What if a colleague has an alcohol problem…?

Alison (not her real name) was just 14 years old when she first started drinking. “It was part of my life,” she says. “I always had alcohol around me from a young age. It was just accepted.”

While she started off slowly, drinking was encouraged as she grew up and again when she moved into the workplace. ‘Liquid lunches’ became a thing, so did being wined and dined while working away from home.

“It was encouraged – it was part of the whole ethos of doing business,” says Alison, who defines herself as a functional alcoholic.

After a few job changes within the marketing and advertising sector, she began working for her husband’s start-up. This meant working from home. “That’s when it really started, and I realised I had a problem. I joined Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), but then one day I just had a glass of wine, and I was back off to drinking again,” she says.

During the next stretch of drinking, Alison had two part-time jobs. She lost both of them due to her drinking. “I wasn’t caught falling over or doing anything wrong,” she says. “But they could see I was late for work, my breath smelt, they could see I’d spiked my orange juice with vodka.”

Instead of offering help, her employers sacked her there and then. “I find it ironic that the human resources person who pulled me into the interview said, ‘you don’t have to tell me about Alcoholics Anonymous, my husband’s an alcoholic’. But she didn’t offer any support.”

Alison even lost her driving licence, but that wasn’t enough to make her quit drinking. “I’d think, ‘oh well, I can’t drive for a year so I can carry on drinking’. That’s the logic of it all.”

There wasn’t a particular moment that sparked Alison’s sobriety, except that she’d ‘had enough’. She’s now been sober for five years. Looking back, she wishes she’d been offered more support from her workplace – that people had pushed her more to get help.

Being a functional alcoholic can completely pull the wool over people’s eyes, she explains, particularly if you don’t know what to look for. “But in the workplace, where a dialogue can be started – informally – about how much people are drinking, you might find people who are really looking for help, or someone saying I wish I knew somewhere I could go. That’s where the employer could jump in and say: this is what you can do.”

Rising numbers of alcoholics

Laura Jarvis from the Alcohol and Drug Service says alcohol issues such as Alison’s have increased over the past year as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We have heard stories of people who perhaps live alone, who suddenly went from working in a busy office with groups of friends and a big social network to being really isolated and cut off from all the usual enjoyment or meeting friends,” she says.

In these circumstances, many have turned to drugs and alcohol. A recent study by UCL’s Department of Behavioural Science and Health found that over a third of people (34%) reported a change in their drinking habits over the past year, with almost half of those drinking more than they did before (49%).

Ruari Fairbairns is from the habit-changing programme One Year No Beer. He says it’s ‘hugely important’ that employees are offered support from their workplaces. Businesses have a key role to play, even more so following lockdown.

“It is hugely important that workers are offered sufficient help and support to cope with alcohol use and anxiety. The bonuses for both employer and employee are huge – people who take control of their relationship with alcohol are more productive and healthier.”