Secretaries and Addiction
Secretaries and administrative professionals are a unique group of people with their own personal quirks, positive attributes and detriments. Not a lot of people are aware that secretaries as a profession are known to struggle with addiction. While their professions call for absolute composure and level-heads, their personal lives can be volatile, emotional, manic or out of control. Many veer towards addiction as an outlet for their wild side.
The administrative profession is still female dominated in most of the world, so many of the addictions that are common to the secretarial worker are also common to females in general. The most commonly observed addictions among secretaries are to sex, love, romance, alcohol, prescription medications and food. These types of addictions are thought of as comfort addictions rather than adrenaline addictions. Any type of addiction creates the brain chemical dopamine which tells a person they are experiencing pleasure, but some people find this pleasure through “uppers” and some people find it through “downers.”
If you believe that your personal secretary or a secretary who you know is an addict, you may be able to confirm this by watching for signs in their behavior. A secretary with a substance addiction will be secretive in the workplace and may look for reasons to escape temporarily. When they return, they may exhibit signs of consumption, such as the smell of alcohol on their breath or the presence of food matter on or around their mouth. Their behavior will have probably gone from agitated to relaxed, and common signs of intoxication will probably be a giveaway. If their addiction is more on the order of sex, love or romance, their behavior will come off completely different. They may flirt compulsively, develop feelings for coworkers or simply have abnormal emotional reactions over their workplace relationships.
If you or someone you know is a secretary who is struggling with addiction, it could be that rehabilitation or addiction counseling is the remedy. Take the first step and reach out for help today!