Dear Vernon is a sobriety podcast from The Luckiest Club hosted by Laura McKowen and Eric Johnson. Each episode explores real questions about sobriety, recovery, and life — submitted by TLC members and listeners navigating it all in real time.
Click on the episodes below to listen, and explore companion articles inspired by the conversations. If you’d like to submit a question for Vernon, click the button below:
Listen to Dear Vernon wherever you get your podcasts:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify
New here? Start with Episode 1 to learn who Vernon is and how the podcast works.
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Episode 5: Can We Be Friends?
Laura McKowen and Eric Johnson tackle one of the most common (and least talked about) challenges in recovery: the profound loneliness that can show up after early sobriety.
This week’s question comes from a member of The Luckiest Club who’s over a year sober and struggling with what he calls “drifting through interstellar space socially.”
The camaraderie of early recovery has faded, old relationships feel less relatable, and he’s wondering: if connection is the key to long-term sobriety, what do you do when you feel more alone than ever?
Episode 4: Is It Too Soon to Make a Big Change?
In this episode of Dear Vernon, Laura McKowen and Eric Johnson take on a question almost everyone in early sobriety faces:
“I’m two months sober and I hate my job.
I’ve been told not to make big life changes in the first year…
So am I stuck here for 10 more months?”
It’s a real one.
There’s a lot of guidance out there about “no major changes in the first 12 months.”
But is that a rule? A myth? A suggestion?
And what do you do when the thing you want to change feels unbearable?
Episode 3: Are You Ever Recovered?
In this episode of Dear Vernon, Laura McKowen and Eric Johnson respond to a listener question:
"Are you ever actually recovered, or are you in recovery forever?"
Laura reflects on what recovery means to her now, more than a decade into sobriety — how it’s shifted from something effortful and front-of-mind into something deeply integrated. Eric dives into the difference between sobriety (not drinking) and recovery (learning how to live, cope, and regulate without alcohol).
Episode 2: About Those New Drinking Guidelines…
In this episode, Laura McKowen and Eric Johnson dig into a question a lot of you have been asking lately:
What do we actually think about the new Surgeon General alcohol guidelines? 💭
And maybe more importantly… why do they feel so confusing?
Episode 1: So…Who The Hell is Vernon
Welcome to the very first episode of Dear Vernon.
We know. You probably have questions.
Like… who is Vernon?
And why are people writing letters to him?
And how did this turn into a podcast?
In this episode, Laura McKowen and Eric Johnson 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.