Employee alcohol use causes a variety of problems. It reduces productivity, impairs job performance, increases health care costs and can threaten public safety. Because 85 percent of heavy drinkers work, employers who aggressively address this problem can improve their own company's bottom line and their employees' health.

Any Way You Look At It, Alcohol Costs

• The federal government estimates that, 8.9 percent of full-time workers – 12.7 million people - have drinking problems.

• Alcohol costs American business an estimated $134 billion in productivity losses, mostly due to missed work: 65.3 percent of this cost was caused by alcohol-related illness, 27.2 percent due to premature death, and 7.5 percent to crime.

• People with alcoholism and problem drinkers are more likely than other workers to have had three or more employers during the last year; to have missed work more than two days in the past month due to illness or injury; and to have skipped work more than two days in the past month.

• People with alcoholism use twice as much sick leave as other employees. They are five times more likely to file workmen's compensation claims; and they are more likely to cause injuries to themselves or others while on the job.

• Twenty percent of workers say they have been injured, have had to cover for a coworker, or needed to work harder because of other employees' drinking.

• More than half of working family members of alcoholics report that their own ability to function at work and at home was negatively impacted by their family member's drinking.

Drinking Doesn't Have To Occur On the Job to Cause Problems in the Workplace

• Employees who drink heavily off the job are more likely to experience hangovers that cause them to be absent, show up late or leave early; to feel sick at work; to sleep on the job; to perform poorly; or to argue with their coworkers.

• Sixty percent of alcohol-related job performance problems are caused by people who are NOT alcoholics or problem drinkers; they are employees who occasionally drink too much at lunch or the night before.

• One study found that pilots were unable to perform adequately on a flight simulator 8-14 hours after drinking heavily.

Workplace Demographics Influence the Extent of Problem Drinking

• Drinking varies among occupations and gender, but alcohol-related problems cut across the workforce just as they do in the rest of American society.

• Heavy drinking is more likely to occur in male-dominated workplaces such as construction and mining.

• In predominantly female occupations, both men and women are less likely to drink than employees of both sexes in male-dominated occupations.

• Workforces with a large number of young adults have much greater rates of problem drinking than workforces that are older. Problem drinking among younger workers is associated with increased injury, absenteeism and productivity losses.

Sources: Mangione, TW, Howland, J & Lee, M., "New Perspectives for Worksite Alcohol Strategies: Results from a Corporate Drinking Study,” December 1998.

The Washington Business Group on Health, “Proceedings from the Employer Leadership Forum on Substance Abuse: An Exploratory Conference,” November 1999.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, “Alcohol and the Workplace,” Alcohol Alert No. 44, July 1999.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, "Substance Use, Dependence or Abuse among Full-time Workers," The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, September 2004.

Al-Anon Family Groups, Inc., “1999 Al-Anon/Alateen Membership Survey and Al-Anon Membership Assessment Results: Final Report,” March 2000.

The Hazelden Foundation, "Workplace Recovery Benefits Survey," September 2002.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, “The Costs and Effects of Parity for Substance Abuse Insurance Benefits,” 1998.

December 2002