Workplace Wellbeing: Addiction assistance in the workplace 

Growing numbers of employees in Ireland are struggling with substance use issues. Employers can do much to ensure they are supported while receiving treatment and recovering

Pic: iStock

CLAIRE* vividly recalls the moment she first drank alcohol. She was 16 and tried vodka with some friends. “It was as if something inside me just clicked,” she says. “I felt a sense of relief as the alcohol soothed parts of me that I’d never been able to soothe before.”

In the two decades since then, Claire has turned to alcohol again and again, drinking to the point of needing to have her stomach pumped, being cautioned by police for her behaviour, and spending stints in psychiatric wards.