Ask HN: I'm writing a book about white-collar drug use, including tech sector
I’m now writing a book based on that story for Random House. Although it is about what happened to Peter, the broader story is about the problem of substance use (and often abuse) in white-collar professions, where the users are well-off, well-educated, working long hours, often with all the outward trappings of success.
What can you tell me about drug use as a professional or in your profession?
I know there is drug use in law, finance, medicine and technology, and am hoping that some of you will be open to discussing with me what you see and what you've experienced in your profession and professional environment. I’d like to use some of your comments in the book and will not know or need to know your names, so I hope you’ll feel comfortable being as candid as possible. I’m not here to make judgements, all I’m looking for is the truth about what’s going on.
I'm interested in whatever you can tell me about drugs you are using or observe being used in your field: which drugs, what effects you see, any stories you have, any details you can share. Thanks.
641 comments
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I remember a CEO of one of my early startups would give me 5mg addies to help me get more done. I appreciated it because it was great to get the added boost to focus.
I eventually worked my way up to taking 30mg of XR daily (legally, doctor prescribed) and it was the most productive I have ever been in my life. I worked 24x7. I was working a normal consulting job while also working on a startup/app in my spare time. I did ui/ux/frontend/backend/api development and sent cash overseas for an iOS developer that I managed. None of this would have been possible without stimulants.
It's only way to do some of the things that the really successful engineers are doing. You forgo eating, exercise, etc... and spend 110% of your time on working and chasing the high of getting shit done.
It's not sustainable though. I eventually went cold turkey. I do NOT recommend that as it will completely ruin your life for 6 months to a year. I was not productive, I gained tons of weight, my self-confidence went to shit. My life really went into a downward spiral.
Now I am 100% drug-free and am not at the same level I was back then, but I am very productive and focused. I would not go back to where I was, even for the productivity gains. I eat clean (low-carb, ketogenic), weightlift in my basement, row 5k/10k every few days for cardio. My only vice is really coffee and the low-carb cocktails on weekends. Best of all, I do not wake up in the morning needing a tiny pill full of amphetamine salts.
Not only that, the amount of things you accomplish in that time span is far greater. So it really does turn you into a 10x engineer. If you're already very strong, experienced, pragmatic, etc.. then the stimulants will truly make you feel invincible.
So if you see a software engineer at a big company who is making 200k a year while simultaneously putting out dozens of open source projects a year, maintaining them, speaking at conferences, managing complex hobbies, etc... chances are that is due to a stimulant drug. I know very few people who are capable of that naturally.
There is a funny meme I saw recently that rings true:
https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/drug-relate...
if we don't know what the outcome of these ER visits are, then it could well be that for some tiny percentage of cocaine users there is a side effect that causes the perception of chest pain, which disappears with no ill effects after a few hours. or, maybe, this represents almost all cocaine users - 90% of them experience severe enough chest pain to warrant an ER visit, all of whom are pronounced dead withing minutes of arrival.
annoyingly, the website you linked to which details this singular datum, does nothing to clarify as to what the truth of the matter is. it certainly doesn't appear to be "advancing addiction science" in any useful way...
Edit: What I see a lot of is people who think they are super productive while churning out lines and lines of garbage.
Then tolerance rears its head and it becomes exactly like you said. For me it takes till I get close to t_max (peak blood concentration) that my day really starts, which is from 1-3 hrs after dosing (closer to 3 for the drugs I take)
Work smart or go home.
I wanted to achieve everything naturally. I knew going off the drug would slow me down, but I was willing to trade general health and well-being for a drop in productivity.
I don't live in Silicon Valley any longer though... so that might be part of the reason I don't feel the pressure.
Right now I might call myself a big fish in a little pond (not really, I am more humble than that) but compared to SF where you are a small fish in a big pond ... there is a lot more pressure to stand-out and be excellent.
When people experienced prolonged withdrawal symptoms from ceasing stimulants, I think it is usually due to being forced to confront life conditions that were being avoided.
This certainly may be part of it.
However, there are long-term changes in the brain that occur with chronic stimulant use/abuse. I'm looking for the correct number, but I believe it takes about 24 months for the brain to revert to its normal state after stimulant cessation.
Here's what I could find via a preliminary Google search on my phone:
From drugabuse.gov [0]:
> In the aforementioned study, abstinence from methamphetamine resulted in less excess microglial activation over time, and abusers who had remained methamphetamine-free for 2 years exhibited microglial activation levels similar to the study’s control subjects. Another neuroimaging study showed neuronal recovery in some brain regions following prolonged abstinence (14 but not 6 months). This recovery was associated with improved performance on motor and verbal memory tests. But function in other brain regions did not recover even after 14 months of abstinence, indicating that some methamphetamine induced changes are very long lasting.
Here's a graphic they included [1].
This is another source [2]:
> Stopping drug use doesn’t immediately return the brain to normal. Some drugs have toxic effects that can kill neurons—and most of these cells will not be replaced. And while changes to connections between neurons in the brain may not be permanent, some last for months. Some research suggests the changes may even last for years.
I cannot find the studies these articles cite, but I'll try to find them later.
This is related, but is not specific to stimulant or methamphetamine use:
Delta-FosB, an enzyme that is critical to achieve an addiction state in the brain, has a half-life of ~208hr [3]. Multiply that by the standard 7 half-lives to estimate significant elimination, and that alone yields a maximum of 60 days until it is cleared. This enzyme is key in drug and behavioural addictions.
This paper [4] speculates about changes in the brain that last longer than the time it takes to eliminate elevated Delta-FosB levels in the brain.
[0] https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/meth...
[1] https://d14rmgtrwzf5a.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/met...
[2] http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/brainchange...
[3] http://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/17/13/4933.full.pdf
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC58680/#__sec5ti...
Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome (PAWS) is supposedly a thing that can last months, but it's just an observation of a collection of symptoms - no analysis of a specific mechanism causing it that I have seen.
I would hope that someone trying to do something useful concerning addiction and the brain wouldn't go by a comment on Hacker News that was posted via a cell phone.
Anyway, please see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16477351
There was a story on HN with people trying to microdose on LSD, and the alleged benefits - long story short, when they asked peers about their performance, they noticed they're more distracted and not more productive, while those doing the microdosing thought they're on a super productive trip.
We notice this manager is in a constant state of "brain fog" to a point where his speech changed (like he's drunk), while I'm pretty sure he thinks he's a 10x machine and wouldn't be able to pull all of his workload off without drugs.
You get more sick days, you need more time to recharge, while thinking you're on your absolute productivity peak. And when you crash, you're basically unemployable / unproductive for 6 months to 1 year.
Not worth it IMHO.
This is a fascinating possibility, and apparently there's at least one researcher working on exactly that. [1][2]
On a much lesser level, I know this is a common reason for the divide between focus tips ("listen to white noise, silence, or wordless music to avoid distraction") and people's self-report techniques ("listening to intense EDM helps me code"). The goal isn't to avoid distraction, it's to break through tedium and help code longer without losing focus. I'd hardly be surprised if more intense things like LSD microdosing had similar effects.
Anecdotally, I know at least one very skilled programmer who insisted she couldn't work without marijuana. She didn't think THC did anything to raise her core abilities, but rather said that it stopped her from getting impatient or bored and let her work more methodically for longer.
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-with-...
[2] http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21507740.2014.990...
Note: to have an effective microdose you have to take a small amount. <=5ug. I tried 25ug and it was basically a super light trip (distinctive lsd body high and everything).
Anyway, for 98% of people microdosing won’t help productivity in the long run.
Edit: just to preempt the obvious questions, I’m talking about oral methamphetamine, I’ve never smoked it. Orally, d-meth is just objectively better than amphetamine (okay, that’s subjective, but the peripheral stimulation of, say, l-amphetamine is a huge negative)
i've wondered this myself. i often hear people say stuff like "people with real adhd can't get high from stims", but i suspect that some of this is just that people want to distance their legitimate use from those tweakers over there.
if there's any truth to it, i'd bet it comes down to the way the drug is used. when you take an extended release formulation (or instant release every n hours) regularly, you tend to have relatively stable blood concentrations of the drug (ie, you don't get "high"). recreational users, and also probably people who self medicate, will end up with peakier blood levels, which results in the perception of being "high". the concentration level over time can be an extremely important factor in how the drug ultimately affects you.
I don't know if "High" is the right word. I've accidentally taken too much, and it makes me super impatient, which makes me kind of an asshole. I've also taken WAY too much on accident, and it just made me paranoid and think my heart was beating out of my chest.
I will say, being on a normal amount is kind of the best kind of high. Living with ADHD is like drowning, like you have these short moments of coming up for air and being productive, but quickly become distracted for everything else.
Being on the right amount, is like someone finally shut all the extra TVs off in the back of my brain. Like there's no challenge in determining the priority of what needs to be done. I feel human, not anxious, not depressed by my inability to remember where I put my keys 30 seconds ago. and thus, more productive.
Now I don't claim that my experience with ADHD is like another's, but this is my experience.
It was terrifying enough that I don't think I'll ever abuse the stuff, but I can definitely believe that some people would like the feeling.
On the other hand, correctly dosed Focalin significantly reduces my symptoms (as in I go from being unable to complete a simple 5 sentence e-mail to being able to be mostly on-task). Avoiding all simple-carbs before noon significantly improves the efficacy of it as well for me (a traditional sugar/starch american breakfast would make me hypoglycemic around the middle of the day).
When you have to take it day in, day out just to feel more normal, the dosage is either too low for pleasurable effects or tolerance negates them, and the side effects start to wear on you. Since it’s something you’re legitimately doing just to feel normal, but you inadvertently suffer from some of the drawbacks of drug addiction, ultimately you'd rather not be doing it.
A month ago I was diagnosed with severe apnea, and since starting treatment I feel like a different person. I wonder whether the apnea was worsened by modafinil four years ago, and that was the reason for my constant wearing down. Maybe I'll do an experiment just to see, but I don't need stimulants anymore to be productive, not even coffee.
There are two big hurdles, granted (apart from side effects). One is how long-term toleration works - users report continued efficacy, while objective tests seem to suggest decreased sensitivity. Two is how amphetamines mix with intelligence; normal-IQ users appear to have unchanged or worsened performance on intelligence tests despite 'feeling smarter'. (The same goes for Modafinil.)
But neither of those things really challenge the core observation: in the short term, Adderall and similar substances improve attentiveness, focus/willpower, and probably memory.
They often aren't worth it, and non-medicinal use is often unsustainable. But if someone is showing up with "brain fog" and underperforming while feeling skilled, that really sounds like something else is up. Either a paradoxical reaction to the drug, or some substance other than core focus/'smart' drugs.
edit: I just looked, and paradoxical drowsiness is a known response some people have to amphetamines. I'd bet that the person you're describing has an atypical response to amphetamines.
But if tou take them wirh a tolerance and your underlying physical body is fatigued, it becomes very, very easy to fall asleep (or worse, to be too stimmed to sleep but too tired to be productive)
One of the things that sustained stimulant abuse contributes to is sleep deprivation and the disturbance of sleep patterns. "Brain fog" - confusion, problems concentrating, memory problems, are all symptoms of sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation experiments have also consistently produced psychotic symptoms (hallucinations, paranoia, disturbed/unusual thinking - the person undergoing the psychosis of course thinks they are doing fine) - the earliest experiment I am aware of being Randy Gardner's[1] in 1964. "Stimulant psychosis" is supposed to be one of the effects of amphetamine abuse; I think the psychosis is likely due to the sleep deprivation involved in multi-day binges.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Gardner_(record_holder)
This aligns with my experience. Microdosing is good when you have physical tasks to do (i.e. running around town all day, reorganizing / cleaning your house), but focusing on creative tasks is harder.
Tbh, the only thing I'd recommend it for is for people struggling with chronic depression or anxiety - for these two, it can be a life-changingly effective "aspirin" (i.e. not a cure, you still need to fix the underlying causes) without the significant side-effects of traditional medication, and any lack of focus is massively offset by relieving the brain fog of depression/anxiety.
Meth was extensively used in the German military and probably contributed to the victory over France. Basically to can stay awake and endure, but cognitive ability is impaired in some ways.
There's some reason to believe this is literally true - and true in the same sense as the economic rule! In this context, it's been nicknamed the Algernon argument. Gwern (of course) has the canonical writeup.[1]
The short version is: "if some chemical change could make us smarter, why wouldn't it already been in place?" Or, framed differently, "why would the brain evolve to benefit from a chemical it doesn't normally have?" This argument doesn't say cognitive performance enhancement is impossible, only that there has to be some tradeoff for it or we would have evolved it already. If we're going to get rewarding "brain boosts", we need to find tradeoffs that are more appealing than they were historically.
One simple possibility is this one: we can find chemical supplements that let us rearrange when we're performing well, without net gain. Caffeine is an obvious example: it doesn't actually diminish the value of sleep, but postpones the feeling and helps us manipulate our schedules. Amphetamines might be a more extreme case of the same, 'borrowing' energy more generally and paying for it later.
The other dodges are less relevant here, but a fascinating read if you check the article.
[2] https://www.gwern.net/Drug-heuristics
These drugs are just changing the balances of existing pathways in our brains. They aren't creating new pathways. Either they are causing a substance that your body naturally limits to exist in higher quantities or lower quantities, keeping a messenger molecule from being removed as fast as it would be normally, or removed faster than normal.
So I agree with the parent, it is likely we can choose the tradeoffs, maybe needing to avoid predators and scavenge for food is not our priority anymore and we can turn off some of that so we can think more deeply. But chemically I doubt we can improve ourselves without any drawbacks.
But yes, technology in general, physical things, can have a more pure benefit, and we are already reaping the rewards of those benefits. A new macbook pro is likely to make me more productive while not interfering with my sleep :)
Gwern outlines three general ways to work around the Algernon rule:
1. We can live under different conditions than evolution prepared us for
2. We can optimize for different goals than evolution rewarded
3. We can make major/multifactor changes unavailable to an local-maximization algorithm.
Condition two is easiest: caffeine is a sensible response to electric lighting, while staying awake long after dark was largely unhelpful in our evolutionary past.
Condition one is sometimes rewarding: piracetam shows efficacy with choline supplements, because we can massively overload a relatively scarce chemical. Other kludges may exist, like boosting immune response by simulating a summer day/night cycle to signal "safe conditions, energy is cheap now".
Condition three is incredibly hard wrt to the brain. It's obvious for the body - eye surgery can improve on 20/20 vision - but I don't know of any drastic better-than-well interventions for the mind.
There is one version of this idea that I like though, which is that I doubt that we're built for 8+ hours a day of intense abstract reasoning, which seems to be what the modern information economy demands of those aspiring to a middle class or better existence. The vast bulk of humanity did not earn their daily bread this way for most of human history, so I don't think our brains are adapted for "abstract reasoning above all else."
As an aside, drug use was extremely common among indigenous peoples all across the world. I don't even think this naturalism fallacy supports these particular claims.
It's very useful to recognize when we aren't 'made' for something, because it implies we can get benefits from either avoiding it or supplementing our performance at the task. When we are "made for" a task, like walking for long periods or throwing objects with good aim, it's tough to improve on human baseline. (At least, not without serious side effects. There's a reason drugs to boost strength and physical endurance tend to be risky.)
But that distinction has to be kept separate from a values judgement. As I mentioned in another comment, "reading a good book" is something I'm not evolved to do. That might mean I should be prepared for challenges with the task (e.g. back pain if I sit for too long), but it's unrelated to whether I want to keep doing it.
The 'ancestral environment' stuff is likely to be easy or optimized-for, but that's not the same as being a better way to live.
There shouldn't be any easy way to improve on what evolution tried to do, because evolution would have done it. But there can certainly be ways to optimize for things evolution didn't try to do, like preparing us to do symbolic logic for 40 hours a week or stay up well past dark. And there can be ways to optimize for goals evolution didn't/couldn't reward, like "never having kids and staying healthy until age 90".
I do think there's risk in blurring the moral point with the practical one, though. I'm not particularly evolved for reading books, but it's something I enjoy and I want 'hacks' to do it better - whether that's reading glasses or a cup of coffee. I don't like commuting while tired or being stationary for hours on end, and if I had free choice I'd stop doing those things instead of hacking myself to be better at them.
But in "enhancement" terms, they both count as "doing a thing I wasn't made to do" regardless of whether I want to keep doing them.
You could apply the same logic to Aspirin or any medicine - if reducing swelling was beneficial, why doesn't our body do it for us?
That seems like a misunderstanding of evolution. It's not a master plan driving toward perfection. Our biology is a bag of traits, some of which were useful and some of which just haven't been selected out yet.
Perhaps if you are a runner and you take these seemingly benign medicines to reduce pain and swelling, you end up causing more permanent damage by continuing to run when you should not (I have experienced this).
I think a lot of medicines work by turning off or on processes that are important but inconvenient at the time. Painkillers are probably the best example. We shouldn't take them when we are healthy, it would be dangerous. Other medicines, such as antibiotics, work by killing pathogens directly and don't affect our bodies like the drugs in this discussion.
It's I suppose possible to hit a simple optimization evolution hasn't found yet, but that's rarer than people seem to think. The major examples we have are either things which evolution lacks the tools for (e.g. mechanical prosthetics) or major biological leaps (e.g. your antibiotic example).
The things that look quick and easy like "eat some willow bark extract" have tradeoffs, even when they aren't obvious. Taking 'painkillers' to the extreme - morphine - makes it especially obvious. It's generally a terrible idea unless you've recognized that there's a problem and gotten someone else to take care of keeping you healthy while you're out of commission.
That's the thing, that's not how it works
The brain didn't evolve to be affected by substances unknown to it, it's plants that evolved substances that have CNS effects. (Though the body did evolve to depend on a lot of external substances - be that calorie and protein sources or vitamins)
Nicotine is literally a pesticide (and yes, people do use it as such in some occasions). Not sure how other substances evolved though (I think caffeine made the coffee seeds travel further)
It does not follow that evolution would maximize intelligence or performance.
Human intelligence exists as a by-product of many cumulative adaptions for survival.
That person ought to be in jail. A CEO is definitely not in charge of the pharmacy, anything of this kind should be prescribed by your doctor.
I don't look back on it and think it was predatory or a big deal or a malicious thing. I definitely don't think he deserves to be in jail or punished.
If a CEO here in NL suggested I take some pills in order to improve my productivity and offered to supply them my first step would be to inform the board in writing and my second would be to resign my position. This is simply not ok, and not acceptable.
I'd agree that it's not professional/ethical, but the OP didn't say the CEO suggested it.
For all we know, poster might have initially asked (Of course, agreeing to hand out arbitrary medication is of course not the right answer).
Point is I'm trying not too read too much into their dynamics and make assumptions based on a short HN comment.
Never mind that caffeine is legal yet it’s the shittiest productivity drug I can imagine yet everyone is falling over themselves to serve it to you and get you one while they’re out on break. I’d much prefer people ask me if I’d like a pill of modafinil to the addictive cranky horror that is caffeine.
Nice to see we agree.
> social dynamics change dramatically.
I'm sorry, but whatever the 'social dynamics' as a person in a position of authority over another there are some lines you should never cross. Not knowing what your mandate is as a CEO is a recipe for disaster.
If an employee has a productivity issue a CEO does not have mandate to prescribe - or even suggest - medication. The fact that that needs spelling out is worrisome.
Jesus. If that happened to me, my first stop would be to the board/investors to report it, and my second would be out the door and to a new job.
> It's only way to do some of the things that the really successful engineers are doing. You forgo eating, exercise, etc... and spend 110% of your time on working and chasing the high of getting shit done.
I suspect your belief of the effectiveness here is quite a large exaggeration. You might have tunnel-vision focus and the ability to stay awake for long stretches and work, but the quality of that work just cannot be top notch. If you don't eat, exercise, or sleep much, your brain is not getting the fuel it needs to work properly, and no drug can replace or mimic that. Over the (very) short term you'll see a benefit, but after that it's just vapor.
I'm saying this not to say "Actually..." but so that no one discounts your valid point just because they have some anecdote where it didn't apply. There is a point where you pay (or at least stop winning), and our understanding of where that point is and how stable it is is very lacking. Likewise, our judgement under the influence of something should not be considered 100% reliable. Neither should our judgement NOT under the influence, but people tend to become zealots when defensive, and fewer people are defensive of being "normal".
I had a friend that I was discussing nootropics with - It's a topic I'm very interested in, but I'm not interested in any notable experimentation because, well, I've only got one brain and our understanding of it is pathetic. His answer was that by experimentation you'd discover what worked. We were definitely coming at it from opposite ends despite similar interests.
It pains me to think the abuse left permanent damage.
Congrats on kicking the pills.
Pills wouldn't help in fact they would make it more difficult. Organisation, ruthless priorization and discipline are the key. The rest is just distractions.
I've heard a fellow engineer say, "it lets me enjoy being an extrovert."
Being visibly influenced by a drug is a huge failure as well. It's OK if you take and it's not visible but once you act differently (e.g. talking too fast, slightly jumping around while standing etc.), people will think badly of you and you will be a target of jokes. Having a different behaviour even if you haven't taken the drug (e.g. if you get cravings for it) is seen as bad too.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substituted_phenethylamine
for some it provides clarity, for others, fog. the dopamine transporters are very mysterious to me.
I use it because I am not naturally suited for the work. I have a genetic variation(gs224) that makes me tired all of the time and stimulation-deprived. However in our current economy, it seems like the only career path I can take that will work with my abrasive, likely autistic personality while still providing long-term career growth opportunities.
As a counterpoint: I've been a developer 10 years. I've worked at a few established businesses, two startups (one U.S. based and one German), and two consultancies. I worked in-person in Charlotte, N.C. and remotely since then. I've never worked in Silicon Valley.
One employer had a "play hard" culture, encouraging alcohol (ab)use outside of work. I didn't stay there long.
Perhaps I've self-selected based on my values (I don't work overtime), but I've never heard drug use condoned in any of those places, or at conferences I've attended. And I've often heard overwork spoken of as counter-productive and exploitative, as a thing that wise coders avoid.
I was not aware that "drug use as a programming aid" existed in the industry, though, human nature being what it is, I'm not shocked.
Just a caution that this shouldn't be portrayed as if it's ubiquitous without statistical evidence of that.
I worked for a small startup in Atlanta from 97-2000, then another startup in Silicon Valley from 2000-2004 (yay dotcom boom -- I slept under my desk more than once). I relocated to NC in 2004 and continued to work for that company (from its newly acquired NC office) till it was acquired by HP. I remained at HP a couple years. In 2009, I joined another SV startup (my third I guess) and worked from home for that startup till it was acquired by Yahoo in 2013. I've been at Yahoo, now Oath/Verizon since.
In all that time post-college, I've never used any form of drugs (besides occasional alcohol either outside of work or at a company party, beer bash Friday, etc), never felt any pressure to do so, and I've not been aware of drug use by colleagues with the exception of one person, but even that was hearsay to me.
Some of the stories I read about SV, I wonder how I could be missing so much (see for example, "The Nudist on the Late Shift").
That said, I tend to keep to myself. For me, work is work, and play is play, and I'd rather not cross the lines.
46 y/o, highly compensated software developer, married, father of two, used marijuana recreationally in college (I have a funny federal security clearance story about that...), never used any other drugs besides one not so good evening with LSD. Long distance running is how I keep my head straight, besides getting enough sleep and a relatively good diet.
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cocaine-use-i...
I think -- and this cuts both ways -- people into the drug scene naturally gravitate toward others that are also into it, to the point where they think "everyone" does it. I suspect tech's drug problem isn't markedly larger than society's drug problem as a whole; it's perhaps smaller considering knowledge workers get paid based on how well their brains work, and long-term most drugs seem to mess that up.
I'd love to see a concerted effort to study the prevalence of this sort of thing. It's frustrating that I can't validate my expectations here.
Don't forget the alcohol!
What about other kinds off addictions like porn?
OP If you're interested in the topic, I'm happy to go deeper into the subject.
Gwern Branwen is also quite open to talking publicly [2] about his experiences ordering things like modafinil without a prescription.
[1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/28/adderall-risks-much-mor... discussed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16033574
[2] https://www.gwern.net/Modafinil
Most programmers, scientists, people in finance and startups I know take a lot of stimulants. I take a lot of stimulants.
[Edit - as others have pointed out, there's a strong selection bias going on here. I actively seek out people who I know take stimulants, and we naturally congregate socially based on a bunch of subtle and explicit cues that signal we are safe to talk to about this kind of thing. My experience is not a random sample - I'm just responding to the request in the OP]
I have pretty severe ADD, so I take ritalin. Initially it was on prescription, but then I realised it was actually easier and cheaper to just get it from other sources.
I was pretty productive before because I developed a bunch of working practices that mostly contained the ADD, but with ritalin... I feel superhuman. And to be honest I can output an order of magnitude more and better than most people when I'm up. I recently moved to Berlin, where everyone is up all the time. Like, I know people who founded or are working for hundreds of businesses. Everyone, every single person, is up all the time. Adderall, dexedrine, ritalin, plain old speed paste, cocaine, kratom, modafinil. LSD or MDMA microdosing. Everyone works best when they are up. Then on the flip side, xanax, zopiclone, diazepam help control the wiredness and allow you to sleep when you want. Everyone is doing this. I know it's the same in London and New York.
If I have a good week, I generally will take perhaps 30mg Adderall IR a day, or 50mg Ritalin IR. If I need to brainstorm or deliver something with someone we order whatever (stimulants are delivered within 15-30 min by taxi here) and work through the night to get stuff done. This is normal. It's strange to me to see this being described as a problem because... it's not a problem. It is fairly low risk (compared to e.g. binge drinking) and it completely transforms your ability to work. It's so normal to me that I don't hide it from anyone and nobody ever complained. I meet random people, like undergraduate students from the USA who are visiting, and they are in exactly the same routine. Everyone works best with stimulants.
Edit - I will say though that Adderall and coke are by far the most common for people from the USA. For whatever reason those are definitely the North American drugs of choice in my sample.
This is patently false, and I think your assumed universality of drug use is based in no small part on your use, and the crowds that you've associated with because of that drug use.
I certainly know some people who've used stimulants from time to time (SF bay area), but that's the rare exception, not the rule. I know some people who have used MDMA, cocaine, etc. at parties, but it's not many. And, being in SF, I of course know a ton of people who use marijuana regularly.
I'll accept that drug use is probably higher than what I see (I have the opposite problem with perspective: as a non-user, I tend to associate with non-users), but suggesting it's the norm and is "everywhere" is an excessive exaggeration.
> Students, software developers, people in finance - for all of them stimulants are normal.
That's absolutely untrue. For certain (very small) subsets of those people (well, software developers, at least, which is my main area of experience), it certainly happens, but it is definitely not normal.
I know a couple of people outside of my field who are taking stimulants and talking about it. I know a couple people within my field (and outside) who take drugs solely recreationally, not as a performance booster or a way to get to sleep or anything, and certainly not on a regular let alone daily basis.
And I definitely know enough people within my field closely to know that they're not taking stimulants.
I think you just inhabit a different world, yes. (And I worry whether you inhabit a world of people who think they're productive; a sizable number of the the really productive and skilled people I know tend to be so clean that they don't even drink.)
I think we all inhabit a world of people who think they are productive - in the sense that many people optimise for the appearance of productivity as opposed to optimising for actual productivity or value generation. I can honestly say that stimulants make a vast, objective difference to my work output and quality (but I actually do have ADD so I'm not a good measure). I have also seen many other people produce extraordinarily good work on stimulants. At the same time some of the very best people I know don't need them and wouldn't touch them. We don't all have the natural ability or background those people have, so stimulants are a proxy. Quite probably many people are not achieving their maximum potential simply by using stimulants. Quite probably many people are decreasing the quantity or quality of their output by using stimulants. But objectively (as in, see the scientific literature) they do work. Whether people make them work for them is a different matter.
What objective measures are you using to evaluate yourself? are you in the top 1% of earners for your experience level, position, city?
Yeah, I guess so. I'm also in Berlin, and a lot of people take some kind of stimulant. As someone not taking any stimulants (not even coffee), it was quite hard to spot it in the beginning. At one point I was working with a larger group of people and only after a few months I was told that more than half of them were on some kind of stimulant almost constantly.
The closest I came was when I had some papers on my desk that were given out for free somewhere and somebody informed me that that was used mainly for smoking pot. I had no idea.
even the md/phd types who have been in clinical practice for 20 years do it, even after they've had kids etc. most only abuse coffee-- you can tell because the norm is to drink coffee until you're literally red in the face when there is serious work to get done. there are people who abstain, of course. they aren't looked down on, but they're probably not as productive on average.
coffee isn't bad at all. but plenty of others use/abuse prescription stimulants too, usually a bit more clandestinely in my experience. but if you know what to look for it's easy to tell when they're on them.
it makes sense. the point where people need stimulants the most is in synthesizing experimental insights into new hypotheses in light of other literature. it takes a lot of brainpower to keep trucking... you can take a crack at it without stimulants, but you'll run out of steam quickly.
as far as the downside, a handful of people binge drink to come down, but it isn't the norm, except during social events. there are a few who smoke weed / take xanax at work to calm down, but these are frowned upon somewhat.
(Which is very different from recreational use, of course, or recreational use turning into addiction.)
The big trouble with it is that a drug -- any drug -- will alter your perception of the world such that it is difficult to know with absolute confidence whether you are taking the drug for purely rational reasons to further your personal goals...or not.
Amphetamines at least, based on my experience and reading of the literature, improve your ability to do huge amounts of light/easy work at the expense of "deep" thinking. This means that they would be most effective for people who are knee-deep in work that is too easy for them and need to get more throughput. Undergrad is exactly this -- tons of relatively easy work. Professional life is not; quality is in the long term valued over shitty quantity.
I hope your article won't be a complete hatchet job on white-collar drug use -- the reality is very complex. Humans in general, and white-collar workers in particular, are living in environments and doing things extremely different from what humans evolved for. Thus, some of us use drugs to tweak our biology to adapt to the situation. Assuming that these do in fact improve performance -- a very disputable assumption -- this would be a success story for human intelligence and adaptability.
I think we will see a generation of people come into these positions (e.g. professorships) where a significant proportion of them are using pharmaceutical enhancement as one of the many tools in their box. Stimulants aren't magic, they don't make idiots clever. But if you're a clever person who is tired or stressed, they can (seem to) make a big difference.
Some combination of the above, but it's pretty obvious once you get used to it. At the same time, I'm pretty sure many people in my life have no idea that I take stimulants (though as I said, I don't hide it), but just see me as being at my best when I'm on them.
There's also of course the side effect list, which usually reflects this sort of thing: https://www.drugs.com/sfx/amphetamine-side-effects.html
... is someone giving me stimulants without my knowledge? That's me at baseline.
Or should I cut out even my one cup of coffee per day?
That doesn't make sense. Being tweaked on caffeine doesn't make you more productive. It doesn't even make you feel more productive.
Biologist here, and yep, that was the only real discernible downside to me. Especially when I was new to the drug (Adderall) and didn't know how to time the doses and therefore took them too late in the day, I would get a powerful urge to drink about 3-5 hours after the last dose to come down. However, if you dose early enough in the day you will come down naturally.
Besides the desire to "drink to come down", the other problem is that Adderall will make you feel clearer and more energetic for longer while drinking, making it easier to miss the warning signs that you are approaching (or have passed) the "too much" threshold.
I am not aware of stimulant use being very common among the people I work with, and you are absolutely right that it is easy to tell the symptoms.
Relevant article: https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080409/full/452674a.html
If ~20% of biologists (broadly speaking, and higher in younger cohorts) "have used" a drug to enhance performance, then the number regularly using must be lower, unless there is selection bias in this informal poll, and if there was I would suspect the bias would be towards an overestimate of use, as people interested in the question seem more likely to respond.
Overall, then, I would guess use in these fields is "semi-rare" (maybe 5-10% of the population are regular users).
I find that attitude hilarious. Rampant stimulant abuse is the norm and is accepted, but combining with another drug to calm down is a no-no? Amazing.
In the case of amphetamine-related stimulants (ritalin, adderall, dexedrine, speed), it's easy to come off them if you aren't abusing them for pleasure as opposed to work. There's a level of use that enables effective work, and then another much higher level that makes you feel 'high' all the time. If you get high every day, you might well get addicted. But I've never seen it - I even abused my ritalin pretty heavily for pleasure for months and then stopped cold turkey (by accident), and it was just fine. I was mentally the same as I was before the ritalin, and no side effects that suggested physical addiction. I wouldn't recommend it though, it might affect different people differently.
A lot of people think stimulants just keep you going longer. They do that, but for a large number of people they greatly improve working memory, problem solving and systematic reasoning.
I know students that take Adderall because their lives are so complicated that they don't have space for regular studying. So they take an Adderall the day before an exam and cram the whole semester in a day. They ace the exam and don't remember much a few weeks later. Similarly I have seen programmers (and been an example) who have a project to deliver but other stuff going on and use Ritalin or Adderall to pull the whole project out of the bag to the expected standards in a tiny fraction of the time it was predicted to take. And others who use the same to just produce much much more than their peers. And then others who just take stimulants because they think they need them but don't actually produce anything worthwhile, or just end up staying awake too much and being much less productive overall because they destroy their circadian rhythm.
I'd definitely say that if you don't feel you need them, don't take them :)
I feared the drug though and never took it as much as prescribed. I phased it out completely after a few years and later realized that there are other factors that can help just as much with your attention deficit. Sleep, diet, and exercise are insanely important. I believe a lot of people on drugs for ADD could just focus on these 3 things and effectively cure their ADD. Definitely not all people, I am sure there are plenty that need help, but a lot of the time I see it overprescribed (in my non-medical opinion). Just moving to a low carb diet helps a ton. Sleep helps a ton. Exercise helps you feel good and sleep well. On the flip side, bad sleep habits (like those you develop in college) lead to bad eating habits and bad exercise habits. It's a vicious circle. Stimulants help you avoid those healthy habits with some of the same positive outcomes (at the expense of health).
I think you are crazy though if you think prolonged exposure to these drugs is fairly low risk. You build up a tolerance, you need to take more, and it does have long term effects. It seems like you are in your early 30's so you may have been doing this routine for the past 10. If so, when do you think you will stop? Never? Please talk to a professional about it.
Beer is common after work, once in a while. However, what you describe is definitively not normal. Not that I find that problem, or high-risk, or anything - it's just the fact that it would just surely catch attention if anybody from my work environment (30+ close coworkers) notice somebody like you're describing.
And what if you're on a team with someone who doesn't wish to use drugs? Are they just cut out of the big ticket tasks?
Taking stimulants for work isn't a social activity. We don't all get together and swallow our pills. I just take mine every day and I know a load of other people who do. I also on remote teams with people who, as far as I know, don't. It's not like I discriminate who I work with based on it, so people who don't wish to use drugs would not even be aware that I was taking them and wouldn't be excluded from anything to do with work.
I have friends who are potheads and they swear that everyone smokes weed and everyone who's ever done something meaningful in their life is because of marijuana.
Not everyone does drugs, and not everyone works best with them, it's not normal, it's not enhancement.
(The same is true for you, Eilene - your email address is hidden. If you want people to be able to email you, click your username in the top right of the page, and add it to your "about" section.)
edit: I'm a senior software engineer
Postdocs and young faculty, in particular.
Postdocs and junior faculty are generally worked to the bone for little money. Postdocs need to crank out papers that benefit the lab, but also advance their own career prospects; faculty need to do the same, as well as write grant applications, serve on prestigious committees in order to look good for tenure review, etc.
There aren't enough hours in the day.
MDMA and cannabis are both quite popular and talked about openly but I think that's more a general reflection of the culture in places like NYC and the Bay Area, where I have personal experience.
Good luck with the book by the way. One word of warning: please try very hard to avoid falling into a simplistic narrative that will contribute to drug prohibition. Criminalization of drugs has, IMO, ruined far more lives than drugs themselves. A former Columbia colleague, Carl Hart, professor in the psych department, has written a lot on this and might be worthwhile as an interview subject for your book. Personally I think he sometimes pushes too far in the opposite direction, but he is nevertheless an important public voice speaking up against decades of scaremongering.
Also stimulants. I almost forgot to mention them because they are basically water in this industry. Almost everyone who isn't on some sort of health kick is using some combo of caffeine/amphetamine derivatives/coke/modalert/etc.
Currently I am a high level IC at a major web company. The pressure and competition at this level is incredible. I only do this job and put up with the pressure because I need the money (long story) and am trying to put my family ahead. I do like what I do though but would scale myself back if I didn't need the money.
When I get stretched too thin, I have trouble focusing. Adderal would be a way for me to focus when I'm running on fumes. It's not something I'd use daily but something during crunch times for sure. I've not done it because I haven't found a non-risky way to get it. I won't buy this kind of thing on the black market because I don't trust the product or the people. I'm not going to ask my doctor for it. But if I had a reliable way to get it, I'd have it.
Today, the way whalesalad and others describe the effect of Adderall sounds interesting to me, but I would never take the risk. I want to see my kids grow up, and I certainly wouldn't give this up just to be able to work more hours...
Now it changed for the better but still the drug scene is relatively big and cocaine is used a lot both by youngsters 18-25 yrs olds and probably also by bankers.
Agreed.
As an engineer who doesn't take any stimulants, what does it look like when another person is on Adderall? Maybe I'd notice a person snorting cocaine at work, but if I saw someone taking a pill? I'd figure it's probably just a painkiller, or a multi-vitamin, or for some health condition. Never would I suspect Adderall or some other stimulant. I basically presume that nobody at my office takes Adderall because I would never take it myself.
The only drug use I know of is ritalin or other legal stimulants for those diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, and of course coffee/tea/alcohol.
It might just be my enviroment, but alcohol use is rampant and also heavily culturally ingrained in my area. (i live in the southern part of the netherlands. Drinking during dinner is not uncommon for example, even on weekdays.
I think people who do drugs just gravitate to other people that do drugs.
For me, the limiting factor on my productivity is not how god-like my mental state is, it's whether I can get the info I need from that guy on the other team or when the project manager will sign off on a needed change :)
Take my anectdata with a grain of salt.
These are far more dangerous drugs in this sense... even a small child can tell you cocaine is bad for you or that LSD is a “drug”, but no one considers soda and coffee to be drug laced.
These are the real gateway drugs, by far.
If Silicon Valley had decent espresso, no joke, there would be no demand for any of these stupid drugs people are messing with. But the espresso tastes like absolute poop. In the bay area you can market and sell poop drinks as artisinal or small batch or whatever. Its essentially poop. E.g. if you think blue bottle tastes good, I could sell you a cup of poop for $10 easy because you have been fooled.
Back to seriousness, the real problem in all of this is failure to understand the real impacts of seamingly harmless things (processed sugars and caffeine) NOT obviously harmful substances. There must be a progression from the former to the latter. Who the fuck wakes up one morning and says: “shit, works been hard lately, id like to try a line of cocaine, i heard its really great for relaxation”. Wake up, it doesnt happen like that.
Yes, i have conveniently left alcohol out of this ranking, but its #3. If you dont know how bad alcohol is for your brain and body... heh...
The real story is the engineer drinking 8+ cups of black coffee or 10 sodas per day... not the coo ceo or vp doing marijuana or cocaine before work. The latter knows what theyre doing, they may be depressed but they know whats up. The former, probably not. And those seemingly safe substances kick off the dangerous ones.
:-)
Very much agree. Compulsive consumption of sugary/caffeinated beverages is very much an eating disorder. People engage in this at work as a means of coping with stress. There are very harmful side-effects to this behavior: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-drinks/...
Acid and Molly are best.
I started using heroin right after I graduated high school, and used it throughout undergrad, as it honestly helped me get better grades by quieting the turmoil in my mind. I experimented with suboxone and methadone after graduation, and was using a mix of methadone, Provigil (a stimulant, to counteract the drowsiness from the methadone), and alprazolam (to take the edge off the Provigil) when I started my first banking job in NY. I was let go for nodding off at work.
At my next job, I started using heroin again after a brief period being drug-free, and started injecting. I had a short-lived job at another investment bank, where I injected heroin, cocaine, or a mix of both pretty much all day at work, even setting up a way to do it at my desk discreetly to avoid having to get up and go to the restroom so often. That job obviously did not last long.
I used like that for a few months, got another job at a bank, and stopped those drugs, but continued to seek prescription painkillers sporadically, and drink to take the edge off. I managed to keep it together for that job, but my overall demeanor made it tough to really succeed. Before starting in private equity, I got sober (no controlled substances or alcohol anymore), and have been sober since mid-2012. It's been the biggest and best decision of my life.
I used to think I was perhaps one of just a handful of finance professionals with as intense background in hard drugs, but I'm coming to see there are too many of us out there.
However asinine, they risk a lawsuit if they say something negative and the candidate doesn't get hired, and there's no benefit to themselves being forthcoming.
But people around here would tend to keep even the legal drugs out of public knowledge, as that sort of thing may affect background checks and security clearances. Everyone in my workplace is very square. My office-neighbor uses a nicotine vape and prescription mood-stabilizing drugs, and doesn't have a clearance explicitly because of the latter.
It would be nice to be able to get drunk or high a few times a year, but the career risk isn't worth it. I have worked exclusively in the Midwest and South. In general, people of those regions collectively have a rather low opinion of people who use drugs of any kind, legal or illegal, although the Southerners are a bit more hypocritical about it.
For tech specifically, in my experience there seems to be a higher-than-average number of smokers. Coffee and soda are drank as if they were water. That's about it.