Brett Gormley sits by day in a darkened one-room flat in with only a video player and a TV for company and furniture.

He is unshaven, dressed in dirty shorts and a t-shirt, with bags under his eyes and dried spittle about the corner of his mouth.

Although the morning Tae-bo session has just started on TV, and he is well on his way through the ninth cup of coffee for the day, he seems barely awake, oblivious even to the heckling of The Urban Legend's reporter.

Because Brett Gormley, former high-school teacher, is sick, by his own admission a five o'clock shadow of the man he once was.

Apart from being bearing an uncanny resemblance to Quentin Tarantino, he has no obvious physical defects, and can lift a pint as well as the next man. And although his mind seems to have dimmed from the shining beacon he claims it once was to a mere 30-watt bulb, he still has possession of his faculties.

No, Brent is emotionally sick. He is an addict. A work addict in recovery.

"I'm a grateful recovering worker. Each day I'm getter stronger and stronger," he says, "but one day's work and I'm back on that slippery slope."

Brent, 29, fossicks through the fast-food wrappers on the floor to proudly display the Workaholics Anonymous badge with the words 'one year idle'. It has been, he admits, a long road to idleness. "When I first tried to go idle, two years ago, I had this over-powering urge to work. I felt like I was losing control." With no emotional support, he relapsed, spending eight months on a work-and-sleep binge which took him to hell and back. "That's the weird thing about it. Work was hell, but when the boss phoned, pleading with me to go and teach some more math, I went right back.

WORK ADDICTON RAMPANT According to a recent survey by the National Dependency Agency, more than 75% of Americans are dependent on work. But an agency spokesman said the figure was no cause for concern, because most do not let it interfere with their lifestyles. Meanwhile, the news has sparked interest among sociologists, who according to The Urban Legend's sources would be applying in droves for federal grants to study the finding.

"Less than a week and I was waking up to the alarm-clock and wearing walk-shorts. Then came the roman sandals. A month later and I'd grown a beard, and after six weeks, I was giving the check-out girl detention.

"My girlfriend left me, none of my friends would talk to me, and the Elks' club wouldn't let me in the door," he says.

In an attempt to go idle, he quit the job, but within two weeks he had taken on part-time work pumping gas, and a month later he was back teaching.

He hit his rock-bottom, realising he was powerless over work, the morning he found himself looking for hyperbolic parabolas in his corn-flakes.

"It was a nightmare," he says.

He phoned Workaholics Anonymous, and started attending meetings at Bob's Bar and Grill. Soon after he realised "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."

He says he found strength in the fellowship of hundreds of recovering workers, some of whom stop by regularly for pizza and beer and repeat showings of Pink Floyd's The Wall.

Brett agreed to talk to The Urban Legend about his illness in the hope that his story might offer solace to the millions of other workers out there.