Podcast Transcript - Episode 0019 - Sober in a World of Drinkers with Mandy Withers

Welcome to.

The professional drinkers podcast brought to you by choosesurrise. Co. Uk. I'm Janet Hadley and this is for you if you're an HR professional, a business owner, or a leader who'd like to explore the drinking culture in your workplace. I'll bring you lived experience stories, expert views, and tips for creating an alcohol-safe workplace without killing the buzz.

Welcome back to the professional drinkers podcast. Thank you so much for being here on this lovely autumn week with all the leaves being golden, sunshine everywhere, and I just love this time of year. I think it's magical. I really do. We've just had a couple of days up in Northumberland as well, and it was just stunning, actually, the blue sky and all the autumn leaves. Absolutely lovely. It's so nice to be able to wake up sober and get up and enjoy these beautiful mornings. And I've also got a bit.

Of an update for you.

About the cold water swimming as well. For those of you who've been following my cold water journey, I have bought myself something called an Arctic pod, which is basically... How would I describe it? It's a little bit like a paddling pool for grownups.

So it's like.

A barrel.

Shape.

And you fill it with cold water and the challenge is to get in it every day over the winter. So I'm doing pretty well so far, but I've been in every day apart from days when I'm completely away from home, and it's definitely getting harder. Definitely. So if you look out on my socials, I'll probably be posting a couple of pictures of that in the next few days, if you want to know more. So just looking at some of the stuff that's going on in the alcohol-free world this week, there was a really interesting article in the Daily Mail, which I hate, by the way, I can't stand the Daily Mail. It was an article blaming the mummy wine culture for why UK women are some of the biggest binge drinkers in the world. There's a lot of truth in this article, which is a little bit unusual for the Daily Mail, actually. It is true that the women in the UK are some of the biggest binge drinkers in the world. There's no doubt about that. It might surprise you to learn that only 25% of women in the world are actually.

Drink alcohol.

So 75% of all the women in all the countries in all the world are sober.

I was.

Really shocked when I found that out. I thought, well, within that 25%, women.

In the UK are.

Towards the top end of that. Then I was one of probably the heaviest drinking women in the UK, potentially, which puts me in, you've got to be top of something. But it turns out I think I was probably one of the top drinking women in the world, which is something that I'm really not very proud of. It really does put it into context. When you start to look at the statistics, it's so normalised in this country that we drink too excess that we think that everyone does it, and it's just simply not true. It's also true in the article that mummy wine culture definitely does have a lot to answer for, and I do agree with the daily mail about that. I used to have this glass that said, small glass of wine, large glass of wine, mom's glass of wine with three markers on it. And the mum's glass was obviously right at the top. And we just used to laugh. We used to think that it was funny. And it.

Was.

Funny until it wasn't anymore. And I look back on it and think all of these little things, they add up to this sense that it's okay to binge drink. It's okay to drink to excess every single weekend. It's okay to have a glass of wine every single day. We don't have any counterarguments to that. We don't really have enough of a narrative telling us that actually these things are not okay and that they're really harmful for your mental and physical health. I do agree that that mummy wine culture has a lot to answer for. I think it would be useful for the Daily Mail to perhaps mention their contribution to the dozens of red wine is good for you type articles that they've run over the years and the huge amounts of revenue that they'll have generated by advertising alcohol.

But hey, you can't have everything.

What else has happened this week? I had a really interesting phone call from someone this week from someone who has never drunk alcohol. They weren't looking for my help with alcohol as such, but they were looking for my help.

On.

Overcoming an issue that they were having with someone who they.

Described as.

A person in their circle of friends who they like and respect, who basically will not stop asking them if they're an alcoholic, which is so interesting. This guy has never drunk alcohol. They just don't like it. It's not.

That they've.

Had an issue, they've just never really drunk. And yet he's now worrying that there's other people in his circle of friends or colleagues who assume that he's an alcoholic, and he's really worried about the stigma of that and being judged for it. It's so interesting. I don't know anybody who doesn't smoke and has never smoked and isn't interested in smoking, who is worried about the stigma of not smoking. I don't know anyone who's never taken crack cocaine, who's worried about the stigma of not taking crack cocaine. Yet with alcohol, there's this enormous and strange stigma that surrounds being a non-drinker. Actually, I really felt for him. I think the answer, though, is not to actually convince this person that you're not an alcoholic, but is to convince this person that being an alcoholic shouldn't carry stigma.

But yeah.

Perhaps it's a little bit of an uphill battle. It struck me that his story is actually really similar to my guest this week. My guest is Mandy With us, who is a wonderful, warm, and friendly person who reached out to me. She runs a supportive community of HR independence called the Talk HR Club. I joined that community, and Mandy gave me a shout out and we had a Zoom chat because she wanted to share with me her story about not drinking, which is really fascinating and actually quite similar to the call that I had this week, where she was feeling an enormous amount of pressure to drink from people around her, and also some of that stigma about not being a drinker. It's very interesting. That's why I've called this week's episode, Sober in a World of drinkers.

Let's just have a listen to Mandy's story and just think about the peer pressure and the unhelpful comments and the judgement that people experience and just ask ourselves, Can we stop this, please? What can we do to create a world where it's okay to say, I don't drink? Enjoy the interview.

Hello, Mandy. It's lovely to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for being my guest.

Thank you, Janet. Thank you so much for having me today. It's great. I'm really.

Looking forward to this conversation, actually. We're going to start off by hearing a little bit from you, Mandy, about the HR network that you run, if that's okay.

Yeah, thanks, Janet. Yes, I run a network called the Talk HR Club, which is pooled for independent HR Consultants. It's a place where we come together, we connect, we collaborate, support and share. And it's been going, in essence, about four years, but we formally launched it last year with its own platform, which is great, and it's that sense of belonging, and we're growing all the time. And we've just come back from our first annual retreat, which was amazing. It was in a place called Campwell, and we camped out under bell tents and yurts, and we literally totally relaxed for the weekend. We did some meditation, yoga, journaling, and really coming together of like-minded people, and a lot of laughter as well. Oh, wonderful.

Laught is so good for the soul. It's so good for the soul. I really wanted to book onto this retreat, and various things meant that I couldn't this year, but next year, I'm going to be at the front of the queue, because you're limiting numbers as well, aren't you?

We are, yeah. We're going to keep it to 12 or 14.

Yeah, I think that's about right, isn't it? To create that, I don't know, just that safe space, isn't it? I saw some of your pictures on LinkedIn, by the way. It wasn't really camping, was it? It was glamping, I'm going to say. It was glamping, yes.

Yeah, we did our facilities, and we even had a sauna in the woods as well, which was magical.

The yurt looked amazing. It really did look beautiful. It really did look beautiful. Oh, it looks so good. I'm quite jealous, I have to say.

So, Mandy, it.

Was an interesting way that we met, really, wasn't it? Because I joined the network online, and then you reached out to me, and I just wanted to ask you really a little bit about why specifically you decided to reach out to me.

I think a lot of the things that you were saying resonated with me, particularly as I'm a non-drinker myself, but your value is aligned with my own, and I can see the work that you're doing, and I'm looking at, well, how can I help you spread the word and actually give people the support and the resources that they need.

Oh, Mandy, that's just lovely. How heartwarming. Thank you. Thank you.

I know, and I.

Really appreciate it because when you're setting out in business, as you know yourself, and this is really why you run your network, isn't it? But you can feel a little bit alone sometimes, and there's definitely been times where I felt I'm not sure the world's quite ready for this message, and I get pockets of immense support and pockets of people saying, That'll never work. Actually, I think that's probably the best thing for a business model, actually. I think you've.

Got to.

Listen to your heart.

Definitely. Keep doing what you're doing. Quite right.

Yeah. No, my heart is what drives me. Absolutely. It really is. And yeah, it's been great to connect with you. We've talked a little bit about this when we've been off the podcast, but for the listeners, it'd be great, Mandy, if you'd be happy to share a little bit about your own relationship with alcohol. Thank you.

Okay, so if I go back to my corporate days, I used to work long hours. I had a lot of responsibility, a lot of stress, and drink was my go-to. I was never a big drinker, but I would have an evening meal, I'd have a glass of wine. But Friday night was my night when I would literally put on my pyjamas, and I'd have quite a few glasses of wine, and that was my, I thought it was a way of destressing. But I ate it the next morning when I felt that fog and feeling I couldn't really do the things I wanted to do to full effect. And it was literally not a nice feeling. And I never really... But I still kept doing it because that was my time on a Friday night. And then we'd go out on a Saturday night as a couple with friends who drank. I don't think I really knew any non drinkers back then. I think everybody were drinkers, and that would be it. And then through the week, I'd have just one glass of wine with a meal. But I recognise it just wasn't great. But I still kept doing it because that was just become a way of life, really.

And then I recognised then when I went through a personal situation, I was going through a divorce and my husband had left, I found the stress really unbearable. And I remember one night getting a bottle of wine and looking at it thinking, I could drink all of this, or I could actually say, I don't need it. And I remember not keeping alcohol in the house because if I didn't have it in the house, I couldn't drink it. So I started to look at healthier habits. I started gradually, but I never really gave it up completely. And it was only when, shortly after my divorce, I had a heart condition, and they put that down to stress because I threw myself into my own business at that time. I was running my business with a team of six people, and I just threw myself into the business and I got sick. So I had to have an intervention, I'd have a procedure, and it got me right. And then after that procedure, they said, It's still not complete. We're going to need to bring you back into hospital for another procedure. And I started thinking about, Well, I need to do everything I can do to get fit, healthy as possible I can.

So in the January of 2017, I took up dry January as a challenge. And after 30 days, I thought that was not difficult. I might try 60 days. And doing that second month in February was my second procedure. So again, 60 days, not a problem. I got to the third month in March, and I thought, 90 days. And from there on in, since 2017, I am drunk, and I can't tell you the personal benefits. It's just amazing. Not having that fogy brain, having more energy, going out with friends and telling them what they got up to last night, they said, What did I do last night? And say, It was so entertaining. Absolutely loved it. Always been the first one out when I've gone out with friends after the night before, and saving loads of money as well. And my recycling was a lot better. You didn't see the empty bottles. It was just a new way of life, really. And I think I was almost to the point working towards it, but I hadn't quite given it up until 2017. And now it's just who I am. And I think people often say, if you don't drink, you must be boring, or people don't want to let their hair down in front of you.

But when people really know me and what that, I get a big kick out of life. I don't need a drink. So yeah, it's just been, I can't believe it's six and a half years.

Wow. And you did that all on your own as well. No support groups, no help. No. Wow.

Amazing. I set it as a challenge, really.

Yeah, yeah. Hats off to you, Mandy. Your story is very similar to mine in lots of ways, in that I was a typical drinker, really, drinking after work to destress. Then I had a loss. For me, it was the loss of my husband's health. For you, it was a divorce. Then your drinking escalates a bit and you start questioning it. For me, I actually had to, well, had to, I don't know, but I went and got some counselling and therapy and found solace in sobriety groups and they really helped me. I don't know how I would have done that on my own. I don't know whether I would have been able to or not, but hats off to you because that's incredible. And it's like you say, it's the benefits, isn't it, afterwards? And I just wanted to pick up on a couple of things that you said. So in your corporate life, you were drinking to destress, which I think is very common. Did you ever have any wellbeing provision in those corporate jobs?

No, I think back, I'm going... I've been in HR for 28 years, so I recognised dealing with people issues, there needed to be a strategy around wellbeing. So we used to do bits and pieces, but it was never a coherent strategy.

And.

The responsibility tended to be on my shoulders. So I was constantly reaching out to providers. I even went to the Department of Health and said, What can you do? I'm coming across really complex issues. And then there was lots of issues with drugs, alcohol. Gosh, it was like you've done your HR. But it was like, Well, suddenly I'm not prepared for all of these things, and seeing performance being affected, seeing people's lives falling apart, and knowing that a lot of them weren't looking after their wellbeing, and there was no real support. It was a bit ad-hoc.

Yeah, that's interesting. It's one of my observations, as I stopped drinking, was that I must have attended 100 workplace wellbeing seminars and never heard the word alcohol mentioned, and yet alcohol was the thing that was putting a wrecking ball through every single pillar of my wellbeing. It doesn't really matter how many yoga classes you go to, if you drink half a bottle of wine after each one, it doesn't really help. And that's why I'm so passionate about helping employers to add alcohol into that workplace wellbeing programme and to give them proper support. And the other piece that I think really resonated with me was when you said, I didn't know anyone who didn't drink. That was very similar for me as well. I didn't know anyone who didn't drink, and I didn't think it was really possible to function in our society without drinking. I thought I'd just be an outcaste, really, and have no friends or no fun ever again. And the opposite is true.

It's so interesting. And sometimes I think it's just about providing that little spark of inspiration for people to see someone who's a little bit like them, but they don't drink and they're happy, and it's like, Oh, maybe it's possible.

Just maybe it's possible. I do remember a time with friends. I went away on a city break and I felt pressurised because they were all drinking and they were, Well, you're not driving, you can have a drink. Why don't you have a drink? And I actually gave in to peer pressure and I was really annoyed with myself. And I remember one of the group, he's a fireman, so he doesn't drink. And this is only a few years back. I actually gave in because I felt like it was pressure. And I gave in, and in the end, I was not happy at all. And I remember sitting at dinner and they started talking about drinking, and I absolutely spoke my truth. And I said, I've just given into pressure, and it feels like bullying. And I'm so annoyed with myself that I took a drink. It was a cocktail when I didn't really want it, but I was trying to fit in, and it was like, It's not what I'm about. And he came up to me afterwards, the phone, and he said, I watched it. And he said, I'm so glad you spoke your truth, because that's weird pressure.

People put pressure on others, and then suddenly, they're drinking again. But they all came back, Oh, that's not our intention. And there was no bad intention at all. But they did admit to me, it's like when we have a drink and we're being funny, we think you're perhaps judging us. I'm like, Oh, my God, no way. I absolutely love seeing you enjoy yourself, but I don't need to have a drink. I can still enjoy myself, but I don't need to... And they were like, Oh, okay. So it was like they were more worried about what they look like and how they were being. So it's quite interesting.

Yeah, very interesting. Very interesting. And I have to admit that as a drinker, I think, if I'm really honest, there's definitely been times when I've been that person saying, Oh, go on, have a drink. Come on, join in, because I couldn't understand how that other person could possibly enjoy themselves without alcohol. I just thought that they must be sitting there, miserable, trying not to drink. It didn't occur to me that they might be completely happy to not drink. I can see it from both points of view. That's why it's so important to educate people and for the people who don't drink to have more of a voice and to explain to the people who do drink, but it's not okay to try and persuade us to drink and we actually are happy. You don't need to keep telling us that we're missing out, like we've tried it and we've chosen.

It's.

Quite a subtle shift, but it can be really beneficial for both parties, actually.

Yeah, absolutely. I remember another time when I think I'd gone to a rugby match and I offered to buy a round and I was drinking squash and it came to like £35 and I was thinking, That's an expensive glass of squash. So you start to look at that, whether people query, Well, you're in a round, but you're not drinking, and you need to drink and keep up with them. I would never keep up with like six to eight glasses of squash. I just wouldn't drink that much squash or whatever. I was drinking lemonade or something. So eventually then people start to say, Oh, we know you're not in the round, and that's fine. And I would just get a drink as and when I needed it.

Exactly, yeah. I know, I do think it's a good point that it's something that people struggle with a little bit when they first stop, and it's about having some boundaries around it, isn't it? Because at the end of the day, do you really want to... I mean, if I'm out with my work colleagues, and if I'm the boss, like if it's my team, I'll buy them a round of drinks because that's what you do as a boss. That's absolutely fine. But I don't necessarily then want to be drawn into ongoing rounds of drinks when they're all topping up, etc. I'd rather be out of it. And same with my friends. I'd never go in a round of drinks with my friends because my drinks, like you say, is lemon soda or something, and it's just not. I don't want to be spending seven, eight quid on glasses of wine for other people, to be honest. Sorry, guys. But it's one of the great benefits of being sober. It's like you've got discount vouchers everywhere you go.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

I think it's educating, and often in the early days, I used to have people saying, Well, why are you not drinking? Have you got a problem? I've got a problem, what do you mean? I said, I've got no problem with drink. I'm doing it to be the best that I can be in terms of my health. It's a conscious choice.

Yeah. Isn't it interesting? I saw a really good post on Instagram the other week, and it said.

It's really strange.

I'm the only alcoholic, and I'm the only person ordering an alcohol free drink. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah.

I do think the choice of non-alcohol drinks is not great. I do get a bit of a ped for drinking lime and soda, or you have a look. I went to a wedding the other day, and it was an outdoor wedding, and it was a friend and his daughter got married. And the only choice, if you didn't drink, was a J2O lemonade. J2o Lemonade, that's all they had. Yeah, it's absolutely awful, isn't it? She poured me a glass of lemonadeade, and it was £3.80, and she poured out of YTS, our YTS, lemonade, and said, There you go, and I thought, I don't know many of these I could drink tonight, you know? But that's all that was available.

It's treadful. Yeah, it is. And things like weddings and private functions, they're quite often the worst places actually for alcohol-free options. I have a business that I collaborate with called the Alcohol-Free Drinks Company, and they actually are starting to get into wedding venues, which is brilliant because there's always a good chunk of people who go to a wedding who don't drink, and they're never catered for. And it's a long time, isn't it? When you're there all day and all evening to be drinking a White's Lemonade or whatever. You can't even get a cup of tea sometimes.

It's hard work. Actually, if you go to a pub, sometimes you want a cup of tea or coffee, and some just don't do it properly. You think, Oh, gosh, I'm going to give that a miss.

So yeah, you are- Things are getting a little bit better, a little bit. But it's always the big alcohol brands and they've got the distribution, I understand it. But there's such an explosion of innovation in this space and so many great small producers making brilliant alcohol-free drinks. And it's really tragic, actually, that they can't get into the mainstream distribution. I don't know how to influence it, really, but I so want it to change because I'd love to be able to go and get a kombucha or something from Myth Drinks who do this amazing alcohol free coconut drink, which is beautiful. And you just... Yeah, you can only drink them at home, really.

My partner was at weddings, because he gets my drinks. So you allow for your toast. And sometimes we've gone out for an evening and it's been a special deal on, it could be steak and wine or something. So he's like, Oh, that means I get two glasses of wine and I'm pushing the glass across the table. And he's.

Like, Oh, great.

But actually, it does have an impact when you don't drink around others around you. So I've noticed with my partner, he always should have a drink with his meal, he doesn't now. And when we go out, there are times when he drives, so he doesn't drink. So as he's got older, his drinking consumption has slowed right down.

Yeah, same for my husband.

It turns out, I think I was the ringleader in our nightly drinking. When I don't drink, he generally doesn't either.

He.

Gets drunk. I could count on one hand the times I've seen him drunk since I stopped drinking. It's really influenced his behaviour, and I think it's quite common actually. Which is great, actually, because it's having a really positive impact on both of our physical and mental health, which is fantastic. I wanted to ask you with your HR head on then, what advice would you potentially have for other HR managers, perhaps the ones who are out there in corporate, when they're thinking about their culture in relation to this topic?

Yeah, I think, you know... They need to be thinking about everyone in the organisation. They need to be inclusive. And it doesn't take a lot. You mentioned some great producers of non-alcoholic drinks that really just think about the cater for everybody because it doesn't take much. We're organising a Christmas function, and we know it'll be either prosecco or Orange juice. So we're going to go to them and say, Look, have you got something else rather than Orange juice? And even if it's like no Secco, which looks like everybody is getting a drink if that's what they want, but to give a bit more choice than just Orange juice. But I think it's about education. It's recognising as HR, they can bring in the support, the resources through education. It does work. I read a statistic the other day, and might have been from yourself, that actually said, was it 75 % of women don't drink?

Yeah, in worldwide, 75 % of women don't drink, which is a staggering number, isn't it? I couldn't believe that. I know, I couldn't either. So as women who drink, we're in the minority worldwide. And then if you're towards the top end of the spectrum of women who drink in the UK, what that means is you're probably towards the top end of the spectrum of women who drink in the whole world. And that, for me, was a little bit scary. You just think, Well, yeah, of course you're going to get health issues. Of course you are.

And did you say, I think you said the other day, 20 % of the world's population are non-drinkers?

20 % in the UK. Oh, UK? So yeah, 20 % of people in the UK don't drink and half of the world's population drink. In fact, no, sorry, I'll have to cut that bit out. It is 20 % of people in the UK don't drink and 66 % of people in the world don't drink. So only a third of the world are drinkers, which I was shocked by. But then when you think about it, a lot of people won't be able to afford it.

Yeah, absolutely.

I also think- So much of it is marketing as well. Countries where it's not heavily marketed. All the Muslim countries in the world, there's all sorts of reasons why people don't drink. It does make you realise how much marketing plays a role, actually.

Yeah, big time. And also, I've noticed, if I look back at the women in my family as they got older and they went through menopause, you started to see them stop drinking because it often exacerbated the symptoms with menopause, perimenopause, menopause. And I remember my grand, she'd only have the cherry at Christmas, and she wouldn't drink the rest of the year. It'd be really special for her to have a cherry at Christmas. But they didn't have the education or the information. Now we can go on Google and ask anything. There's so much data out there, but there's so many things that we can do individually or as a company just to keep looking after people and making sure that they are looking after themselves.

Yeah, absolutely. And it is quite often a bit of an elephant, I think, in the wellbeing room, like you say. We do think about other aspects of women's health, like you say, menopause and fertility issues. We think about physical health and mental health.

And we don't.

Necessarily connect the dots with alcohol, but actually alcohol can underpin and exacerbate a lot of those problems that women experience. So anyone experiencing fertility problems really should try stopping drinking. And anyone who's experiencing severe menopause symptoms, I would definitely advocate that they try sobriety out and just see what happens to the symptoms. We process alcohol less effectively as we age, and you can feel that on a Sunday morning, if you think, God, I used to be able to go out and drink all night, and now I have two glasses of wine and I feel dreadful. And that's a big signal from your body telling you that it's time to change that behaviour. We just choose to ignore it. Because a lot of it's social pressure, actually.

Yeah.

And it's Abit, isn't it? I've got a friend that's a big gin drinker, and there's only a certain gin that she can drink, and it's to do with botanical. So she will like, We'll go out over and eat in, and I'm quite easy because they know I'm not... I know it'll be a diet Coke, Lymasoda, whatever, and she's looking at the drinks and she said, We can't stay here. And I go, But why? Oh, because they haven't got my gin. I kid you not. We have to go to another place so that she can go there. And she says it's because she gets a really bad upset stomach. She's actually paid privately, but she can't give up that social drink. She's a social smoker as well. So it's just like it's so habit forming. She's in her 60s and she's like, Well, I've done this all my life. I just can't change it. That's a mindset thing.

Yeah, it is a mindset thing. Yeah, it's such a shame because there is freedom from that on the other side. If you can just get through the difficult bit at the beginning, there really is freedom, isn't there? But you've got to want it.

And there's no good. I would never judge anybody or preach to anyone. It's got to come from within. You've got to make that conscious choice to say the This is what I want. That's exactly right.

Exactly that. And that's where we sit, waiting for people who were ready to come and then scooping them up and helping them.

Which is.

Very rewarding. So going back to your HR hat again.

What.

Mistakes have you noticed made by employers when it.

Comes to alcohol? Well, there's so many. I may have to look back on some of the things, and they're still now. So I've seen examples where you've got a high functioning individual who drinks to excess, but they still do their job, but there's some underlying mental health issues, but they've got so great at their job, but almost to the point that they're heading towards suicide as well. So drink helps them to block things out, create some denial, but it stops working and they're in despair. So that could happen to me in my career when I was quite young and not knowing what to do and go to the senior team and saying, What do I do? There's no support. And luckily, that person did have counselling, and absolutely fine today. Then I've seen situations where quite recently, a gentleman was angry in the workplace, and he shouted at some women on the manufacturing line, and collective grievance came in. And this was totally out of character with this individual. And he'd also started looking dishevelled. They didn't recognise him, totally out of character. And they were saying that he smelled. And I said, and the general manager said, We want rid.

He's just trouble. I meant, Whoa, stop. He's been with you a long time. He's a really valued member of staff. He's good at what he does. There's something not quite right. How do you know? He might be sofa surfing. There might be a lot of issues back at home. Anyway, he was called to a meeting, and I don't know whether it's with me being an external HR, but I uncovered that he was going through a divorce. He'd been thrown out from his home, and he was surface surfing with friends, and the hygiene standards weren't great where he was staying, so he would just try to do the best he could. But as time went on, his life was just falling apart. And he said, I am so sorry about my behaviour, but he said, I was looking at the messing around and thinking, Well, here I am. What have I got in my life? My life has fallen apart. I was so angry with the world. How could they be so happy? And he explained that he'd been drinking. He was really at a place he didn't know where to turn next. So I advised the company to support him in finding some accommodation, and he went into an over 55's complex.

He's got his life back, really, really happy. But that company could easily have dismissed him. And that was so unnecessary because somebody took the time to understand what was going on for him, give him a safe space, give him the support. And he's a really valued member of the team.

Mondays. Sounds like he's doing a great job with that.

Yeah, and just recognising it, I think as a company, they weren't used to seeing different things and trying to understand what was going on for that individual. So they've got HR support there that's really, really good, the HR support manager. She does other functions as well, but she is really in tune with the people, and she knows if anything's not quite right, she can actually take them to one side, give them time, have a chat, a cup of tea, and actually just give them that space and to listen.

So.

I've not had any other issues since, but they're proactive now rather than reactive.

Yeah.

And it is quite a natural reaction for an employer to see someone who's drinking and think, Just get read. We haven't got time for this. They've broken the rules. It's their own fault. They chose to come to work having had a drink or whatever. End of story. We're not going to support them. What would you say to an employer who's in that headspace?

Yeah, I would say that life is never a straight line. We all go through life with unexpected curveballs, and to know that you work in a place where they really do care about people and put people first, you get back so much loyalty, so much output from individuals that feel that they belong, that they've got a caring employer, that it just makes great business sense. If they are well, they're going to perform well, and the business is going to do well. It's quite simple, really. But I think there are some employers that will openly say, I don't know what to do. Can you point me in the right direction? Can you take care of this? Because I need to be front facing. I need to be 12 months down the line making sure the business is doing well for everyone. So it's that admission to say, There's some issues. We need help. And I think the wellbeing spectrum is changing, and I don't know if it always exists under HR. I'm seeing more and more people actually putting in a wellbeing manager, Edie, which is brilliant. So I think it does need recognition for the work that people are doing out there right now.

And HR is quite complex, but HR need to be trained and not be so policy-driven. The policy says this and you're out, whereas if they actually peel back the layers with individuals and understood what was going on for them, and not judge people, I think the best HR, those have gone through personal situations themselves, and they have empathy. They understand what it's like to walk in someone else's shoes. So if somebody presents themselves in front of you and they're going through a divorce and they fit the bottle, then you can actually have real empathy for them to say, I get it. Those feelings or emotions are a little bit like clouds. They will pass eventually. But you've got to find some tools. You've got to find some support to help you get through that period.

Yeah, yeah.

And that support and that help, it doesn't have to be complex, and it doesn't have to be expensive. Like you say, a simple one conversation with somebody can set them off on a completely different path and change the trajectory of their whole life. It's such an important part of the job. And like you say, it's a shame that sometimes it does just get lost in the policy says this. I always encourage employers to write policies with a degree of flexibility and also to state in the policy what support is available for people who come forward and disclose an alcohol issue. If you go onto your company, Intranet, and put in the word alcohol and see what comes up, inevitably what you'll find is a policy that tells you which disciplinary procedures to use if you find out that someone's drinking on duty. And that is terrifying for someone who's trying to find help with alcohol use. Just think, well, obviously I'll have to keep it secret then. And that's not right. It should be our policy is, if you come forward and say, I'm worried about my alcohol use, we'll send you to this group or we'll give you this therapy, or we'll give you this support, whatever it is, and we'll support you.

So tell us-.

And I think sometimes the employers-.

-have their lives to be changed. And I think sometimes, employers- Sorry. I think.

Sometimes employers send individuals to the EAP line, but that isn't a panacea. You often need specific support. So EAPs are useful, but sometimes they're just not enough.

No. Have I told you my EAP story? No. I've probably said it on the podcast before, but I went to my workplace EAP when I was worried about my drinking, and I asked to go to an alcohol councillor who had found local to me, and they said that there was no funding for that because it was classed as rehab. But I was like, I don't need rehab.

I just need.

A bit of help. They wouldn't pay for it, but they did send me to a general councillor, and I went to my first meeting and I told her why I was there, and she said, Well, how much are you drinking? And I told her. And then she told me how much she drank, which was way more than I drank, and she told me not to worry. And I skipped out of that meeting and carried on drinking.

I.

Know.

You can't.

Have people who drink giving people advice about their drinking. You need someone who has been there, done that, got the T-shirt, and doesn't drink anymore to really understand that issue. And like you say, it's specialist. It's not generalist help that people need.

Gosh.

Yeah, I know. It's a good story, isn't it? Yeah. Well, it's a good story. I could have stopped months and months before I did if I'd had just a couple of sessions with the councillor that I eventually paid to see. Oh, dear. The last topic that I thought we could have a quick chat about Manday is about the tone from the top as well. This is something that I've seen quite a lot of, and I'm sure you will have some stories about this as well, but people behave how they see the senior leadership team behave in an organisation. This can sometimes be where the alcohol culture comes from. In fact, often it is. There was a great article in, I think it was in HR, grapevine last week about, if the boss likes to party, is it a problem? I just thought, yeah, this is exactly what I'm talking about. And it was a grievance that had been brought by somebody whose boss had basically forced them to do tequila shots and go out and then tried to feed them some meat off a fork or something at night. I don't know, it just it sounded quite abusive and bullying and just not very nice.

And I just thought, Yeah, I bet you've seen a bit of this as well in your time.

Yeah, I can think whenI joined an organisation, I didn't, because the boss was very... Honestly, he was great. He was a mentor to me, but he never... It was like our social events would be, believe it or not, he'd invite us to his house, him and his wife would cook us dinner. The senior team would be there and nobody drank to excess. It was really nice. But I did work for another organisation where the MD, and I remember going to Black-Tie events and used to like red wine. And his white babe would always be splattered in red dots from red wine. And he would be erratic. And you used to worry about, is he driving? I would end up thinking I'd be taking care, make sure he's not driving. And I met him many years later and he was still erratic, still drinking, but he would have somebody to drive, but to access, and quite a elderly gentleman as well, but encouraged everybody to drink. So that was in the early part of my career, but to the latter part of my career in corporate, no, I didn't see that. And we were like... He was only in his 30s, my MD, and so was I.

And the FC, we were like the new team coming in, and it was all about being the best that you could be. So things were starting to change from me from quite a young age, really. I just didn't know how to stop when I was going through the divorce. But it was only when I got ill that I actually started to think I need to do something. So I could have stopped sooner as well if I knew there was something out there that I could have felt, I could have gone and said, I'm really conscious about I could do better, but I don't know what support is out there, really, and the stigma that used to be with it. It's like the only thing I ever knew was AA. Didn't know there was anything else.

So- Yeah, no, I didn't know there was anything else. And there is. There's so much. Even the simplest thing you can do is just go on to my website and download the resources for the Sobecurious and share them with your workforce, which I'm very happy for you to do at no cost, by the way. And it is just a fantastic resource. It's packed full of books and podcasts and groups that you can join really low cost or a lot of it's free, and you can just help yourself through all of these resources. And just getting that into workplace wellbeing, intranet sites is a huge part of what I do, actually. I just think it's really valuable.

I can see- Knowledge is power. -knowledge is power. Yeah, in some organisations, we drink is... On a Friday, we'll have a pizza and a bottle of bed or something. It's that's what we do around here. Well, that's not for everyone. And it's that what message you sending out? Or you see conferences where they go to a conference, and it is about having a session. So I've not been exposed to that, but I have seen it obviously, or independent HR, we often don't go to our clients' Christmas party because we're this drink, often there is an issue, and you're following the Christmas party. There's something that you need to resolve.

Yeah, busiest day of the year, isn't it? Day after the Christmas party.

Yeah. And some companies just don't have Christmas parties, or they just tend to say, Well, I'll give you something. If you want to do something as a small team, then off you go, or use a gift. We're not doing Christmas parties.

Yeah, I know, things have changed. Things have changed, definitely.

Yeah, because that would be where if somebody wanted to pay rise, they'd start to have a bit of Dutch courage and start to say to their manager, or things could get out of hand, and then people would lose their inhibitions and start to express themselves what they really thought their manager. So there are lots of things, anybody organising a Christmas party, you've got to be pretty brave these days because there's no guarantee that it's going to go smoothly.

Absolutely, yeah. We encourage decentralisation of alcohol from the event. So you can still have alcohol there, but have something else to do that isn't just drinking. You will get better... Well, you reduce your risk of grievances and incidents happening as a result of the Christmas party. Again, on our website, we've actually got a list of 50 suggestions for things to do for your Christmas party that put alcohol not front and centre somewhere off to the side a little bit. Thank you, Manday. I think I just have one more question for you, which is my usual question of what is your favourite book and why?

Oh, I've got so many favourite books, but I'm going to give you a book I'm reading right now, and it's called Give and Take by Adam Grant. And if you've read any of his books, he's just amazing. It's literally recognising that in this world, we're either a giver, a taker, or a matcher. And I'd like to think of myself as a giver, acting abundantly and in return, you get so much back. But the takers, many of us can identify with people who just take and they can be quite draining. Or the matchers are a little bit like, if I give you a Christmas card, you're going to have to give me a Christmas card back. They're looking for, I've done something for you, you've got to give something back for me. And the science and the research has shown that givers perform much better in the top level of performance than somebody who is a taker. And it's an interesting book and it covers behaviours and being in HR, I study behaviours, I'm really fascinated by people and why people do what they do. So yeah, I've almost finished the book, but I'm telling everybody, read this book because it's really, really good.

I think it's quite a groundbreaking book, so it's been around for a while, but it'll captivate most people, I think, if you take it. I'll send you a copy, Janet.

How about that? Oh, Amanda, you don't need to do that, but I'd love to read it, though, so thank you. You see, you are a giver. You absolutely are. I feel like a taker now.

No, you're not. Not at all. You're such a giver, yeah.

Oh, that's really kind. Thank you. And thank you, Mandy, for all of the support that you've shown to Choose Sunrise. It's hugely appreciated for a teeny, tiny little business like mine to know that people are cheering for you from the sidelines and sharing and just generally being a giver, actually.

Absolutely, Joe, it's been a pleasure and I wish you every success and I'm right behind you. So thank you for taking the time to speak to me today. It's been great.

Oh, and thank you, Mandy. What a great guest.

Thank you so much, Mandy, for being such a great guest and for getting in touch. You can find out more about Mandy's work at talkhrclub.

Co.

Uk, or you can connect with Mandy on LinkedIn. It's Mandy Withers, the Virtual HR Director on LinkedIn. Before we wrap up, I just wanted to give a shout out to a couple of events that are coming up. I've been invited to talk at the Mental Health at Work Conference, which is being run by Westminster Insights, and anyone who has got an interest in mental health at work, so if you're working in wellbeing, diversity, inclusion, or any of those roles, you're very welcome to grab yourself a ticket and come along to that. It's at the Institute of Structural Engineers on the first of December, and I'll be presenting alongside some real big industry leaders.

People.

Like Lloyds of London are there presenting, which is exciting for me. My talk is going to be called End the stigma to reduce harm. Then finally, I just wanted to give a shout out to our Sober Business Networking group. If you're listening to this because you're a sober entrepreneur or you are sober and you're in business and you'd like to network with others without the booze—because I think we all know how boozy networking can be—come and join our network. It's super friendly. You get a directory listing on.

Our.

Directory of Sober Heroes, which you can.

Take a look.

At sobeobusinessnetwork. Co. Uk, and we'll be hosting a business goal setting event on the 18th of January. It's going to be a full day event. We'd be over at campus in Manchester at Carl's Bar, which is called Love From, which is a pop-up alcohol-free bar in the heart of Manchester. I'm really excited to be visiting Carl at that venue and to be hosting this event. Tickets will.

Be on sale for that.

By the time this podcast is live. So come along and join us. Thanks so much for listening.

Bye-bye. If you'd like to learn more about creating an alcohol-safe workplace without killing a buzz, visit choosesomelives. Co. Uk and head to the HR services page.

Let's end the stigma.

Because.

Nobody should feel.

Afraid to ask for help with alcohol use.