Naltrexone - Can You Drink Your Way Sober? - with Katie Herzog
Sober Awkward
Victoria Vanstone
4.8 • 533 Ratings
🗓️ 10 May 2026
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week Vic is joined by journalist and podcaster Katie Herzog to talk about the winding, messy road many of us take trying to figure out our relationship with alcohol.
Katie shares what her drinking looked like during Covid, how it quietly ramped up behind closed doors, and the strange mental gymnastics of hiding drinking from partners and pretending your fine and dandy, when really... it's all falling apart.
They talk about the moment when drinking stops feeling fun and starts feeling lonely, the awkward reality of not quite connecting with AA, and the long search for something — anything — that might actually help.
Eventually that search led Katie to Naltrexone, a medication used to reduce the brain’s reward response to alcohol. For Katie, discovering it changed everything. Over time it helped rewire the habit loop, take away the obsessive pull toward drinking, and slowly create something she hadn’t felt in a long time… freedom from alcohol.
The experience was so transformative that Katie went on to write a book about it, exploring the science, the stigma, and why conversations about medication and sobriety can be so surprisingly controversial.
It’s an honest chat about finding your own path, challenging recovery dogma, and the strange relief of realising there might be more than one way to get sober.
Find out more about Katie and buy her book here -
https://www.amazon.com/dp/163774739X
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Drink-Your-Way-Sober/Katie-Herzog/9781637747391
follow her on twitter here - @kittypurrzog
💛 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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Facebook: Sober Awkward Community for Women
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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. |
| 0:10.7 | Right, let's get started. |
| 0:15.4 | 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 else |
| 0:28.0 | can stop at one while you end up at a dodgy after party holding hands with a weird bloke called |
| 0:32.8 | 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 |
| 0:45.3 | it's really like navigating this alcohol-drenched world, one fizzy water at a time. I'm going to |
| 0:51.0 | open up a shame shed of humiliating drinking stories to help you understand why |
| 0:55.3 | waking up with one eyebrow missing and a kebab sticking out of your top pocket might actually be |
| 1:00.1 | negatively impacting your health. So what happens when you put down those cheeky pints and finally |
| 1:05.9 | let go of those rewarding mummy wines? I guess we're just going to have to wait and see. |
| 1:14.4 | I'm Victoria Vanstone and this is sober awkward. |
| 1:23.5 | I just got back from Brisbane where I saw the musical cats. |
| 1:31.9 | I wasn't sure if my drink had been spiked by acid or something because that was pretty trippy. |
| 1:38.2 | I have to admit, I felt my teeth grinding like I was at a rave in the 90s. |
| 1:44.8 | I don't know if anyone's ever seen it. The songs are good. But yeah, it's kind of a bit out there. |
| 1:47.6 | And also, I'm allergic to cats, so that doesn't help. |
| 1:56.5 | Anyway, today I'm having an interesting conversation. Before I start, I want to say something, |
| 2:01.0 | well, I say it's important, but, you know, nothing I say is really that important, is it? |
| 2:05.0 | This conversation might challenge some of you. |
| 2:09.4 | It's going to challenge me a little bit, so I don't know really how this is going to land. |
... |
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