The first question in the book is, would life be better without alcohol? And that's a question that just kind of, it began somewhere deep down inside and it just started getting louder and louder over a period of months, probably years, before I really couldn't ignore that question any longer. That was a snippet from Ruby Warrington. She's today's guest who is a British writer and thought leader who now resides in Brooklyn, New York.
In 2012, she launched a spiritual lifestyle platform for the New Age life called The Numinous. You may have seen it. She's also the co-creator of the event series Club Soda NYC, which we talk about a lot more in this interview, and has a spiritual coaching program called Moon Club. Ruby is the bestselling author of the book Material Girl Mystical World.
It has this bright pink cover. You may have seen it floating around Instagram. I know that's how I found her. But she's also just released her second book, So Be Curious, and it has a beautiful blue cover.
So look out for it. I wanted to talk to Ruby as I think in the health and wellness space, there is an increasing interest in being more mindful about the way we approach our lives. I wanted to know how that extended to alcohol. You're here in this interview that my best friend stopped drinking in 2018, and that brought the question about my own relationship with alcohol to the forefront too.
So I wanted to know more. Ruby starts with a really simple but hugely powerful question. Would my life be better without alcohol? And discusses how that question made her get curious.
Today we're talking about how you can explore that question for yourself, and what it might mean for you. Our discussion includes how being so precarious is all about the questioning. How most drinkers are drinking by default, or are habitual drinkers, rather than consciously choosing how they approach alcohol. How alcohol contributes to anxiety, exhaustion, disturb, sleep and more.
That perhaps life isn't supposed to be comfortable, and what that means. The five different types of problem drinkers, and how the black and white idea of problem drinking may be outdated. How you can actually survive parties being sober, and how the ways that we can escape and revive from the daily grind. This is a juicy discussion, and one that I hope gets you questioning.
It doesn't mean you have to stop drinking, as Ruby says, that is something that only you can decide for yourself. But perhaps we could all be a little bit more mindful about the way we approach alcohol. So stay tuned to hear more about Ruby's new book and this discussion, both called So Be Curious. Welcome to How To Thrive.
I'm your host, Kate Snowwise. This is a podcast where people who are ready to step up and live a happier life. It's for those of us who are dedicated to understanding ourselves and getting the best that we can out of this thing called life. It's a mix of psychology and modern spiritual thought, always with a focus on practical advice, so that you can take it back and apply it to your own life.
I don't believe we're here to merely survive. I truly believe we're here to thrive. So let's get going. Ruby, thank you so much for coming on Here To Thrive.
I am super excited to talk about the sober curious movement. Ooh, me too. It's my favorite subject. Perfect.
I found the right person. I want to start right there. How would you describe the premise of being so precarious? What does that mean to you?
So it's really in the title. It means literally for me, and it's getting curious about every impulse, every instant, every invitation, every expectation to drink. So any time that drinks are, quote, unquote, on the table, rather than just picking up a glass and drinking it because it's what we do or because it's what everyone else is doing or because it's what they do in the movies or because it's what our brain is saying. It's choosing to say, oh, actually, you know, I'm going to ask a few questions before I do this.
I'm going to question, why am I feeling the need to do this? How is it really going to make you feel? How is it going to make you feel in three or four hours from now? How is it going to make you feel tomorrow?
What would the situation be like if I didn't drink? And actually really seeking to answer those questions for yourself before just doing the kind of knee jerk default, pick up the drink and drink. Getting so curious is really all about the questioning. With the goal, ultimately, once you've answered those questions for yourself, over however many weeks, months, years, it might take to get to the real answers of being able to trust yourself and trust your body to really make the right decision for you when it comes to drinking.
So it's about a moment by moment. It's not about living sober for the rest of your life. It's more about being mindful about your drinking. Yes, yes, I know.
I love it. I love it. I love it. I think that for some people, it might mean being sober for the rest of your life.
And that's great. Your questioning might lead you to that place. But other people, it may not. However, the caveat is if you're someone who is a regular social drinker who drinks by default or her habitual drinker, let's say, I would recommend that for at least the first three months of your sober curiosity, you do not drink any alcohol.
It's actually one of the five most addictive substances there are. So whether or not you might identify as an alcoholic, if you're a regular drinker, chances are that you're probably a little bit addicted to drinking. Or at least that you drink habitually, let's say. So in order to undo that conditioning, there is a necessary period of abstinence.
A lot of people do try January. So, where October has become a big thing now as well. I don't actually think that a month is long enough, particularly if it's a month where lots of other people are doing it as well. The key is to really put yourself in a situation where you're not drinking for an extended period of time.
So you can A, yeah, unlearn habit. And B, sort of present yourself with lots of different opportunities to ask those questions. But longer you leave it, the longer you don't drink, the more times you're going to be challenged with. Oh, okay, so it's not just Saturday night that feels weird not having a drink.
It's like going to this person's wedding or it's going away for a weekend and not having a drink. So the more of those kinds of situations you can put yourself in and make a different choice. The more you're going to learn about yourself, the more you're going to learn about drinking, the way you drink, the way other people drink, the way we as a society drink. And so the more ammunition you're going to have to answer all those questions for yourself, really honestly and thoroughly.
That makes a lot of sense to me. If you can step away from the drinking, you can get clarity with that separation. Absolutely. Yes, that's kind of what it comes down to.
When I ask a lot of people what they enjoy about being sober curious, that word clarity is often one of the first things that comes up. And that's kind of everything from the physical clarity of just feeling great every day. Meaning you're not feeling hungover, right? Or it's the mental clarity of being able to follow a train of thought and stick to your ideas and have lots of ideas.
But there's also, yeah, of course, clarity that comes around. What actually does feel good in my body? Why actually am I choosing to go along with this kind of group thing around drinking when it's not necessarily something that makes me feel great? When I was reading about your journey, Ruby, and I quote you here, having been a habitual binge drinker for the majority of my 20s and 30s, I've spent the past six years slowly but steadily unlearning the habit of reaching for a drink on autopilot in any and all social situations.
What has this journey looked like for you? What has your journey with alcohol and in becoming more curious around sobriety looked like? Well, I mean, it's been up and down. When I look back, I see just peace, calm, tranquility.
The feeling in my body when I think about this journey is one of surety, shortness, confidence. So overall, it's been hugely positive experience. Hence why I'm sticking with my sobic curiosity and not going back to my old drinking ways. But of course, there have been plenty of moments of challenge, discomfort, awkwardness, feeling like a complete outsider, feeling judged, judging others.
All of those things have been part of it as well. So it's really been a part that's really impacted every area of my life, from my work to my relationships, to my sex life to my physical body, to my family life. You name it. There's not a part of my life that hasn't been touched by this.
Oh, I can only imagine. We're going to get into that a little bit more. I'm going to want to know more. So when you were in your 20s though, it sounds like you were what, tragically, I would say is perhaps a typical girl who did you go to university slash college and start binge drinking much like I did.
Yes, I did. I did. I mean, I'm 42 now. And in the UK, the time when I kind of came of drinking age, like late teens into early twenties, it was the era of what they called the laddets.
I don't know if you've heard that term before. No, I haven't. So the laddets were kind of like late 90s feminist icons and they were kind of ballsy, rough-talking women who were also really kind of like sexy looking, but could drink as much as men and give as good as they got. And so I was kind of loud.
These were my feminist role models growing up coupled with then on the flip side, you had kind of cool Britannia happening in the background, Kate Moss, the ultimate kind of cool girl literally falling stumbling out of hotel bars, drunk and being papped. And that was just like the height of grammar and aspiration. So these were my role models. And so yes, you could say that coming into my early twenties, I actually was in a relationship from age 16 to 22.
I didn't really drink at all. He was a heavy weed smoker and he was really anti alcohol. So I didn't drink while my other while my friends were getting into alcohol younger. But as soon as I left that relationship, I sort of tumbled into almost a rebound relationship with alcohol because it was so freeing and rebellious and exciting to be part of this whole kind of scene in the UK at the time.
I learned to drink drinking pints of beer. It wasn't like sipping wine with dinner. It was like pints of beer in the pub with my male colleagues drinking as much, if not more as then. And so, yeah, I think it's very, very typical of women of my generation to have learned to drink that way.
I think back when I was pre-being for my conversation with you, I was sort of reflecting on my own relationship with alcohol. I was at 36 and certainly looked up to Kate Moss as a role model as well in New Zealand. But I can remember we had at our college, $1 shots on Wednesday nights. And we had $10 all you can drink for ladies' night at another bar where they would pick us up in a bus and drop us home.
I mean, what on earth? You wonder why we have a generation of people who have got a really warm relationship with alcohol? And actually, in researching, not necessarily before I started researching the book, because honestly, everything that's in the book is just my kind of life research from the past eight, nine years, I suppose, of being on the sole curious path myself. speaking to someone like interns with at a magazine in London when I first met college and I guess I was 22 at the time.
And he said he told me that the editor of the magazine was being hired as a consultant by drinks companies because the big drinks brands had identified that women were not drinking as much as men. This was a problem and they wanted to, they were hiring this woman, this editor to teach them how to market to women. And that's a trend that we've seen exacerbated over the past two decades, whereas in many cases now women drink actually higher volumes than men, certainly when it comes to binge drinking. So it's been a targeted campaign to get women drinking as much as men.
That's a really interesting point that I wanted to touch on today and I'm glad you know a little bit more about it because I feel like when I look around at the world around me now that women have massively caught up and now it's the women that are pouring the glass of wine every day, not the men so much. And I feel like there is this acceptance, you know, like mums need wine, just even little memes like that. Have you seen that too? Yes, absolutely.
I don't know if men are drinking less than women because I certainly just from speaking to sort of male friends and colleagues who work on a similar path, there's still a lot of stigma around a guy going to hang out with his mates and not drinking. It's like just don't do that. So I don't know if men are necessarily drinking less but certainly yes, so many memes on Instagram about them. Mummy wine culture is a huge thing and there are tons of blogs that talk about that and stuff as well.
And also, yeah, it's just, you know, I think that Sex and the City was another big influence on our generations. Which is a shame, which is a shame. Exactly. Champagne and cocktails.
If you think about the kind of cocktails that were popularized by Sex and the City and that era it was Cosmopolitan's and Steve Breezes, both of which just happened to be pink and kind of like more quote unquote female friendly. So I think yeah, that whole cocktail culture just came to really epitomize glamour, sexuality, and desirability almost and that's been really exploited by drinks brands. It's so fascinating once we sort of break it down and start talking about it like this because I don't think like you said, so be curiousity is all about being curious. But these conversations haven't been heard.
We haven't been talking about weirded this cocktail culture come from. Why do we all know what a Cosmopolitan is? Yeah, exactly. And who decided that we needed this to be sexy, fun, emancipated modern women?
I think that's a very new concept in a way. Whereas actually now in more kind of like conscious feminist circles, I'm definitely seeing more of a lean towards if not sobriacy, then certainly a questioning of any substance that makes you, that incapacitates you, that disconnects you from your know in many situations, right? If you really want to get down to it as well. And so yeah, I think that more and more people are really seeing that clarity that we spoke about and the idea of being really connected to yourself and your needs as actually what's empowering, not being able to like drink however many units and stay standing.
Yeah, it's just, I'm just giving these flashbacks to my early 20s and being like, right, when did I even think that was a good idea? Yeah, no judgment. And I look back on my drinking days with a lot of affection in a way. It's just that, like I said, it was never checked.
There was never any questioning, which meant that I did find myself in some dangerous situations that could have gone really nasty wrong. And I didn't need to be in those situations if I had better education and more options at my available to me in terms of my social life and my becoming a woman. I might have chosen differently. I like that.
You just said your drinking was never checked. I think that's so important. So you go on to be sort of drinking really heavily throughout your 20s and habitually binge drinking into your 30s. Was there a moment when you decided I don't want to drink like this anymore?
Was there a turning point or was it more of a progression for you? It was more of a progression. There was never a kind of light bulb moment where I was like, oh no, this has got to stop. I mean, I think the first question in the book is would likely be better without alcohol.
And that's a question that just kind of, it began somewhere deep down inside and it just started getting louder and louder over a period of months, probably years before I really couldn't ignore that question any longer. So it was definitely over a period of time. But I guess into probably sort of six, seven years ago, I really got to a point where I was like, no, this is this has got to stop. I don't want to feel this.
I don't want to be feeling this way anymore. And what's making me feel this way is alcohol. There's no more pretending that it's not this. It has to go, you know.
Can we talk about those feelings? Because I've read about some of the way you described how it made you feel. Recently I sent a little quote to one of my friends and said drinking is like pouring gasoline on your anxiety. Would you agree with that?
Absolutely. I mean, alcohol is literally gasoline. Like ether, ethyl alcohol is what is used to fuel cars and rocket planes and all sorts of things. It's literally gasoline.
It's just nuts. I know, isn't it crazy? You want to be really thinking about it? So yeah, I used to experience massive anxiety all the time.
And when it wasn't anxiety, I was feeling exhausted and hopeless and apathetic. And then when I wasn't feeling that way, I was feeling angry for no apparent reason at all. Just lots of, I don't like to label feelings necessarily, but lots of unwelcome feelings that didn't seem to be attached to anything obvious in my life. You know, everything was going well, I had my dream job.
I was happily married. I just bought an amazing home. Everything was kind of good. And yeah, I was feeling anything but good.
So anxiety was a really big one. I was having problems sleeping because of my anxiety. So I thought it was because of my anxiety because I'd wake up in the middle of the night. Every night, just with my mind racing, like a cold sweat about everything that was on my to do list the next day.
But I've since also learned that alcohol has a massive impact on our natural sleep patterns and that kind of early morning or kind of like middle of the night, waking is very common among people who were drinking regularly like I was. So yeah, just a general overall feeling of physical, mental, emotional, spiritual dis-ease, which I'm sure many people are familiar with sadly. Right. I think that so much of our culture is experiencing that.
And truth, I think that often the way that we're pushed is okay, we'll anxiety, then go and get some medication. We're not told to contemplate what in our life might be contributing to that, aka alcohol. Exactly. Because a lot of the time, the things that are underlying causes of our anxiety are often much bigger than we really have the capacity to deal with, you know, and make time a time when we need professional help or we need to find a community to help support us, which are not necessarily that available for people either.
So I mean, we've all heard the term self-medicating. Yeah, that's what we're doing when we drink. We're either getting prescription medications from the doctor or with self-medicating with alcohol and in many cases, both, which is also not a great combination, you know, the side of fix that go along with all of that. Exactly.
Exactly. So yeah, I hosted a panel recently where I had a psychiatrist come speak as I do this event series in New York called Clovsoda, which is all about having these conversations and asking these questions out loud and just kind of like getting into what's really going on with us and alcohol. And the psychiatrist was talking about how our reliance, particularly in Western medication is on suppressive therapies, so anti-anxiety drugs, anti-depressants, anti-pain medication, whereas the way to really heal a lot of the emotional pain that can be what's leading to us drinking to kind of like escape from that emotional pain, what's needed is evocative therapies, which actually therapies like talk therapy, but also like psychedelic therapy, which is something he was in trial, CT and trials for MDMA for PTSD. Evocative therapies that actually bring up, bring the pain up to the surface so you can really feel it fully in the name of having an emotional catharsis and actually releasing it finally from all of these.
It's a really, really interesting conversation and a very good point, I think, these alcohol as well as suppressive, it's a depressant, right? All the reason it makes us feel good is it just kind of like numbs out whatever's feeling bad for the time that we're under the influence. It doesn't actually bring us any joy or pleasure. Yeah, that's such an interesting point about bringing it to the surface and getting it out, because one of the points that really struck me in reading for this interview was you talked about recognising that the human experience isn't necessarily meant to be comfortable all the time, and that was a real awakening for you, as it fair to say.
Absolutely, so like when you asked me, how has this journey been? Like I said, looking back, my memory is like overall and based on how I'm feeling today, it's been a very positive and pleasurable experience, but the discomfort, the holes of discomfort I fall into, the paranoia, the anxiety I have, the social awkwardness, like all of these things have been very present with them also, but because I've been present with them, because I've felt them fully, I really feel that I've been able to process a lot of them all kind of underlying discomforts, painful feelings, kind of lingering traumas that had just been kind of like sitting there underneath the surface, and which highly likely was the cause of the unwelcome feeling that I explained to you before, like the un-this anger that I would feel for no reason. Well, it was possibly attached to some unresolved family stuff that I've never spoken about or never had a chance to kind of bring out into the open. And I've had those conversations with my mum, and so it's no longer, it no longer has the same holdover me.
Right, and you don't have to just take the edge off and continually live that little bit numb through whatever form that takes. Clubs soda, so you mentioned you have club soda events that you have done in New York City, and I love what soda stands for, sober or debating abstinence. So good. So you talk about sober curiosity being different to recovery.
Can we talk about how they differ? Yes, and I'm not an addiction expert and I'm not a doctor, so whatever I say on this is based on personal observation and its total evidence and just kind of lived experience. But it is widely recognised now that there are shades of grey when it comes to addiction. And in fact, the study came out just last week, it was reported in Time magazine, a new study showed there are five different categories of problem drinkers.
And that can range from, at the milder end of the spectrum, the problem is just the physical after effect, like your hangover's a pretty shitty and that's the problem. So at the other end of the spectrum, the problem is you're regularly causing physical injury to yourself and others, you've lost your job, you can't get through a day without a drink. So they're two ends of the spectrum but both are recognised as being problematic drinking. And so I would say that the recovery model, the many people who've heard of AA's 12 step recovery model is for people who are at the most severe end of the spectrum, for whom taking stock daily, checking in with community daily, total, you know, life long, a commitment to lifelong abstinence is ineffective and for some people necessary way of approaching sobriety.
But the other end of the spectrum, I believe it doesn't need to be so black and white and there's more room for this kind of questioning and this more sort of step by step approach, I suppose, and this more self-directed approach. So I would put myself, I would put my drinking probably in the second or maybe third category, actually, when I was reading through the different categorisations and maybe you can include a link to that article. I was really, really look for that and then I'll put a link in the show notes. So I think recovery is really for people whose addiction has got to a level where it's, I mean, in medical community, it's classified a disease because there have actually been brain changes that have occurred as a result of the addiction.
But I don't think that model is necessary for everybody, for everybody rather, who has identified that they have a problem with alcohol. When I was reading, you mentioned that you had been to a couple of AA meetings but by the time you had gone to an AA meeting, you really weren't drinking much at all, that you'd already cut back your drinking significantly and you felt like drinking didn't have a hold of you. Completely, yeah. But because the dominant messaging is if you're questioning your drinking, you're an alcoholic, you need to go to AA.
I mean, at the time, that was why I was hearing. I agree, I think that is still the messaging. If you're questioning your drinking, then you are an alcoholic. Right, right.
So I went to AA because I was still questioning my drinking because there was still times, but it was maybe like once every few months when I drink three, drink three or four beers and wake up in the morning feeling shit and go, why did I do that? So as far as I was concerned, I was still questioning my drinking. So I went to AA and it was, you know, I found an amazing community, super supportive, really passionate individuals just wanting to help each other for free as well, which you honestly don't really get that anywhere else in life actually, that kind of level of support and counseling for free, which I think is amazing. But I felt kind of like an imposter because the stories I was hearing shared were not a reflection of my story by any means.
And so I went back, I went to two meetings just to kind of be sure and decided that it wasn't the right place for me. And that was when the idea for club soda and my CE came up because I felt that as much as I didn't need that level of support and that the abstinence approach wasn't necessarily right for me, I did see the value in just kind of having an open dialogue to kind of try and answer some of these questions I still had about alcohol. Are you still doing the club soda events Ruby? Yes, they're quite sporadic.
I host them with a meditation coach called Biet Zimkin and getting both of our schedules to align where we can do an event together is a bit of a mission. She also just had a baby. So we only did about three events this year, but they're big events. We have sort of like 200 plus people come along, high route, big venues, have all sorts of speakers.
They're really, they're fantastic and they've been growing ever since the beginning. I also must mention there's another organization called club soda in the UK. So people are looking for this online. They might find club soda in the UK, which is it's more about sort of their story to events, but they do lots of tips.
There's a really thriving Facebook community with people supporting each other in their sovacurias or sovosova parts. So they're a great resource as well. But we're club soda NYC and yeah, these big events they happen about three or four times a year. So I will make sure we link to those when they're available as well.
Great. I want to talk a little bit about sobriety and judgment. If we do make this choice for ourselves to move away from drinking and move towards a social lifestyle, how can we stop ourselves from judging those around us who still may drink how we used to? Because I kind of feel a little bit like in the spiritual communities that I know we both mix in.
There can sometimes be a little bit of an element of people feeling better or more evolved than others when they start on a spiritual journey. Have you seen that same kind of thing in the sober movement that people start feeling like, well, I've got this down now. I think it's yes, I have. And even in myself.
Thank you for your honesty, Ruby. You know, but I am an honest human and like I would be, if I'd be disingenuous to be, say those being, say those being, it's kind of natural when you've done something that you think is really difficult to go against the grain and constantly choose to make yourself the odd one out time and time again to go with this choice because you know it's what's right for you. There is a sense of achievement that comes with that. And I think, yeah, you can, particularly if there are people in your life who are still drinking the same way and still talking about the same or problems, and it can be difficult not to judge that sometimes.
And I think it can be difficult on the other flip side for you or as the sober person, not to be judged as being a person. It's not to be judged as being holier than now and think you're better than everyone else. And to pure of your own good and a killjoy and all of that stuff. I think there's a lot of judgment that comes up on both sides.
And it's actually really natural. And I think just kind of accepting it a little bit can be helpful in a way. But ultimately, you know, I've really got to a place where I'm completely owning that this is 100% my story, my journey, and I talk about this in the book a lot like Kate, your journey with alcohol could look completely different from mine. And that's 100% okay.
And I think just always bringing it back to your reasons for doing what you're doing on a personal level is a really good way to kind of get out of judgment. And also just recognizing that every body, like literally every physical body is very different and one person's experience of alcohol is going to be very different from yours, you know. So yeah, it's difficult. The judgment thing, it happens with human beings.
That's part of what we do, you know. And I guess part of my getting over judgment is not judging my judgment. It makes sense. Yeah, I love it.
It makes sense. I can also see the value of your events, you know, a community of like-minded people so that you are around people that are seeing the world through the eyes that you are as you move towards more sober curiosity. Exactly. And that's something that has been really important and really valuable.
Just because I was scared to even talk about this for so long, because I thought I would get the- you're an alcoholic go to AA. I thought that would be the only response I'd get. And it's been so amazing to just know that speaking up about this has given other people the permission to say, fuck yeah, me too, actually, you know. And just to witness that and to watch people come together and sort of bond through that and support each other has been amazing to witness.
And obviously that's something that happens in AA in a very kind of structured regimented way. It's not- I mean, ultimately lots of the actual tools that work, like community and sharing your story and meditation, they talk about meditation and these kinds of tools, they're not dissimilar from what's used in AA. It's just a different message overall. Absolutely, get it.
I want to talk about those hard times and how other people might be able to navigate those, because we're recording this in December and it's Christmas, it is New Year's Eve. Your book is released on the 1st of January. These are big events. How can people who are contemplating sober curiosity, how can they navigate some of these tough times where the social pressure might be really big?
Have you got any tips? Well, first of all, I'll speak to the kind of personal piece, the personal pressure, which is kind of sound- might sound a little bit like, you're going to be really boring, everyone's going to think you're a weirdo, you're not going to have anything to say, you'll get bored, you won't be able to dance like that kind of stuff. All of that's completely unfounded, all of that's completely future-driven, you literally do not know how it's going to go until you actually go to the party and don't drink and see. So it's a bit like in that, it can be a bit like standing on the edge of a pool being like, it's going to be freezing, my swimming suit's going to come off when I jump in.
You've already developed a lot, everyone's going to laugh and then you jump in and you're like, oh, actually it feels really good and it's so wonderful to be swimming. It's a bit like that feeling of just like, just jump, just jump, you just got to go for it. And in terms of actually in the situation when you're getting all of those, like, well, you're not drinking, what's wrong with you? Oh, no, don't be a downer, you're going to ruin everyone's night.
Wow, is it amazing that people, yeah, okay. Right, so, yeah, you might be writing those and you might get some of that stuff. The most important thing is not to take it personally, I think, and to just kind of, everyone's, you're doing something very outside the norm, you might as well be showing up to the party naked, so of course people are going to comment. The thing is to not make a big deal out of it, just to not react and just to be like, yeah, I'm just not drinking tonight and just like, carry on.
Once everyone's had a couple of drinks, they're going to completely forget that you're not drinking. Just always make sure you have a drink of something in your hand. So during line is obviously a favorite. I also really like to get a tonic water with just a splash of bitters, it's quite a little bit more sort of growing up and interesting, or yeah, get the bomb and to make you some kind of fancy mottail.
So you've got to drink in your hand, it'll make it even easier for people to forget that you're not drinking. Just kind of, and just see how you go. Just trust that you're still going to have fun. Just trust that you don't need alcohol to laugh, to dance, to enjoy yourself.
Finding out that I could still dance sober was one of the most joyful days of my life. I love the way you're reminding us though, you know, don't future trip, you have to try. You have to show up and be willing to do it sober before you write it off. Exactly, you really have no idea how it's going to go.
And some of them might be awkward and painful and like, oh God, who are these people anyway, and then which case, just take yourself home. Like there is nothing wrong with that either. Like just take yourself home and call it a night and chalk it up to get more so to curious. Experience.
I love it. Exactly. Exactly. Speaking of mocktails, the other night I was out for dinner in Chicago with my friend, and I ordered a virgin margarita.
And it looked amazing. And the woman next to me was like, excuse me, what is your drink? And I was like, yeah, it's a virgin margarita. It's delicious.
Great fruit juice and a little bit of salt and lime people. Oh my gosh. Great. Oh my God, yes.
Delicious. So good. Speaking of that, my very best friend in the world stopped drinking earlier this year. What I thought was so interesting, and she's staying with me at the moment, she said a lot of people ask her when she's going to start drinking again.
I could have thought that people ask her this question and she said it is unbelievable. People are like, well, when are you going to start drinking again? And she's like probably never. But she said the fact that people even asked that question, have you had that kind of questioning as well, Ruby?
Oh, yeah, definitely. Definitely. When are you going to start drinking again? How long are you next going to drink?
How long are you doing it for? Why are you doing it? Like, again, do you have a problem? If you think about it, these are actually very personal questions, but people have no qualms about asking you or of this stuff.
I personally have come to see that as almost like a projection. My question is, do you not drinking is bringing up some questions for whoever it is that's asking the questions about their own drinking. And so rather than answer those questions for themselves, because maybe they're not ready to, maybe they need to, they're going to start asking you questions instead. And I think it comes down to the fact that we just live in an alcohol-obsisted culture.
Yeah. Yeah. Where it is just so normalised, where, like I said, you're literally the one at the party in fancy dress, if you're at the cocktail party in fancy, like, sesame street fancy dress if you're not drinking. It's like, it stands out that much because it's so against the grain, which again, another big question, why?
Why is it so normalised to regularly use a toxic, mind and mood altering, psychoactive drug that is probably, I think this is correct, the only drug which can actually, whether withdrawal can kill you. I didn't know that until recently that alcohol withdrawals can literally kill you and I didn't know that. It's the only drug that you can actually die from the withdrawal. It's unreal, isn't it?
And yet, we all do it all the time without questioning it. It's just crazy to me. Having been hanging out with my best friend who has given up drinking over this last few, about the last week, whipping shopping and stuff. And I have been looking at the World Throw in New Orleans and been fascinated at just how much everywhere we turn there is alcohol or alcohol paraphernalia.
We were in a recreational sports shop yesterday looking for some Christmas stuff for my family. And you know, there's these new wine goblets that you can take in your backpack and there is like, it depends on the shelf. And I was just like, we're in a sports shop. It was blowing my mind.
Wow. I mean, yeah, the kind of the sober community of quite up and ons about the way that alcohol is infiltrating the kind of fitness and wellness scenes. You might have seen, you know, the kind of beer yoga classes that were being advertised and all that kind of stuff. It's just, it's literally everywhere.
It is. We're obsessed as a culture. I ask everyone Ruby who's on the show some personal questions because I like to get to know how it's a little bit better. So, you know, talk about being really personal.
I'm just going to go straight in there. OK. And you're a morning person or a night person, Ruby? Morning 100%.
Did that change after you stopped drinking? I've always been a morning person, even when I was a drinker. I was a morning person. I think I drank to make myself more of a night person because I thought being a night person was cooler.
Do you find that you go to be a little bit earlier now? Yes, I'm usually in bed by about 930 and then I like to read a book like a read a novel about half an hour before going to sleep. I don't have any screens on before like for half an hour or so before I go to bed. I'm quite a stickler for it.
Now that I've, now that I discovered, as I describe it in my book, the joys of August next week, I want to overnight. I know it's not so good. I'm typically a good sleeper but recently I haven't been sleeping so well. I want my sleep back.
All right. What's currently sitting on your night staying? Can you remember? Well, I'm sitting on a bed in a hotel, so the hotel night said my hotel night stand has a pink satin eye mask with some earplugs wrapped up in it, a can of very trendy still water and a empty tea cup that did have pecament tea in it and there's a telephone.
I'm a big fan of pigment tea, one of my favourites. Do you have a favourite self-care activity? Besides sleep, or guesmex sleep? The orgasmic sleep, exactly.
It's tricky with self-care because mine are things like having an hour-long conversation with a really dear friend is a favourite self-care activity. I'm not really big on the kind of physical pampering side of self-care. I quite get up and go and I don't really know fast in terms of all of that. I do love to get a deep tissue massage.
Being such a kind of high energy, get things done kind of a person. I tend to hold a lot of tension in my neck and back and so about once a month I get a really proper deep tissue. One of the really painful ones where you feel like getting bruises but the next day it feels amazing. I really like the fact that you didn't go straight to pampering because I personally define self-care as being nurturing to the spirit and I think there's nothing better than a conversation with a good friend to nurture your spirit.
What a great one! It is like getting an emotional hug isn't it? Yeah, I love it. Have you had a favourite book, one that has impacted your life or one that you've read recently that made a difference?
Well, I said I really love novels and I recently discovered a novelist called Mega Walitzer. She had a book out last of the summer called The Female Persuasion and that was just a really really great story about the evolution of feminism from the 70s to now and it tells the story through the eyes of a kind of a young 20-something girl. Now who goes to work for a kind of iconic feminist from the second wave feminist movement and just the difference of the shifts that have occurred over the over the decades I suppose in terms of the feminist movement. So that was a really great one.
I also really love Donatart's book The Secret History. It's an amazing dark Gothic thriller that's also very modern and cool and just so atmospheric. I really love losing myself in a book. Oh interesting!
I'm not that a novel writer, I need to give it a go. Oh, I find such a good way to be transported. Like I talk in the book about one of the reasons I think we use alcohol is to escape and to transcend and actually our brains and our psyche and system needs that escape from the physical reality. Something that we crave and novels do that for me in the way that movies do have some people and music do have some people but yeah.
Makes such sense and escape. Do you have a life lesson that just took you a good long while to learn Ruby but one that's been really important? I mean I think it's probably not that original but I think that the life lesson is really that it's actually what we think of the shittest times are the most important and the most valuable. Oh gosh!
You know what though? No one has brought that up yet for all of these interviews I've done. No one has had that but having had a shitty year myself you know like I hear you right? Our pain can often be those moments that make the biggest impact.
I mean the really tough times can just really make us appreciate and value what it is to be alive and to be human. It can teach us so much about ourselves and what we find important what's really meaningful to us and so that's probably the biggest lesson. Like I said earlier the bed that stuck out to me when you said you know life isn't supposed to be comfortable. I love that.
What's one thing in your day you can't do without? Green tea. Oh green tea. Yes.
So yeah my more and my pecamentini afternoon are not always I have to say but they just had it in the hotel room which is nice. Yeah green tea I've become quite an aficionado I like the really kind of white vegetable the Japanese green teas. How would you describe the soul Robey being the founder of the Numinous? The soul is Numinous.
Oh so good. I mean the soul is Numinous yeah I can't define it it's not for me to define. Oh I love it. Alright then what does fulfillment mean to you?
Fulfillment means I think it's for me is having an idea come to become a material reality in the world you know I get a huge sense of fulfillment from writing this book for example and then seeing it other people interact with it. I guess you know I don't have children and I've never wanted to be a mother and a parent to children but I do and again it's kind of a cliche but I feel like my books have been my sort of babies in a way and watching them be birthed and then watch them have their own lives out in the world and other people interact and be impacted by them. It's hugely fulfilling in the way that I know so many people find fulfillment in their children. Okay revving up the interview I've got a couple more questions for you.
Has it been worth it this journey of sobecuriosity just going straight to the heart of it? Has it been worth it Ruby? Yeah I can't imagine my life without it it's been worth it and it's been so much more than worth it. There's a line in the book where I say it has been both the undoing and the making of me like I can't imagine how my life would have panned out without it so yeah 100% worth it.
What thoughts would you leave someone today who is reconsidering for your relationship with alcohol? Well again like you know if you want to ask yourself that question would like be better with alcohol but only way to answer it is to stop drinking alcohol and try it and I think you have absolutely nothing to lose even if it winds up being the most miserable year or whatever of your life and you're like no do you know what yeah I'm going back to the drinking you've really got nothing to lose by getting it go. That was Ruby Warrington in her new book which has just been released this week is called Sober Curious. If you want to dive deeper into this I encourage you to go and get a copy.
As Ruby mentioned she has the club soda NYC events you can find out more at her website Ruby Warrington.com. Ruby is hosting one with the book launch for Sober Curious on the 7th of January so if you are listening to this before then go and grab a ticket if you're in NYC for 7pm on the 7th of January. If you're listening later than that I have a link in the show notes for you to check upcoming events out. We mentioned that article in Time magazine about the five different categories of problem drinkers that is linked to in the show notes as well.
To find out more and grab your link to purchase Sober Curious head over to my website thrive.how forward slash 109. I'm taking a little break right now and we'll be back in about a month's time with some new guest interviews for you and we'll be going to the every other week release schedule when we return. Happy 2019 people. I hope this will be a beautiful one for you too.