How Addiction is Hurting Your Career

Addiction affects many parts of your life. Your personal relationships, your health, your mental wellness, and your career are all impacted in some way. There are some professions where excessive alcohol or drug use will cost you your career, but that’s not the only case where addiction can damage your livelihood.

All professions can be impacted by any level of substance use, even if you only imbibe after hours. Your future can be negatively impacted by declining performance, reputation, and career opportunities. Here are some substance abuse and abstinence can affect your career.

Ways addiction impacts your career

1. Performance
A recent study proves hangovers from alcohol resulted in reduced brain performance in the areas of reaction time, memory, information processing, and intellectual processes. Alcohol and drugs also cause the body to lose hydration, and when your brain becomes 2% dehydrated its ability to pay attention becomes impaired. Performance will inevitably suffer when these abilities are lessened.

2. Reputation Damage – Excessive drinking or drug use impacts your health, viability and liveliness. These impacts can cause you to accidentally oversleep and show up to work late, or call in sick, which can lead to missed meetings and deadlines. When these patterns become the norm, management will notice and your reputation could endure damage that it may not recover from.

3. Opportunities Missed – Substance abuse can prevent upward mobility in your career for several reasons. Addiction causes changes in your appearance, performance, and reputation which can make management less inclined to consider your for new opportunities, raises, or promotions.

4. Job Loss – Repeated underperformance and known substance use can cause management to view you as a liability. Whether you’ve indulged during work hours or not, management will be wary of accidents on the job and lost productivity, which can ultimately leave you looking for employment elsewhere.

5. Prevent You From Getting Another Job – A job loss for reasons outside of you control can feel like rock bottom to even the strongest of people. The weight of that loss to an individual struggling with addiction can be crushing. This becomes a slippery slope as job seekers who continue to misuse substances may feel demotivated to look for work and show up for interviews. This can lead to an extended length of time out of the workforce and cause these candidates to appear less desirable to potential employers.

For all the ways substance misuse negatively affects a career, there are an even greater number of ways abstinence can propel it. Without substances affecting performance, employees will have increased stamina, drive, and more effective interpersonal skills. They are likely to get along better with coworkers, clients and prospects, and be able to better make use of their time while on the clock.

It must also be said that seeking treatment for substance abuse will not hurt your career. In fact, many employer-provided insurance benefits include coverage for inpatient addiction treatment. To look into your coverage or understand the approach to recovery and length of program that best fits you, call us today. We’re happy to answer any questions you have and guide you toward a brighter future.

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