Podcast Transcript - Episode 0022 - Recruitment's Boozy Culture with Hannah Rodger

Welcome to the professional drinkers podcast brought to you by choosesunrise.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.

Hi and welcome back to the professional drinkers podcast. Thanks so much for listening. How are you all doing as we approach the big day? Christmas is 10 days away, which is utterly terrifying. If you're anything like me and every year you pledge that you will be the organised person this year, you'll be ready and have everything wrapped. And of course, that hasn't happened again.

I think.

Yes, having a number of children and a number of jobs makes it.

All.

Just creeps up on you, doesn't it? It doesn't seem to.

Matter.

How early I start, it's always a last minute panic. So if you're in that place too, I feel.

You.

I see you.

You are not alone. I do.

However, have one thing organised, which is I have a very large order of alcohol-free drinks arriving this week from the alcohol-free drinks company, which is founded by Andy Me, my good friend, has become. I'm super excited. I've got all sorts of different things coming, including a whole host of things from a brewery called Marsh Gang, who have been around for a couple of years now. But I'd moved on a bit from drinking alcohol-free beers, so I hadn't really tried many of their products until recently. I kid you not, they absolutely blew my mind with how good these alcohol-free drinks are. If you've not tried anything from Mash Gang, get on the website, subscribe, because you need to be a subscriber to get their limited edition stuff, and.

You won't look back.

You can actually, there is a way of getting their limited edition stuff. If you go to Andy Mey's website, thealcoholfreed drinkscompany. Co. Uk, you can actually buy the limited edition stuff on there because Andy is the official distributor of their products in the north, which is exciting. So yeah, absolutely recommend that the Substack is the one that I'm in love with at the moment. The founder, Jordan, he creates pretty much a new brew every single month, so it won't be around for long. So if you're listening to this any time and it's not December 2023, then you probably can't get it, sadly. But you will be able to get whatever the latest creation is, and I can't wait to see what it is. I must say at this point, I'm not being paid.

By Mashgang or Andy for this.

This is from the heart. As we turn our attention towards Christmas, have you survived your work's Christmas party is a question. I've been reading some stories online about some of the good, the bad, and the ugly things that have happened. Thought it was really encouraging, actually, that Boohoo! Had hired an alcohol-free drinks company. Carl Cansodyne from Love From, he got a gig supplying alcohol-free drinks to the boo-hoo Christmas party. How progressive I thought of them to be bringing someone specific in to do some really interesting and innovative alcohol-free stuff. Similarly, I know Skipps and Building Society are having an alcohol-free bar, which Andy Me is providing. There are pockets springing up of really progressive employers looking to really cater for the alcohol-free market, which is nice to see.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the coin, I've just been reading the story about a team of people who... They went on some coach trip as part of their Christmas do. Fair enough, if people are drinking, put a coach on, it's a good idea, trying to stop people from drinking and driving. But someone got so smashed that they tried to grab the steering wheel of the coach while it was on the M62. Needless to say, they no longer have a job now. Wow, that's quite a spectacular one, isn't it? There was an interesting article in The Metro this week, the top six stories from works Christmas parties, and they were pretty much telling a colleague what you really think of them, getting into a fight, of course, damaging property. This particular story was setting fire to a curtain with a flaming sandbuca, waking up in the boss's bed, eek, doesn't even bear.

Thinking about that one.

Misinterpreting sexual signals, which is basically why there are 50% of all sexual harassment claims involve alcohol.

Yeah.

I mean, need I say, anymore. Throwing up potentially on the boss, not good. I once threw up at my boss's feet with a hangover. That wasn't a good moment for me. I like this one, flashing abreast at the new recruit. Oh, dear. Susan from accounts. Dear, dear. It is interesting, though, isn't it, how no one would expect you to take any other mind altering drugs and behave sensibly. I mean, we know that alcohol reduces the signals that control your decision making. You literally are slowing down and eventually stopping your brain from being able to make good decisions. And the animal brain is in charge. The chimp is basically taken over. I mean, this is a physiological response. It's not something that you can control, actually. And I know that there is a personal responsibility element to drinking. But I do think it's important to remember that for some people, that effect will happen sooner than others. And it's a complex formula of age and experience, what you've eaten that day, your emotional state, any recent bereavements or losses, past experience of drinking. There's all sorts of things that go into it. And sometimes for some people, that physiological response happens so quickly that after the first couple of drinks, they're not able to make good decisions anymore.

And yet we send out these emails about what's expected at works Christmas parties. And it's really you're asking people to do something that's nigh on impossible. You're saying drink, but don't drink too much. So there's a stigma around not drinking at all at these events, and there's a stigma around drinking too much. I mean, how do you really honestly expect people to every single person in your organisation to tread this tightrope? It's just not realistic.

And I've written.

A little bit about this in my book, which is not yet out, by the way. It's going to be called Professional drinkers. As is this podcast, I'm.

Really looking forward to it, actually.

But I need to write the last bit. I've got a bit of a writer's block on it, to be honest. I've wrote about how very few of us choose who we work with. Even if you're the manager doing the hiring and firing, then you'll still have a peer group who you have to form relationships with, and you certainly haven't chosen those people. Friendships and alliances obviously do naturally form, as do rivalry and resentments. And a lot of workplaces encourage competition. Kpis and sales figures and performance metrics are often linked to bonuses, and it can create a very competitive atmosphere. And the workplace can be quite an intense place. If you work in high-performing teams, it can be incredibly rewarding, but that also comes with risks as well. So in a high pressure, fast-paced environment where people rely on each other, there can be really strong friendships that are created, and they often extend beyond the workplace. And people do have a social life that is with the people who they work with, and they're very, very happy. And that can be enormously beneficial for those people. But it often forms cliques and in-crowds as well.

For those who don't conform to those group norms, they can start to feel very ostracised. More commonly, teams operate in a false harmony where there are people in the team who are constantly compromising to avoid conflict in the office, and tensions that have bubbled away under the surface for a long time can suddenly burst forth as inhibitions loosen under the influence of alcohol. This is John telling Susan from Accounts what he really thinks of it. And yeah, the results can be chaotic. I had an interesting message this week on LinkedIn from someone who works in a high performing team where everybody else drinks and they don't drink and everybody else socialises together and they don't socialise with them. They really wanted me to come into their workplace and help and put some support things in place, but they also didn't dare ask their HR professionals for this support because they felt that they were going to be ostracised. I mean, how sad is that? I have written to their HR director yet to hear back. I will keep you informed. I think Michael summed this up really well. I don't know if you know Michael Sargood.

He is happy without the hooch on Instagram. If you don't know him, give him a follow. He is hilarious, absolutely hilarious, and posts comedy content on a pretty much a daily basis. He posted on LinkedIn, When I was a drinker, I approached the work Christmas do with excitement and dread in equal measure. Excitement, because I got to party with my favourite work boats, and dread because I never knew how I'd behave or whether I'd have a job the next day. Work parties can seem like a cruel game where you're expected to drink copiously, but act as if you haven't. Some people can never strike that balance. I think that's very well put, Michael. I'm going to be doing a bit of digging into this over the next few weeks. I'd love to speak to any HR managers who've had to deal with the aftermath of the Christmas party for short interviews, not necessarily for the podcast, I understand. You're not going to be able to share everything, more for a piece of research which will be anonymised. So if that is you and you're waking up on a Monday morning, ready to face into a number of grievances and complaints after the party, then I'd love to hear from you.

Hello, at choosesumrise. Co. Uk. I'm also going to be doing some surveys in the new year. I'm looking for two sets of participants. Set one is job seekers. New entrants to the job market or people who are looking for a change in role. I'm going to be doing research into how the alcohol culture might influence your decision about where to work. If you're a recruiter or you have any database of job seekers, I would really love to collaborate with you to see if we could do something to get this survey out to some large numbers of job seekers. So if that's you, please get in touch. And then the second part of that research is going to be about looking at alcohol as an inclusion issue. So if you are an HR professional who has diversity or inclusion as part of your role, which, of course, that is everyone, but I'm specifically looking for people who have an influence over the equality, diversity agenda in their workplace and work for a medium to large organisation. Again, if you have access to those types of people, so for example, you might run an inclusive employers group or something like that, I would really love to speak to you about how we might be able to get that survey out to some large numbers.

Again, hello@choosummarize. Co. Uk. I'll also be looking for people to interview for both of those. So if you're happy to do that, again, I'd love to hear from you. Moving on to today's guests, I think lots of you will probably know that the spark for my business idea came from the work that I did at the Co-op, where I set up the Sober Curious Society. It was, to be fair, quite an innovative idea, not wanting to blow my own trumpet, but I'd never heard of it before. But since then, I mean, it is two years ago now, it turns out it is not completely unique. If you heard the interview I did with Maarin a couple of weeks back, she set up something very similar in Salesforce. I've connected with someone recently at CISCO who is in the process of getting something set up. And more recently with Hannah Rodger, who is today's guest, who's based in Australia, who has founded something very similar within the recruitment industry. I think that makes four people in total worldwide who I know of. If you know of any more, you know what to do, get in touch.

I'm actually looking at connecting all of us into a little group where we can support each other with our groups. That's quite exciting. Hannah Rodger is the founder of Chai People, which is a recruitment agency. She does recruiting operations, HR and project management. She describes herself as a storyteller, a sober recruiter, and a good enough mum and stepmom. I like that, good enough. She's based out of Sydney. And one of, I think, the most interesting things that Hannah has done, along with one of her peers, Peter Watson, is to set up something called the recruiters wagon. This is basically, it's described as a bunch of recruiters who don't drink. Nothing more, nothing less. We don't accept that you have to drink to be successful in the recruitment industry nowadays. We think that that idea is a bit 1990s. We also feel privileged, and dare I say it, a tiny bit smug about the fact that we've experienced the career benefits of not drinking. Well, cheers to that. I love that. Absolutely love it. I think what a great idea in an industry that is, let's face it, riddled with tales of alcohol and drug use, to have a group of like-minded individuals carving out a new path for people working in that industry.

Enjoy this interview with Hannah.

A very, very warm welcome to my guest this week, Hannah Rodger. Hannah, do you want to introduce yourself, perhaps?

Oh, thank you very much. I'm Hi, Janet. Thank you for having me on the podcast. My name is Hannah Rodger. I am the Director of a recruitment business called Chai People, and I have been sober for six years.

Oh, excellent. That is a lot of sober years, actually. It's about double mine. So you're a trendsetter, a pioneer in my eyes, Hannah. Indeed. So shall we start off by just delving into a little bit of your drinking history then? Because I've got a sneaky feeling that as a sober person, you've probably got a few stories to tell here. So let's hear them.

Yes.

Just a few. I mean, look, it's very early in the morning here in Australia, so I'm going to keep it fit for work. Look, I think my drinking journey is fairly typical for a Brit who was born in the '80s. So I started casual drinking with my friends I'd say, when I was around 15 years old. I wouldn't say I started having a problematic relationship with alcohol until I was in my 20s. But once it had got a hold of me, I found it really difficult to not drink in social situations. I found that it was a really great social crutch. So it would help me to open up and be more sociable and the life and soul of the party. Except I always seem to be the one that couldn't stop and the one that was staying out until three o'clock in the morning, and also the one that had the worst hangovers. I was never somebody that could bounce back from alcohol. And then that became a vicious cycle because the more I became ashamed of my drinking behaviour, the more I wanted to drink to cover.

It up.

So it was masking my emotions with drinking, but then doing stupid things, being more ashamed of my drinking, feeling horrendous, feeling like I deserved to feel that horrendous, and then doing the same thing again a week later.

So relatable. So, so relatable. And there's so many people doing this in the world, especially women in England and Australia.

It looks so many, and I think it wasn't something that I even thought was a problem for a very long time because everybody around me was drinking at the same level. Whenever I socialise with my friends, it was always at a pub, or if it was at someone's house, you'd bring three bottles of wine. It was just normalised. So it wasn't something that I thought was an issue. I mean, hangovers were awful, but I just thought that was part of being a grown-up. Then I moved to Australia when I was 27 and I moved here on my own.

Oh.

Wow. And so I needed to make some friends and meet some people. And the quickest way to do that was to join meet-up groups.

Of course.

Expats and- Meet-up groups meeting pubs.

Yeah, of course I do. Yeah.

So after six months of travelling, where I think I drank all but maybe one or two days of that six months. And not always too excess.

But- Yeah, but daily drinking.

-often daily drinking, yeah. I'd say it was pretty ingrained by then. So I really started to get into trouble. I'd say that first year or first couple of years that I moved to Australia.

Looking back on it now, I think I was very lonely at that time.

Yeah, that's interesting.

I was desperately trying to find a social group to fit into, and they just happened to be drinkers. And reflecting now, they weren't really great friends because all we had in common was drinking. But at the time, I wanted to feel like I was part of something. So I.

Kept doing it. Absolutely, yeah. And what was it that made you decide to do something different then? Did something happen or was it a moment in time? Can you pin it down?

Yeah, so I tried to get sober. So 2017 was my transition year, I would say. I got married in January.

2017 to.

My lovely husband, Andrew. We had met 18 months before, and he has two children who became my stepkid. So they were five and eight when I became their stepmum. And that was a bit of a wake-up call for me that suddenly every other weekend and one day during the week, I had little.

People to.

Be responsible for.

And I really just didn't want to carry on in the same way that I was going because I didn't want them to grow up thinking that the only way to process any emotion is with drinking. And that's what I was doing. I was coming home and celebrating a great day at work with a glass of wine, or I was commiserating if I'd lost a deal with a glass of wine. And I knew that that was an unhealthy pattern. And then it took me nine months of trying to stop before I had my last day one. And I think this is fairly typical as well. I said, I don't want to drink anymore. And I lasted five days because I had no support. I had no tools, really.

And I didn't know how to do it. And I wasn't ready.

I.

Told myself I was ready, but I wasn't really. So it was a slow process.

Yeah, it's.

Almost like you're.

Learning how to be an adult without alcohol. And it takes quite a few different attempts, doesn't it? And exactly like you just said, I've had loads of, but I'm never drinking again moments and lasted a week. Or like till the next Friday, basically. And then I'd be like.

Fuck it, I haven't had one. Definitely, my five days was like-.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. The only reason I didn't drink on the Sunday.

Was late. Because I was hungover on the Sunday and then I literally white-knuckle through.

The whole week. Yeah, and then get to Friday and go, Well, I've done five days now. Definitely not an alcoholic. I don't know if I did five days, I don't know. Yeah, we've all been there. And it does take a lot.

It's a.

Really big deal stopping drinking. It's a really big deal. It's not a small decision. It's a truly huge, seismic decision. And the whole of society seems to be pretty much against you, I would say, in my experience when you decide to stop drinking. What support did you have?

Well, I am being the stubborn Mancunian that I am, decided that I was going to do it all by myself and that I didn't need any help. And I was wrong.

I definitely did. Yeah, me too. I was too wrong.

Soinitially, I think that was why I found it so hard. Initially, I didn't even tell my husband. I just thought because we drank together, he didn't drink to the same extent that I did, and later told me that he used to worry about me.

Oh, interesting.

I didn't know that at the time, but I didn't want to tell him because I was worried that that would affect our relationship because we used to drink together socially.

But.

In terms of help, the thing that really started to get me on the right path was that I joined an online sober community. So I paid for a 90-day course and it was an ongoing subscription. And I reset it. I must have reset it 10 or 15 times before I got to actually doing 90 days.

But just.

Having a programme to follow.

Having.

An online community of other sober women, and this was female-focused, and that was important to me. And they were all professional women, which was also important to me because I didn't feel like I identified with certain other support.

Groups that.

Sit in church halls drinking naff coffee.

I.

Can totally understand that.

That put me off. But being in an online community where also I could be a little bit.

Anonymous and.

I could post by typing and it wasn't quite as vulnerable assitting face to face in front of somebody, but it was a really great support group.

And.

The lady that ran that was fantastic. And she ran fortnightly counselling.

Coaching sessions.

Where she'd give advice and every day you received an email with something to do. So it might be a new mock tale recipe, it might be ideas for blogs to read, it might be ideas for different exercises to try or different activities.

To do.

And that eventually was what got me on the right path.

And.

I really think that the genius of that was that she had this reset function in there where you did have to email her and say, Hey, look, I've got to day 21 and I need to go back to day one. And she would come back and say, Yeah, no problem. I've reset you. Please don't feel bad about this. This is really normal. Keep going. We're here for you. Please come back to us. Please stay in the group.

And just that level of support, it felt like she was really on.

My side. -yeah, that's wonderful. That's so nice, isn't it? And that's what you need, isn't it? You need some accountability. You need somebody who will just not judge you and just they understand because they've done it themselves. I think you have to get support from people who've been there and done that.

-yeah, completely. And I think it was really difficult from a work perspective. I work in the recruitment industry and it's a sales-based industry and it's very much a roller coaster of emotions. Lots of highs, lots of lows, lots of celebrating. And it's a very boozy industry.

It really is, isn't it? It's got a real rep for being work-hard, play-hard.

Yeah, totally. And it's brilliant. And I'm still in the recruitment industry and I love it.

But.

Maybe in hindsight, I should have stopped going to those events.

And what.

Did you do?

-when I was first getting- Oh, I see. When you were drinking, you.

Were drinking. I was still going to recruitment events where I was drinking lemonade and people were going, Oh, why aren't you drinking wine? What's wrong with you?

Yeah.

I.

Do know.

It was quite hard. I remember vividly at one point I was still in that initial... You know that you feel a little bit like Bambi. You feel like your legs are going in the air and you're like, Oh, bright lights and I'm not really sure. And I was in a bar and I asked for a lime and soda and the guy that was going to the bar said, No, it's happy hour. I'll get you a wine or you're not having anything.

Wow.

And I went, Okay, I'm going to go. Did you? Yeah. And I had to leave.

Good for you.

Because I knew at that point I wasn't quite strong enough yet to say.

No to.

The wine. I knew that if this guy bought it and put it in front of me.

I.

Might have not drank it for 20 minutes.

But.

It.

Was there and I would have done a tour. It was going to get drunk, wasn't it? Isn't that interesting? And credit to you for having that ability to say, I'm going home. There's so many people who would have would have drunk the wine. So many people, I think.

I just think it's a social phenomenon, isn't it? Alcohol really is the only drug that you have to justify not taking.

Yeah, it's absolutely crazy. What a horrible thing to do as well. I was just reflecting on that guy who said, No, I'm getting you a wine. Does he do you think there's any malice in that? There probably isn't. It's probably just going, Oh, for God's sake, have a good time.

Yeah, I don't think so. And I think, well, from my experience, and I'd be really interested to hear your experience on this as well, Janet, that when I stopped, the people that I used to spend a lot of time with, all of a sudden didn't really want to spend time with me anymore. And I think partly that my choice to change my relationship with alcohol in some way threatened their own relationship with it or made them think things that they maybe didn't want to think about their relationship alcohol.

Yeah.

Definitely. And I'm absolutely not here to preach or to change anybody else's mind. Really, this was a personal journey, and it was something that I had to do for myself and my family.

I would never tell somebody that they need to stop drinking or that they've got a problem because I know that when I was in that position, if you'd have told me that I needed to stop, I would have dismissed you.

No way. No, you cannot.

I just wouldn't.

Have done that until I was ready to do it. No, it has to be...

Until I was ready to.

Do it. Yeah, it comes from within. Absolutely, it comes from within. But similar to you, there are definitely some people who found my decision to stop drinking quite confronting for themselves and quite difficult to accept. It's where, although one thing I would say is that friends who I've known for years and years, like people who are very important to me in my life, I was really worried that they would not want to spend time with me anymore because I wasn't drinking. And that just didn't happen at all with those friends. They just adapted. And actually it turned out that some of them even said, Oh, thank God for that, because, you know, I don't really drink that much anymore. And every time I go out with you, I get absolutely wasted. And it'd be great if we could just go for coffee. I was like, Oh, really? You didn't want to go on those crazy 3:00 AM benders, right? That was me plying you with alcohol. Yeah, sorry about that. But it turns out it wasn't really that much fun looking after me when I was being sick or putting me in taxes or finding my handbag and things like that.

They were quite relieved, really, some of them. But I'm really worried that they'd think I was no fun. I've even got a couple of really close friends who are either sober or they just drink like two or three times a year now. It's quite... I'm not the only person in my friendship circle who's gone through this now. I think I was the first, but I'm definitely not the only one anymore, and that's quite... It's just lovely, actually. Having sober friends is just absolutely lovely, isn't it?

Oh, it's great. Yeah, I love it. And something that I also... And I really resonate with that as well. I've got a lot of old friends from the UK that, I mean, they're into fitness or they had kids slightly before I did. They're like, I've got a toddler, I can't drink. You can't look after a toddler with a hangover.

No, you can't. Not properly, no.

That's not good. Our friends are really into exercise and they're like, Why would I.

Sabotage my physical fitness?

But thank you for that.

Yeah, and you're a little bit younger than me, but I was born in the late '70s, and we're all perimenopausal now, basically, and everyone is just starting to find that even one glass of wine gives them a horrific hangover and they're just walking away from it. They're just saying, No, enough is enough.

Yeah, I totally get that. And look, I'm not that much younger than you, but I've got friends. I'm really not. A lot of my friends now... I think we've just said it's an age thing. We're not 21 anymore.

No, we're not. We're not 21.

We're not. And the things that we enjoy doing are different. And spending quality time with each other over brunch is much more enjoyable than going to a bar. It is.

Well, you can't hear anyone anyway. I can't hear anything in bars anymore.

I mean, since I had my first child in May 2020, and then we spent two and a half years in lockdown and I had another child. And so my level of interest in leaving the house past 6:00.

Pm is pretty limited. I totally get that, yeah. Completely understand that. But isn't it great? Actually, it turns out you were a morning person all along. Most sober people find out that they love getting up early, actually, which is-.

Definitely, definitely. I mean, the first year I think, I joke, but I think this is actually a really true that when you stop drinking, stopping drinking isn't really the thing. You need to replace all of that time and all of that energy that you put into drinking into doing something good for yourself and doing something that you enjoy and that gives you a dopamine here and that makes you feel good.

And.

I spent almost an entire year going to Pallates at 06:00 a. M. Every day.

-yeah, because you.

Wanted to. I never had to set.

An alarm. No, you just wanted to get up for it. I was.

Just happy to get up. I was going to bed with clean teeth in fresh pyjamas, sleeping for eight hours, and waking up feeling great.

I know. It's just.

Oh, I just wish I'd done it 10 years sooner. I really do. I couldn't go back to that half a bottle of wine a night drinking like I was doing. Absolutely no way. No way. It just sounds like self-harm now, doesn't it? When you think back to it. It really does.

It is. I mean, look, if I'm going to be a little flippant about it, I'm glad that I went through that because I have had my kids quite close together. And that means I've had three and a half years of broken sleep.

Yeah, gosh.

Because my kids are not the kids that just get to six months and decide to sleep through the night. They just don't do that. So I was being woken up every three hours by my daughter until about two months ago. And my son's three and he's only just started taking through the night. But I've almost got this muscle memory from all of those times that I did all nights or I stayed out until 3:00 AM or I didn't stay out, but I woke up with raging anxiety at 3:00 AM.

Yeah, and you can do it.

Yeah. And then you go, Actually, breastfeeding and settling a baby is much easier.

Than that. Yeah, it is. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, isn't it fantastic that you got sober before you had children? Because I try not to have regrets in life, but I do wish that I'd been sober when they were really little. They have had the benefit of seeing me sober through quite a few of their formative teenage years, which has been brilliant, and they've seen me become so much happier without the alcohol, and they appreciate me more, and they tell me that I'm calmer and that I'm generally more pleasant to be around than when I was drinking, which is great. But I do just look back sometimes on some of the things when they were quite little. I'd be reading to them and I could hear my husband uncorking a bottle of wine and I'd be like, Oh, rushing through the book because I wanted to get downstairs and have a glass of wine. I just think it's brilliant that you've done it before you had children. You're going to be... I bet you're an amazing mum. I bet you are an absolutely amazing mum.

Thank you. The jury's out. They are still very young.

We'll find out. There is a lot of time to.

Fuck them up. Yep. Well, we all do it whether we mean to or not. In the words of Philip Larkin, they fuck you up with your mum and dad.

Yeah, that's my favourite.

Part of that.

Iwas a step-mum before I became a mum, so I've had a little bit of practise. And look, but they're totally different jobs.

Yeah, I bet they are actually. Yeah, I'm sure you're right.

Yes, I am really grateful that I wouldn't have children if I was still drinking. There's no way that my body would have.

Been.

Able to have children. But I really don't think that you should beat yourself up about that because you've made the change.

You're a cycle breaker and your girls have seen that and they've seen that at a time when it's really important for them to remember that.

I love that you're coaching me on this podcast. Thanks, Hannah. Oh, this is brilliant.

What is more important than teaching teenagers how to become adults? It's a really turbulent time for them. I know this because I'm going through this with mine at the moment. One of my proudest achievements is that they have a sober... Their mum doesn't drink, right? Their mum, she might have one or two glasses of wine a year. She's just not a drinker. But they have an almost sober mother. They have a sober stepmother, and now they have a sober father. So my husband hasn't drank for.

Three and a half years. Oh, wow. And that's pretty much, I imagine, as a result of you not drinking, isn't it? Or it's got to have had an influence. Absolutely.

It has.

A domino effect, doesn't it? Like my husband used to drink absolutely loads, and now he just has the odd beer here and there. It turns out he was a take it or leave it drinker, but he just bingeed drunk with me, binge drank, drunk whatever, because I did, he did. And now that I don't, he doesn't.

Who knew?

I thought it was just what everyone did, but it turns out that I think people were trying to keep up with me. Sorry, everyone.

Sorry. There's an element of that. My husband is brilliant, so he stops drinking. He quite likes non-alcoholic beers.

Yeah, I do.

We have a supply of... There's a brand out here called Heaps.

Normal.

Which.

Is great.

They're not bad beers. I still get the heebie jeebies, having non-alcoholic drinks that taste a bit like alcohol.

They're just not for me. Fair enough.

I can see why they're really great for some people, but for me, I'm like.

I don't.

Want to be reminded of the taste of.

Alcohol anymore. -no, I get that. I've done that. What about-I've passed that. What about kombucha? Do you like kombucha?

Yeah, I do. Actually, when I was going through my obsessive pilates phase, I also got into essential oils and kombucha and I was making my.

Own kombucha. Lovely. Very nice.

After about six months, when I could not get rid of the scobies fast enough, and then I felt bad if I was putting them in the compost because they're living things. And I just couldn't drink three litres of kombucha every week.

-yeah, that's exactly what happened to me. My utility room looked like a laboratory. There's just gallons of kombucha everywhere. And I was like, this has got to be decommissioned.

Yeah, we decommissioned it. I passed it on to another girl at Palar Fies.

And was like.

Yeah, suck at that.

I love it. Well, when you come over to the UK, you should try a brand called Mash Gang. I don't know if you've heard of them in Australia, but they do some brilliant alcohol free beers for your husband, I mean. But they do some wild and wacky flavours. I had such a... What did I have the other day? It was called like an ice cream stout. And it was like a little bit of Guinessy, but it was vanilla and a little bit sweet almost. It was like a bit like a dessert. It was amazing. Like a dessert? Yeah, a dessert beer. It was really good, alcohol free, obviously. Yeah, they do some... Have a look for those when you come over. I bet your husband will love them. A little shout out for Mashkag. Not being sponsored, by the way. Wish I was, but you know. But before we go, I must ask you about the reason why I think we met in the first place? Because you have been doing something that I think is truly hats off admirable, which is bringing the sober message into the workplace, which, as you know, is like my absolute passion in life.

And yeah, so you've got to tell us a bit about the recruitment wagon and how all of that came about.

Yeah, so the recruiters' wagon is a group that I am a part of, and now a co-host of, that was started by my friend, Pete Watson. So he is a rectinet. So he recruits recruiters in the industry. He is a fellow sober person. We met about five years ago, and he was already five years sober then, but he didn't really talk about it very much. We got introduced through somebody else in the industry, and I was maybe a year sober then and I said to him, Why don't you really talk about it? He went, Oh, well, it's my personal journey and don't want to push it on people. And I said, Yeah, that's cool. It was like, I just wanted to do the work and just change as a person and just do that without the pressure of having anybody talk about it. And I'm pretty much the opposite. I'm not the opposite of that. And I was like, I'm going to talk about it all day long because this is what I need to keep me accountable. And because I really believe that sharing your story is going to help other people. So I mentioned that online community that I was a part of, this was the start of me thinking this is really powerful.

So at the beginning of COVID lockdowns, he did a podcast. So he has a separate podcast for the recruitment industry called Recruitment Journeys, and he had six or seven of us on there, of sober recruiters on this podcast where we all talked a little bit about our experience of being sober in the recruitment industry. Yeah. And from there, the recruiters' wagon started. So it's primarily a support group via WhatsApp. There are over a hundred of us in.

There now. Fantastic. Yeah.

There are people who are sober curious and are still drinking. There are people who are very new to sobriety, and there are people who have been sober for years and are, you know, just happy to be part of a network and to be helping people and have other sober people in their corner. One of the things I'm most proud of in this group is that we have helped some people who have been really.

Struggling.

And who wouldn't have reached out otherwise. And I think we're, like I was saying about not wanting to go to physical groups.

Initially, they've reached out in the WhatsApp group when they've been struggling. Sometimes early hours of the morning when they've been drinking and all they have got is love and support poured on them.

And.

That's really helped them to change.

-yeah, isn't it interesting?

So that's wonderful. I mean, there's one lady who is UK-based and I hope she won't mind me talking about her. I won't talk about her by name, but she was in a really dark place six months ago and she reached out.

She.

Was recommended an inpatient rehab and she went there and she's now six months sober.

Amazing. Yeah.

And this is after a lifetime of bad drinking habits and it's just really, really nice to see. And now she's somebody that's supporting other people in the group and encouraging other people that are coming in. I run meetup groups as well once a month in Sydney. So we'll have an in-person lunch. And it's a small.

Group and.

I like it like that because when there's five or six people, it could be really intimate and there might be somebody. We had a guy join when he was 11 days sober.

-wow, yeah.

That's great. -and he was like rabbit in the headlight. That was very brave of him to come. He's now.

Five months in. -yeah, loving life.

-yeah, and he's great and he comes to every single meet-up.

He's really turned his life around and I just love that. These people have become my.

Friends as well. - Isn't it just the most rewarding thing that you can do? It's just wonderful, isn't it?

-it's so nice. Because I've been in and around the recruitment industry for nine years here in Australia. I know quite a lot of people. I used to sell recruitment tech. So I know a lot of agencies and people that work in agencies. And there's one lady in the group now who.

I.

First met maybe 2018 when we worked in the same service office building. And at the time I remember her saying to me, Oh, I know I need to stop. I'm trying. And I said, Cool, just reach out whenever you want. And she didn't. I didn't push it. And she's now in the group and she's just done her.

First year. Amazing. That's so lovely. And do people have to pay to get in the group? Or is it just a hobby? No. Is it just a hobby? No. A hobby? That's not the.

Right word. It's a project.

It's a free group. Yeah.

So it's a free group if you would like to join. If you work in the recruitment industry anywhere in the world. So we have people in South America, we have people in the UK, we have people in the States, lots in Australia. So some in Hong Kong. So it's really a global group. If you would like to join, contact me on LinkedIn. It's Hannah Roger, recruiter on LinkedIn if you can't find me. And we'll add you to the group and you'll be welcomed with open arms.

That's.

Wonderful.

And I would like to offer you, I'll sort this out after the call, but I've recently set up a directory of Sober Services. It's called like the Sobe Business Network, and I would like to offer you a free listing in our directory. It's very low cost anyway, but seeing as you're not charging people, I feel like that needs to go in the directory as a freebie. So I will speak to offline about it, but getting you listed in that directory and then hopefully being able to reach more people with the amazing work that you do.

Thank you. I'm so welcome. Thank you. I should mention as well, before we go, because Pete will kill me if I don't. Pete and I are in the process of recording 10 mini podcast episodes. So 10, 10-minute episodes on how to change your relationship with alcohol in the recruitment industry. So I think as far as niche podcasts go, this is.

Really up there. -yeah, I like it though, but that's why they work, these things. It's super niche, but there will be hundreds of thousands of people who were like, I work in recruitment. I wish I could stop drinking. I need this.

-yeah. Those episodes, we're releasing them weekly. We have got up to episode six, I think. So they're available on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It's called the Recruises Wagon Podcast.

-brilliant.

-and they're short enough that you won't get bored of hearing our voices. Just little snippets that you can listen to on the way to work or in your.

Lunch break. Yeah, yeah. I thought I'd lost you for a minute then, and I almost lost you. It's interesting, isn't it? Because there's boozy cultures everywhere and workplace cultures. But I really like the way that you're setting it up for your own niche within the workplace, because it takes someone who knows that industry and knows the particular challenges of that industry and speaks the language of that industry to really hit the spot when you're talking to people who are going through exactly the same issues that you've experienced. That's what I love about the work you're doing.

Incuse. Thank you. And yeah, I think that's a really important point because Pete and I have thought about expanding this. But really, both of us are really passionate about recruitment.

And that's where we see that we're having the impact that we want to have. We were lucky enough to record our pilot episode of our podcast at the RCSA annual conference on Hamilton Island. And the RCSA is the Recruitment Industry Association.

Anybody who's known me for more than six years will know that I was always the person that was blackout drunk within five minutes of being at that conference.

I hope that they understand that. I've got similar things for me in the grocery world, but yeah.

I was going to say I don't think this is particular to recruitment, but any industry conference that's usually a two or three day event is particularly boozy. So to be able to record our first podcast there felt like we.

Were doing something like that. Yeah, like closure.

A little bit, yeah.

Oh, that's fantastic. And there's so many synergies with the work that I've been doing over here with the grocery industry as well. I won't talk too much about that because I've already spoken loads about it on my own podcast. But it's just I really do think hats off to you for making a difference in your lane, in your space, in the retail sector, and helping people through the workplace to find the help that they so desperately need. And preventing alcohol harm before people get anywhere near to waking up in a skip and having to go to inpatient rehab, you're stopping that from becoming something that people need by getting to them a lot earlier with the work you're doing. So I just think it's fantastic. So well done.

Thank you.

Thank you. And I have to ask you one last question, which is, what is your favourite book and why? A tricky one, isn't it?

That's a really tricky... I did an English degree.

Oh, goodness me, you're going to have so many. Yeah, this.

Is even trickier. At the moment, I would say, I'm going to go for the Philip Pullman, Northern Lights trilogy.

Brilliant. Love those books. Absolutely love them.

Absolutely love them. The Third Book of Dust, Philip Pullman, if you could just write that and release that, that would be brilliant. I've been waiting.

For that one.

But yeah, I think Philip Pullman is one of my favourite authors.

I saw him live. He did a talk in Leeds. It must be a decade or more ago, and it was absolutely brilliant. I loved it. Oh, what a nice guy. What a nice guy. And yeah, I think he's an almost magical writer, isn't he? Just one of the giants of literature. He is.

And I love getting into a book where... I mean, look, this doesn't happen anymore because I've got small children, but you're where you can get yourself absorbed in a book and then all of a sudden, five hours has gone by.

Yeah, well, when you're talking about the book of the other trilogy, The Book of Dust, the first one of those, we had to drive to Cornwall with our children, and they must have been about seven or eight or something, maybe a bit older. But anyway, so a hell of a drive, and we just put the audiobook on. And it was like, not an abridged version, just a word for word, really nicely read, and the whole journey was just so smooth. We got to Cornwall and it was like no one wants to get out of the car because we're not finished. It's so good. Amazing. So yeah, what a great recommendation. Thank you so much, Hannah. It's been such a pleasure to talk to you and thank you for making time for me in what is quite clearly a very busy schedule.

It was, look, I'm really glad that we got to rearrange this.

Yeah, I know. And it wasn't just you rearranging, it was me as well. I think we've both had various circumstances, haven't we? As life gets in the way, but it's been so worth waiting for. And I'll make sure that I put all of the links to how people can find you on LinkedIn and how they can join the recruiters wagon and to the podcast as well into the show notes. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thanks.

Janet. Thank you. Bye.

You can find out more about the work that Hannah does at chipeople. Com. Au, and you can connect with Hannah on LinkedIn. She is Hannah Rodger and her profile says, Co-host of Recruiter's Wagon. You can also connect with Pete Watson on there, who is the other co-host of Recruiters Wagon. In fact, the Recruiter's Wagon has a LinkedIn page as well, which I believe you can go in and follow. Before we wrap up, I just want to give a shout out to anyone who has already bought the Alcohol Change UK, Sober is a sexy calendar this year. Yes, that is right. I mentioned earlier in this podcast, my friend Michael Sargud, who I described as hilarious. Well, here's a great example of how his mind works. I think, Calendar girls meets sobriety. He decided to get his kit off and make a calendar last year, managed to persuade a few sober influencers to do the same. It was very last minute, but managed to sell, I think, £2,000 worth just getting the idea up and running on his own from a standing start, which is very impressive. It's been a bit more organised this year. I've got sponsorship.

My Choose Sunrise Sober Business Network is one of the sponsors for the calendar, which has covered all the printing costs and things like that. Every penny that you spend on the calendar can go straight to alcohol change UK. I've had a sneak preview of some of the pictures, and I'll tell you what, I really wish I hadn't zoomed in on December because I can't unsee it. But it is such a perfect secret Santa gift. It's a bit of fun. It raises money for charity and it'll certainly raise a smile as well. So if you're looking for some last-minute Christmas shopping ideas, make sure the Sober is Sexy calendar is very much on your Christmas list. I'll leave you with that thought. See you next time.

If you'd like to learn more about creating an alcohol-safe workplace without killing a buzz, visit choosesubnights. Co. Uk and head to the HR services page. Let's end this stigma because nobody should feel afraid to ask for help with alcohol use.