I never really thought of myself as a creative person. In fairness to my badass, creative self, I think I previously held a really narrow understanding of what creativity looked like. For the longest time, I viewed it purely from the perspective of being an artist in the traditional sense. I can’t draw to save my life, I don’t make sculptures or installations and the only painting I’ve ever done is on the walls of various apartments over the years. It’s pretty comical to look back on my incredibly restrictive definition of creative and because I didn’t fit within it, I discounted myself from the category entirely.

Creativity shows up in many different forms and takes innumerable shapes. Now, creativity for me is making something out of nothing. Putting something out into the world that didn’t previously exist, which can take the form of drawing, music, poetry, non-fiction writing, photography, sculpture, a website, performance art and the list goes on. Some dictionary definitions still allude to creativity happening in artistic or professional arenas, and always involve original thought. While these definitions are fine, I like this definition, from Merriam-Webster, best: creative (adjective): marked by the ability or power to create. Also from Merriam-Webster: create (transitive verb): to bring into existence. What I like most about this definition is that it’s inclusionary; everyone has the ability and the power to create.

When I reflect on what my capacity for creativity was when I was drinking, I can’t help but feel it was immensely muted and watered down. Only because I am now on the other side of my drinking and in a place where creativity feels utterly abundant can I recognize that I wasn’t experiencing my innate creative flow to my fullest capacity. And to be brutally honest, no fucking kidding. How on earth could I expect myself to tap into my innate creative genius when I wasn’t tapped into any other part of my authentic self?

That’s what drinking was for me. It was a tool I used excessively to numb myself and to create space between myself and my feelings; it was a tool to disconnect. What I learned by living through it and reflecting on it, is that when you numb one part of you, it has a ripple effect. Everything is muted and numbed. It can’t be done selectively. In other words, I couldn’t numb my intense feelings without also numbing my creative capacity. And that’s what I did. Repeatedly and for years.

Since getting sober 4.5 years ago, my creativity has slowly but surely returned. Some days, it pours out of me like molten lava. That’s not to say that every day I exist in creative flow; like everything else, it ebbs and flows but what’s most important is that it’s back and I am back and able to access it. When I was drinking, there was no ebb. Or flow. Just a disconnected, foggy-minded, whittled down shell of me. She wasn’t creating because she wasn’t present. She didn’t know who she was.

When I think about my drinking days, one of the things that I noticed (and what so many clients have shared) is that drinking takes/took up so much of their time - thinking about when they can drink next and counting down the minutes, planning what those drinks would be and who they would be enjoyed with, how to keep the booze flowing, the actual time spent consuming alcohol plus the time spent (and wasted) hungover and recovering from what they had done the previous night. Reflecting back on this, being in my active addiction was not only all-consuming but utterly exhausting. In such an exhausted, tuned-out state, it makes sense that I had little time or capacity for creativity. As you might expect, in the early days of my sobriety, I found that I had a lot of time on my hands as I had removed the thing that had been consuming my time, attention, energy and focus for years. This allowed for lots of time to reflect but what this also introduced into my life was boredom. A lot of it.

As a person, I generally used to despise boredom. Admittedly, as someone who mostly has a full life with lots of interesting projects and people that I put my time and energy into, boredom isn’t something I experience too often. Boredom plays an interesting role in its relationship to creativity and sobriety. For many people, boredom is entirely intolerable and as a result, they often end up drinking more in an effort to combat this experience. This has never been more true than during covid, where boredom is cited by many as one of the primary factors driving their drinking behaviour. For example, in the early days of covid, 44% of Canadian women surveyed cited boredom as the reason they were drinking more now than they had pre-covid.

What’s interesting about boredom is that it’s often necessary for creativity to blossom. Let’s think about that for a second: when we feel boredom coming on, what’s our immediate response? We likely reach for our phone, turn on the tv, text a friend, eat something, drink something, mindlessly scroll social media, repeat. What these activities provide us with is a distraction from boredom but they also create mental clutter, reducing the amount of time and space we give ourselves to mentally breathe, let our minds wander and daydream. And in many cases, creativity sparks in those open spaces of mental wanderlust.

Sobriety presents us with a unique and magical opportunity to embrace boredom as a direct avenue to foster and cultivate the creativity that lies within us all. As someone who has come to value my creativity infinitely, this perspective on sobriety, boredom and creativity feels incredibly helpful. If you’re someone who is looking to expand and enrich your creative capacity, ditching the booze is a helpful first step in this deeply rewarding endeavour. The relationship between sobriety and creativity is cyclical, supportive and mutualistic; sobriety supports creativity and creativity serves as a healthy outlet in sobriety.

As a sober creative, in the last 2 years alone, I have written almost 50 articles, designed and built a website, built a business from scratch, created numerous videos, developed coaching programs and offerings for my clients and the list goes on. Thank goodness I ditched my traditional definition of what it means to be creative and embraced a more encompassing, holistic version. And thank goodness I ditched the booze. My drinking kept me disconnected from myself and subsequently, my creativity. Now, I create therefore, I am creative. And this is 100% made possible through my sobriety.

As a drinking person, I discounted so many parts of myself. I wasn’t confident in myself. I didn’t trust myself to make decisions in my best interest or believe I could handle the aftermath of those decisions. I didn’t think I could manage big, intense emotions. I didn’t think I was creative.

By returning home to myself in my sobriety, I forged a connection to my creativity as well. Sobriety has offered me the gift of presence, groundedness, authenticity and has allowed me to remember who the fuck I am. This version of me, who shows up unapologetically as exactly who I am, is the version of me that oozes creativity.

The point is this: I completely dismissed many key parts of myself because of my relationship to drinking. Those parts of me were disconnected and I didn’t nurture them because I didn’t think there was a point. Only through my sobriety, have I not only reconnected to these essential parts of myself that make me me; I’ve also learned how to harness them so that they serve me. Knowing what I know now about myself and more broadly, what I have found in sobriety, there is no way I’d return to a life that watered down and made invisible these vital parts of me.

My question to you, then, is: what lies within you that you’ve been hiding and are you willing to go looking for it? What “truths” have you been telling yourself for years that might actually be lies and are you willing to embrace the whole, real you? What would be possible for you if you weren’t drowning in a sea of alcohol and are you willing to step into that possibility, even if it’s scary? What lies beneath the surface and can you look below? Aren’t you just a little bit curious and will you step into that curiosity?

I bet the multitudes you contain will surprise you.

JOLENE

By Susan Schuler

I wrote this piece to honor those who I have loved and lost, but cannot forgive.

I stood in the driveway, looking up at the tiny cottage Jolene called home. Its vacant stare glared back at me, asking what the hell took me so long. From behind the house, I could hear waves lashing at the beach where my twin sister spent her final days, gazing at the water through milky, distant eyes.

            The last time I found Jolene out on that beach, her thin body had gone beyond frail. When I wrapped my arms around her, she felt like a tiny bird pinned against my chest. I held her close as she placed a kiss on my cheek. 

“I love you,” she whispered into my ear.

I found the spare key in its hiding place and let myself in. Sunlight slanted in through the windows and illuminated the paper butterflies hanging from the ceiling. Each delicate one hand crafted and positioned by the hospice nurse who cared for Jolene when she could no longer care for herself. My sister told me the nurse had her own set of hidden wings, because only an angel could be so caring and selfless.

            That same butterfly nurse stood by my side as strangers drifted through the funeral parlor, offering condolences and memories I did not share. Together, we watched as each mourner knelt in front of the carved wooden box, only the two of us knowing the casket was empty.

The cottage’s tiny living room was a shrine to Jolene’s collection of spiritual decorations, all of them inscribed with words of encouragement and inspiration. Poems and prayers plastered every wall, every surface, every pillow.

She spent a lifetime collecting all those words, a lifetime much longer than the doctors predicted when she came out of the womb with half a heart, followed by her unexpected and entirely healthy twin.

            My eyes drifted to a set of open French doors. In the sunroom beyond them, I saw the collapsed metal frame of Jolene’s hospital bed, crouched in a corner like a dead, dried-up spider.

             The house no longer felt comfortable. With an afghan wrapped around my shoulders, I found the path to the beach, overgrown and narrow. I thought of Jolene, following this path every day she was here, the last of them in the arms of the butterfly nurse.

I slid off my shoes and walked on cold sand. Patches of salty plants bordered the shoreline, brittle and dormant in the gray of April. Soon they would transform back to life and beckon an unusual variety of butterflies. Hundreds of them came to rest and feed on the thorny vegetation, taking a break on their path of migration. The Monarchs were always Jolene’s favorites.

            The ocean had begun its retreat and I knew the low tide would leave a bunch of used up sea junk in its wake. The regurgitated stuff the water no longer had use for. The thought brought back that final memory of my sister. 

            She sat with her back to the ocean, curled up in her chair and wrapped in a butterfly printed shawl. Her lips moved around words I could not hear. I leaned in and followed her gaze to the swarm of Monarchs hovering above a thatch of milkweed.

            “Angels,” she whispered as her far-away eyes found mine. “Angels are here to take me away.”

            I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her tight as she placed that final kiss on my cheek.

When I lifted her from her chair, her weight barely registered in my arms. I carried her into the ice-cold sea, cradling her until I could no longer keep her above the water. When I let her go, the ocean claimed her, leaving behind the butterfly shawl to float on the surface like a rare jellyfish. I watched as Jolene’s body drifted away, knowing it was time for those angels to come find her. 

The night turned pitch black as I made my way back to the cottage. Upstairs in the attic I chose my usual room, decorated with the faded images of a children’s book. A candle sat on the bedside table next to a box of matches. The flicker of its flame kept me company as I finally found sleep.

            The sound of a breath and the smell of the extinguished wick woke me from my slumber.

“Jolene?” My voice cracked with hope, my mind still buried in my dream of her.

             At the foot of my bed stood a woman. A woman long decomposed, drenched in sea water, slick with algae, her skin sagging from her salt softened bones.  As she came into focus, my eyes searched her face as my heart begged for her not to be my Jolene.

Her one remaining eye moved beneath a film of gray and white. She opened her mouth, her jaw snapping and breaking, her lips curling and oozing into a death smile. She watched me cringe away from her, tilting her head as if asking me why.

And then she spoke.

The sound of my name in the depths of that voice was too much to bear. I felt an acute pain stab my heart, pressure building. I gasped for breath as I was struck with the panic of fear and helplessness.

Jolene had felt the same. I saw it on her face when she realized I had brought her into the ocean to die. Her eyes came to life with an intensity I no longer knew she had. She reached for me, grasping for my arms, but I pushed her frail body under and held her there, her brief struggle an insignificant flutter against my strength and the pull of the sea.

Guilt and sorrow replaced the selfish illusion I had created about her death, a lie to erase the shame of ridding myself of the burden that was my sister. I stared at the visitor in my room, her skeletal hand reaching for mine. When we touched, my heart seized with pain, and I knew, this time, my version of an angel had come.

I followed my angel down Jolene’s path. The tide was low, and the beach had tripled in size. I crawled along the packed sand, wheezing and clawing at my chest, and when I reached the dark water, I sank into its depths, the pain numbed and subsided. The rhythm in my chest I had taken for granted all my life came to a halt. A final shudder and my envied heart became a dead bird trapped forever in the wrong cage.

Eager waves tugged at my body and drew me into the unforgiving sea. As I floated on my last breath, watching the first beam of light on the new day, I saw, dancing along the water’s surface, one magnificent Monarch butterfly.