Behavior: Hooked on Work

Wayne E. Oates had been an addict for nearly 30 years when he managed to kick his habit in 1966. Oates, a professor of the psychology of religion at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., had been hooked not by drugs or alcohol but by what he calls “workaholism—the uncontrollable need to work incessantly.” Now, convinced that his old sickness is a common and crippling affliction, he has recounted his experiences for the benefit of other sufferers in a newly published book, Confessions of a Workaholic (World; $5.95).

The workaholic “drops out of the human community,” Oates says, and “eats, drinks and sleeps his job.” Every morning, he wakes at a set hour. At his office, he is “merciless in his demands upon himself for peak performance” and “without qualms about telling off both high and low” when their work is sloppy. Arriving home late, he heads for his study “to make the best of the remaining hours of the day,” unable to tell the difference between simple loyalty and “compulsive overcommitment” to his employers. How does a workaholic know that he is one? Sometimes he finds out only when he suffers a heart attack—or when, as in Oates’ case, his five-year-old son asks for an appointment to see him.

Psychologist Oates suggests that there are many motivations for becoming a workaholic. Drudges sometimes feel guilty over pleasure, he notes, and so take care not to get too much of it. The workaholic also has fantasies of omnipotence, imagining that no one but he can do what needs doing.

Besides, he likes to make other people uncomfortable by accomplishing more than they do, and he enjoys feeling independent: “As long as he has his work, he does not need anybody —he has power, place and things.” Lastly, the workaholic may use work as the philanderer uses sex; more and more of both ward off “the anxiety of death.”

Workaholism, Oates says, is not confined to men. It can also strike females at home, in offices, in volunteer agencies, or even for Women’s Lib. Afflicted housewives often overuse the phrase “Let me do it” while complaining of having to clean up after everyone else. But compulsive housework is not the only symptom of work addiction evident in the home; there is also compulsive childbearing, “one of the most exhausting types of work there is.” The woman who has many children, Oates concludes, may simply be a workaholic.