Confessions of a Workaholic

Preface to the Online Edition

The Wayne E. Oates Institute is delighted to publish the Online Edition of this classic work by Wayne E. Oates as part of the Wayne E. Oates Library Collection.

A work-a-hol'-ic is a person whose involvement in work has become so excessive that it disturbs or interferes with his bodily health, personal happiness, interpersonal relations, and social functioning. It is a term invented by Wayne Oates to describe one of the few addictions society approves, industry fosters, and religion appears to favor. If you are a workaholic, or the silent, suffering relative of one, this book is for you.

As a minister who discovered the burgeoning proportions the work habit was assuming in his life in time to save himself, Wayne Oates is uniquely suited to analyze the syndrome. As a pastoral counselor, he has the experience and understanding. to help "others so addicted to reclaim their lives.

In Confessions of a Workaholic, Wayne Oates dissects the origin of workaholism the Depression-spawned emphasis on work, the Judeo-Christian cultural consideration of work as an aim in life, and, sometimes, emotional deprivation in childhood. He pinpoints the symptoms that presage the development of the addiction in both men and women; most importantly, he offers practical suggestions for placing work in a perspective that permits a satisfying and fulfilling way of life.

The tone of this little volume may be light, but its message is a vital onethe necessity for change in a pattern of existence much too prevalent in our society today. If your son has had to ask for an appointment to talk with you lately, if you haven't had time for a vacation, if you can't say "No" to an exciting new work assignment, if you find yourself going home later and later each night, Confessions of a Workaholic is recommended reading.

(The above is from the original book jacket by World Publishing)

The complete text of the original World Publishing edition of Confessions of a Workaholic, published in 1971, is republished here by the Wayne E. Oates Institute as it originally read. Please note that while the ideas expressed remain relevant to today, the language, particularly with regard to inclusive language, reflects the publishing practices common to the era of its original publication and not the more recent perspective of either Wayne E. Oates or the Oates Institute.

This specific edition has been designed for ease of reading online with the text formatted to a comfortable column width and the web pages containing only a portion of each chapter. Each web page in this edition contains links to the next and previous pages as well as to the book's Table of Contents.

For those interested in printing a copy of the book to paper, we highly recommend the E-book edition. This is published in the Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (pdf), which enables printing a copy of the entire book with indexed pages. The E-book edition is available through email or on CD-ROM. For more information click on the Info/Order button on the left or call 502.459.2370.

Wayne E. Oates Institute
Louisville, Kentucky
July 2004

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The Wayne E. Oates Library Collection is made possible in part by contributions from Eleanor and Rowland Miller
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