EMPLOYERS WORK TO CURE ADDICTIONS

Positive Attitude Necessary To Help Workers Find Support And Recover

A once-efficient employee who now misses deadlines. Erratic behaviour.
Fluctuations in weight, grooming and appearance.

While such signs may indicate a stressed-out employee, addiction experts
say it could also signify a deeper personal battle with drugs or alcohol.

One director of an Ottawa policy think tank has noticed less public
attention on substance abuse in the past few years, a marked change from
the early nineties when Statistics Canada commissioned annual drug surveys.
The result, he says, is a hole of statistical information on how many
Canadians are struggling with abuse in the workplace.

"Since the mid-nineties, rates of use among young people have been
climbing. We need to have these numbers to see if we're going to have a
mini-crisis on our hands," says Richard Garlick, communications director
for the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse. "When adolescents start
experimenting with drug use in high school and university, they certainly
carry these behaviours into young adulthood and into the workplace."

What's also changed in the past 10 years is the prevalence of employee
assistance programs, which help organizations deal with internal workplace
issues such as addictions and stress.

"Companies realize it's more profitable to support a worker through
recovery instead of just firing them and having to retrain someone new,"
says Dennis James, director of clinical operations at the Centre for
Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto.

But employee assistance programs (EAP) were not common enough in the 1980s
to help nurse Don Crocock, a recovered cocaine addict, from his own
personal hell.

During the eighties and early nineties, he would spend lunch breaks from
his industrial manufacturing job in St. Catharines drinking and getting
high. "I'd head off to a bar and drink a bit and score cocaine there. I
never did it at home because I had a wife and kid," says Mr. Crocock, who
would often skip off the rest of the day. Today, with the support of his
wife, he has been clean since 1993, the same year he started his own union
assistance program, after realizing that others could benefit from his
experiences.

He and other EAP professionals believe positive attitudes toward substance
abuse are necessary for people to find the support and resources they need
to recover.

Angelina Chiu is a Toronto-based workplace consultant who helps companies
place addicts in appropriate rehabilitation programs and reintegrate them
into the workplace.

"The workplace has made tremendous strides in understanding and helping
their employees. Before, it was like, 'You're outta here' if you admit to
having substance abuse problems," say Ms. Chiu, who worked for the CAMH for
20 years. "Now they [companies] understand that it's an illness. People
with addiction illness are coming out because they know they will be
assisted and they know their job won't be jeopardized."

According to the latest alcohol and drugs survey, conducted in 1994, one in
four Canadians reported having used an illicit drug, cannabis being the
most popular, at least once in his or her lifetime.

A 1991 study commissioned by the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission
on addictions in the workplace found that 5.2 per cent of the province's
work force reported drinking during lunch and other breaks.

The study found that more than 60 per cent of Albertan organizations
responded to news of an employee's substance use with progressive
discipline -- ranging from warnings to suspensions and termination -- and
referrals to professional counselling or medical treatment. At least 46 per
cent said supervisors would provide counselling to troubled workers.

Mr. Crocock says, however, that many bridges still have to be crossed in
bringing substance abuse out into the open. He's made it his mission to
break down stereotypes of people with substance abuse problems.

"There are still ongoing stigmas . . . of substance abusers being
unemployable," says Mr. Crocock, who became a certified EAP professional in
1998 and won the CAMH Foundation's Courage to Come Back Award this year.
"One of the problems in the workplace is a proportion of people who still
look at substance abuse and addiction as a weakness of character and a lack
of moral fibre. I find it very, very distressing."

Tony Colangelo, vice-president of EAP and worklife solutions for FGI,
Canada's largest EAP provider, says many people who approach the company
for counselling programs are reluctant to admit a dark affair with
substance use. "They talk about stress or marital problems and then alcohol
may come up as a secondary issue," he says. Absenteeism is one of the most
common symptoms of a person with addiction problems, he adds.

In recent years, substance abuse counsellors have also noticed a growing
number of people with multiple addictions.

"Alcohol was and is by far the most widely used substance. The change that
has occurred over the past 20 years is people are using a more wide range
of substances," Mr. James says. "Today people use alcohol and they will use
tranquilizers, marijuana, cocaine" as well.