As Published in Business 2 Business , May 2005

Does job stress drive executives to drink? Don't bet on it!

By Ira S Wolfe and Marilyn H. Walker

George had a job many people would envy: marketing director for one of the largest retail store chains in the northeast. He quickly climbed the career ladder and soon found himself in charge of fourteen locations. Managers and employees alike respected George and believed him to be a competent senior manager.

George liked his life and went to great lengths to maintain his job and image. Sadly, that included hiding his dirty little secret. George, you see, was an alcoholic. Like many other addicts George was quite skilled at disguising his destructive behavior. Sober at work, when off the clock, George went home and drank himself to into a stupor. Soon, the all-night binges made him nervous. To quiet his anxiety, he began popping prescription drugs during the day.

George is not alone. Substance abuse and other addictions, among executives and all workers, are on the rise. Estimates put the workplace costs of substance abuse at $81 billion in yearly lost productivity, partially due to the 500 million alcohol-related lost workdays. Add to that health care costs, alcohol-related illnesses, substance-related accidents, worker's compensation and premature deaths and the costs soar to $246 billion.

That's not all. Take into consideration the effect of addiction on quality production, loss of company reputation, and decreased employee morale and employers have a growing, insidious problem spreading quicker than a malicious Internet virus.

One recovering executive believes executive-level addicts are unfairly and naively singled out by employers, citing that ten to fifteen percent of most workforces have employees who are addicted to alcohol or drugs.

Kirby Martzall, who founded a Lancaster employee assistance consulting firm in 1982, agrees. Martzall now chairs one of several TEC (The Executive Board) boards in Central Pennsylvania. "I meet with over 30 CEOs and executives each month," Martzall says, "but you know what - I schedule a meeting with the CEO and in walks a person. All people from all walks of life have addictions. Job positions don't have addiction, people do."

Anyone can become addicted.

Addicts come from all walks of life. "It hits everybody. It doesn't matter who you are," says Shawn McNichol, a Certified Addictions Counselor Diplomate and Drug and Alcohol Facility Director with T.W. Ponessa and Associates in Lancaster, Every expert and authority we spoke with agrees - there is no such thing as an addictive personality and executives are no more likely to become addicted than anyone else.

Surprisingly, the biggest loss to an employer's bottom line may not come from the alcoholic or addicted executive. "An odd codependence exists between the alcoholic or addicted executive and his or her manager," says Steve Bloomfield, a forensic and clinical psychologist based in Jacksonville, FL. Bloomfield, who provides substance abuse and mental health aftercare to white collar probationers, believes staff and boards of directors often accept outlandish behavior in exchange for growth and a healthy bottom line. A web of powerful corruption ensues.

Executives do tend to be more Type A personalities. Employees in high positions wield power. Bloomfield says, "Some of these people can't handle the pressure and stress. Others come into the game with personality characteristics that are more prone to destructive behaviors. They're more obsessive, more demanding, feel more entitled. They travel and are faced with social drinking. Their financial resources make it easier to hide their addiction and disease."

David Rosenker, executive vice president of treatment services at Caron Foundation in Wernersville, PA, believes it takes a lot to force the driven, ambitious, competitive executive out of control. He should know. He says secretaries make excuses for bosses and management makes excuses for executives. "Families and co-workers don't see them out of control when they drink," Rosenker explains. "If they're not down and out, they must be okay."

Bloomfield goes one step further. "Oftentimes, sexual improprieties result because of a bad combination of opportunity and narcissistic self indulgence."

As a result of all this extra-curricular activity, twenty-one percent of workers admit their productivity has been affected by a co-worker's drinking.

I'll drink to that!
More than excessive drinking impacts America's companies and executives susceptible to the effect of alcoholism. Social drinking is now considered to have a significant impact as well. Much of this drinking occurs during the workday - 80% of it at lunch. In a report by the Christian Science Monitor, 23% of upper management and 11% of front line supervisors drink during work hours.

To find out what constitutes the difference between social drinking and addictive drinking, we asked David Hill, PhD, consulting psychologist with the Freedom Center in Lancaster and a Pennsylvania licensed psychologist in private practice. Hill defined addiction as the "relationship with a substance or activity in which the relationship produces educational, physiological, spiritual, or occupational impairment. When the relationship with the substance or activity takes priority over relationships with others, the person has a problem."

Although alcohol and other substances fuel the most common addictions, non-substance addictions are wreaking havoc on American companies too. According to McNichol, "It doesn't matter what kind of addiction you have. They're all impairing."

Because lack of self control is a sign of weakness in the executive suite, these managers often resort to self-medication. The "medication" used is not always illegal or even excessive. For those people who are addicted, they spend a lot of time thinking about drinking or planning how they'll drink or covering up their drinking. Obsession drives the behaviors that are important. Addictive activities that produce similar results to alcohol are prescription drugs, pathological gambling, sex, food, and even shopping.

While alcohol and drugs are the most common "aids" used by addicted executives, Bloomfield believes the biggest threat today to business is pathological gambling. The action gambler thrives on the rush. When alcohol and drugs just don't do it anymore or are viewed as too risky the addicted executive begins to conquer gambling. "In some ways gambling is easier to hide," Bloomfield continued, "because you have no hidden bottles, no tell-tale signs of drug use, and no DUIs."

But he warns, "Losing is a problem. The person with his or her hand on the till can make disastrous decisions and even use company funds to fund his or her excesses."

With obesity reaching epidemic proportions in the United States, food addiction is just as life-threatening and just as dangerous as alcohol or drugs. Prescription drug use also has an impact in America's boardrooms. Illicit drug use includes street drugs such as cocaine and heroin as well as non-medical use of prescription drugs such as Vicodin, Percocet, and OxyContin.

Chuck Mazetti, a principal with the EAP (Employee Assistance Program) firm Mazetti & Sullivan in Harrisburg, sees a rise in Internet abuse and Internet pornography in the workplace. Mazetti, whose career as a counselor began in 1983, has a broad view of addiction. The Mazetti & Sullivan employee assistance program has national contracts with businesses ranging from 14 to more than 22,000 employees.

According to Mazetti, the Internet addiction phenomenon stems from the relative privacy allowed by private offices and personal computers given to supervisors and managers. "Unfortunately many of these folks don't fully understand how computers work and don't realize the images are stored even after the computer is turned off. The Internet addict may be exposed because the files are so large they fill up the hard drive or downloaded images are mistakenly left on a printer in a common work area," he says.

With all this going on, it's not surprising that the ill-effects of addiction in the workplace add up to billions of dollars.

Denial is not a river in Egypt.
In the addict's world, primary addictions such as alcoholism are often "controlled" by replacing them with secondary addictions. "The thinking goes like this: It's okay to use drugs, as long as I'm not shooting up or snorting coke," reports McNichol. "To hide white collar addictions, men often replace alcohol and drugs with gambling and sex, women with eating and shopping."

One former executive of a Central Pennsylvania organization believed he had his alcoholism under control. "Alcohol never impaired my work performance because I never took a drink before 5 p.m.," he says. Based on his success at work, that was true. His after-hours behavior wasn't so controlled.

Bob Green, CEO of Quest Behavioral Health Services, has counseled a lot of what he calls "functional" alcoholics-vice-presidents and CEOs in high places. While performance at work may actually improve with alcohol and drugs, most of these "functional" addicts experience considerable problems at home. "Fifty percent of marriage and other social problems are related to alcohol. Substance abuse also has an insidious impact on leadership," he says.

Eric Brown, director of the Center for Addictive Diseases in Exton, agrees with the alcoholic's dysfunctional social behavior but insists, "there's no such thing as a functional alcoholic. They may be functioning at work but if they're neglecting their families they're not functional." But that might be the very reason executives eventually seek treatment. "Executives have so much to lose. And top performing executives aren't used to losing," says Brown.

Executives are high profile people. They make lots of money and are very visible. Many successful executives also aren't in the habit of being told "no" or you can't do something. In fact, those traits are what made them successful in the first place. The problem with addiction is that you can't just stop. An addiction controls the person, not vice verse. All their energy goes into their work.

There is general agreement that addiction in the boardroom? is no more prevalent than in "street addictions" and that people with money can afford better treatment.

Martzall says addictions show up more often at the hourly-employee level because executives have more resources to hide the problem, but reiterates that addictions affect all people. If an hourly worker is suspected of alcohol or drug abuse, he or she is swiftly removed from the workplace, or offered counseling or treatment through an employee assistance program. Executives have the resources to get what they need and the ability to cover their tracks. The last thing to go for many alcoholic or addicted executives is the job.

Green warns about the danger of simplifying addiction in the workplace and the community. "When you've seen one addict, you've seen only one," he believes. "But then again we are forced to simplify our screening and education just that so people can understand how powerful addiction can be."

Treatment is often limited to how much the employer is willing to spend and how much insurance will cover and that assumes there is an employee assistance program or insurance. Too frequently, the employer tells the hourly employee "to shape up or ship out" while the executive is protected - for the time being.

Mazetti cautions employers about defining addiction as a moral weakness rather than as a disease. Without adequate or any behavioral health coverage, people end up in emergency rooms and hospitals. That bumps up health care costs. "Refusing to acknowledge and treat addiction is like refusing to pay for the oil in your car's engine. Sooner, rather than later, you'll have to replace the engine," he says.

There are other barriers to treatment. Eric Brown, director, Center for Addictive Diseases in Exton, says that one barrier is that co-workers who recognize there's a problem lack the courage to confront the addict. Companies also often lack policies to handle addiction problems.

One recovering executive, who prefers to remain anonymous, hopes employers and boards of directors will take an active approach to alcoholism and other addictions He suggests they must inform all their employees what is acceptable and not acceptable to continue employment BEFORE a crisis, not afterwards.

When this man sought help for his disease he came clean with his employees and management. The strategy backfired. His bosses couldn't deal with the social and moral stigma of having a recovering executive in the top office. Although he admits he made the right decision to seek treatment, he would think twice next time about going public and instead would just slip away quietly for a few weeks.

David Bender, executive director of the Council on Drug and Alcohol Abuse in Lancaster, agrees. "It takes courageous people to face these problems. At this very moment there is someone somewhere that's scared to death someone will find out about their addiction and scared to death they'll lose their job. Therefore they cover it up and think they'll deal with it by themselves. No one would ever say that about diabetes or epilepsy."

Gwen Burkholder, Certified Addictions Counselor Diplomate and program director for Outpatient Chemical Dependency Programs at MAPS, concurs. "People put a lot of energy into maintaining their addiction," she said. "They need to put a lot into maintaining their sobriety."

The biggest barrier, however, is the common view that addiction is a moral issue. Bender says, "We need to do away with all the moralistic pieces." He also believes there would be more knowledge and better treatment if the moral stigma associated with addictions was lifted. A lot of executives do not seek treatment because of this stigma. And those who do seek treatment often do it in residential facilities or programs far from home.

George knows something about this. He says it would be difficult to sit in a group therapy or Alcoholics Anonymous meeting across from one of your subordinates if you were the CEO. That's why he attended AA meetings in another community. And that's why his co-workers had no idea he was an addict.

SIDEBAR #1 - A few sobering statistics:

• Someone dies from a tobacco-related illness every eight seconds
• There are twice as many gambling addicts as there are cocaine addicts
• Internet addiction is the rising star among addictions
• Sixty-four percent of adults in the U.S. are overweight
• More than16 million people reported drinking five or more drinks on five or more occasions during the past month
• Between eight and 14 million days are lost every year due to drink-related absenteeism
• Drinkers take off four times as many days as non-drinkers
• Drinkers are five times more likely to file worker's compensation claims
• Nine percent of drinkers and 10 percent of drug users admit to having missed work because of a hangover
• Six percent say they worked when they were drunk or high during the last year (2003)
• Eleven percent of drinkers and 18 percent of drug users skipped work during the last month (2003)
• Substance abusers are 25 percent to S30 percent less productive than non-users

SIDEBAR #2

How can you tell if performance problems are related to substance abuse? While the smell of alcohol on someone's breath is a dead give away, the following are other more subtle signs that a substance might play a role in performance problems:

• Loss of sense of humor; misunderstanding situations; loss of perspective
• Loss of creativity and intellectual sharpness
• Indecisiveness, confusion
• Irritability, difficulty getting along with others
• Changes in skin appearance, especially flushed skin on the nose and cheeks
• Repeated injuries, bruises, cuts and scrapes, limping
• General "run down" appearance
• Repeated complaints of fatigue, lack of energy, inability to concentrate, headache
• Drug paraphernalia such as small spoons, mirrors, little bottles of white powder, plastic, glass or metal straws
• False sense of confidence or power
• Purposeless, repetitious behaviors
• Compulsive cleaning, grooming, sorting
• Slow breathing
• Very pale and sweaty or extremely thirsty
• Small "pin prick" pupils
• Frequent itching and scratching