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The Last Straw

February 1, 2026
Addiction
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For years I told the story like it was a deliberate arc of redemption.

The “last straw” wasn’t some spectacular unraveling of my life. I didn’t get a DUI. No partner staged an intervention. My friends and family weren’t delivering ultimatums. I had a good job, a strong work ethic, the appearance of stability. I was what they call a “high functioning alcoholic,” though I wasn’t functioning highly in any other area of my life.

In my version, the turning point was simple: I missed my coworker’s Fourth of July barbecue, someone I respected, someone I wanted to network with, a relationship I wanted to build. Out of all the things I had skipped or sabotaged because of drinking, this one was minor. But for whatever reason, that was the moment I decided to stop. I tell people that, and it happened in July 2017.

Only, that’s not what happened.

The barbecue was real. The thought, I don’t want to miss things like this anymore, was real. But nothing changed. Two months later, in September, I was sitting in a doctor’s office for something completely unrelated when the appointment took a hard left turn. Somehow the staff knew I was an alcoholic. Instead of running through the standard checklist, they brought in a social worker. No warning. She picked up the phone, called an outpatient clinic, and handed it to me. That was it. I was too hungover to argue.

It is a curious example of how memory reshapes itself. I carried the shame of being caught, of being “forced,” but wanted the dignity of self-selection, the cleaner narrative of redemption. So over time, the timeline shifted. The barbecue became the moment. The ambush at the clinic faded away.

I was already at Amazon then, working as a contractor. At the time, it was my foothold, the one piece of my life that still looked stable from the outside. I could feel everything else slipping, but if I could turn that contract into a full-time role, I could convince myself I was not really in free fall.

That is why I really went to rehab. Not because I had hit bottom, but because I thought it might save my job. In my head, the equation was simple: fix the drinking, nail the interview, land the FTE. Rehab was not about healing; it was about salvaging the only thing I still valued, my work.

When the interview came, I was sober, but too fragmented to perform. The whole thing was a trainwreck from the first question. I watched myself blow it in real time. When the rejection email came, it merely confirmed: rehab did not work, and neither did I.

I quit the program before finishing. And then I drank for another two years.

Interviewing While Manic

November 9, 2025
Work
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I have had job interviews in every mental state you can imagine, but nothing compares to the ones I did while manic.

Sometimes it worked in my favor. I would walk in, connecting dots faster than they could ask questions, charming them with half formed but somehow compelling ideas. They would lean forward and I would think, I could land this before they even finish explaining the role.

Other times it went the other way. I would start answering questions I had not even been asked yet, following tangents into three other tangents, then circling back like nothing happened. I would pick up on every micro-expression and over interpret them in real time. Half the time I would forget the original question entirely.

And then there were the arrogant days. Like I am doing you a favor. I would sit there listening to their pitch and think, this is a waste of my talent. I would answer questions like they were beneath me or explain exactly what was wrong with their hiring process, their leadership, or their business model. By the end, I was not so much interviewing as explaining why I would never work for their shitty company.

Once in a while I landed in that sweet spot, charismatic enough to intrigue them and qualified enough to make them think twice. That is when I would get the bait and switch offers. Not a flat out no, but, we would like to bring you on as a consultant. Or, we can do a contract to hire arrangement. A yes with a leash attached.

In my head these were moral assaults. I refused them every time, because I told myself I would not take a job where they were betting against me from the start. In reality, those offers would have really helped me, even if they came with invisible strings.

But overwhelmingly, interviewing while manic does not end with a job offer. It ends with a look people give when they are not sure what just happened but they know they will never forget it.

The Downlevel

November 2, 2025
Work
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I was working a stable job at a premium company for a good salary. I liked my work. I liked my peers. I liked my leadership. I had relocated to Boston for this job. I’d been brought on as a contractor and was about to convert to full-time, which was the single professional milestone I wanted more than anything; incontrovertible proof that I belonged.

During my interview prep, I became suspicious of the level I was being considered for. I was supposed to focus my answers on sourcing, submittals, ATS, and inmails. I knew something was up. My foot tapped obsessively, filling the silence with palpable anxiety.

“Is there a problem?”

I hadn’t slept for three days by now, and that is since I started counting; which was after weeks of not sleeping well, or possibly at all. I had started going on long walks every morning and evening to vent off some of the accumulated energy, at least 10-20 miles a day, just for maintenance.

“If I had past projects of bigger scope, would you consider looping at a higher level?”

“Why don’t you give me an example of what you mean, and I will let you know if it maps.”

I did. He said it didn’t.

He was going to say that no matter what I said.

“You operate as an L2 here.”

I was speechless. My foot stopped abruptly, I packed up my laptop, and excused myself without explanation. I couldn’t even argue with it. This job was a massive reduction for me. But what he was saying completely dismissed my previous experience. 

If I wasn’t manic, that wasn’t fair. But because I was, the injustice wasn’t just frustrating. It was incomprehensible. My brain couldn’t metabolize it. I tried to rationalize the situation, tried to reframe it, I tried to accept it. But I absolutely could not. It was a week until my interview, but I was too disoriented to stop or postpone it. I was on a slow collision course with an outcome I knew I wouldn’t accept.

They ran me through the full interview loop. I was manic as hell, talking too fast, veering off script, pushing too hard, but they knew my work. They had seen it. So they still wanted to hire me, not because I interviewed well but because I had already been doing the job.

Obviously, the offer came in at Recruiter 2.

I turned it down.

Not because it wasn’t fair, although it wasn’t. Not because I had another opportunity. I didn’t. I turned it down because I was so angry about the downlevel that I couldn’t accept it. And then I went further and quit the contract job entirely.

That moment sits in my memory as a fracture. My life divides cleanly around it. Before, Boston was a wonderland. New job, new city, new life. It was working better than anything had ever worked. I had gotten sober permanently.

After I quit, I became radioactive.

Companies saw nine months tenure and assumed the worst. I obviously hadn’t converted because I wasn’t good enough. Clearly I was let go. No one knew the real story, which was in some ways worse because I technically rage quit over a job offer.

I couldn’t exactly explain it. “Sorry, I couldn’t process injustice” doesn’t land in a professional interview.

The interviews I did get didn’t go well. I was still manic, still scattered, and still pissed. I couldn’t fake normal. I spiraled, alone in a city where my only real connection had been work, and now work was gone. I burned through my savings.

Eventually, I took a contract job in California.

A former manager did me a favor; there wasn’t a real hiring need.

As soon as budgets got tight, I was let go.