This week on Dear Vernon, Laura and Eric both talk about how different friend groups naturally serve different purposes. Your sober friends know your inner world in a way that's hard to explain to anyone on the outside. That's not a secret, that's just intimacy. And it doesn't mean something is wrong with your other relationships.

Getting this episode recorded and out was like pulling teeth, but here we are. We couldn't let this question go unanswered, it's that good. A listener asked, "I'm sober, but finding myself shopping, scrolling, and using food as a way to fill that void where alcohol was, how do you (Laura and Eric) feel about this?"

This week on Dear Vernon, The Luckiest Club Founder, Laura McKowen, and The Luckiest Club CEO, Eric Johnson, are answering the question "how do I tell people I'm not drinking?" and this is one we hear all the time. We've had close to a dozen people write in asking some variation of this question, so we knew it was time to answer it on the podcast.

In this episode of Dear Vernon, Eric Johnson and Laura McKowen respond to a question that doesn’t get talked about enough:
What if you get sober… and you still can’t feel anything?

In this episode, Laura McKowen and Eric Johnson dig into a question that comes up way more than people talk about — what do you do when sobriety just feels... boring?

This week's question comes from Karen, who's five months sober and asking something so many of us have wondered: when will I be happy again? Sober, everything feels flat., boring, and gray. She's not in danger of relapsing, she just wants to feel like herself again.

The camaraderie of early recovery has faded, old relationships feel less relatable, and this listener is wondering: if connection is the key to long-term sobriety, what do you do when you feel more alone than ever?

There’s a lot of guidance out there about no major changes in the first 12 months of sobriety.

But is that a rule? A myth? A suggestion?

Laura reflects on what recovery means to her now, more than a decade into sobriety, and Eric dives into the difference between sobriety (not drinking) and recovery (learning how to live, cope, and regulate without alcohol).

What do we actually think about the new Surgeon General's alcohol guidelines? And maybe more importantly… why do they feel so confusing?

In this episode, Laura McKowen, our founder, and Eric Johnson, our CEO, sit down to talk through the why behind Dear Vernon—where the idea came from, what it’s meant to be (and what it’s not), and why creating a space for honest questions about sobriety felt necessary.