Latest / The Sober Creative Podcast / Episode 069 - One Panel At A Time

Transcript

Episode 069 - One Panel At A Time · The Sober Creative Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome everyone to The Sober Creative Podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Every guest has done the same hard thing.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: They've become honest about what was getting in the way.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now they're creating from a space that's actually theirs.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Josh Woll, and I'm honored to bring you today's guest.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Tiffany Yaxley has been drawing since she can remember.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Online, she's known as the graphical bear.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: And she makes cartoons and comics to make sense of real life,
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: especially the messy emotional work of getting sober.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Tiffany lives in the Canadian Rockies with her husband and her dog.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: She stopped drinking in May of 2022,
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: and she'll tell you that choosing sobriety changed her life for the better.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: It also expanded her something she didn't expect.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: As she stepped into clear-minded days,
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: she found herself feeling far more than before and came to understand
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: that what she had been calling ordinary hard times was depression,
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: something she had to face and work through.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Her comics became the translation.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Once she could draw it as a strip, she could see it more objectively, let it go, and keep going.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Through that process,
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: she also found community,
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: sought professional help, and learned how to move forward one panel at a time.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: The graphical bear herself is basically Tiffany, navigating the world the best she can.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Tiffany loves a good chart or graph,
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: and she works with them into her comics to show the relationships
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: between life's variables in ways that are funny and a little too accurate.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Some of her comics are serious, some are just silly, like life, I suppose.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: In today's conversation,
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: we'll talk about using art to process what you can't say out loud,
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: what showed up when the numbing stopped,
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: how her definition of a good Friday night has changed.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Lead us up to here.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, I mean, I'm Canadian.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: I grew up in a small town in northern British Columbia.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean,
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think like a lot of places,
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: particularly small towns, sometimes there's like not tons to do.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: I was a pretty avid athlete and I always had a job and stuff in high school,
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: but my friends drank quite a bit and I saw it a lot.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think I had my first drink.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, actually it was New Year's 2000 for the, the millennium.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: Cause I was 16 and my boyfriend's through my boyfriend at the time through a party
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: in his dad's logging truck garage.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I had like four Mike's hard lemonades and I was supposed to share them
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: with my friends and I didn't.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I woke up with a red sugar hangover and mom's like, here's an Advil.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the life.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: And, uh, I actually didn't drink that much after that in high school.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: I was a bit pretty busy.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, First year university, I was pretty mellow, kind of focused on the studies.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then I kind of got into my major with a bunch of my,
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: I took geology, got into that group, really found a group of friends.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, in university, it's pretty big party culture, right?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where I really kind of developed this image,
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: I guess would be the way I would describe it
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Basically being kind of a party girl really started to define me.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I've always been entertaining and outgoing and kind of goofy.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, I was a figure skater.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: I love to perform.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: I like being the center of attention.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: And the more you kind of drink, you do sillier and sillier things.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like all of Western Canada has seen my butt because I think mooning is hilarious.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, you get this reputation of being like that girl.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I was that girl until...
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: I spent the better part of 20 years really developing and building this kind
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: of image that after a while I really wasn't happy with but I didn't know how
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: to change it for quite some time.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so when did you start noticing that you wanted to change it?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I was lucky enough that when I was,
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: I can't remember, maybe 10 or 11,
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: my dad actually had stopped drinking
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: He and I are super similar and he was the entertaining guy at the parties and did
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: a lot of things that were goofy and fun and he had a similar reputation of
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: an entertainer and he just quit drinking cold turkey and I didn't really know,
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: I was too young to kind of understand.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: But as I got older,
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: I had this role model that I was like,
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: okay, if dad could quit in his mid-30s, I can.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: And kind of from about 30 years old till 38, I wasn't happy with who I was when I drank.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: But I would drink enough that I would pretend I was.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: And you get these dopamine hits from people giving you attention when you do crazy shit.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: That you kind of don't know how to let it go.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: But my husband is amazing.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: I got married when I was quite young.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: I was 25.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: And he's always been super supportive.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: And he was really the only person who would see me like with the anxiety,
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: you know, when you're hungover and you're just all the emotions are worse.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: You feel like a massive failure.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: You have all the shame by, you know, flashing the bar and breaking your bra.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: And you're like, oh, great.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: That was awesome.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: I feel really stupid now.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: You shouldn't do that at a nightclub.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: And he would see it
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: where I'm just laying on the floor of the kitchen in a puddle
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: of sadness and shame.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: It was a big one.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I was just like, I don't want to do this anymore.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Why am I here?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then I'd have a week of being like, okay, I'm not going to do this again.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to have one or two drinks and be And I was always trying to find
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: that moderation and what I called the unicorn amount.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I did it a couple of times where I'm like, I only had three drinks.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: I could do it.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: I can moderate.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: But a lot of times after drink number two,
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: especially on a Friday, was like the TSN turning point.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's a Canadian reference.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: So it's our ESPN.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: The TSN turning point was drink number two or three.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: And then I'm like, it's on.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: We're going.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I never drank really much.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: My butt's coming out.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: My butt is coming out.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: People are going to see things.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't drink much during the week, but I was a very classic binge drinker.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: And Friday was the go time.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I got really scared once when I discovered myself at work.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I was in a bit of a stressful job at the time.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it was Friday at 10 in the morning.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, I can't wait to go have a drink after work.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know what made me notice it, but it kind of caught me off guard.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like,
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: this is a little weird that I'm having this extreme craving
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: to just go get absolutely shmammered.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: And it's 10 a.m. on a Friday because I want to escape what I'm doing right now.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: And that's when I really started to think about that.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: And that was five or six years ago where I was like, this might be a problem.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean,
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: and that's where I think it's a good lead way into,
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: it's like you give up drinking and you would think that things would become easier.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you would.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: And they are not.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: No way.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Even six years into this shit, it's still not easy.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: What do you want to know next?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I mean,
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: like you're realizing that Like, yeah,
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: it could,
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: it could just continue to feed,
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: you're feeding the beast,
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: you know, with, with like, okay, it's 10 a.m. now and I'm trying to fix this.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's like, so what, how did you end up stopping?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I did a lot of like, okay, I'm going to do dry January.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to do sober October.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I tried that a lot and I get to three weeks and I was like, fuck it.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: This is dumb.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and, and, And I was really disappointed in myself that I couldn't stick to it.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I was actually scrolling through Instagram and I saw an ad
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: for this program called One Year No Beer.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: And clearly my phone had listened to the fact that I wanted to stop drinking
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: because, of course, I was probably hungover one day saying I'm never drinking again.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't like a big rock bottom moment for me.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, it was almost a little bit like anticlimactic where I...
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: I saw this ad for this one year no beer thing.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: And honestly,
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: the reason I clicked on it is because it was like making a joke about like IBS
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: and alcohol affecting your bowels.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: And he was like on a toilet and I was laughing.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so I clicked on it.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: And sure enough, they had these programs for like 30, 90 a year challenges.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I joined the 30 day one.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: And
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: it was cool for me because it was a group that was completely separate from my life.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't know me.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't know who I was.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, I can maybe do this with some of this support.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I can do 30 days.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I was going on a business trip to Ontario.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: And it was nice because I was alone.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I was listening to an audiobook called This Naked Life,
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for me.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I really related to Annie.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I, you know, I wasn't waking up in ditches.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't have a bad career.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like I felt like almost like an average person.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm like, why do I need help?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not, you know, falling apart here.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: But, um,
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: between kind of some of the coaching from the one year,
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: no beer group,
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: seeing people who are doing the same thing,
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: who were like normal, but just wanted to slow down, helped me.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it was really funny because my husband, um,
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: He told me later that he's like, I didn't think it was going to stick, Tiff.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: Not because I don't think you could do it, but because you tried a lot and it never stuck.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then when I got to like 90 days, I was like, Keith, look at this.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm 90 days.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: And he was like, holy shit, you're doing this and I'm super proud of you.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I wouldn't have been able to do it had I kept trying to do it alone.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like finding that community was kind of a fluke.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because of a funny ad, but that's really what
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: spun the catalyst for really taking it seriously.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: And when I was on that business trip in Ontario,
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: one of the coaches, we did a coaching session as a group.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, hey, I haven't drank for 10 days.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: And her reaction literally was like, oh my god, that's amazing.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, whoa.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe this is the little dopamine hit I need that's more positive
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: than my friends clapping for me when I fall off a stage.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: So getting that support.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: So that was kind of where I had that mindset change of like, I can really do this.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then I did that business trip, which are always hard.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like you're driving, it's long hours, you're on, you're doing client meetings.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I came back from it and I wasn't a wreck.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: like I'd gone to conferences,
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: I'd gone on business trips, and I'd partied during them.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I felt like a bag of shit the whole time.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then I get home and I'm trying to catch up on all this work and I'm not sleeping well.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I did this trip and I was like, wow, I'm good at my job, but I'm not hungover.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I had a lot of these kind of positive outcomes of not drinking early on
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: that really helped me see kind of How this could be a better way, you know?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: We were so good.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we share very similar paths.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Annie's book was big into shifting my mindset.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then I had heard of When You're No Beer.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: And at the time,
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, I didn't sign up, but it was inspiring for me to commit to one year.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like, yeah, it was something about the 90 days that was like, this is it.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: I knew this was going to be my life.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, it takes a bit for it to work itself out of your system.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: But then it's, yeah, it's like once it's in place, you know, you're building from there.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like the year is cool because you can say, okay, I'm going to do this for a year.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: So I have to do my birthday.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: I have to do summer patio season.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: I have to do Thanksgiving, I have to do Christmas, New Year's, my other friend's birthdays.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: Once you've kind of done it for a year,
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: if you succeed at doing the things, it builds on that success.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: And then you're like, well, I did this friend of mine's birthday sober.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: I can do the next thing.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: So you get a couple of wins and then you start to believe that you can do it.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: The first six months for me was definitely the hardest.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: I quit in May.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: So it was like summer time.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: Which is, you know, everyone goes for a mountain bike ride and then has a beer.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: Lots of birthday parties, lots of patio time.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: We have a short summer season up here.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, it was, first six months was hard.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: And you're trying to figure out who you are in those scenarios, too.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: And that was probably the hardest part for me,
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: was kind of like figuring out who I was and who I wasn't.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: I felt so self-conscious at every event if I wasn't holding a drink.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: I probably went through a case of non-alcoholic beer weekend because I'm just like,
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what to do here.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm drinking at the pace that I used to drink,
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: which also scared the shit out of me because I'm like,
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: I just had nine non-alcoholic beers on a Friday.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so full.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: I have to pee all the time.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: But you're kind of waiting for the buzz.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, this is terrifying that I would drink that much.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: But I just had to have something to do with my hands.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I feel so self-conscious right now.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: I got to just So it did a couple of things.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: It made me realize just how fast I was drinking and also kind
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: of just helped me figure out that I could be there and no one actually gives a shit
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: if you're drinking or not.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone's in their own head so much.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: I had like maybe a half dozen of my friends a few times be like, aren't you having beers?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, no, I'm driving.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: Or I started to make excuses early on to help me feel I'm like,
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: oh, I'm doing a 90-day challenge.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: Things like that, just because my friends were really surprised.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: But after the first six months,
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: people really picked up on, oh, Tiff's not leading the party charge.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I was blown away at how many people,
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: after they kind of realized I was doing a pretty big lifestyle change,
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: came up to me or messaged me and was like,
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: I kind of want to slow down the drinking too, Tiff.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: If you can do it.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe I can.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: How did you do it?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, what?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: You're not sad that I'm not entertaining you?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: What?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: So there was a lot of revelations in this first six months, but it was really hard.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: Because you're becoming a new person,
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: and the new person is actually who you are, not who you think you should be.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's so beautiful.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean,
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: it's so like, I mean,
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: you lay it out so perfectly because, I mean,
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: it's like really,
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: we don't get three days,
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: we don't get seven days,
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: before something happens that,
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: even one fucking day where it's like,
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: I need a drink and it's embedded in everything.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's,
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: and it's,
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: we haven't really developed like,
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: The systems in society to replace alcohol in regards to what we need
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: with like emotional regulation and connection and all that.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's just, yeah,
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: it's the thing that works,
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: you know, because it's like everywhere and it quickly does its job.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: And But yet it fucking makes things worse the next day and the day after and all that.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: So much worse.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: So much worse.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's something that was cool too is early on you start to see the physical effects.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: Sleep was a big one, you know.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I liked going to parties or the bar or something and being the person
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: that Instead of trying to vie for everyone's attention,
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: I could just like kind of hang back and listen and learn lots of stuff
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: and not be like in this like competitive trying to be the one who's running
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: the conversation.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: And when you watch other people do it when they're,
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: you know, five or six strings deep, you're like, this person's annoying as hell.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: That was me so much.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm so not okay with who that was.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not judging other people at all because I'm the last person to judge.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm so proud and happy of being the person who can hang back and chill out
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: and contribute to a conversation when it is of value versus just trying to be
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: the loudest.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: That felt really cool.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: I really liked that.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: And then I also was like, oh, I like...
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: See in live music.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: I love dancing.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: I love doing those things.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't love it after 1130.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm tired.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I want to go to bed.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: And now I'm like, I can go and do those things and really enjoy myself.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: Truly enjoy myself.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: And see who I want to be.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then be like, hey guys, cool.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm out.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: You have fun.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: Call me when you need a ride home.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of thing.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I kind of figured out what I actually like and what I thought I liked.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like I said before.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: Turns out I don't like staying up super late.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: Turns out I don't like arm wrestling.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: There was just stuff that I was kind of known for.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: It was hard to kind of mourn the person I was, too.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: You full on have to let go of who you were.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: When you see people you hadn't seen in a while after quitting drinking
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: and they're like, Tiff, let's
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: go, let's party.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: We got to do this.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, well, so I don't do that anymore,
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: but I'm still fun.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: I promise.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: That was hard.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: That was really hard because you feel like you're letting people down.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: But most people are pretty accepting.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: And if they're not, then they're probably not your people, right?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's just not.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, change being so constant,
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: it's tough to let go of relationships and things that You do end up changing.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I mean,
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: it's like at the end of the day,
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: it's about you and the support that you have for yourself and the relationship
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: that you build with yourself.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I mean, that's so good celebrating you.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think a lot of people can relate to that kind of thing too, right?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: You feel like it's just easier when you're drunk to be in those situations.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: Because you're social and your guard is down.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: But it's so much more healthy and rewarding and exciting to be authentic, right?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: Also, I'm a way better dancer when I'm sober.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: I never fall over, or rarely.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: So I might have to bring back the worm,
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: which my husband has told me I should retire because I've
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: had some injuries.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: So you said
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: you ice skated too, right?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that would go well if you were drinking.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: It does not.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: It does not, no.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, you have more coordination.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing that just blew my mind,
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: and I drew a few comics about this,
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: was when I was growing up, I did ice skate pretty seriously.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: And we did a lot of 6 a.m. ice times.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I've always kind of been a morning person.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: I love getting up super early and kind of being the first one awake and hanging the dog out.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: I've rented the ice here in Golden a couple of times and just gone and done figures
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: and then done my own choreography to headphones while
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: the Zamboni driver thinks I'm crazy.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: But it's mornings are a special time.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I lost so many of those just being like epically hurting or getting up
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: and having to walk the dog and puking in a snowbank and then going back to bed
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: and being like, man, I didn't.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't there for her.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: She needed a better walk than that.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I've wasted half a day.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know,
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: those rare times when I was drinking,
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: but I had a morning that I got up early and got to enjoy it and see the sunrise is,
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: you know, it was so awesome.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then you're like,
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: why am I,
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: why am I foregoing this for what I don't even remember happened last night,
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: you know?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: So.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: Mornings were something that I just value so hard
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: and didn't really realize how much I liked them in the quiet.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: But I'd grown up being up so early doing things before so many people.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: And you feel like a little superhero when you can take advantage of the morning.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was the same.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like you're speaking my language and this is what I do.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, I never thought I would be someone that gets up at 4 a.m.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like...
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: But it is, it's so chill in the morning.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the thing, too,
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: is I realize everybody's built different,
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: and the night might work better for people.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: But I switched up.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of going to the gym,
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: I've been waiting for the sunrise and then walk and do my walk and see
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: the sunrise every morning, given that it comes out.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: But it's just,
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: when I'm walking home or like,
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: And at the beginning of my day,
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: and I'm just seeing the sun like kind of hit my glasses and reflect through
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: the glass.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like thinking like, yeah, the other day I was like, how many of these did I miss?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's the cover of my book is like me and the dog walking in the mountains.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: And there's something that's so beautiful that happens here called Alpenglow.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: So...
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: In my neighborhood, there's a loop.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: We live on a circle street and I refer to it as the poop loop because me and
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: the dog go around it and she poops.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: But at certain times a year when the sun rises, it hits the mountains.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: And when they're snowy, it's like hot pink on the very like tops of the peaks.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: And in the winter, it happens pretty often.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it's one of those things that you can only catch it right at sunrise.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: It only lasts like half an hour.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: And usually like Kind of January, December, January is like when it's really best.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's something I'll never give up.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: even if it's minus 30,
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: you go out and you do the poop loop and you see the hot pink mountain peaks.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, this is incredible.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: What a great way to start your day.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I just, I just would never have had that.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: Particularly on weekends when I can really enjoy it.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: Because during the work week, it's like a fast poop loop and then into the office.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I always knew I was a morning person and getting those back just,
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: it sounds like a, it's a way bigger deal than I thought it would be.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I had no idea how much I would love it.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: So let's jump into your, the comics.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me more about that.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: I believe you've been drawing since a kid too?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I've always been drawing and coloring and painting.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I think mom told me a story that I dumped an entire bag of flour out in
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: the basement and made a whole world out of it.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: She's pissed.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I love art and I always have.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I've never really been formally trained in it.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: I took one, like I did a science degree in undergrad.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I took art in high school a little bit and stuff.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: I always found, like, you know how they talk about your flow state?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: When I'm drawing or painting, that's when I get into that flow state.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: And about 12 years ago, in 2014, I came up with this character.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I called her the graphical bear.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I drew the very first bear
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: two days after I was at a Halloween party.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_02: I spent a lot of my young So we're in the city and we're at my friend's Halloween party.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: And again, I got completely shit canned.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: I ended up spending the night in her house and puking a lot in her bathroom in the next morning.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I drew this picture of a bear barfing in the sink or barfing in the toilet.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I just thought it was hilarious.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: And in hindsight,
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: I drew it because I felt so ashamed of myself and so sad that I am doing this all
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: the time that I was like,
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: if I can make it into a joke, And people laugh at it, then it's okay.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was the initial kind of idea around the bears.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: I started drawing her, having all these hilarious adventures and these shenanigans.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I never, I always kind of drew it just in like paintbrush on the computer.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: Then I started drawing it by hand.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: I way prefer drawing by hand.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: All my book, everything in my book is drawn by hand and just scanned.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's just so much more tangible.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: But So I had this concept of this character.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: And then I love a Venn diagram.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: I love an XY chart, a bar chart.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I was coming up with funny things because I had read so much Calvin
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: and Hobbes growing up that that was like my safe space if I was scared or anxious.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I have a lot of, we can talk about later, some mental health stuff that I figured out later.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: But when I would get into these really down, scared, And anxious states, I would read comics.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm like, okay,
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: if I can build this character and kind of hide behind it just
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: to help me process how I'm feeling,
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to do it.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then fast forward, I kind of stopped drawing The Bear for a while.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: I was kind of dabbling in other comics.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: We moved to the mountains.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: I changed careers.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of things in life.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: And then COVID happened and I did a bunch of other types of art.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: But when I Decided to stop drinking in May of 22,
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: I started writing on the group page in One Year No Beer about like
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: a little experience I had had,
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: like I did this and this happened and I kind of wrote like a little story about it
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: and I got a lot of really positive response and it turned out I quite like writing
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: and I write how I speak.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: There's swear words,
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: it's goofy,
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: there's,
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: it's animated and then About a year into quitting drinking,
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: I was like,
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: I should bring back the bear and make her me again and do her in a different format.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: So then I started drawing the bear and writing about what inspired the comic and why I drew it.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: I had this idea of,
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: and I put a few of the comics on the One Year No Beer page and people were like,
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: oh, that's really cool.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: And the very,
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: very first one I did was just like a super simple joke about there's these,
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: somebody asks a person holding their baby, oh, how old is your baby?
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: And she's like, oh,
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: 280 days,
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: because you know how parents do that and they say baby ages and really weird metrics
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: that no one understands unless they've had kids.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't have kids, so I'm like, I don't know what that means.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then the next one is like a bear talking to my bear and being like,
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: so how long have you been sober?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, 280 days.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: Because you're so jazzed when you're quitting drinking that you measure everything in days.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like, what do these two things have in common?
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's a super basic joke, but it just made me laugh.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then I wrote a little story about it.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I've always wanted to get pulled over by an RCMP officer and have them be like,
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: so when was the last time you had a drink?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll be like, 900 days ago.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I wrote a little story about that to go with the comic.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, I should keep doing this.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: It made me feel so much better.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I shared it with that group.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so I drew a few more.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: And Gary, my coach, who's here live, he was like, Tiff, these are really good.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe you should put them online.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I was so nervous to put something on the internet because all of
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: a sudden it really exposes you.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: Little did I know no one gives a shit and my website has not got a lot of traffic.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: But I got a few subscribers.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: I started to put the comics on the blog with the stories.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: And my aunt of all people,
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: who was my figure skating coach growing up, was like, Tiff, this is amazing.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: I relate so much to this.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: And she's an amazing human and I love her dearly.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: And she is 70 years old and windsurfs and foil surfs and does all this stuff.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: She's a great athlete,
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: but she is also a perfectionist and gets worked up about stuff and wants
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: to do everything perfectly.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I talk about feeling that way.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: And she's like, I can't believe how much I related.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: And then all these people started telling me how much they relate to my work.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, maybe I should make this into a book because I had enough content on the blog.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I looked into self-publishing and it just kind of spiraled from there.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: I never would have done it had Gary not been like, you need to put this out there.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, it hasn't reached millions by any stretch.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: But I wanted to have something tangible that I could hold and be like, I built that.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: And there's no way I would have built this without stopping drinking.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: Using it as an outlet to process all the feelings and having people support me
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: and relate to the work.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: Having people relate to the work, I didn't even know it was something that I needed.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: It gets me all emotional.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_02: And then you're like, yeah.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, I got into a whole bunch of other feelings and people related to that.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: One of my friends said I changed her life because she wasn't scared
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: to ask her doctor about antipressants.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: And it just spiraled in a small way.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: I've only touched tens of dozens of people, but it helps.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_02: It helped me.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, I also emote through my eyeballs.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: This will happen.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: I knew it would happen.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's a good thing.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let them flow.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: Let them flow.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: I don't ever feel ashamed of that anymore.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's too common for me, but I get excited, get real, and then it comes out my eyeballs.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's just about that one person, you know?
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it feels like we've got to impact more than that.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, it really is just about that one person.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: You just don't know the ripple effects that it has from affecting that one person.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: I can't wait to have a copy of your book in my hand.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this is actually the one I'm going to send you.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's the last printed copy I have on hand.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: So you'll have to shoot me your address.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: But the crazy thing about the sobriety journey is the first year you're just holding
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: on and trying to figure it out, figure out who you are.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I still am, four and a half years into this or just under.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: But then I had a lot of ways to deal with And I really started to become
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: a little bit more insular.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: And now I'm at the point where I'm almost overcorrected.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: But during that time,
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_02: when I was kind of in myself a lot more,
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: because I had to be, I still was having these really low
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: Really low moments, really hard days.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of it is around not thinking I'm good enough.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I have a character in the book called the demon.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: And the dog and the demon are kind of like the angel and the devil on your shoulder, you know?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: And the demon would just be like, you're not good enough.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: You're not doing enough.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_02: You're, you know, just chattering at you all the time.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_02: All the time.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how I represented that darkness, you know?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: I talk to my doctor about it.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, look, I meditate.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: I do yoga.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: I quit drinking.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: I eat pretty well aside from the ice cream binges when I first stopped drinking
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: because you need so much sugar.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm doing all these things.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: I'm doing all this work.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: I see Gary every week.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: How come I'm not feeling better?
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: How come I'm still having these really lows?
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: They're not related to drinking.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have that shame over.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm still so fucking sad sometimes.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like a massive failure.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: And the doctor was like, you're doing a lot of work, Tiff.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes people's brains are different, and you need help.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_02: And we can maybe explore looking at some kind of medication.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I was really like, I don't need that kind of help.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm good.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, I can do this.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: I can do this.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: And turns out, I had a couple of Pretty bad episodes.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, things got pretty real.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: And my husband's like, Tiff, you can't keep doing this.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like, it's affecting your work.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's affecting our relationship.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm worried for you.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so I talked to the doc again.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I talked to my mother, who's a nurse practitioner, and did a lot of research about things.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: And as a woman, your cycle can affect it.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_02: There's lots of things.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, okay, I broke my leg.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: Or I broke a bone.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: I would go to the hospital and have the doctor help me fix it.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: There's something here that I've been trying to fix on my own
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: and maybe I should actually accept some help.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I did.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know,
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: it's still a journey and you have to kind of work with your medical professionals on
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_02: that.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: I also started seeing a therapist who's been really helpful.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: So you feel like you're indulging in too much help.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_02: At least that's how I felt.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_02: I talked to Gary.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_02: I now have a therapist.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: I'm on medication.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm starting to reach out and do things like this.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: I've been writing and drawing.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_02: But sometimes you need a lot of that.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_02: And it's hard to accept that you need it.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_02: But it's important, too.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I think partly why I want to talk about it and why I wrote the book is because
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: if you don't see other people doing it, you're so much less willing to try it.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah,
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_02: like my friend I told you about,
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: she read the book and she was like,
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_02: Tiff, I'm taking antidepressants now and my relationship's never been better.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: My life has never been better.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: I feel so much happier and I'm in my late 60s and I should have done this 20 years ago.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_02: But I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't read that blog that you wrote,
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_02: you know, and the silly comic that went with it.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh my God.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it just keeps getting better.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: But it also is hard, you know.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_02: Depression's a real thing, and I just kind of thought I was weak and shitty.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean,
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: I experience the same thing.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I feel like it's been this 10-year
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: Inward journey and working on myself that it just becomes exhausting.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing every fucking thing.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: And why do I not feel like smiling?
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it's weird because I'll sit there in my head and I know that space so intimately well.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: That it's just there and it's humming.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it's almost like comfort in a way.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's like, this is comforting, but I don't fucking want to be here.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's like counterintuitive comfort.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_02: Or it's like, it's familiar, but it's not comfortable.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's so strange.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's, you know, some days are worse than others.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: Some...
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: Days, you know, can quickly shift.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I mean,
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: I was on antidepressants for Prozac for
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: like four years and then I went off for
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: a year and I was good for a while and then just recently went back on.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it is,
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: it's just like,
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: it's a weird fight that's like,
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: okay, like, I'm doing all the things, but yeah, you still need a lift.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's why it's called a practice, too.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: I've been practicing meditation for quite some time,
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: and I'm not always doing it, but I'm pretty consistent, and it's never perfect.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it evolves and it comes in ebbs and flows.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the more that I age and learn about this and learn about myself is
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: that kind of cliche of it's the journey, not the destination.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_02: So effing true.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_02: You're like, yeah, it is.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: Because sometimes the journey is great and you're on the top of a mountain
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: and you're getting powder turns.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_02: And then all of a sudden you fucking crash into a tree well and now you're stuck.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_02: And no one told you that tree was there.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you didn't see it.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: And it happens all the time.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I think doing the things that we do to look after ourselves and that self-care,
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: even if it's hard,
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_02: like working out and eating right and not drinking,
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_02: you're still ultimately better off.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I have a couple charts like that, like quality of life.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: Ultimately, it's going up, but you have those ups and downs, like the rollercoaster analogy.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's so obvious, but It's frustrating, too, because I feel like I've told Gary this.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, aren't you bored of talking to me about the same fucking thing every week?
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, no, Tiff, it's not the same thing.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's evolving.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: And you're actually getting better.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you just have to step back and look at it,
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_02: which is why I kind of, I loved having put it in this book form.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know art therapy was a thing.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: Lots of therapists are trained in that.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_02: And you draw, you get into your flow state, you can express.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I've been doing it to myself for years.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I can come back and look at this and see how the art itself changes,
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: read some of these things.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like,
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_02: some of the comics I drew super early on are still so relevant
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_02: to something I'm feeling right now.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_02: But then the book has a bit of a story arc.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_02: And the last one in here is about kind of like what you define as success.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_02: And...
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_02: I have a little Venn diagram.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_02: The middle part is the definition of success.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_02: And on one side, it says a cozy place to have coffee.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: And the other side is fame, physical feats of strength, money, job.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_02: But everyone's definition of success is different.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I drew all these little panels of bears doing different things.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: The last one is just like this silly joke where I'm talking to my coffee being like,
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: I love you.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_02: You make me feel so good.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_02: And my husband bear is walking by and he's like, are you talking to me for your coffee?
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, what?
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_02: So it's just like the whole book made me kind of see a little journey of it took me
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_02: about two and a half,
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: three years to draw the panel or all the cartoons that went in it.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_02: And it's cool to see that even though I still Struggle with depression and I have a hard time.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: Overall, you know, the baseline went from here to here.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: And it's always going to kind of just be doing this if I keep working at it, you know.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: So it's something tangible I can see that I've done.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I've done it.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: I can do it.
• 43:45
  Yeah.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's so great, Tiffany.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, and that's why I feel like
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's why I call this The Sober Creative because there's something in
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: the creative practice in that flow state.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: No matter what it is that you find,
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: if you're in it, you're not in here and you're doing the work.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it just doesn't matter.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: The outcome isn't about, it's not about the outcome.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's just about being present in whatever that is that you're creating.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm excited to, I'll leave a link for the book and the show notes and such.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks for today.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's so good.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's so good.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_02: This was super fun.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Josh.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks everybody who joined live.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: That means a lot to me.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_02: It warms my little heart.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: If anyone has any questions, feel free to pop them in the chat.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, what are you working on next, Tiffany?
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think you'll do another book or are you still doing the comics?
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I took a break from doing the comics after I published the book.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: I did a show at the art gallery here in Golden and had everything up on display for
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: a month, which was pretty cool.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: And did a little book reading and this.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I haven't really promoted it.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: The goal was never to make money.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: I certainly have not.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_02: But it's pretty sweet.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: If I do, but no, the next thing, it's been about not quite a year since I've drawn any comics.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_02: I've been doing a lot more painting, a lot more watercolors, just kind of free flow stuff.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: But I have a sketchbook full of ideas for comics and I have a bunch of notes in my phone.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_02: And anytime something comes up that I think could make a good one, I build all that content.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_02: And we're getting into, November is kind of a boring season here in the Rockies.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like you can't mountain bike anymore.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_02: You can't really ski yet.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I think there will be some time to build some more comics.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll put them on my blog.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I have like a,
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: if you want to sign up for a little newsletter,
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_02: every time I publish a comic and the story with it, you'll get an email.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: And usually what I like to do is kind of put it up on there.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then once I have enough to start building out another book,
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'll probably publish something in a couple of years when I've got enough content.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_02: But the key to these kind of creative endeavors when you are full-time working
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_02: and it's not That's so great, Tiffany.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, have an awesome rest of your week.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: And everyone that's joined us, thank you so much, always.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll see you next week.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: Take care, everyone.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.