How Alcohol Abuse Can Impact A Person’s Career

Alcohol abuse at work

The amount of damage drug and alcohol abuse can do to a person’s health is quite astounding.  Drug and alcohol abuse can damage or destroy a person’s career and family. Addiction can lead to illness, injury and death.

Abuse of alcohol and drugs causes a downward spiral in terms of career path. Addiction leads to myriad negative behaviours that can destroy careers and cause poverty and hardship—working while intoxicated is problematic and dangerous and can lead to physical and mental difficulties which will have to be fixed with the help of a service such as a rehab in London.

Chronic intoxication causes mental changes that negatively impact decision-making. Chronic impairment results in lowered inhibition levels. This can result in someone with an alcohol addiction taking excessive risks.   This can cause dangerous conditions in the workplace. Drugs and alcohol change a person’s thought processes. It’s difficult to concentrate while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.  Judgment, perception and reaction time can be negatively impacted.

Problems for all

When a worker has a drug or alcohol problem, the entire business is negatively impacted.

Employees who are addicted to drugs and/or alcohol tend to call in sick more often. This results in extra expense for companies that need to hire temps to take up the slack. Employee turnover may be high due to negative workplace conditions. This means more expense in training replacement employees. Intoxicated employees naturally perform poorly, and this causes quality control problems. If services and products are not delivered properly, corrections and restitution must be made. Employers have to pay more in workman’s comp when injuries are frequent. It’s easy to see that all of these conditions add up to high costs for employers.

An impaired employee will not do well on his or her evaluations. This means they will not advance in the company and those waiting to move up may also be hampered in advancement.

Employees suffering from drug and alcohol abuse may come to work experiencing withdrawal symptoms such as high blood pressure, severe headaches and dizziness, nausea and more. An employee who turns up in this condition hurts morale.

Legal issues

If a worker is convicted of drunk driving in their private life it may also impact their work. Whether it’s higher premiums and the need for conviction insurance or a complete ban, the business shouldn’t have to end up paying for someone’s legal issues.

It’s easy to see that drug and alcohol addiction is not conducive to good work performance. Workers should avoid the use of alcohol and drugs altogether to prevent negative impacts on the workplace and their careers and health. Addiction affects every aspect of a person’s life. It can destroy a person’s mental, physical and emotional health. It can also destroy relationships with friends and family members. People with an alcohol addiction can be unpredictable and violent. They make irresponsible choices and decisions that may haunt them (and others) forever in both personal and work settings.

The role of an employer

It’s beneficial for an employer to have a policy in place to give guidance to line managers if and when they encounter alcohol abuse by an employee. Support and help should be readily available, or at least employers should know where to point an affected employee to. One thing no employer must do is to compromise the health and safety of its workers, and so a robust risk assessment must be made to take preventative measures depending on the impact and severity of the situation.