Every job demands a different level of hard work, time, and effort. Some jobs might require sitting at a desk for 8 hours straight, while others might require a more hands-on approach such as being a flight attendant.
This job description includes not only caring for the passengers on the plane and ensuring their safety, but also requires the flight attendant make personal life sacrifices that are not always necessary in other career paths.
How Flight Attendants Can Develop Addiction
It’s a simple formula – the more stress present in a person’s life, the more likely they are going to look for some form of release. Taking on a job as time consuming and stressful as being a flight attendant can create emotions that need to be released.
These bottled up emotions and consistent level of stress can encourage a flight attendant to turn towards substance abuse to help cope with his job. Examples of these stressors include:
- Lack of sleep – It’s no secret that traveling makes people tired, including flight attendants. Sometimes, a flight attendant’s schedule might be completely filled with work, which may mean that he will be traveling for long periods at a time and staying in different cities each night. This can lead to an irregular sleep pattern, encouraging the flight attendant to turn to sleep aids or other stimulating medications. This can be dangerous though, as these types of medications are highly addictive.
- Constant travel – While many flight attendants get into this career path to see the world and travel often, doing so can take a toll on their personal lives. For example, a flight attendant does not have the normal nine-to-five job where they are home every night in time for dinner. Rather they are taking off and landing at all hours of the day and night. They also might not be able to partake in many holidays or attend events that are important to their family. This can be extremely painful, and often times leave a flight attendant feeling lonely. These emotions can lead them down a path of substance abuse to help ease the pain of their job-related loneliness.
- Tending needs – Working in customer service has never been easy, and a flight attendant’s main priority is to ensure that the passengers are tended to, as well as comfortable and safe. Their needs will always come first while they are on the clock, making the flight attendant’s own needs secondary. This constant back-burner feeling can begin to really irritate some, causing anger and possibly even resentment, which may lead flight attendants to seek solace in substance abuse.
Flight attendants do not live the kinds of lives that most people do. They are always on the go and constantly putting themselves second to the needs of others. While this kind of lifestyle might work for some flight attendants, others might find it to be more trying than they originally envisioned. Trying to adjust to a constantly moving life can be difficult enough for some flight attendants that they look to dark places, such as substance abuse, to solve their problems.