IT is 6pm on Friday in a room at St Francis Adult Education Center in midtown Manhattan. The walls are high and bare, a statue of the Virgin Mary pokes out from a cardboard box on an otherwise empty shelf. Four people sit in a circle on hard plastic chairs waiting for others to come. Two others arrive late. This is Workaholics Anonymous.

A self-help group based on the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), according to its literature “WA” aims to help people addicted to work to “stop working compulsively”.

There are hundreds of AA meetings in New York. But in a city fuelled by work not alcohol, WA hasn’t really taken off. There used to be two WA meetings in Manhattan, but the other died after not enough people showed up. There doesn’t seem much hope for this one. The man who is supposed to be leading the meeting has failed to arrive. There is a discussion about whether to turn on the air conditioning. A vote splits evenly. Someone suggests we leave the air conditioning on for 10 minutes and “see how things go”. We have to vote again on that suggestion. The motion is carried.

A middle-aged woman at her first meeting tells the group about her job. It seems her boss wants to get rid of her because she is not working hard enough.

Where are all the Wall Street bankers who put in 13-hour days? The advertising executives whose marriages have been sacrificed to their Blackberry addiction? They must be at work.

“There must be 12 regular members of this meeting,” said one member. “People in this city are in denial.”

Health professionals, academics and psychologists agree. They claim the changing work-place, technology and globalisation have produced a worldwide epidemic of “workaholism”.

A recent global survey by the Centre for Work-Life Policy, a New York-based nonprofit group, found that 45% of executives were “extreme” workers, putting in more than 60 hours a week and meeting five other criteria such as being on call 24 hours a day and facing demands from several time zones and meeting ever more demanding deadlines.

Some 65% of men said their work stopped them having a strong relationship with their children. The same was true for 33% of women. Intimate relationships suffered, too. The study found people referring to “four in a bed” relationships - two people, two Blackberrys. At the end of a 12-hour day 45% of all respondents said they were too tired to say anything at all to their partners.

It’s a bad situation for employers as well as employees, said Sylvia Ann Hewlett, president of the Centre for Work-Life Policy.

“In the long term, people don’t want to work this way. It used to be that when you reached a certain level you could take Fridays off and play golf. Work isn’t like that anymore. I’ve interviewed a lot of people who have worked [extreme hours] for five years or so and many of them say their productivity has dropped. They burn out.”

As a result, companies lose gifted, experienced people and put off other talented individuals unwilling to sacrifice their lives to work.

Hewlett said women in particular could not see themselves working so hard in the long term. Some80% of women and 58% of men surveyed globally said they did not want to carry on working this way for more than a year.

The problem arises because globalisation has put greater demands on companies, and the rise of technology makes it possible to work anywhere, anytime. But workers themselves are part of the problem. They might not want to do long hours for ever but, while they are doing it, many of them love it.

Far from feeling burnt out and bitter, some 66% of Hewlett’s American sample said they loved their jobs, and the figure rose to 76% for the global sample. Most extreme workers feel they have nobody to blame but themselves for the hours they put in.

But as the WA member said, perhaps many of these people are in denial about the consequences of their “addiction”.

The costs start at home. One London-based executive interviewed by Hewlett said he had lived in South Kensington for two years with nothing in his flat except a mattress and a sleeping bag. He had been too busy to buy any other furniture. More than two-thirds of those surveyed said they didn’t get enough sleep. They were also prone to drinking too much, overeating and not taking exercise.

“The world has become significantly more competitive, and work is the foundation of many people’s self-esteem,” said Ken Siegel, president of Impact, a Los Angeles group of psychologists who consult with the management of leading global companies. “As a result, people justify working too much no matter what the consequences.”

They relabel “workaholism” with less pejorative words such as “driven”, “ambitious” or “energetic”, said Siegel. “But the cost is very real. We are in crisis. Look at the divorce rate, prescriptions for antianxiety pills. The only place you see business people relax these days is on a plane. But the minute the plane lands, they are on their phones.” And the odds are that they are not looking for a WA meeting.

DO YOU SUFFER FROM WORKAHOLISM?
- Do you get more excited about your work than about family?
- Are there times when you can charge through your work and other times when you can’t?
- Do you take work with you to bed? On holiday?
- Is work the activity you like to do best and talk about most?
- Do you work more than 40 hours a week?
- Do you turn your hobbies into money-making ventures?
- Do you take responsibility for the outcome of your efforts?
- Have your family or friends given up expecting you on time?
- Do you take on extra work because you are concerned that it won’t otherwise get done?
- Do you underestimate how long a project will take and then rush to complete it?
- Do you believe it is okay to work long hours if you love it?
- Do you get impatient with people who have other priorities?
- Are you afraid if you don’t work hard you’ll lose your job?
- Is the future a constant worry for you?
- Do you do things competitively, including play?
- Do you get irritated when people ask you to stop working?
- Have your long hours hurt your family or other relationships?
- Do you think about your work while driving or falling asleep?
- Do you work or read during meals?
- Do you believe that more money will solve the other problems in your life?

If you answer yes to three or more of these questions you may be a workaholic