The Vocabulary of Sobriety
Sober Awkward
Victoria Vanstone
4.8 • 533 Ratings
🗓️ 27 December 2023
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
In this weeks retrospective episode we take to the Oxford English Dictionary to better unpack some of the language of sobriety and how you can use it to your advnantage.
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https://open.spotify.com/episode/6aAyrfpSLLEGnOoE8rtcvw?si=44dc84be101e481e
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | And like we're going to do with all the words that we're talking about today is we're going to read out what they are described as in the Oxford Dictionary. |
| 0:14.3 | So sober, I'll start, means not affected by alcohol, not drunk, serious, sensible and solemn, muted in colour. |
| 0:25.2 | Oh, yes, very like somber. |
| 0:27.1 | It must be from somber, is it? |
| 0:29.0 | I would guess, yeah. |
| 0:31.1 | Yeah, when I say sober, I can't help feeling a bit judged, even still when I say to people I'm sober. |
| 0:36.3 | I mean, obviously everybody knows I am now, so I don't have to say it as often. But I think especially in those early days, |
| 0:41.9 | I do feel that sense of if you're sober, it means you're a drunk. Or a very boring person. |
| 0:48.0 | Or a very boring person. There's no, they've got no in between, is there? Or a judge. |
| 0:52.3 | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Either. Three things. One of those three things. Yeah. Yeah. It is. It's a word that I think people are very, they have their own attachment to it in what it means. And it's very hard for them to change what they think about the word sober. Funnily enough, Vic and I had a chat not that long ago. |
| 1:13.6 | We were talking about would we ever do drugs again? |
| 1:14.1 | Yeah. |
| 1:16.0 | As you do over a breakfast. |
| 1:16.5 | Yeah. |
| 1:17.9 | Over your poachies. |
| 1:24.2 | And generally we were both saying, no, we wouldn't because usually we would have to be drunk and not in our right minds to even think of putting something so awful into our bodies. And, you know, what if we ran someone's house and someone |
| 1:31.7 | brought out some coke? How would we feel? Would we do it? And Vic was like, yeah, but we can't |
| 1:37.2 | because we're sober. And I didn't realize, for me, the word sober was no alcohol. But to Vic, |
| 1:44.0 | the word sober was, is nothing to vick the word sober was is nothing no alcohol or drugs |
| 1:48.2 | or any illegal substances in your body at all mind-enhancing substances would it be vick because i because i say |
| 1:54.9 | that for me i wouldn't want to put anything in my body that would risk my sobriety and i feel like |
| 1:59.2 | if i had a drug or anything else into my body that that played my sobriety. And I feel like if I had a drug or anything else |
... |
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