In this engaging conversation with best-selling author of The Sober Girl Society Handbook and founder of the global Sober Girl Society, Millie Gooch talks hangxiety with Mandy Manners, SHE RECOVERS Trusted Advisor and Coach.

Throughout this discussion, Millie and Mandy explore the gaps they felt in understanding the information they had on how alcohol affects the brain—which became the background for Millie’s new book: Hangxiety.

They talk about anxiety, blackouts, and depression, and how they connected dots of their own alcohol use in relation to the impact on their own mental health, because they found these things were kept very separate in treatment.

In this episode, Millie and Mandy speak about how knowledge is power and seems to lessen shame. And how not drinking feels like self-care for the brain. They also touch upon late-diagnosed neurodivergence and the emerging research on its links to alcohol use and addiction.

Millie got sober in her 20s and founded Sober Girl Society to make friends. Hosting events allowed her to tackle the barriers she felt young women like her may face doing things like dancing, holidays, and dating without alcohol. With over 200K followers, Millie also chats about having boundaries around social media and what it’s like to navigate life online.

About Millie Gooch:

Millie Gooch is the best-selling author of The Sober Girl Society Handbook and founder of the global Sober Girl Society movement. Since giving up alcohol in 2018, she has become one of the UK’s most visible and relatable voices on alcohol-free living, with a platform that now reaches millions of people across social media and live events. Hangxiety is Millie's third book.

About Mandy Manners:

Mandy Manners is a certified life and recovery coach. A qualified coach supervisor, trainer, speaker, and author. She is a certified SHE RECOVERS Coach and Trusted Advisor for Education and Pedagogy for the SHE RECOVERS Foundation.

EPISODE RESOURCES

• Hangxiety — the book
• The Sober Girl Society on Instagram
• The Sober Girl Society on TikTok
• Millie Gooch on Instagram
• Millie Gooch on TikTok
• Mandy Manners website
• Drink - book by Anne Dowsett Johnston

If you found this conversation helpful and you are able, please consider donating to our lifeline organization or sharing it with others who may benefit. We would love to also receive your rating and review of the SHE RECOVERS Podcast on your favorite platform.

Visit sherecovers.org to donate today.

What happens when recovery becomes more than surviving? When joy itself becomes an act of resistance?

In this vulnerable and liberating conversation, Codi Renee Blackmon, PhD, shares how reclaiming authenticity, celebrating Black joy, and refusing to conform to the expectations of white-dominant culture transformed not only her own recovery, but the way she leads, parents, and cultivates inclusive communities.

Together, Dr. Codi Renee and SHE RECOVERS team member Lisa Wall explore:

• Why Black joy is both an act of resistance and a pathway to healing
• How authenticity became the foundation of her recovery and leadership
• Why race, trauma, and recovery cannot be separated
• How centering marginalized voices creates recovery communities where everyone has the opportunity to experience a sense of belonging

ABOUT CODI RENEE BLACKMON, PhD

Codi Renee Blackmon, PhD, is a scholar, educator, and recovery leader passionate about creating accountable, inclusive spaces where people feel seen, heard, and valued. She brings together her experiences in recovery, teaching, writing, and research to amplify marginalized voices and support multiple pathways to healing.

A Black woman celebrating recovery, Codi Renee supports people in recovery from trauma, mental health challenges, burnout, grief, codependency, and oppression. She is especially committed to supporting women, parents in recovery, neurodivergent minds, and Black, Latinx, Asian, Indigenous, and women of color.

ABOUT LISA WALL

Lisa is a certified trauma professional, somatic practitioner, educator, and SHE RECOVERS Coach with additional training in addiction medicine, sound healing, circadian biology, intimacy education, and herbalism. With more than two decades of experience in community leadership, group facilitation, and program development, she integrates evidence-based practice with deep respect for lived experience and the wisdom of nature.

As a senior leader with the SHE RECOVERS Foundation, she develops recovery-focused programming and helps inform equitable and trauma-informed standards of community care for women in recovery. Lisa lives and works on a remote island, where slow living, ritual, and reciprocity with the natural world continue to shape both her own recovery and the way she leads.

EPISODE RESOURCES

Our Recovery website https://bit.ly/ourrecovery

Follow Codi Renee & Our Recovery on Instagram https://www.facebook.com/groups/ourrecovery

Connect on Facebook https://www.instagram.com/our_recovery_matters/

Unveiling Racial Dynamics: Black, Latinx, Asian, Indigenous & Women of Color Technical Communication Within White-Dominant Online Recovery Support Spaces by Dr. Codi Renee Blackmon http://hdl.handle.net/10342/14021

Maya Angelou’s Still I Rise https://youtu.be/NzQtGCw49uc?si=i4ZBWg0hblv3ChmG

Ready to continue learning with Dr. Codi Renee? Take our Inclusive Recovery Training: Anti-Racist Spaces of Belonging. The work doesn’t end here.
EXPLORE THE TRAINING Here.

SHE RECOVERS Foundation co-founder Dawn Nickel sits down with author, speaker, and visual artist Jen Pastiloff to talk about living openly, deafness, leaving a marriage, finding a partner, parenting through recovery, and why "the school of whatever works" matters more than any single path to healing.

In this episode, Jen shares her own honest, unfiltered story of getting sober eighteen months ago after decades of denial and resistance to change. And dives into her latest book Proof of Life: Let Go, Let Love, and Stop Looking for Permission to Live Your Life.

This conversation is funny, raw, and full of permission giving!

IN THIS EPISODE

• How Dawn and Jen first connected ahead of the (twice-postponed) SHE RECOVERS in MIAMI conference
• Living openly as a deaf woman, and why Jen now leads with what used to cause her shame
• Jen's path from NYU and a 14-year-summer-job waitressing, through yoga teacher training, to writing and painting
• The Jenisms: You get to have this, I've done love, imaginary time gods, heart sight, and may I remember
• The unfiltered truth about getting sober: the night she sat in a hotel bar before giving a recovery keynote
• Why twelve-step meetings work for millions, and why they were never the right fit for Jen
• "The school of whatever works" — non-alcoholic wine, individualized pathways, and zero judgment
• Dissociation, eating disorder patterns, and how addiction can shift forms over a lifetime
• Parenting her son Charlie through her sobriety, and what's changed in her marriage and relationships
• Jen’s retreats in Ojai, California and Tuscany, Italy, her Substack and book club, and how she connected SHE RECOVERS to its own future Italy retreat venue

ABOUT JEN:

Jennifer Pastiloff is the author of the bestselling books Proof of Life and On Being Human. Jennifer travels the globe as a public speaker, one-of-a-kind workshop facilitator, and retreat host.

Author of the popular Substack, also called Proof of Life, she teaches writing and creativity classes and workshops when she isn’t painting and selling her art.

Pastiloff has been featured on Good Morning America and Katie Couric, and in New York, People, Shape, and Health magazines. She is known for her authenticity and unique voice. Jennifer is deaf, reads lips, and mishears almost everything, but what she hears is usually funnier (at least she thinks so).

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Website — jenniferpastiloff.com
• Proof of Life with Jen Pastiloff — proofoflifewithjen.substack.com
• Instagram — @jenpastiloff & @jenpastiloff_art

SHE RECOVERS® Foundation is a non-profit public charity and a global grassroots movement serving more than 325,000 women and non-binary individuals in or seeking recovery from life challenges, including mental health issues, trauma, and substance use. SHE RECOVERS is dedicated to redefining recovery, inspiring hope, ending stigma, and empowering women to increase their recovery capital, heal themselves, and help other women to do the same.

If you found this conversation helpful, please consider donating to our lifeline organization or sharing it with others who may benefit. We would love to also receive your rating and review of the SHE RECOVERS Podcast on your favorite platform.

Visit sherecovers.org to donate today.