Dear Vernon

This week on Dear Vernon, Laura McKowen, Founder of The Luckiest Club, and Eric Johnson, CEO of The Luckiest Club, tackle a question that's been sitting heavy with one of The Luckiest Club members. She had 183 days sober. On vacation with her husband, she ordered a virgin daiquiri, took a few sips, and realized it had alcohol in it. She caught it, sent it back, and asked for water instead. But the...

This week on Dear Vernon, The Luckiest Club Founder Laura McKowen and The Luckiest Club CEO Eric Johnson are answering a question that came in directly from a member with almost four years of sobriety—and honestly, it's one a lot of people can relate to. She loves her sober friends. They've been her lifeline. But they exist in a completely separate world from the rest of her life, and that separat...

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?" Laura McKowen, Founder of The Luckiest Club, and Eric Johnson CEO of The Luckiest C...

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. Truthfully, the answer you give your colleagues mi...

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? The listener who wrote in shared that they hadn’t cried in years — not while drinking, and not in the months after stopping. No big emotional release. No tears. Just… nothing. Eric and Laura both know that feeling. The...

In this episode of Dear Vernon, 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? The question came in from a member who's 60 days sober, a busy working mom, and feeling this strange flatness she can't quite name. Laura and Eric unpack why "boredom" in early sobriety is rarely just boredom, and what...

Eric and Laura are back for another episode of Dear Vernon. Eric almost showed up in a dress shirt and tie. He didn't. Instead, he rolled up in his hoodie and baseball cap after a bowl of Cinnamon Pebbles. (He has no regrets. He will have them for lunch too.) This week's question comes from Karen, who's five months sober and asking something so many of us have wondered: when does the happy come ba...

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 relations...

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...

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 drink...

Welcome back to Dear Vernon , where we answer real questions about sobriety without pretending it’s simple or one-size-fits-all. 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? We talk about: What actuall...

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 ques...