fancy19

Hey All,

Quit the booze min Aug 2016 and have not had a drink since. I'm a 40 year old professional at my job for 9 years which has been fine since the start. Just in the past few months I have been making mistakes at work and my job is all about attention to detail. It has surfaced to the point I my manager wants to talk to me about the mishaps and how to get me back on track. I did have some family health issues and it was the busiest year end I've ever seen but I'm not sure if I was just rushing the work through or is it the quitting of the alcohol to blame. I have the meeting tomorrow so I'm not sure what to say.....

biminiblue

Does your boss know about the alcohol issues? I wouldn't bring it up if he/she doesn't already know.

I have not found any cognitive deficits in recovery. I would imagine that we are all different in our biology and past intake, though.

Could it just be that you have too much on your plate at work? Or do you feel depressed and anxious?

saoutchik

First of all congratulations on 5 months (ish) sober, that is great.

For the immediate issue of the meeting with your manager, I would stress the family health issues and I am inclined to agree with biminiblue about not mentioning your alcohol issues if you have not done so already

Longer term i'm less sure what to say but I expect quitting alcohol had some effect but it would be impossibe to say how much. I know that I had brain fog for the first 10 months or so. Perhaps now that you have a good chunk of sober time you will face less pressure from that direction and maybe you will be less busy given that you are now past "year end"

Good luck

fancy19

Thanks guys/gals...I have not mentioned alcohol and I didn't want to either.....appreciate the feedback.

Anna

I agree. Don't mention the alcohol problem, but do discuss the family health issues. I hope the meeting goes well, and congratulations on your recovery.

LadyBlue0527

fancy, don't stress, please. I am in accounting and I've had days where I was going back over work and said "how on earth did I do that?". Is there a way you can make a double check of things you're doing? We all get brain fog once in a while, even people who have never had a problem with alcohol.

Have you had a lot on your mind lately? That can do it. Today I know I saved a spreadsheet and I can't find it anywhere. Even did a search.

I wouldn't mention the alcohol either. You're 4 months sober and doing great.

If it helps any I have to leave notes for myself and I now always work off of a list. Maybe you can do something like that?

Mklove

Fancy, interesting, I stopped late July 2016 and feel I'm not as "on" at work as I could be. Just so many changes with H retiring, grief, new job role, busiest work time ever........I'm hoping I settle in to the newness of being sober and everything else. I hope you do too!

ABetterWay1

I agree with the suggestions that it could just be stress or feeling depressed/anxious, but it's also possible that your brain is still healing.

Although your boss might not understand, I hope you can be gentle with yourself.

ABW1

SereneEdition

Hi fancy19 -

Congrats on 5 months sober. Good advice here for your meeting with your manager.

I had brain fog too. Things that helped me greatly included cutting out most caffeine (it was so tough, but this made a huge difference to minimize episodes), taking a multi vitamin, B vitamin, & fish oil to facilitate the brain's self healing for about 6 months, and I carried a to-do list/notebook and wrote everything in it so that when my brain drifted, I could still function. Stress made it worse for sure.

It eventually resolved itself and my brain was much sharper than when I was drinking. But boy was that temporary period of fog frustrating!

Good luck!

Delilah1

Congrats on five months sober, that is a nice amount of time. I agree with the others about leaving alcohol out of the conversation. Please check in and let us know how the conversation goes.