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Alcohol work function :/

Old 12-24-2014, 09:55 PM
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Alcohol work function :/

This is more of a vent and some hurt feelings. My office consists of six people four of which are alcoholics, one very rare drinker, and me in recovery.

When I started working there it was easy to accept my alcoholism because every talked about drinking heavily quite regularly with a joking air. In fact when I decided I no longer wanted to live the way I had been with alcohol I told my coworkers that I thought I was going to stop drinking and got a couple of shocked looks and a response of "don't do anything rash!" So I would keep joking about it to keep up with the total alcohol acceptance in the office (comments like "oh yeah, I had some wine while I was watching that last night" and so forth although it wasn't the case).

Fast forward to today, the day of the annual office Christmas luncheon. The very rare drinker and I were talking about a prior employee who'd gotten in trouble while drinking and had her case dismissed that morning. I told the very rare drinker honestly that I just don't drink anymore, that if I have one I'm going to want another and then another and another after that so I just don't do it.

Fast forward to lunch, I order a sweet tea, everyone else orders a cocktail of some sorts and jokes that we all HAVE to drink at it. The oldest partner on the firm picked up on my resistance and asked if I drank, I answered no and that was that.

A while later the partner to my left, onto her second cocktail was speaking with one of the other paralegals and I attempted to join the conversation - well she shut me down! She literally said "don't involve yourself in what we're doing" and kept right on talking. Any time I would try and speak others would speak over me, occasionally a non office guest would try to get me in conversation, the judge across from me or his secretary would ask a question but before I could halfway answer I had the partner who'd made the comment or the paralegal she was speaking with literally start talking over me to them.

I was essentially ended up sitting pretty much overlooked and in silence for two hours, in the last fifteen minutes or so the senior partner (who'd picked up on my desire not to drink) asked me a few times if I was okay, I told him yes, although that wasn't the case but I didn't even feel any reason to try and say what was bothering me, and finally told them I needed to leave to handle some other business.

Anyhow. I came home and cried. I literally cried for about an hour over the whole situation. Never would I have thought that NOT drinking would have led to ostrasization.

Anyhow...I more or less just needed to vent about the situation...I don't even want to see these people at work Monday because I'm worried my hurt feelings will lead to some passive aggressive remarks towards them about making sure I don't involve myself in what they're doing.
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Old 12-24-2014, 10:17 PM
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I feel you, I recently was not invited to a xmas party because I don't drink. My feelings were very hurt and I was resentful. I shared the story here , got some feed back to mull over, prayed about it , read scripture about situations like this. Thought through and realized I really don't want to hang out with these people, I just wanted to be invited. Well everyone is not going to like you( fact of life) and some are going to resent you for not drinking because it makes them look in the mirror and they dont like what they see. They are intimidated by your sobriety. If I were you I wouldn't say a thing to them about their behavoir at lunch. Act like you didn't even notice their ignorance. Hold your head up high do a good job at work and keep it moving. I've found out while sober and taking a good hard honest look at my life, one of the things I saw was throughout my career I been loosely throwing around the word friend about coworkers, what a crock, especially if you use to drink with them. Its going to be a little rocky in the beginning , but it will get better at work. Don't let them defeat you or worst yet make you pick up a drink. Don't staybupset with them either but I would feed them with along handled spoon.
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Old 12-24-2014, 10:18 PM
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BTW merry xmas!
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Old 12-24-2014, 10:26 PM
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Thank-you

Hopefully they will not be as hostile Monday now that the charade of pretending to drink right alongside them is up, maybe they won't even remember. It was just really depressing to be told pretty much that I didn't belong and for them to go out of their way to prevent me from speaking with other people there that weren't even employees of our office...and a judge no less! Lol
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Old 12-24-2014, 10:29 PM
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Oh, my! Sounds like you work with a bunch of addicted bullies to me. In time, your not drinking will not be the "thing" to focus on, and they will drift off. You are right, they are not friends, they are co-workers, and you should not feel the need to behave like them to fit in. Do your job, and do it well, and it will all come right eventually.

Don't even reference this event on Monday, you were the bigger person, you stayed true to yourself. It's your job, not a social circle, so maybe try to avoid those situations in the future. Mistory5 has it right, these folks really don't want to look in the mirror.

Stay strong, you are doing a great job.

Merry Christmas!
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Old 12-24-2014, 10:42 PM
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I work with a lot of drinkers and I believe they would think there's something wrong with me if I told them I've stopped drinking. But to be fair, at our Christmas lunch, a colleague and I had orange juice and no one blinked an eye.

Some of your colleagues sound very rude but then again I know how I behaved when I had a drink down me.

Try not to be too downhearted, stand by your decisions and look them firmly in the eye.
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Old 12-25-2014, 01:35 AM
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Their loss. Their s**t. Their circus.

Try not to judge them ,they have their own demons to deal with.

Merry Christmas, wonderful strong sober friend Xx
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