Aftercare course Session 08
Returning to work, FMLA and ADA basics, debt triage, court, and probation — the boring part of recovery that most often decides whether the sober part holds.
What you'll learn
01
FMLA protects up to twelve weeks of medical leave, including for SUD. ADA protects people in recovery from employment discrimination and entitles you to reasonable accommodations. Disclose to HR only what you need to. Use the one-sentence answer for everyone else.
02
Most people in early recovery don't fail at money because they can't manage it. They fail because they can't bring themselves to look at it. Open every envelope. Triage in tiers: housing/work/health, then criminal-consequence debt, then credit cards, then the rest. The IRS is more reasonable than its letters suggest.
03
Have a lawyer for anything that could result in jail, custody loss, or a permanent record. Comply, exactly, with whatever has been ordered — courts are far more forgiving of someone communicating than someone going silent. In custody disputes, voluntary monitoring is one of the strongest pieces of evidence you can present.
Why this is recovery work
People who get sober and ignore the rest of their life, very often, do not stay sober. The financial chaos catches up with them. The work situation catches up with them. The unresolved legal case catches up with them. They wake up six months in, technically sober, with a life that is unraveling around the recovery, and the unraveling itself becomes the relapse.
The dread of the unopened envelope is almost always worse than the contents of the opened envelope. The phone call to HR is almost always shorter than you imagined. The conversation with the lawyer is almost always more straightforward than the one in your head. The terror is, very often, in the avoidance, not in the thing itself.
Cleaning up the external chaos is recovery work. It's not a distraction from the real work. It is the real work. Every envelope you open is a small piece of the old life you are willing to look at — and every small piece you are willing to look at is one less piece the disease can use against you.
Your worksheet
Saturday morning. Coffee. The kitchen table. The pile that has been waiting.
Session 8 · Worksheet
Ten quiet minutes. Answers save on this device as you type — no account, no upload.
Three reflection prompts for the week
For the inventory
Saturday morning, with coffee, sit at the table. Open every envelope. Open every email folder you've been avoiding. On a single sheet of paper, write three columns — Work, Money, Legal — and list every issue under each. Don't solve. Just see.
For the actions
For each column, pick the one thing that, if addressed this week, would most reduce the noise. One action per column. Not three. One real action you can finish. When you finish each, tell one person.
For the follow-up
For anything that needs more than one action — and most will — put the next step on your calendar before the week is over. Specific date. Specific action. The mistake is to do one thing, feel relief, and drift for two weeks before doing the next.
Up next
Coming home to people who haven't been where you've been. The roles the disease assigned them, the police-officer pattern, and monitoring as a generous gift instead of a punishment.
Continue to session 9If this brought up more than it answered
CVR recovery coaches work with one client at a time. Private, one-on-one, no scripts. If you want to talk to someone, we can usually get back to you within a few hours.
If you need help right now
These lines are free, confidential, and open 24/7 — for you, for your person, or for anyone you love. You don't have to be in the worst moment to call.
Overdose or medical emergency
911
Signs of overdose: slow or stopped breathing, blue or gray lips or fingertips, gurgling, unresponsive. Call 911, give naloxone (Narcan) if you have it, and roll them onto their side. Stay on the line.
Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
988
Call or text 988 any time you — or someone you love — is in emotional crisis, thinking about suicide, or just can't carry it alone tonight.
SAMHSA National Helpline
1-800-662-HELP
Free, confidential treatment referral and information for individuals and families dealing with substance use. In English and Spanish.
Never Use Alone
1-800-484-3731
A person answers, stays on the line while someone uses, and calls for help if they stop responding. No judgment — harm reduction, not intervention.
Domestic Violence Hotline
1-800-799-7233
Substance use and abuse often overlap. If you're being hurt, threatened, or controlled — physically, emotionally, or financially — trained advocates can help you think through what's next.
Naloxone (Narcan)
Get it free
Naloxone reverses opioid overdose. It's available over the counter, and many programs mail it for free. Keep it in your house, your car, your bag — even if you don't think you need it.
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