WFH fuelling drug and alcohol abuse, warns top mental health boss

Daily Mail​

8 hours ago

Working from home can increase the risk of drug abuse and alcoholism, the head of the world's most expensive mental health clinic has warned.
Jan Gerber, founder of Paracelsus Recovery in Zurich, Switzerland, where treatment plans start at £61,000 and clients include royalty and Hollywood celebrities, said people resisting a return to the office in the belief that remote working helped their mental health 'may actually suffer' in the long term.
He says office working and talking with colleagues encourages the body to release oxytocin, a hormone that reduces stress and anxiety. By contrast, people working from home risked suffering 'prolonged isolation' and blurring the lines between their professional and personal lives, fuelling stress.
This can then result in habits such as drug-taking or excessive drinking to soothe the 'disconnection' from others caused by long periods of working alone at a computer, Gerber said.
'This disconnection can trigger a need to self-soothe, often with alcohol. The absence of regular social structure and blurred professional boundaries – for example, knowing you only have a 12pm meeting the next day – makes it easier to fall into harmful habits,' he added.
A Norwegian study showed that people who worked from home for more than 15 hours a week were inclined to drink more alcohol than their office-based counterparts.
Another survey from 2021 by drug recovery firm Sierra Tucson reported 20 per cent of US workers admitted to using alcohol, marijuana or other recreational drugs while working from home.
'Working in an office is a significantly healthier choice for mental well-being,' Gerber said. He added: 'Workers who are resisting a return to the office, perhaps believing remote working gives them a better work-life balance and is good for their mental health, should be aware that in the long term, their mental health may actually suffer.'
The warnings come as many British workers refuse to return to the office following a boom in remote working during the pandemic.
In May, research from King's College London revealed that Britons worked from home more than the workforce of any other country in Europe, with the average white-collar worker spending 1.8 days a week working outside the office.
It followed a study from the university revealing that fewer than half of British employees said they would comply if their employer ordered them back to the office full-time, with 10 per cent saying that they would quit immediately.
Concerns are growing that large numbers of people still working from home are damaging critical parts of the UK economy and Government. A scathing report into the UK's Office for National Statistics revealed that the agency's policy of allowing staff to work from home five days a week was making the quality of crucial economic data less reliable.
It means bodies such as the Bank of England are having to rely on other types of data to make critical decisions on interest rates, which affect millions of mortgage borrowers.