How to Lead With Tea, Not Lectures
Sober Awkward
Victoria Vanstone
4.8 • 533 Ratings
🗓️ 1 February 2026
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Should you ask your partner to quit drinking just because you have? Or could that actually make things worse?
In this episode of Sober Awkward, Vic explores why telling the people you love to give up booze can backfire, and why quietly showing them what sobriety looks like is often far more powerful. From awkward dinner tables to partners who still drink, Vic talks honestly about support, resentment, boundaries, and why influence beats control every time.
Inspired by a Real Housewives of Beverly Hills binge on a long-haul flight (purely for research), Vic unpacks how normalised alcohol is, how invisible the sober struggle can feel, and why “I don’t have a problem” is often more complicated than it sounds.
Vic is also joined by her husband John, who shares why he eventually chose to quit drinking himself, not because he was asked to, but because he watched sobriety change the person he loved. Together they talk about support, safety, curiosity, and how relationships can evolve when alcohol is taken out of the equation.
This episode is for anyone navigating sobriety alongside partners, friends, or family who still drink, and for anyone learning how to protect their peace without nagging, lecturing, or explaining themselves to death.
Pop the kettle on.
Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is show them, not tell them.
💛 Resources & Links
📘 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.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Oh, the kettle's boiled. Excellent timing. I'll just make myself a quick cupper, take a deep breath and pretend I know exactly what I'm doing. Right, let's get started. |
| 0:15.5 | Have you ever woken up on a Sunday morning with massive anxiety and said to yourself, I'm never drinking again, |
| 0:22.6 | only to find yourself waving 50 bucks at a barman by happy hour. Do you ever wonder why everyone |
| 0:27.8 | else can stop at one while you end up at a dodgy after party holding hands with a weird bloke |
| 0:32.6 | called Disco Dave? If so, it might be time to take a closer look at your reliable social crutch alcohol. |
| 0:40.0 | On this podcast, I investigate my own deeply dysfunctional dealings with booze and find out what |
| 0:45.4 | it's really like navigating this alcohol-drenched world, one fizzy water at a time. |
| 0:50.6 | I'm going to open up a shame shed of humiliating drinking stories to help you understand why |
| 0:55.4 | waking up with one eyebrow missing and a kebab sticking out of your top pocket might actually |
| 0:59.9 | be negatively impacting your health. So what happens when you put down those cheeky pints and |
| 1:05.5 | finally let go of those rewarding mummy wines? I guess we're just going to have to wait and see. |
| 1:11.7 | I'm Victoria Vanstone and this is sober awkward. I'm here in my kitchen which is strange and the dog has just |
| 1:24.1 | done a wee on the microphones. Wait a second. It's done a wee on the wires. |
| 1:29.9 | I think my husband's maybe got a cloth. John, are you there? Yeah, what? Can you get me a cloth |
| 1:35.2 | please? A dog's done a wee on one of the mic wires. Why don't you get the cloth? |
| 1:41.1 | I don't know where they are, quite honestly. |
| 1:44.1 | Sounds about right. I heard that. Hey, thank you. |
| 1:48.4 | I'm not sure if I'm going to electrocute myself if I do that. Anyway, here I am in my kitchen, |
| 1:53.1 | on my own without Hamish, which is crazy. My husband, John, is now at my feet cleaning up a little |
| 1:58.4 | bit of dog piss. But anyway, hopefully he'll be getting on with some cleaning in the background while I record this episode. |
| 2:04.1 | I might drag him on later to get his opinion on today's topic. |
| 2:07.7 | But not for long, though, there's a lot of ironing to do. |
... |
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