To feel like I really loathe this person at work sometimes?

[madonnawhore]

Bit of background: my mum was an alcoholic for most of my life until she eventually succeeded in drinking herself to death three years ago. I have lived with alcoholism up close and am unfortunately all too intimiately knowledgeable about the mechanisms of addicition, the intricacies of substance dependency and abuse, the aspects of mental illness, etc...

It's not something the sufferer has any control over, it's a disease, blah blah blah. I know all that.

However, there is a guy at work and I am pretty sure he is an alcoholic, albeit a functioning one. He very often smells of drink at 10am or 11am, or if not that early, every lunchtime he returns to the office smelling of booze. My nose is so attuned to it through years of living with a drinker that it actually nauseates me and brings back so many memories I feel surges of irrational rage towards this person. To the point where I sometimes fantasise about talking to my boss and getting him fired.

It's my issue right? I mean, if he has a problem with alcohol he needs help, not judgement; I of all people should know that.

The thing is, it's so raw for me I just can't help feeling so angry with him. AIBU to want to say something to my boss?

YABU.. but you know that already

YANBU for feeling angry though

I feel the same way about alcoholics and we have a couple of people at my place of work who are like this, but there's nothing you can do unless they're endangering somebody else.

Is he driving a car/other vehicle when he's smelling of booze?

I guess the question is whether his suspected (and that's all it is) drinking is affecting his work, if it is not, then it is not your business to go discussing it, though if I knew my boss very well, I might mention it in passing, in a 'have you noticed' kind of a way.

But the other stuff is all about you and you do need to keep it that way, even though I am sympathetic.

No he's not in charge of any machinery or driving a car or anything like that. No one is in danger because of it (except himself because of what he's doing to his liver).

I just hate the way it makes me feel when I smell booze on him. And he sometimes says things and acts in ways that my mum used to - the mannerisms of a drunk - and I just feel like I want him to disappear.

He sits three desks down from me and even then I can smell it.

Maybe I need to deal with my own anger through couselling or something rather than sitting here stewing with rage.

Would you mention a colleague's drink problem to your boss?

YABU wanting to have him fired because of your history, though i really sympathise. Whatever he does outside work is entirely his own choice. As long as he does his job it's no-one's business, regardless of the damage he's doing to himself and his personal life.

I worked with an alcoholic and he was a nightmare in the mornings until he'd he 11am pint... Then again I worked for an old-school tabloid so half the people there were functioning alcoholics.

It does also suggest you have some issues you still need to work through. I can imagine how upsetting it is for you though.

YANBU if he works for the police, in a hospital etc. But otherwise YABU..unless he drives a car.
I do get you though cos my mum's dad was alcoholic and now she can't stand alcohol / drunkeness. At family parties it has to be low alcohol wine. Her views on addiction are v hardline so she finds it hard to understand me + DSis who have slight 'issues'.

There was a guy I used to work with who was like this. He absolutely STANK of booze after lunch - he'd take long lunches too, he was in facilities so nobody in management particularly noticed him being away from his desk for a bit longer because he was based in teh satellite office and there was a "main" office down the road so he had to be back and forth a bit anyway.

He had been spoken to about stinking of booze and was on a verbal warning about that eventually - he got fired though, when they realised he'd used about £7k worth of taxis at the firm's expense. He'd do this probably so that he wasn't drink driving. Or perhaps through laziness. Or the fact that he was sleeping with all the finance girls and the secretaries. At one point he had about 3 on the go! He wasn't even good looking - he was one of the worst type of sleezbags. He had a wife and son who presumably had no idea.

Usually it ends up catching up with them...

kenobi I work in the media industry so I've seen a few functioning addicts in my time too. Usually it's coke which, while fucking tedious and gross, doesn't resonate with me the same way that drinking does for obvious reasons.

I know it's not really my business to say anything. I guess I just started this thread because I bite my tongue about this every day and I just wanted somewhere to be able to say: YOU MAKE ME SICK, FUCK OFF!!!

And breathe...

"albeit a functioning one."

Good lord! I don't think he 's a very functioning alcoholic if he needs a drink first thing in the morning or every lunch time ?

Functioning as in, able to hold down a job, turn up, do it, perhaps do it well.

It's good to vent here :)

I sympathise with you, it must be awful, but it is your issue and you should try counselling or look at changing jobs/offices/location etc but it's just as likely you'll move & there will be someone else there the same.

You can't actually do anything about his life choices though, not until they impact on his job.

Thanks Chipping :)

Yes Tatty, that's what I mean by functioning. My mum was so decimated by alcoholism she could barely leave the house in her last few years, so for him to still be able to turn up to work every morning and do some semblance of a good job (although if you ask me the quality of his work definitely suffers for it), having been drinking since shortly after breakfast; I'd call that functioning.

I thought it was most company's policies to ban drinking in your lunch hour. It's certainly been the case wherever I've worked. I can't imagine that managers don't mind if someone has clearly had alcohol during the day?

Madonnawhore - Ugh, coke. Again I sympathise. SOOOOO dull... What I really hated was having to deal with people on comedowns from whatever exciting substance they'd been taking the night before. They'd be so sketchy, cross and forgetful...

I am now in a cosy backwater of the media industry and most people in the office are completely normal. Thank the lords.

Hammy - if you banned people from drinking at lunch in media, a lot of them wouldn't be able to do their jobs properly, what with wining and dining clients on the sales side, and schmoozing with PRs on the edit side. It's not a good environment for anyone who has alcoholic tendencies.

@kenobi yeah I had to work quite closely with a cokehead before. He was a nasty, nasty spiteful piece of work. Really poisonous.

I also worked with an alcoholic at my old job, although incredibly I didn't cotton on to him. He was horrible too, a real bully, made me feel like shit. I left that job and was really surprised to get an email from him about 6 months later apologising for his behaviour and explaining that he was now going through the 12 step programme at AA and the first of those steps was contacting everyone he'd ever affected with his drinking and apologising to them. We're actually pretty good friends now.

@Hammy02 as I mentioned already, I work in the media industry where, (although we're definitely not in the era of Mad Men any more) the boozy lunch is not uncommon. This guy's job is to go out and meet clients and stuff so I guess it's easier for him to pass it off as 'work'.

Makes you wonder - what came first, the lifestyle seducing people with weaknesses into alcoholism, or whether those with alcoholism seek the job out in the first place...

Good question. I think it's more prevalent in the creative industries as there are fewer 'disciplines' imposed on the way you work. All the most creative geniuses from Byron to Winehouse to Hancock to Reed have been massive addicts.

you're not angry with him. you're angry at your mum.

can i ask. are you sure it is alcohol you smell? i know there are some medications that do cause people to smell like alcohol. it comes out through their pores.

your sensitive to it and i understand why, my x drank to much years later i still cringe when someone opens a can of beer i learnt to hate that sound. if you are like me i have no sympathy for people like that at all.