Reasons RR Meetings might appeal to restaurant workers and their loved ones:
Addicts:
- RR meetings are not religious.
- RR meetings don’t insist that industry professionals give up on a life or livelihood in a restaurant.
- Restaurant workers often have a certain set of experiences that make us a unique population:
- There aren’t many jobs where we can be drunk/high at work without consequence.
- There aren’t many jobs where we’re sometimes required to drink in the middle of the day (tastings, etc).
- When we get fired, it’s not usually a big deal because we can easily be hired somewhere else.
- We can be assholes and it’s seen as funny or a job perk.
- Our dysfunction can often be masked by our restaurant hours or we use our restaurant hours to mask our dysfunction.
- We have constant access to substances.
- There is always somebody who is “worse off” so it’s easy to ignore our problems.
- The industry promotes excessive drinking and we are encouraged to believe it is normal.
Codependents:
- RR meetings are not religious.
Our qualifiers (the addicts) often have a certain set of experiences that make them a unique population, and this affects us in a number of ways:
- We can feel very alone and isolated because of our restaurant worker’s hours.
- Our restaurant workers are often allowed/encouraged to be drunk/high at work.
- Many people in the restaurant industry think we’re overreacting if we’re concerned about our loved one’s drinking or drug use.
- Our restaurant workers often use or manipulate restaurant hours as an excuse to not come home after shift.
- Our restaurant workers have constant access to substances.
- Our restaurant workers can always point to other people in the industry who are “worse off”.
Because of many of these things, our restaurant workers’ bottoms seem much further down than people in the “regular” world, and it is hard to share what is happening for fear of being judged.
Restaurant Recovery Meetings happen every Monday at 2pm. People who want to be or stay sober (addicts) downstairs and codependents (those affected by somebody else’s drinking or drug use) upstairs.