soberaccountant

Today is day 38 for me of not drinking anymore. It's also been the same amount of time I was released from jail because of my DUI...my very first and certainly my last. I wouldn't wish this experience on anyone in the world, and never thought my life would be this screwed up.

Many of you read my last post about how I am now facing a lay off in addition to an upcoming court date. I have more anxiety now than I did have before. I don't sleep well, I am constantly shaking from fear, and not a day goes by I don't cry.

I am trying to find a new job, and I am so stressed out that I can't seem to find one close to home that I can travel to. I have to deal with my 30 day license suspension and wait for court next month to be able to expand my job search. My license gets suspended as of 4/2/16 and my court date is on 4/19/16. I cant get a restricted license until after 30 days and once i am enrolled in the county's alcohol program. Everyday I am having to wait is torture. I don't want to be back on unemployment. I don't want to be without a job. I don't want to be stuck in limbo every day. I remember what it was like to be unemployed before and I was close to putting an end to myself and I am afraid that will come again. It'll be even more so knowing that I won't have enough coming in to pay my bills and pay whatever fines and other stuff that I have to pay. I only have so much to hold me over.

I'm just so upset at myself over all of this. I want my life to be better and I want to be gainfully employed in my field. A lot of this got triggered because as I am putting my resume out there I have had a lot of responses but they are in places that I won't be able to travel to because of my upcoming suspension. I am so afraid I won't find other opportunities like these once I do get my license back. I have bills to pay like anyone else, and a family that relys on my contribution. I just feel like such a burden. I don't know what to think or do anymore. I am trying to be patient and go through the process but I just can't.

Stiltskin

Take a deep breath and try to relax your mind. There will be a time in the not so distant future when the situation will not be as raw and there IS a way out. You won't be able to locate it whilst you're panicking so badly though.

Big hugs from the UK and good luck.

least

Try not to worry too much about the future. We only have today, so make today the best day you can.

I hope you can find a good job soon.

sobersolstice

I went through the same process. Was driving home from a concert after 3 drinks and hit a patch of ice. I was concussed and don't remember much. I did the bus/bike thing for 3 years, sometimes riding my bike 30 miles in a day. Unfortunately I'm stupid, and the whole thing made me drink more. 5 years later I'm finally getting my interlock removed, but after lawyers, D.A.'s, Education, Therapy, and the $100/mo for the interlock. You can't really drink with the interlock, even the night before... You may have to go through the process with U.A.'s which will keep you from drinking depending on how your state handles it. The process was long, but you get used to it. It's expensive though. One thing I do know, is I won't be doing it again.

Hope everything pans out well for you.

soberaccountant

We don't have interlock requirements or UAs for first time offenders in my area. My concern is just finding a job again. Everyday I am out there looking and I can't find anything close to home. I want to get a job before I am convicted. I don't know how much this is going to hurt my chances of finding accounting work with a misdemeanor hanging over my shoulders. I can't not be working, I literally start losing it when I am not working. I am afraid of going through that again.

Soberwolf

I'm sorry you can't find nothing close to home just yet I really hope you find something & remember were always here reach out whenever you need

Sending good luck your way friend

CaseyW

Oxnard has bus service covering what looks like the entire town running from four in the morning until around midnight. Riding a bus may mean having to wake up a little earlier and walking a few blocks to a bus stop but it is an answer to your transportation issues.

Wishing you the best. I wish I had been smart enough to stop drinking after my DWI in 2004.

doggonecarl

If by "losing it" you mean drinking, don't go there. Your sobriety cannot be contingent on your finding a job. It can't. If you can find one reason to drink, you can just as easily find two reasons, then three, and so on.

Focus on your recovery, refrain from future tripping as it's a waste of mental energy, and good luck on finding work.

Anna

I was also wondering about public transportation in your area. Is there local bus service in the city? Is there longer distance bus service available to surrounding areas or train service? And, what about riding a bike? Is that doable? Try to come up with a solution and try to relax and work on finding a job.

soberaccountant

Getting around my city and neighboring city is not the issue. Much of my field has jobs in another part of the county that no public transportation covers or that my family will be able to help me get through. I am well hearsed on how the public transit works around here. This is the part that is panicking me: I cannot find gainful employment in my area. Its completely devastating me.

soberaccountant

The public transit does not go cross county where I would need it to get to the jobs that are interested in me. And then I have to deal with getting back home in time to go to the alcohol program. Its not doable no matter how I try to do it. I just don't want to be without a job. I panic every second thinking about it.

Everyone tells me to focus on today and my focus today and each day is trying to find a job and when I can't find one it just makes me more miserabke than before. I can live with the court situation and everything else but I can't begin to deal with this layoff and being unemployed once again. No one understands me and what I'm feeling.

soberaccountant

Mentally losing it, not going back to drinking. I deal with major depression disorder. This will be my third layoff in two years I just can't do it anymore. All my dreams lately are dreams of death and dying. My life feels over.

sobersolstice

I'm probably not the right person to answer this, but I kind of see humanity for what it is. There were times when I was much happier homeless than I was making six-figures. I too, got laid off, got angry, and moved to CO from CA with my $20k severance and started over. Got tired of working for people and started a business.

I remember making excuses talking myself out of certain opportunities due to one reason or another, then decided to opt out of the system and do my own thing.

breath

There is a solution. Welcome to SR; here you'll find the fellowship and resources to begin your solution, planning, implementation and follow through, Recovery is a journey, not a destination...Sobriety is the daily maintenace that keeps us on course.

Soberween

I don't know how spiritual you are soberaccount, but what works for me is handing it all over to God. I've been doing this for about two years now and it has worked for me. I've been through some difficult unemployments and it has helped me immensely. I do a little exercise where I breathe in God and breathe out Soberween three or four times. For some reason it works for me and I feel serenity. Also, wanted to add that I use to be a background investigator for federal clearances and having a DUI is very prevalent. I saw it all the time. It's so commonplace that it really was just a mere blip on their employment record. I wouldn't worry about that at all. It's pure history. And let it remain history by staying on your sober path.You most likely drank for a long time so it's not going to get better overnight. One day you will just know that the magic has happened. The magic for me didn't happened for well over a year of sobriety, but that first year of sobriety (although the magic had not occurred) was categorically better than when I was drinking.

KissMyTiara

I am confused about your job situation. First off you have not been layed off yet. Do you know when? Second, if you have to wait for 30 days to get a restricted license that would be May 2nd. So really you have less than six weeks until you can drive to a new job. It may take that long to find one in accounting. If you must work find something/anything doing for those six weeks. Work at a grocery store. If it keeps you busy until you get your license.

thelatheguy

When does it get better? For me it was immediately. Here is how I did it. First I joined AA. I went to a meeting. I got a sponsor. I started doing the steps(very important --ACTION). I Pray. I GO THROUGH THE PAIN, FEAR, ANXIETY AND REMORSE. I begin to face my problems without drinking or using. I help others. I GET OUT OF MYSELF.
If you do all this I assure you it will get BETTER. I lost my job and wife within a 10 day period 50 days ago. Now after taking the action (see above ) I have a job and my wife is going to take me back. But I have to continue to do the program. Learn from this experience!! Never forget it!!
Glad u r here. I hope this helps u! Peace....out

Delizadee

Hi soberaccountant!

I thought I could share with you how I have been coping with things. I am still a work in progress, but I truly always hope to be so maybe by reading some of the things that have helped me you can find some inspiration.

I too have struggled with depression and anxiety for quite a while now. But each day that passes I am finding more strength and learning different ways of coping with things in sobriety.

Do you have a recovery plan?
I have to say for me, it has been my fall back for whenever I am feeling out of control of my life. I find not drinking very easy, but I also find I am able to work through mental and emotional barriers a lot more effectively than I have ever been able to because I have these tools that I have incorporated into my daily thinking that provide the results I want.

I am in a similar situation, looking for employment and dealing with legal matters. The situation seems very dire at times. When I can't quiet my mind I try the following:

Reading. Reading SR, using the resource links they have on here, reading books I like, reading recovery books and stories. I am finding that being able to identify with characters, people, or stories gives me an opportunity to draw on all the different wisdom out there, and see how I can apply to my life and myself. Reading is a wonderful form of distraction for me. It gives me the opportunity to push pause on the chaos of my mind and potentially reframe my way of thinking and open me up to different possibilities.

Writing. Posting on SR, journalling, blogging, letter writing. Some times we need to just give vent to our feelings and thoughts. Talking to someone who understands too, like a sponsor, another recovery member, a friend or loved one or a counselor can do the same thing, but writing is always available to us at a moment's notice. The act of just getting things out can help us to relieve some of the burden in our minds. Getting feedback can also be a great tool to gauge where we in our feelings and how to try and get them on a better tack. The other thing about talking or writing things out, is it can help us to draw lines between points, see patterns, and figure out what reasoning behind an idea or the construct of it is. I know for me, when I can physically put things outside of myself that were previously unconstructed thoughts bouncing around in my head, it allows me to understand, acknowledge, and move forward.

Prayer or meditation. When I am completely overwhelmed and can't seem to draw the energy needed to read, write, or talk, I simply pray or focus my mind on a square box in my head. When I was detoxing so many times, the box was all I would concentrate on for hours on end, I would trace the box and take a breath in and a breath out with each side I traced.
As for the prayer, I would ask for help and clarity often. I would say in prayer that I didn't feel strong enough to deal with it or figure it out on my own and ask for strength. Even when I didn't know who I was praying to, I did, I did it honestly and earnestly, and it helped to bring me some measure of peace.

There's a few more things I do, too. One is I've learned to "separate the voices" in my head. I've drawn a clear line in the sand between the part of my brain that does the thinking and the part of my brain where my emotions live. More specifically my negative emotions.
I am learning to reflect on my emotions. I ask myself questions all the time.
What am I feeling?
Where am I feeling it?
What thoughts are attached to these feelings?
Why am I feeling these things?
What can I do to change or use the feelings?
What can I do right now to feel better?

One thing I think is trying to resist what we are feeling does nothing to resolve it. Instead of denying that I am feeling it or trying to fight it off with superficial band-aids, I acknowledge whatever I am feeling. And I treat it much like I would treat a craving for alcohol. I think it through.
Sometimes, I have to give myself the time and space to just feel the emotions. So I do. But I do it in a way that I still have control. So I allow myself to feel sad, or angry, or frustrated for a short period of time. And then I decide on a course of action. Because I am just going to feel worse and let the negativity grow in my head if I live inside that emotion in my mind.

Then I look at the options I have for dealing with it. Reading, writing, talk therapy. That's when you have to figure out what works best for you in terms of self-help and leave the rest.

I understand how easy it is to feel hopeless and frustrated when you feel like the deck is stacked against you. But every time you make a conscious choice to take small steps in the right direction, you also have to work on acknowledging that too. You have to be your own champion. Cheer yourself on for every sober day. Cheer yourself on for getting up, for making coffee, for eating. Cheer yourself on for accomplishing the small tasks. Do it until you start feeling it and it becomes ingrained enough in your brain that it's almost automatic.
Chunk out your days in smaller, manageable tasks and take pride in your accomplishments. And put some big things on your list every day to accomplish and work towards. Giving yourself a tangible meter of Things I Have Accomplished Today will help do wonders for your self-esteem.

And remember to practice gratitude. The more you do, the more things you will see that you have and are attaining to be grateful for.

Every day we have to work at reframing things. To have faith that everything is out there that we need to be able to move forward in our lives. It's only a matter of just because we can't necessarily see our path or every step of our path, or even that there may be more than one possible path for us, doesn't mean it's not there.
You can choose to sit in the forest, swallowed up by the trees, utterly lost and directionless. Or you can choose to get up and start walking. Hitting a dead end is not the end. Go back a bit, or back to the start and find a new way.

So when your mind won't shut up, scream at it to STOP. Think through your worst fears. Play them all the way through. What happens if you don't find a job? Look at all the different scenarios.
I really had to rip the band aid off and face up to my biggest fears before I could properly tackle the things that were holding me back. I had to answer a lot of what ifs because my past what ifs were starting to come true. And when I did that, it was painful. But I found that I still had strength to cope with things, that I could still try to find different ways and live my best life regardless of what came.

So if you hit a lot of road blocks, ask what you can do to remove them. And look at other ways of getting to where you want to be. Fill up your downtime with learning and positive activities to keep the fears in check. Action is a very powerful thing in both recovery and life.
If you are worried about paying bills, call your bill companies and talk to them. Explain the situation. Ask them about long term consequences and plans. Knowledge and preparation are powerful tools.

And just remember at the end of the day, you always have a job. You have to take care of you, so you can help take care of your family. You are on the right path, and there is always hope. Believe in yourself that no matter what, you will prevail. And stick around... because together we're stronger and there is SO much knowledge and wisdom here.
You CAN deal with whatever comes your way. I hope you are able to find opportunities in no matter how awful a situation may feel. It WILL get better my friend. As long as you never give up!

getright15

Take it from somebody that got 3 DUIs in 13 months that you can overcome it. The main job I have requires me to have to drive to sites. I just had no choice but to drive on my suspended license. I'm not saying that you should do what I did, but I understand your situation to the T. I just got my license back earlier this month after being suspended for about a year. You're probably thinking why aren't I in jail for 3 of them in a year. Good lawyer, special circumstances and higher power looking out for me because I want to be sober and remain that way. I'm still new in my sobriety, but I'm working with my sponsor and working the steps. You just gotta also remember control what you can control. You made the mistake, I made 3 of them and still dealing with another legal case over my head because of drinking. I'm not worried because the outcome will be the outcome. You using so much energy stressing isn't going to change your situation. I'm a very pessimistic person and since I surrendered myself to AA it's like I'm a whole new person. One day at a time and you'll get through it. Your 30 day suspension will go and come with the swiftness. So remain focus and try not to stress. I know it's difficult trust me I've been right where you are. I just got hired on full time at another job and all of that stuff is on my background check. So you will be fine. A company hires at their discretion and if they want you they'll take you. You aren't a convicted felon it sounds like. DUI's are a dime a dozen as sad as that sounds, but it's true.

Keep ya head up - Pac