're not working a program. You know, you're just you're just ⁓ you quit drinking and you think that's the answer. So ⁓ and the program does again, the program doesn't have to be AA. It could be the sober school or or or something else. But I think the point is you have to do something because you know, life ⁓ can get even more chaotic when you stop drinking because you know, if if I'm not dealing with the underlying issues, they're still there. And then On top of that, I'm dealing with emotions, whereas in the past I would just drown the emotions with alcohol. And I'm dealing with life on life's terms rather than my terms, which is I'm gonna drink right through it and then forget about it until tomorrow and then and then continue that cycle again. You mentioned ⁓ the word calmness. And so yeah, I think I think like I said, in the first ninety days or even farther, it can like life can be chaotic and there's a lot of anxiety. How do you get to how do you get to calm? A life of because I think for me anyway, that was, you know, that's that's the whole point is I don't want chaos in my life. I want to be calm and peaceful. How do you get to that? Yeah. I think a little bit of the reaching the calmness for me has actually been an acceptance that life is 50-50. And what I mean by that is Ha about half the time it's gonna be great. You're in the positive 50 of life. And the other half the time, you're in the the less good, the negative 50. Cause a big part of my drinking was about trying to avoid the negative feelings. Any kind of negative feeling, actually. I just thought, no, ⁓ I don't want this. I'm gonna try and chase those good feelings. I'm gonna squash down anything unpleasant. I was actually so out of touch with my feelings. If you'd asked me to name my feelings, I could probably have just told you like a sad, bad, angry. ⁓ there's a feelings wheel that you can get online now, and it's I've got about a hundred feelings on. It's really amazing to look at if you aren't very good at naming your feelings. Yeah, for me, part of that calmness has come from recognizing. You know what? Actually, it's okay to have a bad day. I can manage a bad day. The world is not gonna end. Tomorrow might still be a good day. And I need this balance because I wouldn't know peace if I didn't know stress. And I wouldn't know joy if I didn't know sadness. Like I get to experience the whole of life. And that view, as I say, is so different to where I was when I was drinking. when I d I almost felt entitled to be happy all the time. But at the same time, I had this incredibly negative outlook on life. And I was always kind of watching for the things that were unfair, the things that were happening to me that shouldn't be happening. You know, to answer your question about the calmness, yeah, it's about keeping perspective, about knowing that actually a a feeling is just really a vibration in my body. It will pass, everything will pass. The good times and the bad times will pass. But also having tools to deal with them. And we've talked about communicating with other people, sharing stuff with other people. That's been a big, a big thing for me to learn. Because when I was growing up, the message I always received was you keep that stuff to yourself. Don't burden anyone with your problems. Just, you know, push that down, like distract yourself. Yeah. So I feel like I'm rambling on here. ⁓ I don't think there's one clear cut, easy way to get to that calmness. I I think you're right. But I love that you were use the word acceptance and you mentioned being human and emotions are are part of being human and we have to realize that okay, I'm now I'm feeling these emotions and awareness is a big thing. Okay, now what emotion am I am I am I feeling? And I think for me, one thing that I've learned is is the pause. You know, I don't have to act or react, I should say, on every emotion. You know, just being aware of, okay, I'm having this emotion now. Maybe it's anger, you know, maybe it's sadness. I don't have to do anything. I just have to realize that that's you know, naming it like you said, that's ⁓ that's that's a good start. And ⁓ acceptance, ⁓ we have in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous this acceptance passage is it's actually from one of the stories in the back of the book and it, you know, talks it basically, you know, it says, ⁓ and acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. If I'm if I'm disturbed, it is because I find some person placing or situation, some fact of life unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person placing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. You know, and and so basically that's like that's like saying Yes, there are outside issues going on, but I it doesn't have to affect my insides. Yeah, I love that. Yes, and I think just also in knowing that you do have a choice in how you respond to things. So you have your circumstances, the things that are happening that perhaps aren't within your control, but the things you can control are are how you respond to it. And you know, I don't always get it right first time, but nowadays I do try and think, okay, well, how can I control the controllables? And a lot of that is to do with my mindset, how I view things. And one of the things I am you know pretty dedicated to is a daily gratitude practice. Because like I said, I had such a negative outlook on life before. And I know gratitude's seen as a bit cheesy, but you know what? It really does help you choose things to be grateful for, especially when life isn't going the way you want it to. I love the daily ⁓ gratitude thing. Staying positive is very important. And you know, they say that ⁓ and w well for me, doing the gratitude list in the morning, it's it's absolutely great way to stay positive to start my day off on a positive note and it makes such a huge difference. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. You can put your brain to work on finding things to complain about or things to be positive. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So let's go back to talking about the sober school. If if there's women out there that are looking for help, maybe that you know that ⁓ that want to consider stop drinking or or whatever. What is can you tell a little bit more about ⁓ the sober school and what what you would what you would offer them. So at the sober school, I have a range of ⁓ different things. I have you know plenty of free resources if someone is looking for a a pep talk or a guide or just wants to watch some of my videos. I must have done ⁓ blog videos on every topic under the sun. ⁓ so that's all at thesoberschool dot com. But Yeah, really the the main work I do is I I run this ⁓ group program and we run it in cohorts like a a proper school with a start date and an end date and I bring together a group of women who are all saying, you know what, for this period of time, it's a six-week program, I really want to focus on not drinking. So they come in with that mindset and Throughout the course, they get a daily video from me with a s like a small teaching, a small something to do. And they have a little bit of homework that normally involves posting on our community or on our app, like sharing something. So I'm giving people that work to do on themselves. And then we also have Zoom calls and places to connect and chat so people can build up that community and start building up their sober friends. 'Cause most of these women are like me in that for whatever reason they don't want to venture outside the home to talk about this. They want to do something online. But my goal with the course is to not only give them the really practical stuff, like how to deal with a craving when you just you just want to drink and you can't stop thinking about it. So we talk about that stuff, but also it's the mindset work, the gratitude, the You know, this becoming more aware of actually why you were drinking and whether alcohol really fixed those things. Because when we get into those conversations, it's actually astounding what a bad job alcohol does of fixing our so-called problems. But you can't see that in the moment. So there's a a lot of that and the the course is really based on cognitive behavioral therapy and coaching techniques. just very much with the goal of helping someone come to their own conclusion about what they want to do going forward. I I also have a sort of support system beyond that for people who want to keep going. ⁓ I always say like my goal is to show people that alcohol-free living can just be the best decision you've ever made. Because I was so fearful. I really thought that I was stepping into this life of deprivation and misery. And the this is gonna be my punishment for not being a normal drinker. And my life doesn't feel like that now. And I I would just like more people to know that. Yeah, I think I think ⁓ for me for sure, and I think a lot of other people think, well, what's my life gonna be like if I can't if I'm not drinking? You know, because everything so much is surrounded by alcohol and how am I gonna go out with my friends when they're drinking and I'm not drinking? And one of the sayings that I love is what other people think of me is none of my business. You know, so if I if I go out, I shouldn't be concerned about what they're thinking of me. I'm you know, I have to be looking out for myself. So do you think ⁓ do you at the Sober School encourage total abstinence or is it more case by case? It is total ab abstinence. I know there are other programs out there now that are sort of saying, Hey, you know, join this program and then stop drinking whenever you like or just drink less. That I think there's a huge market for people who just want to drink less, of course. But in my experience, I cannot coach someone who is still using alcohol. ⁓ they're just not as available for for change. So no, but obviously if I'm working with someone and they're struggling and they are still drinking, you know, I'm I'm absolutely going to help them. But the goal is to come to the sober school, stop drinking and stack up those days so that you can get past the difficult beginning bit and onto the good stuff. Because for example, I frequently work with women who stop drinking on a Monday and then they start drinking again on a Thursday. So every week they just go through that cycle. They can stop for a very short time, but they're just clinging on. They are the dry drunk for a few days. And then they drink all weekend. And so they're not really doing any of the the deeper stuff that we've talked about to actually address why they drink. And I think that comes with time. So I sometimes I feel like I'm dancing on the head of a pin because I'm trying not to say anything that's overwhelming for people. And yet I also know that truly you want to stack those days together because that's when you can do the work that makes us all feel better and more doable. But in the beginning you don't want to hear that. You know, ⁓ one of the things we say in in in Alcoholics Anonymous is if you're questioning whether or not you're alc you're an alcoholic, you might be an alcoholic. So d do you do you find that I'm sure you don't say that to people at the sober school, but do you find that same thing? Like if you're coming to me at the sober school for help, you think you might have an issue with alcohol, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I've that I think I've I've got an article on my website that's called like ⁓ 31 signs you might have a problem with alcohol. And yeah, I don't use the word alcoholic because I've noticed that seems to scare the women I work with. They they do not want to be labeled with that. But yeah, like the last point on those kind of articles is always if you find yourself reading an article like this, that probably tells you everything you need to know. Because people who have great relationships with alcohol are not Googling for help in the middle of the night. They're not reading stuff like this. this is your sign. Yeah. So we're just about out of time. we've covered a lot of ground here. Is there anything that we missed that you'd like to talk about before we ⁓ before we close? I think we've covered so much. Yeah, I I think you the final thing I would say is just that you can stop drinking without it feeling like a death sentence. I really thought I was saying goodbye to all the fun, all the sparkle, all the good times. Because I've been such a regular drinker that all those positive times were associated with alcohol for me. So it's very hard to imagine changing. And yeah, there's just one message I could pass on to people. It's that you're actually going to build a better life without alcohol. ⁓ you you might not believe me right now, but it's true. And yeah, if if you're questioning whether you should stop drinking, then yes, at the very least, why not stop for a good long chunk of time and see? you might just be amazed what happens. Don't leave before the miracle happens. Yeah. Or or or as we say, I came for my drinking and I stayed for my thinking. Which you know, we have all these Yeah, we have all these corny sayings, but they are so true. Like I don't go to meetings anymore because I'm afraid I'm gonna drink today. I go because it helps me with my thinking, with my thought process, with with creating new thought patterns, and that's what really keeps me sober for today. I love that. Kate, thank you so much. This has been an amazing conversation and thank you for what you do with the sober school. You help thousands of women and it's such a great ⁓ s ⁓ alternative to to alcoholics anonymous to to any other sober program. ⁓ so thank you for what you do. No, thank you. Thank you so much for for letting me share about it. And there you have it my conversation with Kate B from the Sober School. If you're interested in contacting Kate about the Sober School, you can go to her website, thesoberschool.com, or you could send her an email at support at the soberschool.com. And so that's it for today's episode of Sober Readings. I really hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. If you'd like to drop a dollar in the virtual donation basket for today's readings, just go to my website, soberreadings.com, and click the donate button. So again, thank you so much for listening today. Stay sober, keep reading, and I'll catch you in the next episode. Until then, take care of yourselves and each other. And remember, just for today, don't drink, go to a meeting, and keep coming back. Have a great day. And as my friend Larry says, best day ever.