Why Take Our Recovery to Work

I’ve been writing about “taking recovery to work” for several months now. This morning in my quiet time I found myself—again—praying about a situation in my workplace, and I thought, “Hmmm, I don’t hear a lot of people talking about this.”

We do hear recovering people talk about resentments that kick up at work, or jobs they got or jobs they lost. Sponsees call me when they want a new job or maybe about money worries connected to their ability to earn. And we also hear a lot of joking about work, “Boy, I would love to say XYZ to my boss.” Etc.

But why is it we don’t –often enough—bring our recovery to work?

Early in recovery we focus recovery on our physical health—“help me to stop using/bingeing/drinking/smoking. And then, soon after we start to apply recovery principles to our relationships—the most urgent ones first: our partner, our kids, our ex-partners, and then maybe to other relatives and then to friendships too.

We, if we are lucky and diligent, see the patterns in our own behavior. And we know, when we face our role in those relationships, that we cannot do it alone. We need to have the help of a loving sponsor and maybe a small group of dedicated recovering friends. Folks who will not enable us.

But, it seems, bringing this same focus on ourselves and with recovery principles, to who we are at work comes very late if at all. You may have thought, as I have at times, listening to an old-timer in recovery—speaking truth, humility, love and gratitude—“I could never be that person’s coworker”, as they reveal how opposite all of that they are in the workplace. 

So what’s going on? Maybe it is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: we take care of ourselves, then partners, then kids, then social life first. Or maybe we imagine that work falls into some other category, or that people at work are outside recovery? But can that really be?

I think bringing a focus to recovery at work is crucial if only for the simple, self-serving reason that work is where we spend most of our time, and where so much of our stress comes from.

Now, to be clear, I don’t write about recovery at work because I have it figured out. Nope. I don’t have answers as much as I have questions. And because even with 32 years in Twelve-step programs I am still baffled on many days and genuinely tortured on some.

I try to sort out what recovery suggests to me as an employee, as a boss and supervisor, as a colleague, and as a team member, and what does recovery mean when I am successful and also when I am unsuccessful, and when things at work are fair or unfair? And would I know the truth of that with out deep recovery work?

So please join me in this. Ask questions, make suggestions and please share ways that you bring your recovery principles and practices to your workplace.

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Read more about long-term recovery in "Out of the Woods--A Woman's Guide to Long-term Recovery". Published by Central Recovery Press.