Building Progress, One Brick at a Time.
The book · July 2026
Brick by Brick:
Building a Working Life in Recovery
Recovery gives you your life back. This book helps you build the work part of it.
Getting sober is not the finish line. For many people, it’s the beginning of a harder question: how do you build a stable, meaningful working life in recovery, whether you’re new to sobriety or years in?
Ten chapters of stories. People in recovery at every stage of recovery. The disclosure conversation. The daily work. The slip. The integration of wellness and work. The practice that holds a working life together across decades.
Not a book about overnight transformation or motivational shortcuts. About the slow, durable process of showing up consistently, rebuilding trust, navigating setbacks, and creating meaningful momentum one decision at a time.
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- Author
- Mike Thibideau
- Format
- Paperback (~150 pages) · Kindle
- ISBN
- 979-8-9961450-0-3
- LCCN
- 2026912587
- Publish date
- June 15, 2026
- Publisher
- Brick by Brick Strategy, LLC
Table of contents
Ten chapters.
- 1.
Why This Book Exists
An honest accounting of why the book exists, why now, and why I'm the one writing it.
- 2.
Going Back vs. Starting Over
The first big work decision in recovery. Mission first, door second. The Three Tests as the operational handle.
- 3.
I Gotta Get Back to Work
Marcus, 90 days out, weighing the pressure to return against the protection of the recovery he's been building.
- 4.
How Work Fits
The integration question. Work is not separate from recovery. And not the same as recovery either.
- 5.
Jobs vs. Careers
Jordan, 110 days sober, six years of restaurant work, figuring out what a career-shaped path even looks like.
- 6.
The Interview
Calvin, with a felony record, walking into the HVAC interview. The disclosure conversation as Acknowledge → Accountability → Forward-Pivot.
- 7.
Education and Training
Tasha, 20 months sober, weighing the LPN program. The decision to upskill — when, why, and how the money math works.
- 8.
Doing MY Job
Greg's daily-amends practice and David's Friday note-app review. The chapter on what it means to do the work you have.
- 9.
The Slip
Sarah's relapse and what happens next. The recovery-aware version of how a slip interacts with employment, drug-testing, and the ADA's actual floor.
- 10.
Goals and Gratitude
Implementation intentions, WOOP, and the weekly practice that turns goals from wishes into work.
A note on the stories
Drawn from real life.
Every story in this book is a composite, drawn from real people I have known and real conversations I have had over a career in workforce development and a decade in recovery. The composites protect privacy and let each story carry the weight of the situation the chapter is teaching.
The framework is real. The math is real. The road is real. The specific person on the page is drawn from many.