Dear Dr. Workaholic:
I am married to a workaholic and he is driving me crazy with his extreme behavior. it is doing alot of damage to us emotionally and to him phisycally but he will not listen and he does not think he has a problem but BELIEVE me he does. what can i do to help him or get him help before he destroys everything around him. please point me in the right direction. desperate wife!  

Dear Desperate:
People can be busy for a large number of reasons - boredom with their present life, spouse, job, to name just a few.  Some people run away from those problems to alcohol, some to drugs, and some to work - one might argue that work is the better of the three.       

I believe there are two kinds of people who can appear to be workaholics.  There are those who are "Successaholics" and they are kept busy pushing for the programs they are involved in to be successful.  Once they are a path to success and things are fine, they can relax and go back to a more normal lifestyle.  The other kind are the pure Workaholics, and they will be at work even if they are accomplishing nothing - they just have a compulsion to be there. Where you fit in to those scenarios depends on which one you think your husband is.  If success is the goal, and there is a time frame in mind, then you need to get a life of your own in the interim and let him do his thing.  If work is the goal, then you have some serious work ahead of you, which could include determining if you will ever be a part of this persons life.  How you make that happen is through love, humor and standing up for yourself.  Whatever you do, do it with love and humor, and whatever you do, don't allow yourself to be anyone's doormat, to be used only when needed.   Perhaps a Workaholics mug and Mousepad would be subtle(?) reminders that maybe he is.  Once "accused" one cannot help but think about it as one toils at midnight.  "Yes I Am" is our theme, and maybe this will help his realization.  Hard work is a badge of honor to many, so let him have his badge.  Acknowledge appreciation for the work, but offer suggestions for fun breaks from that routine which will peak his interest and become more of a momentary obsession than work.  Obviously, if we offered him a choice of working or going to the zoo and picking up $100 bills, he'd go to the zoo.  Give me a choice of working or sitting watching TV, I'm at work.  So ask me to take you to a fun movie you've been wanting to see.        

Billy Ray Cyrus has a recent song called "Busy Man," which will shortly be the theme song for WIN.  One line says he never saw a grave marker with an inscription, "I wish I had spent more time at work."  Play that for him.  Throw into conversations notices of young people who died tragically leaving little kids they never got to know.  If someone says they got divorced, or they suffer because their Dad never spent time with them as a kid, get your husband into those conversations.  Repetition is the best teacher and the more ways you can find to lovingly suggest that working all that hard is NOT the best medicine for a successful life, maybe it will sink in.  Good luck to both of you and thanks for caring enough for your husband and your relationship to seek help.