Russ got suspended from high school when he was sixteen years old and eventually found employment at a local landfill. For the past six years he has gained a reputation as a hard-working and reliable person who almost never calls off work due to sickness.

Nearly four months ago he started dating a young woman named Emma. They seemed to get along real well immediately and gave people the impression that they had a lot of fun with one another.

The Hazardous Drinking Begins

When Russ met Emma, he almost never drank. This circumstance totally changed when they began seeing each other on a regular basis. If truth be told, their relationship was going great until Emma called Russ one night around 4:30 AM and said that she had to call off their relationship and that she couldn’t explain the reason at that moment.

The next morning before he went to work, Russ drove to Emma’s apartment and found out almost immediately that she had already moved out. Russ took this extremely hard. Actually, he was astounded because they appeared to be getting along so very well.

When Abusive and Hazardous Drinking Leads to Work Problems

So what did Russ do about Emma’s departure? Instead of working through his pain, he began getting inebriated just about every night. It didn’t take long for his buddies at work or for his boss to notice that Russ was coming to work late at least once per week and that he constantly called off sick. Moreover, some of his fellow employees made an appointment with staff in the HR Department and mentioned that Russ often came to work with a strong smell of alcohol on his clothes or on his breath.

Russ’s boss heard about all of this from Human Resources and also from Russ’s fellow employees. So one Monday morning he called Russ into his office. He told Russ that he had recently noticed an extreme change in his attendance, behavior, work performance, and in his sick time.

When a Manager Can Encourage a Worker to Get Help For His or Her Hazardous and Heavy Drinking

Russ’s manager also articulated that a number of his co-workers reported him to Human Resources because he had been coming to work with a noticeable smell of alcohol. His manager then stated the following: “Russ, your co-workers are not reporting you to the Human Resources Department to get you into any trouble or because they dislike you but rather because they are concerned about you. And I care too. I don’t want to pry into your life outside this company, but it seems very clear that you are displaying some of the common signs and symptoms of a drinking problem. Consequently, I want you to go and see a psychologist in the employee’s assistance program to discuss your drinking behavior and your depression.”

“Russ, I’m no doctor or a counselor, but I have seen several of my friends and relatives experience some very negative alcohol side effects. Furthermore, I have also experienced the signs of alcoholism first-hand in my own family. When people suffer from problems with drinking, these issues not only affect the drinker, but they also make an impact on his or her relatives, neighbors, co-workers, family, and friends.”

Russ respected his boss quite a lot and as a consequence followed through with his recommendation the very next day when he called and scheduled an appointment with someone in the employee’s assistance program.

Russ is Still Depressed But Experiences Some Hope That He Will Get His Life Back on Track

Even though Russ didn’t automatically feel any better or less depressed about the loss of Emma, he felt some comfort knowing that his boss and his fellow employees wanted what’s best for him and cared about him. This gave him some psychological relief for the first time in a number of weeks and he actually felt some hope that he would get his life back on track.