The Sober Living Stories Podcast
Welcome to the "Sober Living Stories Podcast." Every Tuesday, Jessica Stipanovic, your host, shines a spotlight on individuals who have undergone remarkable transformations in their lives.
Each guest shares their story giving examples of bold beginnings disguised as endings and life lessons that teach how the darkest moments often hold the key to unlocking the brightest light.
This podcast is designed for those in search of inspiration to make positive life changes. Whether you're sober curious, living an alcohol-free lifestyle, or supporting someone suffering from addiction (sugar, food, drugs or spending, etc.) our episodes promise to leave you feeling understood, hopeful, and motivated to create meaningful transformations in your life.
Join us for powerful new episodes every Tuesday where even the most harrowing of experiences can serve to uplift and inspire. Regardless of your background or belief system, "The Sober Living Stories Podcast" is your ultimate destination for uplifting narratives where hope shines from the most unexpected places.
In addition to featuring our weekly guests, each month on the "Sober Living Stories Podcast," we have the privilege of sitting down with a new addiction author, delving into their story and the wisdom they've shared in their book.
Here's the exciting part: their book becomes the giveaway for that month.
Tune in every Tuesday for brand-new episodes and your chance to win the gift of a transformed life.
The Sober Living Stories Podcast
A Rockstar's Guide to Sobriety: Sarah Smith's Music and Life
Join Jessica Stipanovic as she sits down with Sarah Smith, a Canadian roots rock songwriter, who shares her sobriety story and how she lives it out on the road enjoying a 26-year music career.
Sarah returns to her high school days in a party-loving, farm community and recounts the pivotal moment she left the Royal Military College to chase her musical dreams. Learn about the profound impact a bandmate in recovery had on her, guiding her through the early days of her sobriety, and how she uses her gifts of singing and songwriting with that world today.
Through heartfelt conversation, Sarah reveals how her recovery journey spurred personal and professional growth, allowing her to make music that truly resonates with her audience. She refers to the Third Step Prayer in a 12-step recovery program that refers to the importance of living a life of service to others, and today she does just that.
Divinely inspiring others is her mission; she accomplishes this by using music to let her fans' stories be heard. Discover her unique approach to songwriting, where she collaborates with others to turn their life stories into powerful songs. Sarah’s performances, described as fierce and rockstar-like, capture the essence of her newfound balance and authenticity.
She is the first singer on the Sober Living Stories podcast to relay her message through the beauty of her voice on stages worldwide.
Visit her website to explore her music, tour schedule, and singer/songwriter collaborative opportunities at sarahsmithmusic.com.
To connect with Sarah Smith:
Website: Sarah Smith - A Canadian Roots Rock Singer/Songwriter (sarahsmithmusic.com)
LinkTree for everything thing Sarah Smith: sarahsmithmusic | Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok | Linktree
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Your story matters.
Sarah Smith is a Canadian roots rock songwriter and performer who's been on stages with Melissa Etheridge and travels the world to bring people music. She's been awarded over 25 independent music awards in her career and she wants to help people through music. That is her mission. Her message is one of honesty, gratitude, healing and love, and today she's sharing her personal journey with us, her story, how she got to where she is today. So tune in. It's going to be one you're not going to want to miss.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Sober Living Stories podcast. This podcast is dedicated to sharing stories of sobriety. We shine a spotlight on individuals who have faced the challenges of alcoholism and addiction and are today living out their best lives sober. Each guest has experienced incredible transformation and are here to share their story with you. I'm Jessica Stepanovic, your host. Join me each week as guests from all walks of life share their stories to inspire and provide hope to those who need it most. Welcome to another episode of the Sober Living Stories podcast. Meet Sarah Smith. She lives on a quiet island in British Columbia, canada, yet she lives for music. She's a singer, songwriter and performer who tours the world to help people through music. Today she's going to share her personal story. Welcome, sarah. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, jessica. Thank you for having me. You know it's a real privilege to be able to sit in a chair with somebody and talk about my sober journey. What a journey to get here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we often talk about how sobriety for some people who need that it's a bridge back to their life and you know I'd love to hear. You have had a very successful career. You're still going. You're touring. Right now you're in Ontario. I just want to hear your personal story how, from the very beginning to where it brought you today in your journey through music beginning to where it brought you today in your journey through music.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, jessica, like I mean, for me, like my adult life was comprised of half sobriety and half, given her, in the rock and roll, sex, drugs, rock and roll industry, you know. So I was always sort of teeter tottering between being clean and sober and falling off the wagon and partying all night long and meeting people in that journey as well. How it all started, you know, I grew up in a really beautiful home. I had loving parents that are still together to this day, and my mom was a big part of the church and my dad was was a farmer, and it was a really just a simple life, you know.
Speaker 2:But with the small town, farm type life you get a lot of, you know. You want to fit in. If you don't fit in, the small town, life can be pretty dreary. So I did my best to host a lot of parties and, just, you know, be that social butterfly and friend to as many people as I could. And in high school my drinking really began and my partying began then and we were the family that hosted the parties, even though maybe my parents didn't know about the parties. We were that farm that hosted the parties.
Speaker 2:My parents could sleep through anything. I tell you so similar already.
Speaker 1:Sarah. Yeah, really. Yeah yeah yeah, go ahead. I can't wait to hear the rest of the story. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Totally.
Speaker 2:You know, and that's sort of where my singing sort of took off too was I would, you know, get enough courage in me through alcohol and drugs that I would be able to sit around a campfire and start playing people my music, my original songs that I wrote from my heart, and where else, like you know, people love them. They love the songs and they gave me encouragement to keep going and I felt like, oh my God, I found something that people respected me and that I can do. I could do something great like write a song. How awesome is that.
Speaker 2:And out of high school I didn't know what I wanted to do. I know I didn't want to spend a lot of money on university and I actually ended up going to Royal Military College, which is a university that pays you because you're in the military. So I did that and that's where the drinking career really became like accepted. You know so many people in the military just accepted. It was like a bonding experience where you would meet in the mess hall and you would just get wasted. And that was bonding experience, where you would meet in the mess hall and you would just get wasted. And that was part of our journey in the military and thank God, you know, I have a lot of these. I call them God moments, where there's something that happens in my life that takes me on the journey I'm meant to be on.
Speaker 2:And this happened in an elevator with one of my officers and he said to me you know, officer Cadet Smith, you're doing great, it's great to have you on board, but why aren't you doing music? Wow, I said, like what do you mean? Like doing music? I don't even know what you mean. I grew up on a farm and that really wasn't an option. And he said you know, you can have a career in music, you can follow your heart and you can do that. And so I honestly marched into the I don't remember the guy's name or anything, but it was the head of the military platoon I was in and I marched into that office and I saluted him and I said I'm going to quit, wow.
Speaker 1:And I quit the next day.
Speaker 3:Thank God for that man. That message in an elevator right, I know.
Speaker 1:Giving you permission to like launch your career.
Speaker 2:Right and I joined a band a couple of weeks later and I haven't had another job since. I've just been a musician since I was 20. So I'm 46 now, 26 years I've been playing music. And you know the first band I was in, my guitar player he was in AA and I knew that he was in AA and that he was in recovery and he told me, if you want to make it in music, you have to get sober. And I was only 20. And I thought, well, you know, if I want to make it, I have to get sober. Well, I want to make it. So I got sober and I started going to meetings and these recovery meetings, just the people were speaking to me and I could tell that I was one of them and I felt belonged and accepted.
Speaker 2:So for the first seven years of my career I was sober and clean. I'd never really tried any heavy drugs at the time. I was just an innocent young girl trying to make it in music and I made a lot of friends and fans and had a great career those first seven years. And then I met a partner and fell in love and we became like toxic twins, you know, and that's you know a lot of people. They need that one person that sort of helps them along their, their journey, whether it's the good side of the journey or or the you know the other side of the journey. And so we became the party couple and I started experimenting with heavy drugs and getting into really the rock star life.
Speaker 2:I, you, you know, I just was partying all the time and staying up late and till like nine in the morning, sleeping the day away, going to my shows at night, staying up till nine in the morning, sleeping the day away. And you know, those those 10 years of of using and using and trying to get sober and trying to get clean and just keep falling off the wagon and I just could not get clean, those 10 years were soul darkening. Like I've always had this light about me. I've always felt free and able to express light and I just felt like that was being stripped away from me and I felt like my soul was dying and I felt in my heart super sad and shameful. People looked up to me, they came to my shows, they wanted to hear what I had to sing about and I was on this stage trying to preach something that I wasn't.
Speaker 2:I was a total fraud Behind the scenes. I was using drugs and drinking and completely I couldn't leave my house in the morning without without doing what I had to do to uh, to keep my addiction in check. It was a really bad, you know, double life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know if we can just pause for a second. You know, I think listeners can relate to that. I I know I certainly can. When you said that I often refer to to my time as like the decade in the darkness, you know, because I was light and I knew all things were possible but then when I crossed that line that was all taken away and I couldn't. I was just grappling. You know, you just grapple, try to get back, and it's just a slippery slope for however long it takes until you know you make a change.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. That's exactly what it felt like, like I was slipping down a slope into the darkness and I just didn't know how to climb back out, and the way that I had set my life up. Now my lifestyle was all about, you know, partying and being social with people that partied and it was in my home and in my personal life, everything was about partying.
Speaker 2:Every time I went to a gig I'd have like shots lined up in front of me and you know I would drive home at night. I would get a little help from something and get in the car and away I'd go. And you know this one, this one time, another God moment. I was driving and I heard this, this voice say you have to stop. And the voice got louder you have to stop. If you don't stop now, you're going to kill someone or yourself. And the voice was so loud that it was the bump I needed to actually quit. Wow, yeah, it was such a loud voice that I knew it was something unearthly and that it was warning me of my future. A lot of people have these premeditated warnings right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, my goodness, can I ask you a question Because this is really mind blowing. When I said we were similar, I had no idea you were going there, but that too as well. I understand that because that's exactly what happened to me and the message was I'm going to give this to you one more time, and it was audible, like I heard it, and please take it. And that was the very last time I drank. That was 19 years ago, and the reason that I did it was something you had just said. You said I'm going to kill someone else or myself, like in the sense of and that to me was unacceptable, like my destructiveness was okay, but when you brought somebody else into it, that's when I stopped the line and that's when it shifted for me. So I believe you and I also know that I wonder how many other listeners have had that experience where you know you hear something and you internally know it to be what you need to do. So that's really, that's really incredible that that happened to you.
Speaker 2:It's. It was so what happened next? Amazing. So so it was like I was starting to sort of realize that this was the end of my using days, like it was coming to an end. But the final blow was when I was on stage, I was doing this sold-out show in my hometown. It was a cd release party. It was like my dreams had all come true. It was in this big theater, 340 people or something, it was like just a and I was singing these songs and I was. I just felt like all the eyes were going through my soul and they could see the darkness that I had hiding inside me and they could feel my pain instead of the light that I wanted to spread through music.
Speaker 2:And, um, you know, after the show I w I felt so much shame. You know, I put on a good show, everybody was happy, but I wasn't happy. I was super shamed and I remember just trying to find drugs. So I drove around town and I found some and I went back to the party where all my friends were. There was like 50 people just ready to hang out and party and celebrate this big show and I sat in my truck and did drugs the rest of the night, I did not go in the party and I just I said that's it, I'm done. And the next day I quit smoking, I quit drinking, I quit using, I quit eating meat, I quit having random sex, I quit Wow, I said that's it, I'm done. And I I haven't looked back in years and years, and years.
Speaker 1:That's incredible, and I'm not surprised you went that extreme, because that's just so typical of you. Know how how're wired and wow that's incredible. That's incredible.
Speaker 2:And since I got sober and clean, like I had to go through there's pain that comes with that, because the mirror, the reflection, the self-reflection, the introspection I realized all the people I had hurt along the way and I thought that the addiction was only hurting me or my partner. But it went even deeper, you know, considering what I'd done to my partner, to my bandmates, to my friends, to my family. There was a lot of shame, so much shame. I forgave myself, I asked forgiveness of others and I began to find that light again.
Speaker 2:You know, for one thing, like sobriety in itself is a huge light, I already felt like just dropping all those substances and allowing myself to open up to this universal power, this energy that can flow through me Love. You know, I started digging into spiritual, spiritual teachings, even though I was always attracted to spirituality and spiritual teachings. I started living them, breathing them, feeling them. You know, knowing it was an ultimate, knowing that I am being guided on this journey and that it's, it's a love journey. And after I dropped the substances, like I was completely vulnerable and open to being led, it was a surrender.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think, wow, reconciliation and restoration of. Yeah, I think, wow, reconciliation and restoration of. You know your life, when you get sober, it's a road and not everybody's receptive, but I think the large majority, you know, those who love us are, and wow. So what changed as far as? Because you're still singing, you're still performing, you're still touring. So how did you manage that in a drinking world?
Speaker 2:I just started focusing all my other than my sobriety and taking care of myself and the ones around me and my family and friends. I started to really focus on my career.
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Speaker 2:As a singer, I started to want to get better. I wanted to write better songs. I wanted to get other people's stories out there. I started collaborating with others. My voice just grew exponentially. It is powerful and strong and fierce and the things I'm singing about, my actual inner voice is coming out and I get to sing about all these things that I've gone through and all the things I've learned. My career took off. It took off greatly. I started touring around the world getting respect for being a musician and I started to respect myself. I started to attract working with other people that were on a beautiful plane, a spiritual plane. I started learning from them. Life has really taken off for me. I fell in love with somebody that loves me for who I am, and I know how to give love back as well. Receiving and giving love is a real gift that's come in sobriety.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah. So what are some of the? What is your message? You know, when you sing, when you're writing songs, when you, you know what is it that you want to relate to people. You know, through that, you know what is it that you want to relate to people, you know.
Speaker 2:through that, I want to divinely inspire and help illuminate others paths along their journey through writing. Writing, you know, singing, songwriting, collaborating with others and just using music as that tool to let their voice be heard. So I actually have written a lot of songs with other people. People have told me their life stories or told me they want to write a song for a friend. Told me they want to write a song for a friend, or they've given me a poem that they find you know they want to maybe hear it in a song form and I get to gift that to them. I get to give them this song that came from physically nothing and has become a physical thing, and that's the biggest gift I've gotten in sobriety.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, we've had quite a few guests on the show that that you know take their personal story and turn it into a career. But I haven't ever had anyone who was a singer and a performer and like a complete, like rock songwriter touring and this. So this is great, because when I I'm not obviously I don't sing, but I often look at singers and think, wow, they hold their. I'm a writer, but you hold your talent in your voice, you know, and, like you said, it's powerful, it's fierce, so you can, like, relay messages through like that, that, like beauty of your voice. You're bringing it with you wherever you go. So what is it like to perform on stage in front of fans and people who are coming to hear that?
Speaker 2:Well now, jessica, I just feel like I feel so much gratitude, I feel authentic, I feel like, you know, there's there's this if you're in a recovery program, there's steps and there's a prayer called the third step prayer, and it's about offering your life as a servant, and offering your life and allowing God, or your higher power, to do as it will through you. So I always ask you know, please use me and build with me today and allow me to be a vessel of love. And that's how I feel. I really do feel like I'm being used as a vessel of love and it's authentically beautiful.
Speaker 2:I do not fear the stage anymore. Of course, I get nervous before every show, but I don't fear the stage, I don't fear people staring through my soul, because I feel like in my soul it's, it's been um, there was a lot of damage in there, and now my soul I feel like it's lighter and it has so much to offer and I feel like I just feel like better as a, as a human being, you know, and I feel like my music is, is, is that tool that's. I can share that with others.
Speaker 1:So where can people find you? So you're, you really sound, you're so balanced and you've really found exactly who you are authentically, spiritually, and it's just very evident to me, and I've talked to so many people, and your performances are, like you said, like they're really rockstar like performances and you're like where can people watch you and find you who have not?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, thank you so much, Jessica, for giving us this, this tool to be able to talk about sobriety and to also, you know, help promote people in this field, and I really appreciate that you can. You can find me at sarahsmithmusiccom and you can find me on all the socials and YouTube. Sarah Smith music everywhere.
Speaker 1:And that's Sarah with an H Sarah S-A-R-A-H Smith music, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I just started a whole new part of my website that actually I'm offering songwriting collaborations. So if anybody out there would like to try and write a song about their life, or if they have a poem they'd like to put into a song, I just started my website. I've been doing this for about three years now and now it's official.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. Yeah, I love that. Listeners will be able to have this creative outlet, those that are interested in music, those that are interested in singing, songwriting because there's so many, you know. It's so interesting to me just to touch quickly, before we end, the beginning of your story, when you talked about the military. You know it's like so, in contrast to like a rock star living right, but that is where you got the message to, and almost the permission to honor your creative side.
Speaker 1:And I find it so crazy in this world how, like the straight and narrow which I think is changing but the straight and narrow professions that are honored, but then now we have this like blast off of creatives coming out into the world and being honored for whether it's sharing your personal story and helping others heal through community, whether you're a writer and are able to get that book into the world, or whether you're a songwriter and can perform. You know, and there's so many other ways to be creative today that are honored and I'm so grateful for that because you know that our jagged lined creative brain is allowed to give its message and to be heard and I love that and I love that your message was given to you in an elevator, in doing something else that you aligned yourself with. We never know what day or what person is going to give us a little bit extra permission, as something we probably already knew.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. And also I want to thank that one person that told me you know I'm worried about you and I think you need to get help, and sometimes it takes just one person to say I care about you and I see you and that can help somebody realize that they it's like a clue that that maybe should be listened to because it could delay your progress for years, you know.
Speaker 1:And so just to kind of have that slight humility to say, wow, they might be right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for being here. I'm going to put every social media contact, your YouTube channel, sarahsmithmusiccom, your website, in the show notes so that others can reach out to you, and I appreciate you sharing your authentic and personal story with us today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Jessica with us today.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, jessica. For more inspiring stories in the episodes to come, to view our featured author of the month or to become a guest yourself, visit wwwjessicastephanoviccom.