Workaholism: Unveiling the Hidden Addiction Affecting Lives

Everyone has heard of workaholics, yet unlike other addictions it has not been as closely studied. Workaholism can affect people physically, mentally, and socially. Most people suffering are not even aware because they see it as them working hard towards their goals. Workaholics typically won’t go to psychologists because they don’t see that they are addicted to their work. The problem arises when their work starts to come before friends and family.

It can tear families apart before they even realize what the true issue is.

Workaholism seems to be a relatively new addiction fuelled by an unstable economy and lack of tenured jobs. Workaholics bodies can be ravaged by hormones caused by stress which cause several different illnesses. There are treatments out their such as therapy that has been proven effective to help people suffering from an addiction to work. People must be willing to seek out help before it can tear their lives to unfixable pieces.

Everyday people have got to go to work so they can sustain their needs and their families.

Get quality help now

Bella Hamilton

Verified writer

Proficient in: Addiction

5 (234)

“ Very organized ,I enjoyed and Loved every bit of our professional interaction ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

However, some people have developed some kind of addiction called workaholism. According to Robinson, Carroll, and Flowers, workaholism id defined as a compulsive and progressive, potentially fatal disorder, characterized by self-imposed demands, compulsive overworking, inability to regulate work habits, and an overindulgence in work to the exclusion and detriment of intimate relationships and major life activities. Workaholism can affect people physically, mentally, and socially.

As any other kind of addiction, workaholism can be dangerous since workaholic have a tendency to just do more work than normal which is why Andreassen suggests that workaholism can result in some negative factors such as, burnout, unhappy marriage, serious health problem and death.

However, interventions to eradicate workaholism have been stipulated. For example, therapy, counselors, motivational interviews, positive psychology, anonymous workaholics as well as other organizational interventions such as a job that satisfy one’s needs, promotions, and management behavior. Comment by Windows User. Comment by Windows User: Remove extra spacing

Shifron is a clinical psychologist who had the opportunity to conduct sessions with workaholics. Shifron & Reysen found that this addiction to work is unique of this era. They didn’t conduct actual experiments on patients, they looked more at the history of patients that they had worked with who they had determined struggled with workaholism. All the information that they used in their research was obtained in visits with patients in their offices. They also stated that workaholism often starts as a protective measure when people fear that their jobs could be in danger due to economic instability or a gender difference at their company. The addiction often interferes with the addict’s everyday life to the point where they start losing friends in order to maintain this dedication to their jobs.

Moreover, they believe that a change in the way companies run led to the need for people to excel over others at work. People used to work with one company over the entirety of their lives and they could look forward to receiving a tenure. They also stated that workaholism is simply a manifestation of insecurity that they translate into an addiction to their work to take away the insecurity that their job could be in danger. Shifron and Reysen discussed multiple recommendations on how to handle patients who are struggling with an addiction to work, suggested to look at the patient’s family life growing up to see if that could have contributed to this obsession with working.

Looking at their current lifestyle choices such as intimate relationships, friendships, and outside activities can help determine how severe their addiction is. Addictive behaviours effect every part of your being, this makes them holistic problems, and holistic issues affect the physical, mental and social aspects of your life. Physical crises caused by workaholism can include everything from colds to death from untreated illnesses. According to Shiftron and Reysen, Workaholics are less likely to go see a doctor at the onset of symptoms leaving plenty of time for them to manifest into an untreatable illness that can be fatal. also found that just thinking about work and what they believe needs to be done can produce the same amount of stress hormones that being under actual stress causes. As with all addiction patients don’t see that they have a problem. They believe that mentally patients feel satisfied when they are working hard because they are reaching and achieving their goals. Socially workaholics will not be active during holidays. This is a result of having to be away from their addiction and as with substance addictions they will have withdrawals resulting in high levels of stress hormones being released .

Shifron & Reysen’s discoveries were significant because no research of this kind had ever been done before. It was very informative on a subject not many have heard about. Not much research has been done on workaholics because they typically don’t go to psychologists. They did their best with the data that they had collected over their careers and presented an average paper on workaholics with information on identifying them as well as treatments that they have personally used and found to be effective. Additional research should have been conducted first before publishing this article. It was lacking in data on actual workaholics.

They both had information on patients that they had treated but should have reached out to more psychologists to collect additional data before publishing. Other questions that should have been asked and answered include what are some issues that can cause people to be pre-disposed to becoming a workaholic, what are some things that companies could do to identify people struggling with this to prevent it from ruining their lives, and what are other types of treatments for people who don’t even recognize that they have an issue. As well as answering more questions, the questions that it did ask were not answered fully with proven facts and statistics. They were answered but only to the bare minimum as if to keep people interested in a truly boring article.