On Workaholism

If work consumes you and destroys your personal life, there could be more going on – you could be a workaholic!

In Japan, it’s called karoshi or ‘death by overwork’ and is estimated to cause 1,000 deaths per year. In the Netherlands, it’s resulted in a new condition known as ‘leisure illness,’ estimated to affect 3% of its entire population. In the U.S. workaholism is known as ‘respectable addiction.’

Workaholism is an addiction, an obsessive-compulsive disorder. It is certainly not the same as working hard or putting in long hours. The difference is – a person who works hard would think about playing golf over the weekend, but a workaholic would think about work while playing golf over the weekend!

A workaholic’s obsession with work is all-consuming, which prevents them from maintaining healthy relationships, outside interests, or even take measures to protect their health. They neglect their health to the point of devastating results and ignore their friends and family. They avoid going on vacation so they don’t miss work. And even if they do go on vacation, they aren’t fully present because their mind is still on work. Often, they only realise their problem when something catastrophic happens to them -- their health completely fails or their marriage or relationships are destroyed.

Workaholics actually have a physiological need for the adrenaline rush and they tend to seek out jobs that allow them to exercise their addiction. The workplace itself does not create the addiction any more than the supermarket creates food addiction, but it does enable it. The addiction, like most things, is a state of mind.

Workaholics tend to seek high-stress jobs to keep their adrenaline rush going. And it has nothing to do with working in office or any other workplace. Seemingly normal looking people, housewives, mothers, grandmothers…could be workaholics too! Homebound workaholics could be parenting to the point where there is nothing else to balance their lives, no hobbies or fun, they would spend all their time as the PTA member/president, or running a social/community club, etc. Look around and you will find these people in your local RWA or housing society.

Research shows that the seeds of workaholism are often planted in childhood. Many workaholics are children of alcoholics or come from some other type of dysfunctional family, and work addiction is an attempt to control a situation that is not controllable. Others tend to be products of families where parents tend to be perfectionists and expect unreasonable success from their kids. These children grow up thinking that nothing is ever good enough. Workaholism could also be a by-product of low self-esteem.

Unfortunately, perfection is unattainable. Anyone who carries a mandate for perfection is susceptible to workaholism, because it creates a situation where the person never gets to cross the finish line, because it keeps moving farther out!

What can be done? It really comes down to recognising the need of balance in your life. Working hard is great, but you need to be able to turn if off and savour the other parts/aspects of your life -- friends, family, hobbies and fun...