Job searching issue

[TheGame985]

This isn't something you hear every day and when I was using I didn't talk about it, but I have a masters degree in criminal justice and never had any problems with the haw except for an arrest. However, I did have what I am pretty sure the law considers an involuntary hospitalization, which eliminates a lot of the criminal justice field and now I don't know what to od. There's always the addiction field, though I don't exactly know what that would lead to. My ultimate goal has always been to be financially successful and while I.know I'll have to recalibrate that expectation, there has to be something that I can do that will allow me to support myself and not be reliant on someone else to live my life.

I'm currently single 35 years of age and graduated 10 years ago and due to my addiction just did not get my feet off the ground. I have been in recovery for a while and minus a slip I had recently have mostly done the right thing and what I needed to do to stay on the straight in narrow. Can someone tell me that all hope is not lost?

 

[Jabberwocky]

i would double check that you can't work in criminal justice- it will depend on your country so its unlikely we can advise you specifically. i've never been asked about my medical history applying for a job but i'm not in law.

i can tell you all is not lost. i was a high functioning addict for a long time, i finished my phd while addicted to benzos, alcohol and heroin and got my first jobs, and was doing well in my career despite my addictions (though i'd got them down to just heroin). that all came crashing down when i got addicted to crack. i lost my job within 6 months and ended up prostituting myself and in a very bad way. i thought i was done and there was no way i could get back on my feet.

but, i go into rehab and put a fuckton of work in. i was petrified about getting back into work. i didn't know how i could possibly get a decent reference. i was turning up at half 11, going for 2 hours at lunch to smoke, scoring again in the afternoon so disappearing for that, then leaving early and did no work for 6 months. i'd fall asleep at my desk, once went to the toilets for a pipe and fell asleep for 2 hours before i could smoke it, woke up, smoked it, came out to the director of my institute walking down the corridor. some days i just wouldn't turn up. so yeah. it was bad. then had a load of time out of work using before i got to rehab, then my early recovery.

anyway, i got a decent job and have been fully financially independent since then. if i can do it, you can. honestly you've done super well to get your life back on track. i know times are super hard right now and it is daunting to restart your career at the best of times. you can get yourself on your feet, the hard work has already been done.

 

[TheGame985]

i would double check that you can't work in criminal justice- it will depend on your country so its unlikely we can advise you specifically. i've never been asked about my medical history applying for a job but i'm not in law.

i can tell you all is not lost. i was a high functioning addict for a long time, i finished my phd while addicted to benzos, alcohol and heroin and got my first jobs, and was doing well in my career despite my addictions (though i'd got them down to just heroin). that all came crashing down when i got addicted to crack. i lost my job within 6 months and ended up prostituting myself and in a very bad way. i thought i was done and there was no way i could get back on my feet.

but, i go into rehab and put a fuckton of work in. i was petrified about getting back into work. i didn't know how i could possibly get a decent reference. i was turning up at half 11, going for 2 hours at lunch to smoke, scoring again in the afternoon so disappearing for that, then leaving early and did no work for 6 months. i'd fall asleep at my desk, once went to the toilets for a pipe and fell asleep for 2 hours before i could smoke it, woke up, smoked it, came out to the director of my institute walking down the corridor. some days i just wouldn't turn up. so yeah. it was bad. then had a load of time out of work using before i got to rehab, then my early recovery.

anyway, i got a decent job and have been fully financially independent since then. if i can do it, you can. honestly you've done super well to get your life back on track. i know times are super hard right now and it is daunting to restart your career at the best of times. you can get yourself on your feet, the hard work has already been done.

I'm from the US and I have done a lot of research. There's 2 limitations one is that federal jobs have an age limit that I'm 1 year away from, with the job requiring experience that I wouldn't be able to get in just a year. The other limitation being that I can't carry a firearm due to my hospitalization.

How long should I give myself before i go back to work? I really haven't worked for oner a year and a half except for a few days here and there. I don't know how to get back into the swing of things. The typical advice being to get a get well job and go from there but to me working at a retail store and then working for a little more than minimum wage is something that I find difficult to stomach. If that were the only way to do it then so be it but if I'm going to work I might as well use my degree I would think.

 

[Jabberwocky]

why would you need a firearm to work in the criminal justice field unless you wanna be a cop (in which case just don't lol)?!?

you need to decide when you're ready to go back to work. if you feel ready then go for it i'd say. people told me i wasn't ready to go back to work but i really was. i have never heard of doing a shitty 'get well job' and honestly think that would look bad on your CV and might not do your mental health any good. if you aren't sure, doing some voluntary work related to your area of interest will help you find out if you're ready to be at a place for a given time regularly and take on office dynamics etc.

definitely try to use your degree. that should get you a more interesting job, which should be better for your mental health.

 

[Purposefull]

At 35 you're still quite young enough to find another occupation, even self employment. Drugs and alcohol left me unable to do the work I once wanted to do and then I spent several years completely unemployed. I'd been arrested numerous times and convicted. In my late 50s I decided to teach myself a lot about wood working and now I have a fully equipped shop and about to purchase a brand new industrial sized table saw. I just got paid to build new kitchen cabinets for a nice old lady.. Seven years ago I had NOTHING but the clothes on my back and was living in a homeless shelter AND had to use a cane to walk. Now I run a business as a cabinet maker so I know you can do this.. Think of things that interest you and perhaps even some you don't even know interest you, My son did the same thing. He was a restaurant manager making good money, but DUI convictions ruined that and he hated it anyway. Now we often work together, but we both have our own clientele. I do mostly cabinet making while he mostly bangs around repairing homes for people, but neither of us had the first clue this is how we would earn our living.
I started out as a commercial artist many years ago, but the stuff I learned in college no longer even exists in business. it was all taken over with computers instead of ink and brushes. By the time you're my age you will likely have found 40 other possible occupations that are far more satisfying.

 

[Chem-man]

@TheGame985 , I’m not sure what interests you but I have a friend (seriously, it’s not me) that recovered from narcotics addiction and he went to a commercial drivers license school which lasted about 3 weeks and got a very nice job working for Coca Cola as a route driver. He is making a very good living in Ohio (about $75k/year) and home every night.
There is a very high demand for commercial drivers, my brother in law went through a different CDL (commercial driver’s license) course and had three job offers his 2nd week there and the companies even reimbursed him his tuition fees (which I think were $5,000)
Anyway, just a thought. My brother in law had never driven a truck before and a few weeks later he is making $72k/year. In the Midwest that is very good income. On the west/east coasts not so much probably.

 

[Joey]

@TheGame985 , I’m not sure what interests you but I have a friend (seriously, it’s not me) that recovered from narcotics addiction and he went to a commercial drivers license school which lasted about 3 weeks and got a very nice job working for Coca Cola as a route driver. He is making a very good living in Ohio (about $75k/year) and home every night.
There is a very high demand for commercial drivers, my brother in law went through a different CDL (commercial driver’s license) course and had three job offers his 2nd week there and the companies even reimbursed him his tuition fees (which I think were $5,000)
Anyway, just a thought. My brother in law had never driven a truck before and a few weeks later he is making $72k/year. In the Midwest that is very good income. On the west/east coasts not so much probably.

This is a surprising answer but its actually a very good one which I can verify. For whatever reason Ive known several truckers in my life, and currently am close friends with two who are making in upwards of 100k a year at least. Thats Canadian dollar which is valued around $1.30 CDN to a US dollar last I checked. but still thats nothing to sniff at.

I wonder why you dont just start your own practice though? Do you have any business skills or a drive to head in that direction over working for someone else. Maybe if you were on the administrative end of things you could staff other people who dont have the ramifications you have, and ultimately make more money than you ever would working for someone else. The US has a massive criminal justice system, so Im sure you could find a gap to fill somewhere that could constitute a thriving business.

Maybe work in addictions which youve mentioned to gain experience and a cash flow to then get a small business loan? I dont know much about this kind of thing, but thats what the path could look like for you maybe.

 

[Zephyn]

I am in a similar boat,I work in IT, and have been doing interviews but can only fake references for so long to cover for the massive gap in my resume, or I could try being honest but yeah I wind up in a town with no tech work, so I went from making 130k to being almost homeless in a halfway house, now I have some more criminal charges and can only swing remote positions. Only been looking two weeks but highly discouraged. I've also considered just going to work for minimum wage somewhere, maybe its not so bad lol or maybe I should just sell drugs

 

[Jabberwocky]

@Zephyn don't be discouraged!! shit's hard right now. i was looking for work for 6 months last year, i was employed for the duration but my contract was coming to an end and i had opted not to renew it. it was fucking horrendous i won't lie, but in the end i got a really amazing job. keep looking.

if you are more generic IT i wouldn't expect it to take 6 months. i'm in a very specialised area which contributed to it taking so long.

 

[Zephyn]

@Zephyn don't be discouraged!! shit's hard right now. i was looking for work for 6 months last year, i was employed for the duration but my contract was coming to an end and i had opted not to renew it. it was fucking horrendous i won't lie, but in the end i got a really amazing job. keep looking.

if you are more generic IT i wouldn't expect it to take 6 months. i'm in a very specialised area which contributed to it taking so long.

Mine is also very specialized, I work in devops, demand is still high with covid but its the faking the references thing, im good at what I do, but i haven't gotten to the point of a background check yet and have lost opportunities in the past for less serious charges. I'm thinking I need to start going corp-to-corp or something

 

[Jabberwocky]

devops there should be loads of people looking. i do bioinformatics algorithm development.

don't try to fake references. when i was looking again after time out due to addiction i didn't make any effort to hide the long gap on my CV. the criminal charges thing is more difficult- but if you're in a sellers market you should be able to find employers willing to overlook that.