The joys of sober socialising, with Jen from The Sober Living Guide

Living authentically, finding community and doing what you love

‘It was about getting to know myself: that was the biggest thing. You become a new person. If all you’ve ever known is going out and getting on it at the weekends and partying in that way, you just have to get to know yourself again.’ - Jen Bradford

About Jen Bradford

Jen is a proud dog mum from the South Coast of England. She’s dedicated to empowering others through self-development in both her day job as a business psychologist and coach and in her spare time volunteering to help the sober community.

At the beginning of the year, she set up www.thesoberlivingguide.com, a comprehensive resource hub with everything she found useful for getting and staying off the booze, along with a community support WhatsApp group. This group branched off from a sober book club which she volunteers for.

In this episode we discuss…

• Jen’s own journey to sobriety: realising she didn’t have an off-switch with alcohol, the effects of a ‘living for the weekend’ corporate job and how her drinking increased during the pandemic.

• AA not resonating and little support available for grey-area drinking.

• Finding a sober community on Instagram and creating her own community through a sober bookclub and WhatsApp group.

• Discovering what she really enjoys doing: hiking with her dog, reading, the sober book club, volunteering.

• Finding out who you really are and being authentic.

• People-pleasing, setting boundaries and learning to say no.

• Is going out getting wasted actually fun, for you or anyone else?

• How sobriety has given her renewed financial freedom and led her to find a career she really loves.

• Finding closer friendships in sobriety.

• Sober dating - forgoing the apps and making genuine connections with people.

• Sober clubbing and dancing.

• Sober travel and holidays.

• How volunteering can be really grounding, help shift our perspective and enable us to find purpose in life. And being mindful of boundaries and not over-giving.

• Finding self-compassion and how therapy can help.

Some key quotes from Jen

‘I felt safe with like-minded individuals that were not going to judge me… I think it’s about finding your tribe.’

‘It was about getting to know myself: that was the biggest thing. You become a new person. If all you’ve ever known is going out and getting on it at the weekends and partying in that way, you just have to get to know yourself again.’

‘You do learn to be really authentic. I’d spent a long time people-pleasing, just by nature, and going with the flow and being relaxed but that came with going out drinking. Only recently I’ve learned to set boundaries and it is really helping. Learning to say no. ‘No, I don’t want to do that,’ is a complete sentence and that’s all right.’

‘Every day in early sobriety I did something for my mind, something for my body and something for my soul.’

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More to come!

This is the first interview in a series I’m doing with inspiring people. Look out for my upcoming conversations with Nici Harrison about changing our relationship with grief, Stephanie MacKinnon on how to liberate ourselves from the demands of capitalism, and Nia Davies on a gentle approach to nutrition.

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