Work Alienation, Patterns of Substance Use and Country of Origin among Male Hospitality Workers in Israel Richard Isralowitz & Alexander Reznik & Yaniv Belhassen Published online: 16 June 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012 Abstract This prospective study examined the relationship between work alienation, coun- try of origin and substance use among male hospitality workers in Israel. Results show work alienation more prevalent among Former Soviet Union origin males and those workers who binge drink and use cannabis (i.e., marijuana and/or hashish). Given the paucity of literature on hospitality workers, this brief report contributes to understanding an issue that is neither well understood nor adequately addressed. Further research is needed to validate these findings both in Israel and other countries so that such information can be useful for hotel employment and management policies as well as employee assistance programs. Keywords Substance use . Work alienation . Hospitality workers . Country of origin Employee alienation is a factor often discussed in the context of industrial labor, sociology of work, and political economy (Marx 2000). The term is synonymous with boredom, emotional dissonance, negative affective experiences, psychological withdrawal, sense of powerlessness and low activation level (Diefendorff et al. 2002; Hochschild 1983; Morris and Feldman 1996; Pearlin 1962; Weiss and Cropanzano 1996). Indirectly, alienation tends to influence job satisfaction that in turn influences a set of beliefs about the usefulness of substance use as a means of coping with this condition (Greenberg and Grunberg 1995; Pidd et al. 2006). Hospitality employees have a high rate of substance use, more so than those in most other industries (Larson et al. 2007; Belhassen and Shani 2012; Isralowitz et al. 2012). Also, such problem behavior has been linked to property destruction as well as serious injury and death Int J Ment Health Addiction (2012) 10:923–926 DOI 10.1007/s11469-012-9388-z R. Isralowitz (*) : A. Reznik Spitzer Department of Social Work, Regional Alcohol and Drug Abuse Resources Center, Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva, Israel e-mail: richard@bgu.ac.il Y. Belhassen Department of Hotel & Tourism Management, Ben-Gurion University, Beer Sheva, Israel 84105