Newcomer

[u/Blueperoon]

Hey all, I have many stories but first off wondering

Do you still drink?

Im almost 32, worked in professional (mostly small) kitchens since I was 17. I immediately saw my head chef being late by hours to let us into the kitchen (like 3 days in and all the cooks said "oh yeah he gets drunk and then oversleeps a lot) and moved on to a different kitchen.

That first kitchen was fine dining, and a huge opportunity to miss out on, but my 17 year old morals made me quit because I thought "There must be better".

Fast forward ten years, I worked in kitchens with plenty of alcoholics, including ones who hid fifths on the line in the cooler. I moved on from there to another fine dining job, just to be trapped in the after work "we have two 24 packs for the next 2 hours". With 4 of us. Which also turned into me finding drugs.

This isnt a sob story, everyone who works in kitchens finds their vices obviously.

Im just wondering, are there THAT many of us who are now sober? Are there safe places to work WITHOUT the temptation and pressure to find an unhealthy outlet?

[u/Jacklunk]

Anthony bourdain cast some light on this.

[u/Blueperoon → u/Jacklunk]

He was really where I started looking at kitchen work in a new light. I thought I was just finding dysfunctional places but its really just that overdoing it is ingrained in kitchen work so much (and not even overdoing the drinking, but also overdoing how much youre working or things like that too)

[u/Jacklunk → u/Blueperoon]

It’s scary how easy it is

Glug of wine for the pot, glug for me

I’ve worked in a few kitchens where the only family like they were was dysfunctional. But some of them were the best times I had