We Recover Loudly – Personal Recovery and Mental Health Stories · Shell Righini

S2 Episode 019 - Jason-Candid Knüsel - From Hospitality Home Comforts to Hospitality Home Truths

·54 min·2 clips

Tim’s life as a spirits ambassador collapsed under 250 to 300 travel days a year, constant drinking, and no work-life balance.

1. We Recover Loudly speaks with Jason Candid Knüsel about recovery, hospitality culture, and Healthy Hospo. 2. Shell hosts the episode, and Jason is the director of Healthy Hospo with 15 years in food and drinks venues like the Savoy and the Nomad Hotel in London. 3. The episode asks how hospitality can become healthier, happier, and more sustainable for the people who work in it. 4. Jason says he grew up in Switzerland with a father who ran a bed and breakfast as an investment and a building project. 5. He remembers helping in the kitchen as a child and learning to carry three plates at about age 7. 6. He explains that hospitality started in Zurich, first through hotels and restaurants, before he moved into bar work. 7. Jason says kitchens felt gray and metallic, while front-of-house let him talk to people and serve terraces, breakfast, and à la carte service. 8. He says he spent about four years in restaurant service before falling in love with bartending. 9. He describes stepping into a five-star hotel bar in Zurich called the Library of Spirits and seeing 1,300 to 1,400 bottles behind the bar. 10. He says that moment showed him he knew almost nothing about spirits, except products like Gordon’s and Sierra Tequila, and he never looked back. 11. Jason argues that bartending is an education because it lets people expand their product knowledge and build a real career. 12. He says hospitality apprenticeships in Switzerland usually focus on service, kitchen work, or hotel management, but not on bar work or brand ambassador roles. 13. He says many people only discover those options after they start working and build connections in the industry. 14. Jason says chefs and front-of-house staff both face unhealthy drinking and substance-use pressures, but the patterns differ by role and visibility. 15. He says products are often respected more than workers, and that training staff to respect their own boundaries is still missing. 16. He explains that Healthy Hospo’s 2022 survey found 59% of hospitality professionals had no mental health or health support in their venue or company. 17. He says Healthy Hospo focuses on prevention through venue visits, team training, and a digital learning platform that is about to launch as an app. 18. Jason contrasts Healthy Hospo’s upstream prevention with the Drinks Trust, which he describes as helping people once they are already in crisis. 19. The episode is conversational, personal, and direct, with Shell using her own recovery experience to challenge Jason on drinking culture and duty of care. 20. Listeners interested in hospitality culture, recovery, and workplace wellbeing will get the most from it, while people wanting light industry chat may skip it.

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