I am a Sober Professional.

On February 17th, 2018 I married my husband, and two days later he was out of state training for his new job. If I hadn’t been so proud of him the poor timing might have upset me. But I was proud, proud and therefore impervious to minor disappointment or hurt.

That job also happened to be in St. Petersburg, Florida, the city where I was raised and where my family still lived, and we saw the move as an auspicious homecoming, one where fortune is the story of a humble new beginning genuflecting to the wisdom of so many homespun memories.

My husband was the first to relocate in March, finding us a house where, down the same street, stood the homes of my mother and sister, and again it seemed some providential loom was spinning us a very golden, very lovely life.

And a month later I followed, my car crawling up the driveway with the last of our belongings, which included our dog Riley in the passenger seat, for whom the moment’s excitement hung before him like a promissory bone.

That was in April.

And on an early evening in May my husband was struggling to guide me into our home, counter-positioning my semi-conscious, lolling body between himself and the frame of our front door. My mother was there too, hovering stupefied. She offered the only support she, as a woman shattering in real time, was capable of offering me, an equally fractured son— a sad, steadying gaze.

Those early propitious signs had betrayed us.

This was not a new beginning at all.

I was an alcoholic, and I’d finally come undone. 

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On June 12th, 2018, I got sober. And as of the date of this article's writing, I have been sober for 1 year, 8 months, and 4 days.

I am a sober professional.

There are many of us, too.

We are alike, but certainly not monolithic; we embody heterogeneity, but we have also been swept up by similar experiential currents. We examine our lives with a microscopic awareness, and we’re oftentimes absurdly funny because we know it’ll never fully make sense: how our most tragic moments have led to our greatest happiness.

We are generally circumspect, deeply grateful, and yes, my friends, pretty fucking resilient.

However, when I re-entered the professional world, I found myself grappling. How do I live out my ironclad values of honesty and authenticity within a professional context as a sober person? I quickly disabused myself of the Hollywood notion that my story of recovery would unilaterally strike confidence, hope, and inspiration in future employers and leadership. Besides, in every movie on recovery there’s always graphic scenes of relapse and the “He’s lost it all again” trope. That’s not comforting, mate. That’s just plain ol’ scary.

True, while it seems we’re in the midst of a new professional zeitgeist that extols the principles of compassion, empathy, and inclusivity, I’m sure many of us have experienced how this model of sensitivity doesn’t always translate into workplace praxis. So no, that wasn’t too comforting either.

I wanted to be an open beer, whoops, open book (sorry, it was too good to pass up), but I also needed to approach my desire to be honest and authentic with tact. Also, as homo socialis, we humans require social bonding; therefore, connecting deeply with my colleagues wasn’t merely something “nice,” it was a fundamental pursuit.

I needed to build trust while maintaining emotional safety.

How though?

My First Lesson—Establishing Trust.

In many employee handbooks, “Trust” appears writ large as an unassailable company code. And this is for very good and very obvious and very sound reasons. But trust is a contract between employees, colleagues, and employers. Sometimes the terms of agreement favor one party. Ever work for a company that insists you trust them but whose actions frequently and significantly undermine that trusting relationship? Of course you have! We probably all have. Don’t weaponize trust, people. That’s icky.

As a sober professional, trust is particularly meaningful because re-gaining trust with friends, family, your spouse, and yourself has been a fierce process. It’s not faith, where you can suspend reason. Trust wants evidence—Prove I can trust you; I will prove you can trust me.

I once casually mentioned to a colleague that I didn’t drink. It didn’t elicit a reaction from her. I didn’t belabor the point. We just moved on.

The next day that same colleague said to me privately, “My father is an alcoholic. It has caused me to question my own relationship with alcohol. If you ever want to talk, we can.”

You see, trust is a powerful exchange. I present you with a clue that gives you access into some personal detail about my life; you acknowledge the gesture and offer your own personal contribution. We both demonstrate vulnerability, and moving forward, we now share the common goal of valuing and protecting each other’s emotional safety—Wham! Now that’s trust.

However, I also found myself being asked, “How do you feel?” in conversations where trust was bankrupt. Why? Simple. I questioned intent; I felt the person on the other end of the question wasn’t being upfront about his/her own feelings, and that divulging my emotions at the time was jeopardous. More than anything, the experience read like an undisguised subterfuge. That’s not trust.

If during a period of intense workplace unrest you ask someone,“How they are feeling?”and they just say “Fine,” you have a serious trust issue to rectify. Best get to work.

Navigating trust in the workplace is as tricky as it comes. Everyone wants to trust freely and to be trusted fully, but it’s a fragile negotiation that’s always taking place. Respect the process and the nuance. Have faith, but earn trust.

Which takes me to...

Lesson Two—Setting Boundaries.

Trust is subject to boundary setting because it’s a relationship.

I mentioned earlier how many sober professionals often display a hyper-awareness of self and experience. What can I say, we’re a vigilant bunch—we gotta be. For the record, I’m not trying to depict us as superheroes with preternatural powers. Believe me, if that were true, I would have bypassed this whole alcoholic/shame/guilt thing entirely. Like, 100%.

What I am saying is we scrutinize the full gamut of our relationships: marriage, family, work, leisure activities, nutrition, sleep, exercise, how we store, expend, and restore energy, etc.

I knew what this “looked like” outside of work, but what about at work?

Turns out, it all came back to values. Boundary setting at work was a matter of valuing my, and my team’s, resources of time and energy. Always.

I was as protective of my time as I was of my co-workers'. Time is currency. Too little, and the quality of your performance, mood, and relationship pays a hefty sum. To safeguard it meant asking important questions beforehand to set help parameters around how and when to use it:

Did I really need to schedule a thirty-minute meeting with a co-worker to discuss a negligible issue or would an email work just fine? Better yet, did I really research this as much as I could have on my own? 

If a colleague wasn't prepared for a meeting, could I politely suggest we reschedule when all the information was gathered instead of having a one-sided, frenzied brainstorming session?

If a decision were made that I did not agree with, but which was out of my control, could I share my disapproval, accept the situation, and not spend hours bemoaning the situation?

If I’ve raised a concern three times and not seen a plan-of-action to resolve it, can I say that I will no longer bring the issue up again until enough time has passed when revisiting it might then be a more productive use of energy? (This is my general “three strike” rule).

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Of course, work is also about setting social boundaries.

Who elevates your mood, leads with generosity, and is just the apotheosis of goodwill? Stick with them, support them, let them in, and bloom together. 

Who totally sucks?

Still give them a chance, but if the needle isn’t moving in the right direction after a few tries. Scram!

You know who you are. Just follow your North magnetic pole.

Lesson Three. The Final Education—Dang! You’ve got a gift! Now accept it.

Everyone knows impostor syndrome is an absolute pile-driver.

It eviscerates your confidence, places pestilence in your ear, and turns you into a shadow-self.

For the sober professional entering his career, imposter syndrome is on double-duty.

Not only do you feel like a charlatan in your role working alongside more seasoned colleagues, but you also run the risk of feeling like your sobriety is a mask of its own. It makes sense, too. You had a different life pre-sobriety. It looks nothing like your life now. It was its own mean world. Now you’re asking yourself, “Who do you think you are presenting this awesome version of yourself to the public?”

But that’s you now. That’s really you, buddy. So meet him, show him around, trust him.

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I still struggle with the idea of “lost time,” and I start to mourn all those years gone to addiction. I think, “I could have been further in my career; I could have been a more "present" husband, son, brother, and uncle; I could have been, well….a better Brad.”

But I could also not have been all those things, too. And how terribly sad that would have been, having all that life go according to plan and ending up no good anyway?

Can you imagine that no-good alternate version of me, having always been sober, always been on track, always been “present” being shown the better, parallel version of himself— me today—only to be told that that version was for most of his life a damn drunk?

That’d be something funny.

I’m a sober professional. It’s been 617 days. 

Let me show you around the office.