PRESS RELEASE: Ulrika Jonsson Joins Award Winning Sober Awkward Podcast as New Co Host
Ulrika Jonsson joins Australian based author and podcaster Victoria Vanstone for a new chapter of the award winning sobriety podcast, bringing together two very different drinking stories and one refreshingly honest conversation about life without alcohol.
SUNSHINE COAST, AUSTRALIA: Broadcaster and writer Ulrika Jonsson has joined Victoria Vanstone as the new co host of Sober Awkward, the Australian produced podcast taking an honest, funny and often uncomfortable look at drinking and sobriety.
The announcement marks a new chapter for the five year old podcast, which has surpassed 8 million downloads worldwide and won Best Wellbeing Podcast at the Australian Podcast Awards in 2024.
Vanstone, a British born, Sunshine Coast based author and mum of three, created Sober Awkward after giving up alcohol in 2018 following more than two decades of binge drinking. She has since written two memoirs and built a global community around conversations about alcohol, anxiety, motherhood and the realities of getting sober in a culture where drinking is often treated as the default.
Jonsson brings a very different drinking story to the microphone. The broadcaster, writer and mum of four has spoken openly about how her drinking increasingly happened at home, often as a way of switching off from the pressures of everyday life.
It was those differences that made Vanstone believe the pairing could work.
“Ulrika came on Sober Awkward as a guest and I knew there was loads more to say,” says Vanstone. “Not just about giving up booze, but the confusing bits, the uncomfortable bits and the moments when you’re clutching a cup of tea thinking, bloody hell, what happened to my personality? When I needed a new co host, I thought, fuck it, I’m asking Ulrika. I genuinely didn’t think she’d say yes.”
She did.
Together, Vanstone and Jonsson will explore alcohol from two very different perspectives, from social binge drinking and drinking at home to anxiety, motherhood, relationships, ageing, identity and the sometimes surprising reality of learning to live without alcohol.
Rather than positioning themselves as sobriety experts, the pair intend to do what Sober Awkward has always done best, tell the truth about their own experiences, ask uncomfortable questions, share the science and laugh at themselves along the way.
“There isn’t one type of drinker and there certainly isn’t one type of sober person,” says Vanstone. “Ulrika and I drank differently, lived very different lives and still ended up asking ourselves some of the same questions. That’s what I’m most excited to explore.”
The first episode of the new series, “Shit! Am I Drinking Too Much?”, is available now, with Vanstone and Jonsson examining one of the questions millions of people quietly ask themselves long before they ever consider giving up alcohol.
Sober Awkward is available on all major podcast platforms.
About Victoria Vanstone
Victoria Vanstone is a Sunshine Coast based author, podcaster and mother of three. She is the author of A Thousand Wasted Sundays and Mumming: A Year of Trying (and Failing) to Be a Better Parent, and creator of the award winning Sober Awkward podcast. Vanstone has been sober since 2018 and is known for her funny, frank approach to alcohol, anxiety, motherhood and sobriety.
About Ulrika Jonsson
Ulrika Jonsson is a Swedish broadcaster, presenter, writer and mother of four who has spent more than three decades working across British television and media. As the new co host of Sober Awkward, she brings her own experience of drinking at home and changing her relationship with alcohol, alongside her trademark humour and willingness to discuss life warts and all.
Media enquiries
Victoria Vanstone
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Listen to Sober Awkward: https://open.spotify.com/show/4qXlSc9lDGStYLeYIjrWPH?si=321c4c622c3349e4
