27th Dec 2007

Workaholism

I read How to break the work addiction with interest as I fear I am becoming a workaholic. I worked just about every day in November and December with the exceptions of Thanksgiving and Christmas and the day after each.

But it turns out I’m not actually a workaholic; I’m just self-employed.

Here’s the definition of workaholism:

Workaholism, or compulsive working, takes many forms, according to Workaholics Anonymous literature.

These include: “deriving our identity and self-esteem from what we do; keeping overly busy, neglecting our health, relationships and spirituality; seeing everything as work-related; having no desire to do anything (work avoidance or burnout); procrastinating; postponing vacations and rest; doing unnecessary work; perfectionism; avoiding intimacy and being controlling.”

Resources
Workaholics Anonymous
Twenty Questions: How Do I Know If I’m a Workaholic?
Avoiding Workaholism
Slow Down Now

This entry was posted by Ms. Theologian on Thursday, December 27th, 2007 at 5:36 pm and is filed under notes You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Workaholism”

  1. December 27th, 2007 at 6:21 pm Comrade Kevin Says:

    True workaholism is no different than any other -aholism in that it’s a means to self-medicate or evade/disguise deeper issues. To me, striking a balance is key. Work can be a deeply therapeutic exercise that keeps focused on some great goal rather than dwelling on our own problems.

  2. December 27th, 2007 at 6:37 pm Ms. Theologian Says:

    Well, it’s not considered a mental health disorder…yet. :) I find my struggle for balance takes place in the long-term with balancing periods of feast with famine.

  3. December 27th, 2007 at 8:34 pm Mile High Pixie Says:

    Interesting. Depending on how one reads this, every moderately-successful architect I know is a workaholic. Especially since we all identify strongly with our work and use it to define us to some extent. However, my longtime therapist friend told me that architects have the fifth-highest suicide rate among professionals in the US. Perhaps there’s a link?

Leave a Reply