Employment and allcohollism
 

Hmm haven’t changed jobs yet but having clarity of thought from being sober has made me realize my job also makes my life unmanageable (more from the stress than from hating it) and it needs to change. Not overnight but I’ve got a deadline set mentally. Hope you can find a way to make current gig workable and/or find something that makes you less miserable soon.

Dont abandon ship yet. Could be a trigger. Start doing some research. Networking. Update resume etc feel me. Meanwhile just tolerate it till you can pull the trigger and move on. Just say in.

In my opinion, it's rarely ever a good idea to quit a job until you have secured another. There's no telling how long it might take to find a new job. Plus, it's always easier to get a job if you already have one.

I agree with all the messages you have recieved.

Give it time, and start looking!

I did. I had an extremely fulfilling but *extremely* stressful job. I moved up the ladder to management. In retrospect, though it was a move "upward", the sheer stress and outward-facing nature of the job was a move in the wrong direction for me - as an introvert and perfectionist. And you know what I did? I drank to make it "tolerable". Yeah, you can guess how that turned out.

Unlike the excellent advice that many above have offered, I burned out, hard, and left my job with no real plan in place.

I won't lie, the last year and a half have been the hardest of my life, yet also unbelievably important. I can see the gift in them now. Getting sober forced me to examine, through clear eyes, what I *really* want out of my life and my career, not what I thought I should want, not a career where I felt I had to drink to keep going.

I'm slowly starting to build a new career that fits me much better. It won't be as lucrative, but I'm passionate about it, and I won't sacrifice my health and wellness for it. And I'll have time for the other things I love, like gardening, exercise, photography, oh, and my family!

So yes, it's been life-changing, for the better. But it's also been a struggle because of the way I left. So take the advice of the smart people above, and start planning for the future you want while you still have the stability of being gainfully employed.

(If it's proving stressful beyond what you can stand, consider medical leave for a week or two, if that's something that your company offers. That would give you some time and distance to evaluate where to go next, without burning bridges).

Best of luck!

JT

I agree with the advice not to leave your current job until you have your next one secured.

For me, it took time to come to the conclusion that there are very few high paying jobs that don't have some element that makes them difficult to endure: long hours, high stress, work environment, lots of travel, ethics, etc. Find something that complements your skills that interests you and has the right balance for your current needs. Do bear in mind that the "perfect" job doesn't exist - there are compromises to every position - the trick is to find a vocation with compromises you can live with.

you didn't drink BECAUSE the job MADE you drink.....
alcoholics drink and then find excuses to support that decision.
even a lousy job is a job....i mean unless your job requires you to drown puppies.....or some other nefarious act???

you have built four months of sobriety. which is nothing short of amazing!!! you have done so by keeping sobriety first. to start thinking about quitting your job, being unemployed, finding a new job <<that all detracts from keeping your focus on staying sober.

what i would suggest is throwing it out to The Universe....so yeah, thinking i want to change jobs and find something that better fits my ethics and lifestyle. then stay open. remember the saying - when the student is ready, the teacher appears? that can be applied to expressing desire to make changes. when you are truly ready to make that change, the changes will appear.

I walked out of a job of 19 years...and I had been sober 8 years at the time...I kept saying that job would make me drink...

But when I left I started to DRINK again..too much time on my hands.

I did not look for another job because I was struggling with various things..and was ultimately diagnosed with Frontal Temporal Dementia (behavior variant) which is not GOOD for someone that drinks either...or drinking is not good for my dementia.

So I do not work...but I suggest if you want to leave...start the plan..start searching, update a resume, don't leave until you find something.

This is what I was trying to say in my post....true story.....it could be a trigger...and if you didn't find something right away...you could lose yourself in a drinking frenzy....

My drinking started ramping up because I was stressed / overworked and alcohol was my go to to deal with those feelings. It was easier to hide time off for me due to the nature of the work I did as I did contracts so was always somewhere different and could explain gaps on my CV much easier. However the issue I found was that it wasn’t the place I was working specifically that caused it, I had worked at at least 8 different companies over a period of a few years and the problem was me, I felt the same at each place after a short while. I didn’t see that at the time though.

I decided last year in May that I would stop working, made sure I had some savings that covered my bills for a year but had no plan in place where work was concerned. I booked myself into rehab for 2 months and then just worked on recovery for the next 6 months. For me, while I was working I just couldn’t make any headway on anything recovery related, I was so stressed and it I took everything I had just to get through a day of work that there was nothing left in the tank for anything else at all. This led to constant relapses for me and I needed to do something different.

I have been sober for 14 months so it has worked for me. I got a job after 7 months out and within 6 weeks I was stressed and sliding back emotionally and couldn’t cope. I realised that the type of work I did was never going to make me happy and left that contract early and applied for a job on low pay locally and got that Feb this year. This was a great move as I could get a routine going, was 15 mins commute from home, had no stress or responsibilities and I got to learn how to apply all my recovery techniques to real life scenarios at a pace that was comfortable for me.

I agree that it’s always best to get another job lined up before leaving the old one and everyone has offered great advice above. But I didn’t do that myself and it has worked out just fine for me. I think it depends on your financial situation and other factors, we are all different and have to find the best way that works for us.

Best of luck xx

I would work a program of recovery and pray for guidance about this matter.

Most of us have had bad jobs, bosses who were jerks, etc.

We can't have a good job and be a good employee until we get sober.

I agree that you should have a new job in your pocket before you resign from your existing one.

But I would have modest expectations as to the new job.

Sometimes they work out, and sometimes they don't.

In resigning, I would take great pains to thank your employer for the opportunity of working there - you won't regret it.

The most important thing, by far, of course, is your sobriety.

Please keep us posted as to your efforts.

We're glad you have decided to get sober.

Hi there, you've gotten a lot of good advice, so I'll just echo what others have said and add my own experience. :) Unless you are very financially secure, I wouldn't recommend leaving a job before you have a new one, unless there are extreme circumstances at play (harassment, safety, etc.) and even then, you want to make sure that you advocate for your own financial best interests. I'm not sure where you live, but in some parts of the US we're effectively at zero unemployment, so now is a great time to make a move.

When I finally stopped drinking (19 months ago), I was completely sick of my job and thought I would be ready to make a change fairly quickly. However, it is amazing how my thinking continues to evolve, related to work but also, to everything - I think of my bad drinking years as a kind of hibernation or a coma, where I woke up to find so many things were different, and my brain continues to adjust. My point is that one of the great gifts of sobriety is being able to see things clearly and to make decisions that are more careful and considered, so I would suggest using this opportunity to do just that. Good luck! :)

I took a job once and within 6 months realized it was a mistake. I began to find weekend freelance, and finally had enough savings and weekend work lined up that I left the bad job after a year and a half. And yes, it was so bad and stressful that I was at the bar every night after work. Do what you can to find a less stressful job so you can make your recovery a bit easier. Best wishes to you.

I eventually left my stressful job because it really fuelled my drinking I'm convinced of that. However I didn't look for another job first, I thought getting sober was more important. However as missy says I did go into a drinking frenzy, I had time to amd I was also angry and upset that I had lost my job I had worked so hard for. The drinking frenzy very nearly killed me - BUT, I'm at a point now where I have never been before. I'm tackling many demons and truly beginning to live a sober life and I'm not sure I would have been able to get to this point if I had continued to work.
It's been a few months now and I'm going to look for a part time job to slowly get my confidence back.