Companies Must Break 'Conspiracy of Silence' on Addiction

Bob Poznanovich, a former Chicago, Ill., computer-sales executive who fell from the corporate ladder because of a cocaine addiction, says companies need to break "the conspiracy of silence" that surrounds addiction and learn more about workers' addiction problems and how to address them.

Poznanovich said company officials, colleagues, and customers knew about his drug problem, but nobody confronted him. The company let him go as part of a job-restructuring effort.

Poznanovich now heads a company that provides people and businesses with guidance in addiction crises.

While many companies promote drug-free workplaces, a survey of human-relations officers at U.S. firms found that more than half were not aware of how to identify an addiction-related problem. Furthermore, more than one-third didn't know how to get treatment for addicted workers, while one-quarter said their companies preferred firing someone rather than getting them help.

"We've had companies tell us that addiction isn't their problem, so why bother," said William Moyers, a spokesman for the Hazelden Foundation, a Minnesota-based addiction-research organization that conducted the survey.

Part of the problem, said Moyers, is that the image of an addicted person doesn't match reality. "When somebody like me has a problem, people dismiss it because they can't imagine that somebody of my reputation or last name could have the problem," said Moyers, a recovering addict and son of legendary TV journalist Bill Moyers.

Bill Heffernan, co-president of Employee Resources System Inc., a Chicago-based company, said many employers would rather not deal with addicted workers. "I hear it all the time. I see it all the time. And it drives me wild," Heffernan said. "People say, 'I have an employee who is a drug addict and I'm waiting for him to get caught in the drug test.' I say, 'If you have a problem, deal with it.'"

Most experts agree that workplace interventions can be effective. "I've never had a person refuse treatment if his job was on the line," said Marguerite Phelps, a Chicago-area drug and alcohol counselor.

But Dr. Joseph Flaherty, head of the psychiatry department at the University of Chicago at Illinois, said part of the problem is that many company officials aren't familiar with intervention. "I frequently get calls from physicians' families. They call me because they want to know what they should do. And when I say intervention, they say, 'How can we do it?' Most people, left on their own, just don't know what to do."

Source: www.jointogether.org