Part of the reason for this reluctance is because the employee is concerned about lost income during the addiction recovery process. He may feel that he simply cannot afford to be absent from work. If the employee has sought help from an addiction recovery program before the addiction has grown too severe, it is possible that addiction recovery can be accomplished on an out-patient basis. The employee would report to work each day, just as always, but on certain days of the week, he would leave work to participate in the program.
If the addiction has progressed to the point that a period of in-patient addiction recovery treatment is needed, it still may be possible for the employee to only miss a limited number of days—for instance, 28—from work before he could continue the addiction recovery program on an outpatient basis.
Whether or not an employee would be required to use accumulated leave time to participate in a program, on either an in-patient or out-patient basis, would depend on the employer’s policy concerning such matters. However, knowing that the employee would return from the program a better worker should be incentive enough to cause an employer to want to work with the employee in these matters.
Employers and employees both can go to http://www.addictionrecovery.net/ or call 1-800-559-9503 to obtain information on an addiction recovery program that would be amenable to an employee’s work schedule.
