What makes Jeff’s story worth sitting with is what he found on the other side. He didn’t just give up alcohol. He learned he’s deeply introverted, sensitive to noise and to the energy of a crowded room, and far less interested in big social gatherings than he ever realized while drinking. He also traded songwriting as an emotional release valve for something different: chant music built on ancient mantras, made to help people feel calm and present rather than to process pain.

In this conversation, Jeff talks about growing up in a drinking culture so strong it shaped an entire state’s identity, why his own drinking nearly disappeared the moment he lived somewhere else, and how a stomach problem sealed a decision his body had already started making on its own. He also shares a theory about sad music that’s worth thinking about, whether you drink or not.

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[1:36] Meet Jeff Harrington: Musician, Nine Years Removed From a Left-Brain Career

• Jeff is a singer, songwriter, producer, and bass player who’s been gigging for close to 40 years, much of it in the blues scene.

• Nine years ago he left his career as a medical physicist to focus on music, even though it’s never been his main income.

• He’s five years sober and has pulled back from playing out live, a shift he traces directly to sobriety.

Key Insight: “We’re supposed to do what we’re really terrified of, aren’t we?”

[3:03] Growing Up in Wisconsin’s Drinking Culture

• Jeff grew up in Milwaukee, which he says ranks nationally for excessive drinking, DUIs per capita, and bars per capita.

• College at Madison took that culture to another level. He describes drinking at least 12 beers a night as normal for everyone around him.

• He used alcohol to manage deep shyness and social anxiety, comparing it to an athlete numbing an injury just to get through the game.

Key Insight: “I think I was literally, my growth was stunted for at least five or 10 years looking back.”

[7:07] The Cleveland Contrast

• When Jeff moved to Cleveland for his first job, he expected a similar drinking culture to Wisconsin. Instead, he found people drank far less, and so did he.

• Looking back, this showed him how much of his drinking had been shaped by the environment around him, not by who he actually was.

• When he moved back to Wisconsin, he eventually fell back into the same heavy drinking patterns.

Key Insight: “I didn’t drink that much when I was in Cleveland. So looking back, I see that that’s who I really was.”

[13:48] Discovering He’s an Introvert

• After quitting drinking, Jeff realized he’s extremely introverted and sensitive to noise and to the energy of the people around him.

• He’s meditated for about 15 years, which he thinks has made him more attuned to these subtler energies.

• His social life shifted from crowds to small, comfortable gatherings that don’t leave him exhausted the next day.

Key Insight: “I’m not somebody who’s going to want to go to a party at this point or any place that’s loud and crowded.”

[15:54] A Stomach Issue Sealed What Had Already Begun

• About 10 years ago, Jeff and his then-girlfriend already cut back on drinking a lot as they got more into health.

• About five years ago, a stomach issue made alcohol physically intolerable, arriving right as he was already drinking less.

• Today he has maybe three or four drinks a year, and calls it fully intentional rather than something he misses.

Key Insight: “If my stomach magically healed, I wouldn’t be drinking at all. I don’t like it in my life anymore.”

[17:09] From Songwriting as Therapy to Chant Music as Calm

• In his 20s and 30s, Jeff used songwriting as one of his only tools for processing intense emotion, since he felt culture raised men to stay disconnected from their feelings.

• Today he writes mostly chant music on his Substack, Inside Sky Chant, built around ancient mantras rather than English lyrics.

• The purpose of his music has shifted from emotional catharsis to something more utilitarian: helping listeners feel calm and present.

Key Insight: “The ultimate goal would be it’s music that would be used to help people just be more calm and maybe present.”

[22:50] A New Earth: Spiritual Growth and Sobriety Growing Together

• About 15 years ago, Jeff read Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, which he says completely changed his life after years of searching without finding a way in.

• That book led him toward chant music, sound baths, and a spiritual practice he sees as deeply tied to his relationship with alcohol.

• He’s careful to say this isn’t about judging people who drink. For him personally, alcohol just no longer serves what he’s trying to build.

Key Insight: “I think the spiritual growth and the alcohol are very interconnected.”

[28:23] The Hangover, the Brain, and a Theory About Sad Music

• Jeff and Josh discuss how alcohol triggers inflammation in the body, which is part of what a hangover actually is.

• They talk through how alcohol can worsen depression and how the brain’s negativity bias, combined with modern stressors like social media, feeds a cycle of using alcohol to regulate the nervous system.

• Jeff shares a personal theory that he became addicted to sad music the same way people get dependent on alcohol, reaching for it out of habit rather than need.

Key Insight: “I think if people are listening to sad music every day, I really would suggest trying to step back and take a look at that.”

Key Quotes

“I think that’s like a perfect analog to someone who’s shy and they’re drinking.” - Jeff Harrington

“I was someone who didn’t even really want to drink that much. I was probably very influenced by the culture around me.” - Jeff Harrington

“I found out so clearly that I’m extremely introverted and sensitive to all the noise.” - Jeff Harrington

“If my stomach magically healed, I wouldn’t be drinking at all. I don’t like it in my life anymore.” - Jeff Harrington

“I really feel more and more, I feel like people really underestimate how powerful music is.” - Jeff Harrington

Resources Mentioned

• A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

• Release Your Song (Jeff’s Substack on music and creativity)

• Inside Sky Chant (Jeff’s Substack for his chant music)

• Handpan (the instrument Jeff and Josh discuss in relation to nervous system regulation)

• Sound baths (a guided meditation practice using instruments like handpans)

Where to Find Jeff

Release Your Song

Everything about writing and releasing songs.

By Jeff “H” Harrington

Inside Sky

A Song for Your Mystical Dance Party

It’s midnight under the light of a full moon. You’re walking through a mystical forest. A bear roars in the distance, and you’re momentarily startled. The air feels electrically charged…

Read more

8 months ago · 52 likes · 33 comments · Jeff Harrington/InsideSkyChant

Thank You

A heartfelt thank you to , , , and many others who joined us live for this conversation, and to Jeff for his openness and generosity in sharing his story. Your presence and engagement make these conversations possible.

What This Conversation Points To

Jeff and Josh spent a good chunk of this episode on something worth pulling out on its own: the cycle of reaching for alcohol the moment an uncomfortable feeling shows up, because it soothes that feeling within minutes. Jeff broke that cycle on his own timeline, over years, without a program or a guide walking alongside him.

That’s exactly where 1:1 coaching comes in. If you’re recognizing that same cycle in your own life and you’re ready to shorten the timeline, let’s talk. No pitch, no commitment. Just a conversation about where you’re at and what might be possible.

Schedule a Free Call

Real friends show up before you even ask. They notice you’ve gone silent for two weeks and call anyway, without making you explain yourself first. They sit with you before a hard conversation and stay through it, because that’s what caring about someone actually looks like. None of that requires a drink to happen, and none of it disappears once the night is over.

Alcohol never actually did any of that, even on the nights it felt like it did. It softened the edges and made things feel lighter for an hour, and that relief was real, it just was never the same as being cared for. But it never asked how you were actually doing, and it never remembered the hard week that sent you looking for it in the first place.

A real friend does both of those things, and keeps doing them long after the moment has passed.

🎙️Podcast

is an entrepreneur and author of Wild Ride to Sobriety. He grew up in a family where drinking was the family sport, learned to read a room’s drinks before anyone asked for a refill, and built a career on the idea that alcohol was his edge in sales. In 2017, his rehab used aversion therapy: eighteen shots of vodka, whiskey, red wine, and white wine, swished and spit into a bowl while a nurse he called his bartender kept the pours coming. Ten days later he walked out, drove forty minutes home, and found divorce papers waiting in his garage. He’s since lost 85 pounds, built a morning routine around journaling and cold plunges, and is working on a second book about the friends who shape where your life ends up going.

hosts the podcast The Growth Mixtape and writes The Restless Leader on Substack, for people who built a successful career and now find themselves restless, wondering what the second half is for. He quit drinking on a Monday after Easter in 2022, collapsing into his wife’s arms and telling her he had to stop. Less than a year later, his son collapsed at a restaurant with a mass pressing on his brain, and the family spent a terrifying night in the ER before emergency surgery. Bob says getting sober and nearly losing his son, landing so close together, are why he stopped wasting days. Last month, at 55, he wrote his first song at a songwriting retreat, about the drive with his mother the week he moved her into a retirement home. He heard it fully produced for the first time on a Sunday morning and played it for his family. They all cried.

coaches people through what he calls the second act, the stretch of life after 40 when the setup is finished and the real question shows up: what now. Born with spina bifida and the only wheelchair user in his group growing up, he started drinking at 19 to feel like everybody else. Ten years of going out with his brothers turned into twenty more sharing wine on the couch with his wife. In January 2018, on a flight home from Barcelona, he committed to 100 days without a drink. He hasn’t had one since. He led a team of coaches at One Year No Beer, then built his own practice, the Life Design Collective, arguing against the idea that your life has to be fully figured out by 40. His office in rural Ireland is lined with bookshelves he built before he could really afford them, filled with books he’s been collecting for years.

You can listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as well.

My guest this week is with Jeff “H” Harrington on July 23 at 12P EDT

This week I'm talking with . He's a singer, songwriter, producer, and bass player who has been gigging for close to 40 years, a good chunk of it in the blues scene, though he's never made music his main income.

He left his first career as a medical physicist about nine years ago. He hasn't played out much the last couple years, a shift that traces back to sobriety. He's introverted, and once he stopped drinking, he realized he doesn't like crowded rooms much anymore. He hasn't had a drink in around five years. Before that he drank like a lot of Wisconsinites, meaning too much.

What finally got him to stop was a stomach issue tied to the acidity, arriving right as he was already cutting back on his own. He told me growth matters more to him than anything, and alcohol never helped with that.

Looking forward to talking through all of it: the gigs, the pullback, and what's opened up since.

Inside Sky

Inside Sky makes chant music, and there will be a new song every month.

By Jeff Harrington/InsideSkyChant

If something here landed and you want to talk about what's possible when you change your relationship with alcohol, let’s explore that together.

For 26 years, drinking looked completely normal. Nights out with his brothers turned into nearly 20 years of sharing wine on the couch with his wife. Nothing about his life looked broken. He had a steady IT career, a mortgage, and a stable home. At 45, he just noticed something simple: it was getting in his way now.

That one observation, made on a flight home from Barcelona in January 2018, led him to commit to 100 alcohol-free days. He hasn’t had a drink since. Within weeks, he stumbled onto a coaching course and knew almost instantly it was where he belonged. Nearly nine years later, at 54, Gary runs his own practice, the Life Design Collective, helping people in midlife ask the same question he once asked himself: is this it, or is there something else?

[03:06] Growing Up Different in Rural Ireland

• Gary was born and raised in rural Ireland and has used a wheelchair full-time since age 13.

• He didn’t have his first drink until 19, well past the age most of his peers started.

• Drinking made him feel like part of the group in a way he hadn’t before, since he grew up looking different from everyone around him.

Key Insight: “It just made me feel like everybody else.”

[07:04] The Wake-Up Call at 45

• His drinking shifted over time: nights out with his brothers in his 20s, then almost 20 years of sharing wine with his wife on the couch.

• Nothing about his life looked dramatic. He had a steady job, paid his bills, and everything seemed fine on the surface.

• At 45, he simply noticed alcohol was in his way and decided to see what life looked like without it.

Key Insight: “It’s getting in my way now.”

[07:46] From IT Career to Full-Time Coach

• On a flight home from Barcelona in January 2018, Gary committed to 100 alcohol-free days. He never had another drink after that.

• Within about two months, he found a coaching course and knew right away it was what he wanted to do.

• He ran two full workloads at once (coaching and his IT job) for years before finally leaving tech in 2023 to coach full-time.

Key Insight: “I didn’t actually go, okay, I’m quitting my job and I’m going to sell a house and move to Bali.”

[10:57] The Pattern Behind Change That Sticks

• Most people start by naming what they don’t want: hangovers, health problems, tension at work or at home.

• Once that clears, the real work begins, which is figuring out what you’re actually moving toward.

• Change rarely works on the first try. Every attempt adds information, and the streaks get longer as people learn instead of judging themselves for slipping.

Key Insight: “It doesn’t ever really work the first time.”

[13:04] Curiosity Over Judgment

• Gary calls curiosity, instead of self-judgment, the biggest shift he sees in people who make change last.

• Instead of asking why they failed, the useful question becomes what they could try differently next time.

• This mindset reaches far beyond drinking. It’s the difference between staying stuck in a cycle and actually moving forward.

Key Insight: “If you can treat it with curiosity and not judgment, that’s the real game changer.”

[17:00] Creativity, Clarity, and Finding Substack

• Gary spent almost 30 years in software, which he describes as genuinely creative work, even though it was never quite the right fit for him.

• About six weeks into sobriety, he experienced a level of energy and clarity he’d never felt before.

• That clarity opened the door to writing. He’s been on Substack for close to two years and is nearing one full year of his weekly newsletter, Second Act Sunday.

Key Insight: “Creativity almost by default jumps in.”

[21:02] What Happens When the Numbing Stops

• Removing alcohol doesn’t remove hard feelings. It just means you feel all of them, not only the ones you’d pick.

• Gary resisted gratitude journaling at first. “Thank you very much, I’ll pass,” he says of being told to write down three things he was grateful for.

• The practice ended up helping him see what he already had and who he already was, built by parents who raised him to believe he could do anything.

Key Insight: “It did allow me to kind of see what I have and see who I am.”

[29:19] Building a Second Act After 40

• Gary pushes back on the idea that life needs to be fully figured out by 40, and that any change after that is too hard or too late.

• His program, the Second Act Blueprint, is a seven-week experience helping people mostly between 40 and 60 design what comes next. The sixth cohort starts next Tuesday, with two spots still open.

• He didn’t blow up his life to make his own change. He changed slowly, over eight years, while keeping his job, his house, and his marriage intact. He’s now compiling a year of his newsletter with an eye toward turning it into a book.

Key Insight: “It took me, really, eight years of slow change.”

Key Quotes

“It just made me feel like everybody else.” — Gary Allen

“It’s getting in my way now.” — Gary Allen

“If you can treat it with curiosity and not judgment, that’s the real game changer.” — Gary Allen

“I didn’t actually go, okay, I’m quitting my job and I’m going to sell a house and move to Bali.” — Gary Allen

“It took me, really, eight years of slow change.” — Gary Allen

Resources Mentioned

• Life Design Collective — Gary’s own coaching practice, built around midlife redesign

• The Second Act Blueprint — Gary’s seven-week program helping people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s design what comes next (Next Cohort Starting on Tuesday July 21)

• Second Act Sunday — Gary’s weekly Substack newsletter, closing in on its first full year

• Richard Rohr and Arthur C. Brooks — authors Gary reads on the idea of a second act in midlife

Where to Find Gary

Gary Allen

I gave up alcohol at 45, I trained as a coach at 46, and I left corporate life for good at age 50. Now I coach people to change their relationship with alcohol and to make profound and meaningful change in mid-life. I write about all of that here.

Email: hello@garyallen.ie

Website: https://garyallen.ie/

Thank You

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who joined us live for this conversation, and to Gary Allen for his openness and wisdom. Your presence and engagement make these conversations possible.

Building Your Own Second Act

Gary’s story keeps coming back to one idea: change that lasts doesn’t come from a dramatic overhaul. It comes from removing the thing that’s been quietly draining your energy and clarity, then giving yourself time to rebuild from there.

That’s the same work at the center of The Sober Creative Method™, my 90-day, 1:1 coaching experience for people who want to remove alcohol as the barrier to their full creative capacity. No labels, no rock bottom required, just a structured path back to the energy and clarity that’s already yours.

If this episode resonated, send me a message and tell me where you’re at. I read every one.

In this conversation, Bob sits down to talk about what it actually took to break that cycle. He walks through the rules he tried and failed to follow, the Monday-morning mood he lived in for years, and the night he finally collapsed into his wife’s arms and said he had to stop. He also talks about a health scare with his son that reframed everything, and about a discovery he made once alcohol was out of the picture: a version of creativity he’d spent his whole life insisting he didn’t have.

What makes this one land isn’t just the honesty. It’s the specificity. Bob doesn’t talk about sobriety in abstractions. He talks about counting bottles in a fridge at 17, a mood scale that ran from a two on Monday to a nine on Friday, and writing his first song at 55, in a single day, about a drive with his mother.

If you’ve wondered what’s actually on the other side of quitting, this conversation gives you a real answer.

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Show Notes

[02:45] The First Drink and Decades of “Bobby Good Times”

• Bob’s first drink was a stolen Labatt Blue from his dad’s fridge at 17. His mom counted 23 missing bottles because he was acting strange.

• The taste was awful, but the feeling hooked him. It became, in his words, the answer to being the person he wanted to be.

• From 17 to 52, drinking anchored his life. Friday and Saturday nights were automatic, and he was often the one pushing for a Thursday or Sunday too.

• He could count on one hand how many weekends he took off in 35 years.

Key Insights: “It was actually really gross, but I loved the way it made me feel. It just seemed like the answer to being the person that I wanted to be.”

[09:38] When It Stopped Being Fun

• Watching his own sons go through hangovers, Bob now recognizes the anxiety he felt in his 20s and 30s but never had words for. Nobody talked about anxiety in the 80s.

• The real darkness set in during the five years before he quit, at 52.

• Drinking that once made him feel social and connected started making him feel isolated. He was hiding it and lying more.

• COVID sped everything up. The backyard parties were fun in the moment, but when life went back to normal, the drinking never slowed back down.

Key Insights: “It just felt like this thing that used to make me more social and more fun, and make me feel like a part of a group, was increasingly isolating.”

[12:13] The Rules That Never Worked

• Bob negotiated with himself constantly: no beers over 5%, no mixing beer and wine, no drinking on Sunday, no drinking before 4pm.

• Every rule bought him about two weeks before it collapsed.

• He kept waking up next to his wife, unable to remember the night before, promising things would change.

• Eventually he realized the rules were never going to hold, because he was powerless the moment he took the first drink.

Key Insights: “I had tried everything, and the only thing left was: I’ve got to stop. I’m powerless as soon as I have one drink.”

[14:02] Living the Monday-to-Friday Mood Cycle

• For two to three years before quitting, Bob’s whole life ran on a weekly mood cycle.

• Monday mornings he’d cancel meetings and take long walks alone, timed so his family wouldn’t see him.

• By Thursday he’d start to feel human again. By Friday he was ready to go out and do it all over.

• Looking back, he realized that cycle wasn’t rest and recovery. It was survival on repeat.

Key Insights: “Monday I’m a two. Wednesday I’m still pretty low, I’m a five. But by Thursday I’m a seven, and Friday morning I’m a nine.”

[17:19] Two Wake-Up Calls: Quitting and a Health Scare

• Bob quit on the Monday after Easter Sunday in 2022, following a messy family dinner the night before.

• He came home from a walk, collapsed into his wife’s arms, and said he had to stop. That became day one.

• Less than a year into sobriety, a second wake-up call hit: his son collapsed at a restaurant, and doctors found a bacterial mass pressing on his brain. He was rushed into emergency surgery and fully recovered.

• Bob credits being a couple years sober for how he and his wife handled it. If he’d still been drinking, he says he doesn’t know what would have happened.

Key Insights: “Life just gets really simple, really fast. I just didn’t want to waste a single day.”

[21:53] Three Years to “This Is Actually Better”

• Bob describes his first year sober as white-knuckling through every first: his birthday, Christmas, New Year’s, a boys’ trip, a wedding.

• Year two, he started testing whether he could actually enjoy himself sober instead of just proving he could survive it.

• It took a third year before he believed the people who’d told him you could have fun without drinking.

• Losing his friends scared him most. His phone did stop ringing for some things, but the friendships that mattered stayed intact. He’s the only one in his friend group who’s sober.

Key Insights: “Everyone quits, whether you quit 10 minutes before you take your last breath or 10 years before you die, or 20, or 30. Everyone quits. I’m just the one that went first.”

[28:04] Writing His First Song at 55

• Bob spent his whole life telling himself he wasn’t a creative person, even while building a career around surrounding himself with creative people.

• Songwriting eluded him for years. He’d write a couple of lines, decide they were garbage, and quit before finishing a verse.

• A guest on his own podcast, singer-songwriter Peter Katz, mentioned a songwriting retreat. Bob went: Friday for writing, Saturday for recording, Sunday for listening back to a fully produced song.

• The song is about driving his mother to her new retirement home. He played it for his family, and they cried.

Key Insights: “Creativity is inside all of us. It’s just buried under self-doubt and imposter syndrome and fear of judgment. And it’s there.”

Key Quotes

“I had tried everything, and the only thing left was: I’ve got to stop. I’m powerless as soon as I have one drink.” - Bob Mathers

“Monday I’m a two. Wednesday I’m still pretty low, I’m a five. But by Thursday I’m a seven, and Friday morning I’m a nine.” - Bob Mathers

“I’ve realized that eight was actually a six, because I found a 12 and a 13, and I think I found a 15 and a 16. Who’s to say there is a limit on this?” - Bob Mathers

“Everyone quits, whether you quit 10 minutes before you take your last breath or 10 years before you die, or 20, or 30. Everyone quits. I’m just the one that went first.” - Bob Mathers

“Creativity is inside all of us. It’s just buried under self-doubt and imposter syndrome and fear of judgment. And it’s there.” - Bob Mathers

Resources Mentioned

• The Growth Mixtape — Bob’s podcast, with new episodes every other Thursday

• The Restless Leader — Bob’s Substack, written for people who built a successful career and now feel restless

• Peter Katz — singer-songwriter and speaker from Toronto who hosts songwriting retreats

• Rob Zabo — the award-winning producer who produced Bob’s song, and an upcoming guest on The Growth Mixtape

Where to Find Bob

The Restless Leader

For restless leaders curious about what's next, after a successful career following everyone else's rules. I'm a speaker, coach and podcast host fumbling my way through it myself. One thing is for sure - there is no going back.

By Bob Mathers

• LinkedIn: search Bob Mathers

• Podcast: The Growth Mixtape, wherever you listen, new episodes every other Thursday

Thank You

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who joined us live for this conversation, and to Bob Mathers for his honesty and generosity in sharing his story. Your presence and engagement make these conversations possible.

Your Next Step

Bob spent decades telling himself he wasn’t creative. It took removing alcohol, and a lot of honesty about what he was actually afraid of, to find out that wasn’t true. What he found waiting on the other side wasn’t a smaller life. It was a bigger one, with no ceiling he could find yet.

If any part of his story landed for you, that’s worth paying attention to. You don’t need a plan figured out right now. A quick conversation to feel seen and discuss where you are is a great start.

Schedule a Free Call

Ian built a sales career on entertaining clients at bars, casinos, and golf courses. He called alcohol his superpower, the thing that let him build relationships and close deals. From the outside, it worked. From the inside, it cost him his health, his judgment, and eventually his second marriage.

In 2017, Ian checked into a ten-day rehab program built around aversion therapy, pairing real alcohol with a drug that made him violently sick. He walked out on Halloween and was served divorce papers in his garage forty minutes later. Almost a decade on, he’s rebuilt his mornings, his body, and his relationships from the ground up. His biggest lesson isn’t about willpower. It’s about who you let into your circle.

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Show Notes

[00:00] Meet Ian Fee: Life of the Party, Turned Sobriety Advocate

• Ian is the author of Wild Ride to Sobriety, a memoir about what drove him to drink, what got him out, and what he found on the other side.

• He got sober in 2017 after building an entire identity, and career, around alcohol.

• His central argument: sobriety doesn’t take away who you are. It gives you better access to it.

Key Insight: “I caught how to drink very, very well.”

[01:41] Raised on Booze: A Childhood Built Around Drinking

• Ian’s first drink was at age one. His parents dipped his binky in wine and gave him sips of beer as a toddler.

• His parents were, in his words, “social alcoholics” and the life of the party. Daily drinking was never treated as a problem, it was just what everyone did.

• By grade school he could name every neighbor’s drink order and knew exactly when to refill a glass, a skill he says he still has today.

Key Insight: “Things are caught, not taught.”

[04:55] Building a Career (and an Identity) Around Alcohol

• Ian studied hotel management in San Diego and built his sales career on entertaining clients at bars, strip clubs, casinos, and golf courses.

• He believed getting clients liquored up was the key to building relationships and closing business.

• He was hosting people at his house five-plus days a week, sometimes 15 to 20 people on a random weeknight.

Key Insight: “I thought alcohol was my superpower... and boy was I wrong.”

[07:22] The Awkward Shift: Staying Social Without the Bottle

• When Ian stopped drinking, longtime friends and clients assumed something was wrong with him.

• He still takes clients out and stays social, he just doesn’t drink to do it.

• Watching his transformation has made several longtime clients sober curious, and a few have cut back or quit entirely.

Key Insight: “It’s such a ripple effect, the silent impact you’re making that you don’t even realize the reach that you have.”

[10:59] Rock Bottom and Rehab: Inside Aversion Therapy

• In 2017, Ian checked into Schick’s Shadow, one of only two facilities in the country offering aversion therapy for alcoholism at the time.

• The ten-day program paired doses of ipecac with real alcohol, training his body to associate drinking with violent nausea. He says the aversion still works today, almost a decade later.

• He walked out of treatment on Halloween, drove straight home, and was served divorce papers in his garage.

Key Insight: “Unless you’re right, nothing’s going to be right, no matter what you do.”

[16:56] Sobriety Was the Easy Part: Facing the Emotions Underneath

• Ian says quitting drinking was simple compared to processing decades of emotions he’d been numbing.

• He hired an accountability coach right out of rehab and still talks to her every week.

• He rebuilt his mornings around no phone for the first 30 minutes, breath-work, journaling, a cold plunge, and a page of reading before the gym. He lost 85 pounds in the process and credits Atomic Habits for the idea of stacking small changes over time.

Key Insight: “Getting sober was the easy part for me. Today you have all the emotions, all the things I was numbing for 40-plus years.”

[25:28] Creativity, Impact, and the Power of Your Circle

• For Ian, creativity isn’t art or a hobby. It’s making an impact by sharing his story so someone else can become a better parent, partner, or business owner.

• He tells people who want to get sober that their circle is the real obstacle. Changing who you spend time with is uncomfortable, but necessary.

• He’s already sketching his next book, tentatively titled Circle of Four or Power of Five, about how the people you run with decide where you end up.

Key Insight: “Your circle’s your problem.”

Key Quotes

“I caught how to drink very, very well.” - Ian Fee

“Things are caught, not taught.” - Ian Fee

“I was in the fast lane, in the fog, with the emergency brake on. Today it’s sunny skies, no emergency brake, and doing 90 in the fast lane.” - Ian Fee

“Unless you’re right, nothing’s going to be right, no matter what you do.” - Ian Fee

“Your circle’s your problem.” - Ian Fee

Resources Mentioned

Wild Ride to Sobriety - Ian Fee’s memoir, purchase link below.

Atomic Habits by James Clear - referenced as Ian’s model for stacking small habits over time.

Schick’s Shadow - the aversion therapy rehab program Ian completed in 2017, formerly with locations in Seattle and Florida.

Where to Find Ian Fee

Memoir - Wild Ride to Sobriety

Website - https://ianfee.com/

Your Next Step

Ian’s story keeps coming back to one idea: the people around you decide where you end up. Getting sober didn’t just change what he drank, it changed who he spent his time with, and that’s the part most people underestimate.

If you’re sensing that alcohol, or the circle built around it, might be capping what you’re capable of, let’s talk about it. Coaching starts with a single conversation, no pitch, just a look at what’s actually in the way.

Book a conversation

Thank You

A heartfelt thank you to , , , and everyone who joined us live for this conversation, and to for his honesty and generosity in sharing his story. Your presence and engagement make these conversations possible.

I came out of the gym the other morning and saw this ad. A false promise is what comes to mind. This “belief” that by drinking a Stella, somehow my life becomes better? Sure, you can be doing this with friends at a bar or maybe on a private yacht, but what does the life become the next morning?

For me, it was saying fuck, I don’t ever want to do that again. I think that statement holds true in many ways. For someone in recovery, you’re never too far from (going back) to that life. For someone who wants to experience what life is like without a daily drain session, then you’re never too far from the life (you want to build).

🎙️Podcast

Three more conversations. Three different stories about what sobriety actually makes possible. I keep doing this because each conversation continues to prove what is added to our lives when alcohol is removed.

is a transformation coach and brand strategist who built her practice for the people she calls creators, feelers, and rebuilders — people who were never meant to fit one description or become smaller to survive in a room that wasn’t built for them. She was adopted at three, had her first drink at fourteen, and spent years carrying weight she didn’t have language for. The thing that finally changed her: attending the funeral of a birth father she’d never met, listening to strangers stand up and say he used to walk to AA meetings and make the coffee. His name there was Coffee Pot. She opened a note on her phone and wrote down two things she was going to do.

Five days on the Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu. Over forty miles. Seven thousand to fifteen thousand feet of elevation. I was shaking at breakfast on day one before we'd hiked a single step. On the morning we left, I was sitting on the bus seriously considering getting off and going home. I stayed. Reaching Machu Picchu, I had a moment sitting and looking out at the wonder of it all. I was trying to hold it — the scale of everything, how small I felt inside it, the fact that I could feel all of it was the gift.

is a psychiatric nurse practitioner who specializes in ADHD and addiction recovery — and she shows up with her own story, not just her credentials. She knew alcohol was a problem at 26 and spent years falling down and getting back up before she finally went to treatment during COVID. Five weeks in the mountains of Pennsylvania, quarantined alone, watching Bumblebee on a DVD player they slid under the door, with a bird feeder outside the window. She came out holding one word: willingness.

You can listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as well.

My guest this week is with Ian Fee on July 2 at 12P EDT

Ian Fee used to describe himself as the life of the party. He was the guy people wanted at the table, the one who turned a regular Tuesday into a story worth telling.

He bought into the “work hard, play harder” life fully — and for a long time, it looked like it was working. Then it stopped. Alcohol had hollowed out the relationships, the health, the clarity. The version of himself he was performing had nothing underneath it.

He got sober in 2017 and wrote about the whole thing in his book Wild Ride to Sobriety. He’s still the life of the party. That part was always true.

This week we talk about what it took to find out what else was.

If something here landed and you want to talk about what's possible when you change your relationship with alcohol, let’s explore that together.

Book a free 20-minute call →

When alcohol entered the picture at 14, it did what it does. It made the buried stuff easier to ignore. By the time she was a Division I college athlete, then a corporate strategist, then a founder, she had spent decades performing for rooms that weren’t always designed for her. It wasn’t until she sat in a funeral home listening to strangers talk about a father she’d never met that something finally broke open in a way she couldn’t put back down.

Jen is five and a half years alcohol-free. She coaches creators, feelers, and rebuilders. She writes on Substack at the Divergent Talent Alchemist. And in this conversation, she said out loud some things she’d never said before.

SHOW NOTES

[05:27] The First Drink, the First Game, and What She Thought It Proved

Jen was 14, new to town, in the woods with high school friends, holding either a Busch Light or Natural Ice, something really disgusting.

• The feeling she described was immediate: something lifting off her brain. Stress gone. A switch flipped.

• She went home, got sick on her carpet and her pink Timberlands, flipped the rug over, and played the game of her life the next morning.

• That combination, the relief plus the invincibility, told her brain something it would take decades to unlearn.

• By college, she was a Division I soccer player who got injured her sophomore year and ended up at frat parties in a wheelchair. The party came to her.

Key Insight: “It felt like something lifted up off of my brain. I was like, oh, you know, this kind of feels interesting. Like I feel less stress. Where has this kind of been my whole life.” — Jen Benford

[09:04] Adoption, Instability, and the Weight She Carried Without Knowing

Jen was adopted at three, but the story started earlier than that.

• She lived in four homes before she was two or three. Her birth parents showed up at her aunt and uncle’s door. Nobody even knew they were pregnant.

• Her aunt and uncle raised her until circumstances led her to live with her blood grandmother, and after her grandmother passed, she was formally adopted.

• At 19, she found out about the half-siblings. Her uncle paid her birth mother five dollars to sign away parental rights. These were things she processed slowly, over years.

• She describes two things being true at once: deep gratitude for the family that raised her, and real grief for what happened before them.

Key Insight: “I went through life saying like, oh yeah, I was adopted into this family and it’s great and I’m so, so grateful. It’s like two things can be true.” — Jen Benford

[14:10] The Funeral That Became a Turning Point

When Jen’s birth father passed away, she was with her husband Hans. Her body reacted before her mind could catch up.

• She described it as “projectile, like everywhere” — a full physical response she now understands as her body finally releasing something it had been holding for years.

• At the funeral, strangers kept saying “Oh, look, it’s Jimmy’s daughter.” He had talked about her soccer career to people he’d never introduced her to.

• He had struggled with schizophrenia and had no car, no resources. But he walked to and from AA meetings and made the coffee for the group. People called him Coffee Pot. His purpose was to help others who were struggling.

• In the parking lot afterward, Jen opened a note in her phone. Two things: start her business and dedicate it to him. And cut out alcohol before she ended up where too many people in that room already were.

Key Insight: “I opened up a note in my phone afterwards and I was like, okay, two things. One, I’m going to start my own business and dedicate it to him. And two, I somehow need to cut out alcohol because specifically alcohol was the thing for me that really, like nothing good ever came from it.” — Jen Benford

[20:22] Going Cold Turkey and Reliving Everything

Her last drink was March 2021, the height of COVID.

• Cold turkey. No AA. Before she got there, she saw a neurologist, a psychiatrist, a psychologist. She committed to actually processing what she’d been carrying.

• The first three months were the hardest. When the suppressant disappears, the suppressed stuff surfaces.

• She was reliving breakups, old grief, old wounds, with a vividness that surprised her. Everything she had shoved down came back up clear.

• She stayed with it. She was in therapy. She didn’t slip.

Key Insight: “Once you pull that plug, everything comes up and now you don’t have a suppressant. While it was cold turkey, there were times where I was probably wanting to shove some stuff down. But I never did. I was just working. I was in therapy and I was working through processing a lot of this trauma that I had been carrying with me my whole life.” — Jen Benford

[24:44] Being Bullied in Middle School and What She Did About It

Jen had always felt a little different. And in middle school, that made her a target.

• Two girls were spreading rumors, threatening to fight her. On picture day, she took her hoop earrings out and put her hair up.

• A crowd formed in the hallway. One of the girls told her that her “real parents” gave her up because she wasn’t good enough. Said she was worthless.

• Jen had the books in her arms. When the girl bumped into her, she threw them.

• She never forgot that moment. Not because of the fight. Because of what it took to finally stop absorbing what other people were projecting onto her.

Key Insight: "Your real parents did this and gave you up because you weren't good enough. Like you're worthless. I would have given you up too. And I can feel like I was a very soft person leading up to this and I like feel like just the anger and the rage and the like everything coursing through my veins." — Jen Benford

[33:36] The Alphabet Soup of Diagnosis and What It Actually Helped Her Understand

ADHD at 29 or 30. CPTSD after that.

• She was in Gifted and Talented as a kid. The system missed a lot.

• She calls it alphabet soup — the medical system throwing terminology at you. But she doesn’t dismiss it either. The labels gave her access to rabbit holes that helped her understand her brain, her body, how she shows up.

• The triggers don’t disappear. That’s the thing she’s clear about. The body keeps the score. The work is learning to manage and still build something meaningful while that’s true.

• She sees the gaps: in schools, in the medical system, in homes. Kids aren’t taught to regulate their nervous systems, name what they’re feeling, or ask for help. Alcohol fills that void by default.

Key Insight: “The thing about it is the triggers don’t go away because the body does keep the score. And so it’s like how can you manage these things and build a life that you love and just be the best that you can for you and others while you’re here.” — Jen Benford

[39:11] What Life Looks Like Now

Jen and her husband live on a micro farm in North Carolina. Goats. Chickens. Ducks.

• Slow mornings. No alarm clock. Coffee with the dogs.

• She writes on Substack, coaches clients, consults on branding, and helps people build brands that start with identity before they ever touch strategy.

• She launched The Divergent Brand, a 12-week cohort for creators, founders, and people leaving corporate who want to build something built around who they actually are.

• Her encouragement for anyone thinking about walking away from alcohol: ask for help earlier than you think you need to. Get a mentor. You don’t have to carry it alone.

Key Insight: “I feel like days have got like double or triple as long and I’m able to savor those little moments, which are what make life worth living.” — Jen Benford

Key Quotes

“It felt like something lifted up off of my brain. I was like, oh, you know, this kind of feels interesting. Like I feel less stress. Where has this kind of been my whole life.” — Jen Benford

“I never realized how many emotions I was actually stuffing down until, you know, the last six or seven years.” — Jen Benford

“Once you pull that plug, everything comes up and now you don’t have a suppressant.” — Jen Benford

“I feel like days have got like double or triple as long and I’m able to savor those little moments, which are what make life worth living.” — Jen Benford

“In order to really understand yourself, I truly believe you have to do the work first, and then you can build your brand from there.” — Jen Benford

Resources Mentioned

• Trip by Calm — a supplement Jen uses with ashwagandha, L-theanine, and magnesium as part of her sobriety toolkit

• The Divergent Brand Cohort — Jen’s 12-week brand-building program starting July 14th, covering mission, vision, values, and personal brand development for early-stage founders and people reinventing themselves. Limited spots available.

• Therapy, neurology, psychiatry — Jen credits the combination of professional support as essential to her cold turkey process

• The concept of “the body keeps the score” — the idea that unprocessed trauma lives in the body, not just the mind

Where to Find Jen

The Divergent Talent Alchemist

Storytelling shaped by wellness, for creators and aspiring entrepreneurs building work and life on their own terms. Neurodivergence, brand, thoughtful AI, and the nervous-system work underneath all of it. Rewriting the rules, one unmasked truth at a time.

By Jen Benford

You can also find her at BenfordTalentAlchemy.com and on Instagram and TikTok.

If you’re interested in The Divergent Brand cohort starting July 14th, reach out to Jen directly through her Substack or website below.

The Divergent Brand Cohort

Thank You

A heartfelt thank you to , , , , and many others who joined us live for this conversation, and to for her honesty and courage. She said out loud things she had never said before, and she did it all in front of you. That’s not a small thing.

From This Episode to Your Next Step

If this conversation stirred something in you, I want to hear about it.

Maybe you recognize the pattern Jen described — performing for rooms that weren’t designed for you, keeping the weight hidden, not quite sure what you’ve been carrying or how long you’ve been carrying it. Maybe alcohol has been the thing helping you not look at it too closely.

That’s exactly where a conversation can help. Not a sales call. Just a real talk about where you are, what you’ve been using to get through, and what might be in the way of the work you actually want to do.

Book a call with me

No pressure. No pitch. Just a conversation.

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 through the Andes — from altitude sensitivity, the fear of not being able to complete the hike, to ceremonies on mountaintops and sitting cross-legged at Machu Picchu. It wasn’t easy. It was a very expansive experience. And there’s no question I would have been riding a horse up the mountain if I were still drinking.

The trip was organized by Ryan Lee and Capsule Adventures, a sober-based adventure travel company. I was excited to experience this first, then explore what it might look like to bring something like it to the community. I signed up. Intentionally avoided looking at the full itinerary. And boarded a plane to Peru.

Show Notes

[00:00] Arrival in Cusco — When Your Body Says “Wait, What Did You Sign Me Up For?”

• Cusco sits just over 12,000 feet of elevation. The altitude hits fast and it hits hard — heart rate over 110 just sitting at breakfast, physically shaking across the table from Ryan while he described what to expect.

• The hotel had an oxygen tank on site, which I used multiple times in those first days. I also visited a local medic — just $12 — and got altitude medication that made a real difference.

• A moment of unexpected beauty broke through the anxiety: standing on the street watching a parade of women in bright red dresses spinning past, men in green playing trumpets. “I almost started to cry. I pretty much started to cry because it was just that electricity, that joy feeling that comes like a rush through your body of like — I’m here in this country.”

• The group was small: Ryan, John, Kat, Abbie, and our guide Cesar from Alpaca Expeditions. That intimacy was just right.

Key Insight:

“When you’re told something versus when you’re feeling it is entirely different.” (Relating to the acclimation of the body in higher altitudes)

[09:39] Day One — The First Test, a Lagoon, and Learning to Move Slowly

• Day one was a test hike up to a mountain lagoon — steep incline, heavy breathing, taking breaks. I discovered how much I loved the slow rhythm of the climb. The physicality of it. One step at a time.

• At the top, it started hailing. A crystal blue lagoon sat in front of them with a white mountain in the backdrop. Worth every step.

• Learning more about Cesar and his background was fascinating. He’s been doing the Inca trail for 26 years — some months, back-to-back every week. “This human being — I don’t even think he’s a human being. He just looks like a mountain. It’s almost like he’s just connected to the mountain and the spirits there.”

• First ceremony with coca leaves: holding them toward the four directions, then placing them under a rock. A ritual of respect for the mountains.

Key Insight:

“I really enjoyed the climbing — the climb up. I loved the slow pace of it and the physicality of it.”

[17:36] Day Two — The Hardest Day (And It Showed)

• 5:00 or 5:30 AM start. Cold. A massive climb with the landscape shifting from green to rock. I noticed something about perspective: standing far back and looking ahead, your mind plays tricks on the distance. Getting to the next point and looking back — “there’s like no sense of time. I had no concept of like that felt like five minutes ago and maybe it was an hour.”

• We witnessed an avalanche on the mountain. Called “small” only because the mountain it fell from was enormous.

• At the top, another ceremony. A moment of stillness. “You’re so small. You’re so so small in comparison to these ginormous mountains and space and you just look up and you’re just a speck.”

• The descent was brutal. Old trail shoes with worn tread. Stone steps, slippery dirt, switchbacks. “The descent sucked. It was so fucking terrible.”

• That night at the glass domes: high temperature, body aches, deep fear. I skipped dinner and laid in bed wondering I could go on. I ventured to the kitchen and had tea with Cesar. Nerves started to settle. Trust. Sleep.

Key Insight:

“My belief is that God is everything — like it’s this phone I’m looking at, it’s all of you. You feel that, especially in these environments where you’re so small.”

[29:06] Day Three — Into the Jungle, Waterfalls, and Hobbit Houses

• The terrain changed dramatically. Into the jungle. Waterfalls. Creeks running through the mountains. Each day felt like an entirely different world.

• Accommodations that night: “hobbit houses” — short brick structures with big round green doors, you had to duck your head to get inside.

• The personal chef who traveled with our group — hauling a massive backpack full of cooking equipment, music box playing — would pass the group on the trail and arrive ahead to have food ready when we got there. “Just absolutely mind-blowing and incredibly grateful for the delicious food.”

Key Insight:

“Each day was just so unique and just felt like totally different environments.”

[31:02] Day Four — The Fall, the Lost Phone, and a First Glimpse of Machu Picchu

• Longest mileage day. This day started with a climb through jungle, a stop at a coffee farm where we made coffee on site, and then a big push to a panoramic vista.

• From that vista, I saw Machu Picchu for the first time — “just this little speck very far away.” Then turned right and saw the Salkantay mountain they had come from. The scale of what we had covered hit differently from up there. “That view felt like HD.”

• On a tough descent through forest and rock, I took a hard fall — and realized his phone was gone. “In my mind, when that happened, I was like — that’s okay. That’s okay if I don’t have it. That was meant to be.” Cesar quietly took his time to come up to me with my phone in his hand. He got me. Big laughs.

• Along the trails, horses constantly moved through — the local “cars” for hauling materials through the mountains. We would call out “caballitos” and everyone stepped aside to let them pass.

Key Insight:

“That’s okay, that’s okay if I don’t have it. That was meant to be. And it’s all in here.”

[36:57] Day Five — Arrival to Machu Picchu

• Up at 4 AM. We climbed. Headlamp on, switchbacks in the dark, pausing to watch the clouds and mountain silhouettes take shape as the sun started to rise. “That was so, so beautiful.”

• Inside Machu Picchu: weed whackers everywhere, crowds, photo stations. If I’m completely honest — it felt a little like Disneyland at first. The expectation of the place was almost too loud.

• One of my favorite photos now: sitting cross-legged at Machu Picchu, looking out at the incredible landscape. Meditation has been part of my practice for over ten years. “I wanted that moment to last the whole day. I could just sit there and just feel the energy of the mountain and that space.”

• I did an add-on climb up Huayna Picchu — the steep mountain directly across from Machu Picchu. Tiny stone steps, metal guardrails, the scariest single climb of the whole trip. And the view from the top was its own reward.

Key Insight:

“How many thousands of years that different civilizations and people took to carve out this beautiful space — all these intentional things around astrology, where certain rocks are placed, how they would align with the stars.”

[45:09] Coming Home — The Contrast Is Real

• Back in the U.S., the post-trip integration has been hard. Health challenges. Difficulty returning to routine. The bigness of the experience hasn’t fully settled. “I had this very big, expansive experience and now I’m in this kind of contracting phase.”

• The sobriety lens on all of it: 5.5 years sober, I got to feel every moment — the fear on the bus, the joy of the parade, the exhaustion and the beauty and the fall and the ceremony. All of it unfiltered. “I get to have these experiences and get to feel the things that typically I would numb from.”

• A moment on day four said it all: some people in another group had stayed up until 3 AM drinking. “I couldn’t imagine having done this trip if I was still drinking.”

Key Insight:

“It’s all about the feelings — really just embracing all of it. That’s what I really appreciate. Now five and a half years sober, I get to have these experiences.”

Key Quotes

“I wanted that moment to last the whole day. I could just sit there and just feel the energy of the mountain and that space.” — Josh Woll

“That’s okay, that’s okay if I don’t have it. That was meant to be. And it’s all in here.” — Josh Woll

“My belief is that God is everything — like it’s this phone I’m looking at, it’s all of you. You feel that, especially in these environments where you’re so small.” — Josh Woll

“I get to have these experiences and get to feel the things that typically I would numb from.” — Josh Woll

“I couldn’t imagine having done this trip if I was still drinking.” — Josh Woll

Resources Mentioned

• Capsule Adventures (Ryan Lee) — Sober-based adventure travel

• Alpaca Expeditions — Trekking company; guides the Salkantay route

• Salkantay Trail — The route taken to reach Machu Picchu over five days

Thank You

A heartfelt thank you to , , , , , and many others for tuning into my story! Your presence and engagement make these conversations possible.

If A Different Climb Is Calling You

Every step of this trek was taken clear-headed. Every fear felt, every ceremony honored, every fall survived — all of it fully experienced because alcohol wasn’t in the way.

That’s what sobriety makes possible. Not just the absence of drinking, but the presence of everything else.

If you’re curious what’s on the other side of that, The Sober Creative Method is a 90-day journey designed to remove alcohol as the barrier to your greatest work. It’s where the trek begins.

Start Here

p.s. thought I would leave you with this photo of these insane pancakes I had. I’m still drooling about them.

Six years sober — since April 20, 2020 — she built a clinical practice, a writing life, and a clear understanding of who she is from pieces she once used as evidence against herself. What got her there wasn’t a clean arc. It was a lot of falling down, getting up, and eventually landing on one word that changed everything.

This conversation went deep on the ADHD-addiction connection, what it looks like when shame lives in the body, and what it actually takes to rebuild a life you didn’t think you deserved.

Subscribe now

Show Notes

[00:00] Welcome and Introduction

• Josh introduces Jill DePhillip, a certified registered nurse practitioner in psychiatric mental health, whose clinical work focuses on ADHD and addiction recovery.

• Jill and Josh share a sobriety year — both got sober in 2020 — and they open by acknowledging how many people found the pandemic to be a turning point.

• Jill writes Still Growing on Substack, where she covers recovery, neurodivergence, and what it means to become more fully yourself.

Key Insight: “Recovering out loud is one of the most powerful things any of us can do.” — Josh’s introduction of Jill sets the tone: this isn’t a clinical conversation. It’s a human one.

[02:24] Growing Up, Losing a Father, and Living in Someone’s Shadow

• Jill grew up in Maryland, one year apart from her older brother — both raised in a family where drinking was normalized and expected.

• They lost their father to addiction in the late 1980s. Her brother was the all-star athlete and academic. Jill spent a lot of her early life in his shadow, fielding the buzzwords ADHD kids hear constantly: apply yourself, pay attention, why can’t you focus.

• She didn’t identify drinking as a serious problem until she was 19 or 20, when wine became what she describes as “the answer” to the noise she couldn’t name.

• Her brother is also in long-term recovery. The pattern ran through the family.

Key Insight: “It sits in the back seat now, just doesn’t drive the car — but it’s still a part of me every day.” — Jill on shame, and how she’s learned to challenge it without pretending it’s gone.

[05:52] Years of Relapses and Why It Was Never a Straight Line

• Jill’s first attempt at sobriety came at 26 — attending AA meetings far from home so no one would recognize her.

• What followed was years of relapses she now understands as deeply connected to undiagnosed ADHD: the impulsivity, the emotional dysregulation, the pattern of falling and getting up and falling again.

• She describes her pre-sobriety years honestly: unhealthy relationships, instability, overdependence, wasted opportunities, a lot of shame.

• She stayed out of AA for years telling herself her story wasn’t good enough to share. “No one’s going to want to hear my story. It’s not as good.”

Key Insight: “It’s a lot of falling down. It’s a lot of getting up. It’s a lot of shame, a lot of messiness, really, like many people.” — Jill, on a recovery story that doesn’t look like the highlight reel.

[11:00] The ADHD-Addiction Connection

• People with ADHD are two to three times more likely to struggle with addiction — and Jill says we need to talk about it more and study it more.

• For neurodiverse people, especially those who went undiagnosed, the shame loop starts early: adults who don’t understand what’s happening say “why are you so lazy” and “why can’t you just pay attention,” and kids absorb it as truth.

• When something comes along that quiets the noise — wine, food, anything — it doesn’t feel like a problem. It feels like a solution.

• Jill describes ADHD not as the bouncing-off-the-walls version people imagine, but as something internal: “electricity” that runs through the body all day.

Key Insight: “ADHD people live with this electricity in their body all the time. So you have... emotional dysregulation and it’s that electricity that you can literally hear and feel all the time. So the alcohol snuffs it out. It calms it.” — Jill DePhillip

[17:46] The Invisible Girls: Masking, Burnout, and Getting Overlooked

• One of the most overlooked at-risk groups for ADHD: high-achieving girls who are masking so well that no one sees the strain underneath.

• Jill tells her teachers who are patients: the kid with ADHD in your class might be your favorite student. Straight A’s. Quiet. A little anxious. Working ten times as hard as the kid next to her to get a B.

• These kids go home overwhelmed and overstimulated, but because they perform, no one asks the right questions.

• The result is burnout, and in the worst cases, elevated suicidal risk factors among high maskers who look, from the outside, like they have everything together.

Key Insight: “We reward the performance, right? We’re performing well so you get straight A’s — good job, that means you’re worth it. Questions about emotions, we’re not asking. About executive functioning — how are you functioning, are you resting, is this hard.” — Jill DePhillip

[29:30] Regulating a Nervous System That Doesn’t Fit the Template

• Cookie-cutter advice — “just go for a walk” — doesn’t account for the task paralysis, task initiation difficulty, and demand resistance that come with ADHD and autism.

• Jill’s approach is individualized: find what you already love, then build your regulation tools around that. If you love Pilates, Pilates becomes your nervous system regulation strategy.

• The neurodiverse brain needs interest, emotion, and connection to move. When you build from desire instead of obligation, the resistance drops.

• She’s clear: there’s no one answer, and the overwhelm of information out there can actually make it worse for people who are already overwhelmed.

Key Insight: “The neurodiverse mind needs novelty... Interest, emotion, connection. All of that needs to be there.” — Jill DePhillip

[35:00] Five Weeks in the Mountains and the Word That Stuck

• In 2020, during COVID, after missing two days of work from a relapse, people showed up from every corner of Jill’s life and said: go to rehab. She agreed.

• A car came and drove her eight hours to the mountains of Pennsylvania. She left her kids, went into a week of isolation — Valium, a bird feeder outside the window, and the Transformer movie Bumblebee on a DVD player slid under the door.

• She stayed five weeks. She was afraid to come home, so she asked for a sixth.

• What she carried out with her was one word: willingness.

Key Insight: “You have to have that 100% willingness to do whatever it takes to be sober and put that first, always, every single day, the next right thing. And that’s what I wasn’t doing all these times I fell on my face. So that was the shift for me.” — Jill DePhillip

[41:30] Building a Life Worth Coming Home To

• Recovery wasn’t just getting sober. It was a divorce, a period of loneliness, learning what boundaries were, and removing relationships that were harmful — family included.

• Jill tells her own kids: you have no obligation, family or not, to stay in a relationship that hurts you.

• The rebuilding process is slow and awkward. Your relationship skills aren’t great at first. But if you hold the boundaries, the right people show up.

• Today she has a practice she loves, a closet office with a ceiling fan, and a 12-year-old daughter she says is essentially her — five steps ahead of everything Jill did.

Key Insight: “The real people that want to stay and love you for you will show up. But they won’t if you’re hiding from it, or in your own way.” — Jill DePhillip

[45:50] What Jill Is Working On Now

• Coming September: an ADHD cohort. Eight to ten people, class format, eight weeks of 90-minute sessions focused on executive functioning skills.

• Originally designed for college students, but now open to anyone in transition: coming out of rehab, navigating divorce, or any life change that’s hard on a neurodiverse brain.

• Jill is also writing on Substack (Still Growing) and describes it as cathartic: “Whatever’s that theme, I’m writing about it, and it’s amazing.”

Key Insight: “All I can do is plant seeds. That’s about all I can do to help people. We can’t do anything else. We don’t have any control over anything other than the power that that is — is planting a seed.” — Jill DePhillip

Key Quotes

“It sits in the back seat now, just doesn’t drive the car — but it’s still a part of me every day.”
— Jill DePhillip

“ADHD people live with this electricity in their body all the time. So the alcohol snuffs it out. It calms it.”
— Jill DePhillip

“We reward the performance, right? Questions about emotions, we’re not asking. About executive functioning — how are you functioning, are you resting, is this hard.”
— Jill DePhillip

“You have to have that 100% willingness to do whatever it takes to be sober and put that first, always, every single day, the next right thing.”
— Jill DePhillip

“All I can do is plant seeds. That’s about all I can do to help people.”
— Jill DePhillip

Resources Mentioned

• Jill’s Website: PlantingSeedsBH.com — including details on the September ADHD cohort

• Jill’s Substack: Still Growing — recovery, neurodivergence, and becoming more fully yourself

• Jill on Psychology Today and Pedway

• September ADHD Executive Functioning Cohort: Eight-week course, 90 minutes per week, for anyone in life transition (divorce, rehab, neurodivergent adults building new scaffolding)

• AA / 12-step programs — referenced throughout as part of Jill’s recovery foundation

Where to Find Jill

Jill’s Substack

Psychiatry, ADHD, and addiction recovery care, with real talk, soft landings, and the occasional chaos. Notes from a psychiatric NP navigating the mess and the medicine.

By Jill DePhillip, CRNP-PMH

Website: PlantingSeedsBH.com
Instagram: @plantingseeds (and variations — search Planting Seeds)
Psychology Today and Pedway directories for clinical appointments

Thank You

A heartfelt thank you , , , and many others for joining us live for this conversation, and to for her honesty, her clinical wisdom, and the courage it takes to show up as a full human being — not just a clinician. Your willingness to share the messy parts makes all the difference.

If Something Here Landed

Jill said it plainly: all she can do is plant seeds. Show up, share what she’s learned, and trust that it lands for the people it’s meant for.

Something in this conversation might have moved something in you. The electricity she described. The idea that you’ve been running on shame since you were a kid. The sense that you’ve been solving a problem alcohol was never going to fix.

If that’s where you are, I’d love to talk.

Not a sales call. Just a real conversation about what’s actually going on, what you want, and whether clarity is closer than you think.

Book a free 20-minute call

You know the cycle. You say you’ll just have one. You don’t. Then comes the shame.

The shame is heavy enough that you can’t put it down, so eventually you stop trying.

Fuck it. Doesn’t matter anyway. And then you do it again.

That cycle isn’t really about drinking. It’s about what breaks down every time you say you’re going to do something and you don’t. The trust you have in yourself. Your own word.

Break it enough times and you stop believing yourself. Not just about drinking. About everything.

What sobriety builds — slowly, and for real — is the evidence that you can do hard things and get to the other side. That when you say you’re going to do something, you do it. That you’re someone you can count on.

Everything else keeps growing from there.

🎙️Clear Conversations: Creative Minds in Sobriety

Three conversations dropped while the newsletter was on pause. Here's the short version summary of each.

is a Pulitzer Prize-shortlisted journalist and New York Times bestselling author who's been living out of a camper since 2022, logging tens of thousands of miles across America doing ground-level reporting no one else is doing. The line that stayed with me: "Sobriety was how I became the person I don't see in the world."

is a photographer who gave language to something she calls Creative Adaptive Intelligence — the human capacity to navigate uncertainty without abandoning yourself. Her father's open heart surgery taught her that choosing to feel fully is its own form of love, and she's been building from that truth ever since.

spent 20 years building brands for some of the world's most recognized companies, and he'll tell you sobriety had everything to do with the best work he's ever done. The line that stayed with me: it's not that alcohol blocked his creativity — it kept him in recovery for most of the day.

You can listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as well.

My guest this week is with on June 18 at 2P EDT

Jill has spent years learning to sit with people at the hardest parts of themselves. As a psychiatric nurse practitioner specializing in ADHD and addiction recovery, she brings something most credentials don’t come with: she’s been there.

Six years sober, she built a practice and a writing life from pieces she once thought were evidence against her.

I think her story is going to stick with you.

Jill’s Substack

Psychiatry, ADHD, and addiction recovery care, with real talk, soft landings, and the occasional chaos. Notes from a psychiatric NP navigating the mess and the medicine.

By Jill DePhillip, CRNP-PMH

🎙️Special Clear Conversations

Saturday, June 20 at 11am EDT — Substack Live

I just finished the 5-day Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu, and I’m going to tell you the whole story. The highs, the lows, all of it. This will be live and casual, come ask questions. After that, a full recap with photos and videos from the trail.

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to do something like that with a clear head, come join me Saturday.

🤝 First Sober Creative Collective Workshop: Why Sensitivity Is Strength

Wednesday, June 18 at 11am EDT with

Most of us were taught that sensitivity is a liability. Something to manage, suppress, or push through.

This Wednesday, the first Sober Creative Collective Workshop challenges that directly. The topic is Sensitivity Management — specifically, how our sensitivity is one of our most finely honed alert systems, and what it costs us when we ignore it. We’ll look at the sensory spiral: how a trigger or stressor event drains energy, raises sensitivity, and lowers resilience — until we intervene. And we’ll work through practical regulation tools that don’t require hours. Twenty to forty minutes, done consistently, can change how your nervous system functions.

If you’ve ever felt like the world is a lot — and you’ve been using alcohol to turn the volume down — this one was built for you.

The workshop is exclusively for Collective members. Membership is $49/month for the first three months, then $79/month.

Join and attend Wednesday →

If something in this newsletter landed and you want to talk about what's possible when you change your relationship with alcohol, let’s explore that together.

Book a free 20-minute call →

What she built from that point forward is more than something. New York Times bestselling author. Pulitzer Prize shortlisted journalist. Award-winning writer across fiction, nonfiction, memoir, and journalism. And since 2022, a solo traveler living out of a camper, logging tens of thousands of miles across America, doing the kind of deep, ground-level reporting that doesn’t fly in and fly out.

This conversation covers the full arc: the hard fall, the night her BAC hit 0.45, the moment she realized she didn’t need alcohol to dance, the myth of the tortured creative she’s spent years dismantling, and what it looks like to build a life around craft and purpose. Marya is sharp, direct, funny, and clear-eyed in a way that only comes from having earned it.

Show Notes

[00:18] Introduction: Who Is Marya Hornbacher?

• Award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author with 25+ years of work across fiction, nonfiction, journalism, and memoir

• Shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize; has written and taught extensively throughout her career

• Since 2022, has been living out of a camper and traveling across America, writing a weekly Substack called Going Solo at the End of the World

• Travels with her dog, Luna Moonbat

Key Insight: “She came out of rehab in spring, her words, like a snake with a brand new skin, too raw, too tender, uncalloused of belly, electric with nerves.” — Josh Woll, reading from Marya’s own writing

[03:01] The Hard Fall: Life Before Sobriety

• Marya started young and describes going down “hard and fast” — no gradual descent

• Got court-ordered to a 12-step program in her early teens; it didn’t land

• Became a runaway, got into boarding school, tried college, kept losing opportunities to addiction

• By her own account: “I kept being like, if I stop doing this, I will be able to think my way through this.” It didn’t work that way

Key Insight: “I took a drink and was face-first in the muck.” — Marya Hornbacher

[06:02] Rock Bottom: The Night That Led to Rehab

• In California in her mid-20s, family intervened — took her credit cards, her job, cleared out her apartment

• Got picked up by police, charged with resisting arrest and assaulting an officer; ended up in a psych ward

• BAC was 0.45 when she was admitted — a level that is, by any medical standard, life-threatening

• Given two choices by a social worker: Duluth Women’s Prison or rehab. She tried to choose a third option. There wasn’t one

Key Insight: “I got slapped into rehab and it saved my life, for sure it did.” — Marya Hornbacher

[08:45] New Orleans: The First Free Dance

• Barely sober, she went to New Orleans with a fiancé she could hardly remember agreeing to marry

• He wouldn’t dance. She went out on the floor anyway, in her mother’s white dress, with a Zydeco band playing

• Picked up a glass of wine out of habit, paused, and set it down

• That moment clarified something about who she was and what she didn’t need anymore

Key Insight: “I don’t need permission. I don’t need alcohol. I don’t need him. I don’t need to do anything except dance. And I would say that if I have a policy in my life, that’s about it right there.” — Marya Hornbacher

[10:00] Building a Life: Sobriety as Foundation

• Early sobriety wasn’t only about stopping substances — it was about figuring out how to be a person

• Tried the conventional path: marriage, house, hosting parties, what she calls being “a corporate trophy wife for a while”

• Eventually realized her values weren’t about money, titles, or diamond rings — they were about people, the world, and doing what she believed she was here to do

• Sobriety gave her the clarity to act in line with those values: “How would I have done any of that drinking or high?”

Key Insight: “Sobriety was part and parcel of how do I become the person that I don’t see in the world. I wanted to be the change. And whether I am or not isn’t actually the point. It’s that I can be, and I’m not inhibiting my ability to be.” — Marya Hornbacher

[14:50] Four Years on the Road: Going Solo at the End of the World

• In 2022, Marya bought a camper, shed most of what she owned, and started traveling America full-time

• Part practical: she couldn’t afford rent and keep writing. Eliminating housing overhead made continued work possible

• Part journalistic: she’d grown tired of “parachute journalism” — flying in, getting the quote, flying back to somewhere fancy

• Her method is to show up, come back the next day, and the day after that, until someone in a dive bar stops seeing her as a stranger

• Has spent the most time in red states and the Southeast, in places that rarely make the news cycle

Key Insight: “What I do best is sit down in a dive bar and then come back tomorrow and then come back the next day, until they’re like, who is the weird old broad in the corner, and someone comes and tells me what their town is, what they’re doing there, what they care about. That’s the road trip, really. It’s not a trip.” — Marya Hornbacher

[18:22] The Mad Artist Myth — and Why It’s Garbage

• The idea of the brilliant, drunken creative has always struck Marya as “exhausting and nonsensical”

• Her best work came from the 10 minutes between waking up and starting to drink — that window widened as sobriety took hold

• She’s watched readers who were drawn to her early work chase the “young, disastrous train wreck girl” image — she’s determined to outlive it

• Her position: the driving force of creativity is craft and the creative imperative, not trauma, not substances

Key Insight: “You do not have to be young and fragile to write powerfully. You have to be a powerful writer.” — Marya Hornbacher

[22:00] The Craft of Truth-Telling, Writing Practice, and What’s Next

• A core principle she teaches: the hotter the material, the cooler the language has to be — precise, clear writing serves hard truths better than overwrought prose

• Her view of writing as service: “The writers I read are doing a service to me. They’re seeing the world in a way I don’t see it. And I want to be able to provide that same service.”

• Daily practice: roughly three solid hours of generative work, usually late in the day after assignments are done — she notes 15 minutes also counts if that’s what you’ve got

• Her book, coming out spring 2027, adds to a long tradition of American road narratives — told from the perspective of a woman who went on the road because she was fleeing a predator and was broke, and what it took to do it without fear

Key Insight: “To describe something or observe something with precision and care is a way of loving. And this is my way of loving the world, is to observe it as clearly and as openly as I can. And that is — I truly believe — what I’m here to do.” — Marya Hornbacher

Key Quotes

“I took a drink and was face first in the muck.” — Marya Hornbacher

“I don’t need permission. I don’t need alcohol. I don’t need to do anything except dance. And I would say that if I have a policy in my life, that’s about it right there.” — Marya Hornbacher

“The hotter the material, the cooler the language has to be.” — Marya Hornbacher

“You do not have to be young and fragile to write powerfully. You have to be a powerful writer.” — Marya Hornbacher

“To describe something or observe something with precision and care is a way of loving. And this is my way of loving the world, is to observe it as clearly and as openly as I can.” — Marya Hornbacher

Resources Mentioned

• Wasted by Marya Hornbacher — her landmark memoir (referenced by listeners in the live Q&A)

• Going Solo at the End of the World — Marya’s weekly Substack, dispatches from the road

• Her upcoming book on solo life on the American road (coming spring 2027)

Where to Find Marya Hornbacher

Going Solo at the End of the World

Solo traveler and New York Times bestselling author goes rogue to bring readers a first-person report from the far reaches of the American road.

By Marya Hornbacher

• Website: maryahornbacher.com

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/marya.hornbacher

A Word Before You Go

This conversation touched something I keep coming back to with this show. The creative life doesn’t require chaos to be real. It doesn’t need substances to have weight. What it needs is the willingness to show up to the work, day after day, with as much clarity as you can bring.

Marya has been doing that for 25+ years. She’s done it broke, on the road, in dive bars, in camper parks, through hard things she didn’t ask for. And she’s produced some of the most precise, alive writing working today.

If something in this conversation stirred something in you — if you’re wondering what your work could look like by changing your relationship with alcohol — let’s talk.

A free call, no pressure, just a conversation about where you are and what’s possible.

Explore Working Together

Thank You

A heartfelt thank you to , , , , everyone who joined us live for this conversation, and to for her extraordinary clarity and honesty. Your presence and engagement make these conversations possible.

What makes Jenn’s perspective worth paying attention to is that she doesn’t teach from a place of having it all figured out. She writes and works from the messy middle. In this conversation, she brings something rare: a framework grounded in personal values, honest failure, and the kind of trust that only comes from actually going through hard things.

This episode covers grief, creative burnout, the Front Porch Project she led during COVID that put an estimated $1.28 million back into her local economy, and what it means to make decisions from your values rather than from the fear of judgment.

[02:17] Growing Up Social: Alcohol as a Normal Part of Life

• Jenn grew up the youngest of five siblings in a family where alcohol was woven into every social gathering — not as a problem, but as a given

• Her brothers’ college years set the stage for what fun was “supposed to look like” — and when her turn came, she leaned into it fully, running the party house in college and carrying the habit into her 20s and 30s

• A self-help journey started by reading The Secret in her early career planted the first seeds of wanting a better version of herself

Key Insight: “I often remember just like hating myself in the morning the day after. And it wasn’t enough to keep me to not do it for the longest time.” — Jenn Ocken

[05:44] Her Father’s Heart Surgery and Choosing to Feel Grief

• In 2010, Jenn’s father went in for his second open heart surgery — his heart never pumped on its own again, and he spent five months in the ICU in Indiana while she was living in Louisiana

• She stopped drinking entirely during that period — not out of a rule, but because she wanted to feel the grief fully and understood the power of that

• She stayed social, became the sober driver, and found that choosing to feel was its own form of love

Key Insight: “I got to feel sad and feel that sadness because to me, my dad was worth it. To feel how much I loved him, to be sad for what he was in, and for losing him.” — Jenn Ocken

[08:24] Self-Respect as the Continuation of That Same Honor

• After losing her father, the pattern continued: heavy drinking, a blackout, then a flood of self-hatred the next morning

• Jenn connected this to the standard she had set during her father’s illness — if she could honor him by feeling fully, she owed herself that same care

• She landed on a values-based relationship with alcohol rather than a rule-based one, with clear boundaries that give her more freedom, not less

Key Insight: “I’m the only person that is going to be there 100% of the days that I’m alive. If I can’t treat myself well with kindness, who can I do that for other people to, or ask other people to respect me?” — Jenn Ocken

[13:57] Creative Adaptive Intelligence — What It Is and Where It Came From

• CAI is “the human capacity to navigate uncertainty without abandoning ourselves” — something Jenn noticed she had been doing for years before she found words for it

• She began to see the pattern by comparing her burnout in 2019 to her biggest successes: every real success aligned with her core values; the failures came when she drifted from them

• She distinguishes CAI from adaptive intelligence: adaptive intelligence is how you shift when you enter a room; CAI is what you bring with you to make room for yourself there

Key Insight: “Your creativity is your intelligence. Your creativity is so needed in this world. The way that you navigate what you don’t know is a strength and confidence that is surely untapped.” — Jenn Ocken

[15:04] The Front Porch Project — Creative Adaptive Intelligence in Real Time

• When COVID hit and everything shut down, Jenn launched the Front Porch Project in Baton Rouge — photographing families from the curb onto their porches, asking them to pay it forward to local businesses instead of paying her

• 40 photographers joined the mission; in three months, they estimated $1.28 million returned to the local economy

• Jenn photographed over 900 portraits in those three months — more than she had done in the previous nine or ten years combined

Key Insight: “Every single success, like the super easy successes that come to me like what that project did...that project never negated any of my core values.” — Jenn Ocken

[27:24] Self-Leadership and Being a Mirror

• Jenn teaches CAI not as a prescription but as a reflection — her goal is to help people see what’s already inside them, not to hand them a system to follow

• She revised her core value of “using zeal to empower” when she realized the truth: she can’t actually empower anyone else — empowerment is generated from within

• Self-leadership became the frame: how do you lead yourself through failure and toward the next move with enthusiasm rather than shame?

Key Insight: “I can’t empower someone. I can inspire them. I can motivate them. That empowerment is a self-job. That’s part of your self-leadership. You’re the only one that can empower yourself to do something.” — Jenn Ocken

[31:18] Core Values as a Navigation System

• Jenn uses her five core values as a real-time decision tool in uncomfortable or uncertain situations — not as aspirational ideals, but as functional, non-negotiable boundaries

• She also separates core values from priorities: both inform decisions, but they play different roles, and knowing the difference keeps you from abandoning yourself in the moment

• She shared a recent example from her own life — a friendship misunderstanding that sent her in circles until she could sit with her part in it and own her responsibility without collapsing under guilt

Key Insight: “Whenever that boundary is being squeezed, you return back to yourself. You see where it’s being negated and what is the next decision that can help you navigate the uncertainty of it.” — Jenn Ocken

[42:09] What Jenn Loves Most About Creating — And Why AI Can’t Replace It

• The thing Jenn loves most about both photography and facilitation is the sense of peace and ease she creates with people — when both parties relax into the uncertainty and let it work

• She and Josh connected on what AI-generated photos miss: the physical presence, the energy exchange between photographer and subject, the real-time adjustments, the relationship

• Both agreed that AI will likely make in-person creative experiences more valuable, not less

Key Insight: “When you have a person take your picture, their energy and your energy then collide, and that energy flows throughout every time that picture is being posted.” — Jenn Ocken

[49:25] Trust, Audacity, and Showing Up Anyway

• Jenn is working to expand CAI into courses and community tools — and wrestling with the internal doubt that comes with claiming authority in a new space

• She named the conflict directly: who is she to define a new intelligence framework, when she’s a photographer without letters behind her name?

• Her answer was clear: everyone deserves access to this awareness — and being aware of it is what makes the next move possible

Key Insight: “Being aware of your own innate ability to navigate uncertainty without abandoning yourself will give you empowerment to be able to give yourself empowerment, to move forward, to trust, to grow confidence, to do the next damn thing that you want to do.” — Jenn Ocken

Key Quotes

“I got to feel sad and feel that sadness because to me, my dad was worth it. To feel how much I loved him, to be sad for what he was in, and for losing him.” — Jenn Ocken

“I’m the only person that is going to be there 100% of the days that I’m alive. If I can’t treat myself well with kindness, who can I do that for other people to, or ask other people to respect me?” — Jenn Ocken

“Your creativity is your intelligence. Your creativity is so needed in this world. The way that you navigate what you don’t know is a strength and confidence that is surely untapped.” — Jenn Ocken

“I can’t empower someone. I can inspire them. I can motivate them. That empowerment is a self-job. That’s part of your self-leadership. You’re the only one that can empower yourself to do something.” — Jenn Ocken

“Being aware of your own innate ability to navigate uncertainty without abandoning yourself will give you empowerment to be able to give yourself empowerment, to move forward, to trust, to grow confidence, to do the next damn thing that you want to do.” — Jenn Ocken

Resources Mentioned

• The Secret by Rhonda Byrne — the self-help book that started Jenn’s personal development journey

• Emotional Intelligence — Jenn referenced Daniel Goleman’s work as a touchpoint when talking about defining CAI as a new framework

• Front Porch Project — community photography initiative launched during COVID-19 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

• Sunday Cup of Joy — Jenn’s free weekly newsletter, described as “my little rebellion against hustle culture”

• Creative Return — Jenn’s Substack and self-guided framework for navigating uncertainty

Where to Find Jen

Creative Return

This is not a newsletter about having your shit together or even getting your shit together. It's about recognizing what you already have — and learning to move from there without leaving yourself behind. Yes, and that's the energy here. Every Tuesday

By Jenn Ocken

• 🌐 Website: jennocken.com

• 📬 Substack: Creative Return — longer essays every Tuesday; Sunday Cup of Joy newsletter every Sunday, free

• ✍️ Blog: Thrive Resources — a monthly deep-dive essay on creative adaptive intelligence and related themes

Thank You

A heartfelt thank you to , , , and everyone who joined us live for this conversation, and to for her extraordinary openness and wisdom. Your presence and engagement make these conversations possible.

If Something in This Conversation Stayed With You

What Jen shared today lands differently if you’ve ever numbed your way through something that deserved to be felt. She chose presence over escape, and that choice taught her something she’s still building from.

If you’re wondering whether alcohol is the ceiling on your creative work — or whether something else is keeping you from the clarity you know is in there — let’s talk.

A free 20-minute session, no pressure, just a real conversation.

Schedule a Free Clarity Session →

You have this creative capacity in you too. Everyone does. It might just be dimmed down a bit.

Alcohol dulls the part of your brain that does that work, the part that plans ahead and imagines that something better is even possible. You feel it as a morning that’s half gone before you’re out of bed, and a life running at half power, where the person you want to be keeps drifting further from the one you’re living as right now.

And it doesn’t stay in one place. It shows up in your health, your work, your money, your family, your relationship, your friendships, the spiritual side of you, the part of you still trying to grow. Pick any area of your life. If something there feels off, alcohol is probably closer to the reason than you think.

You’re done with it. You’ve cut back, made rules, started fresh on a Monday more times than you can count, and you know the drill by heart. First a feeling of relief, then a growing sense of numbness, followed by a slow recovery, then regret.

And you are so tired of it.

Explore Working Together

You pour what’s left down the sink and tell yourself that was the last one. An hour later you’re tying your shoes and crossing the street to the store for more. I did that more nights than I’d like to admit, so I’m not here to judge you for it. I’m here because I found my own way way out.

Underneath, the same thing keeps happening. You feel the busy pressure of life’s demands, you turn to alcohol to softens the edges, and your body never fully recovers. Your baseline drops a little each time. You push harder to make up for the moments you were off your game, and after a while that just begins to feel like your life.

It doesn’t have to. That creative side of you isn't gone. Alcohol has just been keeping it dim. Stop drinking, and it comes back, clearer than you remember.

How I work

I take people through three stages over 90 days, one on one, with a private weekly session and daily check-ins on WhatsApp.

Release, Create, Become.

We start by getting alcohol out of the way so your energy and clarity can come back online, and for a lot of people I work with that one move changes the whole trajectory. From there we build simple daily rhythms so the clear days hold, and we work through the moments one by one that usually trip you up. By the end, staying off alcohol isn't something you have to work at anymore. It's just who you are now.

You won't have to label yourself an alcoholic or hit rock bottom first. We work with your body, not against it. Once we reset the nervous system, not drinking gets easier and stops wearing you out.

What people say

“By August 2025 I was in really bad shape, drinking daily, foggy and anxious. In our first session Josh showed no judgment, no preaching, and no statistics. He gave me a clear plan. Three months later, I haven’t been near a liquor store in two and a half months, something I couldn’t manage for years.” Yuliya, verified review on Trustpilot

“I immediately felt comfortable and at ease with Josh on our first call. He is non-judgemental and holds space well, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend him to anyone wanting to take action around alcohol.” Anita

Explore Working Together

This is for you if …

You're tired of what drinking has done to your life, and you want a real way out. You know it's holding you back, even if it still feels like the only way to unwind after a hard day. You don't want to fight it forever. You want it behind you.

The next step

The next move is a conversation. We talk about where you are and whether this is the right kind of support for you. You don’t need to have quit already. You do need to be willing.

👉 Schedule a Free Clarity Call

Your energy and clarity aren't gone. They come back once alcohol is out of the way.

Schedule a Clarity Call

I’m Josh. I made films for almost twenty years, and I’ve been sober for over five. I lost a lot of my best energy to hangovers and foggy mornings, and when I took the alcohol out, the clarity my work ran on came back. Now I help other people do the same.

Most people think creativity is for artists. The painter, the musician, the person with the camera. That is not what I mean.

Creativity is the part of you that can picture a different life and start building it. The nurse who finds a calmer way through a brutal shift. The accountant who finds a way to save the client money that no one else caught. The parent who keeps a whole home running on almost no sleep. You have it. Everyone does.

Alcohol dulls the exact part of the brain that does that work. The part that imagines, plans, and decides. It doesn’t always show up in some big, obvious way. Sometimes a hard stretch is what makes you stop and look. Other times you just feel it as a life that’s a little stuck, a little flat, a little harder than it should be.

And it doesn’t stay in one place. It can show up at work, in your health, in your marriage, with your friends, in your money, or in the way your weekends all start to look the same.

Pick any part of your life. If something feels off in it, the drink might be closer to the cause than you think.

I’m Josh. For almost twenty years I believed alcohol helped me relax, connect, and do good work. It was quietly taking more than it gave. Quitting didn’t make me less creative. It gave me back the part of me I always knew was in there.

That is what this is about. Not labels. Not hitting rock bottom. Just one question: what could your life look like without alcohol in the way?

If that question is worth sitting with, you’re in the right place. Here’s where to go next. Pick the one that fits where you are.

1. If you’re just starting to wonder

Maybe you’re not sure yet. You’re curious and you want to follow along without committing to anything. Subscribe. It’s free, and you’ll get my regular stories and ideas.

You’ll also get two things I only send exclusively to subscribers that aren’t available here on Substack:

• Disrupt The Pattern Private Podcast. A short note, sent only to subscribers. It points out one pattern that might be running under your work, your relationships, or other areas of your life, and gives you a moment to choose differently before it shows up again.

• A simple pause practice. When stress, a fight, or a quiet night alone hits, most of us reach for something without thinking. This teaches you to catch the gap between what you feel and the action that follows, so your next move is an empowered choice and not a habit running on autopilot.

Subscribe now

2. If you already think drinking is in your way

You don’t need convincing. You want a clear read on where it’s actually costing you. Take the quiz. Ten brief questions. It will help you see where alcohol might be getting in the way across the 8 key aspects of your life:

• Work

• Finances

• Health & Fitness

• Family & Friends

• Romance

• Personal Growth

• Fun

• Physical Environment

👉 Take the Quiz

3. If you’re ready and want support

You know what’s going on, and you are ready to make a change with someone in your corner. Book a call. We’ll look at where you are and what kind of support would actually help.

👉 Book a Free Call

Not for you?

That’s okay. If none of this fits, no hard feelings. Close the tab and get on with your day. I’d rather you spend your time where it actually helps you.

If it does fit, pick your step above and let’s go.

Josh

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 his wife told him she was scared. That was the last day he drank. What followed was a five-year journey toward clarity, purpose, and one of the most honest takes on branding, creativity, and human potential you’ll find anywhere.

What struck me most about James is his refusal to be preachy. He’s not here to tell you what to do. He’s here to show you what’s possible when you stop numbing the thing that makes you dangerous.

[00:00] Welcome and Introduction

• James Martin is a branding mentor, bestselling author, and international speaker based on the south coast of England

• He has spent 20+ years advising brands including Canva’s Design Advisory Board, Affinity, and Lincoln Design Company

• He publishes The Real Brand Life, a weekly newsletter for creators and founders

• His central idea: a brand is a recognizable reputation — what people believe about you when you’re not in the room

Key Insight: “At the center of everything James does is one idea, that a brand is a recognizable reputation.”

[02:33] The Road to Sobriety

• James grew up in the UK’s binge drinking culture, starting substances at 11 and escalating through his teens

• He was kicked out of school and home at 17 and spent two years “getting absolutely battered most days”

• He got sober on September 5, 2021 — the day his wife told him she was scared

• He went fully teetotal that day: no alcohol, no smoking, no drugs

Key Insight: “My wife said that that was the first time she’d ever been scared for me and that was the last day I drank, smoked, did any drugs.”

[12:50] What Clarity Actually Changed

• The biggest shift James noticed was mood stability — fewer extreme highs and lows

• He describes himself as fiery and intense, but sobriety made him steadier

• Client feedback and online criticism are far easier to process now

• He attributes his clearer sense of direction to having more control over his emotional reactions

Key Insight: “The most exciting thing for me is having more control over the mindset and the way I react and my emotions because I know if I can control those, I can fucking change the world.”

[16:37] The Three-Step Mission

• James shared his personal three-step plan that guides every decision he makes

• Step one: earn one of the most trusted reputations in the creative industry

• Step two: build extraordinary opportunity for others

• Step three: create real-world impact

• He described having a clear mission as protection against distraction — what he calls finding his “azimuth”

Key Insight: “My mission is to help human creativity shape the world. That is the kind of big mission. There are multiple ways in which I can do that. And will try to do that over the coming years. But that’s the thing that gets me up in the morning.”

[21:00] Writing as Discipline and Discovery

• James nearly hit a million followers on Instagram but found the treadmill unsustainable

• Substack became a place to slow down and think deeply

• He writes a monthly column for Fast Company — a goal he set at the start of the year and achieved faster than expected

• Writing his second book wasn’t enjoyable, but it forced him to get clear on who he wanted to become

Key Insight: “The pace that writing and thinking about writing and the things you want to write about want to be known for when you write are the things that empower me the most.”

[32:02] Sobriety and Creativity — Is It That Simple?

• James pushed back on the idea that sobriety automatically makes you more creative

• He acknowledges he did strong work while drinking — the question is really about fulfilling potential

• What sobriety gave him: longer days, more drive, and a clearer vision of who he wants to be

• He thinks everyone is wired differently and resists labeling people as one thing or another

Key Insight: “I feel like I am now able to fulfill my potential because I’m not in recovery a lot of the times of the day.”

[36:49] Human in an AI World

• James believes technology is always trying to catch up to human creativity, not the other way around

• His operating principle: “automate the predictable, humanise the meaningful”

• He argues that brands will be judged by what they choose to keep human

• He predicts we’ll naturally gravitate toward smaller circles and closer communities as automation expands

Key Insight: “Art school will be the new MBA because people and businesses will be needing this creativity to stand out in a not very creative world. So it will be the best creative that will get these businesses and these brands and people noticed... I think creativity is our strategic advantage so we've got to fuck shit up mate.”

[41:45] The Mastery Process and What AI Is Costing Us

• James cited a study across 80 countries showing intelligence scores dropping for the first time in generations

• He links this to short-form content and the ability to skip struggle, trial, and error

• The process of getting better at something — not the outcome — is where the real value lives

• Writing his book over six to eight months was the win; what it sells is secondary

Key Insight: “The process of writing the book was the win for me. The two years of doodling around then the quite intense six to eight months of writing... was the win because it took time and it hurt and I didn’t want to do it some days but I still did it.”

Key Quotes

“My wife said that that was the first time she’d ever been scared for me and that was the last day I drank, smoked, did any drugs.” — James Martin

“I know if I can control those, I can fucking change the world.” — James Martin

“I feel like I am now able to fulfill my potential because I’m not in recovery a lot of the times of the day.” — James Martin

“Automate the predictable, humanise the meaningful.” — James Martin

“Creativity is our strategic advantage so we’ve got to fuck shit up mate.” — James Martin

Resources Mentioned

• Reputation OS Framework — James’s system for building a recognizable reputation on your own terms

• D&AD Festival — Design and art direction conference James referenced while discussing creativity and AI

• Fast Company — Publication James now writes for monthly

• Squarespace — Referenced through David Lee, Chief Brand and Creative Officer, discussing creativity as “the only job left”

Where to Find James

The Real Brand Life

The Real Brand Life is a weekly space for creatives, founders, and builders who are curious about substance more than they are noise. If you’re tired of branding being reduced to trends, tactics, and templates, you’ll feel right at home here.

By James Martin | Made By James

• His second book is on pre-order now, dropping in September — pre-order in May includes a book club, a free course, and additional bonuses

• Watch for announcements in early July about his next major project around building opportunity for others

Thank You

A heartfelt thank you to , , and many others who joined us live for this conversation and to for his honesty, his conviction, and a vision big enough to build schools. Your presence and engagement make these conversations possible.

Ready to Remove the Barrier to Your Best Work?

James and I don’t come from the same path, but we arrived at the same conclusion: clarity changes what you’re capable of. More energy. Longer days. A sharper sense of who you want to become.

That’s exactly what The Sober Creative Method™ is built around.

It’s a 90-day 1:1 coaching journey using the Release → Create → Become framework — built for those who are done working around the thing that’s holding them back. If you’ve been circling the question of what your work could look like with full access to yourself, this is where you start.

Learn about The Sober Creative Method™

Not all at once. Gradually. A layer at a time.

First it takes the edge off. Then it takes more. And it keeps going.

You stop feeling the hard things. But you also stop feeling the good things. The things that used to land don't anymore.

Numbness isn’t neutral. It has a cost.

Sobriety doesn’t just give you your mornings back. It gives you your nerve endings. The world gets louder. Sharper. More saturated.

That can be uncomfortable at first. Feelings you’ve been insulating against for years come back online. Some of them are hard. Some of them are devastating.

But some of them are the reason you’re here.

The ones that make you want to create something. Write something. Say something true. The ones that remind you that your life is actually happening and you are actually in it.

Alcohol offered relief from feeling. Sobriety offers something else entirely: access.

Access to the full range of what it means to be alive. Allowing grief and wonder to move through you.

You were made to feel all of it.

🎙️Clear Conversations: Creative Minds in Sobriety

Jessica knows nothing has a grip on her anymore.

has lived several careers in the span of most people’s one. Pediatric oncology nurse. Flight nurse for ICE running three or four flights a day across the US and Central America. Nurse practitioner. Stock market analyst. Ghostwriter. And now, full-time Substack creator running three publications at once.

Her path into sobriety doesn’t follow the standard arc. She used substances recreationally for years — festivals, the occasional MDMA, nothing that felt alarming. Then she went fully remote. No alarm. No boss. No commute. Monday started feeling like Saturday. The structure that had kept everything in place dissolved, and stimulants filled the gap. By early 2025 it had become what she calls a nosedive.

She spent nearly 20 weeks in an intensive outpatient program — group therapy three times a week, ten hours a week total. She’s been substance-free since. She was a month out when we talked.

What struck me in the conversation was how clearly she connected the dots across all three of her professional lives. In pediatric oncology, she watched children and families navigate fear and physical trauma at extremes most people never see. She came away with a conviction that healing is psychological and neurological long before it’s biological. Hockey at a competitive level reinforced it — mental toughness isn’t about being unbreakable, it’s about how fast you recover. Then she got into stock trading, which she describes as a system that strips out every variable except two: discipline and emotional regulation. If you can’t manage your nervous system when the market moves against you, the information you have means nothing.

Same truth, three different arenas.

Writing, she says, just flows. She started publishing online in 2021 on the advice she’d seen repeated everywhere: one post per week for two years, expect nothing in return. The point isn’t the audience. It’s proving to yourself you can keep a commitment. A year and a half in, someone noticed and asked her to ghostwrite their stock market content. That led to her own monetized publications. Now she runs three: NP Fellow: Become the CEO of Your Health (mental health and functional medicine, her original newsletter since 2022), Nurse in the Market (swing trading and long-term investing), and Unstuck to Publish (a Substack-building workshop that spun into its own publication almost by accident).

NP Fellow Become the CEO of Your Health

A mental health & functional medicine newsletter helping you build emotional regulation, mental clarity, and health ownership.

By Jess, The Creator

On sobriety: she doesn’t dress it up. She said she never regrets quitting anything. The pull for her is simple — no comedown waiting around the corner, nothing running out, nothing with a grip on her. Clear-headed. That’s it.

You can listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as well.

My guest this week is with on May 21 at 10A EDT

James Martin built one of the most recognized voices in the branding world while drinking his way through most of it. He’ll be the first to tell you that. What he’ll also tell you is that he has no idea how he pulled it off — and that clarity, not substances, is what finally let him see what he was actually capable of.

James is a branding mentor, bestselling author, and the person behind The Real Brand Life newsletter. He spent two decades helping creative people build reputations that earn trust, and it wasn’t until September 2021 that he stopped wishing the day away so he could get to the drinking part of it.

This week, he joins me on Clear Conversations to talk about what sobriety revealed about his work, his identity, and what it actually means to show up with your whole mind available.

The Real Brand Life

The Real Brand Life is a weekly space for creatives, founders, and builders who are curious about substance more than they are noise. If you’re tired of branding being reduced to trends, tactics, and templates, you’ll feel right at home here.

By James Martin | Made By James

🤝 Collaborations

Tomorrow at 12:30P EDT I’ll be sitting down with from The Divergent Talent Alchemist and the topic of conversation will be “Creating a Life You Don’t Want to Escape From.”

The Divergent Talent Alchemist (DTA) is where Jen explores how identity becomes strategy — for founders, leaders, creatives, and organizations navigating reinvention.

Over 5 years now sober from alcohol, I’ll be sharing how I’m merging my 20+ years of creative video and photo experience into what I’m now building with The Sober Creative.

I’m looking forward to our conversation!

WATCH HERE

If you are ready to shift your relationship with drinking, here’s how you can work with me.

Alcohol doesn't have to be the obvious problem to be the real one. Sometimes it's just the thing that makes incomplete recovery feel normal. The Sober Creative Method™ is 90 days, 1:1, built around restoring what alcohol has been quietly taking — your energy, your clarity, your creative capacity. Not willpower. Not labels. Just your system recalibrating.

Schedule a Free Clarity Session

If you have shifted your relationship with drinking and you want to be a part of a growing community, here’s how you can do that.

The hard part is behind you. What comes next is the work — the real creative work — and it goes better when you're not doing it alone. The Sober Creative Collective is where people on this path come to create, be witnessed, and build something that couldn't have existed before.

Join the Collective

In this conversation, Jessica got real about what happened when she started working from home, lost her structure, and found herself in a 20-week outpatient program for mental health and substance use. She came out the other side clear-headed, writing more than ever, and with something to say about what sobriety actually feels like when you strip it down to its simplest truth: “nothing has a grip on me.”

What struck me most about talking with Jessica was how she connects her athletic background, her clinical training, and her financial education into one unified understanding of human performance. The body follows the mind. The mind follows discipline. And discipline, she would tell you, is not a personality trait — it is a practice.

[00:33] Welcome and Introduction

• Josh introduces Jessica as a nurse practitioner, former pediatric oncology nurse, competitive hockey player, stock market analyst, and full-time Substack writer.

• Jessica is the creator of NP Fellow: Become the CEO of Your Health, a mental health and functional medicine newsletter built on science-backed, practical tools.

• Her background spans five years in pediatric oncology, competitive hockey at a high level, and stock market analysis — three fields that all taught her the same thing: capacity matters more than information.

• Jessica calls herself “the friend you’d call at 2 AM — the one who actually gets it.”

[03:39] Her Story: Substance Use, Structure, and Starting Over

• Jessica opened up about a difficult year that began when she transitioned to working from home full-time. Without external structure, she said, “every day is the weekend” — and that freedom became a problem.

• She described getting deeper into stimulant use, which eventually led her to enroll in an intensive outpatient program: group therapy three hours a day, three times a week, plus individual sessions — roughly 10 hours of therapy per week for 20 weeks.

• She had just completed the program about a month before this conversation and had not used any substances since entering it.

• She was honest about the pull that a heavy workload can create: “with all this work it just makes you want to be like… if I just took an Adderall I could burn through this.” She is choosing to do the work differently now.

Key Insight: “I’m not waiting for something to run out. Nothing has a grip on me. So it’s just freeing. And then the peace of mind and the clear mind is priceless.” — Jessica Drapluk

[08:43] Pediatric Oncology and the Long Road to Nurse Practitioner

• Jessica was drawn to pediatric oncology because her aunt had worked in that specialty her entire career. She described it as “super niche nursing” — a sub-specialty most people actively avoid.

• After five years at the bedside, she got her master’s to become a nurse practitioner, graduating right as COVID hit. Clinics were shutting down and NPs were being laid off.

• She pivoted to a flight nurse job with ICE, managing nurses on deportation and transfer flights. She described it as similar to military life — stranded on tarmacs, overnighting in different countries, working exclusively with law enforcement and military personnel.

• She was eventually let go when the contract ended, and she never returned to the clinical workforce. Ghostwriting came next, and then her own Substack publications.

Key Insight: “Bedside nursing is back-breaking work. It’s really hard. It’s not sustainable for anybody for 25 to 30 years. It’s a great rewarding experience but I don’t want to be doing that when I’m 50.” — Jessica Drapluk

[15:47] Writing, Publishing, and Why It Doesn’t Scare Her

• Jessica started writing online in 2021-2022 after watching advice to publish once a week for two years without expecting anything in return. She did it to prove to herself she could keep the commitment.

• She does not schedule articles weeks in advance. Her standard: “The most that I’ll ever have an article in the queue and scheduled is 48 hours tops. That means I was really on it.”

• When asked what she enjoys about writing, she was direct: “It just comes easy to me. It doesn’t really feel like work and it doesn’t feel awkward. It doesn’t feel scary.”

• She now runs three Substack publications simultaneously — NP Fellow, Nurse in the Market, and Unstuck to Publish — plus ghostwriting for two additional publications, producing six original articles per week.

Key Insight: “The reason why you’re publishing online once a week every week for two years is to prove to yourself that you could actually keep up your commitment as a writer.” — Jessica Drapluk

[20:42] Mental Health Now: Routines, Recovery, and Rewiring

• Since leaving the program, Jessica has built her own daily structure: morning yoga, walking twice a week, and continuing to participate in alumni groups from the program Monday through Friday — Canva workshops, bullet journaling, astrology — whatever keeps her connected to a rhythm.

• She described the process of adjusting to sober productivity: “I’m rewiring my brain that staying up all night is not an option.” Work gets done. It just gets done differently.

• The volume of her output keeps her engaged, but she is also learning to rest. She chose sleep over a late-night deadline, and it was a small but meaningful shift.

• The expanded workload also creates its own temptation. She was candid about that tension — and about the fact that she is navigating it without reaching for old shortcuts.

Key Insight: "It keeps me busy but it also — since my problem was with Adderall — with all this work it just makes you want to be like… if I just took an Adderall I could burn through this. There's no friction, you just do it. But I'm just trying to get away from it completely." — Jessica Drapluk

[24:17] Drive, Work Ethic, and Not Wanting to Be Average

• Jessica traced her drive directly to her athletic upbringing. She and her brothers woke up at 4 AM in middle school for hockey lessons before school. Two practices a day was routine. Her father took them to run sprints on the days they did not have practice.

• Her definition of not wanting to be average is specific: “I don’t want to be average as in broke or overweight and tired and in pain like the average person.”

• She sees financial literacy, physical health, and meaningful work as interconnected. The more you build in one area, the more capacity you have in the others.

• She described a clear throughline: more success leads to more people helped; more people helped leads to greater impact and more resources to help further.

Key Insight: “I just don’t want to be average. Like it’s so easy to become above average. Why not?” — Jessica Drapluk

[28:32] The Stock Market as a Skill Anyone Can Learn

• Jessica’s view on investing is rooted in a simple premise: there are only three ways to build wealth — own real estate, own a business, or own other businesses through the stock market. For most people, the market is the most accessible entry point.

• She described the market as “rigged to go up” — it goes up 71% of the time, and the other 29% represents buying opportunities. Her advice to beginners: start with index funds like the S&P 500 (SPY or VOO) or the Vanguard Total Market Index (VTI).

• Her framework for stock analysis moves top-down: start with macro conditions, move through sectors, then drill into individual stocks. She believes most people can learn to analyze the market in 15 minutes to an hour with the right system.

• She plans to offer stock market workshops through Nurse in the Market to help people — particularly millennials — understand how to navigate investing without fear.

Key Insight: “The stock market’s not going anywhere. So if you’re going through something rough, it’s always there for you. And if God forbid you miss it for a day or a week or a month, no one cares. It’s going to be there when you come back.” — Jessica Drapluk

Key Quotes

“I’m not waiting for something to run out. Nothing has a grip on me. So it’s just freeing. And then the peace of mind and the clear mind is priceless.” — Jessica Drapluk

“At the end of the day, having your health intact is what makes being sober worth it for me.” — Jessica Drapluk

“I just don’t want to be average. Like it’s so easy to become above average. Why not?” — Jessica Drapluk

“The reason why you’re publishing online once a week every week for two years is to prove to yourself that you could actually keep up your commitment as a writer.” — Jessica Drapluk

“Bedside nursing is back-breaking work. It’s really hard. It’s not sustainable for anybody for 25 to 30 years. It’s a great rewarding experience but I don’t want to be doing that when I’m 50.” — Jessica Drapluk

Resources Mentioned

• SPY / VOO — S&P 500 index funds (500 stocks), mentioned as a starting point for new investors

• VTI — Vanguard Total Market Index, approximately 1,500 stocks

• E-Trade / Charles Schwab — Brokerage platforms recommended for beginners

• Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) — The treatment model Jessica used: group therapy three hours a day, three times a week, with individual sessions

• Top-down market analysis — Jessica’s framework: macro assets → sectors → individual stocks

Where to Find Jessica

NP Fellow Become the CEO of Your Health

A mental health & functional medicine newsletter helping you build emotional regulation, mental clarity, and health ownership.

By Jess, The Creator

• NP Fellow: Become the CEO of Your Health — Mental health and functional medicine newsletter (her original publication, running since 2022)

Nurse in The Market

Helping busy professionals navigate the stock market using a systematic approach so you can build wealth on your own terms without looking at charts all day.

By Jess, The Creator

• Nurse in the Market — Stock market analysis, swing trading picks, and investing education: NurseInTheMarket.com

Unstuck to Published

Turn your Substack from an idea into a live, paid publication—in 60 minutes, without guessing what to do next.

By Jess, The Creator

• Unstuck to Publish — Substack-building workshop for new writers; learn to build your publication from scratch in 60 minutes or less. Workshop runs every other Saturday.

• Live Debate with Mick — May 30th, 10 AM Eastern — Eminem vs. MGK: who’s better? Catch Jessica and Mick live on Substack.

Thank You

A heartfelt thank you to , , , , and everyone who joined us live for this conversation, and to for her honesty, her energy, and her willingness to share a story that is still unfolding. Your presence and engagement make these conversations possible.

From This Episode to Your Next Step

Jessica spent 20 weeks in an outpatient program, came out clear-headed, and immediately got back to work. She is producing six original articles a week, running workshops, ghostwriting for others, and building toward stock market education. That is not hustle culture. That is what it looks like when your nervous system is regulated, your mind is clear, and you actually have access to your own capacity.

That is exactly what The Sober Creative Method™ is built around.

This 90-day 1:1 coaching experience uses a Release → Create → Become framework to help individuals remove alcohol as the barrier to their most meaningful work.

If you have been wondering what you could actually produce with a clear mind — or if you have started to sense that something is holding you back — this is worth a look.

Explore The Sober Creative Method™

You had dreams before the drinking took over.

Maybe you still do. Maybe they live somewhere underneath the noise.

When you get sober: that empty space in the cup is filled with time. It comes back in the mornings. In the evenings. In the hours you used to spend recovering from the night before.

That time is yours now.

That’s the substance dreams are made of. Not motivation. Not talent. Not the perfect moment. Time. Attention. Presence. The willingness to show up for something that actually matters to you.

Drinking didn’t just cost you mornings. It cost you the belief that you were someone who could build the thing you kept postponing. It kept the volume low on the part of you that wanted more.

When you let it go, that part gets louder.

The version of you that wanted to make something, create something, become something — that version didn’t disappear. It was just waiting for the space.

You’re making the space now.

That’s not nothing. That’s everything.

🧘Guided Practices

Your thoughts aren’t the problem. Your relationship with them might be.

We average somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000 thoughts per day.

Most of them we never notice.

But some of them — the ones that show up when we’re stressed, overwhelmed, or just worn down — those ones we feel. And before we’ve even had a chance to examine them, we’ve already reached for a drink.

That’s what this new audio series is about.

From Thinking to Drinking: Creating Space to Choose Differently is an exploration of the space between discomfort and the decision to drink. Not a lecture. Not a program. Just an honest look at what’s actually happening inside us in those moments when the automatic response kicks in.

In the first episode, I walk through something simple — two people taking the same walk, on the same path, having two completely different experiences. The difference? What was happening inside them before they ever took a step.

That’s the thing about our thinking. It shapes everything. And most of the time, we don’t even realize it’s running the show.

This series is for anyone who’s ever wondered why the impulse to drink feels so automatic. If you’ve asked yourself that question, this is a good place to start.

🎙️Clear Conversations: Creative Minds in Sobriety

got sober at 20. Never had a legal drink in the US.

By that point he’d already moved to Australia alone with $2,000, gone off the rails on hard drugs, come back broke, and moved in with his parents. A stranger at the coffee shop where he worked saw something in him and suggested rehab.

He went. Sitting in rooms with people in their 50s and 60s who’d been at it for decades, he recognized himself in their stories. He saw where the road went.

He didn’t plan to stay sober forever. He just decided he couldn’t build the life he wanted while drinking the way he drank.

From there: Portland community college. Oregon State. Harvard PhD. Senior federal scientist. Congressional advisor during COVID. Then he and his husband rebuilt a dilapidated sailboat and sailed away from all of it. They’re currently anchored in Guatemala with almost no sailing experience when they left.

His take on fear: it’s information, not a verdict. He had an irrational fear of bears. He camped alone in Yellowstone anyway. He’s terrified of financial insecurity. He quit his job and took to open water anyway. What he’s learned is that the idea of the thing is almost always scarier than the thing itself. Once you’re in 10-foot swells with no option to turn back, you rise to it.

Sobriety taught him that first.

His Substack, Radical Paths, documents the whole transition in real time — no clean ending, no hindsight.

Radical Paths

Honest lessons for navigating radical life transitions — from a sailboat, in real-time, as I live what I teach.

By Cory Gerlach

You can listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as well.

My guest this week is with on May 14 at 2:00p EDT

This week I’m sitting down with Jessica Drapluk — nurse practitioner, former pediatric hematology oncology nurse, competitive hockey player, stock market analyst, and full-time Substack writer.

Jessica built NP Fellow: Become the CEO of Your Health around a simple but hard-earned conviction: most health content gives you information, but information alone doesn’t change anything. What changes things is capacity — the ability to stay regulated, make clear decisions, and keep moving when life doesn’t cooperate.

Her path through oncology nursing, competitive sport, and trading floors gave her a framework that most wellness writing skips entirely.

This is a conversation about what it actually looks like to build internal stability that holds, and what becomes possible on the other side of the patterns that have been quietly running the show.

NP Fellow Become the CEO of Your Health

A mental health & functional medicine newsletter helping you build emotional regulation, mental clarity, and health ownership.

By Jess, The Creator

If you are ready to shift your relationship with drinking, here’s how you can work with me.

Alcohol doesn't have to be the obvious problem to be the real one. Sometimes it's just the thing that makes incomplete recovery feel normal. The Sober Creative Method™ is 90 days, 1:1, built around restoring what alcohol has been quietly taking — your energy, your clarity, your creative capacity. Not willpower. Not labels. Just your system recalibrating.

Schedule a Free Clarity Session

If you have shifted your relationship with drinking and you want to be a part of a growing community, here’s how you can do that.

The hard part is behind you. What comes next is the work — the real creative work — and it goes better when you're not doing it alone. The Sober Creative Collective is where people on this path come to create, be witnessed, and build something that couldn't have existed before.

Join the Collective

He has been sober for 18 years. He got sober at 20. He never had a legal drink in the United States.

What comes through in this conversation is not a highlight reel. Cory writes about radical life transitions from the inside, in real time, through his Substack Radical Paths—documenting what it actually costs, what breaks down, and what emerges. He is currently anchored in Guatemala, living on 100 square feet of sailboat in over-100-degree heat. And he would not lead with that.

This episode covers what sobriety taught him about doing hard things, how he thinks about fear, and why he believes the struggle itself is where meaning lives.

If you have ever stood at a crossroads between the life you have built and the life you are drawn to, this one is worth your time.

[01:45] Introduction

• Teenage punk from an LA suburb who got sober at 20, went from Portland Community College to a Harvard PhD

• Spent years as a senior federal scientist and congressional advisor, including real-time COVID-19 briefings with members of Congress

• In 2024, rebuilt a dilapidated sailboat by hand with his husband and sailed away—nearly 5,000 miles up and down the East Coast, through the Bahamas, now anchored in Guatemala

• Writes weekly about radical life transitions through his Substack, Radical Paths

Key Insight: “What makes Corey’s story worth paying attention to isn’t the adventure itself—it’s how he thinks about change. He writes about radical life transitions from the inside, in real time... Not in hindsight, not with the benefit of a clean ending.” — Josh Woll

[02:15] Before Sobriety — A Small Life in a Big World

• Grew up in an LA suburb, came out in high school around 2003-2004, and used alcohol and drugs to cope with living in a world that was not welcoming of queer people

• Wanted out of LA badly enough that at 19 he flew to Australia with $2,000 and a one-way ticket, no safety net

• Australia’s drinking age was 18—one of the reasons he chose it—and within a week he was using hard drugs, including crystal meth

• After six months abroad, he came home flat broke, moved back in with his parents, and things got worse

Key Insight: “I know that’s a common thing that people can relate with—they call like geographics—where people deep in addiction will be like, oh, you know what I really need is just to move. Like that’s going to fix everything. And sometimes maybe that works, but a lot of times you just take your problems with you and start new ones.” — Cory Gerlach

[06:20] The Turning Point — A Customer, a Phone Call, a Friday Night

• A customer at the coffee shop where Cory worked recognized something in him—the man had a daughter who had struggled with heroin and he gently suggested rehab

• Cory called on a Friday. They could not take him until Sunday. He told them he would be fine—and that Friday night was the wake-up call

• He did not go into rehab thinking he would stop drinking forever. He thought his problem was cocaine. The realization came when he started identifying with people decades older whose stories matched his exactly

• He saw his future if he kept going, and he made a different choice

Key Insight: “I trusted that in order for me to really have to build a life that I wanted, I wasn’t going to be able to do it while drinking and using—because I knew the way that I did it was not in any moderation whatsoever. I never even had the fantasy of moderation and I was a total and complete mess.” — Cory Gerlach

[15:46] Sobriety as a Foundation — The Mirror Moment

• About a month into sobriety, still living with his parents, Cory caught himself in a mirror and felt something shift

• That moment cracked open a new belief: that being sober, having hope, forming real connections—that was enough

• He carried that anchor forward into everything else: community college, Oregon State, Harvard, government work, and eventually sailing

• The first year and a half of sobriety was the hardest thing he had ever done—and it set the template for every hard thing that followed

Key Insight: “I feel like a millionaire right now. I feel so... I feel like I have everything I need.” — Cory Gerlach

[20:43] From Harvard to Open Water — Building a Radical Path

• After finishing his PhD, Cory built an unusual government career—using his science background to advise on public health policy, including one-on-one briefings with members of Congress during COVID-19

• He and his husband eventually felt they had drifted from their core values of authenticity, adventure, and freedom

• They decided to go sailing with almost no experience—his husband had sailed small dinghies one season; that was the sum of it

• They bought a boat that needed massive work, moved to North Carolina, and spent 10 months rebuilding it by hand before it was sailable

Key Insight: “It wasn’t even like a question of like can I do it—it’s like do I want to do it? And also realizing that if I’m sober, I have everything I need.” — Cory Gerlach

[26:46] Fear Is Not a Stop Sign — It Is Information

• Cory describes himself as an ordinary person when it comes to fear—not wired like Alex Honnold, whose brain literally registers fear differently

• What has changed is his relationship to fear. He does not let it be the deciding vote

• He camped alone in Yellowstone to face his irrational fear of bears. He walked alone through New Orleans and Bogotá to face his fear of violence

• The finding, repeated every time: the idea of the thing is far scarier than actually doing it

Key Insight: “It’s not acceptable for me to let fear stop me from doing things... there’s things I want to do and my first thought is fear and then I’m faced with a decision about, okay, do I do it or not?” — Cory Gerlach

[37:35] Doing Hard Things Is the Point — Easy Is Not the Answer

• Cory pushes back on the idea that the goal is to find a shortcut—he does not advocate that anyone quit their job and become a sailor

• What he does believe is that real change requires committing to a timeline. In sobriety, it was “give yourself a year.” On the boat, it was the same

• Meaning does not come from achieving the dream. It comes from the work toward it—and from discovering that even after you get there, you will want something else

• The challenge is not an obstacle to the life. It is the life

Key Insight: “I don’t know anyone that’s really been able to do like a big life change—including sobriety—that didn’t require a shit ton of work, you know, at least one day at a time.” — Cory Gerlach

Key Quotes

“I trusted that in order for me to really have to build a life that I wanted, I wasn’t going to be able to do it while drinking and using—because I knew the way that I did it was not in any moderation whatsoever.” — Cory Gerlach

“Recovery and sobriety was like one of the first things where I learned that... doing hard things is actually okay. That’s how I get where I want to go next.” — Cory Gerlach

“It’s not acceptable for me to let fear stop me from doing things... there’s things I want to do and my first thought is fear and then I’m faced with a decision about, okay, do I do it or not?” — Cory Gerlach

“We’ve done hard things before and we can do them again.” — Cory Gerlach

“There isn’t really such thing as a happily ever after when we follow our dreams, per se. Things are hard along the way and we have fear and we struggle and we have challenges. We’re able to get through it over time. And over time, you start to have a life that you are really proud of and really love.” — Cory Gerlach

Resources Mentioned

• Free Solo (documentary) — Alex Honnold’s free climb of El Capitan; discussed in the context of how individuals experience fear differently

• Dark Wizard (documentary) — A climber and tightrope walker who operates without safety equipment; referenced when discussing the spectrum of risk tolerance

• The Revenant — Leonardo DiCaprio film; Cory’s mental image when camping alone in bear country

• “Geographics” — The phenomenon in addiction where someone believes moving will fix their problems; referenced from recovery culture

• Radical Paths — Cory’s weekly Substack newsletter documenting life transition in real time

Where to Find Cory

Radical Paths

Honest lessons for navigating radical life transitions — from a sailboat, in real-time, as I live what I teach.

By Cory Gerlach

Substack: Cory writes weekly at Radical Paths—stories about the real cost and reward of radical life change, told from a 30-foot sailboat somewhere in the Americas.

He also works one-on-one with people standing at their own crossroads—people who have built the career, hit the milestones, and still feel like something is off.

Thank You

A heartfelt thank you to , , , and everyone who joined us live for this conversation, and to for his honesty and generosity of spirit. Documenting a life transition in real time—without a clean ending, without the comfort of hindsight—takes real courage. This conversation is the kind that stays with you.

Is Something Holding You Back?

Cory talks about what happens when you have built the career, checked the boxes, and still feel like something is off. Alcohol often lives in that space. Maybe you have made the rules, reset the counter, had the conversation with yourself more times than you can count. Maybe you are not even sure it is a problem — you just know something keeps getting in the way.

Answer 10 questions, see clearly where you stand, and learn what your next step is.

It takes 5 minutes and it is completely free.

Start here with the free assessment

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