Help!! My partner is a workaholic!- Part 2
In our continued series on work-life balance, we look at steps to recovering from work addiction. So work addiction, just like other forms of behavioral disorders, comes with stages.
For Part 1 of this series, check this out.
The Stages of Work Addiction
Early Stage. In this stage of work addiction, the worker tends to be constantly busy and tends to take on more than can realistically be done. He or she will put in lots of extra hours (even if not paid for the overtime) and cannot seem to find time to take days off.
Middle Stage. At this level of workaholism, our addict begins to distance himself from personal relationships. When he is home, he is distracted and emotionally stays at work. At this stage, the physical tolls often begin to manifest themselves. He may have trouble unwinding enough to get to sleep. He may feel tired all the time. He may tend to see a weight change (gain or loss).
Late Stage. Those who are in the late stage of work addiction now tend to find the more serious physical and emotional symptoms like chronic headaches, elevated blood pressure, stomach ulcers, and increased risk of stroke.
Risks and Effects of Work Addiction
When work becomes an obsession rather than a means to achieving a goal, it blocks out any sense of proportion and reality. This can damage personal relationships, as a work addict is so absorbed in work that relationships become immaterial or even a nuisance. A work addict often becomes extremely irritable, which can, ironically, cause trouble in the workplace, as colleagues, supervisors, and clients find themselves unable to deal with the workaholic. Workplace issues concerning work addiction are only compounded by the often low-quality or useless work that the addict produces. A work addict will often take on more tasks than he or she can complete, and then leave them unfinished to guarantee a constant supply of work to assuage the feelings of guilt that arise when no work is available.
Factoid:
A workaholic risks losing his or her job due to the effects of addiction to work. He or she may become overabsorbed in working out of the need to assuage the anxiety produced by work addiction, rather than out of a desire to turn out quality work.
When you find that you are working harder and harder, but getting less and less done, it is time to get help for work addiction. A work addict also risks developing physical illnesses that are tied to stress, as well as diseases connected to poor eating habits. These diseases include cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and digestive disorders. Work addiction can also trigger serious and disabling mental illnesses, including depression and suicidal tendencies.
“A work addict will deny that he or she has a problem and instead claim that any obsession with work is due to career pressures or a desire to advance professionally.”
WORK ADDICTION: SELF-EVALUATION QUESTIONS
Change begins by ownership and examination. Consider the following questions in relation to your work and your feelings about your work identity.
· Do you have a specific time when your work life stops and your private life begins each day? Each weekend? For vacations?
· When you leave work in the evening, do problems, projects, calls, appointments, and meetings follow you home and erode your private time?
· Do you leave withdrawal symptoms when not working, such as restlessness, anxiety, depression, or psychosomatic symptoms?
· Has anyone close to you ever accused you of being a workaholic?
· Have you become creative in rationalizing your excesses, perhaps by convincing yourself that success demands a dedication bordering on obsession? Do you fear failure if you do anything less?
· Can you not seem to stop replaying conversations at work, reassessing decisions, and reexamining work details?
· Is what you do who you are? Is your identity as a person so closely linked to your work identity that it is difficult to enjoy an activity not connected with work?
· Do you take setbacks, feedback, or criticism of work projects personally?
· Are you still trying to prove your worth to yourself, or someone else, by what you do? Do you believe that only unending effort will demonstrate your true value?
· Are you doing what you do for someone else’s response, or for your own benefit and satisfaction of your own ideals?
· Is work an escape? Does it allow you to fill a void or get out of doing something you regard as unpleasant, such as meeting family obligations or facing family conflicts?
· Do you have medical problems as a result of overwork, or a physical deterioration from alcohol, cigarettes, skimping on sleep, or overeating?
· Has your social or family function deteriorated as a result of excessive work, including neglect of children or spouse?
SOME REMEDIES FOR WORK ADDICTION
· Establish a clear boundary between your work life and your private life: each day, each weekend, and for designated vacation periods. If you feel guilty or vaguely uncomfortable with taking time off or relaxing, consider reframing the time, even the play, as a necessary component of your work. In order to be maximally effective when you are at work, making time for private life and play is crucial.
· Even though you may enjoy and feel rewarded for your work, play is equally important. Creativity, nurturing in itself, needs time to ferment, develop, and expand. You may even find it useful to set aside a brief time at the end of each day to allow closure of work activity, to have an official transition time that puts a period at the end of the sentence of each day so that time off is time off.
· Establish your life plan daily, as well as the big picture on a yearly and career-long basis. Keeping a journal may be useful. Writing down your thoughts, feelings, plans, and timetables regarding work can clarify things and may provide a basis for reflection and comparison from year to year.
· Distinguish the feedback, criticism, and setbacks on work projects, as relating to the work itself, the task you’ve performed. Try not to hear them as a personal affront or invalidation.
· Develop your emotional, and interpersonal expertise as well as your technical expertise. Both can be finely tuned. Consider, for example, when different listening positions may be most effective. At times a colleague or employer may need your empathic ear; at other times an objective, even confrontational position may be needed.
· Know the difference between thinking, feeling, and imagining, as opposed to acting. Physical action is not the only form of doing something; thinking and contemplating are active forms of doing something. This distinction may seem obvious, but it is not clear in the minds of many people. For example, a patient may come in and want to know what to “do” about her depression. There is no immediate thing to do; we must begin by understanding and resolving the emotional issues that underlie the symptoms. The patient’s own failed attempts to approach the problem actively, to apply willpower and distracting activity, provide ample evidence that another approach is required.
· Reassess the amount of time you spend talking about your work with family and friends, and the amount of time you spend associating only with friends from work or people in the same line of work. Obviously, people who care about each other are interested in all the things that are important to the other, including work. But, being caught up in war stories may represent an inability to establish boundaries for work or an over-inclusive identity with one’s work.
We hope this helps you or someone you know clarify a few questions about work addiction and help strengthen your relationship and get the most out of the new year. All the best.
For more on finding work-life balance this year, check our earlier article. https://medium.com/jobonics/finding-the-balance-between-work-and-life-in-this-new-year-241184d5765c
