My Transition From Alcoholism To Business Success

Alcoholism - To Sobriety - To Business Success - My Story I am a true believer that alcoholism is a disease and, unfortunately that disease was bestowed upon me. I started KAS Placement when I was 23 years old (I am 28 now) and began making a lot of money for somebody my age. I would spend it on luxuries which, today, I don't use such a multi-thousand dollar designer watch which I only wear about once a month these days. With initial business success came money and money buys freedom. I was 23 owned my own company, I had no boss, I could wake-up at any time and I was doing very well. Well, around this time, another hobby of mine came around - wine tasting. I always remember having a tendency to get a little drunker than others at bars, though it wasn't a huge problem at that time. After that, I wouldn't think about a drink for days. Soon after the wine tasting began, the drinking gradually increased. At the age of 25, I was at the point where I could not go the day without a drink. It began to hinder my work. Every day, at roughly 4:00 p.m., all work would cease and the wine drinking would begin. At this point, I was at the very beginnings of being a Stage 2 alcoholic. Defined, a Stage 2 alcoholic is somebody who needs to drink and begins to lose concern for the events going on in the outside world. Stage 2 alcoholism, as there are 3 Stages, is a long phase for most, though is still putting the alcoholic on the road to death. I had to have someone else manage the business. Now, I understand that giving this information to the public leaves me open to judgment, however I have a good point to make and this is a topic which is not written about enough. At about 26 1/2 Stage 3 alcoholism kicked in. Since there are only 3 stages, do your math as to what the final outcome of this stage is. I began drinking in the morning and could not function. At that time, my mentor whom I was too drunk to spend time with during his death from cancer, passed away. Luckily, my wife stayed with me as she is a saint and I owe her my life. To answer a popular question, I came quite close to death a few times, though was lucky. At first, when I was near death, I began to accept the fact that I was not put on this Earth to live. Though, somehow, after those close encounters, I stopped. I lost two years of both my personal and professional life and I could have lost a lot more. Putting the Energy Into Business At first, not drinking felt like having pins and needles continuously puncturing your body. If you have not been through it, I swear to God that it is the worst feeling in the world and it lasts for about a month. Upon sobriety, I did not know what to do as every activity I had done involved drinking. So, I put all my efforts back into my business. My business had a lot of work, we had employees who stayed with us and I thank them for that loyalty, however it was time to take my disease and turn it into something positive. Since I've put all my efforts into the business, we have grown immensely, we are now recognized as a premier firm and all of this took place in six months. I am addicted to my business and this makes me very good at it. It's only been 6 months and our revenue has tripled, we have more employees and I have a focus in life. If there is one thing I can promise is that I will now take care of my employees and make sure we are better than our competition. As of now, our next year fiscal projections are going to be roughly 7x to 9x 2009. Alcoholics, by nature, are much more prone than the average person to addiction. However, if that addiction is pointed at something positive for the alcoholic, their success is limitless. I guess this is one advantage of the disadvantage.