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Drank for the first 25 years of my career. High-functioning alcoholic, I guess. You've definitely heard of the products I have a bunch of code in, and the compa

Drank for the first 25 years of my career. High-functioning alcoholic, I guess. You've definitely heard of the products I have a bunch of code in, and the companies I worked for. I don't know how I managed getting blasted every night and still write all that code. As things got worse I started working for smaller and smaller companies, and wound up essentially jobless and alone and drinking off of my savings in a Silly Valley townhouse full of liquor bottles. The CEO of the startup I'd just blown-off a job at (showed up the first week, "worked at home" for another couple of weeks, then stopped showing up entirely) drove over and knocked on my door to find out what was going on. Drunk off my ass, I told him, and that I'd get some help. So I made That Call and got some help. Did about three weeks of inpatient care (Stanford recovery unit, and then a place in the Santa Cruz mountains), then moved into a halfway house and spent a lot of time in AA meetings [AA is controversial, I know]. Never spent another night in that townhouse, wound up selling it. That CEO hired me back as a consultant a few months after I got out of inpatient. I've got 18 years sober now, much of which I've spent working on software at great companies on products you've almost certainly heard of and probably used. Married, with a teen-age son, and doing better financially than I ever would have imagined. Still going to AA meetings, though nowhere near as often as I probably should.

adamzerner 9y ago
Good for you, glad you got through it.
kirse 9y ago
[AA is controversial, I know] AA is controversial among a tiny minority of anti-religion internet blowhards. For the vast majority of reasonable folks, it really isn't. Glad to hear it has worked for you.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  AA is controversial not only for it's religious content, but also because it's empirically both far less effective than it claims and less effective than alternatives. See, e.g, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irr...
  - gotthemwmds 9y ago
    How can anyone make an empirical statement about AA -- an organization that does not collect any sort of statistics about itself what so ever?
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      AA not collecting statistics doesn't prevent other people from conducting studies of recovery in addicts that include people in AA.
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    Jesus, is there really a magical anti-alcoholism pill? Why isn't this more widely known? It could save many lives!
- middle334 9y ago
  I just didn't want to derail things into another "AA is bad because it's religious" discussion. To paraphrase Heinlein: If solemnly rubbing blue mud in my belly button would have gotten me sober, I would have done that. If something like Rational Recovery had been an option, I would have gone. But AA is free and there are meetings everywhere, nearly all the time. It is kind of dismaying to get out of nearly a month of expensive treatment and then be told, "Welp, pretty much all we've got for you at this point is for you to attend a crapload of AA meetings, good luck." But I figure that desperation is an important part of staying sober, at least until you've fleshed out some kind of support.
jacquesm 9y ago
My sincere congratulations. As the son of an alcoholic I am totally impressed with you being able to get out of that and turn your life around.
le-mark 9y ago
I worked with a guy once who was a recovering alcoholic. This was a big dumb corp, and he'd been a manager, but went through the companies cobol boot camp and was a cobol programmer when I knew him. Apparently it was a situation of he had a lot of tenure at the company and it was that or start over somewhere else. Yeah, odd. Anyway, similar to you, he'd built a life, had two sons, a wife. Only things weren't that rosey for him. This guy had no filter, he'd sometimes offer up fucked up stories from his childhood at weird times. At one point he went back to drinking and was really unreliable at work, his wife kicked him out. Around that time I moved on. About 6 years later I heard he'd committed suicide. This always haunted me. I've worked with a few people who've committed suicide. What I have to say to you is; you matter, to your wife and to your family, and to you co workers, although they don't know it. Good luck and please seek help if you ever need it again.

adamzerner 9y ago

Good for you, glad you got through it.

kirse 9y ago

[AA is controversial, I know] AA is controversial among a tiny minority of anti-religion internet blowhards. For the vast majority of reasonable folks, it really isn't. Glad to hear it has worked for you.

dragonwriter 9y ago
AA is controversial not only for it's religious content, but also because it's empirically both far less effective than it claims and less effective than alternatives. See, e.g, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irr...
- gotthemwmds 9y ago
  How can anyone make an empirical statement about AA -- an organization that does not collect any sort of statistics about itself what so ever?
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    AA not collecting statistics doesn't prevent other people from conducting studies of recovery in addicts that include people in AA.
- StavrosK 9y ago
  Jesus, is there really a magical anti-alcoholism pill? Why isn't this more widely known? It could save many lives!
middle334 9y ago
I just didn't want to derail things into another "AA is bad because it's religious" discussion. To paraphrase Heinlein: If solemnly rubbing blue mud in my belly button would have gotten me sober, I would have done that. If something like Rational Recovery had been an option, I would have gone. But AA is free and there are meetings everywhere, nearly all the time. It is kind of dismaying to get out of nearly a month of expensive treatment and then be told, "Welp, pretty much all we've got for you at this point is for you to attend a crapload of AA meetings, good luck." But I figure that desperation is an important part of staying sober, at least until you've fleshed out some kind of support.

jacquesm 9y ago

My sincere congratulations. As the son of an alcoholic I am totally impressed with you being able to get out of that and turn your life around.

le-mark 9y ago

I worked with a guy once who was a recovering alcoholic. This was a big dumb corp, and he'd been a manager, but went through the companies cobol boot camp and was a cobol programmer when I knew him. Apparently it was a situation of he had a lot of tenure at the company and it was that or start over somewhere else. Yeah, odd. Anyway, similar to you, he'd built a life, had two sons, a wife. Only things weren't that rosey for him. This guy had no filter, he'd sometimes offer up fucked up stories from his childhood at weird times. At one point he went back to drinking and was really unreliable at work, his wife kicked him out. Around that time I moved on. About 6 years later I heard he'd committed suicide. This always haunted me. I've worked with a few people who've committed suicide. What I have to say to you is; you matter, to your wife and to your family, and to you co workers, although they don't know it. Good luck and please seek help if you ever need it again.