Can You Work around Alcohol if You Are a Recovering Alcoholic?, pt. 1
The New York Times recently had an unexpected and interesting article in its dining section, Mixing Drinks With Work and Staying Sober, Too. This article took a look at people who are trying to maintain sobriety and work in professions that require them to spend a lot of time around alcohol.
In one case, a bartender who decided to go to Alcoholics Anonymous to get sober did not decide to leave his profession. He liked it and he was good at it. This man continued to be a bartender and earned a reputation for being one of New York city’s top creators of cocktails. He stayed on top of his game by using recipes and leaning on his memory. Yet, he also created new drinks even though he does not indulge in drinks himself.
This all worked fine until he was given the opportunity to work at a bar that the paper described as “the Harvard of mixology.” There, he would need to actually taste alcohol if he was going to make it. The bartender could not turn down this chance, so he started tasting, but spitting out the tastes afterwards, and he still will not have a drink just to have a drink they way someone else might.
Tasting alcohol does not exactly comply with the guidelines set by Alcoholics Anonymous and many would frown on this bartender’s practice. On the other hand, he has risen in his profession and is living his dream. He certainly did not have to go for the more prestigious job, but a person’s level of job satisfaction does affect their life, whether they are trying to stay sober. He wanted to go to the next level as a bartender and he did.
Everyone does not have the kind of willpower that this man appears to have, however. Some of us would not be able to work in such close proximity to a substance that we had once abused. The fact that he went back to the bartending profession and seems to be doing well is remarkable. Even more remarkable is that he took those first brave steps by getting help for his alcohol addiction. Before he ever had to wrestle with the idea of how being sober would affect his ability to do his job, he had to first get alcohol addiction treatment.
