Artist Recovery Podcast

Artist Recovery Podcast is Bringing Light to the Darkside of Art. I’m Rich Wright, your host — and here we're redefining recovery as Renewal, Resilience and Creative Transformation. Because for artists, it’s more than survival… it’s Remembering.
This show is about the real journey of being a working creative — the highs, the lows, the pivots, and the reinventions that shape who we are. Together we’ll explore how setbacks can spark transformation, how loss can open new paths, and how resilience fuels the heart of every artist’s story.
If you’ve ever faced doubt, setback, or the call to reinvent yourself, you’re in the right place. Let’s recover — and create — together.”

Want to be a guest on Artist Recovery Podcast? Send Rich Wright a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/artistrecovery

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Artist Recovery Podcast

Artist Recovery Podcast S2 Ep. 20 | From Addiction to Agency: Grant Curtis's Creative Comeback

May 15, 2026 • Rich Wright • Season 2 • Episode 20

0:00 | 3:07:56

What does it look like when a creative director loses everything at the height of his career and builds something better on the other side of sobriety?

In this episode, Rich Wright sits down with Grant Curtis, founder of Curtis Creative Agency and United Headwear, for a raw, unfiltered conversation about addiction, identity, and the grit it takes to start over with clarity.
Grant spent nearly 16 years inside a growing apparel brand in Tacoma, Washington, working his way up from screen printer to creative director after getting his foot in the door at 19 years old, lying about knowing how to screen print on day one, and figuring it out before Monday morning. That kind of resourcefulness carried him through two decades of building other people's brands, until the day they laid him off just 7 months into his sobriety. $60,000 in debt, a mortgage to cover, and a newly clear head, Grant chose to build rather than break.

Rich and Grant go deep on what it really means to recover, not just from substances, but from the version of yourself that you outgrew. They talk about cocaine addiction and the financial wreckage it leaves behind, how early sobriety and a layoff happened in the same season, why athletics became Grant's anchor instead of a coping mechanism, and how the gym, running, and cycling became the discipline that holds everything together.

Grant shares the story behind United Headwear, originally called United by Sobriety, a headwear brand born out of a creative gap in the market for sober culture, and the honest reality of rebranding when your first instinct was bigger than your bandwidth. They also dig into the quiet power of the founder's story, the creative perfectionism that holds artists back, and why building in public from the ground floor is what creates real community.
This episode ends with one of the most unexpected moments of the season. Grant reveals that his sobriety date is September 25th. His baby's due date is September 24th. And the number 4 has been his lucky number since his soccer days.

Connect with Grant:
Website: https://www.curtiscreativeagency.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grantalexcurtis
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/curtiscreativeagency
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/curtiscreativeagency

Join Podmatch:
https://www.joinpodmatch.com/artistrecovery
Dyslexia Classes: https://www.skool.com/dyslexia-classes

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