Why Take on Secondhand Drinking in the Workplace?
As you’ve likely noticed, the tag line for this site is, “Secondhand Drinking – The Other Side of Alcohol Misuse.” Alcohol misuse refers to drinking patterns (binge drinking, heavy social drinking, alcohol abuse and alcoholism) that cause a person to engage in drinking behaviors.
Secondhand Drinking and the Alcohol Misuse Connection
These behaviors are not intentional. They are not the “real” person coming out, rather they’re the consequence of the ethyl alcohol chemical in alcoholic beverages changing brain function when alcohol is misused.
Drinking behaviors include: verbal, physical or emotional abuse; driving while impaired; “falling asleep” most nights right after dinner (and the beers and wine consumed after work); being so drunk one is not aware of their surroundings or actions, thereby putting sober friends in the role of protector and monitor, making sure s/he doesn’t wander off, have unplanned or unwanted sex, drive impaired…; domestic violence; committing a crime; creating a safety risk or productivity burden for co-workers (e.g., reporting to work hung-over); sexual assault; going off on random tangents; being especially loving or attentive and expecting it to be reciprocated; generating significant economic costs to others related to lost workplace productivity, health care expenses for problems related to excessive drinking; and criminal justice and law enforcement expenses related to alcohol consumption, to name a few.
People on the receiving end of drinking behaviors can experience a range of negative physical, emotional and/or quality-of-life impacts, often related to ongoing activation of the brain’s fight-or-flight stress response system.
Just Like Secondhand Smoke
Similar to the idea that secondhand smoke causes health problems for those exposed to a person’s smoking, this here-to-fore nameless “thing” related to a person’s drinking behaviors – this secondhand drinking – can cause health or quality-of-life impacts for those exposed to it.
This is especially true if they are the family member (husband, wife, sibling, parent, child, grandparent, boyfriend, girlfriend) or close friend or through that connection, a co-worker.
Over the course of their one time or ongoing exposure to SHD, these individuals become casualties, suffering their own physical and emotional health impacts. These health impacts can include: anxiety, depression, stomach ailments, skin problems, obesity, sleep difficulties, migraines and a whole range of other conditions.
These individuals experience quality-of-life impacts, such as a forced relocation, lost friendships, unsatisfactory working conditions, self-esteem issues, unstable financial situations and strained relationships with family members.
These innocent sufferers have no idea that secondhand drinking is the cause of their health conditions, relationship problems, quality-of-life or work/school performance issues. Just as persons exposed to secondhand smoke had no idea another person’s cigarette smoke was the reason for their severe asthma attacks, respiratory infections, ear infections, heart disease or lung cancer until the 1970s.
It took new scientific research not available until the 1970s to provide people with the information they needed to effectively protect their health from another person’s cigarette smoke. The resulting health protection messages were not about the smoker; rather they were about the health impacts to others of secondhand smoke.
Unable to effectively name SHD, and therefore unable to effectively talk about it, those experiencing secondhand drinking only know the subtle, frightening, life-changing outcomes. Without a common term, until recently, to talk about the common thread – impacts of a person’s drinking behaviors on others – millions of Americans and those whose lives they touch, experience SHD’s undetected, unchallenged march through their lives.
Secondhand Drinking in the Workplace
Secondhand Drinking (SHD)’s influence impacts the workplace in three ways:
- directly through an employee who causes it (i.e., an employee who misuses alcohol either on the job, at lunch or the night before a work day)
- directly through an employee experiencing it personally
- indirectly through exposure to either or both of the above.
In other words, SHD crosses spectrums from those directly affected by SHD — family members living with someone whose behaviors change when they drink, for example — to a co-worker whose own workplace experience suffers as a consequence of their fellow-employee’s ongoing exposure to SHD.
To get a further sense of the kinds of direct and indirect affects of SHD in the workplace, consider the jobs a person experiencing it or a person causing it might do:
- Drive company vehicles (fire truck, police car, school bus, logging truck)
- Operate machinery
- Handle chemicals
- Handle confidential ideas, products, plans or documents
- Handle cash, accounting, inventory or stock
- Represent the company at conferences or in the public eye
- Monitor computers, nuclear power dials, air traffic control
- Manage employees
- Be one of a team providing health, safety or defense services (e.g., firefighters, police, military)
Additional examples of Secondhand Drinking in the Workplace
Other kinds of direct and indirect secondhand drinking impacts in the workplace include:
- Having to work with coworkers who are distracted, less productive or missed work because of a family member’s excessive drinking.
- Working family members of excessive drinkers who find their own ability to function at work and at home negatively impacted by their family member’s drinking.
- Employees who drink heavily away from work are more likely than other employees to exhibit job withdrawal behaviors, such as spending work time on non-work-related activities, taking long lunch breaks, leaving early, or sleeping on the job, which then impacts the workload, job satisfaction and safety of other employees. These same types of behaviors are also exhibited by the family member or close friend who constantly coping with secondhand drinking away from work.
- Employees who drink heavily off the job are more likely to experience hangovers that cause them to be absent from work; show up late or leave early; feel sick at work; perform poorly; or argue with their coworkers, which also impacts fellow employees’ workplace experiences as well as their health, wellness and safety.
Bottom Line
It is no wonder SHD can affect up to 35% of a company or public agency’s workforce.
Attacking the underlying problem, a person’s drinking behaviors, from the other side – preventing and protecting oneself from secondhand drinking – offers a sea change opportunity.
Providing employees with the science of Secondhand Drinking – its causes, impacts and remedies – via the workplace can produce a counter ripple effect of equal force. For it is in the workplace that millions of Americans typically spend 8 hours/day, 5 days a week, often 50 weeks/year.
This is good for employees, it is good for public agency missions and it is good for a company or public agency’s bottom line.
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Note: a version this post first appeared in 2015 on SHD Prevention, which I’ve merged with BreakingTheCycles.com.
Lisa Frederiksen
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