Books about Workaholics from Amazon.com

As seen on 20/20, The Early Show, and ABC World News Tonight

Praise for the first edition:

“Psychology professor and psychotherapist Bryan E. Robinson trains his practiced eyes on the workplace in Chained to the Desk. In chapters like “Treating Work Addiction as a Family Disease” and “The Childhoods of Workaholics,” Robinson begins with a case study and then explores the various beliefs, motivations and fears that propel people to overwork. This useful, well-tuned guide will serve therapists and the many people affected by the disease equally well.”
—Publishers Weekly

”The many revealing case studies, self-analysis tools, and the autho's personal story of his struggle with workaholism make for a thorough, solid package.”
—Library Journal

“Along with readable stories that illustrate the problems of work addiction, Robinson offers real information on how to remedy it. Once again he leads the way in treatment of this serious disorder, at a time when others continue to minimize it. An important resource for everyone concerned with the damage workaholism causes to self, family, and career.”
—Gayle Porter, Rutgers University

“Robinson manages to cut to the heart of so many of today's problems and offers practical suggestions for those of us who have suffered from work addiction. His book raises concern about the future of a nation that is chained to the desk, and for the children of parents who come home depleted and empty at the end of the day. A sober voice in a work-delirious culture.”
—Patricia Love, co-author of Hot Monogamy

“Workaholics, their families, friends, and colleagues will welcome this comprehensive guide book. Robinson approaches workaholism with pragmatic and effective strategies designed to overcome the resistance with which most workaholics greet attempts to change them. This is also the first book I know of to look closely at the effect of workaholism on family members and children, the people who often feel most strongly its effects.”
—John Bradshaw, author of Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child

Americans love a hard worker. The man or woman who works eighteen-hour days and eats his or her meals on the run between appointments is usually viewed with a combination of respect and awe. But for many, this lifestyle leads to family problems, a decline in work productivity, and ultimately to physical and mental collapse.

Chained to the Desk, best-selling author and widely respected family therapist Bryan E. Robinson's groundbreaking book, originally published in 1998, was the first comprehensive portrait of the workaholic. Thousands benefited from this innovative book, which profiles the myths behind this greatly misunderstood disorder and the inner psychological battle that work addicts wage against themselves. Intended for anyone touched by what Robinson calls “the best-dressed problem of the twenty-first century,” the author also provides an inside look into the impact on those who live and work with them — partners, spouses, children, and colleagues — as well as the appropriate techniques for clinicians who treat them.

In this new and updated edition, Robinson portrays the many different kinds of workaholism, drawing on hundreds of case reports from his own original research and years of clinical practice. From California to the Carolinas, men and women tell of their agonizing bouts with workaholism and the devastations left in its wake, struggles made all the more challenging in a world where the computer, cell phone, and Blackberry allow twenty-four-hour access to the office, even on weekends and from vacation spots. Adult children of workaholics describe their childhood pain and the lifelong legacies they still carry, and the spouses or partners of workaholics reveal the isolation and loneliness of their vacant relationships. Employers and business colleagues discuss the cost to the company when workaholism dominates the workplace.

Chained to the Desk both counsels and consoles. It provides a step-by-step guide to help readers spot workaholism, understand it, and recover. Robinson presents strategies for workaholics and their loved ones on how to cope, and for people in the workplace on how to distinguish between work efficiency and workaholism.

.
Price: $12.85 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Schaef and Fassel show how managers, workers, and organization members exhibit the classic symptoms of addiction: denying and avoiding problems, assuming that there is no other way of acting, and manipulating events to maintain the status quo..
Price: $3.75 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This is the first book on Work Addiction healing published for Workaholics by Workaholics The Workaholics Anonymous Book of Recovery is somewhat similar in style to that of the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book. As such, it includes a full format and instructions for leading a W.A. meeting as well as the 20 Questions about determining if workaholism is affecting your life. Also included are many members stories of experience, strength, and hope including a discussion on each of the 12 Steps of W.A. Near the back of the book you will find a lighter side of recovery section with a plethora of great slogans/memorable quotes allowing the reader to access serenity whilst the linear thinking intellect cannot help but take a break and laugh at itself. Although recovery from any addiction must, we believe, include face to face fellowship with others, this book is a comprehensive record of the healing and wisdom of many W.A.s all collected in one place. Recovery from any addiction is a fair amount of work but is much easier if you enlist others who have gone before you to help out. It is our hope that this book can be just that - an aid in conducting meetings as well as helping members with their individual recoveries. Key Phrases: workaholic, workaholics, work addiction, burn out, book of recovery, work anorexia, anorexia, procrastination, adrenaline, adrenaline seeking, 12th step.
Price: $15.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In her bestselling book, Dr. Barbara Killinger sheds new light on the emotional make-up of the workaholic and offers practical strategies to restore inner balance and gain quality of life

.
Price: $3.48 [Notify me when price goes down.]

When two people bring matching dysfunctional habits to a relationship, the possibilites for disaster multiply. And when the matching partner is not another person but an organization, those possibilites multiply yet again. This guide looks at employees' behaviors and how they can impede an organization's productivity, and it reveals how they can be addressed..
Price: $6.87 [Notify me when price goes down.]

At the end of the day, what really matters? Maybe it's been too long since you've asked yourself this question, because the workday is never-ending You just don't have time. Indeed, if you're like Jonathon Lazear was for years, you don't seem to have time for much of anything besides work.

More recently, Lazear, a blindingly successful entrepreneur, found himself lost, burnt out, and wondering, not for the first time, why. But this time he did an extraordinary thing: rather than sweep these uncertainties under his desk and get right back to work, he made time to ask some of the biggest, most important questions a man can ask, questions he'd been avoiding since he started his career. What really matters? What are you afraid of? What are your other dreams? Who are you if you aren't your title and your paycheck? How much money is enough money? When was the last time you took a vacation and left work behind, disconnected from your cell phone, e-mail, pager, fax, and all the other toys that tell you you're important? Gave someone you love a gift that cost more time than money? What would you do on a Saturday if you weren't at the office -- or keeping tabs on work from home? How will you reconnect with your family -- and face the fact that you checked out on your wife and kids for far too long? Not only did Lazear confront these hard questions, but with probing insight and deep sensitivity, he found some answers and took them to heart. And he wrote it all up so you can, too. No excuses.

So meet The Man Who Mistook His Job for a Life. Short and to the point (because no one knows better than he how busy you are), thoughtful and wise, yet eminently practical, this book will remind you what really matters, help you give up what you don't need, and reclaim what you do.

Do you know what you're missing? If you stopped to look at this book, then at least somewhere deep down you probably do. Or if you don't know exactly what, at least you sense that you're missing something. Certainly, your family and friends miss you. It's time to go home.

How do you end the workday -- or do you?

"As a man who mistook his job for a life, I have coped by remaining aloof, even silent. I have been an emotional isolationist, fleeing a real and imagined ever-present jury -- my coworkers, my peers, my family, my wife, even my children. Sometimes I felt combative and aggressive, but mostly I was lost, unfeeling, unresponsive. And like you, I felt like I didn't have a choice. Downsizing, rightsizing, and just plain career terror had me clinging to my job for dear life. If you've picked up this book, you're probably struggling with the same questions and doubts. Your job has become such a big part of your life that it dwarfs everything else. You've spun a web that defines you but also conceals you. It is your salvation and your damnation -- you're living inside the job and whether it makes you unhappy or fulfilled almost doesn't matter anymore, because 'choice' is not in the vocabulary of the man who mistakes his job for a life. What happened to the dreams that used to keep us going?"
-- From the Introduction.
Price: $23.15 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This exciting, revolutionary workbook, designed for anyone on a Twelve-Step-oriented recovery program, adapts beautifully to nearly all recovery programs. It presents the twelve steps in their original form, as well as in alternative, secular version, and offers exercises and suggestions for journal entries that include topics such as storytelling, dreams, confessions, and conflicts and resolutions..
Price: $11.55 [Notify me when price goes down.]