‘We need to dismantle the stigma of alcohol dependence in academia’

Wendy Dossett tells Adam Levy why the stigma of having an alcohol dependence in academia can be a huge barrier to seeking help. “We’re supposed to be the brightest and the best, moving the frontiers of knowledge forward,” says Dossett, who has been in recovery for 20 years. “We’re not supposed to be struggling with cognitive issues, mental health problems, damaging ourselves in the way that somebody with an alcohol addiction is doing.”  

Dossett, now an emeritus professor of religious studies at the University of Chester, UK, says that as an early career researcher she saw alcohol as the fuel to her academic life, driving her creativity and making the social elements of academic life easier to navigate. When, in her 30s, a colleague suggested she might need help, Dosett says she felt a “mixture of horror and absolute gratitude that somebody had the courage and care for me.” She went on to research the spiritual elements of recovery from addiction, which she says is less talked about in academia than, say, depression and anxiety.

Victoria Burns, a social work scholar at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, founded Recovery on Campus Alberta after telling her Dean that she had an alcohol dependence. He told her she was the first academic to disclose in his 26-year career, prompting her to research other Deans’ experiences of faculty disclosing addiction and recovery. 

This is the fifth episode of Off Limits, a podcast series exploring topics that are often perceived as taboo in the workplace, including religion, bereavement, activism and sizeism. 

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