Balancing professional life, workplace responsibilities, and ongoing sobriety is a major task, and something that many alumni face daily. It can be difficult to create a schedule that tends to professional responsibilities while still prioritizing sobriety and empowering a safe and sober lifestyle. Working with professionals and sober peers as an alumnus can ensure that each person always has new ideas and strategies to celebrate their hard-earned success overcoming substance use disorder (SUD) while thriving in a professional setting.
The Challenges of Working in Sobriety
Working in sobriety can be fulfilling, but also challenging, coming with a number of both expected and unexpected stresses that can impact sobriety and each person’s lifestyle. Knowing what to expect in the workplace can empower alumni to work with peers and professionals at Renaissance Ranch to create a plan to manage these challenges while prioritizing sobriety and success.
The workplace can come with tight, stressful deadlines and an atmosphere of competition, depending on the environment. For others, unexpected long hours, staying late and overtime, and physical and mental fatigue at the end of the workday can be difficult to process, introducing new levels of stress and exhaustion while also cutting into important self-care time or time with friends, family, and loved ones.
Likewise, in a professional environment, a person is not always at liberty to choose their coworkers. Those who have not lived through the trials of addiction and recovery may have a limited understanding of sobriety and its challenges, or may even facilitate a toxic atmosphere, conflict, or otherwise be difficult to communicate or get along with, bringing feelings of stress or contention that can permeate throughout the day.
Some other potential challenges of maintaining sobriety in the workplace can also include:
- Workplace functions or parties that may contain offerings of addictive substances like alcohol
- Looming financial stresses are impacting professional stress
- Long hours resulting in burnout
- Lack of trust between oneself and professional managers or resources
However, while these challenges can increase the risk of relapse if unaddressed, it is still possible to protect one’s sobriety while on the job, living a successful sober life while maintaining a fruitful professional career.
Finding Strategies to Manage Sobriety as a Working Professional
There are always ways to balance one’s professional life with one’s ongoing sobriety, and one should never come at the expense of the other. A person should never have to give up their sobriety, health, and wellness for the sake of a job. Creating a plan alongside the professionals at Renaissance Ranch and fellow alumni can empower each person to find their best strategies for sobriety and career success.
Learn to Set Boundaries
While staying late to help out and working overtime can help a person ingratiate themselves in the culture of the workplace and make a bit more money, excessive overtime is exhausting, especially when it comes unexpectedly or late into the day. Setting boundaries and learning to say “no” is an important skill, and reflects a person’s ability to manage their own energy and well-being and to recognize limitations and personal needs in recovery.
Take Your Breaks
Lunch breaks are scheduled for a reason, and those in recovery can also use these breaks as important tools in recovery to manage their sobriety and stress in the workplace. A person should never feel bad for taking an allotted lunch break and using it to its fullest extent. Having a break to look forward to can empower those in recovery to manage their energy levels and give themselves a milestone to reach in the workday, breaking up a long day into more manageable portions.
Using lunch breaks to call and talk to loved ones, engage in mindfulness practices, and rest and detach from workplace stresses can also help a person continue to maintain sobriety in the workplace.
Develop a Support System Outside of Work
Having a dedicated support system outside the workplace can also be necessary. This means maintaining ongoing outpatient treatment and group therapy sessions, faith groups and faith-based outlets, communication with supports and loved ones, and engaging in self-care. Professional life is important, but it is not the only part of a person’s life. Treating these things outside the workplace as equally important is part of balancing ongoing sobriety with professional success. Developing these other areas can also improve emotional resilience, as if work life becomes stressful, it doesn’t also feel like the only thing a person does, helping to contextualize stress with other, positive outlets.
Decide Who to Tell
Having a trusted person inside the workplace can be instrumental in managing stress and ongoing sobriety. A peer, HR representative, or manager who knows about recovery can provide additional resources and support in the workplace. However, not everyone will necessarily understand these challenges. Rather, finding a single person to confide in can be a great approach, keeping a person’s private life protected while still having someone to fall back on on more difficult days.
A good relationship with a manager can also reach new levels of understanding when it comes to schedules, or when a person cannot stay late or help with certain tasks, if they could interfere with recovery, such as conflicting with outpatient treatment.
Balancing the challenges of professional life, workplace stresses, and ongoing sobriety can be challenging, and having an understanding, sympathetic, and accepting community can empower you to address these challenges while continuing to manage a healthy and successful sober life. At Renaissance Ranch, we can help you explore your best strategies for managing sobriety in the workplace, all while introducing you to a community of professionals and alumni peers to embrace accountability and practical skills for success. Professional life and personal sobriety should never come at the expense of the other, and we can help you balance these challenges today. To learn more, call to speak to a caring, trained staff member at (801) 308-8898.