From Autopilot to Awake: How a 2 a.m. Crash Became Sarah Marie Shoulak’s Turning Point
Imagine cruising through life on autopilot, classes, jobs, relationships, checking every box that looks like “success.” Then one night, you nod off with cruise control on, cross the center line, and wake up with the left-side airbag in your face and a second chance you didn’t realize you needed.
That was Sarah Marie Shoulak’s reality. Writer, creative visionary, body painter, cosplayer, and now author of an up-and-coming memoir, Sarah has seven years of sobriety and a hard-won lens on presence, resilience, and reclaiming your spark. This isn’t a highlight reel. It’s the messy, honest shift from chaos to clarity.
On Attention Is The Currency, Sarah walked us through the night that could have ended everything, and why the real transformation didn’t happen overnight.
The Night Everything Could Have Ended
It was a rural Minnesota straightaway. Late. Quiet. A five-minute “home stretch.” Sarah, 21, exhausted from travel and still raw from grief, set cruise control to 55 mph. “I’ll just ride this out,” she told herself.
She drifted into the ditch. The side curtain airbag exploded. Cold sweats. Torn panels. Somehow, she threaded back across the oncoming lane and parked. The call no one wants to make: “Mom, I’ve been in an accident. I’m OK.”
If this were a movie, that would have been the instant life flipped. Real life isn’t a montage. “I didn’t change right away,” Sarah admits. The crash was a wake-up, but not the wake-up.
“Life kept trying to kill me. I had to decide to live. No more external drama forcing my hand. This time the decision had to come from me.”
The Autopilot You Don’t Notice Until It’s Too Late
Before the crash, autopilot didn’t feel reckless. It felt responsible. Degree track. Career track. Relationship track. Purpose, direction, momentum. But momentum without awareness is just a heavier crash waiting to happen.
- Expectation-led life: Doing what looks right, not what is right for you.
- Numbing vs. noticing: Using alcohol and distraction to avoid what hurts.
- People-pleasing: Trading your values for acceptance until there’s nothing left to stand on.
The crash didn’t cure any of that. It revealed it.
From “Indestructible” to Accountable
Sarah jokes that “indestructible” became her brand, totalling cars and walking away. That myth kept her stuck. If nothing breaks you, why change? Years later, rock bottom wasn’t a ditch. It was recognizing alcohol as her gateway to bad decisions, dead-end dynamics, and a life happening to her.
She made a bet: remove alcohol and see what’s left.
What was left wasn’t pretty. It was honest.
“Sobriety didn’t put me in a Disney movie. It pulled the clog out of the drain. All the gunk came up, mine. I had to own it.”
Seven years later, eight this December, the payoff is clarity, not perfection. Agency, not autopilot.
Creativity as Lifeline, Not Performance
Art wasn’t “art therapy” in a room with prompts. It was oxygen. After-hours chalk murals on floor-to-ceiling walls at a tech agency. Body paint. Cosplay. Anything that put her hands to work and her nervous system in neutral.
- Focus over frenzy: Hours drawing instead of hours drinking.
- Presence over performance: Creating for herself, not to perform a persona.
- Meaning over noise: Letting images carry what words couldn’t, until words arrived.
“I make my best art when life is worst. It becomes a channel for what I can’t say yet.”
The Classroom That Held Up a Mirror
In Orlando, teaching public speaking at a community college, Sarah watched first-gen students and single parents show up, week after week. Many were older than her. All were determined.
“I was the ‘expert’ at the front, but their persistence exposed my excuses. If they could invest in a better future, so could I.”
That was the internal leverage she needed, the shift from waiting to be saved to choosing responsibility.
Identity Without Numbing: What Sobriety Actually Taught Her
1) Accountability beats alibis.
Alcohol didn’t “make” decisions for her. It removed brakes she hadn’t learned to use.
2) Trade problems for patterns.
Stop fixating on the latest crisis. Ask what keeps repeating, and why you keep choosing it.
3) Keep the essence, ditch the act.
She used to be the “fun” one splashing in fountains. Sober, she kept the playfulness and lost the performance. Fun without self-betrayal is possible, and better.
4) Presence is built, not found.
Rituals. Boundaries. Quiet. Boredom on purpose. You don’t stumble into an intentional life. You schedule it.
Practical Ways to Wake Up, Before Life Forces You To
No fluff. Here’s the starter kit Sarah’s journey points to.
Check Your Autopilot
- Five-minute audit: What am I doing because it’s expected, not because it’s aligned?
- Pattern scan: What keeps happening in my relationships, work, or habits? What’s my part every time?
- One honest boundary: Choose one “No” this week that protects your energy.
Replace Numbing With Noticing
- Single-task windows: One daily activity with no audio and no screen, cook, fold, shower.
- Boredom reps: Sit for three minutes and feel your feet, breath, jaw. No fixing. Just noticing.
- Swap the feed: Trade one episode for 20 minutes of music, mantras, or silence.
Create On Purpose
- Hands over phone: Sketch, Lego, knit, chalk, puzzles. It’s not childish. It’s nervous system hygiene.
- Make it visible: Leave your tools out and your vices away. Friction is strategy.
- Ritualize: Same time, same space, low stakes. The habit is the win.
If Alcohol Is the Question
- Run a 30-day experiment: No labels, just data. Journal sleep, mood, conflict, output.
- Find your anchors: Night routine, morning light, movement. You’ll need substitutes, not just subtractions.
- Get allies: Therapist, group, one honest friend. Accountability beats willpower alone.
Presence, Daily: What It Looks Like Now
It isn’t glamorous. It is repeatable.
- Rituals: Overnight oats, a tidied counter, a short walk in daylight. “Love notes” to tomorrow-you.
- Boundaries: Fewer obligations, stronger filters, slower yeses.
- Inputs with intention: Less doom, more possibility. Not kittens only, constructive inspiration.
- Service without self-erasure: Teaching, creating, sharing, without handing the steering wheel to approval.
The Bottom Line
You don’t need a near-death to wake up. If you’ve been drifting, take this as your rumble strip.
- Autopilot is comfortable, until it isn’t.
- Sobriety, or any big change, won’t save you. It will expose you. That’s the point.
- Creativity isn’t a luxury. It’s a way back to yourself.
- Presence isn’t a mood. It’s a practice.
“You’re never too young for a wake-up call, and never too late to answer it.”
Watch for Sarah’s memoir, a raw map from “indestructible” to intentional. If her story nudged you, pass it on to someone who’s been white-knuckling their straightaway. Attention is the currency. Stop spending it on numbness. Start investing it in a life you are fully awake for.