Employees with drug problems should go through employee-assistance programs.

Four of the patients were professional therapists or counselors in employee-assistance programs.

As a result of financial pressures caused largely by high housing costs, corporate employee-assistance programs report record numbers of workers seeking emotional and financial counseling.

And they also worry about the additional costs of employee-assistance programs.

They were not interested in employee-assistance programs by themselves because they saw them as an added expense.

For years, many large employers have relied on employee-assistance programs to provide counseling for troubled workers and their families.

"George wanted to come up against me again and hit one off my face," said Noles, who now works in the Phillies' employee-assistance program.

Corporations and labor unions are offering employee-assistance programs to workers in dramatically increasing numbers.

Time does not have a formal domestic-violence policy, a spokesman said, but it does now have an employee-assistance program that can help victims.

Managers of corporate employee-assistance programs said requests for counseling referrals peak twice: after summer vacations, and again after Christmas holiday season.