Off The Rocks

# Episode Notes Episode Thirty One: Taking Breaks, Summer Holidays & TTFN! In this episode, Jen and Sara talk about the vital importance of taking breaks. They discuss the many benefits of stepping away from things in order to gain perspective and take time to reassess, recharge and redirect. They chat about the value of taking breaks from all manner of things; work, booze, people, exercise, diets. (Just don’t expect Sara to take a break from smoked salmon ok. She appears to have a raging addiction to it and we should probably stage an intervention at some point.) This episode is a good one, which is handy because it’ll be the last one for a while as they’re taking a well earned podcasting break. Jen and Sara will be back after the summer, most likely, depending on if they can be arsed. So stand by! Normal programming will resume shortly, probs. In the meantime, have fun, stay safe and be wary of the dangers of smoked salmon addiction. It’s a gateway delicacy. Fair warning: some swears. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

# Episode Notes Episode Thirty: Can You Really Be Friends With An Ex? Today Jen and Sara are asked: can you really be friends with an ex? It’s a tricky question, with many variables and they give their honest views and personal experiences, but only after Sara suddenly derails the convo with an anecdote about cat rape. Back on topic though - Sara has an ex who’s become one of her closest friends. Jen has an ex who doesn’t give her the time of day. It takes all sorts to make the world go round. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you have access to the internet, maybe you can email: theteam@offtherocks.co.uk They will help you. Depending on how you define ‘help’. Catch you next week. Big cuddles. Warning: some swearing. (There will be some swearing in every episode, let’s be honest.) This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

# Episode Notes Episode Twenty Nine: I Thought This Was Meant To Be Fun? Today, Jen and Sara have a little catch up. Jen is about to move flats from a tiny studio to a (comparatively) huge place, which will look super minimalist because - thanks to living in a tiny place for the past year - she has no furniture anymore. Sara is soon to take a trip to New Zealand, where she plans to ask Jacinda Ardern whether she fancies coming on the podcast. So, that’s as good as in the bag then. After that, we respond to a listener email. This one’s from a woman who’s just completed her first year at uni but doesn’t know if she wants to carry on. (With the course, that is. Not with life in general. It’s a pretty bad university experience that makes you feel that low.) Having both been to university, Jen and Sara offer up their respective experience and advice and reassure her that the first year of uni is generally the weirdest. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you have access to the internet, maybe you can email: theteam@offtherocks.co.uk Catch you next week. Big love. Beware: Some swears. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

**# Episode Notes Episode Twenty Eight: This Is What I Want To Be! (I think.)** In this episode Jen and Sara answer another listener email. This one is from Brittany; a marathon running legend who wants to take a booze break but doesn’t know if she has what it takes to make that change. Jen thinks cognitive dissonance commonly precedes any big lifestyle adjustment. That it’s just par for the course and dwelling on uncertain outcomes only serves to keep us stuck, fearing failure. So just do it, Britt! You totally have what it takes but you won’t know that until you crack on. (As a very wise philosopher once said: ‘Do. Or do not. There is no try.’ Ok, that was Yoda from Star Wars but whatever.) Sara, puts her therapist hat on (feel free to imagine her in a nice bowler whenever she says that) and congratulates Brittany on her self-awareness. She rightly says that she’s already ahead of the curve for knowing herself so well and for laying the groundwork for such sensible, successful self care. Then she gets a porn pop up and loses her train of thought. It happens. If you have a problem. If no one else can help. And if you have access to the internet. Maybe you can email: theteam@offtherocks.co.uk Catch you next week. We love you. Some swearing, obvs. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

**# Episode Notes Episode Twenty Seven: Snooping, Sneaking & Coming Clean** On the podcast this week Jen and Sara address a listener’s dilemma about whether he should confront his girlfriend about some troubling things he’s read about in her diary. The advice is that, firstly, he should stop bloody well reading his girlfriend’s diary! And secondly, he should tell his girlfriend that he’s been reading her diary and unreservedly apologise for being a gigantic boundary-overstepping nosey parker. Probably not the sympathetic advice he was hoping for, but what you gonna do? If you have a problem that you want us to either help you out with or make fun of, feel free to drop us a line: theteam@offtherocks.co.uk Catch you next time. Some swears. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Episode Twenty Six: Childhood Trauma, Feeling your Feelings & Sitting with Discomfort In this week’s episode Jen and Sara help a listener who’s written in saying that she can’t stand her boyfriend’s children. Sara offers her perspective as a therapist and as someone who’s dated a single mother. Jen draws on her experiences of being a child of divorced parents. Essentially, Sara handled her situation by encouraging the child to make her toast. Jen dealt with things by developing attachment issues which later manifested in addiction problems - hurray! This one goes deep. Drop us a line: theteam@offtherocks.co.uk Catch you next time. Some swears. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Episode Twenty Five: Dating, Failed Relationships & Being Disappointed with Dolly Sara’s all loved up at the moment (so is Jen but she doesn’t bang on about it half as much). So the topic of convo today is mostly about relationships; how to get into them, how to stay in them and how to spectacularly fail at them. Both Jen and Sara have extensive experience in that department and they’re not afraid to exploit it in the name of podcast fodder. They also chat about the phenomenon of being ghosted and having just read Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton, Jen can’t fathom how some people don’t see it coming a mile off when it happens to them. “What the f*ck did you expect, Dolly? What a stupid move!” All about the compassion, always. Topics also discussed: Kevin Costner’s mullet. Chesney Hawkes and his ground-breaking one hit wonder and memorable sanitary towel adverts from the 90’s. Drop us a line: theteam@offtherocks.co.uk Catch you next week. Some swears. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Episode Twenty Four: Ethical Dilemmas, Frog Collections & E.T. What do you do when someone gives you a gift (an ornamental frog, for instance) that you don’t like? What do you do when that person keeps giving you gifts (several ornamental frogs) that you don’t like? Do you lean into it, get a few display cabinets and become a reluctant collector or do you have a word with them? Jen and Sara discuss this tricky ethical dilemma and ultimately decide that it’s all about boundaries (and vaginas) again. This is a particularly good one. Until next week! Some swears. Obviously. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Episode Twenty Three: Good Loving, Bad Reviews & Subpar Post Offices In this episode Jen and Sara give advice to a listener who’s still single at 35 and worried about being left on the shelf forever. He wonders if his standards are too high and we agree that they probably are. ‘If you want to get into a relationship, all you have to do is lower your standards sufficiently.’ That’s the basic gist of our amazing advice and you can’t argue with that. Jen realises she’s had a negative review for her book and ponders what sort of person is driven to write negative reviews for most of the things they buy. The only circumstance she can think of in which she would take the time to write a bad review for something would involve the death of a child - which seems a bit extreme but that doesn’t make it any less true. Also, Sara relives some past post office trauma. Oh yes, this episode has it all. Until next week! Some swears. Obviously. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes In this episode Jen and Sara help another listener out with some great advice. (We use the word ‘help’ very loosely and ‘great advice’ is also a bit strong.) Concerned Of Yorkshire wants him and his hubs to open their relationship up to a wider audience, but wonders if that’s wise. So we discuss the pros and cons of polyamory, whether we’d do it ourselves and, if we did, what our boundaries might be. Sara chats about her experiences of coming out as gay and Jen ponders how strange that is. Not how strange being gay is. Of course not. Any half wit knows that sexuality is a spectrum and that same sex attraction has always been, and will always be, a normal variation for a percentage of the population, and it has nothing to do with choice or morality. No, gayness is not strange in the slightest. (And if you think otherwise, you likely have unresolved issues around your own sexuality and you should look into that, chum.) No, what is strange is that in our society, it often feels like we’re owed announcements and updates on a person’s sexual preferences. That’s what’s strange. Why should anyone feel any pressure to publicly declare their sexuality? It’s bonkers. Love is love is love. And then we congratulate Jen on her breasts. The end. Until next week! Some swears. Of course. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes This episode was meant to be about boundaries, but was much more about vaginas. Jen and Sara did, valiantly, try to cycle back to boundaries a couple of times, but ended up right back on vaginas again; how to take care of them, the importance of regular cervical screenings, the way the word ‘vagina’ is misused as a descriptor. So keen for women to go for their smear tests that Sara volunteered to do them. (Fair Warning: that offer had more to do with her being a randy,...

Episode Notes Episode Twenty: Sober Weddings, Baths, Bells & Whistles In this episode Jen and Sara answer a great email from a lovely listener about sober weddings. They discuss how to remain happily sober in overwhelming, booze-centric situations. How to handle those pesky drink-pushers. And the importance of accommodating teetotal guests. And then things take a bit of a turn; with no conversational framework in place they drift into chitchatting about some very dubious topics indeed....

In this episode Jen chats to Ruby Warrington. Ruby is a lifestyle writer and former features editor of Sunday Times Style. She is the creator of The Numinous; an outrageously popular online magazine. CoFounder of CLUB SÖDA NYC; a sober curious events club. And author of two books: ‘Material Girl, Mystical World’ and ‘Sober Curious’. It's Ruby's new book, Sober Curious, that Jen asks her all about in this podcast. The sober curious movement has gained massive momentum over the last few...

In this week's podcast Jen chats to Sara about therapists; the good, the bad and the ones who sit on chairs in overly flamboyant ways. When it comes to therapy and finding a good therapist there are lots of different modalities, lots of preferences, lots of personal likes and dislikes. For instance, Jen prefers her therapists to have a comfy chair, but she'll settle for a fold-up camp bed. Sara prefers not to be geography-shamed or called a dyke. (Fussy.) Seriously though, Sara is...

Episode Seventeen: Sex Lines, Stalkers & The Pattinson Effect This week Jen and Sara thought they'd 'just start talking' and see where the conversation went. Obviously, it went directly to: "Have you ever called a sex line?" And from there it went to Sara's experiences as a Cam Girl, Jen's experiences with psycho stalkers, how condescending cats can be, the magnificence of Robert Pattinson (specifically in vampire mode) and how to write a book. This is not your average podcast; these...

Episode Notes In this episode Jen and Sara answer an email from a listener who's feeling unsupported since she stopped drinking. Both Jen and Sara they said they couldn't relate to that problem at all, and then proceeded to rattle off several personal anecdotes to the contrary. After a busy few days at work, Sara struggled to string sentences together during this podcast, which probably wasn't helped by her cat pratting about with a bell in the background. Jen, meanwhile, was outed for...

Episode Notes In this week’s podcast Jen and Sara chat about anxiety. How common it is, what it means to them, how they experience it and what they do to cope with it. Sara takes daily meds for hers, (as lots of people do) Jen doesn’t. They explore how anxiety manifests itself in different ways at different times for different people. They ponder how some people derive comfort from spiritual aids such as crystals, tarot cards and clairvoyants and other people dismiss them. And how that’s...

In this episode Jen and Sara talk about the phenomenon of Dry January and sober stints in general. Jen recalls that time she did a year sober only to pick up exactly where she’d left off, because she did no underlying work during that time. And how different things were when she took a break for 3+ years but did ALL THE WORK. (Turns out, you actually have to change things if you want things to change. Weird.) Sara explains, from a therapist’s point of view, how we’re all responsible for...

In this episode Jen and Sara answered an email (although Jen kept referring to it as a letter because she’s old skool and surprisingly out of touch, tech-wise, for a media grad). To protect the sender’s anonymity they gave her another name; a name that doesn’t even exist apparently, though it sounds like it should. For an episode that covers such heavy-hitting topics as: the ‘alcoholic’ label, neuroplasticity experiments and how to deal with non-supportive people, there are a lot of...

In this episode of the Off The Rocks Podcast Jen and Sara chat about habits; making them, maintaining them, breaking them and ultimately replacing them with better ones. They chat about whether they think addiction is inherent or whether it’s learnt behaviour. How fiendishly hard they found it to stop smoking. How their relationship with alcohol has radically changed over the years. And how romantic relationships can suffer when addictive tendencies are left unaddressed. They end the...