Club Soda Community Podcast

Losing a parent at a young age can leave us with challenging emotions, and anger is a common one. If we aren't given the space to process, we can form dangerous habits that grow over time. How can we start to break away from this and reconnect with buried emotions? In this weeks podcast, Luke shares with us his own experience of loss, the anger and emotional shutdown that followed, and how he used therapy and mindfulness to overcome addiction and become the architect of the future he knew he deserved.Luke is a therapist - or as he calls it, an Emotional Bank Manager. He runs a company called Lisa Inside Addiction, which helps people affected by addiction to discover healthier ways to manage their emotions. He do this through a podcast where I interviews world renowned experts on addiction and people directly affected by it. He also provides therapy in London and Southend, as well as a number of programs to help his clients break through the glass ceilings of their mental health.

With only a fortnight to go until our Mindful Drinking Festival in Brighton, we thought that the team at Club Soda could give you a little festival preview so that you know what to expect to find. We're super excited to be meeting you all in person again at the beautiful Brighton Open Markets, and we're bringing a whole host of brilliant alcohol-free brands with us!This week's podcast is a discussion between the Club Soda team about the range of alcohol-free drinks available at the festival and why we think you should come and try them. With the weather set to be fine, why not listen in to our festival preview and then join us by the seaside for the real thing?If you're not in the UK but you've been inspired to try some new alcohol-free drinks where you are, check out vendors in your country here with our list of online alcohol-free drinks providers around the world.

We're really excited to announce that Club Soda has finally become a certified B Corp organisation. It's been a long time in the making and we're really proud that our social impact business is now recognised as being socially, economically, and environmentally responsible.But we're not the only ones in the alcohol-free sector who have received this accolade. We know that living well is so much more than being responsible for our alcohol intake and it's up to businesses to be ethically responsible across the board. Our podcast guests this week, all B Corp certified distributors, brands, and influencers in the low and no sector, join us in celebrating alcohol-free drinks as a force for good. Find the advice and support you need on our weekly podcast, whether you are cutting down, taking a break, or going alcohol-free for the long term. The Club Soda podcast is available wherever you subscribe to podcasts. Find your platform here.

Alcohol-free beer is the healthiest thing you could be drinking in the pub after water and we think that it's worth celebrating the growing prominence of this fantastic, fast-expanding market. We're particularly pleased that alcohol-free beer is starting to get the recognition it deserves as brands and drinks reach their own milestones. Ahead of Beer Day Britain, which is celebrated on the 15th of June this year, Laura speaks to Robin Lomax of AF Beer Club about how alcohol-free beer deserves its place in our hearts and fridges.Robin has worked hard to be an ambassador of alcohol-free beer and has teamed up with Wise Bartender to curate beer subscription boxes - get yours here.

When you're a busy parent who's trying to accelerate your career whilst making sure your kids are having plenty of your time and are still getting to football/piano lessons/birthday parties on time, changing drinking habits can be really low down on your packed to-do list. That limited time to decompress at the end of the day might have involved a few wind-down drinks. Changing drinking when you're snowed under with being a busy, working parent juggling all of these things can be extra challenging.In this episode of the Club Soda podcast, co-founder Laura Willoughby talks to Casey McGuire Davidson, a coach for busy Mums who are thinking of changing drinking while parenting. This podcast is particularly valuable if you're a busy parent who's reevaluating your relationship with alcohol.Our podcast is available on all your favourite podcasting platforms, like Apple, Google and Spotify. Subscribe today and get all our latest news, interviews and drinks reviews.The Club Soda podcast is available wherever you subscribe to podcasts. Find your platform here.

At Club Soda, we're proud to support everyone involved in the alcohol industry. Whether you're a problem drinker, a venue who wants to stock alcohol-free products, or a bartender looking to up their game with knowledge of low and no alcohol drinks, we're here for it. In this week's podcast episode, we revisit a conversation between a long-time friend of Club Soda, Camille Vidal of La Maison Wellness. She talks to three bartender guests about how we can build a more sustainable hospitality industry. If we all work together, we can help more of us to drink more mindfully.Thanks for joining us on the Club Soda podcast. To find more about Club Soda, follow us across social media by following @joinclubsoda. Please like and subscribe wherever you get podcasts and why not share this podcast with a friend?

It's not unusual, in the early days of changing our drinking, to worry that we won't be able to do the things that we enjoyed before if we don't drink. For most of us, socialising is so intertwined with drinking that we can't see how our social situations - parties, weddings, Saturday nights, friendship groups - will be ok without alcohol playing such a prominent part. It's true that a lot of things change when we cut down or quit booze, but it doesn't mean that we can't still eat, drink, laugh, dance, and repeat, all the things we social beings love to do.This podcast conversation was recorded during last year's Global Mindful Drinking Festival, which was held online due to the pandemic. It features experts in the field of food and drink, mindfulness, movement, sober raving, and much more about how you approach life with less alcohol in it. It's possible to still have a great time without alcohol - our expert panel has some tips on how to navigate potentially boozy situations without having to think about having a drink.Club Soda is a community of people drinking mindfully and living well. And the Club Soda podcast is a great way to discover what we are talking about.  The Club Soda podcast is available wherever you subscribe to podcasts. Find your platform here.

If you've ever worked in a boozy workplace, you know how difficult it can be if you're cutting down or giving up. Outside of standing around the water cooler, post-work drinks are a typical way of getting to know your colleagues. Business lunches often involve lunchtime drinks, and if, like Laura, you're in a career that sees you at public events, drinking can even start in the morning! Boozy work culture can be really tricky to navigate if you're changing your drinking, but not impossible.This week's podcast is a throwback to our Global Mindful Drinking Festival in October, where Alex Walker from Bee Sober hosts a panel of experts to discuss boozy work culture and how to navigate it with your goals and intentions intact. Club Soda is a community of people drinking mindfully and living well. And the Club Soda podcast is a great way to discover what we are talking about. The Club Soda podcast is available wherever you subscribe to podcasts. Find your platform here.

In this week's podcast episode, we are recapping a conversation that we had at our Global Mindful Drinking Festival in October last year about willpower. The topic of willpower is one that's brought up often in the Club Soda community, usually when people are in the early days of changing their drinking and wonder 'why doesn't willpower work for me?'. Club Soda founder, Laura Willoughby, invited a panel of mindful drinking experts to explore the topic of willpower, and how to rely less and less on it in order to create lasting change. The panel guests for this podcast are Amanda Kuda, Don Shenker, and Frazer McGlinchey. Each week, join Club Soda co-founders Laura Willoughby and Dru Jaeger to take a deep dive into the subjects that matter.  The Club Soda podcast is all the inspiration you need to create and sustain a life that doesn’t centre on drinking. The Club Soda podcast is available wherever you subscribe to podcasts. Find your platform here.

A few weeks back, Dru Jaeger caught up with Dr Annemarie McAllister, a cultural historian and leading researcher into the history and effects of the temperance movement. Annemarie is a senior research fellow in History at the University of Central Lancaster, and a nationally renowned expert on the history of temperance. Dru's conversation with Annemarie has been particularly interesting to us at Club Soda. Having had a lot of press coverage for our alcohol-free off-licence, where people have been intrigued by the idea of a shop selling only low and no alcohol products, it's interesting to remember that there was a time when there were thousands of temperance movement bars across the UK.The fascinating chat between a researcher of a historic temperance movement and the instigator of a modern mindful drinking movement teaches us that the idea of moderation and abstinence, and the problems and challenges around both, are not new. But the same question arises now as did then - how can we build even more momentum towards lasting social change?The Club Soda podcast is packed full of fascinating conversations like this one, so feel free to check out the rest of Season 3. It is available wherever you subscribe to podcasts. Find your platform here.

This week's podcast is a collaborative effort between Dru Jaeger of Club Soda and Victoria Volk of Grieving Voices podcast.Victoria is a grief recovery specialist and hosts Grieving Voices. If you subscribe to her podcast as well, you'll get to hear this again.In this conversation, Dru and Victoria talk really frankly about their experiences of childhood bereavement and the ways in which they've lived with grief and how alcohol has played a role in that life. You might find some of this conversation upsetting. If you need support, it's okay to hit the pause button, reach out to the Club Soda community or your friends around you. And remember to take very good care of yourself.

It's true to say that alcohol and neurodiversity are not indivisible. Alcohol is often used as a coping mechanism in social situations. If you have autism, socialising can be extra daunting, and your intake of 'Dutch courage' can become excessive.In this week's podcast, Meet the Scholar host Claire Davey talks to our guest, author and speaker Chelsey Flood about alcohol and neurodiversity, and how a late diagnosis of autism affected her in changing her drinking.'Looking back, I can see that autism was probably paying playing quite a big part in the way that I drank. I used to drink a lot just to be around people. And it would just have to be a little bit just to be around people. So it was very much like medicine...I worked out that one bottle of lager made me feel normal and confident and have a conversation with people. But without the bottle of lager, I just couldn't do it.'The Club Soda podcast is a great way to discover what our community of people drinking mindfully and living well is all about. Catch up with the rest of Season 3 wherever you subscribe to podcasts like Apple, Google and Spotify.  Find your platform here and subscribe today!

 In this week's podcast episode, Club Soda founder Laura Willoughby, herself an advocate of social change, talks to Madeleine Shaw, a social entrepreneur from Vancouver, Canada.Madeleine talks candidly about how being a strong advocate for social change can also mean coming from an anti-authoritarian background. Being rebellious at a young age linked Madeleine with alcohol - "drinking was kind of a bad-ass thing that was bound up with rebellion".  But as both Laura and Madeleine agree, when you become an advocate for social change, the rebellious act of harmful drinking can morph into something that looks sophisticated and quasi-cultural but is just as problematic.This discord between behaviour and values, about how we present ourselves versus how we actually feel, caused both women to impact community and social sectors in ways they never thought imaginable.Our podcast is available on all your favourite podcasting platforms, like Apple, Google and Spotify. Subscribe today and get all our latest news, interviews and drinks reviews.The Club Soda podcast is available wherever you subscribe to podcasts. Find your platform here.

Often when we think about change, it's very head-based. We think very hard about things. We forget that both our use of substances and some of the reasons that lead us to alcohol actually rooted in our bodies. So getting better acquainted with how we feel, can be a really important part of us changing.This week's podcast guest, Lu Blue, runs the yoga movement Sober Yoga. They are queer, non-binary, and in recovery. Lu's fascinated with how the body is such an integral part of healing and recovery. They talk to Dru Jaeger about the importance of not relying solely on the mind to make real behavioural changes - it's about movement, too.Our podcast is available on all your favourite podcasting platforms, like Apple, Google and Spotify. Subscribe today and get all our latest news, interviews and drinks reviews.The Club Soda podcast is available wherever you subscribe to podcasts. Find your platform here.

 Monty Moncrieff is chief executive of London Friend, an organisation that's been supporting the capital's LGBTQ+ community for the past fifty years.In this latest episode of the Club Soda podcast to celebrate the organisation's 50th anniversary, Monty chats to Dru Jaeger about his work, the organisation's history and what the future holds for queer people in London and beyond. They dive deep into the subject of LGBTQ+ identity formation, coming out and the sometimes damaging role that alcohol can play in queer lives. The Club Soda podcast is a weekly exploration of topics around changing your drinking. Discover more about Club Soda and support the show.

February is LGBT History Month in the UK. It is also Black History Month in the US - we swap over in October. As it happens, we are  featuring stories from the queer community about people and organizations that help people change their drinking in different ways. We are featuring a conversation that Club Soda co-founder Dru had back in October's Mindful Drinking Festival with the fabulous Dr Valerie Mason John. Valerie is an author, teacher, and mindfulness practitioner who happens to be both black and queer. So, you know, that's a double win for our global community's history months. Their conversation about mindfulness as a tool for changing problem drinking is enlightening. Want to listen to more Club Soda podcasts? All 3 series of our podcast is available wherever you get your podcast.

Can you be queer and sober? The answer, of course, is yes. You can be absolutely anything that you want to be. Perhaps a better question is: can you easily be queer and sober? As we learn from our panel discussion which was recorded during our Mindful Drinking Festival in October 2021, being queer and being a drinker can be inextricably linked. Linking our drinking to such a crucial part of our identity can cause problems when we feel ready to ditch the booze. A really important branch of what we do at Club Soda is Queers without Beers. It's a charity that we set up in around 2016 which hosts a series of alcohol-free LGBTQI+ social events and an online community. Being as February is LGBT+ History Month in the UK, we wanted to revisit this important conversation, which is chaired by Queers without Beers' trustee Scott Pearson, also known on Instagram as @proudandsober.Our podcast is available on all your favourite podcasting platforms, like Apple, Google and Spotify. Subscribe today and get all our latest news, interviews and drinks reviews.The Club Soda podcast is available wherever you subscribe to podcasts. Find your platform here.

At Club Soda, we encourage a variety of tools and resources that helps people on their personal drinking journeys. Whether that's reading Quit Lit, listening to podcasts, taking courses, or joining sober communities online or in real life. But there are many ways of participating in addiction support services that can also help you to gain confidence, meet like-minded people, and gain a new sense of self beyond alcohol. Outside Edge Theatre Company is the UK's only participatory arts charity that is focused solely on addiction support. Founded in 1999 by actor, writer, and theatre director Phil Fox, Outside Edge was created so that he could support his own recovery from alcohol and heroin addiction. Now, actor and creative director Matt Steinberg is at the helm. He talks to our own founder, Laura, about how creativity, immersion in the arts, newfound confidence, and a sense of belonging are at the core of helping people to change their drinking.Our podcast is available on all your favourite podcasting platforms, like Apple, Google and Spotify. Subscribe today and get all our latest news, interviews and drinks reviews. The Club Soda podcast is available wherever you subscribe to podcasts. Find your platform here.

The act of making a change to our drinking habits can help us to reconnect with the things that are important to us. This week's podcast guest, the inspirational Jamie Klingler, started with addressing her discomfort with playing the party girl role. In actively avoiding numbing herself, Jamie found a clear head, an articulate voice, and a reignited passion to engage with her values and an ability to tackle issues that mean a lot to her. What resulted is Reclaim These Streets, a movement that started with a vigil for London murder victim Sarah Everard and now campaigns against and educates about violence against women. Jamie is proving that you gain much more than you lose when you make positive decisions for yourself. And those changes don't just affect you; those ripples can change communities for the better.Our podcast is available on all your favourite podcasting platforms, like Apple, Google and Spotify. Subscribe today and get all our latest news, interviews and drinks reviews.The Club Soda podcast is available wherever you subscribe to podcasts. Find your platform here.

It's the middle of January, and you may be feeling a bit flat after the exciting start of your month of change. If willpower and motivation are ebbing, then leaning into mindfulness can be the new tool that helps you to build the life that you want to live.There is good research and evidence out there that practising mindfulness can actually help us create and sustain change. Whether that's a formal practice, like sitting and meditating, or informal practice, like mindful walking, journaling, or even a mindful colouring book. Mindfulness can mean different things to different people. It is always, though, the business of paying attention to our thoughts and feelings, not being judgmental of ourselves, treating ourselves kindly, learning to notice, slow down, and act with intention. There are all really useful life skills when it comes to negotiating the business of change.This week's guest speaker is holistic recovery coach Mel Pegley. Mel specialises in mindfulness-based addiction recovery and leads a weekly Eight Step Recovery meeting, which our members can join online in the Events section on the Club Soda website.We’re now into Series 3 of the Club Soda podcast, but if you’d like to catch up or browse earlier episodes, head to the podcast page.Our podcast is available on all your favourite podcasting platforms, like Apple, Google and Spotify. Subscribe today and get all our latest news, interviews and drinks reviews.The Club Soda podcast is available wherever you subscribe to podcasts. Find your platform here.