Today, I am privileged to introduce you to Adriana Marchione, the Director, and Dianne Griffin, the Producer of The Creative High, a documentary featuring nine artists in recovery from addiction transformed by creativity in their turbulent search for identity and freedom. This beautiful and powerful film can be seen at our upcoming October live screening in California. At the United Nations Association Film Festival screening in the heart of the arts district at Stanford University, Anderson Museum on Thursday, October 27th in Palo Alto, California. Join our email list HERE to stay informed about upcoming screenings in your area.
I’d love to see this movie shared worldwide if you would like to book a screening, an excellent opportunity to host the film in person or virtually at your recovery organization. Screening events share the film (or shorter clips) and can be accompanied by an active discussion and/or workshop. This allows the audience to reflect on the power of artistic expression or engage in it. Screenings shift public perception and can affect advocacy and policy changes, bringing more funding and/or research to substance use disorders and reducing stigma and harm. Click here to book a screening, or email us directly. Please find us at www.thecreativehigh.com
See full transcript below.
00:01
You’re listening to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, a place for real conversations with people who love someone with the disease of addiction.
Now, here is your host, Margaret Swift Thompson.
Margaret 00:24
Welcome back! Today, I have two guests who did the interview from different locations. Ain’t technology grand? I’m excited to introduce you to two women in long term recovery, who are creatives and artists. They share about some of their story and introduce you to their magnificent movie called ‘The Creative High’. Please meet Dianne Griffin, the producer and Adriana Marchione, the director.
00:58
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast.
Margaret 01:13
So why don’t we get started. I am so thrilled you’re both with I think this is my first time doing two people at once. It’ll be exciting to see how it works out. But today with me, I have Dianne and Adriana. And I’m going to allow you to introduce yourself because I think that it’s better because you’ll share the pieces that you want to share about yourself. But, we came into contact. Honestly, I don’t know how at this point. I know Adriana, I had seen you on my radar, with the art in recovery. And that inspired me and intrigued me. So much so that I signed up for a masterclass, which I’m really thrilled I did. But what’s more important is we’re here together to talk about a new project that you two have worked so hard to create. And I have lots to say about it. But I want to hear from you both first. So introduce yourselves and tell our audience a little bit about yourself, you know how you came into being in the world of recovery? Who your qualifiers are, if you’re comfortable with that, and a little bit about your story, who’d like to start?
Adriana 02:20
Should I start Dianne?
Dianne: Yes, please Adriana.
Adriana: Since Margaret, and I’ve began the connection. And I’m so glad that we did get connected and also just excited and happy always to hear about the wonderful work that other people do. Right Margaret and what you’re doing to support families and people in recovery. I have been in recovery for 29 years. So, it’s been a long journey for me, and I’ve been sober now. I think it’s like three times as long as I drank, I drank for seven years. So, I mean, that is so much life in recovery, right? So much life and recovery. And my work, you know, I was an artist before I got into recovery that was very connected to my, my addiction, really, I mean it was all linked up is that I was struggling to try to figure out who I was struggling with my identity I was young I was I was exploring, and was also dealing with some mental health issues, right, a lot of anxiety, depression, and just trying to figure out how to be a young person in a uncomfortable body, you know, like really uncomfortable in my own skin. But art was always a through line. For me, it was always a way for me to find meaning to anchor myself it was really, it was a balm for the soul, which I often say.
And so when I found my recovery back in 1993, I also had to figure out how to become an artist and maintain that life that I had, which was really about photography, and mixed media and I had done gone to art school and things like that, how do I maintain that and find balance in my life like not go to those old addictive unhealthy behaviors. Not be in the world, and the communities that really were kind of getting me down and sort of lifting me up. So, I think, you know, first for me, it was my journey of figuring out how to be an artist in recovery. And then I decided through that process, there are many hills and valleys of, you know, training in school and art experiences, and communities, different you know, different communities, some in recovery, some not that I decided to work with creatives in recovery and people with addictions and really started to focus on that as like my life’s thread.
Margaret 04:49
So, Adriana, first of all acknowledging the length of time in recovery, and the magnificence of that being so much greater than the time and use. Well, I just Wonder because you had that thread. I love, what is that balm for the soul?
Adriana: Yes,
Margaret: I love that. So, you had that thread that worked for you even in the struggle of becoming who you were. But I wonder if anyone in the world of treatment or mental health care suggested using your art for your recovery? Or is that something you came to through your recovery journey?
Adriana 05:23
Yeah, no, it’s great. I mean, I think it was such a different time, right? Because it was almost 30 years ago. And it was, what we know now the field of recovery. And I think there’s so many creatives there are so many artists, there are so many musicians, there are so many actors, so many people are out with the recovery, right? You hear about it all the time. We hear the stories then. But at the time, it felt very, very abstract. I didn’t have any orientation to it. I mean, I didn’t even really have that much orientation to what recovery was, right. I just happen to have a friend who had gotten sober before I had. So, and I just had a lot of negative preconceived notions about recovery, and then coming in and then feeling like, my art was just, it was just always something I would go to anyways. So, I did, I did just start doing it in a different way. Like I would do these little collages for myself. And I would just have a journal that was kind of an art journal where I would go in and explore through my creative work, things that were happening for me. Emotional things that I was experiencing. So, there was there, really was no mentorship for me at that time.
Margaret 06:34
Thank you. And I do appreciate you saying it was a different time and recovery may have been looked differently, it was certainly less open and discussed and shared as much as it is now. So that’s evolved and changed. And I’m sure art has evolved and changed and thinking back even in my tenure at Hazelden Betty Ford. In our extended care program, we had a beautiful arts and crafts room where they would do leather work and sculpting and whatever art form they wanted. But that wasn’t as prevalent in the 30-day program or the primary program.
Adriana 07:09
Yeah. And then there might have been, I imagine there was some form of art and recovery, because I remember when I started getting into my master’s program, that there was a lot of different places where you could go, and you would find some kind of art component to different mental health and treatment organizations. So, I think that was already happening. But I didn’t go into a treatment program, right I just went the 12 step route. So, I didn’t have that perspective, if it was out there. And I also think that recovery was really huge at the time, but it was very underground. It wasn’t coming into my sphere so much until I really got into it. And I think there’s been so much advancement in terms of, of different recovery organizations, right, you know, since then.
And the other thing you asked me was qualifiers which, I mean, there’s a lot of stuff, of course, family history, right. There’s always a lot of things that happen that that contribute. But I didn’t have any particular family member that I saw as having an addiction or having alcoholism. It really was, there’s some depression in my family. You know, there’s my father used to smoke. I mean, there was definitely alcohol around, but there wasn’t that again, here’s this person that I’m seeing that is really either setting a bad example for me, or that’s really a difficult figure in my life, so I think that was another thing like I didn’t, I had no clue that I could have a problem with alcohol. I had no clue. Really, until I had a therapist who started pointing it out to me. That’s really was my entry through some trauma that I had experienced that that I ended up in therapy. And that kind of prompted me to start, she was really greasing the wheel to educate me. And that was huge, right? It’s huge.
Margaret 08:57
It is huge. It is huge. I think of myself as an early therapist after my master’s program. The disservice I did to my clients because I didn’t understand addiction, because the training at the time was one semester, one class, not even a semester.
Adriana: Yeah.
Margaret: And so grateful that you had someone come into your life who could grease that wheel and show you a different way. It’s wonderful.
Adriana: Yeah,
Margaret: and then a friend who was already sober, right?
Adriana 09:21
I had a friend that was already sober. And another friend that was working as a drug and alcohol counselor forgot about that. She was actually the person I spent my first week of recovery with and she was in recovery from an eating disorder. So, she had a different orientation, and she was down in the southwest and so I knew she was doing that it was but it was a little more it was a little more distant for me. And then I had a roommate that was also sober at the time. So, there was there was like these little things that were starting to, to kind of plant seeds and set the tone for me
Margaret 10:00
Many ways to the solution, aren’t there?
Adriana: Yeah.
10:04
This podcast is made possible by listeners like you.
Margaret 10:09
Michael Fox, journalist, and film critic described this movie, in the following words. One needn’t be in recovery or an artist to experience the transformative power of art. The Creative High taps into our basic profound impulses to reveal rage, let go, vent, invent and reinvent. That is to create and express.
Head over to their website, thecreativehigh.com
To watch the trailer of this beautiful movie. To understand more about ways, you can engage with the movie to donate to assist the dreams of this team coming true. And this movie getting to more members of our public around the world. You can even follow the creative high on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, or subscribe to their email list to get the newest releases, opportunities to stream and places to watch this gorgeous movie.
11:19
You’re listening to The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast. Can you relate to what you’re hearing? Never miss a show by hitting the subscribe button. Now back to the show.
Margaret 11:31
Dianne, welcome. Would love to hear your intro story and a little of your backstory.
Dianne 11:37
Yeah, sure. Thank you so much. I’m so glad to be a part of the podcast today. I work a meditation in recovery program. And you know, I’m very influenced by a man named John Daido Loori, who’s a Zen rõshi, and he founded Zen Mountain Monastery. He came into Buddhism through the back door, he calls it, as a photographer. And Minor White said, you know, this is how we’re going to photograph and we’re going to meditate. And we’re going to do all these various things to get ourselves centered. And so, I’ve been very influenced by him. And he says “that creative practice is like a spiritual journey. It’s intuitive, nonlinear and experiential. It points us toward our true nature, which is a reflection of the boundless creativity of the universe”. I’m so grateful that I found meditation and recovery because slipping is a part of my story.
I had been sober for 14 years, and went out. And I could not get back into the rooms. But I had heard from an old timer years ago, that he just had to, he actually sat there, I think, for 10 years before he could really hear it. He could really hear what he needed to, to get sober. And I thought if he can do it, despite all these odds, I mean, he was living in a tent. This was in Seattle behind the meeting house, they let him live there. And every day, he was there all day. I thought if he can do it, I can do it. You know, he was a black man from the South who had gone through so much. And so, I just sat in the rooms, and it took me you know, about a year until finally I’m like, okay, I can come back. I’m here. I wanted to be in recovery. But there was a lot going against me the second time. The first time, I also want to say I’ve been in recovery over 30 years. And I’ve been a filmmaker for around that same time. So, I think it’s interesting when I look back on it that these two were, you know, working together. And it was extremely(laughter) being a filmmaker, you know, that time. I mean, you were just it was so difficult. And again, I just kept showing up, and eventually started making my own films. And I’m so excited to continue working with Adriana on The Creative High. I met Adrianna through a mutual friend of ours, like art, recovery. Wow, okay. Yeah, I want to be a part of this. And so that’s, that’s what happened. And at that time, too, I was working my meditation and recovery program for around 22 years, since really kind of the origins of it at the Zen Center.
Margaret 14:34
Dianne when you, when you look back, Adriana said there weren’t qualifiers for her. You know, there was definitely parts of her past that affected her in her journey. Did you have qualifiers or were you also from a family where there was not addiction?
Dianne 14:50
Oh my god, I’ve come from generations of alcoholics, generations. You know me being sober today is going against my DNA. I just keep working a program. And women alcoholics, which they say alcoholism affects women in a very different way, from what I understand, and have read, You know, loving these people who are doing self-harm is a struggle. You know, you’re loving people who are drinking, like my grandmother drank every single day. And I loved her.
What is nurturing ourselves when we come from those situations, you know, there’s self-abuse involved in that. And clearing that away. And I think that’s one thing that when I slipped, I was told you need to work Step 11. Okay, you need to go in there. And that’s why I went into meditation and recovery. And it allowed me to learn how to sit with myself. I was constantly having to do something, whether it was drinking, just all this doing. It allowed me to sit with myself and learn to tame the mind. Taming the mind, and building up concentration, and trusting myself. Trusting who I was and finding out who I was in a deeper way. And I like at the end of, of all, this John Daido Loori, again, I love quoting him “welcoming to the open space of not knowing”, okay, that is something that is like, the space of not knowing, no, I will not go there.
Margaret 16:27
Yeah, that sounds like torture for most people so, I appreciate that, that lens because there is truth to it, right? I mean, we live in this world where we believe we can control outcomes, or we think we know what’s coming, or we can somehow be prepared for, and our families, people who love us, with this disease live in that world of control, false sense of control, when none of us know what’s coming. And yet we live in this perpetual state of worry and fear. So that’s a tall concept to absorb and internalize. But I appreciate it. Because there’s a lot of truth to that. There’s a lot of unknowing,
Dianne 17:02
Right. And also, it’s the space we’re all sharing. So, showing up for myself, and then extending that out like we do in the program, you know, like we do in recovery. We show up for ourselves, and we’re showing up for others, even even if just the act of us being in recovery. That’s maybe all we can do at certain times.
Margaret 17:24
So, the main reason that we got together was to introduce people to your magnificent film, I’ve had the opportunity to see it. And firstly, I want to say, I resonate with it as a person in recovery. And I love that aspect of these people being so courageous sharing their story, but it was an eye pleasing, beautiful movie. And I assume, maybe correct me, Adriana that some of that comes from the lens you have of your work as a photographer. But I found it a very beautiful movie. So that alone, the message is a whole other level of magnificence and beauty. But tell us a little about your incredible movie and how it came to be and what the journey has been like making it.
Adriana 18:18
Yeah well, The Creative High was really born out of my desire to explore the topic of How do creatives, how do they find their recovery? How do they use art as a tool, right as a transformative tool for them in, in their lives.
And since obviously, it was so close to my heart, it was something, a journey that I’ve been on for many years a journey. I’ve supported many, many creatives, many artists, many people also who don’t have a creative orientation, necessarily, but are finding their recovery and wanting to use art as a tool. Right. So, all those things have been so important to me. And so, when I decided to do a new film, which I wasn’t even thinking, because my first film was something that just kind of came out of it was sort of unexpected. And then then this film, I wasn’t even planning on it. But I had somebody who said, you know, you should make another film, and what are you going to make it on? And of course, what else? What else even though I didn’t know right away, it took the time to get there. And it just has been such a labor of love and such an incredible process to meet all these artists, nine different artists, right, and talk about the creative high with them, but also to talk about the struggle. Like the recovery journey and the struggle and how art has provided a foundation for them or provided a new way of experiencing life or helping them to put all of their stories or painful stories into something, something creative, something artistic, right.
And so those are it’s like so many of the values in the film are part of the values in my work. And so being able to have them, share those with me and express some spin, really, really quite, like awe inspiring for me, very moving. I love that you said about the photography and the cinematography. And it’s been such a joint effort. I mean, Dianne comes with such a background in photography, and she’s some of the footage is her footage, as well. And so, it was really important that if it’s a film about artists, it needs to feel incredibly, aesthetically powerful as well. So, it hits people, that it translates that people get inspired by their art, but also the beauty around how the film is being represented.
So I think that was a really strong joint effort. And of course, with our editor or cinematographers, like, all the people that our graphics person, everyone involved helped to up the quality to make it what it what it is.
Margaret 21:01
It is beautiful. And Dianne, when making the film, how long does a process like that take? Because I’ve never done it. So, I have no comprehension? And where are the people involved? All in recovery? Or if that’s too exposing of them, then don’t say. But it just felt like it must have been a collaborative effort of like-minded people, because it is so beautiful.
Dianne 21:27
Yeah I just want to, again, thank Adriana, for bringing me into this project, I don’t get a chance to thank her enough. And I want to do that start off with that.
And yeah, I wanted to mention too, there are moments, you know, there’s a lot of talking in the film. And there’s one reason why we chose those kind of silent moments, that also there are feelings, there are emotional states and in the drone shots, opening the story up to the larger landscape of our minds, you know, the spaciousness again, that we’re all sharing. And we really wanted people to have time to kind of think about what was being said too. And that’s one reason why we chose those, you know, moments of where we’re going to shoot those drone shots. And what do we want to convey here? And, and then we realized, you know, what came was we want to convey a time for people to reflect and enjoy the beauty of that.
Well, I want to say that this film took Adriana, I think about six years, right? Adriana. Yeah, something like that. And then I came on about a year later. I mean, it is so difficult with documentaries, because you start out you have this idea, your dream, and then you have to raise money, you know, and you’re trying to create, and then you’re trying to send out emails, and what do you think of this and it’s just one big, you know, struggle. You know, filmmaking can be a struggle at times, you’re not sure of your vision, you’re not sure you want to go forward. But you do anyway. It’s you keep showing up just like in recovery. And then we brought in people we brought in several people that worked a recovery program, I don’t know if I feel comfortable saying their names. And then there were other people. It was so interesting how this kind of intuitively these people and we were guided to them. I really believe that. Now I hope it’s not getting too fluffy for Adriana. I don’t want ,I know she, if I mentioned spirituality, sometimes.
Adriana 23:39
Come on I am fluff all over the place.(laughter)
I was trying to, like hope I’m not being too woowoo here.
Dianne 23:43
Okay, okay, good. Good. Yeah, yeah. So anyway. And so, you know, like the cinematographer, people have friends who are struggling, even if they’re not, or their family members, or I think everyone has been affected in some way. And of course, this is a worldwide situation, but then I think about a lot of the people who came to America in the early days, and all the struggles that they came with, and hopes of a better life. And some of them like I said, I come from generations of addicts, alcoholics, there are other substances and ways that that they disconnected from their feelings. So, I hope that answers the question.
Margaret: It did
Dianne: Okay, good.
Adriana 24:32
I just have one addition, because I do want to name one person because she’s very, very public about her recovery. So, Shelley, Shelley Richanbach, who’s our associate producer, and Shelley was with me from the very like from the beginning, beginning even before I started the project. She’s also an arts and expressive arts person like I am, she’s a recovery of drug and alcohol counselor, and Shelley has just she’s such an advocate for recovery and she’s an open advocate for recovery. And so she was just as a creative person, just always on, just always there for us, right? So, and I think having people behind you in a project like this, that takes such a long time, that believe in it, that know, the benefits of what art can bring to recovery, right, and just champion it along the way, and she’s one of those people that we couldn’t have done it without her right. It takes a village.
Margaret 25:26
So that leads to the next question from a standpoint Adriana that I would throw to you is six years. How do you keep the vision, the passion? Not to mention, once you’re showing it to people, it’s like, your baby, and then feedback. Tell us a little about that process.
Adriana 25:51
Yeah, I mean, even as you say it, there’s a part of me that’s like, can I go take a nap now, I need to take a nap like now.
It was so challenging, and it fell apart so many times. And I think that anyone who’s been in a long-term creative project, it’s really hard to produce art and to bring it out in the world. I think people don’t realize what it takes. What it takes in terms of depth of character on some level, like what reserves you have to pull on. And then the resources that it takes right financial, especially with a film, you need so many people to be involved in it. So, I had no idea. I mean, if I if I would go back, and someone would have said, this is going to take you six years, and then it might be another couple of years after that, to distribute it. I would probably have said, I don’t think I have the energy to do it. But when you get it to it, and it’s exciting at the beginning, and people were really coming behind it with some fundraising events and campaigns, you get some energy, gets some juice. And when I started bringing the artists that I knew were going to be a part of it, and really starting to meet with them, it gave me a lot of fuel.
And then there was like a big catastrophe where one of the shoots went really wrong. And my producer had health issues, two of the guys that were working with it on with me that it just there was things that weren’t clicking. And so basically, everything just started to fall apart. And I didn’t know what was gonna happen next at that point. And, Dianne, thank goodness, I already had been connected to her and knew what she was doing. So, she came and revived it and actually helped me like reshape, and rethink the team. And it was hard, like I was resistant to some of the things that she was bringing, but I also could see the larger picture.
So, I think along the way, there was many times of feeling just at the bottom of my energy at the bottom of my hope. I’ve needed a lot of pep talks from my team, including friends and support people, therapists, and film, the film team, and a support from people to keep going. And yeah, there’s just been a lot of like, all of a sudden at the bottom of the barrel, no more money left. Like there’s been so many of those things. So sometimes I don’t really know how I kept going, except for people were invested. People had put money into it. The artists had put a lot of time and effort. So, I felt like I was beholden to the project. I couldn’t just abandon it.
So that’s part of what kept me going at times. But the passion for sure. I mean, I still feel the passion. To me the art and recovery is its own thread, has its own life as a as a really dynamic way of bringing people to self-esteem, a new way of seeing who they are, a new way of living and recovery. Like I really think that has so much that people don’t know they don’t realize is available.
Margaret: Dianne, did you want to add anything to that?
Dianne 28:51
Yes, I do. I want to say to that early on, I was influenced to as a mentor of mine, Ross McElwee, he does these personal documentaries.
So, for me, the filmmaking process itself is a way of looking at who you are. I mean, that is the creative process, watching yourself as you’re doing certain things waking up going deeper into who you are and everything, you know, everything around you. It becomes this one kind of giant, introspective kind of experience, which is so frightening and freeing. And learning to trust your vision. That’s a huge thing to trust decisions you’re making together. And sometimes you’re not really able to do that. So, but you walk through it anyway.
And you know, this trust also you know, that you’re developing with your subjects and Adriana did such a great job with keeping them informed. Are we the people to tell their stories we even investigated that. Are we the people to tell sir stories that are in the documentary? And eventually we were like, yes, we are. They’re all in recovery. And we’re here to share their experience with everyone. And I think a big thing in that, in this process is learning to trust yourself and your own voice.
Margaret 30:19
And bringing your integrity of your recoveries into this had to have assisted the journey for the people that chose to share their story.
Dianne 30:27
Yeah, yeah. I mean, they’re, I really admire them. In fact, there’s one of the lead women in the film, she was so ready to be emotional. And I’ve really admired her for that. She became the emotional place in the film that I was like, there, she’s crying for me, because I don’t know if I’m so able to access some of those feelings. And she’s not only crying for me, she’s crying for all these other people that aren’t able to. And people are touched by her, you know, it’s interesting, everyone has their favorite. They’d like this person, they’re not particularly fond of this one. But they did find someone that they resonate with.
Margaret 31:06
Agreed, I felt the same feelings, watching it.
Dianne: That’s great.
Adriana 31:11
And we’re walking together and I, as people in recovery, and I really felt that. Yeah, I’m coming as the director, I’m coming to do the interviews. But it’s all about learning to about like Dianne said, I’m learning about my recovery through this. They were all teaching me along the way. And they continue to, and some of them are just doing incredible things in the world to support other people in recovery. Very actively or some of them are doing it more, just by being who they are. And when anyone is just showing an example of another person, and especially here and other artists in recovery, that, that they can do it right. It just that itself provides a lot of hope.
Margaret 31:56
Absolutely. And I also think the diversity of the participants was beautifully done, the diversity of their art was beautifully done. And for anyone listening, this is the way I would describe it, please correct me, but this is sharing nine wonderful human beings who are in recovery, and also identify as artists, sharing their journey in this movie. That’d be an accurate description.
Adriana 32:27
Definitely, absolutely, yes.
Margaret 32:31
And what I appreciated was the diversity of the stories. One of the things that I’m becoming more and more exposed to and even in my work, is the many ways people find their solution. And that though, my solution was a very specific one, that doesn’t mean that others are going to look the same. And I’m so grateful. There are people in the world who are doing different modalities, whether it be art, equine, animal, music. You know that it isn’t just talk therapies anymore.
Adriana 33:09
Yeah, it’s experiential, right?
To me, a part of my work is also helping people access many different layers and many different awarenesses of who they are right that, for me, when I, when I got into recovery, I realized it was just a talking head, I really was just only coming from my mind all the time. And it was my criticisms, my judgments, my planning my this, my that, right. And I started to realize over time, like, oh, I have this whole emotional landscape that I’m not fully accessing. And actually, I’m living in a body, and I have this body that is giving me wisdom all the time. And, and if I’m in my body, I’m actually a lot more relaxed and sometimes more calm. Not always, but so I think also that experiential piece, that we’re seeing dancers in the film, we’re seeing performers, we’re seeing people really like in that visual art process that’s. Like, Jason, our stone sculptors, very visceral, right? And, and that, to me, artists, it’s about our whole being, it’s not just right, we get out of just that mental spin. To me that that creates depth, and they’re sharing that depth with us. And I believe that’s truly how healing happens.
Margaret 34:22
I believe in the mirrors concept of, I can see through someone else sharing something maybe I don’t know and myself, or identifying myself.
Dianne 34:29
I wanted to mention the idea to have the messiness of documentary filmmaking. We don’t go in with a script, we have a concept, and we hope that concept will reach it. But in the meantime, you know, there’s lots of mistakes being made. And for me, as I you know, wanting things to work out a certain way, just surrendering to that process of you don’t know. We don’t know mind. And out of that messiness, there’s some jewels. Maybe it’s the parts that aren’t so planned that can arise and there go, here we are, can we come in? Can we come into this story, and it always surprises me. And it’s so amazing when it happens.
And also there, you go into certain situations that are really loaded, and filming and being uncomfortable at times, you know. We’re filming, sometimes in locations that they’re difficult. The refrigerators going really loud, as he’s saying, the most beautiful thing, and oh, damn, we got to start over again. You know, forgiving ourselves, forgiving ourselves for the mistakes that we make, and just keep going.
Margaret 35:46
Well, isn’t part of that so beautifully mirroring, again, recovery, you know, acceptance of life, on life’s terms, acceptance of who we are as perfectly imperfect human beings. And you’re, you’re sharing people’s vulnerability. And they’re humans, they’re not robots. So of course, it’s got to have its bumps and turns and curves and, and you have to adapt.
Adriana 36:12
And how much being in recovery, I don’t think I could have done anything like this. If I wasn’t in recovery. I needed that ground. That’s something I’ve really realized as an artist in recovery in this film has stretched me beyond anything I think I’ve done. I would say there’s other life things that have happened that have stretched me more. But in terms of a creative project, I’ve never been so stretched.
And if I didn’t have that ability, like Dianne was talking about right to go with the flow to adapt to situations to okay, this is out of my hands, let go, I have to let go here and just be creative and flexible. And so also, how do I come back to my self-care practices. I had to do that over and over again, to my meditation, to my recovery support systems, so that I could keep going, that was part of really how I kept going.
Margaret 37:08
I really appreciate that.
Outro: I am in awe of the talented people in the world using their gifts and voices like Adriana and Dianne. Who knew how much it takes to get a film to the audience. What a journey these two wonderful creatives have been on. Come back next week, where we learn more about the artists involved in the film, and the dreams for where they would like this movie to go.
I want to thank my guest for their courage and vulnerability in sharing parts of their story.
Please find resources on my website.
This is Margaret Swift Thompson. Until next time, please take care of you
