✨Weekly Insight
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.
Marya Hornbacher 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."
Jenn Ocken 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.
James Martin | Made By James 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 Jill DePhillip, CRNP-PMH 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.
🎙️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 Jonathan Hoban
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.