The Overlooked Link Between Workplace Abuse and Addiction
Addiction is an attempt to solve unbearable psychological pain.
When we talk about addiction, we usually talk about individuals: their choices, their coping skills, their willpower, their recovery.
What we rarely talk about is where addiction often begins — or accelerates.
For many people, the path into substance use isn’t a party or a thrill-seeking phase. It’s a workplace. Specifically, a workplace where abuse, coercion, fear, and powerlessness are routine.
Addiction does not appear in a vacuum. It often emerges as a survival strategy in environments that systematically harm the nervous system.
Abuse Dysregulates the Nervous System — Addiction Regulates It (Temporarily)
Workplace abuse places people in a chronic state of threat.
Targets often experience:
Hypervigilance and constant anxiety
Sleep disruption
Shame and self-blame
Emotional numbing or collapse
Fear of retaliation or job loss
The body stays stuck in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn — with no clear exit.
Substances can temporarily quiet this state. Alcohol, opioids, stimulants, or sedatives may:
Reduce anxiety or panic
Dull emotional pain
Restore sleep
Create a brief sense of control or relief
From a trauma-informed lens, addiction is not a moral failure. It’s a maladaptive attempt at regulation when safer options are unavailable or unsafe.
Why Workplaces Are a High-Risk Environment
Unlike many other sources of trauma, workplace abuse has three features that dramatically increase addiction risk:
1. It’s Ongoing
Workplace abuse isn’t a single event. It’s repeated exposure — daily meetings, emails, evaluations, surveillance, humiliation — with no clear end date.
Chronic stress is far more strongly linked to substance use than isolated trauma.
2. Escape Is Costly
Leaving an abusive job often means:
Loss of income
Loss of healthcare
Loss of professional identity
Risk to housing or family stability
When escape isn’t feasible, people seek relief where they can.
3. The Harm Is Denied
Targets are frequently told:
“It’s just work.”
“That’s how this industry is.”
“You’re too sensitive.”
This gaslighting compounds the injury. When pain isn’t named or validated, people internalize it — and self-medicate.
Addiction as a Form of Self-Blame
One of the cruel ironies of workplace abuse is that addiction often becomes evidence used against the target.
Instead of asking:
What conditions pushed this person here?
Institutions ask:
What’s wrong with them?
Substance use is framed as:
A personal flaw
A professionalism issue
A performance problem
The abusive environment disappears from the narrative — and the individual carries all the blame.
Why “Wellness Programs” Miss the Point
Many organizations respond to addiction risk with:
Mindfulness apps
Stress management workshops
EAP referrals
While these supports can help, they are inadequate — and sometimes harmful — when abuse is ongoing.
You cannot meditate your way out of coercion.
You cannot therapy your way out of retaliation.
You cannot recover in an environment that keeps injuring you.
Treating addiction without addressing workplace harm is like treating smoke inhalation while leaving the fire burning.
The Trauma–Addiction–Punishment Cycle
In abusive workplaces, a predictable cycle emerges:
Abuse creates chronic stress and dysregulation
The worker uses substances to cope or survive
Substance use is detected or disclosed
The worker is disciplined, stigmatized, or terminated
The original abuse remains unaddressed
The system injures — then punishes the injury.
What Trauma-Informed Prevention Actually Looks Like
Preventing addiction linked to work requires structural change, not just individual support.
Trauma-informed workplaces:
Interrupt abusive behavior immediately
Enforce no-retaliation policies
Provide no-contact options without penalty
Allow medical and mental health leave without stigma
Do not weaponize substance use disclosures
They recognize that the safest addiction intervention is removing the source of harm.
Recovery Requires Safety — Not Just Sobriety
People cannot recover from addiction while living in fear.
Recovery requires:
Nervous system stabilization
Predictability and control
Dignity and agency
Freedom from ongoing threat
For many workers, that means safety at work — or the ability to leave without devastation.
A Reframe We Need to Make
When someone develops an addiction in an abusive workplace, the right question is not:
“Why did they turn to substances?”
It’s:
“Why did the system make that the most accessible form of relief?”
Until we ask that question — and act on it — addiction will remain a downstream consequence of unchecked workplace abuse.
And people will keep paying for harm they didn’t create.
Learn more from Dr. Gabor Maté:
This reframes addiction as an adaptive response to sustained powerlessness rather than a character flaw. Tracing substance use back to chronic threat, denial, and lack of exit shows how workplaces can quietly drive regulation into unsafe channels. Keeping the focus on conditions instead of individual failure makes it harder for systems to offload responsibility onto the people they have already harmed.
Thanks again for such an important and helpful post. IMHO wellness programmes are just an opportunity for an organisation to absolve responsibility. It's the same as providing 'benefits programmes'. People don't want 5% odd white goods, they want shorter hours, better pay, and the right to work in a safe environment without abuse and bullying. 🙏