How Business Executives Can Avoid the Trap of Addiction
When you’re an executive, you’re accustomed to giving the orders and being the one others come to for decisive action. So if addiction to drugs or alcohol brings you to your knees, it’s a natural reaction to try to conceal the problem and continue working. After all, many people are counting on you. If you’re in the C-Suite, perhaps the whole company depends on you and your smart choices.
But the truth is that you’re human like anyone else. Drug addiction or alcoholism will eventually drain the life and success out of you. You deserve an enjoyable life as much as anyone else—maybe more because of your years of contribution. Let’s look at some of the factors that tend to drive executives toward drugs or alcohol and then how an executive can reshape his life to prevent the kind of stress that makes substance abuse nearly inevitable.
Factors Involved in Executive Drug Use and Addiction
Competition
Competition is just the name of the game in business. There are many other companies out for the same clients you are. The pressure in some companies to land big clients and retain them can be brutal. Escaping the pressure for a few hours with a bottle or joint may seem like a just reward. Until that escape becomes a daily crutch.
Long Hours
When big games are being played and there’s a lot on the line, executives don’t head home at five o’clock. But when long hours go on year after year, the result can be a heavy dose of guilt over neglect of one’s own health and the welfare of one’s family — not to mention the exhaustion that follows these long workdays. In high pressure industries, reliance on stimulants like cocaine becomes popular to keep energy and confidence high. This is particularly true in international banking and finance corporations.
Hostile Bosses or Co-Workers
Not every work relationship is rosy. Those in the C-Suite can make impossible demands. Co-workers may look for opportunities to take credit for your ideas or undermine your confidence. When you are trying your hardest to achieve your company’s goals, these influences can take the wind out of your sails. If someone offers you substances that seem to make problems and setbacks go away, those substances may seem irresistible.
Family Issues
On the job, it seems like you can keep things under control. But at home, it’s a different story. Many spouses aren’t happy with the long hours required when you’re responsible for the success of a business. Children going through turbulent teenaged years may become disaffected and cause problems. It may look more appealing to spend some time with a few drinks instead of going straight home after work.
Drugs and Alcohol All Around
After a long day on the trade show floor or while socializing with clients, most people consider it acceptable to relax with a couple of drinks. In some industries, freely-flowing drugs are also the norm. Even if it’s not your thing, it can be difficult to keep saying no.
The Economic Climate
No company is immune from broad economic ups and downs, plus there can be seismic shifts within a single industry. When a company struggles despite the best efforts of its executives, the stress can trigger such a need for relief that drugs or alcohol look like an acceptable solution.
Starting Off With Legitimate Prescriptions
For two decades, doctors have been freely handing out prescriptions for addictive painkillers for problems that perhaps could have been treated with other therapies. Add to this situation the direct-to-consumer advertising that has helped convince Americans that pills provide relief for any upsetting condition. For many executives, that long-ago legitimate prescription has developed into an addiction.
Make Sure You’re Not Trying to Do It All Yourself
Some people are so concerned with the quality of the job done that they micro-manage or try to take on every important task themselves. Delegate. If you don’t have staff you trust to do a good job, have their work reviewed by others to make sure you are being objective about their abilities. If they come up short, consider moving staff around so you have staff you DO trust to get the job done right and on time.
Preserving Your Health,
Protecting Your Productivity
Here’s the lesson that many executives finally have to learn to overcome or avoid addiction or simply to keep themselves alive: When they take good care of themselves as individuals and care for their families as well, they are better, smarter, healthier and more productive.
With the demands of being a successful executive, it’s not that easy to change your activities or reactions to stress. It might require shifting the culture within your company, or, if you can’t, switching jobs. What is most important is the emotional and physical balance that enables you to stay healthy and sober. To give you ideas on how you can improve your current situation, here’s how some executives have broken the pattern of overwork that was leading them into stress-related illness or substance abuse.
Pick Up the Activities With Friends and Family That You Used to Enjoy
What activities did you relish when you were younger that you haven’t touched in years? Gardening? Camping? Writing a novel? Just having a few friends over to watch sports or a movie? Running a 10K? Choose your favorite one or two and get them started again.
See to Your Health
Find out if you have any health conditions and resolve them. Follow your doctor’s advice on lifestyle changes that might be needed. The pain or malaise of undiagnosed health problems can cause a person to seek drugs to mask the symptoms.
Schedule Time for Yourself
Whether it’s a day off every weekend or a long weekend away once a month or even a vacation to some exotic locale you’ve always wanted to visit, reward yourself. Also, scheduling short breaks during the day help you stay focused on your own true emotional responses to your work and your life. Try a walk outdoors or a short period of exercise to freshen your viewpoint.
Consider Saying “No” More Often
Because you are effective and competent, you may feel the right thing to do is take on every useful project you’re asked to do. If being overstressed is going to reduce your health and happiness and drive you toward substance abuse, it’s just not right. Use discretion when accepting projects and choose the ones that you have time to execute and that are best for the company.
Give Yourself a Personal Boost
What personal goals have you possibly abandoned? Was there a degree you wanted to complete? A language you wanted to learn? A professional certification you were close to attaining? Give yourself the satisfaction of this achievement.
Don’t Neglect Your Most Basic of Needs
Good, healthy food, adequate sleep, enough pure water each day, not being exposed to toxins or chemicals, and ensuring you are not exposed to mental or physical abuse—these are all critically important to anyone’s well-being.
Addiction to drugs or alcohol is a serious situation indeed—one that can end in ruin or death. While finding the right recovery program is top priority, changing one’s life into one that is enjoyable and supports mental and physical health is almost as vital. If you go back to the same schedule and stresses, your sobriety may not last.
When you are seeking a recovery program for a high-producing executive or other key employee, contact Narconon Ojai for information on our private, luxurious executive rehabilitation facility in Southern California.
For more than 50 years, the Narconon program has been helping people from all walks of life leave substance abuse behind as they build a healthy, satisfying life. Call today.
