DontRemember

Job or happy life/sanity? Yeah..I'd rather wash dishes at a diner sober than be a drunk with a fancy 'title' and an office.

MindfulMan

A job where you need to keep killing yourself to remain is not a dream job.

It's a nightmare.

"I wish I'd spent more time working" is on no tombstones anywhere.

picturebigger

yes, yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. thank you all. very great points.

i agree it's likely my addiction doing most of the talking/rationalizing.

i guess i'm just scared. everyone (work and family) is relying on me at a time when i can't even rely on myself.

(realization) wow what a wild thing to say about one's self. same body, same mind... before alcohol, i could be counted on for anything. now, and worst of all, even i can't count on me.

what a mess i've made of my mind.

DontRemember

I/we have been there. I do 'well' for myself,but had to put everything on hold to get sober. I was starting to lose respect of family,friends and clients..I was losing respect for myself. It was well worth the 'hit' to the wallet/ego to get my life back together. Very humbling experience that I'm still and will always be focused on.

MindfulMan

Congratulations. You have found the YOU ARE HERE arrow on the shopping mall map.

Now figure how to get to the sober store. You can still be counted on, so count on yourself to figure out a plan. Then execute it.

The strongest thing you can do now is to ask for and accept help. Hardly anyone does this alone.

Don’t overthink and worst case scenario things. My path involved realizing that most things worked out far better than I thought and were far easier when I acted.

We are all full of suggestions on findingyour way. Just ask.

Buckley3

I get the pressure that comes with being in a unique position like that.

I am an expert in my field and it's a field that is niche. There's no describing my career path or the credentials I have. It's a cocktail of varied experience and learning that mix together to create a truly original position.

I am familiar with both the amazing benefits of such a position as well as the crazy amount of stress and responsibility that accompanies it.

All that said, you need to understand something, something I think you already know... the alcoholism is NOT sustainable. You may feel trapped right now and you may feel as though you have no options, but eventually the booze will destroy you and everything you are - could be next month, could be 5 years, could be 15, but it's going to happen. I think you know this.

The black and white thinking - the perception that there's only option A or B - take 90 days off or nothing - is b.s.. It's your AV/ alcoholic voice talking. It's not real.

Here's an option. Outpatient treatment in the short term - or something like AA or AVRT based meetings - or a combination of both to simply abstain from alcohol and dry up. In the meantime if you believe you need it start planning for a sabbatical. 90 days - if it turns out to be an inpatient program that takes that long (I suspect there are some that are 30 or perhaps less) - is not that long a time to companies who manage such large accounts or to clients who have built wealth of that magnitude. It can be managed with enough advance planning and notice, and if you are as good as you say you are they will work with you if it's coordinated well. And you are not obligated to explain to or provide them with a detailed explanation. Something like "I need time off to attend to family or to resharpen my edge" is both true and vague enough that you can protect your privacy if you deem it important to you.

It is not uncommon at all for people in high performance/ high stress positions such as yours to take sabbaticals or extended vacations from time to time. In fact, I believe and coach that it's necessary - see Stephen Covey's 7th habit: resharpening the saw.

Beware of the power of your position and the status of it. Your AV will use it to make you feel trapped and it will use your ego to isolate you from getting the help you require. If you are also intellectually strong it will use your intellect to keep you trapped in your head - sobriety is about action, not understanding. If you have both great. But you can not beat booze or addiction by intellectualizing alone. It's a big pitfall and potential trap for me that I have to work to overcome.

Make a plan. If you want both you can have both. You just aren't seeing all the options yet and are dealing with fear.

Best to you. There are a lot of resources here to educate yourself on options. Use them.

B

Buckley3

Makes us feel empty inside. Like we're hiding a dark secret. It's a terrible way to exist and totally not necessary. You can be both - dependable to others and dependable to yourself. But likely not with the price that alcohol demands. Stop the herculean effort - it's exhausting, unsustainable, and completely unnecessary.

The brain is not the mind. of course they are heavily interdependent - but we - our psychological identities - are NOT exclusively our millions of random thoughts and thought processes. We can observe our brain at work and make choices about what we want our future to look like & become. We can use our minds to choose how we want to respond to many of the thoughts we observe. When we are in the fog of alcoholism and what comes with it it's impossible to distinguish create space between our thoughts and actions. We fall into the trap of reaction rather than response. There's a subtle difference, but it's an important and powerful subtlety.

Take it easy on yourself. You certainly aren't alone. Focus on acknowledging that you - you first - are worth something better. YOU deserve it. The benefit that others get is a very nice side effect, but you are priority and you are worthy of it.

B