Did you change careers when you got sober? (fields that gravitate/breed alcoholics)
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 216
Did you change careers when you got sober? (fields that gravitate/breed alcoholics)
Did you change jobs or careers when you got sober? Were you in a job or field that didn't fit you, but you stayed in it miserable for a while and used alcohol to cope? I feel like I want to be in a creative field, but the pay is lower.
I am in a higher paying field, but it's full of high functioning alcoholics and people who aren't as spiritual and more concerned with just making money, driving nice cars and living in huge homes. I was in finance for a while and moved into management consulting, where the base salary for consultants was hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many burn out due to cocaine usage or alcoholism and depression.
Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this...
I am in a higher paying field, but it's full of high functioning alcoholics and people who aren't as spiritual and more concerned with just making money, driving nice cars and living in huge homes. I was in finance for a while and moved into management consulting, where the base salary for consultants was hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many burn out due to cocaine usage or alcoholism and depression.
Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this...
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Wisconsin, USA
Posts: 16,945
Drinking and drug use knows no socio-economic boundaries. AKA - there are just as many drunks working for minimum wage as making 6 figures plus. The places they drink and what they drink might vary, but it's still just alcohol.
If you are just unsatisfied with your career in general, try and look long and hard about what is really important to you. Money definitely does not always equal happiness. In fact,sometimes the opposite is true.
If you are just unsatisfied with your career in general, try and look long and hard about what is really important to you. Money definitely does not always equal happiness. In fact,sometimes the opposite is true.
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Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: MN
Posts: 8,704
I can see where you are coming from. I was in a different field but I was a construction contractor, we all drank. Its the only way you can deal with all the BS you encounter each and every day. But the real successful contractors didn't drink much, if at all. I'm in real estate now, lots of drinking going on if you look for it. I will never succumb to any peer pressure or wanting to fit in by drinking with the gang. I've been through way too much sh*t to fall back into the alcohol trap.
No Dogma Please
Join Date: Jul 2017
Location: SoCal
Posts: 2,562
I'm in the process of trying to reinvent myself. The company I worked for had a management change o few years ago has made the entire company increasingly unpleasant, my group has become toxic, and my immediate boss is a nasty, vicious gossip and a genuine narcissistic nightmare.
I've never really been suited for the work, and I plan to exit the industry, which demands long hours for comparatively low pay.
I didn't get sober to live in misery. I'm looking into getting a real estate license and at least doing something that suits me better. My job, also finance related, involved sitting at a computer all day. I'm a highly extroverted people person, and like money, so sales seems a far better fit. With increased energy, I'm also starting to write again.
My question to you is how little job satisfaction you have, not just with drinking and drugging coworkers, but the work itself. If you want to do something more creative, can you make father financial sacrifices to do so full time? There's always pursuing creative outlets while continuing to work, but given your current career I'm guessing your hours are punishing and stressful.
There is no substitute for quality of life. Congrats on your 51 days, and remember that your first priority. Good luck with the doc. Knowing what your facing is good knowledge. You can't fix the past, but you can make changes to heal and not to continue to damage your health with alcohol!
I've never really been suited for the work, and I plan to exit the industry, which demands long hours for comparatively low pay.
I didn't get sober to live in misery. I'm looking into getting a real estate license and at least doing something that suits me better. My job, also finance related, involved sitting at a computer all day. I'm a highly extroverted people person, and like money, so sales seems a far better fit. With increased energy, I'm also starting to write again.
My question to you is how little job satisfaction you have, not just with drinking and drugging coworkers, but the work itself. If you want to do something more creative, can you make father financial sacrifices to do so full time? There's always pursuing creative outlets while continuing to work, but given your current career I'm guessing your hours are punishing and stressful.
There is no substitute for quality of life. Congrats on your 51 days, and remember that your first priority. Good luck with the doc. Knowing what your facing is good knowledge. You can't fix the past, but you can make changes to heal and not to continue to damage your health with alcohol!
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Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: UK
Posts: 6,902
I am in education - and notice plenty of people using alcohol to supposedly relieve the stresses of the day. Now I am sober I have the same job, with the same (if not more stressors) but have the tools to deal with this side of life (life on life's terms). I now notice some of the people who aren't interested in drinking, whereas they were kind of off my radar before.
I know enty of people in the arts - and I reckon they have their fair share of addictive personalities.
My opinion / take on this is that actally alcoholism does not discriminate. There is enough of a cross section of people in the rooms of AA to see that (in my area anyway), with people there from arts, educations, sales, construction, childcare, service inductries, medicine, mental health, business owners, stay-at-home mums and grandma's.
I thought I was going to have to change career to stay sober. In fact, what I needed to do was stop using my career as an excuse to drink. And the same could have been said to me whatever job I happened to be doing. Not that there is anything wrong with a change of career once we're well enough, with solid sobriety and in a state where we might be ready to tackle the challenge of a new career. But that is more a blessing of sobriety than anything else. And I suppose is often a natural consequence of having redefined values after working through recovery and realising that there are more important things than power, or recognition, or a possessions (the car, the house, whatever).
Wishing you all the best for your sobriety, recovery, and whatever you choose to persue.
BB
I know enty of people in the arts - and I reckon they have their fair share of addictive personalities.
My opinion / take on this is that actally alcoholism does not discriminate. There is enough of a cross section of people in the rooms of AA to see that (in my area anyway), with people there from arts, educations, sales, construction, childcare, service inductries, medicine, mental health, business owners, stay-at-home mums and grandma's.
I thought I was going to have to change career to stay sober. In fact, what I needed to do was stop using my career as an excuse to drink. And the same could have been said to me whatever job I happened to be doing. Not that there is anything wrong with a change of career once we're well enough, with solid sobriety and in a state where we might be ready to tackle the challenge of a new career. But that is more a blessing of sobriety than anything else. And I suppose is often a natural consequence of having redefined values after working through recovery and realising that there are more important things than power, or recognition, or a possessions (the car, the house, whatever).
Wishing you all the best for your sobriety, recovery, and whatever you choose to persue.
BB
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Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 14,921
I have observed that there is alcoholic drinking in every profession, even the priesthood.
I don't think it's necessary to change professions to get sober, unless maybe you're a bartender.
Getting and staying sober, is about you. What other's do, or don't do, is beyond your control and should be irrelevant to your daily sobriety.
I don't think it's necessary to change professions to get sober, unless maybe you're a bartender.
Getting and staying sober, is about you. What other's do, or don't do, is beyond your control and should be irrelevant to your daily sobriety.
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: northern michigan. not the U.P.
Posts: 15,281
something i learned to be true os money doesnt buy happyness.
i was making pretty good money(to me) being a machinist. but i got really tired of being cooped up in a building 10 a day doing the same thing over and over and over( i actually hoped machines would break down or need a changover).
i wasnt happy. i hated going to work. even leaving work id be miserable.
10 years was enough and i jumped into carpentry. took quite a paycut because although i had dome some form of carpentry my entire life, never did it as a paying job.
that doesnt mean every day was awesome- i had days i didnt want to go to work and sometimes the work truly sucked,but the the great majority of time i loved it.
HOWEVER
that didnt stop me from drinking.
as scott mention- alcohol and alcoholism is an equal oppertunity destroyer. it really doesnt care what career a person choses or how much money they make. just get the money to feed it.
i was making pretty good money(to me) being a machinist. but i got really tired of being cooped up in a building 10 a day doing the same thing over and over and over( i actually hoped machines would break down or need a changover).
i wasnt happy. i hated going to work. even leaving work id be miserable.
10 years was enough and i jumped into carpentry. took quite a paycut because although i had dome some form of carpentry my entire life, never did it as a paying job.
that doesnt mean every day was awesome- i had days i didnt want to go to work and sometimes the work truly sucked,but the the great majority of time i loved it.
HOWEVER
that didnt stop me from drinking.
as scott mention- alcohol and alcoholism is an equal oppertunity destroyer. it really doesnt care what career a person choses or how much money they make. just get the money to feed it.
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Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 25,373
I would add that I initially quit drinking in 1989, and I was working at TGI Friday's - a known singles hangout popular with the drinking crowd. The bartenders have contests. The servers have contests, the drink menu was 200 pages and leather bound. The bar sat dead center - the centerpiece (but up a couple steps, altar-like.) Happy Hour was epic.
I didn't drink for the whole ten years I worked there. It's not the job, it's an inside job.
I didn't drink for the whole ten years I worked there. It's not the job, it's an inside job.
Hears The Voice
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Unshackled
Posts: 7,901
I sobered up and realized I didn't really like my job. So I started my own business on nights and weekends. Now that it's a going concern I dropped my notice at my day job. Next Friday is my last day.
I may never earn as much on my own as I was earning there, but I don't care. Life is too short and too precious to feel like I'm locked in a dungeon every day.
I may never earn as much on my own as I was earning there, but I don't care. Life is too short and too precious to feel like I'm locked in a dungeon every day.
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Join Date: Jun 2017
Posts: 2,909
My career has been spent in high end resort restaurants. Think pirate lifestyle employees. Think vacation party time guests. Think alcohol everywhere, kitchen, dining room, dry storage, foyer, etc.; and oh yeah drugs too.,etc.etc.
I saw my first case of DTs, right there on the kitchen floor, when I was a mere 20 years old. It was a dishwasher who was my age. I worked for drunken chefs, slosheded owners, with heroin addict waiters, etc. etc.
When I left rehab, my consular, who was a former restaurant owner himself, told me that if I wanted to remain sober, I should change professions.
I poured alcohol. I served alcohol. I recommended choices of alcohol to guests,. I cooked with alcohol. I inventoried alcohol. I ordered alcohol. I rotated and stored alcohol. I was constantly around alcoholics, both employees and guests. etc.etc.
The stress level of the industry remained. The good time party vibe remained. The pirate lifestyle remained. The drugs remained.etc.etc.. I remained sober.
My profession didn't make me an alcoholic. My choices did.
Would I recommend my path to anyone? No. Was it easy? No. Was it worth it? Yes, because I don't have any regrets. If I had been chased out of my profession/passion due to fears, sometimes which are logical, I probably would have regrets.
I saw my first case of DTs, right there on the kitchen floor, when I was a mere 20 years old. It was a dishwasher who was my age. I worked for drunken chefs, slosheded owners, with heroin addict waiters, etc. etc.
When I left rehab, my consular, who was a former restaurant owner himself, told me that if I wanted to remain sober, I should change professions.
I poured alcohol. I served alcohol. I recommended choices of alcohol to guests,. I cooked with alcohol. I inventoried alcohol. I ordered alcohol. I rotated and stored alcohol. I was constantly around alcoholics, both employees and guests. etc.etc.
The stress level of the industry remained. The good time party vibe remained. The pirate lifestyle remained. The drugs remained.etc.etc.. I remained sober.
My profession didn't make me an alcoholic. My choices did.
Would I recommend my path to anyone? No. Was it easy? No. Was it worth it? Yes, because I don't have any regrets. If I had been chased out of my profession/passion due to fears, sometimes which are logical, I probably would have regrets.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2017
Location: Baltimore, MD
Posts: 285
I have worked in retail, banking, restaurants, bars, swimming pools, fish canning, teaching and laboratory science. There were tons of drinkers in all of them. I am certain that now I could remain sober in any of them, because I don't drink. My job now is the most demanding, difficult job I have ever had and I still don't have to drink to deal with it.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2017
Location: United States
Posts: 421
This is crazy, cuz I came to the forums to discuss this very thing. I actually just quit my job today. Not for the reason of getting and staying sober, but because I've had to really examine the root causes for my drinking. For me, anxiety was a major part. My job the past three years has been very stressful and the pay pretty low, although the benefits were what made me stay. Like Berrybean, I am in education, special education actually. I don't recommend rushing out to quit your job on a whim, and I've been debating this all summer. There were things about my current job that, even last year, made me feel as though I would be leaving soon. Things there were starting to wear on me. I am also an artist, and found when I came home each day there was nothing, I mean NOTHING left in me to indulge that side. That in itself was not good for my mental health, but I've found that being in this certain type of environment was really setting off my panic attacks and general anxiety. I typed up my resignation letter last week, spoke to a few trusted coworkers earlier today, and put in my notice. I do enjoy the field, so I'm planning on staying involved in other ways. I have a few other things in mind I'd like to do/work on/pursue, and although I'm nervous about having made this decision, I'm excited for what's to come.
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