You're doing great! I'd say for now really keep up doing what you've been doing.
As chef said, it is extremely important to challenge ourselves as we make continued progress in our recovery. But being hard on ourselves and challenging ourselves are not necessarily the same thing. There is almost always ways to make the challenges we face in life easier on ourselves even if we can't make then less difficult to accomplish. If we can't find a less stressful or arousing way of accomplishing a challange, we can always work to change how we relate to it.
The best advice I can offer is to be gentle with yourself. I can really empathize with what you were saying about finding a job. Although our situations are a tad different, I felt the same way. But as I kept moving in the right direction in terms of making healthy and skillful choices throughout my daily life, it is like the things I wanted to find began to find me.
For instance, I met my current business partners through some of the things I was doing to help take care of myself and promote my recovery. As I continued to make good choices, good things began to come to me more and more easily. And as I became aware and took advantage of such opportunities that I found in going about my life, I got better at seeking out the opportunities I wanted for myself. Like finding a certain kind of job.
It is good and absolutely necessary for us to push ourselves in recovery, but we need to be careful about pushing ourselves in the wrong directions. You clearly are aware of this, or you wouldn't have posted here. The most important thing you can do for yourself, and in finding work, is to keep making good, healthy choices. You obviously have been doing this already too. Keep developing this skill for yourself, it will serve you well
It's one thing if you absolutely need more income NOW or something really bad will happen. But as long as you're not in that place, take your time. Try and cultivate patience. Whatever situation you're in, remember to be gentle with yourself. It's easy to overlook and firget. Be kind to yourself. Reward yourself in healthy ways for making the right choices. That kind of thing.
It's good for you to push yourself to do more and get yourself to a better financial situation, just try to find ways of doing this without being to hard on yourself.
Very often, when we're too hard on ourselves, we can get too stressed which will lead us to see the world only in black and white, which generally leads us to a bad place where we're focusing on how using could relieve that stress. If not actually using, black and white thinking will trick us into making other equally harmful choices. So try not to put yourself in the situation where you're being unnecessarily hard on yourself. Remember to be gentle with yourself.
There is no one right way to do something, for you or anyone else. Find whatever works for you, you're already becoming pretty good at this if you've been sober for five months! It's good to keep in mind that what we think we should be doing or where we should be in life isn't necessarily representative of the way things actually are. Our ideas and expectations about ourselves can represent nothing more than illusions if left unchecked.
If you can just keep moving in the right direction with your not using and bettering yourself however you can, you'll find a job or a job will find you sooner than you think.
I'm wondering though, do you really need work right now because if you don't get more income then you will end up getting kicked out or lose a house or car or something? Because in that case maybe we can refine the advice we give ya. And even if ya don't, like Chef said, please do tell us a little more about yourself and your situation.
And sorry for the long ass fucking post. It seems like all the posts I make have turned into little novels... :/
