The pressure to maintain a lifestyle that you perceive to make you whole is an interesting one. My career started in the film industry and the long days, emotional personalities and industry norm resulted in abusing blow, while I don't think it ever got totally out of control in my life, I did go through a year of using it every day, and some days all day. Of course, it's a cycle. You use it to live that life, you make money living that life, you spend money using things to live the life, you have to live that life harder. I switched back into tech in my mid 20s, and eventually ended up relatively senior in a quickly growing startup. After about a year I started to use adderall more and more and more to keep up and feel more focused and more like the engineering minded folks around me. I'm thankful that eventually my boss (our ceo) pulled me aside and told me he felt that I was using adderall and booze in an unhealthy way and he wanted me to stop. However, the next thing he said to me is actually what made me stop. He said we really love you the way you are without drugs, we really love John as he is. Whoah, that was like a slap in the face. I'm really grateful for that as I'm sure I could have ended up down some pretty crazy rabbit hole. I suspect more bosses could do with being like this.
Outside of the drug abuse, the lifestyle can be found in a good percentage of homes all over Palo Alto. Working 60+ hours/week for years on end(check), angry and threatening one minute, remorseful and generous the next (check), sustaining himself largely on fast food, snacks, coffee, ibuprofen and antacids (check), the last call he ever made was for work (likely), displayed no photos of his children or me in his office [because...] he didn’t want the partners to see him as “distracted by my family.” (yep).<p>While this doesn't exist in every household it exists in a lot of them. Going for walks at dusk you can hear the household arguments spawned by this lifestyle. Not every house, every night. But they are common enough. Sometimes you just want to reach out and say "I understand" to the person in the house that's very obviously blowing up due to stress.<p>What is less common is drug abuse. I don't know how people find the time for a drug addiction, alcohol addiction, or any other kind of addiction that isn't "overworking themselves" because that is very much a primary addiction.<p>Silicon Valley is the 1950s Hollywood for techies. They come from all over the world to work with the best of the best, for a shot at something incredible. And much like Hollywood for actors, it ends up chewing up and eating more people than anybody outside the bubble realizes.<p>There's a lot to be said for the area. All kinds of positives. But it's also a very destructive area at a very personal level. There is a lot of personal sacrifice happening at the altars of "educational opportunity", "changing the world", "better lifestyle for my family", and whatever other benefits people have talked themselves into believing that more money can provide for their families.<p>My advice, and I should take it myself, is to recognize when you are breaking down and take a break. The world will get by for 2 more weeks without that one all-so-important feature that you're working on right now.
"One of the first things I learned is that there is little research on lawyers and drug abuse."<p>Or really any other profession. I work in politics, in DC, and drug abuse is rampant. Absolutely horrible. I've found people snorting pills in the bathroom, steps away from the offices of members of congress. Adderall, cocaine, Xanax, and a myriad of painkillers is the norm. Having to shake a colleague awake and pour coffee into him because he was so jazzed on adderall all of the previous day, that he had to drink himself into a drunken stupor just to fall asleep. Now it's 8am and he needed to be at a committee hearing in two hours. It's under reported and invisible.<p>I think highly stressful jobs bring out a "solutions" mentality. Drugs help. With sleep, with productivity, with being on the ball....until they don't....
<i>Of all the heartbreaking details of his story, the one that continues to haunt me is this: The history on his cellphone shows the last call he ever made was for work. Peter, vomiting, unable to sit up, slipping in and out of consciousness, had managed, somehow, to dial into a conference call.</i>
I completely understand this guy's mindset.<p>I am a 23 year old programmer who just graduated college. My goal is to work at a place that makes me happy. I think the first step is by working on personal projects to post on my Github and put on my resume. But when I get home after a depressing 8 hour day of staring at code that makes no sense and accomplishing nothing, I'm burnt out and tired and depressed and more coding is the last thing I want to do. So I'm trying to get a prescription for Adderall, because last time I took Adderall I was extremely focused and interested in programming, and I got tons of work done on personal projects that were a huge part of getting me the (albeit shitty) job I have now.<p>I have only one friend, and he usually hangs out with his girlfriend, so I have basically no social life. When I want some down time, I instantly get depressed because I have nothing to do and no one to do anything with. So I smoke weed. I'm instantly happy, and video games and movies are instantly interesting and enjoyable again.<p>I don't see how I can escape from these things. I truly feel like drugs are the only thing keeping me going right now.
"Peter battled his own brand of melancholy...he wasn’t someone who ever really felt happy. He had moments of being “not unhappy,”"<p>This hit a bit too close to home. not quite as severe for me yet, as right now in those moments i hide it behind a facade of dry humor and try to be an optimist.<p>I'm 25 and work in tech out here in SV, and have no current impulse for illegal drug use and only a light drinker. But, I admit there is a non-zero chance I could one day become Peter.<p>Fuck. Me. - i need to take better care of myself.
I recently had to cope with a colleague that has chosen this route, this level of addiction is traumatic to see. Things had gone a long way from recreational and I had to have words with the enemy - HR - as a thing I felt compelled to do.<p>I have friends that take things recreationally for them to not go down the hell hole my former workmate chose, however, from reading the article I can see that they might be immune, they have shifted to sociable alcoholism and could shift over to the full on disease of addiction much like the subject of this article. Maybe mid life crisis could be the mechanism and not some childhood trauma thing. The opioid crisis has been an expensive mistake, there is too much blurring of prescription and street drugs in all these stories.
I have direct and very recent experience with the patent group at the firm mentioned in the article (WSGR) because my company is suing their client, but I think the following needs to be stated about all law firms.<p>True, law is an incredibly stressful profession. True, it selects for competitive people. True, the hours can be crushing. But few other professions reward individuals for lying so much.<p>Patent lawyers and most other lawyers lie day in, day out. Often their job cannot be done without lying. They lie to clients (overbilling), colleagues (opposing counsel), judges at every level, and as the article points out, their families. Often the lies are in print. It's essentially a prerequisite to rationalize these lies as "argumentation" or viewpoint, but often they're just lies. For most people who are not complete sociopaths, lying takes a toll. It's not at all surprising to see that it can add up in frightening ways.