Clare Pooley: How I Inspired Millions to get Sober through 'The Sober Diaries'
Sober Awkward
Victoria Vanstone
4.8 • 533 Ratings
🗓️ 14 December 2025
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In today's episode, Hame sits down with the wonderful Clare Pooley. The globally celebrated author who's blog and subsequent book 'The Sober Diaries' has been been named as THE book that helped so many of our listeners get sober so it felt only right to invite her on!
This fascinating conversation ranges from how she labelled and overcame her 'wine witch' (and the surprising role that Game of Thrones played in it!), the 'Best Mum Cup' moment that would mark her final alcoholic drink, why she has never identified with the term 'alcoholic', how her sobriety prepared her for the challenges of being diagnosed with breast cancer and the rules she encourages on any teenager asking about how to drink alcohol.
As well as being a fountain of knowledge, Clare was exactly as kind, funny and relatable as you might expect.
We hope that this episode can inspire one more person to reconsider their relationship with alcohol to add to the long list!
💛 Resources & Links
Clare's website:
Clare's Instagram:
👉@clare_pooley
📘 Victoria’s memoir – A Thousand Wasted Sundays
A brutally honest and hilarious look at motherhood, anxiety, and ditching the booze.
🎧 Listen to more Sober Awkward episodes
🫖 Join The Cuppa Community
Our private, supportive online space for sober folk
📘 Get the Sober Awkward Guide
Our downloadable toolkit for ditching booze the awkward way.
📱 Follow us for daily sober fun:
Instagram: @soberawkward
TikTok: @soberawkward
Facebook: Sober Awkward Community for Women
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Claire Pooley and this is Sober Awkward. |
| 0:03.0 | The cattle's boiled, Vic. |
| 0:04.6 | Great, perfect timing. Just a dash of milk for me, please, mate. |
| 0:10.4 | Here you go. Should we get started then? |
| 0:18.2 | Have you ever woken up on a Sunday morning and said, I'm never drinking again, |
| 0:22.3 | and then found yourself waving 50 bucks at a barman by happy hour? |
| 0:26.0 | Are you wondering why everyone else can stop at one while you head to a dodgy after party with a weird bloke called Disco Dave? |
| 0:32.5 | If so, it might be time to take a deeper look at your relationship with your reliable social crutch, |
| 0:38.0 | alcohol. |
| 0:39.2 | On each episode, we'll investigate our own dysfunctional dealings with booze and find out if |
| 0:44.0 | it's possible to stop this deeply ingrained habit before things get too messy. |
| 0:48.4 | Yep, we're going to open up a shame shed of humiliating drinking stories to help you |
| 0:52.9 | understand why waking up from a booze |
| 0:54.6 | coma each weekend with a kebab sticking out of your top pocket might actually be negatively impacting |
| 0:59.5 | your health. Hamish and I are here to delve into what it's like being sober, an unwanted |
| 1:05.3 | warts and all look into why giving up those cheeky pints or putting down those mummy wines |
| 1:10.0 | will make you feel happier, |
| 1:12.0 | help your anxiety and mental health, and turn you into the most sparkly, authentic version of you. |
| 1:17.3 | Won't that mean I become boring, though, Vic? |
| 1:19.2 | Well, Hamish, we'll just have to wait and see. |
| 1:21.8 | I'm Victoria Vanstone. |
| 1:23.5 | I'm Hamish Adams Cairns. |
... |
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