May 2007

 

Mom's dress, Dad's tie … and of course, Grandpa's bottle of whisky

Prom season is quickly approaching. A time when senior students at secondary schools get dressed up, pay inflated prices for limos, burn through photo memory cards, and generally drink alcohol at dangerous levels.

The Ontario Student Drug Use Survey [PDF] shows us that the majority of secondary school students are drinking alcohol, and almost 1 in 5 students are drinking at hazardous levels (defined as increasing the likelihood of future medical and physical problems). Further, as grade level increases, so does the likelihood of hazardous drinking, with an increase of 30% as students move from grade 7 to 12.

This rings true more so in Northwestern Ontario (City of Thunder Bay, District of Thunder Bay and Kenora-Rainy River) than the rest of the province, especially around prom season.

"We often have deaths around grad and prom time with young people celebrating at camp or an outside party and then driving back to town … usually impaired" says Patricia Hajdu of the Thunder Bay District Health Unit. "For the past several years that I can remember, kids have died through grad celebrations from drinking and driving."

Not necessarily a surprise considering the rates of drinking for Northwestern Ontario where students demonstrate a greater proclivity for alcohol use than the rest of the province, as shown in the Student Drug Use in Northwestern Ontario Survey Results [PDF], headed up by the Thunder Bay District Health Unit. Northwestern Ontario students are 54% more likely to report binge drinking in the last four weeks, 76% more likely to report hazardous drinking, and 84% more likely to report drinking and driving. In general, Northwestern Ontario students report significantly higher and more dangerous levels of drinking [PDF] than the rest of Ontario.

Local Public Health units offer prom and grad programs such as "Safe Prom" or "Party in the Right Spirit", while MADD Canada has similar presentations such as Mind Control, encouraging students to party safe, consume small amounts of alcohol or none at all, and plan in advance for a safe ride home.

Working 9-5 … under the influence

Alcohol-dependent people are everywhere … including your workplace.

"Everyone has this impression that your drunk is the guy you see wandering down Yonge Street with a brown paper bag", says Greg Howse, Executive Director for Simcoe Outreach Services, a Barrie-based agency for local residents struggling with substance abuse and excessive gambling. "Well that's just so much baloney," he adds.

Functioning alcoholics fill today's workplaces in surprising numbers as recent studies suggest that most addicts are employed full-time and continue to work long after their addiction has begun to wreak havoc in other areas of their lives. Of the approximate 2,000 referrals Simcoe Outreach Services receives each year, it is estimated that almost 90% of them are people in full-time positions.

Warning signs of using substances in the workplace may include:

• Routinely arrives late or leaves early
• Frequent or long disappearances from the work site
• Misses appointments
• Frequent sick days or unexplained absences
• Procrastination, pattern of missed deadlines
• Phone calls are not returned promptly
• Decline in productivity or hours worked
• Doesn't pay attention and forgets things easily
• Unusual mood swings
• Evidence of depression and/or anxiety
• Client complaints about performance, accessibility, communication
• Gradual deterioration in appearance, hygiene, health
• Dishonest, manipulative

So why should employers care?

Well … besides personnel health and safety … it costs money. One in ten full-time employees abuse alcohol or drugs on the job, and alcohol specifically accounts for about $14.6 billion in costs in Canada. Broken down, this amounts to approximately $7.1 billion for lost productivity due to illness and premature death [PDF], $3.3 billion in direct health care costs, and $3.1 billion in law enforcement costs.

Further, it affects productivity. As identified by the Canadian Centre of Substance Abuse and American Chronicle, abusing substances can have a number of impacts in the workplace, including but not limited to:

• Reduced job performance — abusers are 35% less productive than unimpaired workers
• Job turn-over (e.g., loss of experienced employees/corporate memory, severance, recruitment, and orientation costs)
• Legal liabilities associated with accidents and injuries — on-the-job substance use account for 15 to 30% of all accidents at work
• Increased sick leave or other employee health benefit costs
• Disruptive behaviour and declining work relationships — 41% of the workers surveyed stated that the drug abuse of fellow employees seriously affected their own job productivity
• Pilfering and vandalism
• Grievances and arbitrations

As a result, employers are coming to understand that they must implement and enforce a comprehensive drug and alcohol policy to protect themselves, their company, their other employees, and their patrons, as well as the general public. Such a policy needs to include an appropriate process for dealing with substance issues in the workplace. The College of Registered Nurses identifies four key steps [PDF] in dealing with such a problem:

1. Identification - Assess your colleague on the basis of the indicators of problematic substance use.
2. Documentation - Prior to reporting a situation to your manager, it is important to have accurate, objective (factual) documentation of your observations.
3. Reporting - When speaking with your manager, focus on specific issues related to your colleague's job performance, patient care, and/or interpersonal communications.
4. Following up - After documenting and reporting your observations, you have a responsibility to ensure that the manager has addressed the situation.

Under the Ontario Human Rights Code, employers can't discriminate against someone with a disability, and both addiction and alcoholism are deemed as such. Therefore, Bill Wilkerson, co-founder and chief executive officer of the Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Addiction and Mental Health, a Toronto-based not-for-profit corporation that educates companies about the link between business, the economy, mental health, addiction and work, suggests employers should approach employees and offer them a chance to either seek help or get better on their own.

"If the person's worth saving, then you go the mile with them but you have to weigh it out", suggests Mr. Wilkerson. "If (the person) is no good for your business and (they don't) want help, then you have to let (them) go," he concludes.