April Hartman on Sober People Project

SOBER PEOPLE CAN ROCK –

May 15, 2023 – After receiving several messages and comments about people’s struggles with sobriety due to their jobs, Jon decided to start a project called Sober People. He interviews individuals whom are living sober lives while also working jobs in which sobriety may be especially difficult to maintain. Jon first found bartenders on Mass Ave who are currently bartending while sober. After the success of his first interviews, Jon continued the search of other lines of work that may make it hard on people’s sobriety. This lead him to musicians including Apes of the State’s, April Hartman. Jon was able to sit down with April to discuss her success with her 9 years of sobriety while also living the rockstar dream.

After the interview, I spoke with Jon about his project in more detail. Jon shared that his mission is “to empower people to realize their own inner strength by sharing stories from individuals who have survived some of the hardest challenges you can face personally. This has manifested in the form of sharing sobriety stories.”

Jon finds people to interview through networking on the internet. He states, “the people who have shared their stories of struggle have inspired me to rewrite my story. So through this shared desire to adopt healthier habits I have found myself aligning with incredible individuals.”

Jon shared that “part of sobriety is finding your higher power. I think I’m finding my higher power by being vulnerable with sharing my own story and through being off-surface by sharing other’s stories. I can’t be of service if I, myself, am not transparent with my own story arch. Developing a public facing persona that relies on my sober story has been beneficial for me staying on my sober path. It is a delicate act maintaining a separation of self worth from my personal journey and my shared journey, but for whatever reason I have always been drawn to sharing a majority of who I am publicly.”