Looking for employment in early recovery? Check out these ideas for making money in recovery, and be your own boss.
Addiction has a way of decimating various aspects of a person’s life, but the career is often the first one to go. When you misuse drugs or alcohol, it can mess with your focus and lead to an absent-minded performance at work. It also can lead to irritability and depression, which affects your workplace relations.
Substance misuse shows in your physical appearance, which can signal there is something wrong to your boss and coworkers. If your drug or alcohol use goes unchecked, you will feel chronically fatigued and sick. All of these factors can have a real deteriorating effect on a career. Unfortunately, many people with addiction end up losing their jobs before they hit rock bottom and seek treatment for addiction.
If you are currently in recovery or recently left rehab, it may take a while to get your career back on track. However, bills still need to be paid and life needs to be lived—you have to find some way to make money. Thankfully, there are options. The growth of the gig economy has made it easier for people to use their limited resources to provide services or goods that others want. Working gigs takes self-discipline and accountability, but you also have a lot of freedom and flexibility that can make it easier to earn money while working on recovery. Furthermore, a lot of these ideas can be profitable for the long-term. You may be able to build your own business from the ground up and forgo the job search altogether!
Consider the following jobs as a way to make money while you search for job opportunities that get your career back on track in addiction recovery:
Start an ECommerce Store
ECommerce makes it easy to reach a whole world of customers interested in buying what you have to sell. If you fancy yourself a maker, you can sell your goods via marketplaces including Etsy. Etsy has its own search engine that connects people looking for handmade wares. Even if you don’t know how to make things, you can still open your own eCommerce store and sell money-making products, such as phone cases and wireless earphones.
Become a Music Tutor
Music is so powerful, it can relieve pain and anxiety. If you play an instrument and can read sheet, passing on that skill to others by becoming a tutor enables you to share that power and bring something positive into others’ lives. Plus, you can make good money teaching music lessons. Depending on where you live and what instrument you teach, a tutor can make over $50 an hour. So a gig where you pass on something beautiful and healthy to others while making as much as $80 grand a year—where do we sign up?
You can advertise your services many different ways. Post-digital ads on sites such as Craigslist, Nextdoor, and Thumbtack to reach a wide audience, but don’t forget the power of a good, old-fashioned flyer. You can tack them up on school bulletin boards, local coffee shops, and even stores where instruments or music is sold.
Pet Sitting and Dog Walking
When you’re going through addiction recovery, it really helps to surround yourself with support. Well, you can get much more supportive than the unconditional love of dogs. Pet sitting and dog walking tap into that while making you extra money and providing a service people need. Plus, you get a healthy amount of exercise, which can be crucial for recovery. Pet sitters and dog walkers can make anywhere from $10 to $40 an hour, but you can maximize your profits by booking multiple gigs at a time and investing in a splitter leash that allows you to walk more than one dog at once.
Drug and alcohol addiction can ruin a person’s career. If you are recovering from addiction and need to make ends meet while looking for a full-time position, tap into the potential of the internet. Becoming a music tutor, pet sitting, and starting an eCommerce store are all great ways to make real money that can help you recover from addiction.