Q: My boyfriend makes more money than I do but seems to have less fun. He’s quite successful by any professional measure but always being in overdrive seems to have quite a cost. He doesn’t make time for friends, has difficulty making weekend plans and frequently falls asleep cuddled up with the computer. Am I right to be concerned, or is this the way most people succeed nowadays?

Dear Readers,

Anyone who loves someone who fits the above description is right to be concerned. Sadly, we are all more vulnerable to “work addiction” nowadays. With the growing availability of technology that makes working 24/7 easier than ever and the widespread worry about holding onto jobs in a tight economy, it’s easy to forget how important it is to strike a healthy balance between work and play.

Ideally, technology can add more control to your work life. But if you begin to feel manipulated by your Blackberry rather than the other way around, take stock of your priorities and try to reinforce the boundaries protecting your private life.

Many people can simply recalibrate. It’s those who don’t want to cut back on work because it seems more satisfying than their personal lives who can truly be called workaholics. Not sure? Take a look at “Chained to the Desk” (NYU Press, 2007), a guide for workaholics and their families by psychologist Bryan Robinson. A professor emeritus of counseling at the University of North Carolina, Robinson provides a 25-item checklist that can help you determine whether you have workaholic tendencies. Another checklist can be found on Workaholics Anonymous web site, www.workaholics-anonymous.org.

Robinson’s checklist requires readers to rate themselves on a scale from 1 (never true) to 4 (always true) on a variety of items. Among them:

I prefer to do most things rather than ask for help.

I get impatient when I have to wait for someone else or when something takes too long.

I get upset with myself for making even the smallest mistake.

I ask the same question over again without realizing it, after I’ve already been given the answer once.

Depending on their scores, readers are rated as highly workaholic, mildly workaholic, or not at all workaholic. If you score high, your addiction can be as destructive as alcoholism, which means it also is likely to be adversely affecting your relationships with family members and friends. I would strongly suggest examining your relationship with work more closely with the help of a trained counselor.

One easy way to start thinking about adding more balance in your life, offered by Robinson, is to chart how much time you devote to self, family, play, and work as a percentage of your time and compare that with a more desired allocation for your future. The difference between the two gives you some idea of the scope of the change you seek.

Managers should be wary of the workaholics on their staff, says Rutgers University management professor Gayle Porter, who has conducted numerous studies on the differences between high performance workers and people suffering from work addiction. Despite the common view that workaholics are the most productive employees, she notes that workaholics are typically inefficient. “You can’t judge by face time,” she says. “Workaholics’ goals often are to take on more work than they can possibly handle and fill up as many hours as possible.” In his book, Robinson sums up the difference this way: “The healthy worker is in the office looking forward to being on the ski slopes; the workaholic is on the ski slopes thinking about the office.”

Workaholics who are employed in organizations that reward the round-the-clock effort they are trying to curtail may have to consider changing jobs, Porter says.

Taking action to address work addiction is guaranteed to pay off handsomely in the way that matters most: personally. As the highly driven Michael Jackson discerned in “Off the Wall”:

So tonight gotta leave that nine-to-five upon the shelf

And just enjoy yourself.