When Janet Grand swapped her hectic London life for Cape Town, little did she know that her own journey to sobriety would inspire the birth of Tribe Sober, a fabulous sober community, supporting individuals to feel less alone as they embark on their mission to drink less alcohol. Janet talks about the power of connection as a motivating force to help people recover from addiction and how a community of like minded individuals sharing the common goal of beating the booze can take away the shame and help you to discover a life in which you thrive. We also discuss the modern recovery movement, and the options now available. Tribe Sober is at the forefront of this movement, proving that even in the most remote corners of the world, support is within reach. Join us as we celebrate not just the resilience of those choosing sobriety, but also the happiness found in a life free from alcohol's grasp.
LEARN MORE ABOUT TRIBE SOBER
Web: https://www.tribesober.com
Membership: https://www.tribesober.com/join-our-tribe/
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/tribesober/
MEG & BELLA
Megan Webb: https://glassfulfilled.com.au
Instagram: @glassfulfilled
Isabella Ferguson: https://isabellaferguson.com.au
Instagram: @alcoholandstresswithisabella
Instagram: @kidsandalcohol
When Janet Grand swapped her hectic London life for Cape Town, little did she know that her own journey to sobriety would inspire the birth of Tribe Sober, a fabulous sober community, supporting individuals to feel less alone as they embark on their mission to drink less alcohol. Janet talks about the power of connection as a motivating force to help people recover from addiction and how a community of like minded individuals sharing the common goal of beating the booze can take away the shame and help you to discover a life in which you thrive. We also discuss the modern recovery movement, and the options now available. Tribe Sober is at the forefront of this movement, proving that even in the most remote corners of the world, support is within reach. Join us as we celebrate not just the resilience of those choosing sobriety, but also the happiness found in a life free from alcohol's grasp.
LEARN MORE ABOUT TRIBE SOBER
Web: https://www.tribesober.com
Membership: https://www.tribesober.com/join-our-tribe/
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/tribesober/
MEG & BELLA
Megan Webb: https://glassfulfilled.com.au
Instagram: @glassfulfilled
Isabella Ferguson: https://isabellaferguson.com.au
Instagram: @alcoholandstresswithisabella
Instagram: @kidsandalcohol
Hello, today we've got such a great episode. I'm talking to Janet Grand, the founder of Tribe Soba. Janet is such an inspiring and motivating woman. You're going to love this conversation. We're really talking about the power of connection and finding your tribe, your people, to help motivate you to reach your alcohol goals. Are you trying to drink less alcohol but need some extra motivation? Maybe you've tried moderation but you keep waking up disappointed and hungover.
Speaker 2:Are you curious about Soba Life? Or maybe you're like us, have been alcohol free for a while and are in it for the long haul. Well, you're in the right place.
Speaker 1:I'm Meg and I'm Bella, and our Not Drinking Today podcast is an invaluable resource to keep you motivated and on track today and beyond.
Speaker 2:This naked mind. Certified coaches who live in Sydney and love our alcohol free life.
Speaker 1:And, last but not least, if you enjoy the content of our podcast, please rate, review, subscribe and share it.
Speaker 2:It really is integral to getting the podcast out to those that might need it. So grab a cuppa and let's get started.
Speaker 1:Today I would like to extend a huge warm welcome to Janet Grand, founder of the Tribe Soba Community and podcast. Janet, where are you based?
Speaker 3:Well, that's the story in itself. I'm a London girl, I'm English, as you can probably tell from my accent but 22 years ago my husband and I decided to go to Cape Town on holiday and we just fell in love with Cape Town, basically, and we were both at a stage in our careers where we could, you know, take a break or retire early or whatever. So, so we did, and we moved here. We've been happy ever since.
Speaker 1:I have it's on my bucket list. Well, hopefully well. Before I have to even start really thinking about my bucket list, I've heard it is so beautiful.
Speaker 3:Well, it's a bit like Sydney.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I've heard. Yeah, interesting. Now, before we get into your personal story around alcohol, would you just mind letting my listeners know at the outset how many members form part of your tribe community at the moment and just what does it do in a nutshell?
Speaker 3:OK, well, to explain what it is and what it does, I always think that the community is at the heart of tribes over. I mean, we do, we do master classes, we do coaching, we do challenges, but really it's about community and that's why we call ourselves a tribe, because we believe connection is the opposite of addiction. And we have 400 members and we actually cap it at 400 because we're not a huge team. I mean this myself and my colleague, sue, who is about the same age as me. You know somebody that retired and got too into drinking, so she gave up with a, actually interestingly, and then she'd heard about tribes over, so she came and asked me if she could help. So she's almost my partner now. So together we both work seven days a week on this. I mean it's crazy because we could both be sitting here with our feet up, but we just love what we do and we love helping people and I feel it's a privilege to work in this space. So, yeah, 400 members, we cap it because Sue and I want to give individual attention, we want to tailor people's journey for them. You know, unlike a, it's not about 12 steps. We take people on an individual journey. So, yeah, I mean we. When people join tribes over, the first thing what Sue will do is she'll have a one to one with them and find out their story, their background, and she'll advise them how to use our resources and how to get the the most out of their membership.
Speaker 3:And we have, we like to take people on a journey, really, and we want to not only help them quit drinking but we want them to learn to thrive in their sobriety, because there's no good being sober if you're miserable, is it? You know? I mean we want people to really enjoy their old, cold, free life and get the most out of it. So we help them with the habit change bit. That's the first three or four months for most people. And then we offer we've teamed up with some practitioners in the yoga space, the meditation space, art therapy, happy brain coaching, life coaching. We've got all these people, and so our men, and hit the therapy as well. It's quite popular.
Speaker 3:So we we take it's about quitting and then it's about healing, you know, healing the body and the mind. And then it's about finding out who you are and what you really want to do with the rest of your life, and that's where the life coaching comes in, and then what's really beautiful is that we have a pay it forward bit, and obviously not everybody wants to do this. A lot of people get sober with us and they say thank you very much. I'm off now and that's, that's fine. But some people there's we're almost like a family, you know. They're so hooked on the the community thing that they want to stick around and they want to help new people, you know. So they kind of buddy up with new beers and they tell their story or they come on the podcast. So out of our 400 members, I would say about 100 of them are sober, but they love being in the space and sharing their journey with other people gosh, janet, sign me up.
Speaker 3:It's not. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:Absolutely amazing and I can hear the passion in your voice. I can hear how you've really looked at it from a 360 perspective. It's not just about quitting and, yes, you're right, like you do end up potentially shaking the habit. But then the next questions are often all those deep, complex questions about who do I want to be without it? Who am I? What, what's my potential? That had been constrained with all that decades of drinking. That's a really important part of the recovery and it's exciting.
Speaker 3:It's exciting part of the whole experience because connection, connection is the opposite of addiction. But I'm not just talking about connecting with other people, you have to connect with yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Because we lose who we are when we drink too much. We lose touch with who we are, what we want.
Speaker 1:I'd really love to hear about your story and I know that you you've been sober for quite some time, but I'd I'd love and I know our listeners would love to know when and how did you notice that alcohol was no longer serving you anymore.
Speaker 3:Well, it took me a long, long time. I mean I didn't really go in for regrets, but if I had one regret in life it would be that I didn't realize that I had this problem earlier. But I always divide my story into three wake up calls, and the first two wake up calls I completely ignored. The third one, which came quite late in life, I finally listened to. So my first wake up call came at the tender age of 25.
Speaker 3:When we were, I lived in a flat in London with some other women at that point and we were hosting a party and it was quite a nice party with lots of booze, obviously, and about I don't know. At some point during the evening I announced that I was going to have a bath, which I always used to have a bath before I went to bed. So I was already in automatic pilot, I was in a blackout, basically. I can't remember any of this. So what happened is I went into the bathroom, locked the door because you know there were other people in the apartment and then I got in the bath and I promptly passed out and under the water.
Speaker 3:So one of my flatmates I'm goodness changed my life, saved my life. She was going to bed and she thought, oh, janet's been in there a while. So she started hammering on the door and she got no response. So she called 999 and the firemen came and the medics came and they had to break the door down and resuscitate me and caught me off to hospital. You know, you had your hospital store, I've got mine too.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And it was hectic. And the morning after, I remember they sent a psychiatrist to my bedside and she said why did you try and kill yourself last night? I said I didn't know, I was enjoying myself. So that was hectic. But you know what we did? Rather than me being sensible and thinking, oh you know why did I drink like that? Maybe I should talk to someone. We just turned it into a story and people said oh, did you hear about Janet and her path? What an idiot. We all laughed our heads off.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's mad. So that was when I got called number one. And then, you know, my life developed. I got married at 30 to another drinker.
Speaker 3:So, you know, we had that lifestyle, we both had good jobs, but we'd come home We'd have a shot of Jack Daniels bottle of wine, hectic dinner parties at the weekend where our other friends drinkers of course, we'd all be there till three o'clock in the morning, blah, blah, blah drinking, and that was our lifestyle and it was normalized. We didn't think, you know, we were functioning alcoholics, which of course we were. So that just carried on. And you know, I had my son. I managed to stop drinking for the nine months, but after that it was banging to the mommy juice community and of course, you know, I had my job. I had to do the working mom thing that you know well. So the mommy juice helped and my drinking, like many women. It went from social drinking to self-medication as I'll go into my 40s and 50s. Second wake up, call the age of 55. When I got breast cancer I had no idea there was any link between breast cancer and alcohol, never occurred to me.
Speaker 3:None of the doctors or oncologists or anybody mentioned that, because I did ask people. I mean it was quite serious. I had a mastectomy, I had a year of chemotherapy but I was drinking throughout most of that. I did ask my oncologist when he signed me off as much as they can. I said do I need to change the way I eat? Should I eat organic? Should I give up alcohol? Because I think if he said to me, stop drinking all these things more likely to come back, which is the truth, if he said that I'm sure I would have quit because I was petrified. But he said no, he said you've been through a hell of a year. He said now you've got to make the most of your life and enjoy yourself. There's nothing wrong with a glass of wine and now and again which of course my brain interpreted right and back to my bottle and I Bottle and I.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So that carried on and eventually my final wake-up call that seemed to make all the difference was a walking, talking blackout at the age of 63. I mean, my blackouts were getting worse. I had those. There used to be those kind of blurry at the end of the evening Couldn't quite remember everything, blackouts but they got more serious and this blackout that frightened me was like a six hour blackout. But what was frightening was I was walking, I was talking, yeah.
Speaker 3:And my friend said to me, but you seemed OK, you weren't even slurring your words, you weren't stumbling. And at that point I thought I know I'm damaging my body, because by that time the info was in the public domain about cancer, breast cancer, and I thought but I'm damaging my brain as well here, because when I googled it those kind of blackouts. It means that you've, but your brain is so soaked in alcohol that you can't even make memories in the first.
Speaker 1:Yes, I've Googled, that too.
Speaker 3:Right, is that? So I thought that's it, I'm done. So I said to my husband Monday morning that's it, I'm done with alcohol. And he said well, to be fair to you, you've never said that before. You've always said I'm going to cut down, I'm going to drink less, and then, of course, it hasn't lasted. So I said that I'm going to quit drinking. And I did.
Speaker 1:What? What age were you when you quit drinking? 63. So 63. And you've been sober for eight.
Speaker 3:You're doing the best, aren't you?
Speaker 1:Well, I just have to say I have to put it out there you are the youngest looking 70, 71, that I have ever seen. So, gosh, it's amazing.
Speaker 3:I think I would look quite different if I'd carried on like that, and I'm not even sure I would be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I was destroying myself Back sober. We have a lot of mature ladies. You know, there's only about three of us in our 70s, but a lot of ladies in their 60s and they all attracted to us because that is that older demographic. There's a lot of younger people doing this now, which is great. On Instagram there's so many sober influencers. But, as one lady said to me, well, I looked at the other groups and but she said, but most of them had stopped drinking before I'd even really got into my drinking. So you have to your people, you have to find the right community. It's not just about any old community. You have to find your people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, now did you get sober.
Speaker 3:How do you stay?
Speaker 1:sober.
Speaker 3:How did I get sober Right? Well, obviously I trotted off to AA, because what else do you do? I didn't know there was anything. Well, there wasn't eight years ago, really, that's right, not that I heard of. So I went to AA and I went to a few meetings but I never found my people because, frankly, they were. They all seem to be a bit further down the road than me.
Speaker 3:I mean, I was well on my way, but I'd be listening to these stories about, you know, how people had lost their homes, lost their families, lost their jobs, how they were drinking whiskey when they woke up and I thought, well, I'm not that bad, so it was. It was a bit kind of counterproductive. So I just couldn't gel with that. And also, when they told me that I was powerless I mean, I'm a bit of a woman's lip person from way back in the 70s I thought I'm powerless, yeah, that's right. They wanted me to label myself an alcoholic every time I went and I found that very kind of shaming. No, it's not for me. So I carried on looking around and eventually I found a one day workshop in London, which is where I'm from. So I went back to London on a trip and I thought well, let me check out this thing. And it was. It was nothing special, but it really did the trick. It was run by Club Soda.
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, you have.
Speaker 3:I have, indeed they're very big on the alcohol free drink scene at the moment, rather than the running workshops. But I went to this workshop and it was run by a nurse, quite interesting. She'd worked on kind of end stage liver wards, so she's in the very. So she Told us all about the health risks, which I'm really frightened because I had no idea quite how bad it was. So I listened to all that and then she had some habit change tips, which were also helpful. But the secret source for me was that, unlike the crowd, I found people like me. There were women with good jobs, nice families downing a bottle of wine, and I found my people. So we formed a little WhatsApp group, stayed in touch, and that did it for me. That's all I needed.
Speaker 1:Amazing. So you really were able to piece it all together and a large important part of that was your community. That was self made and found and you kind of grabbed it and ran with it.
Speaker 3:And we checked in with each other every single morning and we formed such a deep bond that I still talk to those people today. But interestingly with what you're doing is I was now that I know so much more and I look back on my first year of sobriety. Those first few months I was really white knuckling it.
Speaker 3:I was using willpower. And then Annie's book came out and I was already sober but I thought, well, let's have a look at this. And it changed everything for me. Because after reading that book I thought, oh, I've got to work on these limiting beliefs and the subconscious. And I hadn't known about any of that, you know, because the workshop I'd gone to they didn't touch on that side of things. So that was a real game changer. And then I found it a lot easier. I didn't have to white knuckle it anymore, can I?
Speaker 1:ask you, janet, do you have particular ideas around what works for you in just sort of keeping I like to call it the sober car on the road or what might be a sober practice that are just kind of the important bits or touchstones in your day or week that you know you just need to do just to keep yourself in that frame of mind of not drinking.
Speaker 3:A lot better at living in the moment. Yeah, I mean you have to. As you get older, you don't know how many moments are left. And I mean I'm so blessed to be living here in Cape Town and doing this work I love, so I literally find myself kind of looking forward to the next stage of the day. You know especially the work that I do. It's so interesting. So I woke up this morning having my coffee and I thought, oh, I'm talking to Isabella first thing, that'll be fun, yeah. And then I know that I've got to send out our member newsletter this morning, the weekly newsletter, so I'll be working on that. And then I've got something else. And then this afternoon I'll be walking for an hour by the sea, you know, listening to either music or podcasts and then just kind of Chilling out, watching TV with my husband and my chihuahua.
Speaker 1:So it's a real love of your day and of life.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, and I think there's something in that, because when I was younger, I was always Looking ahead. You know, I wanted a promotion, I wanted a bigger house, so I was looking forward to my next holiday. I've got on holiday, drink far too much on holiday, come back feeling wrecked and then I do me the next holiday and that would all met. So I was always living in the future, yeah, so I don't do that anymore. So, so that really helps me. But I mean that because I'm talking to people all day long about sobriety. Obviously, you know it's sinking in.
Speaker 1:No, I know and I sort of reminds me of what you said a little bit earlier that you know people love to pay it forward. So people that have been able to Break free understand the depth of it and how it felt so impossible to achieve. Then suddenly, and I do think that element of paying it forward really Greatly enriches your own life and meaning and it kind of helps you stay also on track and I would Sorry, no, no, no, you go, janet every time I Meet, you know we have new members and they're on the groups and I read the chats every morning and I see, I mean inevitably we have people really struggling.
Speaker 3:You know, they try the fallout, they try and for all the help that we give them, that really, really struggling and I think, oh, it's so hard. I mean there's no way. I would want to go through all that again. It just reminds you every single day that those first few months, you know, and those, I think really for me the first six months, because I haven't read Annie's book really until then we're really hard and there's no way I'm going through that again, especially when you come out the other side and you discover how different life is.
Speaker 1:Yes, the sleep, the energy, you know the, the endless bits and pieces. In hindsight, reflecting on all of this, have you any sort of thoughts around what might have made you personally quite susceptible for developing a problematic drinking relationship?
Speaker 3:Yeah, hindsight is a wonderful thing and I think my Predisposition towards this because my parents didn't drink, you know. I mean they would. If it was a birthday or something, They'd have a bottle of wine and it would be a great occasion.
Speaker 3:So I can't blame a friend of things, but what happened in my case is I'm an introvert basically, and when I was drinking I didn't know it was an introvert. I thought it was a party animal. Talk about getting to know yourself. And I read this brilliant book by a lady called Susan Kane. It's called quiet and he talks about the power of introverts. It's very good for your self-esteem if you are an introvert and she explains that the world is divided about 50-50 into introverts and extroverts.
Speaker 3:But because society favors extroverts so much, you know it's Because you're a work, making presentations, you're taking out clients and then in your social life, you know, you're telling the funny stories. So we all subconsciously even want to be that person. And If we're not naturally that person, then we tend, we often use alcohol to help us be that person. And so many of our community are introverts and we're always talking about how we've. You know we actually love that quiet time.
Speaker 3:Now, you know we enjoy our own company and we do things you know, alone or with small groups, and we don't bother with big. I mean I was invited to a 50th the other day of. I knew there would be a lot of my old drinking buddies there and I knew exactly what it would be like. And it was a long way away, so I couldn't have an escape plan and I thought I'm just not going, so I don't. Brilliant, I don't want to do anymore, whereas in the old days, of course, I would have gone and I would have got trashed and felt rubbish the next day and I'm gonna look up that book and recommend it immediately to so many people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, very good, and we should channel our introvert.
Speaker 1:I agree, yeah, and I think that's that's me as well, and I and it was probably Very obvious to most people I probably had always have been a one-on-one conversationalist. You know, I love being invited to things, but I also love it when they cancel the last minute so I get to stay home, so I get to be included, but then, you know, I don't have to actually go out and do the work.
Speaker 3:And also to understand, if we do go to these things, you know and and do the best that we can yeah Then we need time alone afterwards to recharge, because that's we can do the social thing. You know, I still go and make presentations to groups and show you doing your corporate that's right, and I love that. I love that but yeah, yeah, but it can't be every day.
Speaker 1:No, and it's interesting just talking about this because I think a lot of introverts who Do go out. They get the energy going and face their fears and you kind of push through a large event. You might have had too much to drink. Then you often come home and drink alone to self-serve and wind down and out of that high anxious state that's quite common with a preloading and you drink sensibly so that nobody would ever dream you had a problem.
Speaker 3:And then you get home down another bottle. It's vicious.
Speaker 1:It's a vicious cycle. I think introverts need to stand up and unite. Yeah, yeah so. Tell me, because I'd love to know about it. Tribe sober is such a successful and wonderful business. It's a really good option for people out there that want to get sober, stay sober and thrive. How was it created? How did it come about?
Speaker 3:Well, that's also quite an interesting story because we talk in Tribe sober about the early sobriety blues. So that's all about the dopamine. If we've been relying on alcohol to make us happy on this chemical high for years, when we stop, then everything gets a bit flat. Yeah, early sobriety is okay because your brain has registered oh, we've got a project here, we like projects, so that's all right for a while. And then the brain thinks, all right, she's sober now. What's happening next? And I didn't have anything next.
Speaker 3:So I got and I had all this time on my hands because, of course, my drinking buddies dumped me for being ridiculous. I don't know what to do with myself. So I had too much time on my hands and I was retired and I just got depressed, basically, and I thought what have I done here? You know, I've really painted myself into a corner because my husband kept saying how proud he was of me this is second husband, by the way, not the first one. That was a boozer like me. So I felt trapped really. Yes, I knew that I mustn't start drinking again. So I just literally sat there and I call it the void because I actually think it's an important part of the journey.
Speaker 3:So I sat there with my void being depressed for, I would say, a couple of months, and then I started to get ideas, because I've learned now that it's actually called liminal space, that thing, and that's when your creativity gets sparked, in that space finally. But you have to be patient. I certainly wasn't expecting it, but I was keeping going with all my exercise and I remember walking by the one day and I thought what about? Because I've been an HR director for decades and I've got 25 years of experience of training and development. So I started to have this idea what about if I created a workshop like the one in London? Only it could be a bit different, because I am a qualified trainer rather than this lady was a qualified nurse, you know. So she knew all that stuff, but she didn't understand that in a workshop you need to get people involved, and participation you can't just talk at them.
Speaker 2:For a day.
Speaker 3:So I designed a workshop and I facilitated it. And then I did a Facebook ad and booked a hotel room and had no idea if I was going to sell any tickets. But it was sold out really quickly. And then lovely people turned up, you know, and I didn't know what kind of people would turn up. I thought might be the AA crowd, but it was lawyers, it was. We had a tube executive there, we had an artist, that really interesting and lovely people, mostly female, but I think we had one or two guys.
Speaker 3:So I started to run these things like every other month in Cape Town, then I started doing them in Joberg, then I started doing them in London, and then people would say to me you know, we love your stuff and we want more. Where can we get more? And I had a very basic website in those days. They said we want more content and we also want to stay connected with each other. So I got to the stage where I offered every workshop. I would just set up a little group for them for that workshop. But then I thought, well, maybe now that I've run quite a few workshops we could get a bigger community going. So I launched a membership and that's how the membership started, because people had asked me for something. So now you know, they get the content, they get the connection, they talk to each other, and that was back in 2017, I started the membership.
Speaker 1:Oh God, how absolutely lovely. And so it's just really taken up off from there because it's all around the world. You've got members now In Australia.
Speaker 3:We've got an Australian WhatsApp group and they're great. They chat all the time and, in fact, we have what we call our Zoom Cafe every Saturday and I run that and it's 430 South African time, which is okay for the Americans because they're just getting up, and it's okay for South Africans and UK people, but the Aussies not so much. So what they do is they have their own Zoom Cafe. So one of the members that's you know long. She's two years sober now and she's great, so she hosts the Australian Zoom Cafe. So, yeah, we do have people from all over the world, which is lovely.
Speaker 1:I would just love to know what are you most proud of about this wonderful community that you've created?
Speaker 3:the community actually, and it has to be the community, and I'm very proud of the podcast. Actually that's a podcast to yourself. You know that it's quite a task to get out a weekly podcast. I'm casting for three and a half years now and I'm on episode 196 or something. But I love it because I've met so many amazing people like you, like yourself and your friend Catherine you know, she's lovely to do and we're gonna do a talk together, aren't we on workplace?
Speaker 1:On workplace drinking culture. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I think podcasting and the community.
Speaker 1:Oh, it is so good. Your podcasts are fabulous. You've got some great guests. I was having a listen the other day and you're right, it is a passion project, you know, but you do get to meet, from all corners of the world, people that are incredible, that have just all you've been united by this desire and need to get rid of alcohol from their lives. It's just amazing.
Speaker 3:I'm always learning. I'm learning so much and I think that really, you know, keeps my dopamine fired, and I think I mentioned it yesterday that I've interviewed the author of Dopamine Nation. So obviously, before I interview someone like that, I read their books, you know, and these might be books I wouldn't pick up normally. So you know I read the books, prepare the questions, and I just learn so much from people like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's everything. It's habit change, neuroscience, it's all about nutrition, and then you know about thriving, how to be your best self. What are you sort of noticing at the moment in terms of how everybody is there, a super movement? Do you think there's a greater willingness to really let go and change the grip that alcohol has on our everyday lives? You know, do you ever see a bit of a change, particularly from the younger generation?
Speaker 3:Absolutely definitely. Yes, I mean, eight years ago, when I quit, there weren't even any alcohol-free drinks and AA was the only gig in town. So things have changed dramatically and there is a modern recovery movement. So all you need to do really is Google sobriety groups. They'll all come up, that's right.
Speaker 3:And lots of them have monthly membership, like we do. So I always say to people just try a few. So yes, there's the modern recovery movement, all the alcohol-free drinks, I mean all the big brawlers. They know that things are changing and they're pouring millions into researching and developing alcohol-free drinks. So, yes, there definitely is. And young people a while ago I read that 25% of young people in the UK don't drink and the other day I read that it was a third. You know, but I also hear that you know, at university the freshers week is still being sponsored by big alcohol and they're downing their shots. And you even read about tragedies. You know these students that have died through overdrinking and just that pressure. So there's definitely still a lot going on. But there's a movement as well, and I think Ruby Warrington's book, sobecurious, was a perfect example oh, so good.
Speaker 1:What would you say to somebody that is caught in moderating? They're failing at it, they're wanting to give up and they're feeling really stuck at this moment.
Speaker 3:It's shame really that, I think, keeps you trapped, because I remember I mean you and myself, I'm sure externally we look like successful women, you know, but in our hearts we knew we had this big problem and I used to say to myself but I've got myself into this mess and I'm gonna get myself out of this mess and nobody need to know about this, but it's impossible. And when we have new members, when we welcome them and we have our Zoom cafe and they're all sitting there on the screen and some of them are crying and it's quite a thing, and the new members always say, oh, I'm so relieved, I'm so glad it wasn't just me, and that's the. That relief is the overriding emotion. So I would say to the people in that place just start reaching out, start exploring. Memberships are out there and you can pay monthly. So just try this one for a month or two, try that one for a month or two and find your people, because they are there and you know there's millions of people going through this thing, billions.
Speaker 3:We need to find each other because, as I'm sure you found Isabella, if you tell your husband about, well, you don't need to tell him because he sees it, but he'll say to you well, just cut down a bit. Mine used to say when we were going out he'd say, just try and have one glass of wine tonight. And I would, I would genuinely try. But once the wine glasses down, of course you're up and running, so they say, and your drinking buddies, of course, will say don't be ridiculous. So there's nobody you can talk to honestly. And that's why you need people going through the same thing, people on the same path.
Speaker 1:Find your people, particularly in Australia where you know we have some. You know the remote towns, remote places where you are likely going to be one of the only non-drinkers around the table and it's really hard to beat that feeling of being left out, a bit odd or shamed, or that's one of the biggest fears. So if you can find your people outside of that, online, like somewhere like Tribe Soba, you're well on your way. Yeah, that's a fabulous.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then if you are in a remote town, that kind of thing, and you've got a social thing to look to, you know, in the offing, then you just jump on one of our groups and say, oh God, I've got this thing next week, how am I going to? How do I go? Gestions coming in and sometimes we get SOS messages, you know, because people are actually at an event and they're being pressured and they say what can I say? So we give them ideas.
Speaker 1:Janet, where can our listeners find you if they want to learn more about Tribe Soba?
Speaker 3:TribeSobacom, and what cast is called Tribe Soba?
Speaker 1:Fabulous. I cannot thank you enough for talking to me today. It's been an absolute delight just to hear everything that you were doing in the sober space. It sounds like a really awesome program to get into If you're looking for a community and you're just looking for a way out. Yeah.
Speaker 3:A way out and a way of learning how to be sober and happy.
Speaker 1:Sober and happy.
Speaker 3:It is possible.
Speaker 1:Look, I love, loved meeting you, Really really loved it. Thank you so much, Janet.
Speaker 3:You're a fellow.
Speaker 1:Ok If you don't already know in addition to our podcasting work, we are each sobriety coaches with our own separate businesses, helping people to drink less If you are a loved one and want to take a break from alcohol.
Speaker 2:We invite you to have a look at our individual websites. Mex is glassfulfilledcomau.
Speaker 1:And Bella's is Isabella Fergusoncomau. So take the next step that feels right for you.