I quit drinking then I became a bartender!

Nope, my story isn’t a joke. I mean, I was a pretty much an alcoholic and yes I do now work in a bar. But my story is back to front, I know. I should have quit my job in a bar in order to quit drinking, but actually it didn’t work like that for me.

I’ve always been a social drinker. I usually only drank at the weekends and birthdays and things, but then I started a new job. It was in a sales environment and it was all about drinking. So much so, that if you didn’t accept a free drink on a night out the boss would threaten to sack you.

I didn’t think too much of it, at first. But after a while I found myself being able to drink more and more. It was a gradual reliance that led me to order an alcoholic drink at lunchtime, and find myself unable to stop drinking on a night out. I was out of control.

I’d never expected that my office job would result in an alcohol addiction. No one at the office said anything, we were all the same, but I’d taken it to the next level. I only realised how bad it was when I met up with some friends who I didn’t work with. They commented on how fast I could drink these days, and were surprised when I ordered an extra drink from the bartender without them.

One of my closest friends had a serious chat with me at the end, he asked me if I was OK. What?! I was offended and had thought I was happy. He told me about one of his friends who had experienced a similar thing, and asked if I wanted to talk to him. I reluctantly agreed, but after meeting him came away with a new point of view.

I quit drinking the next day, after he’d warned me of the side effects on my mental and physical health. And at the next work event I told my boss that I would not be drinking. He was gobsmacked and in his drunken rage he sacked me.

I was hurt but happy. I didn’t want to work for someone who treated his colleagues this way. I wanted to work for someone who respects their staff.

In another strange twist of events, the manager at the bar had heard the whole thing and asked my boss and his colleagues to leave and told them they would not be welcome back. After they left angrily, she offered me a job as a bartender!

I have been working as a bartender ever since and haven’t once felt the need to drink, due to the support of my colleagues and the happy environment I work in. It’s a weird and wonderful world we live in.

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