Toronto68

I'm in my 4th month of sobriety. I think I have to continue to adapt, as I become newly acquainted with my life. It's not so extreme as learning to walk or speak again, but I use that as an analogy. I am dealing with frustrations, making decisions - using my brain, period - without alcohol. And that is not the only big change in the picture for me.

I am also at a crossroads when it comes to work and the choices I can make. I am not in a situation where I can pick job A or job B, but a batch of choices in various stages of development are starting to appear for me. And I am finding myself looking at the choices with a different pair of eyes, and that means my priority about sobriety - what are my risks, triggers, what is good for me to keep going all aspects of my life.

One of the things we know about ourselves sooner or later is that we are all so similar when it comes to our alcoholism. We're all different in the shapes and sizes and walks of life, the whole bit; some of us are even different in how we used alcohol. But we see ourselves when we take in the story of the other person, almost like it's a shared soul scattered around and planted in different individuals. We feel similar things when we want someone's sobriety and we think in the same ways when we wonder how we are doing.

In light of that, does anyone have experiences concerning choices they made with regard to work? I think I am seeing roughly two different hallways for myself and I am finding it hard to apply the Today Rule in my thinking about these work choices. One path is pursuing a choice that has more aggression in it, because of more accountability or complexity; the other is a choice that is more like taking on what I know, more "steady as she goes," which does not minimize the brains and tolerance level it takes in the least. The aggressive one makes me concerned that I'd be taking on too much even though the progression is well deserved; the more familiar/less adventurous one seems like a good match for stability, but for some reason I am concerned I would be putting triggers in front of me. Part of me looks upon past choices as settling - and coupled with drinking to compensate for the boredom if not shame in not extending myself in my abilities.

Either way, the same alcoholic, the same person who has to confront each Day and not drink, and the same person who wants to assist others to have sobriety of their own will exist. It's just a question of which mindset to have in order to be happy with the outcome to my choices. Does this remind anyone of choices they had to make and the debate that came along with it? Did you choose "steady she goes" and see it as the right choice because if you had chosen more adventure and possibly growth it would also have meant putting your sobriety at risk? Were you able to pick "adventure" and that was part of your continued healing, while the more stable choice would have been taking a back seat? One of my ongoing mistakes has been putting work high on the list instead of balancing my life out. Now that sobriety is in the picture, I have a new understanding of why balance in life is important.

But: ????????? I'm not used to asking things like this.