Sober Awkward

It feels like this conversation has been a long time coming. Vic is genuinely honoured to have Shanna Whan AM on the podcast this week.

Shanna is the founder and CEO of Sober in the Country, a national grassroots charity that’s been driving radical social impact and real change across rural and remote Australia over the past decade. Through laser-focused bush advocacy, peer-to-peer support, and a refreshingly straightforward message, she’s helping shift a deeply ingrained culture.

And the message is one we can all get behind, whether we drink or not: it’s always #OK2SAYNO to booze.

Shanna was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in 2025 for her significant contributions to rural community health. She was named National Australian of the Year (Local Hero) in 2022, and also took out Marie Claire’s national Advocate of the Year award that same year. So yes… she’s not just talking about change, she’s making it happen.

In this episode, they chat about life in rural Australia, the pressure to be strong, stoic, and self-reliant in farming communities, the isolation of rural life, and how hard it can be to say no to alcohol when it’s so deeply ingrained.

They also explore how that’s starting to shift, slowly, but meaningfully. And they establish very early on that Vic would absolutely not survive in the outback, (even if she did have a hat with corks hanging off it!)

This one takes you beyond the front gate and into the reality of life in the outback, an honest, eye-opening conversation with a truly remarkable human.

To find out more about Shanna and her incredible work head to https://www.soberinthecountry.org or follow them on socials @sober_in_the_country and to help raise awareness please add #OK2SAYNO to your socials.

💛 Resources & Links

📘 Victoria’s memoir – A Thousand Wasted Sundays
A brutally honest and hilarious look at motherhood, anxiety, and ditching the booze.
👉 Buy the book here

🎧 Listen to more Sober Awkward episodes
👉 www.soberawkward.com

🫖 Join The Cuppa Community
Our private, supportive online space for sober folk
👉 www.cuppa.community

📘 Get the Sober Awkward Guide
Our downloadable toolkit for ditching booze the awkward way.
👉 The Sober Awkward Guide

📱 Follow us for daily sober fun:
Instagram: @soberawkward
TikTok: @soberawkward
Facebook: Sober Awkward Community for Women
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on the Share Shed we’re talking boundaries.
Vic chats about caring from afar, therapy and emotional carnage with a side of bad decisions.

Classic Share Shed.

The Share Shed is where listeners send in their funniest, cringiest and most unbelievable drinking stories. It’s not about judgement, it’s about recognising how wild things could get when alcohol was in charge, and laughing about it now we’re on the other side.

But sometimes, it’s also a place for the harder stuff, the honest bits we don’t always say out loud.

If you’ve got a story you’d like to get off your chest, funny, awkward or something a bit more serious, you can send it to Vic at:

[email protected]

Anonymous is absolutely fine. In fact, for legal reasons, probably preferable!!

📞 SUPPORT & RESOURCES

If anything in today’s Shame Shed felt familiar, or you’re worried about your drinking, there is support out there. You don’t have to do this on your own.

🇦🇺 Australia
National Alcohol & Other Drug Hotline
📞 1800 250 015 (24/7)
🌐 https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/alcohol-and-drug-information-service

Lifeline
📞 13 11 14 (24/7)
🌐 https://www.lifeline.org.au

Hello Sunday Morning / Daybreak
🌐 https://hellosundaymorning.org
🌐 https://daybreakapp.com.au

Clean Slate Clinic
🌐 https://www.cleanslateclinic.com

🇬🇧 United Kingdom
Drinkline
📞 0300 123 1110
🌐 https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-advice/alcohol-support/

Alcohol Change UK
🌐 https://alcoholchange.org.uk

We Are With You
🌐 https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk

🌍 International
Alcoholics Anonymous
🌐 https://www.aa.org

SMART Recovery
🌐 https://www.smartrecovery.org

💬 A gentle reminder
If you’re drinking in the morning to cope, especially with anxiety or withdrawal symptoms, it’s really important to speak to a doctor or medical professional. Stopping suddenly can be unsafe for some people, and support can make a huge difference.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 -
drinkyourwaysober.com
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.
👉 Buy the book here

🎧 Listen to more Sober Awkward episodes
👉 www.soberawkward.com

🫖 Join The Cuppa Community
Our private, supportive online space for sober folk
👉 www.cuppa.community

📘 Get the Sober Awkward Guide
Our downloadable toolkit for ditching booze the awkward way.
👉 The Sober Awkward Guide

📱 Follow us for daily sober fun:
Instagram: @soberawkward
TikTok: @soberawkward
Facebook: Sober Awkward Community for Women
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week’s Shame Shed is a more serious one.

A parent writes in about the shame they carry from drinking while raising their kids, and the heavy weight of seeing it all clearly now they’re sober.

If you’ve ever felt that knot in your stomach about the past, this one will hit home.

The Share Shed is where listeners send in their funniest, cringiest and most unbelievable drinking stories. It’s not about judgement, it’s about recognising how wild things could get when alcohol was in charge, and laughing about it now we’re on the other side.

But sometimes, it’s also a place for the harder stuff, the honest bits we don’t always say out loud.

If you’ve got a story you’d like to get off your chest, funny, awkward or something a bit more serious, you can send it to Vic at:

[email protected]

Anonymous is absolutely fine. In fact, for legal reasons, probably preferable!!

📞 SUPPORT & RESOURCES

If anything in today’s Shame Shed felt familiar, or you’re worried about your drinking, there is support out there. You don’t have to do this on your own.

🇦🇺 Australia
National Alcohol & Other Drug Hotline
📞 1800 250 015 (24/7)
🌐 https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/alcohol-and-drug-information-service

Lifeline
📞 13 11 14 (24/7)
🌐 https://www.lifeline.org.au

Hello Sunday Morning / Daybreak
🌐 https://hellosundaymorning.org
🌐 https://daybreakapp.com.au

Clean Slate Clinic
🌐 https://www.cleanslateclinic.com

🇬🇧 United Kingdom
Drinkline
📞 0300 123 1110
🌐 https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-advice/alcohol-support/

Alcohol Change UK
🌐 https://alcoholchange.org.uk

We Are With You
🌐 https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk

🌍 International
Alcoholics Anonymous
🌐 https://www.aa.org

SMART Recovery
🌐 https://www.smartrecovery.org

💬 A gentle reminder
If you’re drinking in the morning to cope, especially with anxiety or withdrawal symptoms, it’s really important to speak to a doctor or medical professional. Stopping suddenly can be unsafe for some people, and support can make a huge difference.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Sober Awkward, Vic chats with Social Media Educator and (National Association for Children of Addiction) NACOA Ambassador - Sarah Drage about the strange and sometimes complicated world of sobriety on the internet.

When we stop drinking, many of us head straight online. Suddenly there are sober coaches, Instagram accounts, communities, podcasts, hashtags, and an entire digital world devoted to not drinking. For some people it becomes a lifeline. For others… it can start to feel like just another thing we’re slightly addicted to.

Vic gets honest about her own relationship with the online sober world, the pressure to keep creating content, and the strange reality of sharing your life with people you’ve never met. She often tells herself, “If it helps one person, it’s worth it.” But what happens when helping strangers online starts competing with real life, family time, and your own wellbeing?

And then there’s the other side of the internet. The rabbit holes. You open Instagram looking for a sober quote and twenty minutes later you’ve somehow ended up on a page where people are putting very strange things in very strange places. How does that happen? What are they doing? And why can’t we look away?

You’ll have to listen to find out… let's just say it involves bottoms.

Find out more about Sarah here @sarah_drage
Find The Children of Alcoholics Podcast here - https://hello9a.podbean.com/
Ted Talk - https://tr.ee/x6tGO8cVc5

💛 Resources & Links

📘 Victoria’s memoir – A Thousand Wasted Sundays
A brutally honest and hilarious look at motherhood, anxiety, and ditching the booze.
👉 Buy the book here

🎧 Listen to more Sober Awkward episodes
👉 www.soberawkward.com

🫖 Join The Cuppa Community
Our private, supportive online space for sober folk
👉 www.cuppa.community

📘 Get the Sober Awkward Guide
Our downloadable toolkit for ditching booze the awkward way.
👉 The Sober Awkward Guide

📱 Follow us for daily sober fun:
Instagram: @soberawkward
TikTok: @soberawkward
Facebook: Sober Awkward Community for Women
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.