From Trauma To Creativity: David Deane Haskell On Healing, Writing, & AI

Send us Fan MailFor my final in-person international interview from Japan during the summer of 2026, I reconnect with author and professional marching drummer David Deane Haskell—the same guest who happened to become my first in-person international interview earlier in the summer. This time, we go deeper into the relationship between trauma recovery, addiction, creativity, writing, spirituality, and the rapidly changing world of artificial intelligence. Mr. Haskell also updates me on the second edition of Wounded Angels, his deeply personal healing memoir exploring inner-child work, codependency, family trauma, addiction recovery, and the long process of confronting wounds he spent decades avoiding.Mr. Haskell and I examine how unresolved trauma can influence relationships, identity, creativity, and even writer’s block. We discuss his journey from drug and alcohol addiction toward sobriety and emotional healing, while I connect his experiences to conversations I have had surrounding suicide prevention, addiction recovery, military mental health, emotional regulation, and the danger of simply burying painful experiences instead of addressing their roots. We also explore how writing can become both an expression of what someone has survived and a way of developing characters with greater empathy, complexity, and humanity.From there, we dive into Mr. Haskell’s fiction, including Too Much Information, The Gold Club, Dark Alignment, Emergence, The Solarian Deep, and his developing novel The Vibrants. That opens an extensive conversation about science fiction, government overreach, algorithms, technological surveillance, sentient AI, human creativity, digital privacy, AI-generated communication, mental-health technology, and who ultimately gets to determine the ethical boundaries of artificial intelligence. I challenge several of these ideas through real-world examples involving AI translation, interpersonal communication, suicide intervention, bias, censorship, and the increasingly blurry boundary between helpful technology and technology making decisions for us.We ultimately come back to a much more human question: How can we be okay? Whether we are talking about addiction recovery, childhood trauma, writing, futuristic societies, artificial intelligence, social division, or creative expression, this conversation is about what happens when people stop running from what hurts and begin creating something better from it. Mr. Haskell and I also encourage aspiring writers and creators to stop waiting for permission, embrace the strange ideas living in their heads, and recognize that human imagination remains extraordinarily difficult to replace.https://daviddeanehaskell.com/https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healing-the-wounded-inner-child-addiction-trauma/id1657865479?i=1000777685209Website: https://coupleonukes.comDiscounted Military Creator Con Tickets: http://militarycreatorcon.com/register?afmc=MCCMWExodus, Honor Your Heart, & Nulu Knives: https://www.coupleonukes.com/affiliates/Want to be a guest on Couple O' Nukes? Send me a message on PodMatch:  https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1726279485588093e83e0e007 Sign Up For A PodMatch Account: https://www.joinpodmatch.com/coupleonukes*Couple O' Nukes LLC and Mr. Whiskey are not licensed medical entities, nor do they take responsibility for any advice or information put forth by guests. Take all advice at your own risk.Website: https://coupleonukes.com Discounted Military Creator Con Tickets: http://militarycreatorcon.com/register?afmc=MCCMW Exodus, Honor Your Heart, & Nulu Knives: https://www.coupleonukes.com/affiliates/ Want to be a guest on Couple O' Nukes? Send me a message on PodMatch:  https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1726279485588093e83e0e007Sign Up For A PodMatch Account: https://www.joinpodmatch.com/coupleonukes *Couple O' Nukes LLC and Mr. Whiskey are not licensed medical entities, nor do they take responsibility for any advice or information put forth by guests. Take all advice at your own risk.