At a regular company the most common motivation for working is for a paycheck. But at a company like TLC money is not the key motivation.
Instead staying clean and sober takes precedence. It’s about saving our lives and escaping the demons of our past. It’s about not walking the big yard for years. About not seeing the looks of disappointment on the faces of our loved ones. It’s about returning to school. About rebuilding our mental and physical health.
Working with employees in recovery, however, requires patience and understanding. The reason being that just become someone’s gotten sober doesn’t’ mean they’re all of a sudden emotionally healthy.
Egos and territoriality come into play. We addicts are often emotionally fragile. Our self-esteem is in shambles. And sometimes that affects our relationships with our co-workers.
So how do we work with employees in recovery? Mostly we use the tools of recovery that we learn in 12-step meetings.
We ask them to look beyond pettiness and to the larger mission: which is to rebuild our lives and recover from substance abuse. We ask them to remember what it says in the recovery literature about not fighting anyone or anything. We ask them to forget small differences that might interfere with our efforts to change our lives.
And it’s worked for over 22 years.
