Answer Addiction

Tag: service

  • The Other Side of Service: When Giving Back Becomes Exploitation

    The Other Side of Service: When Giving Back Becomes Exploitation

    Being of service means sharing our story of recovery to someone who is struggling or taking a newcomer to their first meeting, not taking away someone’s ability to support themselves.

    The greatest travesty in our field is exploiting people with lived experience for free labor. Peers and other recovery support specialists should be paid a fair, living wage. -Robert Ashford

    I have lost count of the number of times I’ve been asked to provide some kind of service — giving a talk, organizing an event, facilitating a panel discussion, attending and supporting a conference, writing a blog, or reviewing a website — for no pay, under the guise of giving back to the recovery community. 

    There is this notion within the community that because we found recovery, we should show our gratitude by giving back. This thought process originates from 12-step fellowships — specifically Step 12: “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.” 

    Exploitation Presented as Service

    The literature goes further to suggest that our recovery is incumbent upon that giving: “The joy of living is the theme of A.A.’s Twelfth Step, and action is its key word. Here we turn outward toward our fellow alcoholics who are still in distress. Here we experience the kind of giving that asks no rewards. Here we begin to practice all Twelve Steps of the program in our daily lives so that we and those about us may find emotional sobriety. When the Twelfth Step is seen in its full implication, it is really talking about the kind of love that has no price tag on it.”

    But asking someone to work in the recovery space for free isn’t service — it’s exploitation. 

    That statement sounds harsh, but I’ve found it to be true. And I learned the hard way. I found my recovery in a 12-step fellowship, and I dutifully gave back in abundance: I had several service positions at two to three meetings for the majority of my first five years. I’ve held literature, chair, secretary, treasury, and coffee/tea person positions. I have sponsored. I have learned that when you give, you also commit to regular attendance and are there to help newcomers. 

    While I don’t dispute that service helps others and is helpful for continued recovery, there comes a point where it can have a detrimental and potentially harmful impact. 

    I found that people began to take advantage of the commitment I made to show up. They did not arrive to perform their own duties, leaving me to do their jobs. Sometimes the coffee person showed up at the start time of the meeting rather than earlier as planned. A literature person would only show up halfway through the meeting, or not at all, and treasurers would show up at the end of the meeting. So I had to set up the room, unpack and set out the literature, make tea and coffee, buy milk, welcome the newcomers, and start the meeting. This was a regular occurrence, and I thought it was my duty to put up and shut up. I did this for many years, until I got fed up and realized that I wasn’t there to carry other people: I was there to support my recovery. 

    When I left AA I felt a tremendous relief. There was a lot about the program and fellowship that didn’t work for me. I was able to leave and find a pathway that was better suited to my needs. In doing so, I realized a number of truths, one of which is that my recovery isn’t incumbent upon what I give away for free. My emotional sobriety and sustained recovery depend on my continued development — in therapy, and through various other means of self-development and care. 

    The problem of service is not isolated to the rooms of 12-step meetings. It is an issue that is prevalent in the recovery community at large: there is an assumption that if you inhabit the recovery space within any capacity, you can rightfully ask someone to provide a service for free. I’m not talking about sharing at a meeting, hospital, or other institution, I’m talking about the request to provide professional help for free in the name of service. 

    I have lost count of the number of times I have been asked to write for free, to attend a conference and speak (and to pay for the ticket to the conference as well as all other travel expenses), to interview someone on my website or promote someone’s product or service, and to provide my online content expertise by reviewing business websites. All with no compensation offered. On the contrary, I was expected to provide these services for free, and the underlying presumption was that I should feel grateful to do it.

    I learned the hard way that while I want to help out anyone who is trying to pursue their dreams, I cannot do that at the expense of my well-being. I burned myself out by saying yes all the time. I also kept my earnings in a low-income bracket because I was afraid to say no. How would that reflect on me and my recovery? I was terrified that someone would think I wasn’t willing to help another person in recovery, or that I wasn’t grateful for what I had been freely given to me. 

    But here is the important difference: I wasn’t being asked to give back the hand of recovery; I was being asked to perform a specialized professional service — using the experience that I have gained by working incredibly hard (mostly seven days a week for several years) — for free. The irony is that these requests typically come from organizations and employees who are paid. An event, for example, generates income and typically has sponsors. Many of the attendees at these events work for organizations in a paid position and are given the luxury of attending during work time or are sponsored or paid to attend. These employees also have benefits: health and dental insurance, as well as paid leave. 

    What makes this particularly hard to digest is that many of these grassroots organizations are advocating for the better treatment of people in recovery and with substance use disorder, but they are unwilling to instill those values by paying the people who work to further their cause. 

    Placing Value on Expertise

    I am a full-time freelance writer and content strategist. The only way I pay my bills, and the exorbitant fees of running a business, is by getting paid for the work that I do. And often this involves having to negotiate fair pay from highly profitable businesses within the recovery industry — where executives earn six figures — because they do not value or understand what goes into being a writer. I haven’t had a vacation since I have been self-employed, and I pay for my own insurance.

    Apart from the role recovery culture plays in the idea of labor as service, I think the expectation of free labor also comes down to a lack of knowledge, value, and respect for the role of writers and what we do. 

    Writers don’t just sit down and the words flow onto a screen in 20 minutes. We spend hours, days, and weeks formulating content. We put in the emotional labor of transforming our emotions and experiences into words that others can relate to. We spend months — years even — developing relationships with researchers and other stakeholders within the community to provide reliable sources of information. We do research in order to gain different perspectives. And then we go back to the work and rewrite it, again and again. It is beyond a full-time job. The same goes for speaking: it takes time and energy to prepare and deliver a speech. I could write an entire essay on how long it takes to develop regular business, too. Work doesn’t just fall into our laps. 

    So if you work within the recovery industry, before asking someone in your community to do something for free, ask yourself whether you would do it for free if you didn’t have any other source of income. Ask yourself if you would ask any other professional to do that for free. When you ask someone to attend and participate in your event for free, ask yourself if you are taking away that person’s opportunity to pay their bills by working for someone willing to pay them and show respect and value for their work. 

    The True Meaning of Service

    I think it’s time that we revisit the true meaning of service: sharing our story of recovery to someone who is struggling. That means sharing at a meeting, or taking a newcomer to their first meeting. It doesn’t mean taking away someone’s ability to support themselves.

    That said, I am still here because some organizations do value my work. Others take note of my boundary that I won’t work for free and change their perspective. Then there are some community organizations that are already leading the way, like the Alano Club of Portland. Executive Director Brent Canode says, “As a recovery community organization, we feel a moral obligation to pay our dedicated staff fair and competitive wages for the important work they do to support recovery in our community. Our industry has a checkered past when it comes to labor standards and capitalizing on the free service of recovering men and women who naturally want to help others. We must always strive to set the bar high when it comes to valuing our recovery workforce because who else is going to if we won’t?”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • You Can't Keep It Unless You Give It Away

    You Can't Keep It Unless You Give It Away

    The responsibility to give honestly is my job; the responsibility to take honestly is theirs and not for me to determine. I could go crazy trying to decide which homeless person is worthy and which is not.

    It’s one of the odd truths about life in New York City that some days a homeless person might just be the only person who talks to you, especially if you work solo and live alone. During my months-long stay in New York this year, I walked alone, ate alone, sat alone at two plays, shopped alone, got lost alone, took the subway alone, all with no conversations and no interactions. Of course, I was partially to blame. In my zeal to be considered what I thought a real New Yorker was, I had an impassive face perfected and was proud of my aplomb. I wasn’t a tourist, after all. I was there taking a class, trying vainly to get the city out of my bloodstream so that I wouldn’t suddenly run away from my husband in Arizona and move there permanently.

    One of the things I had to do to be like a native was ignore the homeless. I took my cue from those around me, rushing to wherever I needed to be, looking impassively straight ahead when the solicitations started on my subway car. It was hard. Hands beseeching, cups outstretched, people sleeping in piles of blankets on the sidewalks, the distinction between blankets and human being inside not always apparent.

    This plan seemed to work. At least, until my depression recurred and I began to feel I was dying. One night, before burrowing into my hotel room, I went to get some fruit from a market on Park Avenue, passing a man on the way there whom I thought was loudly ranting into his phone about “some woman.” Certainly none of my business so I knew I needed to paste on my impassive face and walk on by. But on the way back, carrying a bag of bananas and oranges, I listened more closely and I realized the woman he was ranting about was me.

    “Look at her with all that fruit. She can’t give me some. Don’t even care, walking on by with bananas and oranges, swinging that bag. She’s evil, don’t care about nothing and no one.”

    At my home in Arizona I carry money in my car’s center console in case I happen to be pulled up alongside a person with a sign standing in the center median at an intersection. I’m a little cautious so I move my purse away from the window, roll it down, look in the person’s eyes and wish them the best.

    But I was in New York and taking cues from real New Yorkers. Yes, the homeless problem was overwhelming here, so overwhelming that perhaps the only way to deal with it is not to encourage it. I understand I was dropped here out of the blue with no history and no understanding of the differences between the New York homeless problem and that of my home state.

    Back in my hotel room, the fruit put away, I was shaken. What did I think I was doing? My 12-step program teaches me that I am no better than any other human being on earth, and certainly no better than any possible person who may have a substance use disorder. It teaches me that judgement is poison for any addict. And that the responsibility to give honestly is my job; the responsibility to take honestly is theirs and not for me to determine. I could go crazy trying to decide which homeless person is worthy and which is not. I know from the program that if I hold something too closely I’ll lose it and only by living fearlessly and letting go can I be free. And I read somewhere that the universe, God, Higher Power – whatever – doesn’t handle money, that what we have in excess is for us to give.

    It turns out that it’s impossible to get New York out of my bloodstream. If anything, I fall more in love with it, with the grid lines of the streets and avenues, with the museums, with the crowds and food, and with the beauty of spring when it suddenly appears, and I find myself basking in the unbelievable sunshine at Bryant Park.

    I know all the controversy out there about the homeless and giving. I know that some say New Yorkers should only give to the Coalition for the Poor. Others say that giving only increases the homeless population, encouraging them to stay in certain neighborhoods. Some people give food, others nothing. It’s a seemingly unsolvable issue, even with nearly two billion dollars in the state’s budget to fix it.

    But the political became personal when I suddenly understood that I hadn’t become someone else when I came to New York; I had to stop pretending.

    I checked my wallet. Among some larger bills, I had nine single dollars. I folded them all and put them in the back pockets of my jeans, so they’d be easy to reach. The next day when I heard someone ask for help I looked into my fellow human being’s eyes and remembered that I’m one of them. It changed how I felt about the streets, the dread of the nonstop pleas. Suddenly I sought the encounter. I was waiting with their money in my back pocket.

    I never ran out of single dollars and each night I had more of them in my wallet to hand out the next day.

    In recovery programs, they say that what we’re doing by sponsoring people and doing service and putting ourselves out there is not so much to help others as it is to help ourselves, so we can stay sober. What I learned was that I wasn’t giving money to save all the homeless people in New York. I’m not that important and one dollar isn’t going to do that much. I was giving the money to save my own life. I was doing it so I could stay human.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • The Newly Sober and Recently Incarcerated Find Purpose at DV8 Kitchen

    The Newly Sober and Recently Incarcerated Find Purpose at DV8 Kitchen

    People want to look into the eye of someone they’re helping by eating there, and our staff wants to see people enjoying what they’ve made.

    Whatever our experience with life is, was, or will be, there’s one thing we all have in common: food. It’s one of the things we need to survive, along with the social support and shelter we need to thrive. These things come together in a powerful way at a dine-in bakery in Kentucky called DV8 kitchen, where Rob Perez and his wife oversee a staff comprised entirely of people in recovery, many of whom are coming out of incarceration and looking for a second chance. After getting sober at 25, Perez, already a career hospitality veteran at a young age, decided to open a fourth restaurant located within walking distance from three different transitional living facilities. They serve homemade bread and southern breakfast-style foods, and, most importantly, employees and customers are always interacting with one another. We spoke to Perez about the employees he’s lost to addiction in the past, the ways in which the bakery is impacting the community, and that time NFL Quarterback Chad stopped by to teach a workshop on leadership and teamwork.

    The Fix: Would you say there is a stronger chance of sobriety if you set your employees up with a job in a sober environment?

    Rob Perez: When you do a job with quality, you build self respect, self-esteem and pride in a craft you’re developing. In recovery, we need a support system and an accountability system. And the camaraderie you get out of a job when you have common interests, backgrounds and circumstances, is pretty powerful. We’ve had a few employees tell us that it’s nice not to feel bad about turning down invites from coworkers to grab a drink after work, or even feeling pressured to do so. Our staff don’t leave programs or meetings or houses and come to a foreign environment 40 hours a week, they come to a place where we all speak the same language, have the same customs, and discussions, so its a 24/7 program.

    Are there any logistical benefits to the way it’s set up?

    From a practical standpoint, even if people have insurance, most of the time, a recovery center’s money runs out after 30 days, and people have to start to contribute to the house they’re living in. So if businesses don’t take a chance on someone who has a difficult schedule to work around and a past to have to deal with, these folks can’t get through the program they’re in, and, generally, outpatient programs are a minimum of six months to one-year. Also, many of our employees have mentioned how nice it is to work with others who truly understand what they’re going through.

    Have the people you work with at the sober living houses given you any feedback about your impact?

    They think it’s working well as there’s a lot of accountability on the residents (our employees) to stay on track with the program. They really need to follow their program while they’re at work or they will be asked to leave the program altogether. In that way, we work in tandem with the sober living houses to ensure the employee is meeting their goals and staying on a good path.

    What do your employees do about housing when their stay nearby is up?

    The houses we work with have separate sober living environments our employees can go to after their initial first year of treatment. If they’re interested, we can also connect them with community services that will help them find housing.

    Why do you think there is still so much hesitancy to give people a second chance?

    When you say you’re a second chance employer you run a risk of people thinking ‘second chance’ means ‘second rate.’ They don’t want to spend money on second rate. What we’ve been taught in society is to be hesitant in employing convicted offenders and recovering addicts. Through DV8, we hope to show them success and really convince them that it doesn’t hurt to offer addicts or those who were previously incarcerated a second chance. Though we’ve only been open for about nine months, I’ve noticed that a handful of our employees have directly reached out to government officials to discuss the importance of offering second chance employment opportunities.

    Did people know your triple-bottom line when you first opened?

    In our first two weeks, people felt insecure about coming to a place that had many people in recovery in it, but we also didn’t formally announce it. Without us saying it, they knew people had incarceration in their past. But once I started to contact the media and talk about our mission and the people, it all changed. People want to know that they’re making an impact, and that’s why the glass wall we have between our cooks and service people and the customers is so important. People want to look into the eye of someone they’re helping by eating there, and our staff wants to see people enjoying what they’ve made. Ultimately, though, we want them to be unidentifiable from anyone else. The way they stand up straight, the enthusiasm, their confidence, we can see that they’re changing the way the public thinks about recovery and addiction.

    Tell me about your personal connection to the mission.

    Addiction found me and has crossed the paths of 13 other people in our other for-profit restaurants and, now, they’re gone. It affected the best server we ever had, it affects my city, and it affected me. I was a binge drinker. I didn’t have to drink everyday but when I did, I would frequently get out of control. I was always the last to leave a party, and the deeper I got, the more blackouts I had, taking risks with driving and getting out of embarrassing situations I had to reconstruct the next day. I was not as attentive of a husband as i should have been. I wasn’t being a good person.

    Rob and his wife, Diane. Image via DV8 Kitchen.

    When did you decide to get help?

    I had a blackout, went back to my workplace (then, it was the Hard Rock Cafe, on the corporate side) and made a fool of myself. I got suspended from work and had to tell my wife I couldn’t be paid for two weeks and I said I needed help. Diane’s an angel. She loved me through it and kept me honest and kicked my ass if she needed to.

    It also helps when pro-athletes come teach you a workshop.

    We’ve had a bank executive come to talk to employees about personal finance, a yoga instructor to talk about mindfulness, and, yes, NFL quarterback Chad Pennington came in to talk about teamwork. During his workshop, he discussed his journey to the NFL and why both teamwork and leadership were important. He also shared more personal stories about how his Christian values have helped him through his career and life journey in general. But, all kinds of people in the community are signing up three months in advance to lead these workshops. They really want to help.

    What do you think it is about the food industry that makes it such a popular ‘second-chance’ job?

    My gut is it has to do with working really hard physically, it’s mental as well. You learn to get along with people, form long-lasting relationships, make mistakes without fear and be able to say sorry. Then you get to serve your food and get instant feedback. In recovery, we need to know what our results are. I think we thrive in an environment where we “know right away.” If someone likes it, or what you do, it’s good to know it. There’s something spiritual about a dinner table, too, and having a meal with someone. Food, dining, and breaking bread is special and is innate to our happiness.

    Image via DV8 Kitchen.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • The Blessings of Going Back

    The Blessings of Going Back

    “Pulling a geographic? Come to Jackson Hole! Great public transportation, decent jobs, and a beautiful environment to be miserable in.”

    It can be a scary thing to go back to the place you hit your “bottom.” It can also be extremely rewarding with unexpected miracles and blessings. I hit my bottom in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and I highly recommend it as a destination location as far as bottoms go. I don’t think that’s a “thing” but perhaps some travel site can advertise that: “Pulling a geographic? Come to Jackson Hole! Great public transportation, decent jobs, and a beautiful environment to be miserable in.”

    I’m not trying to make light of it. It’s awful hitting a bottom but if I had to choose between Jackson and somewhere else, I’d probably choose Jackson. Not that I was miserable – at first. Geographics are great at first. The despair takes a nap. New places, new faces – no problems. I picked up some hobbies, some new friends and a couple guys. One of the guys was a ski instructor at the resort. He was maybe 10 or 20 years older than me which was fine because I was also “dating” someone 10 to 20 years younger than me. Age is just a construct, anyhow, and more is better and pass the bottle.

    We hit the slopes in the morning and then took a break for lunch at the Four Seasons where I ordered a glass of wine, of course. He paused, considered for a moment and then ordered one for himself. After lunch, we went back to skiing which is kind of amazing for an alcoholic but after a few hours, we celebrated a terrific day by returning to the Four Seasons for “Apres Ski” and had a few more glasses. That was the last I saw of him.

    Nine months later, I moved back to New York and ended up in “the rooms.” Then, when I was about a year sober, I had to go back to Jackson for some work. I was scared because I had drunk so much and that was how I did Jackson. That’s how Jackson worked. Could I do it differently? Most of my friendships were based around drinking and so were most of my activities. Why go river rafting, if you’re not going to party? It was all about the beer, the booze, the alcohol. 

    My sponsor and fellows in the program told me that it would be okay to go back and that what I would do is go to meetings, make phone calls, and take it one day at a time. So that’s what I did. There was a daily meeting in town square and, though nervous, I showed up and said I’m visiting. There were a lot of other people visiting, as well as locals, and it was a very welcoming environment. After the meeting, someone tapped my shoulder. It was the ski instructor. I was happy to see him, not because I was attracted to him or wanted to be with him, but because it was nice to see someone who had been out there with me now in the rooms taking the same journey. He told me he had been sober for a while and it was on our date at the Four Seasons that he’d slipped. He stayed out for a few months and came back about the same time that I started coming to meetings. It felt like such a blessing to run into him there. I was so glad he was healthy and sober. So glad that I was, as well, and that we didn’t get lost down that tragic highway.

    Another hidden blessing was that one of my coworkers was also trying to get sober. He didn’t have the gift of desperation, as they say, he had the gift of a DWI and a court mandating him to go. He was super talented and super likeable and had the common alcoholic tendency to turn into a total asshole and then go MIA when he drank which would be really bad for the project we were working on together. Selfishly, I needed him to stay sober. He was on the fence as to whether he was an alcoholic or not, but we went to a meeting together and when we had to go to Salt Lake City for work, I brought him to a meeting there too. He stayed sober through the job and guess what? So. Did. I. If I hadn’t been so focused on his sobriety, would I have stayed sober? Would I have searched out a meeting just for myself? Can’t say for sure. But what I can say is that he was another unexpected angel on that trip and from what I understand, he’s still sober.

    Seeing Jackson through newly sober eyes was like putting on a “new pair of glasses” as Chuck C. says in his book by the same name. When I was there before, it was all about me, me, me. What can I get? I need that! And what’s in it for me? For instance, whenever I went to the brew pub, I was not present with the people I was with; my focus was on drinking and looking for guys and male attention. It was all about trying to fill that “God-shaped hole.” But sober, I was a worker among workers drinking my Arnold Palmer, enjoying my colleagues’ company, enjoying the moment and enjoying just BEING SOBER. That was the biggest gift of all.

    It’s eight years later and I’m still sober and, as I write this, I realize that I miss that time in my life. I miss the humility and gratitude of early sobriety. I’m back to thinking a lot about myself and my plans. And what I can get. And I’m feeling kinda not awesome. I’ve also heard that around eight years is when people go out again, or slip. They get busy and stop going to meetings. I can definitely be too busy. Busy with I want, I want, I want. I think I get high on trying to make things happen. It’s my ego. But I know that when I have the gift of surrender and humility, IT FEELS SO GOOD. But I can’t seem to will the surrender. I can just be willing, and show up to meetings, do service, and deepen my understanding of my higher power regardless of how I feel. And as I reach out to the newcomer, I am re-acquainted with the early blessings, the blessings they give me and the ones I get to share in return. And for that I am grateful.

    View the original article at thefix.com