Author: Contributor to The Sober Curator

When I re-entered the workplace as a nurse after getting in trouble with the state board of nursing, I was doubtful anyone would ever trust me or look up to me as they once did. I wasn’t even sure I even believed in myself anymore. Who was I without drinking a gallon of wine after work? Would I still be cynical and funny and relevant? Would I still be cool and fit in with the other nurses? Most importantly, would they judge me? Luckily, I was 1% more determined than afraid. More Determined Than Afraid My first few months back,…

Hey! What do you get when you cross members of the Phellowship (a group of sober Phish fans) with die-hard Packer fans? You get Section Yellow, the only sanctioned, fan-driven sober resource and ambassadors’ group in the NFL. In this video, I chat with Section Yellow’s founders John Plageman and Thomas Doughman about their experiences in getting the group started, the strength they’ve received from sober fans and their allies, and the hope to expand sober acceptance in an area where drinking is not just part of the culture, it’s often the whole thing. And we talk a bit about…

Willkommen zum Oksoberfest! Lincoln Park Zoo and Chicago AF are thrilled to host the all-new alcohol-free and adults-only version of Germany’s classic celebration, Oktoberfest! Visit tents and sample non-alcoholic beers and craft cocktails. Snack on brats and pretzels with mustard flights. Dance with hundreds of new friends to the fun polka sounds of a live Polka band. Snag a spot at a traditional communal-style Oktoberfest table and relax or explore the zoo’s animal habitats without all the crowds! Come for the mocktails, stay for the community. Want to learn about the history of Oktoberfest? Stop by and see our award-winning community partners, DANK…

Help Us End Ableism. When my son Max was born the geneticist said to me “You know there’s a pill you could have taken for that.” My son Max is an individual who happens to have Down syndrome. People look at him and think they know who he is, believe he has no value in the world, or diminish his chances by not giving him opportunities to show them what he can do. THAT is Ableism. He is now 14 years old and surfing, skateboarding, making art, taking photos with vintage film cameras, loves science and is an epic drummer.…

I found this book on a list of addiction-themed novels, but it is not what I would categorize as “addiction fiction,” since the main character isn’t an addict or alcoholic, and addiction is not a central theme. Chappie (later Bone) smokes a lot of weed, has a birth father and friends who are drug addicts and a stepfather who is an alcoholic, commits tons of crimes, was abused as a child, yet he never develops anything resembling an addiction. I kept waiting for it to happen, and was my primary motivation at times to keep reading, but instead this turned…

A little over two years ago, an email arrived that sparked an exhilaration within me, an individual on the path to sobriety, and a fervent sports enthusiast. The message conveyed that I had secured two tickets to a minor league baseball game, and these were no ordinary tickets—they granted access to the all-you-can-eat-and-drink section. The prospect of indulging in an endless flow of beverages aligned seamlessly with my history, yet this time, it was profoundly different. Die Hard (Sober) Sports Fan Those who know me are aware that I live and die by my support for the Milwaukee Brewers. I…

Beyond the Bar Bottle Shop and Events is creating a destination for the sober and sober curious offering a variety of NA beverages in Dallas.

Ashley Ryan is a podcast host, an award-winning screenwriter, producer, and personality who illuminates the little-understood aspects of philosophy, theology, history, and Western esotericism. Ashley has been a partitioner of the occult for over half her life working with candle magick, Tarot Cards, and Ceremonial Magick. After earning her BA in Philosophy and Theology, she was a professional ghost hunter/tour guide for two years. In 2019, Ashley began her online occult identity as her persona “Pythian Priestess” garnering thousands of followers and international press. Ashley Ryan is sharing her special Magical Mocktails for those looking to explore and expand their consciousness…

When the Tables Turn I’ve worked in a variety of settings in healthcare during my twenty-two years as an RN: Outpatient surgery, home health, ICU stepdown, skilled nursing, clinical education, family medicine, pharmaceutical sales, and so on. One thing I never thought I would do was be the director of nursing for an inpatient psychiatric unit. Until the tables turned, and I was patient in one. Flashback to 2016, I struggled with alcohol, pot, bulimia, anorexia, and severe anxiety. My life had fallen into the proverbial gutter. I was unemployed and unemployable. I had just received a letter from the…

Hey there, sports enthusiasts, and sober champions! Welcome to our revamped corner of the internet where we’re shaking things up and blending sports with sobriety. What? Sports? Here? Isn’t this supposed to be a site about #Quit-Lit, sober fashionistas, mocktails, and other stuff that is so not sports? Sports play a vital role in many of our lives, even during sobriety. We don’t hang up our cleats, stop cheering, or turn off the game when we embrace a sober lifestyle. Just like we don’t stop going to concerts, reading, or creating. Instead, we celebrate how sobriety adds a whole new…

Essential oils make an incredible addition to a sober support plan, as they can help you navigate various emotions by providing calming, relaxing, grounding, and uplifting effects. However, with countless essential oils available, it can be challenging to determine which ones suit your needs best. To ease your search, I’m delighted to share my top five favorite essential oils for sober support. I love them because: 1. They are known for their calming, relaxing, grounding, or uplifting properties. 2. They are budget-friendly options. 3. Each oil offers a unique aroma, ranging from woody to floral to citrus. 4. They are…

This is a beautifully written book that is quite different from the usual action-packed “Addiction Fiction” thrillers and crime stories I’ve reviewed so far. It was Leslie Jamison’s debut novel. The narrative is split between the first-person perspectives of Stella and her estranged aunt Tilly, a lifelong alcoholic and former prostitute who lives in isolation in the middle of the Arizona desert. The voices of these two characters combine to paint a picture of the family’s suffering across generations. Relationship and addiction problems run in the family, although they manifest very differently across the narrators and other characters. Stella suffers…

Lawrence Block has written 22 books featuring Matthew Scudder, his ex-cop/unlicensed private detective. Eight Million Ways to Die is the fifth in the series. I started here because I’m an Addiction Fiction nerd and this is the volume in which Scudder admits to being an alcoholic. Eight Million Ways to Die The book was published in 1982. It’s a time capsule that took me back to the New York City I knew as a kid. The subways were badly vandalized and covered in graffiti back then, taxis wouldn’t go north of 125th Street, and drug dealers ran Bryant Park. Pay…

I never thought this would happen. The milk sloshed in the Yeti mug in the cup holder in my car. I was driving like crazy to yet another mandatory UA drug test at the lab. It was 2018, and I enrolled in a program for nurses with substance use issues and committed to random UA a few times a month. This was willingly and begrudgingly to save my license from being restricted. I had downloaded an app on my phone that I would check in every weekday to see my fate. Had I been selected to UA today? The other…

The path to sobriety can be extremely challenging, but it’s also very rewarding. It’s a journey that demands coping mechanisms to deal with overwhelming emotions, and yet, you can find tremendous comfort in your new way of life. Aromatherapy can help you feel more in control of your experience because it offers very specific therapeutic benefits to support you through the ups and downs of the process. How Essential Oils Work Essential oils, the heart, and soul of aromatherapy, are composed of specific chemical compounds that indicate their distinctive benefits. When you inhale an essential oil, its molecules are swiftly “read” by the…

When I was approached in 2021 to write a column about fashion and the role it plays in our recovery, I thought it would be a fun, silly way to add glam to a not-so-glamorous topic. I signed off on blog posts with “Grace and Glam” as my signature line and felt that was all I had to say to the recovery metaverse. It was the height of the pandemic during that time, and the self-help arena exploded. I was happy to stick with fashion and style and not contribute to the self-help zeitgeist. Harnessing my energy, I dove into the world…

Season 2 of The Bear on Hulu takes a deeper dive into AlAnon gives us more insight on the cousins and delivers the fun in dysfunction.

Anyone who reads crime fiction is familiar with the alcoholic ex-cop private investigator character. Randy Chalmers is an ex-cop who gets sober and makes millions as an architect, but when his sponsor dies of an apparent overdose he steps into the role. He goes around town, roughing people up, shaking them down for information and trying to find out what happened and who was at fault. Deep down, Randy knows that it was his own fault – at least partially. Life got good for him in sobriety. He got busy and drifted away from AA and his sponsor. If he…

This is the first book by Michele Miller that I have read, and it was excellent. It starts as a hard-core zombie story set in NYC, with a great cast of characters. There are all of the requisite guts, gore, and brains splattering…. It is not my usual genre, but it is brilliantly done. The recovery aspect of the story is barely mentioned in the first few chapters. It comes on slowly and naturally. Eventually, the cast figures out that alcoholics and addicts are “immune” from the zombie disease (the Walking Dead can’t smell them), so they are ultimately the…

The Bear is a gritty authentic look at addiction from an Al-Anon perspective in this surprise, heavily hyped hit from Hulu.

I recently reached the one-year milestone and thought of my journey. I also thought of the people who helped get me here. My wife, my sponsor, and a few friends I met along the way in recovery. One thing that struck me was that my journey, although my own, was not alone. As an Army veteran, like many, I struggle with PTSD. With that comes feelings of isolation and anxiety once you leave the military family you’ve known most of your adult life. The feeling that it’s you against the world.  This bottle or pill may numb you long enough…

I distinctly remember having lunch with a friend in my late twenties when she gave me a little advice, “you can eat, or you can drink, but you can’t do both.” Choosing the empty calories and the mind-obliterating wine over the breadbasket was my vice. I hated my body anyways. My friend chided, “Let’s just call it a liquid lunch.” I learned that day that I could allow myself the calories of a few glasses of wine if I went hungry. A slang term refers to a self-imposed restriction of calories reserved for drinking. It’s called drunkorexia. But I didn’t…

I’m Lindsay, and I live in Knoxville, TN – well, Maryville, pronounced mur-vull, a smaller town between Knoxville and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I’ve been alcohol-free since June 2021, and I’m just now breaking out into the world of mocktails, NA beers, sober safe spaces, and socializing sober. Thankfully, being sober in Knoxville comes with an amazingly supportive sober community – complete with a sober bar, designated sober safe space coffee shop, and recovery-centric weekly yoga classes. When I started running the @soberinknoxville Instagram page, I didn’t know it would bring me in contact with the kind of…

Juniper Waller is a singer, songwriter, and vocal empowerment coach from Oakland, CA. Her main musical project is her funk-soul band, The Gold Souls. Juniper comes from a long line of singer-songwriters and also has a background in holistic healing, social justice work, and poetry. She has been sober since October of 2018, and much of her journey has been about learning to create in recovery. Juniper is also a vocal empowerment coach and breathwork guide helping people free their voices through guided vocalization and meditation practices. Through her business Voice Body Spirit, Juniper supports people in reclaiming their voices from past…

Day 90. This housewife wants to commemorate her ninety-days of continuous sobriety with a her very first … tattoo. This is our last episode of SEASON 2 BETSY. Featured Music by Jessica Wilde, Francis Lung, Judah Kim, Katie Burke, ⁠Jon Jeremy⁠,⁠ Natalia Zukerman⁠,⁠ Anne Heaton⁠, ⁠Pop Buchanan⁠, Matt the Electrician. Voice Talent by Katie Segal, Otis Gray, Bryan Fitzgerald, Socks Whitmore, Brooke Robichaud, Courtney Halford, Philip Vitela, & Katie Mack Executive Produced & Sound Design by ⁠⁠⁠Katie Mack⁠⁠ ⁠ Written by⁠ ⁠⁠Kimberly Kearns⁠⁠⁠Story Development by ⁠⁠EmJ Hova⁠⁠, Dillon Heape, and⁠ Katie Mack⁠Associate Produced by Brianna Janae & Maggie Stiggers SPECIAL THANKS to Alysse Bryson, The Sober Curator, Intentional Sidekick Training,…

The Creative Sober is a community of sober and sober-curious creatives looking to connect with others who are navigating sobriety, health, and spiritual awareness.

This is an exciting time to be sober or sober-curious, and it’s easier than ever to find delicious alcohol-free fare in beverage superstores, specialty bottle shops, grocery stores, and online. But, if your town is like mine, it’s not so easy to find more than one or two alcohol-free beer brands on the menu at a bar or restaurant. So, what’s an AF fan to do? Here are some ideas… and I encourage you to try them out! 1. Name it to claim it! Many bar and restaurant managers think that because guests don’t specifically ask for alcohol-free options, they…

Smoking is the leading preventable cause of chronic disease and premature mortality. Considering how much harm it does to the human body, smoking cessation is the best way to minimize the risk of illness and early death. The National Cancer Institute’s report on quitting highlights how stopping smoking can significantly reduce the risk of cancer and lung disease— cutting the risk of lung cancer by 30% to 50% after ten years compared to people who continue to smoke. In addition, cutting cigarettes out can improve cardiovascular health and fertility. However, it can be challenging to quit cigarettes due to their…

Based on Cheryl Strayed’s best seller, Hulu’s Tiny Beautiful Things is a highly relatable journey through self discovery

The Creative Sober is a community of sober and sober-curious creatives looking to connect with others who are navigating sobriety, health, and spiritual awareness. The foundation of the Creative Sober is our