funemployment

So, I got a new job, after being unemployed for only two weeks. I owe my getting a new job so quickly to being sober and practicing the principles of AA. Of course applying the steps of AA to job searching doesn't ergo mean a new job. Nor does it make the experience of unemployment any different. Being sober doesn't give me a leg up over any other candidate. But a few things to note:

1. Since being let go I kept myself busy. If I'm not busy I get VERY squirrelly VERY quickly. I didn't stop to let myself play video games and get depressed. Meetings, working out, job searching, reaching out to other alkys, writing, reading, all kept the mind churning. A still alcoholic mind, in my experience, allows the voices to talk so loud and persuasively. "You suck, you aren't going to get another job, you might as well drink and eat snacks." That's a lot less persuasive when you're blasting delts or whatever.
2. I interviewed with the faith that I'll be taken care of as long as I put my sobriety first. In practice that meant walking into an interview with my only reason to be there was to make interviewer happy to speak with me.
3. I didn't keep my feelings bottled inside -- I talked to a lot of people about being unemployed and how it was making me feel kooky. Even if I said the same thing over and over, and got the same responses, the act of communicating and connecting with others was a lot more rewarding than being stoic. Feelings can be embarrassing, especially if they feel obviously petty, childish, insecure. T

I worked to have my ego sort of brushed aside to have my HP direct me in whatever direction he sees fit. It's not always easy to put your ego and what you want to the side. IT'S HARD. You live your life asking, demanding, manipulating, pining, working to have your outsized needs fulfilled. In a sense, getting sober using the twelve steps of AA is an exercise in saying "I GIVE UP :( " When I walked into the rooms for the first time it was a real-life example of me saying "Ugh I can't live this way anymore. I can't smash myself in the face with an umbrella to make it look like I was at an eye surgeon to cover up my hungover." It was a giant leap of faith; that this program, not knowing what it was, was somehow going to make life livable. This giant leap is what I need to do each day in order to live a sober life: faith that I can only muck up things if I try to get my ego involved.

jobbbb

So I got laid off from my job of two and half years a few days ago. To think I "bottomed out" while employed there, went through a crazy first year of sobriety, learned to be a worker amongst workers, was beaten by circumstances into doing well, and then I get laid off. Well, more accurately I got fired for being 15 minutes late one day. To go from stealing things from the office ($2.50 can buy a 40oz OR toilet paper but not both, and it's not like they would miss a roll or two...).

I should have been fired any number of times on any number of occasions. I've been fired several times, directly or indirectly, as a consequence of my drinking. One generally doesn't flop into the quarry and do a good day's work when one is both brutally hungover or itching for the whistle to blow and get the beer down the gullet. And of course you get home, drink beer and whiskey and smoke cigarettes and eat a slice of pizza for dinner and fall asleep in your work clothes, wake up late the next day, maybe eat a grease sandwich before clocking in and hope people just think you're fat or sick instead of bloated and hungover.

As a result of doing the steps of AA I was able to see my part in these embarrassing episodes. I've been able to let go of many resentments against former bosses and places of work and acknowledge I was a fuck up and didn't really belong there. Just as I didn't belong in a dive bar at 2AM on a Tuesday morning, I didn't belong in certain white collar work environments. For me, ending up in both places was a result of fear, selfishness, and laziness. Afraid that I could do no better for myself, selfishly thinking my company or employ was woefully unappreciated, and too lazy to work at anything closer to what I was meant to be doing.

Now I'm unemployed! It's both a blessing and a curse. Actually it's not a curse at all, since I believe this is happening for a reason. Before getting sober I would be sure I was unemployed for a reason too; the reason being that my boss was a jerk, that late-capitalism chews up and spits out the best people, or simply that I'm cursed by genes or environment to be forever mediocre. The difference now that I'm sober is that my HP has me unemployed to get into something better.

so anyway

So anyway, I didn't update this for almost exactly a year because I was too busy, and frankly getting sober isn't always pretty. Like most people who get sober, I spent most of my first year sober pretty crazy. Going against advice of people who have been where I was, and then getting hurt as a consequence.

The biggest lesson I had to learn is that my ideas were pretty terrible and I didn't know how to live. I see people who try to live by their terrible ideas and their lives are terrible. Their egos place them so apart from others that they don't bother to talk and find out if what they're saying makes any sense or not. That's my experience and I'm not speaking for any organization or whatever.

Will update more later because right now I have to go OH I DONT KNOW SHOWER AND GET TO BED.