What is Burnout?
Burnout and Addiction
Creating Burnout
How Burnout Leads to Relapse
Burnout and addiction can often go hand in hand. Being burnt can lead to a lack of motivation which could include the motivation to stay sober. If someone has experienced addiction in the past, they will be more prone to relapse if they feel burnt out by other things in their life, such as work.
How Stimulants Seem to Help with Burnout
How Stimulants Actually Contribute to Burnout and Addiction
Symptoms of Burnout
Anger
Someone feeling burnt may also experience anger. They may lash out or feel resentment towards others. This can be one of the signs of burnout, especially if they feel like their sacrifices aren’t being recognized or may feel people don’t understand what they’re going through.
Self-Criticism
Self-criticism is also common when someone is feeling burnt. When someone is overworked, they may fall short of many of their goals they were supposed to complete. This can lead to self-criticism of their work or the fact that they didn’t complete what they were supposed to. This negative attitude can lead to expressing a lot of negativity in regular day to day life. This can also lead to a lot of resentment towards the situation.
Mood Swings
All of this can result in hair-trigger emotions or many mood swings. Someone who is burnt out may not feel like they can control their emotions, may lash out for no reason, and may make many emotional or irrational decisions.
Who Gets Burnout?
Managers and Executives
People in Competitive Jobs
Students
Teachers
Caregivers
Doctors
Doctor burnout and addiction can happen often as doctors have many expectations. Doctor burnout can be very troublesome as they are caring for and helping patients with medical issues every day.
Nurses
Nurse burnout and addiction can also occur. Nurses have many expectations and will often have many patients and many things they must do throughout the day. Nursing is a very tough career and nurse burnout must be managed as it can become overwhelming quickly.
Moms
Mom burnout and addiction can also occur at times. Mom burnout is often caused by a mother having many things on her plate and maybe feeling like she has nobody to help out. Raising a child is tough and moms have many expectations they must also manage throughout the day.
Stages of Burnout
Frustration
The first stage of being burnt out is often frustration. Someone may feel overwhelmed or overburdened with many expectations and become frustrated with their situation.
Anger
The next stage is anger. Someone in this stage may unexpectedly lash out or feel resentment towards others for not understanding what they’re going through.
Apathy
This stage revolves around a lack of interest, motivation, or concern. When someone gets to this stage, they may be showing many of the signs of being burnt out.
Burnout
There are many signs of burnout that you would see at this stage. Some symptoms include disinterest, lack of motivation, mood swings, frustration, and anger.
Withdrawal
The withdrawal stage occurs when someone begins to withdraw from their normal day to day activities. They will be experiencing many of the signs of burnout, may turn to drug use to try to self-medicate, and friends and family might see this and become concerned.
Self-Knowledge
The self-knowledge stage is when someone begins to become aware of the burnout and the symptoms they are experiencing. They may look for help such as therapy to try to stop being burnt out.
Recovery
The recovery stage is when someone begins to overcome their burnout symptoms and may begin to fully return to their everyday activities. Their well-being and lifestyle will improve, but they will want to be aware of the signs of being burnt so they can prevent it from re-occurring.
Treating Burnout and Addiction
Stress Reduction
An important part of managing burnout is reducing stress. Doing things like rewarding activities after work can help you practice detachment from those responsibilities and decompress. Living a healthy lifestyle by doing things like eating healthy and exercising can be very beneficial for stress reduction. And lastly, work burnout can be common, so creating strong boundaries between work and personal life can also be beneficial to reduce stress and make responsibilities easier to manage.
Therapy
While reducing stress is the first step, attending therapy or talking to a medical professional may be a good idea to help create a recovery plan. Therapy may provide insights in how you became burnt and how to avoid feeling burnt in the future.
Treating Burnout and Addiction
If someone is experiencing both burnout and addiction, treating both will be necessary to improve their mental health and well-being. Burnout and addiction can often go hand in hand, so getting the necessary therapy and rehab for both will be important. If you are experiencing both burnout and addiction, checking into a treatment center or rehabilitation facility may be a good option. A treatment center will provide therapy, detox services, and help you improve behavioral patterns to avoid burnout and addiction in the future.
- https://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/burnout-prevention-and-recovery.htm#:~:text=Burnout%20is%20a%20state%20of,by%20excessive%20and%20prolonged%20stress
- http://www.clarkgaither.com/how-job-burnout-is-related-to-alcohol-and-other-drug-abuse/
- https://hbr.org/1996/07/when-executives-burn-out
