The Impact of Addiction on Work and Career

We tend to focus on the personal impact of addiction. It takes time and attention away from your family. Your spouse and children feel like you love the bottle of alcohol or the drugs more than them. The addiction consumes money your family needs, too. But we’re here to talk about the impact of addiction on work and career.

It Affects Your Income

Come in late due to a hangover, and your pay as an hourly worker will be docked. Regularly come in late as a salaried professional, and you won’t get all of your work done. Nor will your boss consider giving you a good raise at the end of the year, even if you’re doing just enough to keep your job. For example, the mistakes you are prone to make in an altered state could cost the company money, and the time you spend correcting them gets in the way of getting the job done that they hired you to do. If team members have to work harder to take up the slack, expect them to complain to the boss and hurt your next performance review.

It Can Cost You Your Job

Money fights are the most common cause of divorce, and your partner may fight with you over how much you spend on drugs, alcohol, and partying. But the addiction can threaten your income. For example, if you regularly miss work due to your drug or alcohol addiction, you’ll lose your job. It doesn’t matter if you’re too high to remember that you’re supposed to go in or feel too sick go in. Furthermore, there are many employers that will fire you if you fail a drug test, even if you’re not high or drunk at the time.

Note that this ties into the financial impact of addiction, as well, since losing your job can leave your family scrambling to pay the bills and often causes the other spouse to leave so they simply have a place to live. There are resources available for those who want to learn how to sober up from weed and avoid being left alone to deal with the aftermath of their addiction.

It Can Prevent You from Getting Another Job

Drug tests are routinely given to job applicants. If you test positive, you won’t be able to get a new job. Furthermore, a positive drug or alcohol test while on the job can result in loss of professional licensing necessary to get a similar job. For example, a DUI/DWI conviction can cost you your driver’s license. If you’re caught driving a commercial vehicle drunk, you’ll lose the CDL for an even longer time frame than if you were arrested for DUI/DWI in your personal vehicle. Either way, that will prevent a commercial driver from working unless they can get a job unloading trucks instead of driving them.

It Can Put Your Life on the Line

Roughly one in ten fatal workplace accidents happened to someone who had been drinking. We don’t know how many disabling or deadly workplace accidents occurred to people who were high, but it is just as dangerous to be high as drunk when working with heavy machinery.