BBC Sherwood screenwriter James Graham reveals he attended 'Workaholics ... trends now

Sherwood screenwriter James Graham has opened up about attending 'Workaholics Anonymous' for his 'addiction' - which he claims is not treated as seriously as when people are hooked on drugs and alcohol.

The 41-year-old said he first accepted that he had a problem when he caught himself lying to loved ones about 'stupid things which did not even need lying about', including what time had had woken up in the morning to start working.

If a friend or family member told him he looked tired and asked what time he had woken up, he would respond: 'Oh, you know, eight' when it was actually 5am. He also confessed that he would go a whole day without eating.

Graham, who along with BBC crime drama Sherwood has written hit plays Dear England, Ink and Labour of Love, was diagnosed with the addiction more than a decade ago. 

Speaking to Lauren Laverne on the BBC's Desert Island Discs, Graham said: 'You hear that phrase [workaholic] a lot [as though] it is a habit that you have, not an actual sickness. 

'But it is … no way different really from [addictions to] drink or drugs or sex or anything else. It's a pattern of behaviour that is slowly sort of killing you. People spoke of the people they had lost due to it.' 

He added: 'I knew something wasn't quite right in my late twenties. I would go into periods where I would be far too isolated from friends, or self-sabotage relationships as soon as they became intimate and important, and I was just working around the clock continually, but without really looking after myself.'

Graham said that for workaholics, too much of their sense of self comes from their working life which led to difficulties with his relationships and intimacy.

'All of my self-esteem, all of my validation, all of my happiness and joy was coming from my work and I didn't allow myself to believe there was space for anything else,' he explained.

He said he eventually spoke to an expert who 'probably saved him'. 

'She listened to me wanging on about feelings and she eventually just said: 'Why aren't you wearing a coat?' It was winter and it was really cold outside. 

'I had a flimsy paper thing on from the summer. I just hadn't had the time at that point to go out and buy a winter coat.

'I brushed it aside, but she was obsessing about it, going: 'You are starting to do OK. Why can't you go and take an hour to go and buy a nice coat?'