What Is Work Addiction?
You’ll hear terms like workaholic, hustle culture, grindset, and work addiction.
From a clinical and research perspective, “work addiction” is usually defined as a behavioural addiction-like pattern involving:
- Salience – work becomes the most important activity in life
- Mood modification – working changes mood (relief, excitement, numbness)
- Tolerance – needing to work more and more to get the same effect
- Withdrawal – feeling restless, irritable or low when not working
- Conflict – with family, health or other responsibilities
- Relapse – slipping back into old patterns after trying to cut down
These components mirror addiction models used in gambling and other behavioural addictions, but currently, work addiction is not recognised as a distinct diagnosis in the DSM-5-TR or in ICD-11. The ICD-11’s behavioural addictions chapter currently only includes gambling and gaming disorders; for other behaviours (like work, sex, shopping), WHO says current evidence isn’t yet strong enough for formal addiction diagnoses.
Because there isn't a formal work addiction diagnostic criterion, specialists typically conceptualise work addiction by using behavioural addiction frameworks or as part of other conditions (e.g. burnout, anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive personality traits).
Not everyone who works long hours is addicted to work. Researchers distinguish work engagement versus work addiction as follows:
- Work engagement/“heavy work investment” – long hours with flexible choice, genuine enjoyment, and preserved health and relationships.
- Work addiction – compulsive drive to work, loss of control, continued overwork despite clear harm, and distress when unable to work.
The key difference: who is in charge – you, or the work?
Variations & subtypes people describe
- Salience – Driven/do-more type: can’t switch off; perfectionistic.
- Escape/avoidance type: work used to avoid emotions or home stress.
- Recognition-seeking type: chasing praise or promotions.
- Mixed (elements of the above).
How work addiction relates to other conditions
Work addiction rarely appears in isolation. It often overlaps with:
- Burnout: chronic workplace stress leading to exhaustion, cynicism and reduced effectiveness. Burnout and work addiction are distinct but closely linked; work-addicted people have a higher burnout risk.
- Anxiety and depression: work can become a way to avoid difficult feelings or situations, while overwork itself increases stress and low mood.
- Obsessive-compulsive personality traits: perfectionism, rigid standards, and being excessively devoted to work at the expense of friendships and leisure appear more frequently in people with work addiction.
- Other behavioural or substance addictions: similar patterns (craving, loss of control, continuing despite harm) show up in gaming, gambling, and sometimes alcohol or stimulant use to “keep going”.
This is why using a multi-condition assessment, such as Loffty, is more useful than examining work habits in isolation.
Work addiction in the workplace
On the surface, work-addicted employees can look like an employer’s dream: always available, always “on”, often performing at a high level – at least for a while. But research paints a more complex picture:
- Work addiction is linked to lower job satisfaction, poorer social functioning and higher conflict at work and at home.
- Over time, work addiction is associated with burnout, health problems, absenteeism and decreased performance, not just “extra productivity”.
- It can drive boundary breaches: checking emails late at night, working on leave, or needing to be constantly reachable, which also impacts work culture, teams and families.
Healthy organisations are starting to recognise work addiction as a risk, not an asset, and to favour sustainable performance over constant overwork.
Work Addiction Symptoms
People struggling with work addiction often report:
- Constant preoccupation with work
- Thinking about work most of the time, even when you’re with family or doing other activities.
- Planning how to squeeze in “just a bit more” work today, tomorrow, this weekend.
- Checking work devices compulsively.
- Prioritising work over sleep, meals, exercise or relationships.
- Loss of control
- Intending to stop at a certain time but repeatedly working much longer.
- Being unable to fully disconnect on holidays or days off, even when you want to.
- Using work to regulate emotions
- Working to avoid or numb feelings (sadness, anger, shame, anxiety, loneliness).
- Feeling temporarily better or “in control” only when working.
- Continued overwork despite harm
- Relationship conflict because you’re always working or distracted.
- Health problems: chronic stress, sleep issues, headaches, digestive problems.
- Burnout or declining performance – but still pushing harder rather than stepping back.
- Withdrawal-like symptoms when not working
- Feeling restless, empty, guilty or anxious if you try to rest.
- Struggling to enjoy hobbies or time with loved ones because you’re mentally at work.e
How it can feel day-to-day
- You may wake up and immediately check work messages – and keep checking late into the night.
- You might say “I’ll stop after this email/sprint/project” – but there’s always another one.
- Loved ones may say, “You’re never really here”, while colleagues may see you as incredibly dedicated.
- Any downtime can feel scary or “wasted”, so you keep filling it with tasks.
- Exhaustion, headaches, or sleep problems after long stretches online or at the office.
- Missing family events, hobbies, or basic self-care because “there’s always more to do.”
When to seek help
Talk with a mental health professional if:
- Work is clearly damaging your health, relationships or other responsibilities and you still can’t cut back.
- You feel unable to rest or relax unless you’ve “earned it” by working enough.
- You’re relying on substances (caffeine, stimulants, sedatives, alcohol) to keep the cycle going or to crash.
- Employer feedback or HR warnings about overwork/boundaries.
- You’re experiencing significant anxiety, low mood, or burnout, but find it hard to step away from work.
Seek urgent help (emergency services/crisis team) if you have thoughts of self-harm or suicide, or if stress and overwork are pushing you toward dangerous decisions (e.g. falling asleep while driving, severe health warnings that you’re ignoring).
How Do You Assess Work Addiction?
There’s no official DSM or ICD diagnosis, but there are structured ways to assess problematic patterns. Several single disorder assessment tools exist, with the most well known being the Bergen Work Addiction Scale (BWAS), which was developed to measure work addiction based on core addiction criteria (salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, relapse problems). Others include the Dutch Work Addiction Scale and various workaholism questionnaires, often used in research and sometimes in clinical practice. But these are single disorder tools that don't ask questions about co-occurring issues and therefore risk diagnosing these issues. Therefore, a multi-condition assessment should be your starting point
- Multi-condition mental health screen: Because work addiction is so tied up with anxiety, depression, burnout, personality traits, trauma and other behaviours, a broad assessment like Loffty helps you:
- Map work-related symptoms alongside mood, anxiety, sleep, substance use and perfectionism.
- Notice whether overwork is a primary problem or a coping strategy sitting on top of something else (e.g. trauma or low self-worth).
- Produce a clear summary to discuss with your psychologist or psychiatrist.
- Clinical interview: A specialist may explore:
- Your typical work hours, roles and responsibilities.
- Attempts to reduce or set boundaries – what happened when you tried.
- Impacts on sleep, health, relationships, parenting, finances and enjoyment.
- Personality factors (perfectionism, difficulty delegating, need for control).
- Co-occurring issues such as anxiety, depression, OCD traits, ADHD or substance use.
- Rule-outs and overlaps: A good assessment will also consider:
- Burnout as a separate but related syndrome.
- Whether symptoms fit better with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (or other personality factors).
- Whether periods of extreme overwork coincide with hypomanic or manic episodes in bipolar disorder.
What to bring to an appointment
- A 1-2 week work-log: hours, after-hours, sleep
- List of impacts: (health, relationships, errors).
- Medication/substance list: including caffeine/energy products.
- Employer policies: after-hours expectations, right-to-disconnect, leave.
- Personal goals: e.g., “sleep 7–8h,” “no email after 7 pm”.
How Do You Treat Work Addiction?
There’s no single “official” treatment protocol, but a mix of education, lifestyle changes, therapy and (where needed) organisational change has the best evidence and clinical support.
Lifestyle and boundaries
- Basic sleep, nutrition and exercise stabilisers
- Restore regular sleep with a consistent schedule and wind-down time with devices out of the bedroom and a device curfew,
- Regular, balanced meals and caffeine/alcohol in check.
- Regular physical activity: reduces vulnerability to compulsive patterns.
- Boundary setting
- Clear work hours and protected family time or non-work time (e.g. no email after a certain hour).
- Negotiate expectations with your team. After-hours load: 55+ hours/week is linked with higher heart and stroke risk. Reducing extreme hours protects health.
- Gradually experimenting with micro-breaks and tech-free spaces to show your nervous system that switching off is survivable.
- Time-boxing and focus timers; website blockers; sleep trackers.
- Values clarification
- Reconnecting with values beyond productivity (health, relationships, creativity, community) so that you have something to move towards, not just away from overwork.
Psychological therapies
Evidence for work-specific treatment is emerging, but existing research and clinical experience support:
- Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT)
- Identifying beliefs like “My worth = my work”, “If I stop, everything will fall apart”.
- Challenging perfectionism and all-or-nothing thinking.
- Behavioural experiments: testing what actually happens when you set limits or take time off.
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Learning to sit with difficult feelings (emptiness, guilt, anxiety) without automatically escaping into work.
- Committing to small, values-based actions outside of work.
- Schema-focused or psychodynamic therapy
- For deeper patterns around self-worth, approval, or fear of abandonment that fuel the need to “earn” your place through work.
- Couples / family work
- Repairing trust and renegotiating roles when overwork has strained relationships.
Medication
There is no medication specifically approved for “work addiction”. However, treating co-occurring conditions (e.g. depression, anxiety, ADHD, bipolar disorder) with appropriate medication can indirectly reduce compulsive overwork.
Medication decisions should always be made with a qualified prescriber who understands your full health picture and work context.
Organisational and cultural change
Because work addiction is partly socially rewarded, prevention and recovery are easier when workplaces and cultures:
- Model healthy boundaries from leadership.
- Avoid glorifying overwork and “always on” availability.
- Provide realistic workloads and psychological safety for setting limits.
Work Addiction Research
Recent work on work addiction highlights that:
- It is strongly linked with distress in social and family functioning, not just hours worked – meta-analysis finds consistent associations with poorer family relationships, partnership conflict and reduced social life.
- Personality research suggests that perfectionism, conscientiousness, neuroticism and certain personality-organisation factors may increase vulnerability and make work addiction more persistent.
- While debate continues over classification, most experts agree that only gambling and gaming should currently be formal behavioural addictions in ICD-11. At the same time, excessive work is better conceptualised as a problematic pattern linked to personality, culture and organisational factors – at least until stronger evidence accumulates.
- A 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis of 53 samples found a pooled workaholism prevalence of about 14–15% in working populations, depending on the measurement scale used.
- Work addiction is consistently associated with higher stress and lower quality of life, even after accounting for long working hours.
- It appears more common in certain sectors (e.g. healthcare, finance, academia, tech, self-employed/founders), and in some studies is more prevalent in men – though women may carry heavier caregiving loads on top, which amplifies harm.
These are estimates, but they suggest a sizeable group of people whose relationship with work is quietly doing real damage.
Books and Resources on Work Addiction
- Chained to the Desk: A Guidebook for Workaholics, Their Partners and Children. Bryan E. Robinson. A classic text explaining workaholism, its impact on families and workplaces, and practical strategies for spotting, understanding and recovering from it.
- Working Ourselves to Death: The High Cost of Workaholism and the Rewards of Recovery. Diane Fassel. Explores the psychological and physical costs of workaholism and offers a recovery-oriented perspective on reconnecting with life beyond work.
- Work Won’t Love You Back – Sarah Jaffe. Not a clinical book, but a thoughtful look at how modern labour expectations and “do what you love” culture can foster overwork and burnout.
- “Work addiction” chapter in the Cambridge Handbook of Substance and Behavioral Addictions. Reviews conceptual debates, risk factors, and prevention and treatment strategies from a clinical and research standpoint.
