Work Resentments
 

I woke early this morning and couldn't fall back asleep. MAJOR resentments swirling around my brain, and one thought just mushroomed into many more.

Work has finally given me a permanent accommodation to avoid shift work due to my recovery (got approved by work Physician). But my boss is dragging his feet on the issue until HR 'gets back to him'. I'm panicking slightly because if this doesn't get resolved this coming week, I could be going back on 12-hour night shifts the following week. Shift work was always a huge trigger, so for me this is pretty important.

I'm sure things will get worked out, but right now my mind is catastrophizing. I know I can't do squat about it this weekend and I'm trying to remind myself of that.

Some coffee and first-person shooter video game is my plan for the immediate future.

:lmao

Yes, that would be nerve-racking, I'd imagine. But it sounds like you are responding in the right way by recognizing it as something you can't change. Even when the weekend is over, it doesn't sound as though it's something you have a lot of control over. (??) Funny you used the term "catastrophizing." I've been accused of doing that more than a couple times. :)

That sounds like a bad situation, and I hope it works out for you.

Here's what happened to me in my first 12 months of sobriety around work...all the things I was afraid of actually happened. Ended up out of work and unable to work for 18 months. However I found I was still able to stay sober.

I know that sounds like a crappy answer but actually it was a blessing for me...I learnt that my physical sobriety wasn't dependent on the things around me so much as my internal state...wether I was willing to accept and deal with the things that happened around me.

My work today (second career) is a lot more physically and emotionally challenging than what I use to do...but I love it and I'm far better able to cope with the demands while I am physically sober and have some distance from my last drink.

This came in stage though...I just had to deal with each stage as it came. The first time I managed to get a good night's sleep without worrying about that 5.00am start in the morning and whether I would be up in time...absolute blessing :)

P

That sounds like a really tough situation. Hope everything works out for you. The only advice I can give you is that what is going to happen will happen. Worrying about it today isn't going to change anything. You've done all you can do. There is nothing you can do this weekend to change what will happen next week. Hope you find a way to relax this weekend. Good luck. John

I don't think I'm worried that I'll relapse, per se. But I've been on this accommodation for the past 6 months (as 'temporary') and I've become very settled into the normalcy of having a Mon-Fri schedule. I'm also confident that this will work out in my favour in the long-run. I think I'm aggravated at the bureaucratic hoops I have to jump through. It would've been so easy for my boss to extend my accommodation until everything was rubber stamped, but he's been avoiding me and this issue.

I will not use this as my excuse to drink. Bottom line.

ah... the work trigger.

I have been at my current job for 8 years and I have come to hate it. It is a major trigger to my drinking. after spending all day everyday in that place I needed a drink.

Of course I was drinking everyday for the last 27 years but my job is still a trigger. Coming home from any job triggered me to drink...I felt that after working all day I deserve it.

I quit drinking on October 24th and have not been to work since October 26th due to anxiety and depression. I know I have to go back to work at some point (probably in January) and I know it is going to mess with my sobriety bigtime.

I feel strong enough now not to drink but once I get back to that day to day grind of working I may feel different.

o0o0o0o Catastrophizing i'm an expert at that. the smallest thing turns into the epic stuggle for all man kind in my head *sigh*

It always works out if i just go with the flow and preoccupy myself with something else in the mean time and if the situation doesnt work in my favor I get through it or i find some last minute solution in the end.

point is I always get through it but yeah in my head im awesome at making a mountain out of nothing thats the hardest part.

Good for you. Not worth it and you know it will only make things worse. John

Does anyone believe it would be possible to arrange their lives so perfectly that they wouldn't need to drink?

Yeah I am halfway through my first of four 11 hour work days.. today is longer because it's split, and I'm sleep deprived because I was up all night obsessing over things I thought I had buried.. came home just now to an angry note because I had used someone's favorite coffee cup and not returned it, because a mug is a mug is a mug and technically they all belong to that person, I don't really care, quite frankly after the moron-filled day I had, the picture on my coffee cup is far from my biggest concern..

I don't get to avoid all my triggers.. which on days like today is just everything.. The only real threat to my sobriety is my decision to pick up another bottle. There will always be triggers, like morons who lock themselves out of supply rooms and people who leave nasty notes because you moved their cheese...

I hate my life and I'm smoking like a fiend, but I'm sure not gonna drink.

No, and thank you for making my point ever so much more eloquently than I did. lol