I was a work addict

This is how I overcame it.

I’ve known for a while that I am prone to both obsession and addiction. It’s something I should definitely explore more deeply in therapy, but I can see quite clearly when I’m chasing a high to avoid dealing with an unpleasant emotion. I get obsessive easily, enjoying pouring my attention into something so I don’t have to pay attention to just being. I really struggle to just be, and anything that allows me to not do that is all too tempting to reach for again and again.

It took me a while to recognise that this pattern could apply to work. But looking back, my emotional reliance on work was clear to see.

It started in university, when I first started getting shifts for writing online. The ability to work outside of an office, with just a laptop and an internet connection, allowed me to use writing whenever I needed. In a long-distance relationship with someone who had been unfaithful, I could squash down the anxiety of wondering if my partner was secretly flirting with someone else (again) by focusing in on writing essays for my degree, writing blog posts, writing articles for CollegeCandy. I got a job selling handbags to make more money (primarily to buy plane tickets to see then-boyfriend) and relished the enforced distance from my phone and my thoughts. You can’t be depressed if you’re busy learning how to use a till, I told myself. OCD symptoms? Can’t see them over this pile of articles I’m producing! Deep insecurity and self-loathing? Can’t hear you! I’m working!

Post-university, I got a job as a copywriter at Austin Reed (a now dead suit brand), but that wasn’t enough - and not just because it only paid £17.5k a year. I managed to get shifts writing for Cosmopolitan.co.uk and so took as many as I could get my hands on. Most weekdays I bolted from the office to catch the train back to my parents’ house with five minutes to spare before bashing out six articles in three hours, refusing to pause for dinner eaten up in my bedroom. Weekends: more shifts! None of this seemed problematic, for a few reasons: first off, I really, genuinely enjoyed those shifts (writing for Cosmo was so much fun), secondly it seemed like the right thing to be doing in order to build towards a full-time journalism career, and thirdly I was getting endless praise for my hard work and dedication.

Plus, it paid off! I got a full-time job at Metro, knocking up 12 articles a day. It took more than a year to quit doing the Cosmo and CollegeCandy shifts in the evenings and on the weekends, and when I did, suddenly I had a gaping hole where the work used to be. The depression and OCD I’d been running from caught up with me and hit hard. I had broken up with the cheating boyfriend at this point and instead chased the high of approval from a man who refused to commit. On the evenings when he was distant I crashed into the lows hard. I traded the unreliable high for one I could control: work.

At Metro, I let work completely consume me. I worked late most days, wanting to avoid the misery of going home and being alone with my thoughts. Watching the live traffic reports and seeing something I’d written rising up the charts became a new obsession. I hunted down that thrill by writing more content, above the required seven a day to hit, ten, 11, 12, 13. I wrote controversial opinion pieces that I knew would enrage people, because the page views seemed worth the inevitable hate. I got vulnerable, in part because that felt like a sense of purpose (I’ve always written to connect with people, to make strangers feel less weird and alone) but also because seeing the number of shares a piece received hit like a drug.

I want to be clear here that I loved that job. I loved and continue to love writing online content and I will always look back fondly on those days at Metro where you could write about why sourdough toast sucks and rally against the orgasm gender gap. The issue wasn’t the job, it wasn’t online journalism, it was my approach to it. The problem was that I was attacking work with an addict brain, sacrificing sleep and downtime for the thrill of being consumed by something separate from myself. I couldn’t switch off. When I wasn’t working, I was thinking about work. If I wasn’t thinking about work, I was spiralling.

And again, this approach was rewarded. It felt good (because, I repeat: I really enjoyed writing for Metro!) and I had that glow of praise and admiration. The job didn’t exactly encourage a healthy approach to work, either. I remember going to the cinema once and coming out of the film to a barrage of messages asking why I wasn’t responding to an email and making edits on a piece. When I explained that I’d been watching a film, the reaction was… not good. I should have stayed late. I shouldn’t have had my phone on silent. The role gave bonuses based on monthly traffic. People on the news desk loudly cheered when they hit a personal record of how many articles they’d published that day. Editors questioned why someone would dare to take the entirety of their lunch hour. The message was clear: here, being addicted to work, working yourself to the bone, obsessing over success, all these were only good things.

The thing with work addiction is the same as the thing with binge eating. You can’t just go cold turkey. With other substances, the path to recovery is clear: avoid at all costs. Delete your dealer’s number. If you’re in a situation where the substance appears, leave. But you need to eat and you need to work. And while I considered quitting journalism and doing something different, I truly adore writing and editing. I couldn’t give that up. So instead, the answer was this: I needed to change my approach. I needed to go from work addiction to enjoying work in moderation.

I can confidently say today that I’m not in active work addiction. I’m in the sweet spot of loving what I do without being obsessed. I can close my laptop. I can spend a weekend doing something other than work. I leave work on time. How did I get here? With a few key steps.

I realised there is no end to work

Online journalism is a tricky beast because there is no natural end to it. There’s no limit to how much you can publish, how many more views you can get. Most work is like this: when one project ends, another one begins, the cycle is never-ending, there will always be more to be done, the work is never complete. Previously, a lot of my overworking was in pursuit of a finish line that kept getting further and further away. I realised that I was never going to hit that finish line. It didn’t exist. With no clear end point, I needed to make my own.

I started medication

I was using work to avoid dealing with depression and OCD. After trying to push down both issues for years, it was time to get some proper help. I went to my GP and was put on fluoxetine, which I still take now (with some stop and starts). It is genuinely miraculous what an impact this medication has.

I went to therapy

I’m not currently in therapy (I’d like to be, but it’s so expensive and I’ve struggled to find a therapist who’s the right fit) but when I started taking medication I also attended counselling sessions, and I was surprised by how large a portion of the sessions was spent discussing work. My counsellor didn’t fully understand the ins and outs of online journalism, which was part of the reason she wasn’t the right fit, but she encouraged me to put some much needed distance between the job and my sense of self.

I recognised I’m more than my job

My work is a big part of who I am, but it’s not all I am. Investing time and mental energy in stuff outside of my job has been immensely helpful in allowing me to break unhealthy working patterns. I’m a writer and editor, sure, but I’m also someone who cares for a little cat called Babka. I enjoy woodworking. I like to read. I’m a good partner.

I started other projects

Similarly, having other projects I can be fiddling with when the urge to overwork strikes has been crucial. For a summer I was working on making a table. Now my partner and I have bought a house, and I’m loving time spent painting and decorating. I’m writing fiction (yes, you could say this is also work, but this, too, allows me to make my main job not my entire being).

I got a different job

I had started to work at Metro in a healthier way after taking in Babka (aforementioned cat), but really, to fully get out of the state of work addiction, I needed to move to a workplace where that behaviour wasn’t rewarded. When I left Metro, one leaving speech in my honour joked that I’d engaged in ‘quiet quitting’, which sums up the culture - it didn’t matter that I’d spent seven and a half years working flat out, it didn’t matter that my hours had been 6am to 3pm and that I worked the majority of weekends, it didn’t matter that the month prior I had learned to recognise more than 70 of the Queen’s brooches in case someone wore one to the funeral, I was still seen as having ‘quiet quit’ because… I don’t even know, because I left work on time? Because I took a 40-minute lunch break? No clue.

Anyway, I now work at Stylist, where I’m told to go home if I’m in the office 15 minutes after I’m supposed to have finished. We have Bank Holidays off and my manager encourages ‘reset days’. In my one-on-ones I’m encouraged to speak up if I ever get overwhelmed, and the positive feedback I receive isn’t based on the sheer quantity of articles written or hours worked, but on my ideas, my writing, the quality of my work. I adore my job… just in a healthier, more stable way.

I realised there’s a difference between love and obsession

For a long time I thought that if I didn’t obsess over work, I wasn’t really caring. I thought my options were either work addiction or being completely shut off; a clock-watcher who saw work only as a means to an end. What I’ve learned over the past few years is that I can still care deeply about what I do, but I don’t have to destroy myself in pursuit of it.

I got strict on boundaries

I’m not going to reply to your email on the weekend. I’m not going to use a day off to ‘catch up’ on work. If I’m on holiday, my work laptop remains at home. I recognise that I need these boundaries to make sure my relationship with work remains healthy, so I’m strict on knowing what these are and strict on enforcing them.

I got real about what I want

What do I really want to achieve in my life? What do I want to get out of this job? Why am I doing it? Asking these questions is vital. And for me, it’s helped to detangle myself from work addiction. I now approach work in a much more strategic way, mindful of the ultimate long-term goals. This means I don’t get so bogged down in the smaller stuff. With everything I do, I now ask how this is contributing to my overall sense of purpose. The things that aren’t, I don’t have to care too much about.

Work-related reading recs:

• Great piece on Stylist about ‘goalposting’ at work

• Interesting article on the differences between working from home attitudes in the US vs Europe

• Loved this interview with a man whose job is testing water

• Josh O’Connor seems to have a very healthy attitude to working as an actor