[acb-hsp] Workaholism

[peter altschul]

Chained to the Desk: How Workaholism Can Kill You
  October 2, 2012
  You're sitting at your desk, scrolling through the Alcoholics 
Anonymous website, when your boss walks up behind you.  Not the 
best career move you'll ever make, perhaps.
  But let's say you're looking at the Workaholics Anonymous site 
instead, the section about how even when you're not in the office 
you're still toiling away.  What then? Does your boss give you a 
talking to, or does he give you a raise?
  This rather glib question captures something important about 
how society views work addiction.  Recently, a business strategy 
website published an article with the headline "Four Famous 
Workaholics (And The Secrets of Their Success)." It's hard to 
imagine any other addiction eliciting this kind of approach: "The 
Seven Habits of Highly Effective Junkies," say, or "The Sipping 
Point."
  The fact is, people see workaholism in a different light from 
other dependencies.  It's known as the "respectable addiction," 
but this doesn't quite capture the prevailing attitude toward the 
condition.  Indeed, many balk at the idea that it stisst a 
condition.  The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental 
Disordersbwhich lists caffeine as a dependency-doesn't even 
recognize work addiction.  Workaholism is something Bill Gates 
has, and surely no one's going to suggest that this guy needs to 
go to a support group.



Support groups, nonetheless, exist.  Founded in 1983, Workaholics 
Anonymous (or WA) currently has a little over a thousand members, 
and holds meetings around the worldbParis, Sydney, London, 
ReykjavC-k, Bangkok.  Testimonials in its newsletter contain 
lines like "I was addicted to activity.  How to grapple with this 
baffling malady?" Well, there's the requisite 12-step program, 
for one, and the equally familiar appeal to a higher power.  But, 
again, WA must contend with the fact that many people don't view 
the malady as baffling so much as they do either virtuous or 
slightly comical.
  "People don't take this seriously-they either laugh at 
workaholics or dismiss them," says psychotherapist and stChained 
to the Deskst author Bryan Robinson, who is widely recognized as 
being one of the world's leading experts on workaholism.  "The 
work ethic is an ingrained idea in our society.  What's wrong 
with working hard? Hard work got us to the Moon!" He goes on to 
call this attitude "the glorification of an illness."
  Things, however, may be about to change.  This year, research 
institutes from around the world have released a slew of studies 
clarifying what work addiction is and how it affects the people 
who have it.  In April, Norwegian and British researchers 
developed what they call "The Bergen Work Addiction Scale," a 
standardized list of criteria ("You spend much more time working 
than originally intended") aimed at helping people identify if 
they have an actual addiction rather than a tendency to work too 
much.
  In March, meanwhile, Psychology Today cited recent research 
that outlines four basic types of work addict, namely (to 
paraphrase): The manic perfectionist, the stress junkie, the 
muddled multi-tasker, and the guy who never seems able to let a 
project go.  An article in the same publication last year 
explored the narcissism and sundry neuroses that underlie the 
disease.  Such categorizations may, on the surface, seem largely 
academic, but there is real-world aim here: namely to make people 
aware that they have an identifiable condition, and therefore 
make it more likely that they will seek help.
  And it is becoming increasingly clear that workaholics do 
indeed need help.  Researchers in New Zealand have found that 
people who work at least 50 hours a week are up to three times 
more likely to face alcohol problems.  Earlier this month, the 
American Journal of Epidemiology reported on a global study 
showing that over-workers are between 40 and 80 percent more 
likely to suffer heart disease than others.  The lead researcher 
of that study had previously found that middle-aged people 
working more than 55 hours a week tend to be disproportionately 
slow-witted, and to be more at risk for dementia.
  "We're beginning to look at work addiction from a cellular 
level now," says Robinson.  "The workaholic operates on the 
fight-or-flight response, which leads to a drench of cortisol, 
norepinephrine, and adrenaline.  It can lead to heart disease and 
heart attacks, diabetes, compromised immune systems, and 
gastro-intestinal problems.  We know this, the studies are 
pouring out."
  To some extent, we don't need people in white coats to tell us 
thisbwe've all seen how people "unwind" after a long day at the 
office.  We're aware, too, that over-workers tend to consume too 
much coffee, to be susceptible to stress and depression, to have 
broken marriages, to exercise infrequently, to get less sleep and 
eat more bad food, etc.  More and more, there's research to back 
up the conventional wisdom, but the end result is what it's 
always been-ill health.
  The Japanese have a word for this: "Karoshi," or death by work.  
Yet, according to figures from the International Labour Office, 
American workers put in more hours per year than their Japanese 
counterparts (1,792 hours compared to 1,771).  A recent Expedia 
poll found that fewer than 40 percent of Americans use up their 
annual vacation time.  The Organization for Economic Cooperation 
and Development reports that Americans are putting in 20 percent 
more hours than they were in 1970.  Increasingly, 60-hour work 
weeks are becoming the norm.
  What this spate of new studies is telling us, though, is that 
work addiction is a global problem rather than an American one.  
This month, researchers in Spain predicted that the percentage of 
work addicts in that country's work force would rise from the 
current 4.6 percent to 11.8 percent in 2015.  And this fact-given 
Spain's especially precarious economic position-may help us get 
to the root of the sudden interest in the issue.
  If workaholism is the rise-and evidence suggests that it 
is-then we need to take a look at what role the global economic 
downturn has played in this.  For sure, people are working longer 
hours to make additional income, and to make themselves 
indispensable enough that they skip the next round of 
redundancies, but can we make the leap from necessity and 
anxiety-or even obsession-to addiction?
  This is one area where the research is a little thin, possibly 
because the question is philosophical rather than clinical.  It 
could be argued that an upturn in over-work leads to an increase 
in usage-inasmuch as workaholism is said to have a chemical 
dependency side to it.  As for the big psychological factor-what 
WA describes as "deriving our identity and self-esteem from what 
we do"-the ever-growing spectre of personal financial ruin, and 
the humiliation this entails, would seem to play into this.  
Either way, to read the scientific papers making the rounds, and 
the hand-wringing media reportage they inspire, we are in the 
midst of an epidemic, surrounded on all sides by work junkies, 
harried, unhappy, smartphone-clutching individuals whose major 
arteries are just one company report away from exploding.
  As always, though, there are dissenters.  A study out of France 
last year proposed that workaholism "can be constructive, 
generating welcoming outcomes for individuals, organizations and 
societies." A recent British study found that clock-watchers are 
more susceptible to anxiety and apathy than those who throw 
themselves into their work.  A professor in the Netherlands, 
meanwhile, has coined the term "engaged workaholic." If you love 
what you do, the Dutch professor argues, where's the harm in 
doing too much of it? Which is something else you probably 
wouldn't say about an alcoholic, drug addict or compulsive 
gambler.