Workaholism.2

My name is Doug and as I’ve read the literature of Workaholics Anonymous, I’ve been surprised, impressed and depressed all at the same time. Many of the signposts or “tell-tale signs” of workaholism describe my attitudes and behavior.

I have been a “good enough” father and husband – always there for the big events, not really away that often, but “checked out” too easily due to my work. I feel like I have a good excuse for my lame attitude, but then we all probably do. My job was also my ministry. It was also my dream come true. It was a real joy to start a magazine about music – heavy, hard and metallic music that sang about Jesus the lover of my soul. I felt like HM Magazine had the ability to “change the world” and that excited me. My work seemed like it had a purpose. Therefore it was easy to justify opening my laptop and working on the magazine in some manner when I was home and the family was watching TV after dinner.

I wish I could have those nights back. I wish I would have said “NO” to my so-called calling. I wish I would have set boundaries and kept them. I wish I would have been more balanced. Modeled after the 12-steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, one of the steps is taking personal inventory – taking an unflinching and deep look at the attitudes, fears and thought-patterns that led to the compulsive behavior that becomes destructive. It takes ownership of these attitudes and habits, puts them in their place (so to speak) and another step is to make amends wherever possible. This is serious stuff.

Let me jump back to the overview of why a group like Workaholics Anonymous is a blessing. Here is a short list of the Characteristics of Workaholics:

It is very difficult for us to relax. We often, if not always, feel the need to get just a few more tasks done before we can feel good about ourselves and allow ourselves to relax. When we do complete these tasks we find just a few more that we need to complete, and then a few more…. These uncontrollable desires often result in frantic, compulsive working. We are powerless to control this pattern.

We are so used to doing what we are expected to do that we are often unable to know what it is that we really want to do and need to do for ourselves.

We often feel that we must complete certain tasks, even though we do not want to, yet we are too scared to stop.

We often feel resentment about having to complete tasks when we would rather relax or play. At these times we procrastinate, usually wallowing in self-pity and self-judgment. We become absorbed by our “stinking thinking,” cannot concentrate on the task at hand, and yet are too scared to give up the task for a moment and allow ourselves the space we need.

Our sense of self-esteem is based largely on our perceptions of how others judge our performance at work and in other areas of our lives.

We often think of ourselves as either the most intelligent, capable people we know or the most incapable and worthless people we know.

It is hard for us to see ourselves honestly and accept who we really are.

We often betray ourselves by giving in to the demands of people whom we perceive as being in “authority.”

We operate out of the mini-crisis mode, using this as an escape from experiencing our true emotions.

We do not often experience true serenity.

We have an obsessive desire to understand everything in our lives, including our every emotion. We cannot allow ourselves to experience emotions that we do not understand, fearing our loss of control.

We have an underlying fear that if we give up control and allow our emotions to surface, we will become raving lunatics for the rest of our lives.

We judge ourselves by our accomplishments and hence have the illusion that we must always be in the process of accomplishing something worthwhile in order to feel good about ourselves.

We cannot sit down and just be.

We often go on intense work binges with the illusion that we need to get the praise of our fellow workers and bosses in order to feel OK.

We have the illusion that people will like us more if we appear more competent than we actually are.

Often when we are praised by others we tend to discount ourselves as not worthy of their praise.

We tend to schedule ourselves for more than we can handle, believing people will like us more if we can do more and do it faster.

We are often dishonest about our past experiences and our present capabilities, tending to not mention our failures and to exaggerate our successes. We believe that people will not respect us or like us just as we are.

We hurt inside.

Originally appears as pages 5-7 in the W.A. Book of Recovery. This literature is also available as a downloadable PDF file

Do any of those characteristics sound like you?
Nah, me neither.
Ha! I feel an overwhelming need to get more work done. I feel like I’m never caught up. Part of that is trying to do too much and not taking a realistic look at what is accomplish-able and what is reasonable and what is a healthy balance. Push, push, push, push. As Robert Plant sang, “I can’t take too much (more) of that.” If I can be a stupid jerk here for a second. You know, an arrogant pick of dung. Just for a second. I can look back and have satisfaction of accomplishing a lot of cool things. I think (I’m biased) that I might be somewhat impressed about how a few things have been accomplished with HM over the years. Praise God, there’s been some success and some completed projects over the years. But at what cost? I’ve worked myself to death and gotten out of balanced. I’ve damaged family members. I’ve taken my notebook with me on vacations and actually worked while on family vacations. Nobody could have stopped me, but I bet if I had a time machine and I could go back and talk to me … I bet I could get the “job done.” That’s right – I could convince myself to back off, unplug and enjoy my family, my time and my friends.

For me it goes deeper than my job. I can’t just blame it on the logistics of too much work for one person. It might be a lot of it (plus mis-managing and allowing out-of-balance behavior, to add a few other reasons), but there’s probably something at my personality level that causes some of this. A case in point: Joey.

My good friend, Joey Puente (aka Joey Knight) still recalls some of the first few times he came over to my house to hang out. This guy is a wonderful dude. We spent a lot of good time together, hanging out, going to shows, eating and enjoying each others company. He was the best man in my wedding. Well, one of these first times he came over I answered the door and he saw a look. He laughs about it now and he brushed it off at the time, but he felt like he was intruding. He felt unwelcome. He felt like he should just turn and go. What was my problem? Oh, I’m not sure if I can remember, but it was probably because I was knee-deep in some Heaven’s Metal Magazine work at the time. I probably couldn’t help but hide my irritation at being “interrupted” from my work. I liked my work. Maybe a little too much. That’s not right. That’s twisted thinking. That’s bent.

There’s gotta be a balance. It’s not like we can stop working (unless we’re very blessed, older and can “retire,” perhaps), but we can keep from being a slave and we can keep from being compulsive about our work. That is my quest. That is my recovery. That is why I’m hosting a Workaholics Anonymous meeting once a week where I live (Lago Vista, TX, if you ever want to visit). I might start phone meetings if the recent turnout (zero people besides me showing up) persists. There are such things already, which can be found at the W.A. website.