Have You Swapped Booze for Scrolling? with TJ Power
Sober Awkward
Victoria Vanstone
4.8 • 535 Ratings
🗓️ 7 June 2026
⏱️ 58 minutes
🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Sober Awkward, Vic sits down with TJ Power, a well-known neuroscientist, author of the Sunday Times bestseller The DOSE Effect, and the founder of the DOSE Lab. He is a leading voice in demystifying brain chemistry, focusing on helping people manage digital burnout, phone addiction, and overstimulation in the modern world.
TJ shares his own story of changing his relationship with alcohol, including a powerful epiphany at a music festival that made him completely rethink what connection, fun and presence really mean. Together, they explore the surprising similarities between alcohol addiction and phone addiction, and why both are fuelled by the same dopamine-driven reward systems in the brain.
The conversation takes an unexpected turn when Vic has a rather uncomfortable realisation of her own. Eight years sober and feeling quite smug about no longer disappearing into bottles of wine, she suddenly discovers she’s been disappearing into something else instead… her phone.
In a moment that feels a bit like being caught snogging behind the bike sheds, Vic realises she may be neglecting her children in exactly the same way she used to neglect them with alcohol. Not physically absent, but mentally elsewhere. Half listening. Half scrolling. Forever saying, “Just one second, darling…”
It’s a surprisingly emotional moment as TJ explains that the dopamine hits from our phones aren’t a million miles away from the rewards we chase through alcohol, and Vic starts to wonder whether she’s simply swapped one distraction for another.
This episode isn’t about throwing your phone in the sea or moving to a cave. It’s about becoming curious about the habits that quietly shape our lives.
And make sure you listen right to the end, because Vic returns with a surprising update after attempting her own digital detox weekend.
A fascinating conversation that might just make you question your scrolling as much as your drinking.
Find TJ here - @tjpower
@doselab - Order the book now - https://a.co/d/0fghgGAc
💛 Resources & Links
📘 Victoria’s memoir – A Thousand Wasted Sundays
A brutally honest and hilarious look at motherhood, anxiety, and ditching the booze.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Right, the kettles boiled, perfect timing. I'll just make myself a quick cupper, take a deep breath and pretend I know exactly what I'm doing. |
| 0:11.4 | Right, let's get started. |
| 0:16.0 | Have you ever woken up on a Sunday morning with massive anxiety and said to yourself, I'm never |
| 0:22.9 | drinking again, only to find yourself waving 50 bucks at a barman by happy hour. Do you ever |
| 0:29.3 | wonder why everyone else can stop at one while you end up at a dodgy after party holding hands |
| 0:35.6 | with a weird bloke called Disco Dane. If so, it might be time to |
| 0:40.6 | take a closer look at your reliable social crutch, alcohol. On this podcast, I investigate my own |
| 0:47.9 | deeply dysfunctional dealings with booze and find out what it's really like navigating this |
| 0:53.6 | alcohol-drenched world, one fizzy water at a time. |
| 0:57.3 | I'm going to open up a shame shed of humiliating drinking stories to help you understand why waking |
| 1:03.8 | up with one eyebrow missing and a kebab sticking out of your top pocket might actually be |
| 1:08.9 | negatively impacting your health. |
| 1:17.1 | So, what happens when you put down those cheeky pints and finally let go of those rewarding mummy wines? I guess we're just going to have to wait and see. I'm Victoria Vanstone |
| 1:23.2 | and this is sober awkward. |
| 1:39.3 | I think we are rapidly as a species moving away from our natural mode of operation. |
| 1:48.0 | I think humans are a species trying to manage a rapidly accelerating world and technology, |
| 1:55.3 | homeworking lifestyles, dependency on alcohol as a form of connection. I think the further we move from our nature, the more disconnected we seem to get. Especially since COVID, I hit |
| 2:00.7 | on that on the intro very quickly. |
| 2:02.7 | Do you feel like things have changed since COVID? |
| 2:05.6 | Yeah, I think COVID was a huge rewiring for the human experience. |
| 2:11.7 | I think there's like a pre and post-COVID society, to be honest. |
| 2:16.9 | I think the dependency we developed on technology was immense in COVID and on alcohol, |
... |
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