Managing Emotional Load at Work Supports Sobriety

Get Help. Talk To Someone Now!

Call toll free to:

Find Meeting Information
Access help and resources
Get 24-hour guidance & information

A Study on Smiles

Researchers Alicia Grandey, Michael Frone, Robert Melloy and Grant Sayre analyzed a national probability sample of American workers who deal with the public daily. They focused on emotional labor: the work of managing your visible feelings as part of the job. A barista smiling through an insult, a nurse staying warm with a difficult patient or a retail worker performing cheer on hour nine of a shift are all putting on a big smile even if they don’t real feel like it inside.

Emotions involve self-control. Faking a grin takes up the same inner strength you rely on to resist a drink at a work party or after hours. A demanding shift can stress you out, leading to relapse.

Faking Emotions Has Costs

The results were consistent. Surface acting predicted heavy drinking across the board, regardless of the worker’s baseline mood or job stress. Drinking after work rose with surface acting mainly for employees with low job autonomy or low trait self-control.

The effect was strongest for people in service encounters like interacting with customers or the public. This differed from service relationships like among patients or students, where genuine connections more readily form.

Basically, the more you fake your emotions and the less control you have over work, the more an evening drink becomes an emotional crutch.

Taking Note for Recovery

It’s clear that after-work drinking culture and stress evenings are danger zones, especially for those just starting recovery. Hospitality, retail, call centers and healthcare roles subject employees to constant surface acting, low autonomy and a workplace drinking culture built into the unwind.

The study doesn’t argue that anyone in these jobs is at risk. But the emotional load is real, measurable and connected to drinking.

Protecting Sobriety on the Job

A few practices on the jobsite can plug the self-control drain.

Acknowledging “that shift cost me” is the first step

Decompress stress while avoiding the bar or the liquor store: a walk, the gym or ten minutes of quiet before walking through your front door

Protect autonomy any way you can because choice restores your inner resources

If your job is high-encounter and low-control, treat after-work hours as protected recovery time rather than dead time to fill.

And track the pattern. If heavy-drinking urges cluster on certain shifts or certain days, the free Sober App can make that pattern visible, along with the money and sleep you are keeping.

AA Helps with Real Emotional Recovery

Sobriety at work is a daily practice, especially when you have to watch the emotional cost of the job.

Peer support helps carry the load. If evenings are your hard window, that is exactly what AA meetings are for. Our online directory features meetings in every state with online and late-evening options.

Feel free to also dial 800-948-8417 Sponsored to speak with an expert and explore local options.

By Courtney Myers

By Peter Lee

Courtney Myers holds an MS in Technical Communication from NC State. She has more than 15 years of experience as a freelance writer and editor, specializing in a range of topics for a variety of industry verticals. When she isn’t behind the computer, you can find her hiking or spending time with her family.

View Profile

Peter W.Y. Lee is a writer and historian of American history. His primary focus is on the Cold War era. His academic work examines the relationship between youth and popular culture and its impact on U.S. society during the twentieth century.