u/greasymctitties

36/m. After 6 years of demon mode and being in and out of a dozen treatment centers, I just put the bottle down, in a very non-dramatic fashion. No horrific bender or life altering consequences. I could feel myself going down that familiar road once again and just kind of thought, I'd rather not do this anymore.

First three weeks were predictable, but better than I expected. Anxiety went away completely, traded that for some comforting apathy I suppose. It's a nice middle ground in between severe depression and crippling anxiety. Been hitting the gym, meetings and therapy regularly, eating well, keeping a clean environment, socializing, etc.

But I noticed fairly quickly that the whole one-day-at-a-time mindset was starting to worry me. After weeks of just getting through the day, I realized, that thing I'm just trying to "get through", was my life. 97% of my entire life has become a chore. I'm slugging along just trying to get through the next family get together, activity with my girlfriend, meeting/gym/therapy session. Literally the only thing I truly enjoy, is the small carved out moment late at night, when I can watch movies alone. I realized I was drinking, not to make my life more enjoyable, but to drown out the fact that, with or without booze, it wasn't.

I've told myself I've made peace with all of this and unlike when I was drinking, I'm not in active distress. I had my fun, or lack thereof, lived through it, when many people didn't, and now I'm just looking to live a calm life. Lately, I'm not so sure about all of that. Trading distress for discontent almost feels like functional depression. It's not bad enough to disrupt my life, which has always been my catalyst for change, and that scares me. I've always been grateful that I'm bad at being an alcoholic, that my drinking leads me to the ER and rehabs, because if I was better, I might be trapped in that addiction forever. Now I'm starting to feel that way about my sober life.

I have a ton of frequent call-outs for a chronic medical condition that's caused some mental turmoil, documented and everything, but that doesn't stop the discipline. Didn't need a year to hit my 1250 hours worked requirement for FMLA, hit that in like 7-8 months with all the OT and Sundays. But I'm still being handed progressive discipline and I'm at my 14-day suspension now. I think I'm a good employee when I'm there, say yes to any requests, work overtime, do little tasks here and there for other routes if they ask, respectful and efficient as I can be, generally just do everything by the book without cutting corners. Still a month away from my start date to qualify for FMLA but I'm not doing well at the moment and haven't been able to make it into work. Assuming I'll be in another PDI for a letter of removal when I return. Is there any chance of me keeping my job or is the last step to termination? I've heard of last chance agreements, wondering how that works, just trying to hold on for another month until I qualify for FMLA.