Rebuilding a Life in Recovery
When I was in treatment, I went to hundreds of meetings. I got clean and sober, worked the steps and now? I have to rebuild my life from scratch. Most of us are overwhelmed and scared of this step back into society, but besides having a life today, we need somehow make a living as well. I can’t sit day after day in a meeting room forever, I need to face society in sobriety, re-enter the orbit of life and living creatures around me again, which are not friends with Bill, Bob, Lois or Jimmy.
It was a long hard process through addiction, denial and problems. Many have lost not only their spiritual condition and their mind, but also all material and worldly things. First we work (of course) to get clean and sober and stay that way. At some point we reach a place, where we would consider ourselves as pretty stable in our sobriety and have to move on. It is time to face it and fix it.
We need to work on those hated things like paying debts off, contacting people we owe and dig through that tons of paper that we may have ignored for a while. We need to get through bureaucracy, court and legal issues in general to get licenses back, open warrants out of our records and similar things. One thing is the truth for all of this: The sooner the better! The amounts we owe people, places, courts, lawyers etc. won’t get less. With late fees etc. they can skyrocket quickly and lead to further legal trouble as well. But we need a job to have money to pay these things. And this requires us to leave the comfort zone of the safe sober support world at times and rejoin a normal society.
As addiction is never the same for anyone, recovery from drug or alcohol abuse or addiction is not either. The amount of problems we have to fix depends on where on our downhill spiral we found a way out. Did you go all the way to rock bottom? When did you throw the shovel away and stop digging? It is easy to procrastinate once treatment is over and use our good old term ‘tomorrow’, but all it does is create sleepless nights.
Face your problems, make a list of what needs to be fixed, reinstated, re-issued, re-applied, paid or anyhow addressed. Then work it off in small steps one by one. One problem at a time. I hate to make problematic phone calls and I can keep them in front of me for days, if I let it happen. But sometimes I just need to put a yellow post-it onto a piece of paper and say ‘to do today – no matter what’. It hurts while dialing the number, but what a relief, when it’s behind me. Ask your sponsor to help you make a priority list, if you don’t know where to start. An outside view is often the best thing.
There is no rule on when somebody is ready to go back job-hunting. It all depends on the personal condition. No ‘one rule fixes all’ is available. I felt it, when I was ready to go and put my attention to new things. My priority though will always be my sobriety. No matter what the situation is, I cannot take a job that puts me in unnecessary danger for a relapse. As an alcoholic, a job as a bartender might not be first choice. Also I have to pay attention that my new job leaves times for meetings. I may not go two times a day anymore, but I need to leave enough possibilities to attend enough of my meetings to keep my sobriety alive and well.
When thinking about applying for a job ask yourself if you want to be honest about your recovery or if you want to keep it a secret. This is a decision every person has to make for himself. Just remember, that there is not much of a secret if you keep “liking” pages on Facebook like ‘AA Big Book Study’ or ‘Addiction and Myself’ or post about your last meeting topic on twitter. Whatever your story is, make it a straight one. More and more employers are not falling for the stigma of addiction anymore and see how valuable a person in recovery is for the company. If there is a chance, try to find out before you apply how the company you chose thinks about this subject. The smaller the company is, the harder it will be to hide it. I will pass today every drug test there is, won’t come to work drunk on Monday mornings, won’t be out late at night partying, and be honest and a lot more reliable than I was. A person in recovery can be a real asset to a company. But it all depends how narrow minded the headhunter or the human resources manager is. If you decide to hide your past, it does not hurt to tell your fellows at your meeting about your new job coming up and remind them nicely on keeping anonymity if they run into you.
Just because the promises start to become true, I have to be careful not to exceed my credit line right away and jump around on my pink cloud throwing money out that I don’t have yet. I need to be careful, getting forward into my new life might take longer than I think. There might be unexpected expenses from the past and it’s good to gather some savings.
I have to think about my current health status and see what choices to make about insurance coverage. I was fortunate to have insurance through my husband as I got sick. Addiction is a very costly disease and coverage is limited, deductibles and copay is high. Keep in mind, it can hit you anytime and cause more problems.
Many addicts and alcoholics lose custody of their children in active addiction. It takes time to prove a stable life in recovery before a judge might reverse this decision. We need to accept, that a judge didn’t make this decision to hurt us in person, he did it for the best of the child at this particular moment. Even if somebody is not sentenced by a court to go to meetings, it might be helpful to have a sheet with the dates signed each time, that somebody might show a judge later to show active participation for a long period. It does not hurt to have and meeting places are often glad to sign your attendance. Don’t think it’s embarrassing– there are so many doing it ‘just in case I need it someday’.
I had to take all steps into my future slow and easy. I needed time to get used to my new way of life. I did intensive outpatient therapy for a long time after my residential rehab time to increase my chances of success. It worked. Recovery is not a race; it is a slow movement into a new balanced life.
If you have trouble getting yourself motivated to do things you don’t like to do and fix problems, do those calls, write those letters etc., maybe you like to try the following: I learned something very useful in a time-management class a couple weeks ago. The ‘Pomodoro Technique’. The Pomodoro is nothing but a Tomato shaped Kitchen Timer (I’m sure an Egg or any other shape will do the same purpose, in case you like to say you don’t have a ‘pomodoro’ ). Studies found out, that you can do almost anything for a 25 min duration, even things you don’t like to do. Make a plan, what needs to be done and set the timer on 25 minutes and just DO IT! Then give yourself 5 minutes break and do something else for 25 minutes after that again. Do four of those 25-min-intervals and give yourself a longer break, notice what you have done. You will have a major load of your back!
So what did I do besides writing articles for you here to go back into real life? I learned and learned and learned! Besides being a lead advocate for Heroes in Recovery today, which is a wonderful opportunity every day, I am a Certified Sober Coach and an interventionist. I still have more classes, courses and training to come this year to increase my certifications and knowledge. I am very proud of how far I have come and look forward to what is still waiting for me.
Life is full of opportunities and my sobriety opened countless doors for me. I have a home, a loving husband, a cat, a beautiful garden, inner peace, balance and serenity, a car, a driver’s license, a small older boat and lots of fun in life. Every flower in my garden is a blessing to me today. I have freedom to drive where and when I want to. But most of all, I have my life. I did not get my life back, I got a life for the first time. My pet is an adopted street cat, not a racing horse. My car is 8 years old, but the convertible I always wanted. I don’t live in a penthouse in NYC, but in a serene and quiet rural place in the middle of cornfields. I am not rich in money, but I am rich in life. I don’t collect gold coins, I collect happiness. I am content.
We can have all these things back in our lives, if we don’t give up working on it. A situation is never as hopeless as it might seem on first sight. Recovery and sobriety can make our biggest dreams come true.
I would love to hear how you managed the re-entry into the world after getting sober. Please share a bit under this article here, give a tip to somebody or let us know what was the most helpful to you. It would be also a fantastic thing if you could share your own story of recovery with us here on the page. You can do that anonymously or with your name and picture.
All you need to get started is to contact me by email susuegypt@hotmail.com to get my assistance in writing it and helping you through the process, send the story as it is to my email and let me know how you would like to have it published, or share it directly here on the page by hitting the ‘SHARE’ button on top.
If you like to read also my personal story of recovery, you find it here:
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Happy Recovery !
Susanne