The Quiet Struggle Personal experience with a chronic problem By Anonymous* I love to tell stories. It’s a big part of how I manage and a big part of who I am. The funnier the better, as I also love to make people laugh. Jokes come and go, but I never forget a funny story, told well. This, however, is not a funny story. We manage our communities under some fairly bleak conditions sometimes. We learn to manage them better over time as our skill sets improve with each passing project, challenge, and crisis. Disease is something managers deal with too, of course, and alcoholism may well be an occupational hazard for many of us, just as for some of our coworkers. Like diabetes, alcoholism can be managed, but it is an insidious disease that will destroy our jobs, marriages, families, friendships, and lives if we fail to manage it well. The Beast Takes Hold My story begins in the 1970s when drinking was one of the few things for a teenager growing up in a small rural community to do. In college, I made new friends, met my future wife, and fed the beast as often as possible while living in a fraternity house and at my part-time job managing the on-campus pub where the live bands shook the building and the beer flowed freely. Just rites of passage, or so I assumed. After college, as I found myself working in local government management, working on my master’s degree at night, and moving from community to community, I found solace and relief from the pressures of life by drinking to excess, mostly alone, in secret, whenever I felt like it. Few knew of the quiet struggle I was waging and for some time I really didn’t fight back very hard, and when I did, it wasn’t for very long. The Beast Becomes Stronger The beast grew larger as family and job pressures grew. Whatever was bothering me could be suspended effectively—for a few hours anyway—with the aid of a vodka bottle hidden in the basement or garage. After the umpteenth discussion with my loving and incredibly patient wife, I made an appointment with a private counselor. During our second session he used the A word, telling me I was an alcoholic. Although that was certainly why I was 38
there, the diagnosis pronouncement from a mental health professional hit me like a ton of bricks. I was devastated. Back to the basement and the cycle continued, but now it had an official name. For the next couple of decades I mostly white-knuckled it. I could stay completely sober for months at a time, but would always succumb to drinking as external pressures mounted. Each time I fell off the wagon, I quickly returned to the worst of it, where I had left off before. A beer or two with friends after a round of golf quickly led me back to the ABC store and my secret affair with the vodka bottle in the basement after the family had gone to bed. An after-work, three-month outpatient program at a local hospital did the trick for a while. I attended some AA meetings as part of the program and even a few afterward, but I didn’t like them very much. As a local government manager, I felt too exposed and thought myself hardly anonymous given that my face, name, and title were often in the newspaper and on television as part of my day job. Another occupational hazard. A Breaking Point I finally reached a new low several years ago, all in a few short months. I was still managing my job fairly well during the day, but the evenings brought me back to the basement to cope with life. I lost a close friend when his serial infidelity caused me to side with his wife and break off contact with him. My oldest son graduated from college and moved far away, and I missed him. My daughter revealed to my wife and me some of her own difficult struggles. My teenage son started getting into typical teenage boy trouble, which tested me on a whole new level as I dealt with local law enforcement and judicial personnel with whom I worked professionally in less personal ways in my job. My aging parents really started to have aging parent problems. And my dog died, seriously, just like in a country music song. Managing in a recession presented some new challenges, too. After building organizations for 30 years I now had to partially dismantle one. Slashing budgets required some big boy pants that I struggled to fill. Disciplinary actions with employees for SOUTH DAKOTA MUNICIPALITIES
