This series explores my relationship with alcohol and the impact it has had on my career and personal life. Like many Americans, I responsibly enjoyed alcohol in professional and social settings. But something changed, and it all started with a lie I told myself. Along the way I told myself many lies to excuse or justify my behavior. Though I didn’t recognize them at the time, I see them all too clearly now. Maybe you will too.
LIE: I’m not an alcoholic so I must not have a drinking problem
There is a high probability that if I asked you whether you had a drinking problem you would make the blanket statement “no.” You likely would not qualify the difference between problem drinking, binge drinking, gray area drinking, and being an alcoholic or having a substance use disorder. I certainly didn’t because society rarely makes this distinction. For most, you are either a “responsible adult” or an “alcoholic.” You evidently “know better” than to drink irresponsibly. But do you really know better? Or are you just ignoring the inconvenient facts?
Over 20 years ago, when I first started in healthcare sales and marketing, my wife at the time and I didn't have alcohol in our home. It's not to say that we were opposed to it. We were just cautious because we both came from families that battled addiction. Despite a dry home, the workplace provided countless opportunities to enjoy alcohol responsibly.
I remember moments at sales meetings being extremely cautious with how much I drank and how I behaved so a customer or a colleague would not see me in a state that could compromise my value. It's interesting to me that before I was even promotable, I was more conscious of the negative impacts of alcohol on my promotability and sustainability of high performance. Over the years, drinking at sales meetings, dinners, and occasional nights in the hotel turned into every night in the hotel, always in the airport, and many drinks at corporate events. But I didn’t have a drinking problem, because I could stop at any time. That’s what I told myself.
The truth is I had a drinking problem, but I couldn’t see it because my peers, managers and company gave me “a lot of runway.” How could I have an alcohol problem if I was a high performer? Or if I was promoted every couple of years? Or if I was in leadership classes and recognized with leadership awards? Yet, at corporate events and on company time I was participating in corporate subsidized consumption of alcohol. My colleagues and I binge drank at every national sales meeting or team dinner, and the company paid for virtually all of it.
The CDC says binge drinking is the most common, costly, and deadly pattern of excessive alcohol use in the United States. I didn’t know it at the time, but this is where my lie fell apart. Nine out of 10 binge drinkers are not alcohol dependent. Every once in a while, the company would terminate a colleague for their behavior at a work event. They were the one out of ten problem drinker. Others like me were in the 9 out of 10. We continued our pattern of binge drinking feeling safe in our lie.
I remember one particularly fun night at a national sales meeting for the small organization I was working for at the time. You know these meetings. The agenda was jam packed. Our teams were tested on the information presented. The organization took this meeting very seriously. Leaders fully believed in the work hard play hard mantra. If you were on the company dime, you were going to earn your keep, deliver results, and be held accountable. If you didn’t, you would be decisively removed from the organization. While that all seems pretty rigid, the “play hard” part wasn't missed either.
I recall drinking very heavily that evening with most of the people from the meeting. By that time, there was some evidence that I had an alcohol issue, but it hadn't overtaken my entire life. I did have the occasional serious consequence as a result of my excessive drinking. However, those around me went out of their way to make sure I knew that “everybody has that happen once in a while.” Their attempt to comfort, console, and justify my actions for me helped me perpetuate the lie that I was telling myself that alcohol was not a problem for me.
We partied heavily that night. We drank a lot. The responsible drinkers called it quits many hours earlier. I recall sitting on a couch in the lobby of a hotel in the very early hours of the morning having a deep philosophical conversation with a coworker whom I cannot remember to this day. I was accomplished enough of a drinker to know that if I had two ibuprofen and two full glasses of water before I went to bed and got four hours of sleep, I would avoid a hangover in the morning. That math and science experiment evidently needed some adjustment because I woke the next day feeling more than a little rough.
The next day’s meeting was eye-opening. At least three-quarters of the attendees were not at their best. Me, many of my colleagues, and I suspect even the speaker, were all feeling the effects of the previous night’s drinking. Some missed the meeting altogether, precipitating their departure from the organization. This is a repeatable scene in many corporations over and over and over. I'll bet as you're reading this you have a story too.
Looking back, I see alcohol was a thief. It robbed me of my best version of myself for my peers, clients, and company. It stole from me long before I realized it—even though I didn’t have a drinking problem. Of course, you know how my story ends. A culture that allows, or even celebrates, alcohol to an excess creates an environment for a few that puts a match to gasoline on existing mental health and potential physical issues. I went from the nine in ten to the one in ten.
In 2014, I was promoted to the highest position I’d ever held in corporate life. In 2015, a lay off left me without work. By February 2017, the party was over. I was homeless and penniless in the middle of winter in Western New York.
My story is extreme. It’s highly unlikely that you will face such a grave circumstance. But my treacherous journey started with the first of many lies: I didn’t have an alcohol problem because I wasn’t alcoholic. In fact, my alcohol problem led me to become alcohol dependent.
I HAVE QUESTIONS AND YOU SHOULD TOO:
· Could you attend an event that served alcohol and not have a drink?
· Would you still drink if you knew rising stars in your organization didn’t want to drink and only did because you did?
· If you are drinking at a business event with your colleagues and another colleague chooses not to do you feel differently about that person?
· If you would rather not drink at a corporate event and others around you are drinking freely if not excessively, do you feel comfortable?
· Have you ever attended a corporate event or business function where alcohol is served and done something you later regret and would have never done without alcohol?
· Have you ever seen somebody have a career limiting move at a company event because of alcohol?
· Would the sales team in your organization be upset if alcohol was no longer paid for by your organization? If they would be, why?
· Do you have an anti-hangover formula?
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