When you find you're riding a dead horse, the best thing to do is get off of it

[Umberlee]

I keep reminding myself of this wise adage, but despite this, I can't seem to get over the desire to try and make amends with my former employer.

I worked there for 12 years and reported myself for diverting. If I had known then what I know now, I would have just reported that I had a drug problem and would not have been forthcoming about diverting (which was wasted meds, not from a client, and they never would have known). I spent so much of my life there and so many formidable years (age 18 to 30) and four of my five children were born while I worked there. I worked my way up from a CNA to an LPN to an RN. It was a longer-term care setting but with relatively young clientele so I cared for many of the same people through most of those years. I was well-respected at my job and was actually employee of the month (corporate-wide) just a few months before I was fired. Losing the relationships with my co-workers and former clients was like fifty divorces. I was heartbroken. I still am.

A year or so ago I sent out an email to the director and her boss when I heard that they were hiring. When I was fired I had been given a song and dance about how the door was not closed on me and that I could come back someday after I had gotten clean. I guess I wanted to put out feelers because I basically had to fight them for unemployement benefits and they painted a very nasty picture of me as a lying druggie thief (obviously also heartbreaking. Also, they lost, thank goodness). I was nervous for days about what they would say back to me so I held off on checking my email and just sort of mentally preparing for what it would say. A week later I checked and they had not even given me the dignity of a response. Ouch.

I still just can't seem to get over the notion that I need to go in and face up to them and apologize and at least make my peace even if I can never get my job or professional reputation back. Maybe not even to my former program director but perhaps even the CEO of the company whom had offered me some degree of sympathy when I came into HR to straighten out my retirement stuff after being fired. The corporation is a large nonprofit that is supposed to be geared toward aiding the vulnerable and underserved so the hypocrisy of the way I was treated after disclosing a drug problem still just leads me to think maybe I could do SOMETHING to change the culture there and maybe just leave myself with more of a feeling that it has all turned out okay.

[Oogie]

Sometimes there is no way to make amends. So we strive to find a way to release these negative feelings so they don't impede our growth. Working the steps one of the amends I needed to make was to a man whom was my mentor, very kind and generous to me when I was a runaway. In a fit of anger (actually at his daughter) I stole from Him. The guilt ate at me for years. I could not make amends to him, he died. So I wrote all my feelings down on paper, walked outside into the open sky I read what I had written out loud. Then I took a match, lit the paper and as the smoke rose into the sky I said aloud I now release this guilt and shame. I felt I was able to get some closure, and I felt better. I did the same with some other amends I needed to make because the would be no positive gained in facing certain people (failed relationships related to my etoh abuse). I felt better, helped me clean my plate you might say. Don't know if that will help you. Just thought I'd share..... Peace

[caliotter3]

Your thread title says it. There is no way to repair broken relationships with former employers. Best to reread Oogie's post, perhaps do something similar, and invest your energies toward a better future. Best wishes.

[jackstem]

An amends is about you and not the person you are making amends to. It's the willingness to be humble to make the amends which is important. If you are hoping they will forgive you after making the amends and getting a job, you are likely to be seriously disappointed. If you have a sponsor, talk to them about how to handle this. If you don't have a sponsor, talk with someone in recovery you respect and seek their counsel. I've had sponsees and friends in recovery make amends for past transgressions with me, to obtain the release and relief from the guilt associated with past transgressions. They know I will understand and not judge them for things done in the midst of our disease. Self forgiveness begins when we realize our past is as good as it is ever going to be. Those "things" we did cannot be changed, but we can learn from them. We can heal from them when we accept we did the best we could at the time and will not repeat those actions in the future (if we continue to work our program of recovery...whatever that happens to be). We can also pass on the lessons we learn as well as the forgiveness we receive from ourselves and others as we move forward in our recovery. There is a measure of healing in passing on our own healing and forgiveness to others.

Remember, we are not bad people trying to become good. We have a chronic, progressive, potentially fatal disease and are trying to become well.

Prayers and positive thoughts coming your way.

Jack