--- title: "How to Help a Workaholic Who Won't Listen" date: 2026-10-28T11:40 author: Julien Reszka description: "Telling a workaholic to slow down rarely works. It is literally one of the symptoms. Here is what the research says helps instead." keywords: ["work", "well-being", "relationships", "mental health"] canonical: https://julienreszka.com/blog/how-to-help-a-workaholic-who-won-t-listen/ --- # How to Help a Workaholic Who Won't Listen Telling a workaholic to slow down rarely works. It is literally one of the symptoms. Here is what the research says helps instead. You have told them to slow down. They agree, they promise this is just a busy stretch, and then they open the laptop after dinner again. If that sounds familiar, you have run into the symptom itself. The [Bergen Work Addiction Scale](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140814123838.htm), one of the most widely used measures of workaholism, includes this item: you have been told by others to cut down on work without listening to them. Being told is part of the pattern. Workaholism is not the same as long hours. People who love their work and can stop when they want are engaged, not addicted. Workaholics work because they feel they have to, and feel guilty or anxious when they do not. The Bergen scale also asks about stress when prevented from working, dropping hobbies and exercise for work, and working to reduce feelings of guilt, anxiety, helplessness or depression. In a nationally representative Norwegian sample, about 8.3 percent of workers scored as workaholics. The work is not even paying off. A [2016 meta-analysis](https://ca.news.yahoo.com/workaholism-is-really-bad-for-you-134834119.html) by Malissa Clark and colleagues found workaholism unrelated to job performance but linked to burnout, job stress, work-life conflict and worse physical health. Even raw hours stop paying off past a point, as I covered in [why you are likely working too much](https://julienreszka.com/blog/you-re-likely-working-too-much/). The people around a workaholic pay too: in a [survey by Bryan Robinson](https://www.psychologytoday.com/za/blog/the-right-mindset/202010/wedded-to-work), spouses of workaholics reported far more estrangement, emotional withdrawal and thoughts of separation. To help, you need to know what the work is doing for them. In a [2016 survey of 16,426 workers](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160525084547.htm), workaholics were far more likely to meet the criteria for other conditions than everyone else: - Anxiety: 33.8 percent, against 11.9 percent - ADHD: 32.7 percent, against 12.7 percent - Obsessive compulsive disorder: 25.6 percent, against 8.7 percent - Depression: 8.9 percent, against 2.6 percent The study cannot say which comes first, but for many workaholics, work is the one place where the anxiety goes quiet. Asking them to stop working is asking them to give up the thing that calms them, without offering anything in its place. That is also why lecturing backfires. In a [classic 1993 study of problem drinkers](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8326047/), William Miller and colleagues found that the more a counselor confronted a client, the more that client was drinking a year later. People defend the habit you attack. They examine the habit you ask them about. So here is what tends to work better: - Talk about what you see and feel, not their hours: "I miss our dinners" lands better than "you work too much" - Ask what happens when they stop working, then listen for the guilt or anxiety underneath - Ask questions that let them argue for change themselves, like what they would do with a free Saturday - Plan time that makes work hard to think about: sport, friends, a trip, phones in another room - Agree on rules together, like no laptop after nine, instead of imposing them - Help them find a workplace that rewards their results, not their hours, if theirs does not - If you manage them, judge output instead of presence, and stop sending messages at night That fourth point matters more than it looks. Sabine Sonnentag and colleagues [followed 309 employees for a year](https://kops.uni-konstanz.de/entities/publication/8bde4312-e8eb-4216-ade2-8684f0763678) and found that mentally switching off from work during free time predicted less emotional exhaustion later. You can make it easier by filling their evening with something absorbing enough that work cannot get in. The last point is for managers, because most of them cannot tell hard work from the appearance of it. Erin Reid [interviewed 82 consultants](https://www.bu.edu/articles/2015/erin-reid-80-hour-work-week) at an elite strategy firm. Some men quietly worked far less while keeping up the image of total devotion, and they were rewarded with rave reviews and promotions, just like those who really did work 80 hour weeks. Those who openly asked for fewer hours were sidelined. If your reviews cannot separate the workaholic from someone faking it, then they reward visible overwork itself, and the workaholic on your team is just following the incentive. The workplace itself matters too. In a [study of 333 Dutch employees](https://www.wilmarschaufeli.nl/new-publication-are-workaholics-born-or-made/), Greta Mazzetti and colleagues found that conscientiousness and self-confidence were linked to workaholism only when people perceived an overwork climate at their job. The same talent that burns out in one office can thrive in another. If their workplace only rewards visible hours, helping them find one that rewards results may do more than any conversation. The people who cheer them on are part of the problem too. Every "I don't know how you do it," every boss who praises the midnight email, every parent who brags about how hard their child works makes the habit feel like a virtue. An overwork climate is built out of exactly these small rewards. If you are one of the voices praising the hours, stop. Praise what they finish, not how long it took, and notice out loud when they leave on time. Finally, be honest about your role. You cannot make someone work less, and nagging only turns you into one more demand they have to manage. But this is not only their business. Their absence lands on a partner, on children, and on the colleagues who absorb the fallout when they burn out. You are allowed to set terms: say what you need, what you will no longer accept, and what you will do if nothing changes. Then do it. A boundary you never enforce is just another lecture. --- **Actionable insight:** Stop telling a workaholic to work less. Name one specific thing you miss, ask what they feel when they stop working, and plan an evening that makes work impossible to think about. If nothing changes, say what you will do, then do it. ## Key figure **33.8%** — Workaholics who met the criteria for anxiety in a survey of 16,426 Norwegian workers, against 11.9% of everyone else *Source: Andreassen et al., PLOS ONE, 2016* ## Myth vs reality **Myth:** Workaholics are just extremely dedicated people, and all that extra work pays off in the end. **Reality:** A meta-analysis found workaholism unrelated to job performance, but tied to burnout, job stress, work-life conflict and worse health. *Source: Clark et al., Journal of Management, 2016* ## Quote > "I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber." > > — Blaise Pascal, French mathematician, on why people keep themselves busy *Source: Pensees, 139, translated by W. F. Trotter* ## Products I recommend Both free to try, no login needed. 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