Workaholic syndrome (psychology)

Workaholic syndrome (not to be confused with a workaholic) is where one attempts to create additional work, hobbies or problems to solve for themselves as a form of escapism from unpleasant situations or other problems.

Examples
An individual may attempt to use hobbies to distract or escape from the fact they are alone, or use additional work (such as taking up additional work or purposefully putting in overtime) to stay away from home.

Problems
Workaholic syndrome generates additional problems in the individual besides the problems they already have, such as work exhaustion, additional stress (in tackling more issues), time management and scheduling conflicts (resulting in further problems and disputes), a general sense of feeling overwhelmed (thus possibly leading to panicking and anxiety attacks). Built up stress from an overload of work can eventually result in sudden extreme outbursts of aggression and even emotional breakdown.

Workaholic syndrome attempts to solve the symptoms of a problem (how the individual feels, EG unhappy) rather than the cause (the cause of how they feel, EG unhappy home life) and could be deemed a variant example of Dr Mario syndrome (although not a verbatim variant).