The Workplace Problem Nobody Talks About

In this episode of The Way We Roll, we’re joined by Dr Georges Petitjean, founder of WARM (Workplace Addiction Recovery Movement).

Georges set up WARM after years of seeing the same pattern play out: Employees struggling with substance use were too nervous to tell their employers because of the potential consequences, including discrimination or career damage, rather than support being offered.

Although in recent years there’s been a rise in openness about work-related mental health conversations, addiction has largely been left out. That silence matters, with around 8–10% of employees affected by substance use disorders. Only a small fraction ever receives treatment; most are at work and coping alone.

Our conversation explores why some organisations still insist “this isn’t happening here” – a familiar reaction to anyone who remembers when disability was hushed up. We talk about how stigma, language, and fear delay support, often until things reach a crisis point.

Georges explains why WARM focuses on psychological safety rather than diagnosis or discipline. The aim is simple but powerful: make it safer to talk, easier to seek help, and more normal to access support early. That benefits individuals, teams, and organisations alike.

We also dig into the overlaps – addiction, mental health, chronic pain, prescribed medication, disability, and work culture. Addiction itself isn’t recognised as a disability under the Equality Act, but the associated mental health conditions often are.

Georges outlines plans for a pilot with employers who want to lead rather than look away. This means small changes, better language, clearer signposting and a willingness to know what’s really going on.

It’s a thoughtful, honest conversation about something we don’t talk about enough – and why it needs to be discussed more.

Links

www.warmatwork.org

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Dr George Petitjean and WARM
• 1:20 Hidden Addiction In White-Collar Jobs
• 3:15 HR Denial And PR Fears
• 5:30 Why Mental Health Left Addiction Behind
• 8:50 Is Addiction A Disability At Work
• 11:45 Prescription Painkillers To Polydrug Use
• 15:35 The Myth Of The “Functioning” Employee
• 18:10 WARM’s Goals And Early Support Pathways
• 22:05 Policy Shift: From Punish To Support

Transcript

Announcer: 0:10

This is the way we roll presented by Simon Minty and Phil Friend. You can email us at mintyandfriend at gmail.com or just search for Minti and Friend on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Simon: 0:29

Welcome to The Way We Roll with me, Simon Minty.

Phil: 0:33

And me, Phil Friend. We're meeting Dr. George Pettigon. Is it okay to call you George? George? Of course. Thank you very much.

Simon: 0:42

Now we have a mutual friend and colleague in Kate Nash from Purple Space, and she linked us up with George as a potential guest uh on The Way We Roll. And we had to think for a little minute because uh the disability link isn't necessarily as obvious at first glance.

Phil: 0:59

No, uh George set up an organization called Warm, W-A-R-M, WARM at work. Warm is a movement aimed at raising awareness and educating leaders about substance use, addiction, and recovery of the workplace. So can we ask you straight away, George, what made you decide to do this?

Georges Petitjean: 1:20

Well, actually, let's start 10 years ago. About 10 years ago, I was working in uh in a posh detox in Nottinghill, one day a week, and all the people who were admitted were people who are self-funded and they worked in the city, so we had a lot of people working in financial services, accountants, uh lawyers, and so on. And the first thing they were telling me at the time, you can't tell my employer, you absolutely can't tell my employer. And I said, no, don't be don't be worried, I don't have any contact with your employers, and I wouldn't anyway. But because they were all saying that, I thought, well, actually, we probably, I probably need to ask them, and I did over time, well, what is what would happen if you would tell your employer? And they said, I would be fired, uh, I would go through disciplinary action, I would be discriminated against, and so on. And at the time I asked a few of my friends who worked in the city, I said, could you actually link me with a few HR directors in the city? Because they don't know. I was quite naive. I thought maybe they just don't know that the prevalence of the problem is quite big. Um, and so I did, and I spoke with that HR director of a large bank, and he told me we have so explained the whole thing, and he says, We have no employees using drugs or drinking alcohol in our organization. And I was really at first I thought he was joking. Yes. And then I realized he was really serious. I thought, oh wow. And then a few weeks later, I met another HR director in another large bank, and she said, We know we have people using substances, but as soon as we admit it to the world that we have employees using illicit substances, it's a PR disaster. So we prefer not to talk about it. Thank you very much. That's how it started. Now, of course, the mental health awareness movement started a few years later, 2017. And I thought I naturally assumed that addiction would go along, if you want. So I naturally assumed that people would speak a lot about addiction in the workplace, that it was not going to be just addiction, uh, not just depression or anxiety or suicide. And those are very important things to talk about in the workplace, but addiction is also very prevalent. So you have about 8% of employees with a substance use disorder. It's not small numbers. And out of those eight, seven are not receiving any form of treatment or support. So we really need to start talking about that. And then I saw it was not going anywhere, despite the mental health awareness movement. But there were a few cases that were quite dramatic. We talked about in my organization from employees having had massive harmful consequences from their use and not just because they should have been helped years ago, and they didn't dare to tell the employers because they were too scared, and therefore they reached support very, very late, and we see that all the time. So I thought we need to create our own movement if you want. We need to create an addiction and recovery movement in the workplace so that people we can destigmatize the whole thing, tackle the taboo, um, improve prevention and access to early support for employees with living experience, but also affected others, all the people, all the colleagues, people in the workforce who actually are impacted by someone else's uh addiction or use.

Simon: 4:29

You're your line, and it was been some years ago, but I remember when we worked with big corporations, we say we want to talk to you about disability in the workplace. And somebody said, Well, we don't have any disabled people working here. And we're like, hold up, and so that sort of blanket ignoring it is is really interesting. It's just moved on to a or is it a different topic? I did mention at the top, and maybe we're guilty of this, the link between mental ill health, which we know could be covered by the Equality Act, but sort of addiction in itself is not covered by the Equality Act. So uh does disability pop up in your conversations, or is it not really about that?

Georges Petitjean: 5:07

Uh not much. I mean, there is the overlap with disability, obviously. So the hidden condition, really, like you are talking about. We are talking uh about a chronic health condition that is treatable. So, really, it's silly not to start talking about it and build that psychological safety so people can share and access support earlier or uh reasonable adjustments and so on. Uh so it is treatable. At the moment, it costs a lot to organizations for not doing that. There are massive risks they know nothing about. But then with disability, yes, they we don't really talk about that. As you know, people with addiction, they probably need to have another form of complication, either physical health or mental ill health, before it could be um considered as yes, like Do you think, George?

Phil: 5:52

I mean, in your first of all, can I just clarify? You're a medical doctor? Yes, yes. Okay, so that that's that that helps I thought. Um so you're coming at it very much, of course, from a medical professional point of view. But my question was linked a bit to Simon's, which is obviously we know a lot of disabled people are using drugs or prescription drugs appropriately, i.e., certainly painkillers and certainly sleeping drugs of some sort or another. And of course, that can and often does lead to addiction. Have you had any experience of working with that group? i.e., profoundly disabled people who are also addicted to medication.

Georges Petitjean: 6:35

Yes, we see we see that sometimes. I wouldn't say a lot of them, but we've seen that. And certainly I read the literature and I can see. So, for example, you might have people who've had a physical injury, an accident at work.

Phil: 6:48

Yes.

Georges Petitjean: 6:49

And so they are being prescribed opiate-based medication or pain medication. They might become tolerant and dependent on their medication, which means that they end up not being taken, those medications are not being taken as prescribed. So then rather than having a 28-day prescription, they might use it in 21 days and then drink alcohol for the remaining seven days. Or the prescription is being stopped, people buy on the illicit market really that the same medication. But then it can make people a bit drowsy or a bit a bit sleepy. Therefore, they start using some uh psychostimulants like methamphetamine, and you end up having someone that is considered a functioning, yeah, whatever it is, functioning worker. And I don't particularly like or use that terminology, but you have someone functioning, being quite performing at work, but addicted on opiate-based medication that the employer doesn't know, plus psychostimulants as well. And you trot even more dramatically, you have a lot of people who die of overdose on their own because they struggle on their own and they don't dare to say. So in America, I saw numbers not that long ago. In the US, they have slightly different problems, but it's hundreds of people a year who die of that specifically without without the employer knowing or wanting to. This would be such a tragically, you know, it's such a tragically missed opportunity not to involve employers. The vast majority of people with a substance use disorder are in employment, so it's a complete myth to think that sometimes the general population people believe, oh, it's people who inject herin and crack and who live on the street. We are not talking about that. We see them obviously in our services as well, but it's the vast majority of people have something in their bank. They might have benzo in the bank, they use something before work because they know the workplace culture, they are going to have a horrendous day, or they use just after work. So, again, the functioning, I would be very I'm very mindful of that terminology. Because what do we mean by functioning? Is it arriving at work, being at work nine to five? Is it presentism? Is it what are we talking about? Because you might be functioning at work and really good in your work, and yet do you sleep? Do you eat? Do you spend quality time with your children? Those sorts of things. So I find that we need to be mindful about that word functioning, I think.

Simon: 9:04

Is it to the idea of warm and clarify for me, is it that you want organizations to be able to talk about this more openly, whether it's I don't know if it's a staff network or or events. Um, and I'd also want to add advertising into your um uh organizations that you might find a high prevalence. 8% is a huge amount. So the idea is we talk about it, there's a little bit more openness about it, removing the stigma. Perhaps people could get treatment earlier, or what's the the aim?

Georges Petitjean: 9:36

Absolutely. So actually, I just want to say the 8% is substance use disorders. So I'm not even talking about what we call behavioral addictions, such as gambling, for example, or screens and those sorts of things. So just substances. So let's say altogether, let's include, let's make a number. You are probably over 10% if you include the behavioral addictions. So you have 10% of your workforce. Those, the aim of warm, I think, is the more you build that psychological safety, the more you destigmatize, the more you tackle the taboo, the easier it will be for those people to share with the employer and have access to support through the internal pathway of the organization, or if they don't want to tell their organization, at least they would have received information from their organization about what is available externally. So the way we are commissioned is a bit a bit different in addiction treatment in the country. So we need to help people to say those are the places where you could go if you need support. And it's not support, of course, do you have the structured treatment, the formal treatment in the NHS and charities and so on? But you also have support, peer support. So you might access, and again, it depends on there are no two recovery journeys are the same. So people might feel that for them they prefer the 12-steps programs. You might have heard about alcoholic anonymous, those sorts of places. Some people prefer, might prefer smart recovery groups, some people might go to Leroy Lived Experience Recovery Organizations, and so there is a lot of support available out there, but I've my gut instinct is that a lot of employees don't even know where to start. They just don't dare to speak, but they don't dare to tell the employer and they end up delaying and accessing our services way too late because they should have beheld ten years before.

Phil: 11:19

It strikes me as you're talking, Georges, about it's interesting. Ten years ago, people didn't talk about neurodiversity. I don't think the term was around hardly at all. Now we have neurotypicals and neurodiverse, and everybody's talking about and they're campaigning for rights because they're not sometimes included under the legislation. I've never really what you've done to me is to help me see that there's a huge group of people here who are excluded from equality because the word addict is used and yet um requires a tremendous amount of support to help them recover and carry on leading their normal. Exactly, as you said at the beginning of this conversation, it's curable. You know, people can get over this. So is part of the remit of warm to change the law? I mean, is there a kind of campaign angle to what you're oh that would be wonderful.

Georges Petitjean: 12:17

I think for me it's oh um that would be uh the cherry on the cake, but I think the cake is probably helping people to understand being aware of. To do that first. It's a spectrum. I think people don't understand. 75% of the general population hold negative views about people. We hear all the time people with addiction, they're untrustworthy, uh, it's dirty, it's a moral failure, it's a choice, why don't they just stop? It's a it's a spectrum. Addiction reaches the end of the spectrum. We all use substances because I I had a coffee this morning, if I don't eat, I die. Some people take multivitamins, so it's a spectrum of use associated to a spectrum of risks and a spectrum of harmful consequences. Now, of course, when you start is the socially acceptable and you have your two coffees in the morning or something like that. And then over time, some people, minority, will develop habits that carry risks or higher risks, and then they develop patterns depending on the frequency, the dose, the way they use things. And then eventually they reach the level where they have all sorts of changes in the brain, and we can see those these days, and I show those the PET scans of, for example, someone who's never used cocaine. They use cocaine for a year, they stop using for a year. You can see all those brain changes. So it's a bit like the reward system has been hacked when you reach that level of dependence, if you want, that level of addiction at the end of the spectrum. And those people can't just stop. It's very uh um realistic to help to think that they could stop on their own.

Phil: 13:50

So children, children addicted to their phones. I've just been reading some interesting stuff about the release of dopamine to keep them hooked so they keep coming. Is that I mean, are you now seeing people in that kind of area, addiction to you know, screens and so on? Absolutely, yes, yes.

Speaker 3: 14:10

And again, the again, you have two schools of thoughts, they're a bit unhelpful. Some people prone for abstinence, like the 12 steps, some people prone for uh harm reduction. And but we are talking more or less about the same thing. We want to reduce the harm that's being caused. So, for example, we all use our screen, so having abstinence doesn't make really any sense when you are 16 years old on your phone. So we couldn't expect people to just throw their phone away at that age. So you try to limit from 10 hours a day to two hours a day, for example. But we see those absolutely. And another thing that Worm would like to do, so involve organizations to take a proactive, become proactive facilitators to treatment. It means small steps that cost virtually nothing for them to start with. It could be just a change of language. And in disability, you you must have had that all the time, the stigma and the language being used. So if you if you talk about drug head or junkie or whatever, it's not going to work well if you are a team, uh, I don't know, a team leader in your team and you speak, speak about people like that, the person in your team. And you have, if you think about 10%, you will have someone in your team who might actually struggle in silence. So how do we support people to access treatment early? So that's for the 10%. My goal as well is for the 90%, if you start speaking about it, the remaining, some of those people in your workforce will develop over time, and we know that statistically. So the more you speak about it and say, you know what, we know some of you use things recreationally, we know that at some point some of you will develop an addiction. We prefer to know than not to know. In their policy, they should put something like: Because we value you, we value your colleagues, we value the clients you interact with, our clients, as long as you engage in treatment and support and you let us know you engage in treatment or support, we will in turn support you. That is fair. At the moment, the the policies, I see so many policies where they say, we reserve the right to test you, if it's positive, you are fired, more or less. I mean, that's people are not going to come to you and say, Oh, I think I have a problem if if you're positive.

Phil: 16:13

I suppose the other question, George, which I'm sure our listeners are um saying, ask this, is where do I go? Where's the resources? Because what we're hearing all the time is that the NHS is completely overrun. People are waiting long time, particularly for psychiatric support, you know, mental health support, those kinds of things. What's the situation now? I mean, obviously, Worm is a distinct organization doing distinct things, but where do I go for treatment?

Speaker 3: 16:41

Now you are you are in luck. We had uh the I don't know if you heard about Dame Carl Blanc, the wonderful Dame Carl Blanc did a wonderful independent review of drugs in 2021 and pledged for all sorts of recommendations, and the government followed and gave us 780 million pounds to increase capacity amongst other things for a 10-year drug strategy. And since 2021, the capacity has increased tremendously in our services, not just in the NHS treatment sector, but also in the charity sector. So wherever you are based on your local authority will have a service that's being commissioned, that they commission uh for free. You should be able to access that for free. And in the past, you you had to wait sometimes month and months before you would have an assessment. These days it's probably a matter of days, maybe a few weeks, if uh, but it might be a matter of days before you're being seen. Chances are you might be prescribed on the day you show the first time, so it you might be able to benefit from the same day prescribing as well, depending on what the drug you take or the substance you take. But there is capacity at the moment, both in the NHS and the charity sector, capacity has increased. So again, it's free, and people should take. That's why I feel that organizations should play facilitating. We don't ask them to give money, we just ask them to facilitate access to to sign posts better if you want. So at the moment, I would answer your question. I would say go on Google, whatever you use, type your local authority, your postcode, say which service? Uh, would it be a gambling harm service, would it be a drug and alcohol treatment service?

Georges Petitjean: 18:10

You type that and you will find what is the closest uh you can access and then bring them.

Simon: 18:15

I'm I'm very struck, uh, and sorry to keep trying to link up with this really, but more about the arguments that you would use that we use around getting people to manage themselves and their own impairment and so on. And it's I love the bit about getting support because you speak to your peer group, and that is so powerful. And we always encourage people. This is a new thing to you, this disability, speak to other people with it, because they'll be able to guide you through, they'll get you straight away, and that that and also presumably masking, because there's people who've got these uh addictions or behaviourals and they're hiding them, trying to manage it amongst everything else, but to be able to speak to employer, maybe your employer has a bit of flexibility, but they are responsible as well. So there's a lot of overlap, and I think it's really powerful. I'm gonna ask a very clunky question, I feel slightly ignorant even asking it. But when I talk about this in my training, I say the uh the sort of uh certain addiction or behavioral stuff are exempt, but I don't know anyone who b uh behaves this way who hasn't got a mental health condition at the same time. Is that's is that a fair assumption, or am I being a bit massive, massive.

Georges Petitjean: 19:17

The link is massive. You have seven, I think it's 74%, roughly three-quarters of people with a substance use disorder also have mental health needs. Right. So it's massive. I think you talk 74%. So you think absolutely, and often, often we have that. And the trouble at the moment is true that it's getting better. We talk more about it, but I'm I I think it's still incredibly fragmented. So you have mental health people, and they say, No, no, until they stop uh using alcohol, we can't see them for therapy, or we can't see them for so it's a bit like you you if you break your leg, uh it's key. Nobody would say, Well, you need to do that, and we stop your depression, antidepression medication. Is nobody would do that. We are human beings with all sorts of things that happen in the same at the same time. But it's very difficult to do joint work. I think at the moment we are trying to, but it's uh everybody's very busy, and mental health is incredibly busy. So the workload, if you want, and that's a bit of the problem we had in the past with capacity. People would end up going to the AE and then they would go for quick alcohol detox, they would go out, they wouldn't have all the wraparound support that people need in terms of uh employment or meaningful activity or housing or all sorts of psychological or trauma-informed care, all those types of things they wouldn't have. So, um, yes, so I think it's a little bit better in the sense we are talking about it, but it's we are not there yet. But yes, to answer your question, there is a massive link between mental health and uh and addiction.

Simon: 20:44

I I really like what you're doing, and I like that it exists, it sounds overdue. I mean, what over the next year or two? Is it just you doing this or other people? What are your plans?

Georges Petitjean: 20:53

I've been bothering all my colleagues for the last 10 years about we need to do something about it. So we launched in November during the uh recovery week, uh recovery awareness week. Um, and so my plan this year is really I would like to have uh to do a pilot with a few organizations. So ideally we'd like to have 10 large organizations to say, let's try, let's get the data. At the moment, I have HR directors who say, I have nothing on my dashboard, we have no problem. We have 20,000 employees, we have no problem because I say, Well, it's not that the problem doesn't exist, people are too scared to tell you what about we try to build the data so that you can mandate a survey. And warm is not about uh, it's not providing clinical advice or any form of treatment. So it's really a movement to raise awareness and education. So I think just to answer your question earlier about ERG groups, leaders, and uh employee networks are educate them, follow them, help them to create events, disability. Obviously, there is a massive uh link there as well, as we said, with the pain, pain killing medium.

Phil: 21:53

It strikes me, Georges, that one of the things that Simon and I used to do when we worked more closely together was. To kind of talk to the corporates. Corporates are very competitive, as you well know. They are they're in the business of making money and they have they're doing it, you know, taking on their rivals. One of the ways that we found useful was to tell them they'd be the first. And I think what you're talking about, if we can find those 10 companies and sell it, that actually by doing this they are pioneers. Because they actually are. This isn't an untruth. Um, that may well be the tipping point that you need to get this on the agendas of HR and lots of other people.

Georges Petitjean: 22:34

Absolutely. They will be called actually 10 founding members. They are even on the badge already, the yellow badge with the founding members. They have the pioneers, but if they want to be more than 10, I'm not going to say no. But that would be, and of course, I have people around me, we are, it's not just me, but I feel like I had to take that leadership, it's a movement, and nobody it feels like no one is really rushing to do what I'm trying to do. But it bothers me, I feel, you know, when you grow a slightly more senior, you suddenly you realize, well, do things are really important. You see what is not working, what are the gaps in your trade or your expertise or however you call it. And that is really one I think getting employers to fascinating.

Phil: 23:16

I I I think that well, let's hope that there are people listening to this podcast who've got some sway and some influence, and that they're able. And those of us who listen to this, and maybe they've got a problem, and now they can think about what they do about that, which is also very, very important. George, it's been a delight. Thank you so much. That was really interesting, and I hope that your work finds some fertile ground in the year ahead, and we see a lot more of you.

Georges Petitjean: 23:47

Thank you so much for having me.

Simon: 23:50

Thank you, George.

Announcer: 23:52

This is The Way We Roll, presented by Simon Minty and Phil Friend. You can email us at mintyandfriend@ gmail.com or just search for Minty and Friend on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.