7/25/21 Sunday 2:35pm, I’m on a plane headed to Hartford Connecticut for a Blue Goose Convention. This is one where many adjusters will be there in a laid back way. We will have an opportunity to connect with them and network. No one in our company has ever been to a Blue Goose event, but we have heard so much about them. They are a very selective, fraternal organization in which we want to be in the middle of but have never been invited. We purchased the $1000 Nutmeg sponsorship package.
On the way to the airport, the president of our firm and I were chatting and enjoying ourselves. She knows about me being sober, thanks to having traveled with her on other trips. We were talking about how a coworker of ours recently lost his son due to an overdose. His son was exactly my age, 37. The conversation came up because he was expecting to receive a phone call any day now from the coroner to learn about what caused the fatality.
I shared with her in the car ride how I had talked with my sponsor in AA and he told me to be careful. He suggested that I should only bring it up if properly prayed up and if he brings it up and wants to talk. Otherwise, it might come across as the wrong way. “We don’t want him to resent you”, he said. “We don’t want him to find out that you are sober and get any thoughts about what your dad might have done differently when you were hitting rock bottom. We don’t want him to wonder why HP chose this route and why you were chosen to stay sober, but his son had to die in an overdose in his house. He ended up going to check on his son before leaving for work one Thursday morning and discovered him dead from an overdose.
The truth is that I do not know the answers to those questions. I don’t know why I was able to live, and his son die. In the rooms of recovery, sometimes we hear people say, ‘he had to die so I could stay sober today.’ Well, that is certainly not something that I am going to say to my coworker who lost his son. I think this is where the Anonymous part of this program is so powerful and important. For the sake of my job, my family, and my ability to be promoted and get a paycheck, it is a good idea, just for today, that I keep my mouth shut and just do my job.
The reason why this came up, is because I thought it might be a good idea to use this loss to share with my boss that I was sober for three plus years. However, I need to remember the line about if the house was on fire and you ran out of it, you are wanting people to tell you good job? My life was on fire and collapsing all around me. Life is good today, but I don’t need to go through my whole story and any details to get an affirmation or validation hit from him. It is hard though, because I want him to know that he can talk with me any time he wants about this recovery stuff, drug use or any feelings that he might be going through. I would love to open it up so that we can have a free dialogue, however, I do not want to trauma bond with him. I don’t really want to get emotionally codependent where I am worried about his feelings. I should keep it business because he is my boss. If he asks me directly about my recovery or my thoughts on something, then sure…I’ll share with him. I just don’t need to be the one to start the conversation and I need to learn where the boundary is located and when to set one up. I need to not ramble on and on about every little piece of my recovery. It shall be surface level. I can share my experience but don’t need to start at the beginning. I do not need to initiate the conversation about recovery.
