Post-Recovery

I have a friend in The Fellowship who has been making some steady progress in his attempts to stay sober and not be an asshole all of the time.  Believe me - I'm sympathetic.  While I have been off the booze for a while the not-being-an-asshole part is a little trickier.  I can often spot someone who I think is making the progression through The Steps.  I think I can see growth spurts in people who are really giving The Steps a whirl.

The anecdote is that he struggled to find steady employment, apparently preferring getting fired to getting a paycheck.  Finally, he got a good job in a field where he has some expertise, only to be promptly transferred to a new store that was a long drive from his home.

What do we do in those cases, post-recovery?  We bitch.  We complain.  We make a not-that-bad situation worse.  We make ourselves miserable and poison our environment.  Or we figure out that our job is to suit up and show up and do the best we can, confident that we can't see the future with any clarity.  My buddy would give me wistful updates about making the best of it whenever I brought up the situation.  Go to work, work cheerfully while at work, stay at work until quitting time, don't try to run the universe, not necessarily in that order.

Of course after a few months he got transferred to a store close to his home.  The transfer was effected because he was doing such a good job that he was promoted.  It is not, apparently, that hard.