Becoming a Writer in Sobriety

It took decades to fulfill my dream of becoming a writer. I got sober, married, helped run a family business, and raised two children. Life was full, and writing always felt like something waiting for me somewhere in the distance.

But even while building that life, I carried the weight of my childhood.

My father immigrated from Norway in 1957 with fifty dollars and no English. After my mother’s mental illness led to hospitalizations, he gained full custody of three daughters and chose adventure over convention. We lived on a remote ranch without electricity, then on a 45-foot sailboat. We learned to sail, to spearfish, to survive. There was laughter and beauty in those years.

But once I began writing, I realized I could not separate the beautiful memories from the truth. And the truth was far more complicated.

Memory can become a survival tool. We polish certain moments until we convince ourselves the good parts were the whole story. I think I did that to survive. When I was 19 and my father died suddenly, I felt both liberated and terrified. I used alcohol and drugs to numb the confusion of loving him, fearing him, and resenting him all at once.

Years later, during my recovery program, my sponsor encouraged me to complete my Fourth Step. As I wrote down truths I had never spoken, I experienced intense anxiety.

For the first time, I admitted aloud what had really happened in my childhood: the control, the harm, and the fear I had carried in silence.

Telling the truth nearly broke me, but it also saved me.

The Steps became the foundation of my healing. My husband and I committed to therapy, support groups, and parenting classes. We wanted to build a healthier life than the ones we had inherited.

College became part of my recovery as well. Growing up, my father told me I was not capable and would never amount to anything. After a few years of sobriety, I enrolled in a night class, still afraid he might have been right. Instead, I earned my associate degree, transferred to UCLA, and graduated at 31 with a degree in English literature. For the first time, I understood that I was capable.

When life finally opened the door, the truth poured out of me the way it had during my Fourth Step, but this time as scenes, dialogue, and story. Those memories became Fourteen: A Daughter’s Memoir of Adventure, Sailing, and Survival.

I intended to remove the hardest parts during editing, but I never did. They were the heart of the book.

Readers asked what happened next, and ten years later I published Nineteen: A Daughter’s Memoir of Reckoning and Recovery.

Between the two books, my older sister died of an overdose. Substance use disorder runs through both sides of my family. My sister fought for years to find lasting sobriety but could never fully get there.

After her death, I stepped away from family writing and found myself drawn to Marion Davies, the silent film star whose intelligence and generosity were largely erased from history. When I discovered she had also struggled with sobriety, I felt a deep connection. That inspiration became my novel The Blue Butterfly.

What I understand now is that sobriety is the foundation upon which I built my life.

Writing does not come from discipline alone. It begins with the quiet spark that refuses to disappear: the story that settles into your heart and finally asks to be told.

Leslie Johansen Nack is the author of two award-winning books: her historical novel The Blue Butterfly and her debut memoir Fourteen. Her forthcoming sequel, Nineteen: A Daughter’s Memoir of Reckoning and Recovery, concludes her raw and deeply personal story that chronicles her path to sobriety and a renewed sense of hope. Find more about Leslie and her work at lesliejohansennack.com.