352: The Summer Sessions

352: The Summer Sessions

What are the common struggles and victories in addiction recovery? This episode of Soberful heads straight into one of the biggest: getting through summer without alcohol. Veronica Valli talks directly to anyone who’s dreading barbecues, beach days and long, warm evenings because booze used to be at the centre of all of it.

She also checks in on co-host Chip Somers, sharing that he’s had health issues but is improving, and hints at his return later in the year along with some re-released early episodes where both she and Chip share their full stories. The heart of this chat is a simple but brutal question: is summer really fun because of drinking, or because of the story you tell yourself about it?

Veronica unpacks how summer gets sold as “fun, freedom, connection, reward” and how that gets glued to alcohol in our minds. As she puts it, “We have the fantasy of our drinking in our head versus the reality,” and she keeps coming back to that contrast.

You’ll hear her talk honestly about ruined holidays, wasted days by the pool and her own old pattern of “I don’t have to get up for work, so I can drink as much as I want.” She encourages people to think their drink through: did those summers really deliver what alcohol promised? For most, the answer isn’t flattering.

There’s practical encouragement too: don’t “white knuckle” a whole season, focus on laying down “sober roots”, and remember you only have to get through each ‘first’ summer once. Veronica also shares how laughter and connection in sobriety feel “of a much superior quality” to chemically induced good times, and reframes FOMO into JOMO – the joy of missing out.

If you’re facing your first sober summer or still haunted by sunny-day fantasies of drinking, this episode offers straight-talking reassurance and a reminder that sober summers can actually feel richer, lighter and far less costly. How do you want to remember yours?