Slashdot Mirror
Suddenly Visible: Illicit Drugs As Part of Silicon Valley Culture
The recent death by overdose of Google executive Timothy Hayes has drawn attention to the phenomenon of illegal drug use (including abuse of prescription painkillers) among technology workers and executives in high-pay, high-stress Silicon Valley. The Mercury News takes a look at the phenomenon; do the descriptions of freely passed cocaine, Red Bull as a gateway drug, and complacent managers match your own workplace experiences? From the Mercury News article:
"There's this workaholism in the valley, where the ability to work on crash projects at tremendous rates of speed is almost a badge of honor," says Steve Albrecht, a San Diego consultant who teaches substance abuse awareness for Bay Area employers. "These workers stay up for days and days, and many of them gradually get into meth and coke to keep going. Red Bull and coffee only gets them so far." ...
Drug abuse in the tech industry is growing against the backdrop of a national surge in heroin and prescription pain-pill abuse. Treatment specialists say the over-prescribing of painkillers, like the opioid hydrocodone, has spawned a new crop of addicts -- working professionals with college degrees, a description that fits many of the thousands of workers in corporate Silicon Valley.
Increasingly, experts see painkillers as the gateway drug for addicts, and they are in abundance. "There are 1.4 million prescriptions ... in the Bay Area for hydrocodone," says Alice Gleghorn with the San Francisco Department of Public Health. "That's a lot of pills out there."
Did you seriously just call Red Bull a gateway drug?
Tim Lord, you're a moron. Stop posting stories, this isn't your personal blog. And no, writing them and then having Roblimo or another slashdot editor post the stories doesn't make it any better. Just stop, we don't want your thoughts.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Insert coin
It's a gateway drug!
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
is that now that rich white people have drug problems (ie, "real" people), maybe we can muster up some sympathy for other addicted people now?
Nah, I'm dreaming.
Mostly random stuff.
The article goes on and on about "workaholism" fueling the need for drugs. My ass - the key story referenced is the one about Hayes getting offed by a hooker injecting a heroin overdose on his yacht. I don't feel a lot of workaholism in that story - ridiculously overpaid unscrupulous douchebag with too much time and money that has saddened and humiliated his family managed to have what looks like plenty of leisure time.
Oh, and this shit is not new at all - been happening in this industry for decades. more noticeable now that a Googler has publicly disgraced himself.
I feel for his family - what a piece of shit.
If you can't take the heat, take meth.
If that kills you, you just weren't meant to survive.
No sympathy.
Internet folklore from the days of Usenet had stories of Intels R&D divisions using LSD to creatively solve problems. It was never talked about, except when the compulsory workplace drug testers came to find their walkway blocked by higher powers when entering the R&D division.
Google has removed references from its search results.
Does it go on forever?
I must be doing something wrong if the only thing I'm abusing is the ice pack on my sore back from sitting in front of a computer all day long.
Did you just fucking make an excuse for a super rich person getting addicted to drugs? Because he overworked himself? SERIOUSLY?
I bet you also look down your nose at the very poor to get sucked into drug addiction.
FUCK YOU
And now that decriminalization of all drug use (not just pot), by the WHO, is being suggested as the means to get rid of AIDS in the world . . the smart guys are going to do what?
There are "solutions" that become problems in and of themselves. Workaholism is in the same category... It solves a problem for a while and then becomes a problem itself.
"Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up amphetamines."
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
illegal drug use (including abuse of prescription painkillers)
Is it illegal to abuse legally obtained drugs?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Yes, it is, takes some fucking responsibility for your own actions.
That's delightfully naive of you. You think someone who is taking drugs to get high is somehow going to be interested in increasing their level of responsibility?
"...illegal drug use (including abuse of prescription painkillers) among technology workers and executives in high-pay, high-stress Silicon Valley. ..."
I know a shit-ton of people whose lives/work is JUST as stressful working their 3 jobs to make ends meet, but since it's not "high pay" that would probably mean they're not worth talking about, right? Certainly, we're less interesting in the 'why' of their drug abuse issues, because they can only afford cheap mood-altering chemistry like booze and cigs.
Personally, I'd say the fact that Silicon Valley folks make stupid-large amounts of money means they have even LESS of an excuse to complain.
Lots of people have more stress for much less self-inflicted reasons than pursuing of giant piles of cash.
-Styopa
No wonder there's so much shitty software being thrown out. People are too stoned or drugged up to have any idea of what they're doing and as a result we get crap such as Windows 8 or the near-monthly Facebook "updates".
But hey, drugs are cool and in no way should the deaths of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Peaches Geldoff, Cory Monteith, Heath Ledger, Dee Dee Ramone and a whole slew of other folks who felt being high was so great that they didn't care if they killed themselves in the process.
Unfortunately we'll have to keep hearing about how poor [insert name] died, how they were a good person and blah, blah, blah.
Fuck that. You think drugs are cool and being high is the thing to do, go for it. Just don't expect the rest of us to give a shit when you're found face down in your home.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
When I see the kind of shit my colleagues from Sunnyvale, who are on 80+ hours/week schedules, tend to release, I'm not surprised one bit. Of course I'm a lazy European socialist who only work 40-50 hours a week so what do I know.
A couple of years back I broke my leg. I was given a prescription of hydrocodone and being afraid of them due to all of the addiction stories and the fact that, for some odd reason, my leg never really hurt that badly, I did not take them but I did keep them around. A few months after recovery I was working on my gait and felt something pop in my lower back. The next day I was in severe pain (it was at least 11) and I was told it was a pinched nerve.
I broke down and took one of the hydrocodones and about 20 minutes later, through the slightly lightheaded haze, I experienced some of the most intense, intense hours of extreme focus. I dedicated my time and wrung out tomes of code. It just flowed forth, from the mind of the keys to the screen. After about four hours, it would subside and I'd look back at my work in astonishment. The code was really, really good. I remember thinking to myself "I wrote that!?"
I continued for the next two weeks while my pinched nerve slowly became less inflamed and everything returned to normal. I had about two weeks worth of hydrocodone left in the bottle. But you know what? I had absolutely no desire to take them once the pain in my back was gone. I had no withdrawl symptoms, no shakes, fevers, or anything else. I also did not have a dimwit Valley manager breathing down my neck to finish a project so they could get their next bonus at my expense.
Having spent time working in the Valley, I have little desire to return, if any. Between the terrible drivers, rude hipsters, astronomical real estate prices, strange inexplicable odors, ridiculous grocery prices, PG&E, Comcast, the diseased hot-zone known as Fry's, wall to wall people who are completely oblivious to their surroundings and stand right in the goddamn middle of every aisle in every store ... living in the Valley is absolutely madness! If you live there and like it, you're either nucking futs or you've never experienced normalcy.
that location makes it a nerd story, you can tell this same sad tale in nearly any modestly sized City.
An interesting question is, "Are the abused prescription drugs more widely available to top earners?"
The oxys and hydrocodone are super-addictive, and may (to their detriment)
be more widely available by prescription to folks who seem to have their act together... physician's discretion, if you will.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Timothy Hayes died from an heroïne overdose, likely injected by an escort. Its murder first degree and not an executive that was hooked or had any narcotic issue. If I were his family, I'd rather be very angry about anyone linking his death to a suddent increase of narcotic abuse in the IT world...
I've known a lot of people with very poor time management and life skills, who lived in constant panic and crunch time as a result. Rather than managing the introspection required to address their personal failings that were leading to this, they'd just down as much Red Bull as they could under the misguided belief that it'd give them the energy to deal with all of their crap.
So is it any surprise that they then turn to meth or other real drug to try and improve on the boost energy drinks may or may not have been giving them? (I have no idea if they work, they just made me short term wired and irritable.)
Red Bull's not a gateway drug - but it's often co-morbid with personality types that are going to find their way into meth. Obviously the vast majority of people aren't using it as some kind of "gateway" to meth, or else we could call coffee a gateway drug too.
There are those who would test all welfare recipients for drug abuse on the grounds that poor folks are users. Never mind that the data shows most people on welfare work and stuff.
Those really looking to solve societies ills might do better to test the other end of the economic spectrum.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Young people with money are doing drugs!!! You've got to be freaking kidding me!!
How about if everyone simply agrees to stop telling everyone else how they should best live their lives - before everyone else starts thinking they have a right to tell you how to live yours. Yes, I know, land of the free apparently means we have the freedom to tell everyone else how to live.
Why did they "have" to start taking drugs in the first place? If you take drugs and get addicted, that's your responsibility. Not anyone else's.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
If that movie has even a grain of truth, then it would seem that this behavior is common in many people with lots of money regardless of industry.
It is very hard to write C code, machine and the logic for chip fabbing whilst stoned or tripping. Let it all wear off before jumping on that terminal! That's today's top advice. Peace! :0)
The purpose of existence is to make money.
Rich executives taking cocaine/drugs, who would have thought.
As soon as drug usage is mentioned in a given area of commerce, the federosaurus gets to suspend the Constitution. Silicon Valley is being seen as a place of wealth right now, and invoking the drug war gives authorities the right to steal however much of it they want without due process.
And no, developers don't shoot heroin to get projects completed faster.
Silicon Valley problem? No... it's an American problem. Is there anyone here that doesn't know someone with an addiction problem? It's part of our culture. Who we are, and what we have is never good enough. There's always someone better on TV, the movies, the internet, and why aren't our bodies like that? Why am I not that calm? Why am I not that strong? Why can't I deal with stress that well? We're spoon fed lies via a screen and then find there is no natural way for us to meet our fictitious ambitions so we turn to unnatural means.
It's like the High Striker hammer game at the fair.
The bells not the goal.
Try, do your best, then be proud you had the opportunity to attend a fair and waste some time trying to hit a bell.
Injecting yourself with steroids just so you can hit a damned bell is insanity.
And yes, the majority of our life goals in this country are about as inane has trying to hit that bell.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I suspect that this conversation is a lost cause; but it's worth pointing out that that is one of the reasons why public health types get twitchy about prescription opiates.
Among those otherwise without access or interest in fairly serious drugs, an attempt at pain management following injury or illness can be a compelling introduction to the exciting world of stuff that's pretty close to heroin with better quality control. Not everyone develops a habit, of course; but it's an introduction that can happen regardless of circumstance.
All first responders from cops to firefighters all carry Naloxone for heroin overdose.
Which is proactive in my opinion. But the problem exists even here. We've had a number of heroin overdoses the last few years that resulted in death. Now that there's a treatment available people no longer need to fear the first responders so much.
disposable income flowing around, fast culture (get it done now). At least SV doesn't have the thigh gap issue, so it's not "drugs as diet food".
But, hey, all those folks working 3 minimum wage part time jobs do meth, because it's cheaper. Doing blow and oxy is partly a "conspicuous consumption", or for that matter, safer: a 100k/yr brogrammer doing lines who gets caught is MUCH less likely to spend time in jail than a 21k/yr custodian/shipping clerk/counter attendant doing meth.
The investors who gamble huge sums on huge risks are ones thrilled by drugs. They are attracted to SVs risk culture.
Doesn't the cultural cycle of drugs always go from speed to heroin? Speed provides the energy and "go" but the come down is rough, so there's a turn towards tranquilizers and opioids as a way to manage the come-down.
I've never been on that merry-go-round, but the older I get the more sleep deprivation hurts, physically. It's not just being tired, my body aches, almost like the early stages of strep throat or the flu. A little opioid would really take the edge off that.
It's not hard to see adderall and vicodin/oxycodone being a popular combination in Silicon Valley.
how do we get from prescription pain meds, to heroin abuse, and then back to Silicon Valley? this article is incoherent.
the pain medication abuse is largely impacting armed service veterans with chronic and debilitating ailments requiring decades of supportive therapy (including PTSD.) its increase is commensurate to the increase in injured veterans returning from 2 recent foreign wars and proportional to the level of service received in a privatized healthcare system. its easier to say "maybe you should just take pills forever" instead of prescribing cost-prohibitive specialists to diagnose and effectively treat the problem. Pills are also much more easily attainable than psychological and psychiatric counseling as every war we enter, ends with the military pretending PTSD and brain damage are new and exotic injuries never before seen.
The heroin epidemic is a byproduct of the housing collapse and unemployment, but arguably more tangible this time because we're not just incarcerating minorities. when you take everything away from someone, render them homeless and destitute without healthcare or shelter, and spend your evenings in the news media demonizing them then you arent permitted to question where or why this "heroin epidemic" came from. Its from the same culture that thinks ER visits are equivalent to healthcare for the destitute.
the silicon valley "drug culture" exposes what criminal justice and law enforcement have known for decades. narcotic use in low income and poor communities mirrors that of affluent communities. Arrest, sentencing and incarceration however are far easier if your target can only afford the public defender and never completed highschool. What San Jose and Silicon Valley are dealing with now is an epidemic of affluent drug convictions that will not just roll-over with an 11 year plea bargain and pound rocks at rikers to stuff the city treasury. These drug users have families, friends, participate in their community, and most importantly can afford to litigate disproportionate sentencing in order to force municipalities to retarget their efforts in a more fruitful direction. Namely, treatment, rehabilitation, education, and reform of existing drug laws.
Good people go to bed earlier.
A crimewave: Why? Right now, I see heroin destroying my city's youth (& some elders too, but MOST are "wise" to its "Hotel California" nature of "you can check out, but you can NEVER LEAVE" - Thus, once you're in, you are FOREVER, unfortunately, "in" - methodone crutch notwithstanding...)
So, per my subject-line: I have this theory on it - that once the source (soldiers coming back & forth outta the source area, Afghanistan & the "golden triangle" poppy plants area etc. - it's JUST like the film with Denzel Washington was on Nicky Barnes etc., same means/methods/modus operandi, albeit THIS TIME, on a far more massive scale - that film was a blueprint for it imo) STOP? Then, we'll have that MUCH BIGGER PROBLEM of a huge crimewave... why??
Prices of Heroin WILL "skyrocket"... & those people who are hooked on it (they aren't even people anymore, more like vampires in a way because of its addictive properties, making one hooked on it SO SICK with cramping & vomiting + diarrhea etc., they will DO *ANYTHING* to get it, & "get well" as they call it... I pity them, I truly do, since they are literally those who fell into the trap they can never really, EVER, escape... for life).
The "infamous they" say "the perfect trap removes the desire of the prisoner to escape"? I'd like to amend & add to that, in that it also REMOVES THE ABILITY OF THE PRISONER TO ever, Ever, EVER escape... it's a horrible fate.
APK
P.S.=> Mark my words, once the current INCREDIBLY CHEAP price of it goes shooting up (pun intended)? We'll see a crimewave the likes of which will truly, "boggle the mind" since so much of the STUPID YOUTH have fallen for this trap of addiction the likes of which has never ever been seen or equalled... prepare yourselves is all I can say (zombie apocolypse my ass - junkie apocolypse is more like it)... apk
If the working conditions are a horrible as stated--long drug fueled hours of programming--perhaps, and I hate to say this, they need to form a programmer's union.
THIS is coming (mark my words) -> http://developers.slashdot.org...
* What was it Johnny Depp said in the film about the coke tzar? Oh yea "Once film stars & musicians accept it, it will be accepted by the ENTIRE culture" (more-or-less)... he IS exemplary (in a BAD WAY though) of it (not that I respect 'executives' - I don't. Not unless they "grew from within the ranks & have walked MANY a mile in their subordinates shoes" that is).
APK
P.S.=> That link I posted is ALL ABOUT 1 thing & it is VERY effective (much as how peddling Linux to poor youth is): "Seize the YOUTH, seize the future"... & what I truly DO *think* is yet to come as a result of cheap dope flooding the streets of our nation, ESPECIALLY targetting affluent youth (basically future leaders, destroying them, before they can EVER mature into sensible adults, & essentially turning them into, more-or-less, bloodthirsty vampires craving heroin)... apk
Why did they "have" to start taking drugs in the first place?
Depends on the situation. Some people take them out of pure pleasure seeking. Others get addicted to chemicals like opiates as a result of circumstances well beyond their control like surgeries.
Furthermore just because someone made a bad decision doesn't mean we simply abandon them. Maybe you are the one person who has never made a bad choice in life but I doubt it. Sometimes people make bad choices and a civilized society tries to a reasonable degree to help them through it. We're going to pay for it one way or another anyway so why not do the humane thing and help those who are willing to be helped?
If you take drugs and get addicted, that's your responsibility. Not anyone else's.
Think so? I can introduce you to some former surgery patients and war veterans among others who were introduced to opiates to control pain by their physicians for very real pain problems and as a result were unable to avoid addiction. I can point you to some suffering from PTSD (not their fault) who are trying to find some way to cope who sometimes turn to chemicals because they don't understand what has happened and it is the only relief they can find before they understand what has happened. Some addictions are not the solely the fault of the person taking the drugs.
It's easy and wrong to paint every drug addict with the same broad brush. Some, like the sort you are thinking of, are simply idiots seeking pleasure or escape. If you are snorting cocaine on your yacht for fun, yeah that's on you and if you die I'm not going to cry a river for you. Others are decent people trying to cope with a real problem not of their own making. You really think that a wounded veteran who gets unintentionally addicted to opiates while trying to control pain is solely responsible for his situation? If so you are a very cold hearted person.
The naivity is strong in both of you, because you both think responsibility or lack therof has something to do with it.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Is that you Rush Limbaugh?
Yes, it is, takes some fucking responsibility for your own actions.
That's delightfully naive of you. You think someone who is taking drugs to get high is somehow going to be interested in increasing their level of responsibility?
"taking drugs to get high"?
Did you not read the article. the summary or any of the posts?
Strange of you to make that political connection. Historically it's been libertarians who are pushing to decriminalize all drugs and let people live by their choices. I'm quite the lefty. I support welfare and universal healthcare and pro-choice and marriage equality and stuff like that.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
I work in the Pacific Northwest version of Silicon Valley, and I've known a few software developers who started taking Ritalin to perform better at work so they could continue to support their wife, mortgage, and 2.5 kids. I can definitely see someone doing the same with cocaine or meth, not to get high, but to try to maintain the status quo of their life and income.
"There are 1.4 million prescriptions ... in the Bay Area for hydrocodone," says Alice Gleghorn with the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
It's time to start arresting doctors. If the Bay Area is like everyelse in this, it's a fraction of doctors that writing the excess prescriptions.
coffee, adderall, code, code, code, red bull, adderall, code, code, code, marijuana, marijuana, sleep
When some one, any one, starts using some supposed sense of consensus as a debating point, I really wish I could send a 3 Stooges eye jab over the internet.
At least the second part of your post tries to make a point.
I agree it should never happen! Of course, it is happening, but as it should never happen, I'm going to pretend it isn't happening and bury my head in the sand.
Also your post implies such a lack of ability to understand why people might make non-rational life choices, ability to understand why choices that seem non-rational to you might be sensible from a different perspective, sympathy for those that find themselves somewhere they don't want to be and basic empathy that I'm not sure your sufficiently human to have an opinion.
>> I did meth once for like 5 years.
My opinion of drugs is that they are basically just a(nother) tax on stupid. You seem to be at least a reasonably intelligent person. How do you go from there to being someone who does meth for 5 years? I'm genuinely interested as I seriously don't get how that can happen.
Did you read the article? They're getting high to work superhuman hours. They are productive because they do drugs. They do drugs to be productive. And get paid. You know, capitalism. The reason "drugs are bad m'kay".
I know many people in Silicon Valley that put in 60+ hour weeks, as I have done for more than a decade. With that said very few if any use drugs, beyond alcohol & coffee. I've seen more than a few coworkers "burn out" after investing their blood, sweat, & tears on a canceled project, where "burning out" includes heart attacks, divorces, years of contemplation in the woods, and in rare cases suicide, but I've never seen one use hard drugs.
Maybe I'm traveling in the wrong circles or naive, but there's a lot of things you can accuse Silicon Valley of (greed, avarice, excess, lack of empathy) but drug use in my high school & college dorm were far worse.
One person died of an overdose, and all of SV has a problem, and the only evidence is Red Bull is a gateway to hookers and coke. Um, yeah. This is just what you get now - it's much easier to pull an article like this out of your ass than to do any real research. How many programmers were interviewed? How many case studies are there besides one exec on his yacht?
Fine, repeal the drug prohibition laws if you really feel that way.
From what I've seen at least half the addicts that I've seen here became addicted based on the advice of a medical professional. Workplace injuries and other accidents led to prescription pain meds that brought on their addiction.
It also doesn't help that they are in an emotionally fragile state, on account of them being unemployable living on disability and other social assistance, with a sudden reduction in income and feeling worthless.
The rest, well yeah Darwin's law can take care of them I suppose, but very many addicts did not get where they are out of selfish pursuit of a high. Some were just dealt a bad hand.
The real gateway drug here is work... work leads to caffeine use, caffeine use leads to meth, meth leads to homelessness, someone else gets your job, starts drinking caffeine... I see a real epidemic about to happen, we need to ban work asap!!!
Because, John, look at Bill over there. He completed about thrice what you did. Maybe 'cause you go home after just 12 hours? I guess you just don't have the right attitude, maybe we'll have to let you go...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
First off, what does the author mean by "frothy fountain of tech?"
Secondly, there are countless tech addicts. Same with lawyers and doctors. Same with salesmen, mechanics, musicians, artists, waiters, actors, architects, restaurant managers, policemen, baristas, soldiers, engineers, pilots, writers, construction workers, taxi drivers, cashiers, and clergyman, too!
This article demonstrates a poor understanding of addiction, which is no surprise. It is rare that someone who is not an addict understands addiction. There is nothing wrong with this - that's just the way it is.
So what you're saying is you support the notion that people live by their own choices, except for the vast sections of their lives that you think you'd do a better job of managing for them - such as their healthcare, paycheck, reproductive status, and 'stuff like that'?
That'd be comical if it wasn't so tragically stupid.
There are also a lot of us here with lower back problems and chronic pain who wish we DIDN'T have to be on those painkillers. This article implies that most of us are just pill-popping druggies. And for that implication, I say "Fuck You". YOU try living with the constant pain while having a job that practically requires you to be seated most of the day. Standing desks don't help either with sciatica.
Know the addict
I just skimmed half of the 300 or so comments, and have yet to see anyone consider the point of the article, rather than whether they said "Red Bull is a gateway drug".
Y'know, the real point: upper managers, under the heel of venture capital who want 1000% ROI next week, giving people insanely impossible deadlines, and then getting them (under threat of being fired) to work far beyond any reason when it's not a disaster zone (say, a flood) or the middle of a war zone.
And if you work like that, with not a trace of a life, and think you're Important, there's another word for you: sucker. I'd even add stupid sucker.
mark, who swore he'd never do that again after breaking 70 hours in one week in the mid-nineties
(and did I mention the pagers?)*
* Admittedly, not crazy enough to do what one of the young what-was-then-Anderson Consulting guys did: 1 week, 119 hours....
Did you out the bad, criminal employees? Like most everyone on slashdot wants the "good" cops to out the bad cops?
If not, then you contributed to the problem as much as anyone working there.
Currently unemployed and unlikely to ever work again in a culture that demands you destroy your health (mental and physical) to earn a barely living wage I laugh at the people who succumb to these stresses. Especially the rich ones.
In their greed, they richly deserve the addictions, health problems. etc. Race to the bottom. Enjoy it.
Someone wasn't there during the mid '90s dot com boom. It was simply part of life during those days.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
I'm pretty good at ignoring pain, but when I had a pinched nerve in my neck, I was lying on the ground, writhing in pain, practically screaming. It was terrible. Three days later I was in surgery. I'm not sure that level of pain deserves breaking out the Spinal Tap Scale, but it's the worst pain I've experienced in my life.
www.clarke.ca
Makes one think of the claim that the introduction of coffee to Europe sparked of the enlightenment (and possibly the industrial revolution).
This by displacing beer, thus replacing a downer with a upper.
Mercury News needs a sensationalist story every few years otherwise it might die, that is all there is to it. I have been working right in the geographic center of Yahoo, Apple, Google etc for many years and I never heard this problem to be so insidious as the Paper manages to paint.
I understand your sentiment, but your ignorance in this subject seems to have come to a head with this comment. You might want to learn about the underlying conditions and situations that lead to addiction.
Nobody wakes up and says: "lets get addicted to meth".
It's actually a great comparison. Depression, both unipolar and bipolar, is quite common, and self-medication with alcohol and/or marijuana are quite common. One of my coworkers was bipolar and spent some time in the local hospital mental ward after a crisis, and said that most of the people there for alcohol detox were bipolar folks who'd gone off their meds (because meds are boring) and switched back to drinking until it caused them problems. Another coworker who's hypomanic said she used to need a couple of martinis or a joint to unwind in the evenings, but eventually went to a psychiatrist to get some better-tuned meds.
So yeah, some people are alcoholics or stoners because they like being drunk or stoned all the time, but for a lot of them it's really dealing with underlying mood problems that could also be addressed with prozac and its relatives. Cocaine's a bit different, but if you want to be manic-depressive and aren't that way naturally, it's a good substitute.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It is a common but unfounded notion that all human behavior can be controlled by pure strength of will, and that individuals unable to exert that strength of will are intentionally evil and should be abandoned to their fate. It is a peculiarity of the Calvinist theology that has embedded itself in the USA-ian worldview, having no rational basis but the great potential to cause unneeded suffering and death.
Once, at the time of or prior to John Calvin, most disease and misfortune was thought to be caused by witchcraft. It was an equally unfounded causation, which created tremendous suffering including the execution of those thought to be witches. I suspect that in those days, believers in witchcraft were equally adamant in denouncing skeptics who believed that natural processes caused disease instead.
"Personal responsibility", like witchcraft, has no basis in science, but causes great harm nevertheless.
Well, some of them were under 18 at the time. As a society, we've decided you cannot really be held responsible for many of your actions when under 18. So it certainly is difficult to condemn teenagers to a lifetime of addiction because you were too cheap and on too high a moral horse to help them out.
But beyond that, in many cases, such as with student loans, we hold that society has not just a right to protect you from others, but to help enable you to improve yourself. Certainly, that seems cheaper to society than trying to punish people in prison for something they may wish they could give up.
Lastly, while you may wish that everyone was solely responsible for their actions, and their actions solely affected them, neither is ever the case. It's a good bumper sticker philosophy, but it falls apart once you start asking questions.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Definitely. Depression and bipolar depression are widespread, and self-medication with alcohol and other drugs is fairly common. Some people are drunks or stoners or opiate abusers because they like it, but for a lot of people it's because they want to dull the pain or stress. For many of them, there are pharmaceuticals that could do a better job of managing depression or mania, but either they haven't gone to a psychiatrist because of stigmas about mental illness, or because their insurance doesn't cover it, or because they think they've got things sufficiently under control themselves, or because AA is keeping them sober, so they stick to the booze as their go-to self-medication. (Opiate abusers get other problems, because those are physically addictive; alcohol can be but it takes a lot more abuse to get there.)
There are other people who are tuned toward thrill-seeking, and like to hit the coke or whatever, but I've got less experience with them. And then there are other traditional reasons for drug use (mainly alcohol), such as boring jobs - farmers, video store clerks, etc. who can do their work just fine stoned.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There's also the argument that MJ's a gateway drug because of correlation - "you don't see many heroin users who didn't start with marijuana". My general reaction is "Look at all those heroin users who avoided marijuana because it's illegal and dangerous! (Oh there aren't any?)" (Actually there probably are some, people who got addicted to prescription opiates they started using for medical reasons, and switched to heroin because it's cheaper and because they can't get enough legally and weren't getting good medical support for getting out of the addiction.)
I did know one guy for whom marijuana actually was a gateway drug - first time he got high, in high school, he decided that it was good stuff and they'd been lying to him about all the reefer madness stuff, and figured he should see what else they'd been lying to him about.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
This line of thinking is why we are where we are when it comes to illegal drugs.
Once you're addicted, there are very few ways out. By the time most people recognize that they have a drug problem, they don't have enough money to get into serious rehab. By serious rehab I mean something like Suboxone therapy for opiates, where they give you an opiate-replacement and then ween you down from that, along with anti-depressants to control the mental aspect. I don't consider 'pray the drugs away' or 'drink smoothies and exercise the drugs away' to be legitimate rehab.
First step: Free serious rehab for anyone that has a problem and wants it.
Second step: Free replacement therapy for anyone that makes a serious attempt at serious rehab and it doesn't work.
This would take care of all the problems associated with drug addiction. No more having to pawn everything and suck dicks in an alley just to not be sick. No more having to give all your money to shady ass drug dealers. No more having to commit crimes to be able to get your fix. No more getting fired from your job from being too sick to work. A win win situation. Unfortunately, we'd rather just execute everyone that has even taken an aspirin in their lives than to give a junkie drugs.
Whatever, it's true regardless who says it. Someone has to decide to take drugs. No one is cramming them down his throat.
I believe the excuse of being in a "high pressure" role in SIlicon Valley is a bulls--t excuse for doing drugs. These are supposedly smart/intelligent/brilliant people - truly smart/intelligent/brilliant people understand risks and do not take those risks. Then again, the "affluenza" which seems to infect our well-to-do citizens indicates there is some level of disconnect from reality when they achieve a particular level of social- or employment-standing. Then, they fall into the keeping-up-with-the-Kardashian complex of having to continually do more/have more, which then seems to break what little common sense they may have remaining. Ultimately, as cold as it sounds, seems like Darwinism in action to me...
Well, if that's how you vote, then you also support
1. the gradual increase in the turnaround time and reduction of quality of healthcare. Adding state bureaucrats to the already top heavy bureaucracy of hospitals and insurance companies will NOT reduce costs.
2. pro choice? for whom? women? What about men? Do they get a choice? Of course not, but they're still expected to pay for hers, either collectively for the abortion as taxpayers, or individually for the baby as the father. Leftists have a funny idea about what equality means, and the relationship between rights/power and responsibility. They like to amalgamate power to themselves and their protected castes, while redistributing the responsibility onto everyone else.
3.marriage equality? I don't know what you mean by this.. if you mean you support the current state of feminist 'family' courts, then, like number 2, I hope one day you realize that "her body, her right, her choice" also implies "her responsibility" as well. If women are no longer bound by their roles as wives, then I see little reason why men should still be bound to the husband/provider role, either directly or by state proxy. Of course, you can see why this is so damaging to the future of our society, right?
4. welfare? A basic housing/training facility might make sense with proper incentives, but the current welfare system just enables those 'heroic' single moms to pump out more kids at taxpayer expense. Fuck that.
Well put, I do seem to have noticed a sort of creeping Calvinism in the way that victims of all kinds of types are labelled today.
Hey. Rock on, man. It ain't easy, but god damn. Well fucking done, and keep at it.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
I've never understood how someone can do cocaine and then sit down and write software.
Or smoke weed, or do LSD, or whatever.
Personally, the few times I have tried illicit drugs, I was so consumed by the experience that not once did "oh I think I'll sit down and knock out that new kernel revision" cross my mind.
I read through a handful of comments and for the first time, felt compelled to post a comment. I don't blame you for your negativity so I hope you will read what I have to say with an open mind.
First, as Dr. Volkow, Director of NIDA explains, “People say if you consider drug addiction a disease, you are taking the responsibility away from the drug addict. But that's wrong. If we say a person has heart disease, are we eliminating their responsibility? No. We're having them exercise. We want them to eat less, stop smoking. The fact that we have a disease recognizes that there are changes, in this case, in the brain” (Duenwald, 2003).
Secondly, people have a genetic predisposition for addiction. For instance, one person can eat a slice of cake and enjoy it until that slice is gone and be fine. Someone else however, eats a slice of cake and when it's gone, can't stop thinking about another slice until he/she gives in. I'm sure that those of you that have never experienced addiction will tell me that those people need to learn self-control, however, it does not work that way. I will repeat, they have a genetic predisposition for addiction that has been scientifically proven for a very long time.
Third, no one chooses to be an addict/alcoholic. When I was little, I wanted to be a dentist, not a pill popper. However, my family is littered with alcoholic/addicts. It was the norm in my family when you're prescribed 1 a day, it really means you need 2 a day because the doctors are being "too cautious". Growing up, and only seeing this behavior, how was I to know any different?
And lastly, it's those of you putting down addicts/alcoholics that make them feel too ashamed to get help. Because once they admit it to themselves, they know everyone will look at them like weak individuals that are screw ups. These people need help, as one would cancer would need. Not a 5 day stint in rehab and then thrown to the curb. They need more programs, they need therapy (drugs rewire your brain and it needs to be fixed), they need compassion and most of all, they need your support and acceptance because without it, they will continue to fell inadequate, become depressed and relapse.
Probably you mean NA -- for narcotics anonymous. I think AA generally means "Alcoholics Anonymous". It wouldn't make sense that AA is keeping them sober while alcohol is their go-to drug.
I have a good friend of mine that I'd like to see continue his NA meetings. He's one of the sharpest programmers I've ever worked with, but somehow got into drugs that were somehow in his scene that had nothing to do with work (partying in SF). He's now unemployed as it's hard to keep down a job with the erratic behavior that drugs give you. I wish I could do more for him, and understand that an addict has to want to change, and that there is not much his friends can do for him. I'd be interested in advice for how coax an addict out of their addiction.
In some cases, they HAD to start taking drugs to control agonizing pain.
Later, they get cut off when they heal (or the doctor, threatened by the DEA dares not continue prescribing) and find they are addicted. Then stupid laws made by the small minded turn these ordinary citizens with a medical problem into criminals.
I did meth once for like 5 years.
emphasis mine.
So what you're saying is prescription opiates are a gateway drug for heroin?
Such public health types need to be introduced personally to some major trauma -- then made to follow their own advice about skipping the opiates during recovery.
So what you're saying is prescription opiates are a gateway drug for heroin?
yes, prescription drugs can be a gateway drug for heroin. if you read the post you responded to and thought about it for two seconds, you wouldn't have to ask that.
I have a friend who I went to highschool with that ended up spiralling down that exact path. He eventually came to the conclusion that heroine is close enough to the pills that he'd been trying to scramble together for the past couple years. He was a really bright kid too. We were working together on building an aev from scratch at one point. I wish I knew what was going on before it got to the point where he disappeared for over a year. What I've noticed about painkillers is that addicts tend to be fully functional people... Until they run out and start making extremely rash decisions.
Not to mention the change which the brain undergoes in certain additions that maintains the habit. It never made sense to me to keep blaming the individual when their biology is already working against them (as a result of their illicit drug use). A better approach would be to focus on prevention through awareness and perhaps R&D better treatments treating the underlying neurological causes maintaining this behavior.
Outside of DEA flunkies and hardcore suffering enthusiasts, I don't think that there's much support for skipping opiates(indeed, it is commonly held that pain is under-treated); but there is an awareness that prescription opiates are a fairly common introduction to opiate dependency, especially in populations that would otherwise have few introductions to them.
Unfortunately, we barely know how pain works, and really don't have many alternatives to work with. The painkillers that aren't addictive are mostly OTC junk that pain barely notices, and the ones that actually work are typically close relatives of quite addictive compounds. At least the pillheads get their fix manufactured under FDA quality control rules, which makes them safer than the junkies.
But admitting 'neurological changes' is tantamount to doubting free will, and we just can't have that! Despite any and all evidence to the contrary, it simply must be true that a 'will' or 'self control' exists independent of any squishy brainial biology, yet somehow capable of controlling its function. Never you mind that this makes little sense, or that fiddling with self control through experimental manipulation is practically a psych research hobby, this hypothesis is simply too intuitively attractive to deny!
Rehabs, & the whole 9 yards... it's SO sad, especially in 1 case I saw: Kid has EVERYTHING to live for in fact (rich family, good persona - you name it, I could go on & on).
* You make it sound "so easy" - & from what I've seen, it's not...
Listen: I've seen a LOT of it since 2008 around here (much more than the single incidence I noted above), + in other spots nationwide even!
Hey - in fact, when I was 1st made aware of it, I said to a co-worker of mine: "That stuff was 'dead' in the 1970's man!" & he said "What? Have you been asleep or something?? It's everywhere around here..."
More recently, circa 2012, I heard the same from another person I make a livelyhood with (same 'asleep' line oddly enough)!
Then, yet again even MORE recently, I saw a friend go thru it & watched him continually give in sinking lower & lower (he was the one after rehabs with everything to live for I noted @ the outset of my reply here... & it is, sad to see).
Worst part is, it's spreading like mad, & imo @ least, due to low cost - & what "boggles my mind" is that folks KNOW it's a terrible "hook" that turns people into criminals, in that i.e. - When they can't get it (cheap especially) anymore. They'll do *ANYTHING*, & that makes them dangerous.
That's the part I fear, most...
APK
P.S.=> I never saw "Go ask Alice" - I saw the REAL thing in real life & continue seeing it (it's insane, & seems to be spreading to others, oddly enough, even though everyone knows what it does to you in the end)... apk
If you report an 11 you reset yourself to 1, which is considered pain manageable without drugs. I can't believe that there are so many here that don't consider an absolute an absolute. All reporting an 11 on a scale of 10 does is label you at best an idiot, at worst a drug addict.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Make all the jokes you want but thats a vicodin scrip for more than 1 in 10 for the whole Bay area population
Comment removed based on user account deletion
everyone. is on drugs.
It is what it is.
It is too bad that people end up literally at a dead end, but on the other hand it is choices they make which leads them there, so if they choose a high-stress, artificial enviornment driven by investors who end up taking advantage and lives, they are largely themselves to blame, especially if they ascribe to Randian myths about bering responsible for their actions, or is that responsible to no one but their own lust?
I have become jaded by the whole experience of Silly Con Man Valley, as I live in it and dislike what it has become, in part what it always has been, a haven for spoiled elitists, some very bright people for sure, but also many fools who imagine themselves wise that may only be intelligent. They may be the willing pawns of lessor folk, diminished by their craven urges and darker motives. I am hoping that the whole place caves in on itself, maybe literally shaken to its core, and shattered of its illusion of value, very much aided by boosterism of elected officials like Ed Lee and Chuck Reed, and the Mercury News over promoting the value of the work done by the firms here and resulting in obscene real estate values. But I know that all of this rests on unstable ground.
there are a number of withdrawal reducing or negating drugs out there that can be prescribed but are not, maybe finding out why this is or why people would not want to ask for these is a good start instead of making doctors afraid of prescribing pain medications to victims of serious bodily injury.
and what about the people who are forced into prostitution by drug dependance (e.g. like in the film taken)??
Who would've thought that expensive, highly addictive, prescription opioids would be a gateway to cheap, highly addictive, opioids when your prescription runs out?
which is why I left. Now I live 70 miles away, make about half as much, and work 15 hours a week instead of 60. So long suckers!
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
When I was with a startup during the dot com era, it seemed to me that the worker bees were on speed, while the executives were on coke. I could see what the worker bees were doing, but nothing else could explain the decisions made at the upper levels. The incentives were pretty obvious--long hours without sleep, and demand to be 'on' regardless of circumstance, and the arrogance that comes with mastering a small domain and thinking you've mastered everything (see Dunning-Kruger.)
Personally, when I was tired, what I craved was sleep. But that was frowned upon. You can see why so many did drugs.
Arrogance, though, is a major consideration. Notice the parent comment: If you take drugs and get addicted... but no one plans to get addicted. Oh, take drugs by all means, just don't get addicted. They take drugs to cope, and as they are masters of the universe, they could not possibly get addicted. Besides, it's just to meet this deadline... and the next... and the next...
The entire culture is a massive fuck-up. Tired people make mistakes, and mistakes cost money. In the 1850's they discovered that 40 hours a week was the sweet spot for productivity, and every generation since has had to discover the same thing the hard way. I cannot count the number of projects I have seen crash and burn because of this bullshit.
But fuck it. We're John Galt. We can do anything. Just another bump to get me through...
How's that working out?
To offer advice people would need to know which drug he is addicted to.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
But ... but they're legal, they can't be a gateway!
Pharma corporations profit from it for crying out loud. Profit! You know, a legal company making profit! How dare you say that's wrong in some way?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Go hand in hand. Why work uncomfortably and then party it up instead of work all the time and be comfortable! I don't know about the tweakers, though, that's not very zen.
You obviously don't have any experience with farming either. Farming entails use of large and dangerous machinery and it's not your stereotypical leisure boring job. Just a couple weeks ago some guy in my area lost an arm due to a machinery mishap. Farmers farm because it's "honest" and hard work. Any you have to know a lot about working with your hands, solving all kinds of problems, planning, budgeting, etc. To most of those who farm they don't see farming as boring.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
Most unfortunate. My experience with addicts (of which I have over 20 years) is that some are salvageable, some are not. The biggest difference is a commitment to change. Seeing a way to a more stable life. Often a complete abandonment of friends and acquaintances connected with the drug(s) of choice. Having a supportive family and good friends helps but ultimately it has to come from within. May the force be with you.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
Not exactly. You seem to have ignored the fact that society often gives mixed signals and messages. Politics might assert some action is illegal or undesirable while the culture provided limitless examples of people doing something the law says they shouldn't. Our music, entertainment, work demands and milieu, etc. Almost all our culture promotes the use of illicit drugs including the widespread abuse of alcohol (even though it is "legal). Every drama on TV shows routine (and unnecessary?) reliance upon alcohol, weed, stimulants, etc. Making their use appear culturally acceptable. Even desirable. If success in the tech industry is closely related to "productivity" even at the expense of healthy family and personal relationships and if one's job is dependent upon being "top dog", well those kind of workplace cultures has the effect of dehumanizing everything. So it's no wonder people become detached, disoriented, and lost even to themselves. But I blame that on culture regardless what the law says. People do what they feel they have to do to "survive" even if in the long run it destroys them.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
the google hookers?
I already addressed all of what you said.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
That's a tough story man... Keep it up (getting better that is), I for one wish the best for you *thumbs up*
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.