The little (yet big) 90
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: Massachusetts
Posts: 17
The little (yet big) 90
Hey Guys,
I'm happy to say that I passed my 90 day mark on Monday. I feel as if I am truly going down a path in my life that is completely out of my element and unlike what I've been doing before.
Let me explain...I've been at the same desk job going on five years and last week I up and left it because it was absolutely destroying me mentally and physically. I've noticed that with the absence of my poison of choice I've begun to see through the fog and recognize other aspects of my life that are also harmful to the advancement of myself as a person. While the pay was pretty decent, the thrill and happiness were gone. I was driving into work every day in a good mood and by 10am was loathing everything around me. I also picked up on the fact that the only time I really ever craved drinking since sobriety have been while at that job in what I'd deem as a toxic environment. Nobody pushed themselves and I watched the same people day in and day out hold the company back from advancement all while people enabled it to happen and I couldn't sit there and try my best only to see others perform minimally anymore. I did not and do not have a backup plan, but much like my drinking I knew that I needed to get out.
Why do I bring this up? Because it's all relevant in the struggles we face. You can get rid of your addiction, but if you're still surrounded by things that either were a big part of it or influenced it in any way the healing process will remain stagnant and you'll begin to feel as though all you're doing is floating down the same sewer drain without the thing that made it comfortable. I've been playing instruments since I was two years old and since leaving my job, for the first time in my life, wrote and finished a song completely. All I've ever done before have been half-assed ideas that never were made into anything because I'd either get too drunk or run out of the motivation to do anything. I consider it a milestone to have done that, as little as it may seem. I really would like to pursue my passion for music, but the passion of it all has been stifled by the routines of life and my addiction killing everything in my soul that made me want to be here. I am slowly but surely trying to rekindle the drive I once had and took a drastic step to help me do this.
What I'm getting at is that if you feel stuck it's probably because you are and just don't know how to remove yourself from the fly paper. It may be different for you but for me I've needed to make choices that make me extremely uncomfortable, but ultimately relieved. Leaving my job at first was a feeling full of anxiety and sadness but a week later I feel like a million pounds of suppression have been removed from myself and now I can try to do some soul searching. For now I'm going to find some part time work so that I can have a little more personal time to find myself again, but every day that I wake up and don't reach for a bottle I am extremely thankful that I have the ability to keep doing this. People around me are extremely proud of me for sticking with this sobriety and recognizing just how vital it is to stay this way, so that's a big help. Don't settle because you think you have to. Do what you have to do to grow into the person you want to be, even if it means doing something that scares the crap out of you because you have no sense of direction. Sometimes you need to get lost to find the right way out. I just wanted to share a little bit of my life the past few weeks with you all and hope that some of you can get something out of it.
Thanks for reading and I hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday.
I'm happy to say that I passed my 90 day mark on Monday. I feel as if I am truly going down a path in my life that is completely out of my element and unlike what I've been doing before.
Let me explain...I've been at the same desk job going on five years and last week I up and left it because it was absolutely destroying me mentally and physically. I've noticed that with the absence of my poison of choice I've begun to see through the fog and recognize other aspects of my life that are also harmful to the advancement of myself as a person. While the pay was pretty decent, the thrill and happiness were gone. I was driving into work every day in a good mood and by 10am was loathing everything around me. I also picked up on the fact that the only time I really ever craved drinking since sobriety have been while at that job in what I'd deem as a toxic environment. Nobody pushed themselves and I watched the same people day in and day out hold the company back from advancement all while people enabled it to happen and I couldn't sit there and try my best only to see others perform minimally anymore. I did not and do not have a backup plan, but much like my drinking I knew that I needed to get out.
Why do I bring this up? Because it's all relevant in the struggles we face. You can get rid of your addiction, but if you're still surrounded by things that either were a big part of it or influenced it in any way the healing process will remain stagnant and you'll begin to feel as though all you're doing is floating down the same sewer drain without the thing that made it comfortable. I've been playing instruments since I was two years old and since leaving my job, for the first time in my life, wrote and finished a song completely. All I've ever done before have been half-assed ideas that never were made into anything because I'd either get too drunk or run out of the motivation to do anything. I consider it a milestone to have done that, as little as it may seem. I really would like to pursue my passion for music, but the passion of it all has been stifled by the routines of life and my addiction killing everything in my soul that made me want to be here. I am slowly but surely trying to rekindle the drive I once had and took a drastic step to help me do this.
What I'm getting at is that if you feel stuck it's probably because you are and just don't know how to remove yourself from the fly paper. It may be different for you but for me I've needed to make choices that make me extremely uncomfortable, but ultimately relieved. Leaving my job at first was a feeling full of anxiety and sadness but a week later I feel like a million pounds of suppression have been removed from myself and now I can try to do some soul searching. For now I'm going to find some part time work so that I can have a little more personal time to find myself again, but every day that I wake up and don't reach for a bottle I am extremely thankful that I have the ability to keep doing this. People around me are extremely proud of me for sticking with this sobriety and recognizing just how vital it is to stay this way, so that's a big help. Don't settle because you think you have to. Do what you have to do to grow into the person you want to be, even if it means doing something that scares the crap out of you because you have no sense of direction. Sometimes you need to get lost to find the right way out. I just wanted to share a little bit of my life the past few weeks with you all and hope that some of you can get something out of it.
Thanks for reading and I hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday.
Forum Leader
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Wisconsin, USA
Posts: 16,945
Congrats on 90 days and thanks for sharing some wonderful advice/experience Steve. I also agree that sobrierty is something of a metamorphosis...it allows you to see things in ways never seen before. And you are also spot on in that some things will not be comfortable at first, and that we need to learn new ways to live and change our other destructive habits too. Great story, hope you can stick around and share with is some more!
Member
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Arizona
Posts: 107
Your words ring true and strike a familiar tone for me. I was at a well paying job in a production/manafacturing setting but I was not truly happy. The shifts were 12.5 hours long and overnight as well. There was a lot of demand on production and to learn as many different jobs in your area as possible. This was too pull in you end for overtime when ever the company saw fit and I ended up feeling like their property; a piece of cattle so to speak.
Unlike you, I was discharged from that job because I went on a bender and did not want to make it to work to repeat the grind. It turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. I saw that my urges and cravings to drink were elevated by the work situation. In fact my previous 2 jobs were of the same type of work culminating in almost 15 years of the same environment!
I am glad for you that you got out under your own terms. I would rather find work that serves people and makes them happy on a personal level. Something that I would enjoy and involve using my own creativity to serve others. Congrats on over 90 sober days!
Unlike you, I was discharged from that job because I went on a bender and did not want to make it to work to repeat the grind. It turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. I saw that my urges and cravings to drink were elevated by the work situation. In fact my previous 2 jobs were of the same type of work culminating in almost 15 years of the same environment!
I am glad for you that you got out under your own terms. I would rather find work that serves people and makes them happy on a personal level. Something that I would enjoy and involve using my own creativity to serve others. Congrats on over 90 sober days!
Guest
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 8,674
Good job. And yes so many things become clearer and as we get sober we can make decisions about what is good for us going forward.
I'd just be a teeny voice of AA-based caution....many will tell you that making big choices (ie quitting a job, getting a divorce, starting a new relationship, moving across country, whatever is typically big or big for you) is ill-advised. We do feel much better and are thinking *more* clearly, but we are also still evolving emotionally and may not use sound reason for big decisions (we think we are, though!). Just my $0.02 to be cautious- for me, a big decision like asking for my job back in a restaurant at almost 5 mos sober, and beginning what I knew would be a serious relationship, were two things seriously prayed about, discussed with my sponsor, and fleshed out before I acted. The Big Book talks alot about this kind of stuff in pp 85-88 and 417-418, 4th ed.
Good luck. It keeps getting better!!
I'd just be a teeny voice of AA-based caution....many will tell you that making big choices (ie quitting a job, getting a divorce, starting a new relationship, moving across country, whatever is typically big or big for you) is ill-advised. We do feel much better and are thinking *more* clearly, but we are also still evolving emotionally and may not use sound reason for big decisions (we think we are, though!). Just my $0.02 to be cautious- for me, a big decision like asking for my job back in a restaurant at almost 5 mos sober, and beginning what I knew would be a serious relationship, were two things seriously prayed about, discussed with my sponsor, and fleshed out before I acted. The Big Book talks alot about this kind of stuff in pp 85-88 and 417-418, 4th ed.
Good luck. It keeps getting better!!
Member
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Sonoran Desert & Southeast Asia
Posts: 6,561
So true. I made crazy decisions in my first year of sobriety, including putting my things in storage and moving halfway around the world. Mostly what I found was that i had other emotional and thinking issues from my childhood that needed work. Just taking away the booze didn't help that, in fact in some ways things got worse, lol.
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