The Sober Creative Podcast
The Sober Creative Podcast features live conversations with people navigating their sobriety journeys. Each episode explores personal transformations, practical strategies, and the unexpected creative advantages of clear-minded living. Guests share how sobriety enhances artistic expression, business success, and personal fulfillment. The series highlights greater authenticity, purpose, and creative power found through sobriety.
Episodes
Episode 072 - The Wrong Question About Drinking With Dr. Lucy McBride
Most of us know the moment. You’re at your annual checkup and the doctor asks how many drinks you have a week. You give a number, they type it in, and the appointment moves on.Dr. Lucy McBride has spent 25 years as a primary care physician in Washington, D.C., and she thinks that question barely scratches the surface. Alcohol has been part of her life from many angles. Her dad has been sober since
Episode 071 - Full Throttle With No Map: Steve Munro is 33 years sober, still redrawing the plan
Steve Munro 🇨🇦 spent 25 years drinking, using, and selling drugs before he hit the bottom that finally stuck: a seizure on his apartment floor after walking through the DTs to buy a bottle of vodka. Eleven months in a residential treatment center followed. What came after that is the real story. Steve rebuilt a life across software executive roles, a motorcycle racing career, and a business he eve
Episode 070 - The Whisper Needs You Awake: Lisa Marie Simmons on Performing, Writing, and Drinking Less
Lisa Marie Simmons has been on stage since she was fifteen. She moved from Boulder to New York at nineteen to study theater and music, and she believed what a lot of young artists believe: that the tortured artist needs a drink to get up there and bare her heart. She bought all in. By her own account, she was messed up for most of the five years she spent in New York.She is sixty now, living on La
Episode 069 - One Panel At A Time
For about twenty years, Tiffiny Yaxley was the one who made the party happen. Figure skater, geologist, entertainer, the girl who would moon a room full of people because she thought it was hilarious. She built that reputation on purpose. And somewhere along the way she stopped liking the person she had built.She'll tell you there was no rock bottom. Just a Friday at 10 in the morning at a stressf
Episode 068 - What Alcohol Actually Does To Your Brain
Most of what I know about alcohol, I learned by living it. I know what nine beers a day did to my sleep, my mornings, my work, and my sense of who I was. What I never had was the other half of the picture. The part happening at the level of receptors and stress hormones and inflammation, in a place I can’t see and was never taught to look.Dr. A Leslie Morrow spent 35 years in that place. She’s a J
Episode 067 - The Part Sobriety Didn't Touch
Steve [Sage-Outlaw-Caregiver] on the crash that came six years after he quit, and finding out at 40 that he was creativeSteve didn’t take a drink until he was 21. He calls it a reverse Benjamin Button. Most people get their worst drinking out of the way young. His started late, got heavier every year, and by the back half of his 30s it was every single day.He stopped on August 4th, 2018, after his
Episode 066 - Walking Away From Normal
Erin Gregory Creative did not hit rock bottom. That’s part of why her story is worth sitting with.She grew up Irish Catholic, in a family where a drink was how you celebrated and how you grieved. She was a scholarship swimmer in college, where work hard, play hard was simply the culture. She married Mike, whose family operated the same way. Nobody in her orbit thought twice about it. Then in 2018,
Episode 065 - What Recovery Gives You Back: A Conversation with Hunter Biden
In this episode, Josh sits down with Hunter Biden, a painter and writer based in Los Angeles who built a first career in law and business long before most people knew his name for anything else. Then one October, a laptop turned his private life into public property overnight. Every family photo, every relapse, and every unfinished thought got picked up by strangers and rearranged into a story he
Episode 064 - The Second Time It Stuck: Dana Kay on Becoming a New Person, Not Just Stopping a Behavior
Dana Kay’s first memory of alcohol is from a dinner party when she was five or six years old. She spent the night sneaking sips while the adults were turned away in conversation, and by the end of the night she’d passed out on a beanbag in the middle of the room. Nobody worried. Everybody laughed. It became a family story people told for years, and it planted something in her that took over four d
Episode 063 - Jomo the Meditating Monkey: Stillness, Sobriety, and the Busy Mind
Most guests on this show are people who found their way to sobriety and creativity through hard-won trial and error. This week’s guest is a small golden monkey in a patchwork waistcoat who has never had a drink in his life. His name is Jomo, and he teaches meditation to millions of people on TikTok alongside his human, Jason, at The Monkeymind Meditation Club.Jomo’s origin story starts with Jason
Episode 062 - Music Is The Centerpiece Of My Life, Alcohol Is Not
Jeff “H” Harrington has been playing bass and writing songs for close to 40 years. He grew up in Milwaukee, a city he describes as one of the heaviest drinking cultures in the country, and spent his 20s and 30s using alcohol to manage a shyness he calls “criminally vulgar.” Nine years ago he left a career in medical physics to chase music full time. Five years ago, he stopped drinking almost entir
Episode 061 - It’s Getting in My Way Now: Gary Allen on Slow Change and Building a Second Act After 45
Gary Allen had his first drink at 19, a pint of Harp he didn’t even like. He kept drinking it anyway, because for the first time, he felt like everybody else. Gary grew up in rural Ireland, the oldest of three, and has used a wheelchair full-time since he was 13. Alcohol became the thing that closed the distance between him and the room. He didn’t fully realize that’s what it was doing until decad
Episode 060 - Chasing Curiosity Instead of Chasing Quiet: Bob Mathers Found There Was No Ceiling Once He Stopped Drinking
Bob Mathers spent 35 years being “Bobby Good Times.” He was the guy other people kept on speed dial for a good night out, the one always up for an extra day of drinking when everyone else had called it quits. He built a career as a speaker and coach. He raised two sons. From the outside, it looked like a full life. On the inside, he was running on a weekly cycle of shame and recovery that had beco
Episode 059 - From the Fog to the Fast Lane: Ian Fee’s Wild Ride to Sobriety
IAN FEE took his first drink at age one, handed a sip of beer by his own dad while sitting in a highchair. He grew up in the 1970s and 80s, when parents dipped a baby’s binky in wine and nobody thought twice about it. By the time he hit his twenties, drinking wasn’t just a habit. It was the whole architecture of his social life and his career.Ian built a sales career on entertaining clients at bar
Episode 058 - Two Promises I'm Keeping
Jen Benford grew up carrying more than most people ever have to carry. Adopted at age two or three, moved through four homes before then, her aunt and uncle raised her in those first few formative years. Not finding out until she was 19 that she had six or seven half-siblings out in the world somewhere. Through all of it, she kept moving forward and kept the weight of it buried.When alcohol entere
Episode 057 - Sobriety at 15,000 Feet: My Trek to Machu Picchu
I almost got off the bus.Sitting there before we took off, bags being loaded, heart racing, I seriously considered stepping out and calling the whole thing off. Five and a half years sober, and fear still shows up in the body the same way it always did. What changed is what I do with it. I kept breathing. The bus started moving. And the shift happened.This is the story of a five-day, 40+ mile trek
Episode 056 - The Electricity Nobody Named: ADHD, Addiction, and the Power of Willingness
Jill DePhillip, CRNP-PMH has spent years sitting with people at the hardest parts of themselves. As a certified registered nurse practitioner in psychiatric mental health, specializing in ADHD and addiction recovery, she brings something most credentials don’t come with: she’s been there.Six years sober — since April 20, 2020 — she built a clinical practice, a writing life, and a clear understandi
Episode 055 - Staying Alive Is Enough to Build Something Real
Marya Hornbacher came out of rehab in her mid-20s not knowing how to make dinner. She could earn a graduate degree, but she couldn’t change a tire or make a doctor’s appointment. She’d been drinking and using since her early teens, and by the time sobriety arrived, basic life skills were largely theoretical.What she built from that point forward is more than something. New York Times bestselling a
Episode 054 - The Intelligence You Already Have: Jenn Ocken on Navigating Uncertainty Without Abandoning Yourself
Jenn Ocken is a photographer, brand builder, and the person who gave language to something she calls creative adaptive intelligence — the human capacity to navigate uncertainty without abandoning yourself. She didn’t arrive at this framework through a research institution or a credential program. She got there through lived experience: a family where alcohol was completely normal, a father who wen
Episode 053 - The Reputation You Earn: James Martin on Sobriety, Creativity, and Building Something That Lasts
James Martin | Made By James has spent 20 years building brands for some of the world’s most recognized companies. But the most important brand he’s ever built is his own — and he’ll tell you sobriety had everything to do with it.In this conversation, James opened up about getting kicked out of school at 17, a two-year bender that nearly derailed his life, and the moment on September 5, 2021 when
Episode 052 - When Your Work Ethic Outlasts Everything Else: A Conversation with Jessica Drapluk
Jess, The Creator is the kind of person who does not slow down. A family nurse practitioner, former pediatric oncology nurse, competitive hockey player, stock market analyst, and full-time Substack writer — she has built a life that runs on discipline, curiosity, and a refusal to stay average. But behind all of that output was a year that nearly unraveled everything.In this conversation, Jessica g
Episode 051 - From Rock Bottom to Open Sea: How Cory Gerlach Used 18 Years of Sobriety as a Launchpad for Radical Change
Cory Gerlach did not follow the script. Teenage punk. Community college. Harvard PhD. Senior federal scientist. Congressional advisor on COVID-19. And then—in 2024—he and his husband rebuilt a dilapidated sailboat by hand, quit their jobs, and sailed away from the lives they had built.He has been sober for 18 years. He got sober at 20. He never had a legal drink in the United States.What comes thr
Episode 050 - When Sensitivity Meets Sobriety: Jonathan Hoban on Managing the Nervous System Behind Addiction
Jonathan Hoban has spent years trying to understand why he kept sabotaging himself when things were going well. The answer wasn’t where he expected to find it. It was hiding in plain sight — in the word most people dismiss as weakness: sensitivity.As a psychotherapist, author, and founder of Sensitivity Management, Jonathan has built a framework that reframes sensitivity not as a flaw to fix, but
Episode 049 - From the Garage to the Page: How Shelly Built a Clear, Creative Life on Her Own Terms
There’s a version of Shelly’s story that looks like a series of detours. Mechanic to content creator. Dealership to Substack. Substances to sobriety. But spend twenty minutes with her, and you realize those weren’t detours. They were the path.Shelly is the writer behind Cozy Clarity, a Substack she describes as “a space where soft and strong collide.” Her work sits at the intersection of personal
Episode 048 - Your Body Is Talking. Are You Listening? A Conversation with Carolina Wilke
Carolina Wilke has spent decades studying what most of us ignore. The signals our bodies send. The tension we carry without naming it. The emotions we skip past because sitting with them feels like too much.As co-founder of Sacred Business Flow and a master bioenergetics practitioner, Carolina came to this work through her own body. Years of chronic migraines that started at age five. Hospital vis
Episode 047 - From a 12-Hour Gaming Addiction to Six-Figure SaaS: A Conversation with Orel Zilberman
Orel Zilberman spent years inside the kind of addiction most people don’t take seriously. No substances. No rehab. Just a screen, a game, and a mind that had completely given itself over to the loop. At the peak, he was logging 12 to 16 hours a day on League of Legends and Overwatch — counting the minutes he spent outside the house in missed games. Everything else — school, relationships, his own
Episode 046 - Being The Project Manager of Your Own Life: Kerry Hoffman on Proactive Sobriety and A Creative Life
Kerry Hoffman is a project manager. She builds systems. She connects dots. She is, by her own admission, very type A.So when she found herself going out and planning on two drinks, knowing she’d have three, and ending up with four or five — she noticed the problem. The drinking wasn’t following her rules. She was following the drinking’s.There was no dramatic bottom. No external pressure forcing h
Episode 045 - When the Addiction Doesn't Go Away — It Just Gets a Job: A Conversation with Doan Winkel
Some guests come to these conversations with a tidy arc — the fall, the turning point, the recovery. Doan Winkel doesn’t have that story. He has something interesting and one we explored: the willingness to still be in it.At 25, after three stints in rehab, a suicide attempt, and a collection of dangerous adventures he can only partially recall, Doan made a decision that no program, sponsor, or su
Episode 044 - When the Body Breaks the Pattern: Phil Powis on Health, Clarity, and Building What You Can’t Hide From
Phil Powis ❤️⚡️ walked into his mid-30s running a consulting business that looked like success from every angle. Over $100,000 a month. A growing reputation. And underneath all of it, a body slowly breaking down in ways no doctor could explain.By the time a golf ball-sized tumor appeared in his neck—with a 50/50 chance of cancer—Phil had spent years trying to outwork, outsmart, and outlast whateve
Episode 043 - You Can't Pour From an Empty Cup. Becoming You Starts With Filling It.
Florence Acosta spent nearly 30 years giving everything she had to everyone around her.As a nurse. As a CRNA holding patients’ lives in her hands. As an executive director managing surgical teams, patient safety, and the invisible weight of being the person everyone else leaned on. As a daughter-in-law who watched her former father-in-law disappear into addiction while his family quietly stopped a
Episode 042 - From the Stage to the Page: Mary Peeples on Sobriety, Self-Reclamation, and the Courage to Create Again
530 days sober and still counting — this conversation will remind you what it means to come home to yourself.Mary Peeples has lived many lives inside one. The theater kid from South Georgia who played Annie at the Fox. The boarding school girl who quietly lost herself trying to fit in. The 23-year-old editor-in-chief who, by her own account, torched it all by 25. And then, the one who finally walk
Episode 040 - From Survival to Surrender: How a Landscape Painter Found Creative Freedom Through Healing
What happens when a creative person spends years completely shut down — unable to work, unable to feel, unable to create? For Justin Donaldson, a landscape artist who now travels the United States in a camper with his family, the answer was a long and honest journey through trauma, therapy, and transformation. Justin grew up in a cult, experienced serious abuse, and spent years pushing through lif
Episode 039 - Spiritual Awakening in the Shower: Elif Ahmad’s Non-Traditional Recovery Journey
Elif Ahmad didn’t walk into a detox center or sit in a circle of folding chairs to get sober. She stood in a shower, held out her hands, and asked the universe for help. Within 24 hours, three years of cocaine addiction simply stopped. No cravings. No withdrawal. Just a complete severing of the cords that had bound her to active addiction.Her story challenges everything the traditional recovery in
Episode 038 - Living Above a Bar: A Dutch Medicine Woman’s Journey to Visibility and Sobriety
When the work of being seen becomes more important than the comfort of staying hiddenInge van de Graaf lives above a bar. Not near one—above one. The ground floor of her home is De Amer, a cultural cafe and music venue with velvet curtains, a fully stocked bar, and decades of history. For a woman navigating sobriety, this might sound like an impossible setup. But for Inge, a trauma therapist and m
Episode 037 - Mistaking the Absence of Pain for Joy (And How to Find the Real Thing)
Georgia Kohlhoff knows what it’s like to have food occupy every corner of your mind. As a registered nutritionist, personal trainer, and trainee psychotherapist, she spent over two decades cycling through strict meal plans, obsessive tracking, and “intuitive eating” that spiraled into chaos. She calculated that food noise consumed over 700 hours of her year—just thinking about what to eat next.Wha
Episode 036 - Peeling the Trauma Onion: Paul Overton on 30 Years of Sobriety and What Comes After
Paul Overton quit drinking 30 years ago, though he admits he doesn't keep close track anymore. Growing up in 1970s California as a Gen X kid left to his own devices, he started drinking at 12 or 13 and was introduced to cocaine at 16. His family normalized alcohol. Nobody was angry or out of control, but “everybody was definitely half in the bag most of the time once it got to past two in the afte
Episode 035 - The Space Between: Sam Illingworth on Becoming Fearless with 18 Years of Clear-Minded Living
December 22, 2007. Sam Illingworth woke up in a hospital bed with his heart racing, his memory blank, and a doctor offering him the simplest advice he'd ever received: "Don't drink for a month and see what happens." That month became 18 years. That choice became the foundation for a career built not on speed or performance, but on attention, dialogue, and the courage to work slowly in a world obse
Episode 034 - When Your Identity Falls Apart: Jake Summers on Relapse, Recovery, and Building a Creative Life
Jake Summers started drinking in high school in an alcoholic home where he “could basically do whatever I wanted.” He went to West Point hoping structure would save him from his addiction. It didn’t. He got kicked out at 21, went to rehab, and spent years drinking a fifth a day while working in finance—sneaking to the liquor store at 9 AM and drinking flask bottles in the bathroom at work.After ye
Episode 033 - The Mic is Flipped: Choosing No to Drinking Is Choosing Yes to Yourself
For 32 episodes, I’ve sat across from creative professionals who’ve chosen sobriety and discovered something remarkable: clarity doesn’t diminish creativity—it unlocks it. I’ve listened to transformation stories, watched people articulate what they couldn’t see while they were in it, and built a community around the idea that removing the fog reveals the work you were always capable of.But I haven
Episode 032 - When Sobriety Cleared the Fog: How One Writer Went from Paralyzed to 3,000 Words a Day
Anna Gibson spent years on autopilot—smoking weed throughout her day, feeling the weight of a “demon on her back,” watching her writing disappear into unproductive fog. She knew she wasn’t doing anything. She’d smoke on the clock at her retail job. She’d look at her bag and see paranoia staring back. For someone who’d been writing professionally for over a decade, the creative paralysis was destro
Episode 031 - From Cocaine to Clarity: Building a Life Worth Remembering
Ryan Lee spent his twenties chasing numbness—ecstasy, cocaine, alcohol, repeat. He kept his corporate job intact, hit his numbers, and convinced himself everything was fine. But underneath the performance, he was stuck. Personally stagnant. Professionally functional but unfulfilled. Using substances to blur the edges of a life he didn’t actually want.On March 14, 2021, Ryan found himself lying on
Episode 030 - When Clarity Becomes Your Most Essential Creative Tool: A Conversation with Elizabeth Austin
What happens when you build an entire writing career in sobriety—placing 30+ pieces in major publications while navigating your daughter’s cancer treatment, solo parenting, and financial uncertainty? Elizabeth Austin shows us that the answer isn’t just about what you accomplish, but about who you become in the process.Our conversation this past week, Elizabeth was 10 days away from her one-year so
Episode 029 - The Perfectionism Coin: Why Shame and Control Keep You Reaching for the Bottle
What if everything you’ve been told about discipline is wrong? What if the reason you can’t stick to your creative practice isn’t because you lack willpower, but because your body is protecting you from repeating a pattern it knows will end in shame?This week’s guest on Clear Conversations understands this paradox intimately. Brian Maierhofer is a somatic therapist who spent years chasing creative
Episode 028 - The Middle Ground Nobody Talks About: Denise Hamilton-Mace on Moderation, Midlife, and Creative Clarity
There’s a space between “rock bottom” and “business as usual” that rarely gets airtime in conversations about alcohol. It’s where most people actually live—questioning whether their drinking serves them, curious about alternatives, but not identifying with traditional recovery language or abstinence-only approaches.Denise Hamilton-Mace has built her entire platform in that messy middle. As the fou
Episode 027 - When Sobriety Reveals What You Actually Want: A Conversation with Tyler Donohue
What if the thing you’ve been using to take the edge off is actually keeping you from the life you’re meant to live?This week on Clear Conversations, I sat down with Tyler Donohue, the writer behind Girl Resting, for a conversation that challenges everything we’ve been told about creativity, confidence, and what it means to live authentically. Tyler’s journey from social drinker to nearly two year
Episode 026 - When Meditation Saved My Life: Jason’s Journey from Blackout Drunk to Guiding Others Home
What happens when partying stops being fun and starts becoming survival? Jason from The Monkeymind Meditation Club knows this turning point intimately. Eight years ago, he was the loudest voice at the bar, the first one ordering shots, the guy who’d party until morning without question. Two-day benders turned into three-day benders, then four. Until one day he woke up in London with no memory of h
Episode 025 - When Everything Falls Apart at Once: Derek MacDonald on Building Creative Stability Through Sobriety
Derek MacDonald got sober, got broken up with, and moved across the country—all in the same week. Most people would call that rock bottom. Derek called it a foundation.Four and a half years later, he’s the creator of Becoming Unobstructed, a newsletter and podcast reaching readers in 32+ countries. He’s published 450,000 words in 18 months—the equivalent of eight copies of The Great Gatsby. And he
Episode 024 - When Grief Refuses to Be Silent: A Conversation with Alicia Cook
Alicia Cook knows something most of us spend our lives trying to avoid: what it means to transform unbearable loss into art that heals others. After losing her 19-year-old cousin Jessica to a heroin overdose when she was just 20, Alicia could have let grief silence her. Instead, she picked up her pen and began writing—not about her own addiction, but about the devastation addiction leaves in its w
Episode 023 - When Pushing Through Breaks You: Cali Bird on the Radical Act of Being Gentle
What happens when the productivity warrior inside you finally surrenders? When chronic illness forces you to abandon every achievement strategy you’ve ever known? And what if that breaking point becomes the doorway to your most authentic creative work?Cali Bird lived the high-achieving life for decades—accountant, investment banker, IT specialist, all while nurturing creative projects on the side.
Episode 022 - Removing the Distortion: How Sobriety Unlocked Paulina Pinsky's Most Potent Creative Work
Paulina Pinsky got sober on December 22, 2021, after a panic attack in an Alabama gas station—days before Christmas, ending an engagement, and moving back in with her parents at 29. Most people would wait years before writing about that kind of rock bottom. Paulina started documenting it 70 days later.What emerged from that decision is newly sober, a newsletter that captures what’s missing from mo
Episode 021 - Finding Your Voice in Sobriety: A Conversation with Deborah Jeanne Weitzman
There’s a particular kind of courage required to strip away the masks we’ve worn for decades—the personas we built to survive, to please, to belong. For performer, teacher, and writer Deborah Jeanne Weitzman, that journey began not with alcohol, but with food, and evolved into a 40-year exploration of what it means to live authentically.In our conversation, Deborah shared her unconventional path t
Episode 020 - The Raw Chaos That Grows the Lotus: Stephanie Raffelock on Creativity and Sobriety
“I learned that creativity doesn’t come in a vial of white powder.” This wisdom from record producer Keith Olson after getting sober at Betty Ford became a touchstone for Stephanie Raffelock—a reminder that authentic creative power emerges not from substances, but from facing “the raw chaos and mud that grows the lotus within you.”At seventy-something, Stephanie embodies “Ancora imparo”—still, I a
Episode 019 - Permission to Start: David Speed’s Path from ‘Not Gifted’ to International Artist
What happens when you stop waiting for permission to become who you already are? David Speed’s conversation reveals a truth that challenges everything we’ve been told about creative breakthroughs: sometimes the most profound transformations happen not through dramatic moments, but through quiet, intentional choices that align your daily actions with your deepest values.David’s story dismantles the
Episode 018 - From Overwhelm to Alchemy: How Sobriety Unlocked Kate Baily's Creative Superpowers
The fear haunts many creative professionals: What if sobriety kills my creative edge? Kate Baily’s story demolishes this myth completely. Nine years sober, she's transformed from someone using alcohol to manage overwhelming sensitivity into a published author of two books, community builder, and creative force who describes her post-alcohol creativity as being "on steroids."Kate's journey reveals
Episode 016 - Finding God in a Motorcycle: How Sobriety Unlocks Sacred Systems Thinking
When Eric J Cunningham found himself hanging off his apartment lanai at the end of his rope—successful on paper but spiritually bankrupt—he couldn't have imagined that a windblown motorcycle tarp would become his gateway to divine presence.Eric, an ecological anthropologist turned UX researcher, discovered that his high-functioning alcoholism wasn't just numbing pain—it was severing his connection
Episode 015 - From Liquid Courage to Authentic Connection: How Sam Bail is Transforming NYC's Social Scene One Sober Event at a Time
What happens when your vision for better social spaces becomes the catalyst for your own transformation? That's exactly what happened to Sam at Third Place Bar—a groundbreaking series of alcohol-free pop-up events that have been redefining connection in NYC since 2022.Sam's story flips the traditional sobriety narrative. Instead of hitting rock bottom and then building back up, she simply asked he
Episode 014 - When Sobriety Becomes Your Creative Superpower: A Conversation with Author Jules Cazedessus
Sometimes the most profound creative breakthroughs come not from what we add to our lives, but from what we courageously remove. Jules Cazedessus, author of "Sing the Body Politic," discovered this truth in her recent journey into sobriety—and the results speak for themselves.In this latest Clear Conversations episode, Jules shared how stepping away from alcohol didn't diminish her creative voice—
Episode 013 - When Music Becomes Medicine: A 17-Year Journey from Addiction to Artistic Clarity
The most powerful creative transformations often begin in the darkest moments. For composer and arranger Matthew Goinz, that moment came staring at an empty whiskey glass in a bar, realizing his drinking had silenced the very voice that defined his identity—his ability to sing.What followed wasn't just recovery; it was a complete artistic rebirth. From failing out of college twice to performing at
Episode 012 - From Shame to Story: How Writing Became the Bridge to Recovery
When Kimberly Kearns woke up that November morning in 2020, hungover and filled with self-loathing after another night she couldn't fully remember, she made a decision that would change everything. After 20 years of drinking, countless attempts at moderation, and years of her husband asking her to slow down, she finally said the words out loud: "I need your help. I cannot do this anymore."What fol
Episode 011 - From Rock Bottom to Relationship Mastery: How One DUI Changed Everything
The Story Behind the TransformationNick Neve's journey reads like a cautionary tale that transforms into a beacon of hope. In 2013, he was broke, burnt out, and working three jobs just to survive. But it was a single night—a night that ended with him unconscious behind the wheel, wrapped around a tree in Bel Air—that became the catalyst for a complete life transformation.What makes Nick's story so
Episode 010 - When Slowing Down Becomes a Radical Act: Finding Freedom Through Contemplative Creativity
In a world obsessed with productivity and endless achievement, Libby Walkup has discovered something revolutionary: the power of stopping time. As the creative force behind Unraveling, Unmoored, Libby's journey from burnout and generational trauma to what she calls "contemplative creativity" offers a profound roadmap for anyone seeking to heal through slowness and presence.What makes Libby's story
Episode 009 - When Everything Falls Apart: The Wisdom of Staying Awake Through Life's Breaking Points
Five years ago, Ryan Conklin stood at the intersection of devastating loss and profound possibility. His dream job eliminated. His identity shattered. Everything he'd built carefully constructed around his career in the spirits industry—gone in a single day.But instead of numbing the pain, Ryan made a vow that would transform his life: "Stay awake for this." That same day he quit drinking, not bec
Episode 008 - Finding Your Creative Voice Without the Noise: A Raw Conversation on Sobriety and Storytelling
The conversation that changes everything often starts with admitting the one truth we've been running from. For Katie MacBride, that moment came at 23, in a hospital bed with a blood alcohol level that should have killed her—0.4, five times the legal limit. What followed wasn't just recovery, but a complete reimagining of what it means to create authentically.Katie, now a health science journalist
Episode 006 - When Resistance Becomes Your Greatest Teacher: How One Artist Broke Through a 10-Year Creative Block
What do you do when you have all the skills to create art, but can't bring yourself to pick up a brush? When success in your creative career feels hollow because you've lost touch with your personal artistic voice?In this episode of Clear Conversations, I sat down with Leeanne Brennan, a creative artist who spent two decades mastering technical skills in the fields of video games and motion graphi
Episode 005 - When Sobriety Awakens Your Creative Fire: A Conversation with Edward Zaydelman
This week, I sat down with Edward Zaydelman, who's spent over 20 years building intentional communities in Costa Rica while navigating his own journey with sobriety. What started as a conversation about alternative living quickly became something deeper—an exploration of how sobriety doesn't just change what we create, but how we experience the creative process itself.Edward's story challenged eve
Episode 004 - The Path of Compassion: How Ellie Nova Found Freedom Beyond Alcohol
In this episode of Clear Conversations: Creative Minds in Sobriety, I had the privilege of speaking with Ellie Nova, a sober coach, mentor, and writer whose journey from shame to liberation mirrors what so many of us experience in our relationship with alcohol.Ellie's story begins with a familiar struggle—using alcohol to escape emotional pain and feeling trapped in a cycle she couldn't break free
Episode 003 - From Escape to Enlightenment: How Sobriety Fuels Authentic Creativity
In my latest episode of Clear Conversations, I sat down with Kaitlyn Ramsay, whose journey from corporate burnout to spiritual guide exemplifies how sobriety transforms not just our health, but our entire creative expression. After quitting her corporate job and buying a one-way ticket to Australia following a devastating breakup, Kaitlyn found herself in Thailand where her relationship with alcoh
Episode 002 - Finding Freedom in Focus: How Sobriety Unleashed Paul Sanders' Creative Vision
In this powerful conversation with former Times picture editor Discover Still By Paul Sanders, we explore the profound connection between sobriety, mindfulness, and authentic creativity. Paul shares his journey from rock bottom to creative rebirth, revealing how eight years of sobriety transformed not just his photography, but his entire relationship with the world around him.Paul's story is a tes
Episode 001 - Creative Boundaries & Rhythms: How Ula Builds a Sustainable Creative Practice
In this first episode of Clear Conversations: Creative Minds in Sobriety (title was recently rebranded from Focal Points), I spoke with Ula, a photographer and writer from Vancouver Island, about sustaining creative energy while running a business. The conversation explored:* Substack as a Creative Platform: We spoke about Substack's effectiveness for building creative community. Ula described how
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