Workaholism: 7 signals that work stopped being a passion and became a compulsion

Culture rewards workaholism like no other addiction: nobody brags on LinkedIn about alcohol abuse, but "I worked until 2 a.m." collects likes. Meanwhile researchers (Andreassen et al., 2012) describe workaholism in exactly the same language as other behavioural addictions.

Seven signals from the components model

1. Salience: work occupies your thoughts at dinner and before sleep. 2. Tolerance: you need ever more hours to feel the day was "enough". 3. Mood regulation: you work to quiet anxiety or guilt. 4. Relapse: you promise to cut back and slip into the old hours. 5. Withdrawal: without work you are irritable and restless. 6. Conflict: people close to you bring it up more and more. 7. Costs: sleep, movement and relationships keep losing ground to work.

Engagement is not the same

The key differentiator is the engine: the engaged person works from pleasure and can stop; the workaholic works from fear and cannot. So "I work a lot" alone settles nothing — what counts is what you feel when you are NOT working.

What next

Take the test — 10 questions show how many components of behavioural addiction are already active in you. High score? Start with one non-negotiable boundary (e.g. work ends at 6 p.m. two days a week) and observe what you feel. If the anxiety is strong — that is valuable information and a good topic for a conversation with a professional.