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Photo: Ute Grabowsky / photothek / imago images
"The threat of Corona, working without colleagues: When my boss last March the
Home Office
sent, I was hooked.
I started work at six in the morning and often sat down at the computer in the evening, even if I got a call after work.
Work was everywhere.
I live in a one-room apartment, there was no escape.
During the week I achieved a lot, a lot more than I should. But at the weekend there was nothing. I couldn't meet anyone in the first shutdown. In the void I drank, first a little, then more and more and always harder, preferably herbal liqueur. "
Ingo P. *, 30, works for an IT company in Berlin.
He tests software, his company is a public employer.
He actually thinks it's exemplary that his company is moving most of its work to the home office at the beginning of the pandemic.
But for him the new situation had unexpected consequences:
»I used to drink too much herbal liqueur. But only now and then, when I partied with friends, that was something irregular. In the home office it quickly changed: First I emptied a bottle of herbal liqueur alone on a weekend, and later two. One glass at a time. I hardly went outside the door. Why also?
Then I started ringing in more and more evenings with the stuff. Not much was missing and I would have picked up a bottle during working hours. But it never got that far. I would be afraid that I would lose my job because of something like that. "
"Addiction, alcohol and illegal drugs play an even bigger role in the corona crisis than they already have," says Christina Kölpin from Caritas Berlin.
This was shown in the association's addiction counseling centers during the first lockdown.
Similar assessments can be heard from all parts of the country, even if there are no hard numbers to prove it.
"We will only be able to estimate exactly what this time will do to people who are at risk of addiction," says Christina Rummel from the German Central Office for Addiction Questions (DHS): "Some people look for help after a few months, others need it Step years. "
"Since the beginning of the pandemic, the number of people who seek help from us has noticeably increased," says Torsten Köster.
He heads the advisory department at the addiction aid organization STEP in Lower Saxony.
"On average, we have 50 to 70 percent more initial consultations during the Corona period, depending on where the advice center is located." In one, the number has even quadrupled.
Alcohol plays the biggest role here because the drug is ubiquitous anyway.
The reasons are similar for many people looking for help who are now in touch, says Köster: "People don't cope well with the uncertainty and isolation, many have money worries and fear of their jobs." Lead loneliness.
Anyone who no longer drives to work every day can easily lose their daily rhythm and have less social control from colleagues and customers.
»If I was at the company despite working from home and it was a Monday, I still smelled of alcohol. In addition, I often called in sick on Mondays, which was probably noticed. My margin of error went up. There were colleagues who noticed this, who first covered me. They meant well to me, helped me with advice. At some point they had to report it to the boss.
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