How Quitting Drinking Super-Charged My Creativity
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When she quit drinking five years ago, coach Tara Jackson never expected that she'd experience such a boost to her creativity
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I’m coming up to my five year anniversary of quitting alcohol. I did it for health reasons including major digestive issues, anxiety and fluctuating moods. It began as only a ‘year-off’, as so much of my social life revolved around drinking and I didn’t want to completely cut that out of my life. But, when I got to the year mark my whole life had changed – including moving countries, and so much good had happened in my life, that there was no way I was going back.
Growing up I always had some self-initiated creative project on the go, from tie-dyeing t-shirts and making fairy houses, to playing make believe with my friends. I even did an art degree in London, thinking I would end up in a creative field. But that didn’t happen. Straight after graduating I fell into an administration and PR job and alcohol became my companion and way to let loose. I stopped prioritising my creativity, and whilst I used some creativity in elements of my work, it felt like a big part of me had gone.
Fast forward 15 years to when I was six months into my no drinking year, which also happened to be right when the pandemic hit. I was actually in the home where I grew up in Nairobi, Kenya and got stuck there alone with my youngest brother who has multiple special needs. I didn’t want to be there. I felt alone and miserable and wanted to be in London with all my friends and the life I had come to know for the past two decades.
As I wasn’t drinking alcohol I no longer had my go-to to escape and numb out. I definitely turned to some other ways including bingeing TV shows and went down some YouTube rabbit holes. But as with alcohol, I found doing this would dull my mood even more and leave me feeling worse than before. It also contributed to me sleeping badly and I would wake up every night for a few hours, anxiety in my belly, unable to go back to sleep.
This happened for a couple of months, until something inside of me, a part that I had pushed down for years, was nudging at me to dig out some of my old art supplies.
I eventually listened and the flood gates to my creativity opened. I felt so much joy and connection from painting again. I was painting just for me, experimenting with colours, expressing what I felt and letting it be messy. It gave me a warm feeling of connection inside and also felt like an escape, but this time in a way that wasn’t numbing or harming my health like alcohol had done. It was what I was looking for with alcohol, but this deeply fulfilled me, even after I stopped painting or drawing for the day.
As I continued painting and expressing just for me, I ended up creating a series of paintings (66 in total) which turned into an oracle card deck. This was a dream I had secretly harboured for years. Up to this point I didn’t really believe was possible, as I certainly wasn’t taking any action on it. But now it seemed to just happen without me even trying.
All areas of my creativity exploded and I wrote another three books in the next two and a half years (I had just published my first when I first stopped drinking) and creative ideas for new offers and services in my business were flowing.
It was like the creative fire I had once accessed was re-kindled, and all the pent up creative energy I was holding in now had a release.
There were also positive knock on effects in all areas of my life:
My self-confidence increased as my overall health got better. I found that being back in flow with my creativity made me feel good about myself, so I didn’t want to binge or eat things that didn’t make me feel good.
I began to sleep well again and would have vivid dreams which to this day contribute to my creativity and ideas, both for my own business and creative projects as well as to support my clients.
Since then I have found that, like the seasons, my creativity is cyclical. This can link to a few things including my menstrual cycle, the seasons in the year, or the season of a particular creative project. There are times when it pours out of me and feels limitless. Then there are times when it feels like it’s in winter and not much outward is happening, but I know seeds are being planted ready to flourish in the right time.
Stopping drinking definitely re-connected me with my creativity and opened me up to the benefits of it in more ways than I could have imagined.
Tara Jackson is an author and creativity coach
