Resolution

I got sober for two reasons*.  To save my marriage and survive a very large re-organization where I work.  For now, I'll leave the first reason alone and save it for another post.  Today I need to talk about surviving the re-org. 

In January, I knew deep down that alcohol would very soon seriously affect my work.  And by seriously I mean more than just writing down everything because I couldn't remember what I said after the witching hour began.  I never drank during the day, but the end of the day was creeping up earlier and earlier.  Sometimes I work from home and when I was on a late conference call, well, I can't say I was stone cold sober past 4:30.  More and more often the wait until 4:30 was very long indeed. 

Early this year, while inebriated, I made a huge error in judgement at a work function with information I'd been given in confidence.  It could have cost me my credibility, and would not have happened had I been sober.  Probably the only thing that saved me was that pretty much everyone else was inebriated too.  Still, it was a serious fuck-up.  I wouldn't have been fired then, but I probably wouldn't have survived this re-org.  It scared the holy bejesus out of me and was the beginning of the end.

To add insult to injury, I lead a small team at a satellite office.  Re-org guidelines were clear that management preference would be that no one would work from satellite offices.  None of us will move to a headquarters location.  So I not only had to find a job for me, but try to find places with teams willing to support remote locations for my team members when hundreds of jobs were being eliminated.  Anyone working in corporate America knows that it is not just a matter of talent and performance, but who you know.  Credibility is everything.  Without it, none of us would make it. My greatest fear was that if I continued to drink and lost my job, I'd fall into despair and never see my way clear of the alcohol.

So I quit almost six months ago.  And survived the reorg a couple of weeks ago without being demoted, in fact, I got a better job.  This week, I placed all of my team members in good jobs.  We all made it.  I don't think I have ever been more relieved than when I placed my last and most at risk person yesterday.   This, at last, is over.

Last night I had a sober first.  The first time I went to dinner with colleagues and ordered tea, while they ordered wine.  This is only my second sober business trip and my old habits haunt me at odd moments.  Used to be I would stop at a store to buy wine to drink after work in the evenings in my hotel room.  In the old days, having one glass of wine with my colleagues would have been a nightmare of obsession: one glass of wine?  WTF?  I couldn't have listened to conversation about new ideas, with the internal cacaphony of NEED for the next drink.  When we worked until late at night, my nerves would be jangling, screaming, shrieking for a drink, as the witching hour came and went. 

Last night I came back to the hotel full of ideas and excitement: a strategy I have been developing for the last 18 months is coming to fruition.  I was given the green light to make my vision a reality.  As I sat at the desk, writing out my thoughts and sketching concepts, I realized I would remember them the next day.  I had the interest and energy to think about how I would take next steps.  My excitement was not lost to inebriation, didn't slip away as the wine slid down my throat.

Today I am grateful that I could be present for every moment of this week.  It could have been hell on earth.  I believe I will go get down on my knees now.

*Well, I really got sober because I couldn't stand myself anymore: the complete lack of integrity in my life was overwhelming.  But since that manifested as one very scary external "reason",  the sane part of me grabbed onto it as Exhibit B.  "Look, you idiot," that small, sane voice said in that trying-to-be-reasonable-but-really-ready-to-fly-off-the-handle tone, "Pull your shit together or you could lose everything."