How Addiction Recovery Can Save Your Career

At Amethyst Recovery, we understand that many patients feel a need to climb the steps to re-achieve their former career goals. (ra2studio/Shutterstock)

We recently discussed the incorporation of life skills training into our programs at Amethyst Recovery. Numerous life skills were mentioned, with some of them pertaining to financial stability and the maintenance of one’s career. With many addicts and alcoholics entering treatment with their careers potentially on the line, this is an important factor in recovery. If we want to stay sober, we must learn how our addiction may have an impact on our employment. Those who care about their career futures will most certainly take this into account.

As easy as it may seem to find troubles in our relations with others, this does little to help us. We cannot give in to every single little resentment that we may have. As soon as we begin to let our emotions become ruled by our resentments, we have failed in our recovery. It is vital that addiction recovery be accompanied by a rather large dose of solution-based attempts at sobriety. We have met people who disapproved at these attempts, and they have often come across as deluded or even aggressive. But we do our best to avoid such relations with our loved ones.

There are many reasons that we should focus on career when in recovery. More importantly, there are many reasons that we should take a long and hard look at the effect that our careers may have on our ability to recover safely. In some instances, we may actually have to leave our career by the wayside in order to ensure our recovery. But it is important for us to learn the difference between these instances and the instances in which we could have easily let our better senses keep us from making unhealthy decisions. We will take a closer look at such instances below.

What We Offer at Amethyst

Resume-building tips are among the many services that Amethyst offers in serve of your career. (Paul Velgos/Shutterstock)

At Amethyst Recovery, we understand that there are many factors which may potentially affect the employment of our prospective clients. They may have jobs that are hanging in the balance, or they may even struggle to gain employment at all. No matter what the situation may be, we are here to help. Those who have read our promise of personalized care should be incredibly in tune with the potential benefits of entering our programs. Otherwise, they have missed out on a vital component of our recovery program.

If you look at our description of our programs, you will see the following statement:

Our resources in the local community allow us to help our clients resume an independent and productive life gradually. We have many local connections to provide clients with job placement, continuing education, life skills training, resume building, transportation, and local 12 Step meeting locations.

Some of these amenities are absolutely vital. Others, however, are not necessarily likely to be offered by other treatment centers. Try and think of the last time you heard of a treatment center offering a resume-building class to its patients. You probably do not hear about it too often.

Those who care about the future of their career will take these offerings to heart. Sure, many addicts and alcoholics may not initially care whether or not they are given a fair chance to express their dissatisfaction to a seemingly anonymous entity. But in the case of Amethyst Recovery, career is a major factor in determining a patient’s course or continuum of care. We must learn the risks of continued use before treating our patients to understand the consequences they will face if they choose to drink or abuse drugs again.

Not every addict or alcoholic will have the chance to save their career in the strictest sense. Some will have to fight for a new career, possibly even embracing an entirely new job title. But since we understand these needs at Amethyst Recovery, these patients will never have to go through their career struggles alone. They will find themselves in a safe space where numerous patients and staff members understand how difficult their life has become as a result of recent developments. This is where it becomes highly important to understand the difference between saving a patient’s career and simply helping them to seek future employment.

Saving Careers at Amethyst

Many of those who need help saving their careers are medical professionals. (Yevhen Vitte/Shutterstock)

When you really look at them, some of the promises made above will be far more applicable to patients who elect to stay in our sober living facilities. The resources that we maintain within the local community are obviously far more beneficial to those who are looking to expand their career within the area of the Treasure Coast. And this is important, because we absolutely believe that our patients should learn how to lead a less sheltered and more adult life. We may have many resources in the area, but we still appreciate it when patients are willing to seek these resources for themselves rather than instantly relying upon us to provide them.

Some of the patients who enter our sober living facilities have entered these facilities—and even treatment in general—at the behest of their former employers. Perhaps they are doctors, lawyers, or even simply corporate officials who have received a second chance from their employers. In such cases, a monitoring program is often required in order to make sure that they have fully embraced the nature of their condition and agreed to have themselves subjected to the scrutiny of a licensing organization. This is not always the case with our patients, but it definitely happens quite a bit.

In fact, some licensing organizations even require specific classes in order to prove that the resident at hand has submitted to all requirements. For instance, the medical professionals in our program must prove their sobriety in order to regain their licenses and prove that they are fit for return to their previous duties. Those who have been at risk of losing any job due to addiction or alcoholism should consult their employers when entering treatment to see whether or not they might qualify for similar opportunities.

There are numerous reasons to seek treatment for addiction or alcoholism, and we are not suggestion that saving one’s career should necessarily be the top priority in this regard. Nonetheless, it is hard to ignore that one’s career will likely be much safer if they are able to prove that they have put in the requisite time to prove that they truly care about their recovery. As for those who have not secured their career in this fashion, it will be a little more difficult to seek gainful employment after treatment. Even so, this is something that Amethyst can hopefully make a little easier.

Saving Employment at Amethyst

Recovering addicts and alcoholics in need of employment will learn more about resume- and career-building while facing the consequences of their addiction during treatment. (Stock-Asso/Shutterstock)

When’s the last time you got drunk and revised your resume? Our guess as to the probable answer is “never.” At the very least, it doesn’t happen often. The point is that even those who have not secured a career prior to entering treatment will likely be in an unfortunate position when they emerge from treatment and are ready to begin seeking employment. They should not be punished for their past choices, and that is one of the reasons we have gone out of our way to ensure that career gains are incorporated into our standards of personalized care.

Those who have had trouble maintaining their employment throughout their periods of active addiction will find that this subject arises with relative frequency during their first two (and most intensive) levels of treatment. But it can be troublesome to pursue means of employment while we are trying to hide our past, attempting to obfuscate the nature of who we are. It can be quite easy for us to assume that our addiction has played a role in our loss of career or employment, but this does not mean that recovery will immediately lead to us getting our jobs back.

It is true that we have many resources in the local community, which will help local patients and those in our sober living facilities to find gainful employment. But they must still fill in all of the blanks themselves. They must learn how to fill out a resume and have it accepted. They must still learn how to perform a decent interview. And even after they leave our care for good, these skills will help our patients to ensure a far better lifestyle than that which they would usually enjoy while under the throes of alcoholism and addiction.

Amethyst Recovery is highly dedicated to teaching our patients necessary life skills in order to ensure that they are able to survive in the world after they have detoxed and have begun conquering the many symptoms of their addictions. We cannot technically guarantee that our promise of personalized care will result in every patient receiving a job at the end of their treatment. We can, however, guarantee with relative certainty that those who truly pay attention to the lessons they have learned in recovery will stand a far better chance at gaining employment than those who have done nothing to ensure the well-being of their career. We hope that all of our patients at Amethyst Recovery will take career goals and financial future seriously. The focus we place on these goals is the least we can do for our patients’ futures.