What’s a rockstar without booze? Well, that would be Jackson Hauserman. This month I had the absolute joy of meeting the guitarist of the band Kash’d Out. They are a reggae touring band with over 193,000 followers monthly on Spotify!

Movies depict a rockstar’s life filled with drugs and alcohol, and it may not be too far from the truth. When Hauserman began his journey to sobriety, he “thought my social life was over.” To him–and most of the world–drinking and touring went hand-in-hand,“I thought I’d have to hang up any dreams about being a touring musician” Yet, Hauserman proves that a touring musician and alcohol are not mutually exclusive.

A lot of our conversation focused on how Hauserman stayed sober on the road. From our interaction, I got to know a laid-back, but very dedicated and hard-working individual. He has been sober for eleven years, all the while touring around the nation. For many years, he drank and used drugs until he realized he was abusing them. He passed through a few treatment centers before finding a twelve-step program which he said, “totally changed my life.” But before he
reached that point, he wasn’t sure if he even wanted to even be sober, although he was “tired of the way I was feeling and the results I was getting.”

When Jackson was simultaneously on the road to sobriety and touring with Kash’d Out, he learned that he has to have a routine with “practices that were non-negotiable.” There are times when everything felt right and everything was smooth for months at a time, and then after a few bad days, his practices “dropped off.” It is all about adapting and keeping the tried and true routine.
 

Hauserman approaches his sobriety with a “two steps forward one step backward, still being one step forward” mentality. The real trick, he says, is about understanding that sobriety isn’t static: “My experience and relationship to recovery grow and changes the longer I stay sober… as long as I am in a place where I am thinking about enlarging my recovery then I am on the right track” Through his adaptations, Hauserman has been able to remove the obsessive thoughts, and rather than avoiding alcohol, he opts to “co-exist with drugs and alcohol.” 

Jackson heard about Sobar from a family member and thinks the concept is amazing. As a musician, he is in many social situations where it is assumed that people will be drinking. By providing an alternative it helps people to feel like they can fully participate, which is something he would have appreciated in his early sobriety. In early sobriety, he was often worried about going to social settings where there was a lot of drinking. He was so afraid of losing a life of drinking until he realized that “when I got sober, it gave me a life instead of me losing one.”
 

Hauserman takes a different approach to non-alcoholic drinks. He thinks of NA drinks, “not like a substitute but as just another drink.” To him, “there's nothing awful about being sober” so there is no need to “replace” alcohol with a mocktail. He can just enjoy the mocktail without thinking of the original.

This wouldn’t be a Sobar Story if I didn’t ask the man of the month for any advice he’d like to share with others in recovery. He echoed what many have said before, that the need for consistency–even on your best days - is critical.. But he brought something new to the “stage”. In his experience recovery only works when you want it to. He urges those struggling to look for “the willingness to try it, even the smallest bit.” He questioned himself early on, but he used that willingness to try something and eventually found the solution that still works in his life today. “Recovery is a huge part of my life.” If you are interested in trying, take Jackson’s approach, give it an honest shot, and see if it works for you.
 

”Anyone who does the work will see their life will be better…it may not be as fast as they want it to be, but it will happen”