Weekly Insight
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Noelle told me about the moment they knew. A camping trip five years ago, a sparkling water in hand, a sky with no light pollution. They said they were done, and this time they said forever. Until then it had always been “for now.”
That was one step. Noelle has taken a lot since. They moved across the country with nothing to fall back on, started a bakery, and now sell out at markets almost every weekend. Noelle told me quitting gave them the courage to look at what they’d done and ask what else they could do.
What I notice is what keeps it going, because for me it’s ordinary. A walk, ten thousand steps, outside when I can. Twenty minutes of meditation. Real sleep. A breath when something goes wrong, which Noelle said works even though it sounds too simple to matter.
None of it is exciting, and all of it decides how I meet a hard moment. When I skip the sleep, I get upset faster. When the foundation is there, I can look at what’s in front of me, say it happened, and take the next step.
That’s how a mountain gets climbed: one step, then another, with a body and a mind that were looked after the day before.
The climb is worth it.
Podcast
Noelle Richards had their first taste of scotch at nine. Drinks kept coming at family parties, and after losing their grandfather that same year, drinking became the way to get through a room. Five years ago, on a camping trip with a sparkling water in hand, Noelle decided they were done for good. Until then it had always been “for now.”
Sober, Noelle found a creative side they never knew they had. They went from hating crafts to making their own stickers and clothes, writing, and starting Foxglove & Flour, a vegan bakery whose skull cakes sell out at Portland markets almost every weekend.
Noelle told me about feeling everything now, and about what a nail in the tire the morning of a market and a tote of dropped pastries look like when you can breathe through them. We also got into flavors their customers dream up (blackberry lime, blueberry lavender cheesecake), baking with love, and how Portland’s keep-it-weird spirit helped them find their people.
A listener asked what to do in the moment when frustration hits, and Noelle’s answer was to breathe and give yourself grace.
“And it all started with just going, I’m done.”
You can listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as well.
My guest this week is Patti Clark on Friday, November 13 at 11:00A ET
At 13, Patti Clark was drinking until she blacked out. At 16, she lost her mother to alcoholism. Two days before her 30th birthday she went to an AA meeting on her own, and she stayed sober for more than a decade. Then she started drinking again. On November 1, 2014, she stopped for the second time. This time she says she did it for herself, because she wanted to like who she was.
Today she writes from Portugal and calls staying sober one of the most rebellious things a person can do in a world built around drinking.
This week on The Sober Creative Podcast, I’m talking with Patti, author of This Way Up and Recovery Road Trip, about the years she lost, the years she rebuilt, and the idea of recovery she’s still shaping.