I drank very heavily for ~ 20 years, a high functioning alcoholic and software engineer. Most of you have heard of stuff I've worked on. My other HN account has a pretty high karma, this one is a throwaway.
I was maybe three months from being homeless, and after being out of work for nearly a year (nobody wanted to hire me, go figure. I thought I had things pretty well covered up...) I found a job with a small company writing simulation software. Two weeks into working for them I lost control and went on a binge and didn't show up for a week, and the CEO went by my condo and asked WTF. I told him. Went into detox later that day, did two weeks in-patient at The Camp in Scotts Valley, then did AA really solidly. It mostly stuck; my earlier visits to AA hadn't been absolutely desperate, and I figure I was pretty close to dying through suicide or something a lot more slow and miserable.
I don't work at that company any more, but it took the caring of a CEO who I barely even knew to really wake me up. I'm still sober 15 years later.
Just switching jobs won't help. Nor will making promises, or going to school, or switching majors, or exercising, or moving, or just about anything else that doesn't exactly target what alcoholism is all about. This sounds deadly serious, and it is, but in fact AA was a lot of fun and I made a number of fast friends. (Feel free to substitute the organization of your choice, but AA worked well for me and I don't have experience with another group).
I was maybe three months from being homeless, and after being out of work for nearly a year (nobody wanted to hire me, go figure. I thought I had things pretty well covered up...) I found a job with a small company writing simulation software. Two weeks into working for them I lost control and went on a binge and didn't show up for a week, and the CEO went by my condo and asked WTF. I told him. Went into detox later that day, did two weeks in-patient at The Camp in Scotts Valley, then did AA really solidly. It mostly stuck; my earlier visits to AA hadn't been absolutely desperate, and I figure I was pretty close to dying through suicide or something a lot more slow and miserable.
I don't work at that company any more, but it took the caring of a CEO who I barely even knew to really wake me up. I'm still sober 15 years later.
Just switching jobs won't help. Nor will making promises, or going to school, or switching majors, or exercising, or moving, or just about anything else that doesn't exactly target what alcoholism is all about. This sounds deadly serious, and it is, but in fact AA was a lot of fun and I made a number of fast friends. (Feel free to substitute the organization of your choice, but AA worked well for me and I don't have experience with another group).