✨Weekly Insight
This one has the feels.
When I was in it, there was no way to feel what I feel now. I had to go through it. No one could say or do anything to change me. I had to make the decision myself. It’s not easy. And the truth is, it never will be. We are meant to face resistance. Challenges. Things that test us. Push us. Leave us feeling like what’s the point?
You know the whisper. It’s quiet. It’s asking more of you.
And when you answer, you wake up each day more alive than before.
✍🏻Essays
Staring at the popcorn on the ceiling. Thirty-one million seconds ahead of me. Day 1.
The commitment I’d broken repeatedly was now unbreakable. Each morning I’d told myself, “I’m not drinking today.” This time, it had to stick.
But here’s what I didn’t expect: the hardest part wasn’t trusting others to believe in me again. It was trusting myself.
You know the feeling. Making a plan and doubting it before the day starts. Committing to something and feeling the certainty slip. Telling yourself “just one”—the seed of doubt sprouts. Six beers later, trust wilts into nothing.
Five years sober, I’ve learned: trust doesn’t rebuild through willpower or grand gestures. It rebuilds through evidence. Small, unglamorous follow-through. The gap between “I don’t want to” and “I did it anyway.”
Week 9 of my 10-part series: how broken promises create a baseline you can’t escape, why your brain stops believing your own predictions, and the awareness practice that starts rebuilding trust—one observation at a time.
Week 9: Broken Trust in Sobriety
10 Pain Points of Sobriety is a weekly series where I explore the real pain points of quitting alcohol—the uncomfortable truths that surface when initial motivation fades. I didn’t need alcohol to be creative; creativity was already part of my life. Alcohol stole the time and energy I could have spent creating. It was my escape from feelings of inadequa…
💡Disrupt the Pattern
The family gathering. The tension spikes. Old patterns resurface.
And there’s the thought: “A drink would make this easier.” It promises to smooth things over, to take the edge off the stress.
But what if the drink is taking you offline from the clarity you actually need?
This episode breaks down what’s really happening when you reach for alcohol to manage family stress—and what changes when you stay present instead of numbing out.
Episode 011 - Disrupt the Pattern
Alcohol is the pattern. What happens when we disrupt it? This series explores what happens when we peel back the layers and reveal what’s been hiding underneath—your potential. It may be that your creativity feels blocked, leading to postponed projects. You push past your limits, leaving you drained. Or you stay small instead of taking a risk and trusti…
🎙️Clear Conversations: Creative Minds in Sobriety
This past week, I sat down with Anna Gibson, creator of “For the Masters: AI Creative Mastery,” who got sober around October 2024—over 60 days after years of smoking marijuana throughout her entire day. She wasn’t just smoking recreationally. She was smoking on the clock at her retail job, experiencing paranoia, watching her writing disappear into unproductive fog.
Anna spent years caught in the same cycle: smoke, feel unproductive, feel unhappy about being unproductive, smoke more. She’s a professional writer with over a decade of experience, but she couldn’t work. She couldn’t get it done. She described it as feeling like “a demon on your back”—doing things you don’t want to do, trapped in a pattern you can’t escape.
Then she found my newsletter. A simple “hey, thanks for subscribing” message became what she calls “a sign”—an angel popping up in her life at exactly the right moment. She made a decision that would transform everything.
The shift wasn’t gradual. Within days of getting sober, Anna went from creative paralysis to writing 3,000 words every morning. She now finishes entire articles before most people start their workday.
Here’s what she discovered about what clarity unlocks:
“I write 3,000 words a morning now, which is insane. I literally finish an article a morning. Every morning.”
That productivity revealed something deeper: her creative potential had been there all along, just obscured by the fog. Now she’s on a mission to help mid-career creatives close what she calls the “taste-skill gap”—that frustrating space where you can see what great work looks like but can’t consistently make it yet.
She’s building a library of over 100 AI prompts, teaching creatives how to use technology as a thinking partner without losing their authentic voice. And she told me something that captures the risk of autopilot living:
“I don’t want your 30 years, 40 years, 20 years, 10 years, five years of experience creatively to go down the drain because you used AI and now you don’t know how to not use it.”
Sobriety doesn’t just give you back your time. It gives you the clarity to do deliberate work that actually matters—work you’ll be proud of in five years.
You can listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as well:
My Next Guest on🎙️Clear Conversations
Episode 033 with Josh Woll on December 31th at 10:00a EST
What happens when the host becomes the guest? This week, I'm flipping the mic on myself—sharing my story, the messy parts, and the beautiful ones. Also what's coming next for The Sober Creative.
It's equal parts reflection, confession, and an open invitation for you to ask me anything. Fair warning: I might actually answer.
🎬 Behind the Scenes
Crafting 31 daily emails for the upcoming Sober Creative Reset. Yes. 31 individual emails. All different. All taking each person along a journey. Short. Guided. Intentional.
I think my holiday vacation will come in February…maybe. 😂
P.S. You can view past newsletter editions here.
What’s Next For You?
The 31-Day Alcohol-Free Reset begins this week.
This isn’t about labels.
It isn’t about forever.
It’s a focused experiment to see what your creativity feels like when alcohol is no longer in the way.
Clear mornings. More stable energy. Work that flows instead of stalls.
If you’ve been curious, this is the moment.
Not sure yet?
Alcohol may be quietly influencing your focus, energy, or creative confidence more than you realize.
I created a short 5-minute assessment to help you see how it’s showing up for you — without judgment or pressure.
Already clear — just want to talk it through?
You can book a free 1:1 clarity session.
No pitch. No pressure. Just clarity.
Each step forward is an act of becoming.
Thank you for being here.
Josh