Effects of Drugs and Alcohol in Your Career

This article will give you information on the problems of using drugs and their effects on health and work. The amount of medicinal information available is inadequate. Most people understand that medicines are not good, but they do not always think about how the consequences of medicine uses can affect their work.

This is not a replacement for substance mistreatment. If a person is having problems related to the misuse of medicines, he or she should be referred to a qualified substance abuse expert. This guidance is only designed as an educational program for employment seekers. The medicines that will be discussed in this topic are alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, and illicit (marijuana, cocaine, heroine, LSD, etc.) medicines as complete group.

Begin the lesson by discussing medicine tests at work. Inform trainees that employers have the right to test for illegal medicine use. More than 70 per cent of illegal medicine users are employed. Of people who called a drugs help line, 70 per cent indicated they used cocaine while working, 60 per cent reported that medicines unfavorably affected their job performance, and 15-18 per cent had stolen from employers to support their medicine habit. Medicine using employees at General Motors average 30-40 sick days per year compared to 4-5 sick days for non users. Researches found that substance abuse is the number one health problem in the country.

When employees fail to work, they need to pay sick days and overtime for replacement employees. Deprived performance leads to work not getting done on time and bad quality. When products and services are not done properly, they need to be done over. Repeating any procedure costs money. Workplace injuries cost organizations a lot of money in avoidance program, employee’s compensation, and replacement employees. All of these factors lead to higher cost. High costs leads to money being spent on training new employees.

The bad effects of alcohol and illegal medicine use should be discussed. Use of alcohol or illegal medicines while working is definitely related to bad performance and accidents. Long-term abuse of alcohol or illegal medicines is linked to health problems such as heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, and liver disease. Even occasional parting the night before office can impact a person’s job. Calling in sick and bad job performance when at work can affect a person’s job evaluations and opportunities to move forward in the organization.

I hope in this article you get some useful information on how medicines and drugs can ruin your career.

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Read information on How to Stop Alcohol Addiction and say bye to deadly diseases such as throat cancer, lung cancer, etc. Know about ERP for Process Manufacturing and other ERP systems. Also know Small Business Entrepreneur Ideas and opportunities to earn money online.

Drug Abuse: Marijuana and Alcohol

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Drug abuse: Marijuana and Alcohol

Four levels of drug use are easily identifiable: non-drug use, drug use, drug abuse, and drug dependency.

Non-drug users do not use drugs whatsoever. Drug users use drugs from time to time, typically in the company of others during recreational time. Drug abusers use drugs more readily, at times when sobriety is called for and in such a manner that other life functions or roles are either put at risk or are already compromised. Drug dependent persons use drugs very regularly to the point where there is a physiological dependency. Given physiological dependency, abrupt cessation of the drug results in physical symptoms ranging from agitation to depression to physical pain to death.

Many people regard marijuana and alcohol as innocuous substances when used recreationally from time to time. That is arguable. At the very least, no one became a drug abuser without first becoming a drug user.

Drug abuse is of greater concern however and is more than occasional recreational use. While it may be argued that occasional recreational use is not destructive, problems do develop for those whose more frequent use interferes with psychological, marital, family, social, academic or vocational life. Further, the threshold of drug abuse is readily identifiable when it occurs during non-recreational time; where intoxication overlaps with non-recreational activities; when use or the after-effects of use interfere with any activity. In addition, if drug use is frequently or always associated with recreational activities, then this rises to the level of abuse, as the user is remarkably limited in scope of other healthy recreational activities.

Common among those who reach criteria for drug abuse is the false belief that their consumption is reasonable and does no harm. These persons are apt to project blame for any consequence to their drug abuse on factors outside of themselves. In other words, the drug abuser offers many excuses that serve to cloud or at least minimize their abuse. Hence the student failing academically will tell tales of the teacher who picks on him/her. The employee will blame the boss and sometimes one spouse will blame the other spouse. Where both spouses abuse drugs or when a person is immersed in a peer group where drug abuse is normalized, persons are apt to perceive a kind of moral support to enable or embolden a position that their drug abuse is reasonable. Each will use the other to legitimize their drug abuse and try to cause it to appear less than what it is.

Notwithstanding, persons abusing drugs will need to take personal responsibility at some point to facilitate ongoing sobriety and to correct for the consequences of their behaviour.

While there may be issues with the inter-relationships of the drug abuser, the challenge is to help the person understand how the problems either originate with him or herself and/or are exacerbated by the drug abuse. Either way, it is vital that the drug abuser be held accountable and not avoid responsibility for the impact of their behaviour on self and others.

In addition to being held accountable for the outcome of their drug abuse, these persons will need support to engage in other healthy, pro-social activities that are incompatible with drug use.

Drug abuse is intensified when the person literally gets away with it, conceals it, is not held accountable and is able to talk their way or manipulate their way out of consequences and accountability.

When structures are put in place to limit opportunity for all drug use, the person is held accountable and other supports and activities are deployed, then recovery can occur and a healthier lifestyle adopted.

Gary Direnfeld, MSW, RSW
(905) 628-4847

gary@yoursocialworker.com
http://www.yoursocialworker.com

Gary Direnfeld is a social worker. Courts in Ontario, Canada, consider him an expert on child development, parent-child relations, marital and family therapy, custody and access recommendations, social work and an expert for the purpose of giving a critique on a Section 112 (social work) report. Call him for your next conference and for expert opinion on family matters. Services include counselling, mediation, assessment, assessment critiques and workshops.