Employment and Sobriety

I can relate to Bill W’s life in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

I had had some golden opportunities that I insanely sabotaged managing to alienate myself from an entire academic institution, which had previously viewed me as a “whacky inventor with great potential”. The insanity of alcoholism and an enflamed ego aided by excess alcohol (and other mind altering substances), repeated failure to be at arranged meetings (where senior professors and heads of research had taken their time to attend) and the occasional psychotic outburst resulted in the powers that be entirely washing their hands of me.

Any thought of being able to hold down a normal job felt totally beyond me. I could see no future and I was drowning in self-pity and despair. The end of the world had come. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, with its gruesome attendants. Terror was the worst (that really put the wind up me!).

Recovery has enabled me to take some responsibility, manage my emotions, find serenity, see the world in a positive light and have a compete change of perspective. I have since worked with very challenging behaviour supporting individuals, some in secure units, where I have had to master fear and generate love.

I’ve also learned to take clinical observations and attend to personal care in the hospital setting and finally be patient with my vocational dreams and patents/inventions, finding a collaborator and endorser outside of the academic institution where I had studied.

Hope springs eternal.

Sean S, Road to Recovery Plymouth