Do you put work first in your life and think this is normal? Think again, you are a workaholic…

14/08/2008 by Athina.

So what, you may think… Please, allow me however and anyhow to welcome you to the world of addictions!

In a society that actively promotes and rewards success, financial achievements and high commitment to the work ethic workaholism is considered as a praise rather than a stigma. However, increasing numbers of people today are experiencing the detrimental effects of workaholism on health, well being, personal relationships and overall levels of happiness and life satisfaction.

Workaholism works like every other addiction. “Nature has supplied us all with the ability to become hooked—and we all engage in addictive behaviors to some degree. There seems no end to our “dependencies,” their bewildering intractability, the glib explanations for their causes and even more glib “solutions.”

Workaholism is an addiction which has many similarities to the other forms of addiction (i.e. alcohol, drugs, sex) however a key difference as well. Workaholism’s psychological substrate can be also found in some sort of experienced vulnerability in the individual’s life but is at the same time founded in the need of the individual to control the environment rather than lose control as is the case with other addictve forms. The key secondary benefit, remains, the “distraction” element, that is forgetting and avoiding to think about key personal issues through preoccupation with professional problems and work. The workaholic puts his/her work on top of everything else in their lives thus justifying their intentional remoteness and lack of engagement with partners, family, friends and most importantly, their own self.

My hypothesis is that the workaholic has experienced a significant trauma at some point in their lives, a trauma related to their sense of survival, self worth, social or romantic acceptance and/or choice between what they want and what they were conditioned to think they should want. They then find work and achievement at work as the key avenue for ascertaining that the same traumatic situation is not going to occur again in their lives. Firstly since the persona of the busy and successful professionally accomplished individual offers them a comfortable cushion to park their identity on and gain maximum self worth and recognition and secondly since the financial gains that follow as a result of their work preoccupation make them feel secure and more in control of their personal destiny. This immense satisfaction and effect that is completely in their control provides them with the positive reinforcement - psychologically and physically- for continuing their workaholic journey at the expense of all the other areas of their lives.

Have you ever wondered why work has become that important for you, even more important than your self ? Full devotion to work is a most dangerous tendency, leading to the complete destruction of the personality. People must relax sometimes, refusing to do anything at all - in addition to mere switching the occupations the other time. This is in no way wasting time - rather, this is the basic mechanism of personal development, and the development of subjectivity as such. When a person cannot have passive rest, when one has to permanently struggle for life, career, money, new impressions or public recognition - one will rapidly degrade as a conscious being, becoming just another animal or inanimate device.

To be continued…..

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