Remote workers with substance use disorders experience ‘rude awakenings’ upon returning to the office.

“Yes, maybe my eyes are red, but no one can see that zoomsays Ray, a West Coast executive who typically continues to down a hit of marijuana every hour while at work — the long tail of a methamphetamine addiction he developed during the pandemic lockdowns.

“If I get really tired, I can just lie down,” says the manager, who only reveals his middle name for fear of career damage. “Now I can use it in ways I never imagined before.”

Data suggests there could be millions of people like Ray in the workforce.

A Study from May 2022 The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta estimates that the number of working-age Americans (25 to 54 years old) with substance use disorders has risen 23% to 27 million since the pandemic. A number that corresponds to about every sixth occupied around the time of the study. This led to a 9 to 26 percent decline in labor force participation, which Karen Kopecky, one of the report’s authors, says has continued to this day.

drug recovery company Sierra Tucson concluded from a November 2021 survey that about 20% of US workers admitted to using recreational drugs while working remotely and also being under the influence in virtual meetings. Digital Recovery Clinic Quit genius found in August 2022 that according to a survey, one in five people believe that substance use has impaired their job performance.

Bloomberg spoke to half a dozen addiction specialists who mostly treat working patients. All say their treatment programs are being overstretched in the wake of the pandemic, fueled by sprawling long-distance or hybrid arrangements that offer a dangerous triad: fixed paychecks, proximity to drugs and alcohol not visible to colleagues, and incentives to maintain everyday functionality. As a result, undetected drug habits flourished that are only now coming to light as more companies require their employees to return to the office.

“The last thing to do is work,” says Indra Cidambi, medical director of the New Jersey-based hospital Center for Network Therapy. “Staff believe it is a temporary phase and that they will go back to work and everything will be fine. They call and say, ‘Am I addicted?’ It can’t be me — it’s never been a problem.’”

Employers’ antennae are raised. Random workplace drug testing increased 37% from 2021 to 2022, study finds Opinion poll by screening company First Advantage.

Of course, hiding drug use from bosses has been around for as long as bosses have existed. But before the pandemic, most excesses were limited to the evening hours.

“If people are working remotely, there could be a more mixed pattern,” said Daniel Angres, medical director at Chicago Institute for Positive Sobriety, a clinic for professionals and doctors. In industries where safety measures such as drug testing and access to therapists are in place, such as healthcare, he sees less abuse — defined as use that goes against medical guidelines and negatively impacts health and functioning.

“We see it particularly where fewer safeguards are built in,” such as in technology, finance and law, Angres said.

Ray’s work-day weed use is an improvement from 2020, when he said he used crystal methamphetamine regularly. “I had nowhere to be, the money was pouring in and no one was holding me back on projects because the world was ending. It’s a perfect storm for someone with a drug problem,” he says.

Fearing a tailspin, he said he enrolled in a harm reduction program and moved to a new state, away from his dealers and drug-using friends, and remained stable through the end of 2020. His goal is to keep damage to his health and well-being as low as possible and to ban employment without any substance use.

But instead of staying mostly sober, Ray would source marijuana while walking the dog and smoke every hour. Still, he managed to find a full-time position in a senior communications position. “I’m living off the remaining professional benefits of my totally sober years,” he says.

The employment now lasts surprisingly long into the severe addiction phase. Cidambi frequently sees patients who self-medicate to be successful at work.

“During the pandemic, they had to perform whether they were doing well or not, so they were looking for the pills they could get to handle their basic workload and that was a disaster,” she said. Access to medical care decreased. “They didn’t get the medication they needed, so they went to friends for pills.”

Few of their patients see themselves as addicts. “There’s a lot of rejection. Because of her years of working in a company and her good reputation, her addiction went completely unnoticed until her employers said, “You need to get back to the office.” It was a rude awakening.” Those office days brought tremors, hangovers, and withdrawal symptoms. “Then they’re looking for a detox.”

Substance abuse has many triggers. But hybrid work, Angres says, shortens the downward spiral from five to 10 years to months, in part by removing a key social barrier to substance or other addictive tendencies: spending enough time with healthy people.

“It’s really so much about relationships, and that’s why the emphasis on family and a healthy workplace is so important.” A lot of that has been compromised,” he says.

Accidental fentanyl overdose deaths have further exposed abuse by high-functioning workers. A dramatic example: When a drug dealer delivered cocaine to three Manhattan professionals – a financial trading executive, a social worker and a lawyer – on the job in March 2021, all three died from a fetanyl overdose.

Researchers are now using fentanyl deaths to estimate workday drug use. “It illustrates that people who appear to be living highly functional lives with apparent professional success are regularly abusing large amounts of cocaine,” said Warren Zysman, longtime clinical director of Employee support resource services, an outpatient treatment program in Smithtown, New York. “If cocaine didn’t have fentanyl laced with it, we probably wouldn’t know about it.”

Fentanyl, a cheap opioid that once replaced heroin, is commonly found in street-bought compressed pills (powder that dealers compress into pills), and experts estimate that one in 20 bags of cocaine in US East Coast cities contains fentanyl is offset. It is especially deadly for people who have not developed a tolerance.

What drives workers to use substances consistently, addiction doctors say, workday abuse is often triggered by real-time work-related stress and underlying depression or anxiety.

“A lot of people start using drugs because it makes them feel better,” says Zysman. “In at least 80% of cases they have a psychological problem at the same time.” Other common triggers are boredom, isolation and fear of the future.

Amphetamines, popular for boosting focus in the workplace, are used by 80% of Zysman’s working patients. Patients often start out on prescription stimulants and then switch to street vendors.

“Then they discover that crack can be cheaper than pills.” Zysman recently treated a manager in his 40s with a pacemaker-defibrillator after a heart attack. “People don’t know that using crack and amphetamines ages the organs and really affects the heart. It’s like putting your body on idle and going full throttle.”

Cidambi is currently monitoring the abuse of benzodiazepines in the workplace, which spills over into other substances.

“You need some Xanax to deal with this. Then they can’t sleep at night and take marijuana edibles at night to sleep. And then they have a nightcap. And then getting up to work is a mess, so some people take a sip of Coke just to cheer themselves up,” she says.

While going back to the office is unpopular for many reasons, addiction experts note that resistance continues to come from millions of addicted workers.

“They hesitate because they know they’re not doing as well as they were before the pandemic and they’re trying to get their substance abuse under control,” says substance counselor Patrick Krill, a former practicing attorney and co-author of a National Study on Lawyers and Substance Abuse. “It’s a very real phenomenon right now.”

Krill advises law firms to create a culture where managers visit regularly and employees feel comfortable seeking advice. If substance abuse is suspected, it is best to be supported and cared for by people who have been trained to do so.

As for Ray, he has returned to sobriety during work hours.

“I had gotten so used to smoking weed all the time at work,” he said. He now works with a therapist to help him weed and is banned from smoking because it is fast-acting. “The rule is I can eat as many pot edibles as I want after 6 p.m. with the goal of eventually quitting altogether. For me, it’s about setting boundaries so I can’t get impulsively stoned in the middle of the day.”