12 ms·

I am open to discussing this in raw detail - contact in my profile. Most programmers, scientists, people in finance and startups I know take a lot of stimulant

by Blahah 9y ago

I am open to discussing this in raw detail - contact in my profile. 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.

Eilene 9y ago
I'll contact you directly, and appreciate your candor. Do you think it's a European vs. American thing? That we tend to demonize in some ways the need for substances to help us in some way, whereas in Berlin, for example, no one cares? And they've schooled themselves so that they know how to use it 'safely'--whatever that means? surely taking this stuff in the long term has some effect on the body (not sure if the effect is necessarily degrading in some way, but it must have an effect, at least on the liver...no?)
- Blahah 9y ago
  My understanding from my American friends and partner is that it's exactly the same in the USA. Students, software developers, people in finance - for all of them stimulants are normal. I think most people aren't really concerned about being safe - the assumption is that because everyone else is doing it and nobody is getting hurt, it's safe. Which is mostly true (the jury is still out on the long term effects, but for pharmaceuticals the risk is miniscule with normal dosages). 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.
  - Eilene 9y ago
    seems to be what I'm finding too, thank you.
  - linuxps2 9y ago
    Addy / Vyvanse seem to be the doctor's choice (as well as college kids') so it is generally just more available and seen as safer than straight street speed. Similarly, coke is also much cheaper / readily available in the US compared to Europe. I don't / have never opened up to coworkers about drug use/abuse but among my high earning friends, I'd say its a small group that uses it frequently and a large group that uses stimulants recreationally or when there is a big deadline coming up. I fall into that second category - if I have a ton of work and access to addy I'm going to be using it (I can't ever concentrate on work on coke - tons of energy and concentration, just no interest in doing work). However, if we're talking weed it's well over half of my friends that use it daily usually in the morning while answering emails / prior to work and immediately after / while working late. Granted, those same friends that smoke daily have been doing so since college
    - Eilene 9y ago
      Why weed? It would seem that would make you want to hang out all day and snack, or just sleep or watch television?
stzup7 9y ago
I lived in London for a few years to work in finance (top tier banks as well as hedge funds). I haven't met a single person who takes any sort of stimulants besides coffee. I'm a software engineer myself and your world seems very different from mine despite having worked in the same city. Your normality looks completely foreign to me.
- Blahah 9y ago
  Interesting! That is... really quite surprising to me. I don't know many people anywhere in the world who don't at least recreationally take drugs. I think perhaps we just inhabit different worlds. One thing I can promise you though, is that you do know people who are taking stimulants. They just aren't telling anyone :)
  - geofft 9y ago
    I have to say I agree with 'stzup7. I work in finance in NYC; it's a high-money, high-tech, high-drinking environment. I have coworkers that work too hard. They're not taking anything more than coffee. 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.)
    - Blahah 9y ago
      Your last point is a particularly interesting one. A lot of the most productive and skilled people I know are also very clean. But a good number of them are also using stimulants. 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.
draw_down 9y ago
Yikes.
ryandrake 9y ago
I’m that squeaky clean guy in high school that (unbelievably) never even encountered anyone smoking marijuana back then. My social circle did not and still doesn’t really include much drug use. Yet I’ve directly observed Adderall abuse in Silicon Valley. That’s how prevalent it must be.
- Eilene 9y ago
  what makes you resist going that route? Do you also feel pressure in the profession to work longer, produce more, etc.?
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    Gray hair helps. I’ve got enough experience at this point where I can be productive without going into “production frenzy.” Lots of the younger folks don’t get that yet and think it’s all about how much code you write or how long you’re at your desk. I like to think of it as the difference between doing work vs “producing evidence of having done work.” There is a lot of pressure to do the latter I think, especially for the junior folks.
    - Eilene 9y ago
      In your experience, is there more substance use (drugs, assuming alcohol is used sometimes to excess by all age groups) among the junior folks, because of the difference in the pressure they feel?
      - ryandrake 9y ago
        That would require more speculation than I’m willing to engage in. I can comment on the various pressures to perform that apply to older and younger tech folks, and why I personally don’t feel the need to go the Adderall route (essentially I don’t think the results of merely more output are worth it). To put the two together I’d encourage you to find people currently going down that route for their perspective. Given the discussion here it shouldn’t be hard to find a few! Good luck.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
cryoshon 9y ago
chiming in here to corroborate that stimulant use/abuse is heavily prevalent in scientists and startup types that i know. 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.
- Eilene 9y ago
  So is it almost impossible to be a top scientist in your field if you don't get some help so that you can have those epiphany-producing insights, etc?
  - geofft 9y ago
    I... doubt that's true. I imagine there are people who think that this help will help them become top scientists (and maybe we should have a talk about the pressure to succeed etc.). But I suspect that a lot of the actual top scientists are plain good at what they do, and they neither need nor want the effects of drugs in their work. (Which is very different from recreational use, of course, or recreational use turning into addiction.)
    - Eilene 9y ago
      Part of what I'm trying to determine is if that pressure to succeed makes people believe they need something to be competitive. My daughter, for example, sometimes feels like she's at a disadvantage at college because so many of her peers are taking adderall (w/o a prescription) for tests and studying. Is it the same after college, professionally?
mitjak 9y ago
This is, subjectively, absolutely insane to me. In your experience do people have an easy time going off these substances?
- testvox 9y ago
  Keep in mind the therapeutic dose people take to focus better is an order of magnitude lower then the dose people take for recreation.
- Blahah 9y ago
  Haha, well, I can only assure you that it's basically just fine. Nobody gets hurt. It's just a thing people do - like drinking coffee or energy drinks. But it works better. 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.
  - mitjak 9y ago
    Interesting. Do you think the drug use is due to pressure to succeed / survive, or because you get more out of your time? Having more productive time is appealing but the idea of working 24/7 makes hanging myself appealing by comparison.
    - Blahah 9y ago
      You get more out of your time, but many people want that due to pressure to succeed. 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 :)
dumbfounder 9y ago
I was diagnosed with ADD in college and put on Dexedrine. It does an incredibly good job of helping you focus and help you get things done. 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.
- Blahah 9y ago
  I am in my early 30s and have been using drugs recreationally since I was 11. Thank you for caring :) I appreciate it. I am a professional though, and I am comfortable with my current use. It has been toned down massively since I was younger, and become much safer and more careful. I do agree though that people should be careful. I don't advocate for wanton drug taking.
ggg9990 9y ago
Wow, a great view into how two people can live probably yards from each other and live in what are functionally two distinct planets.
nemanjaboric 9y ago
I live and work in Berlin for years now, working in startups, and I haven't met anybody that (openly) uses anything harder than tobacco or coffee, nor I met anybody who said they knew somebody to do that. 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.
- Blahah 9y ago
  I really don't see any reason you would notice it if you aren't doing it yourself. I connect with people based on it, and I find it easy to spot who is doing it because I've been around it for a long time. But most people in my life have no idea that I take stimulants, even though I don't try to hide it. It's just a tablet a few times a day, nobody notices. And the visible effects at work doses are mild, it doesn't turn you into a raving crackhead.
s73v3r_ 9y ago
Have you had your work evaluated by people who are not drug users, to verify if it actually is better? 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?
- Blahah 9y ago
  My work is evaluated by my clients, who as far as I know are not drug users. 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.
yannis7 9y ago
with all due respect my friend, and honestly I don't mean to insult you, but what you're describing "drugs are everywhere / everyone does them / everyone works best with them / it's all prevalent and normal" is a bit of a drug addict's mentality. 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.

by Blahah 9y ago

Eilene 9y ago

I'll contact you directly, and appreciate your candor. Do you think it's a European vs. American thing? That we tend to demonize in some ways the need for substances to help us in some way, whereas in Berlin, for example, no one cares? And they've schooled themselves so that they know how to use it 'safely'--whatever that means? surely taking this stuff in the long term has some effect on the body (not sure if the effect is necessarily degrading in some way, but it must have an effect, at least on the liver...no?)

Blahah 9y ago
My understanding from my American friends and partner is that it's exactly the same in the USA. Students, software developers, people in finance - for all of them stimulants are normal. I think most people aren't really concerned about being safe - the assumption is that because everyone else is doing it and nobody is getting hurt, it's safe. Which is mostly true (the jury is still out on the long term effects, but for pharmaceuticals the risk is miniscule with normal dosages). 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.
- Eilene 9y ago
  seems to be what I'm finding too, thank you.
- linuxps2 9y ago
  Addy / Vyvanse seem to be the doctor's choice (as well as college kids') so it is generally just more available and seen as safer than straight street speed. Similarly, coke is also much cheaper / readily available in the US compared to Europe. I don't / have never opened up to coworkers about drug use/abuse but among my high earning friends, I'd say its a small group that uses it frequently and a large group that uses stimulants recreationally or when there is a big deadline coming up. I fall into that second category - if I have a ton of work and access to addy I'm going to be using it (I can't ever concentrate on work on coke - tons of energy and concentration, just no interest in doing work). However, if we're talking weed it's well over half of my friends that use it daily usually in the morning while answering emails / prior to work and immediately after / while working late. Granted, those same friends that smoke daily have been doing so since college
  - Eilene 9y ago
    Why weed? It would seem that would make you want to hang out all day and snack, or just sleep or watch television?

stzup7 9y ago

I lived in London for a few years to work in finance (top tier banks as well as hedge funds). I haven't met a single person who takes any sort of stimulants besides coffee. I'm a software engineer myself and your world seems very different from mine despite having worked in the same city. Your normality looks completely foreign to me.

Blahah 9y ago
Interesting! That is... really quite surprising to me. I don't know many people anywhere in the world who don't at least recreationally take drugs. I think perhaps we just inhabit different worlds. One thing I can promise you though, is that you do know people who are taking stimulants. They just aren't telling anyone :)
- geofft 9y ago
  I have to say I agree with 'stzup7. I work in finance in NYC; it's a high-money, high-tech, high-drinking environment. I have coworkers that work too hard. They're not taking anything more than coffee. 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.)
  - Blahah 9y ago
    Your last point is a particularly interesting one. A lot of the most productive and skilled people I know are also very clean. But a good number of them are also using stimulants. 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.

draw_down 9y ago

Yikes.

ryandrake 9y ago

I’m that squeaky clean guy in high school that (unbelievably) never even encountered anyone smoking marijuana back then. My social circle did not and still doesn’t really include much drug use. Yet I’ve directly observed Adderall abuse in Silicon Valley. That’s how prevalent it must be.

Eilene 9y ago
what makes you resist going that route? Do you also feel pressure in the profession to work longer, produce more, etc.?
- ryandrake 9y ago
  Gray hair helps. I’ve got enough experience at this point where I can be productive without going into “production frenzy.” Lots of the younger folks don’t get that yet and think it’s all about how much code you write or how long you’re at your desk. I like to think of it as the difference between doing work vs “producing evidence of having done work.” There is a lot of pressure to do the latter I think, especially for the junior folks.
  - Eilene 9y ago
    In your experience, is there more substance use (drugs, assuming alcohol is used sometimes to excess by all age groups) among the junior folks, because of the difference in the pressure they feel?
    - ryandrake 9y ago
      That would require more speculation than I’m willing to engage in. I can comment on the various pressures to perform that apply to older and younger tech folks, and why I personally don’t feel the need to go the Adderall route (essentially I don’t think the results of merely more output are worth it). To put the two together I’d encourage you to find people currently going down that route for their perspective. Given the discussion here it shouldn’t be hard to find a few! Good luck.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

cryoshon 9y ago

chiming in here to corroborate that stimulant use/abuse is heavily prevalent in scientists and startup types that i know. 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.

Eilene 9y ago
So is it almost impossible to be a top scientist in your field if you don't get some help so that you can have those epiphany-producing insights, etc?
- geofft 9y ago
  I... doubt that's true. I imagine there are people who think that this help will help them become top scientists (and maybe we should have a talk about the pressure to succeed etc.). But I suspect that a lot of the actual top scientists are plain good at what they do, and they neither need nor want the effects of drugs in their work. (Which is very different from recreational use, of course, or recreational use turning into addiction.)
  - Eilene 9y ago
    Part of what I'm trying to determine is if that pressure to succeed makes people believe they need something to be competitive. My daughter, for example, sometimes feels like she's at a disadvantage at college because so many of her peers are taking adderall (w/o a prescription) for tests and studying. Is it the same after college, professionally?

mitjak 9y ago

This is, subjectively, absolutely insane to me. In your experience do people have an easy time going off these substances?

testvox 9y ago
Keep in mind the therapeutic dose people take to focus better is an order of magnitude lower then the dose people take for recreation.
Blahah 9y ago
Haha, well, I can only assure you that it's basically just fine. Nobody gets hurt. It's just a thing people do - like drinking coffee or energy drinks. But it works better. 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.
- mitjak 9y ago
  Interesting. Do you think the drug use is due to pressure to succeed / survive, or because you get more out of your time? Having more productive time is appealing but the idea of working 24/7 makes hanging myself appealing by comparison.
  - Blahah 9y ago
    You get more out of your time, but many people want that due to pressure to succeed. 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 :)

dumbfounder 9y ago

I was diagnosed with ADD in college and put on Dexedrine. It does an incredibly good job of helping you focus and help you get things done. 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.

Blahah 9y ago
I am in my early 30s and have been using drugs recreationally since I was 11. Thank you for caring :) I appreciate it. I am a professional though, and I am comfortable with my current use. It has been toned down massively since I was younger, and become much safer and more careful. I do agree though that people should be careful. I don't advocate for wanton drug taking.

ggg9990 9y ago

Wow, a great view into how two people can live probably yards from each other and live in what are functionally two distinct planets.

nemanjaboric 9y ago

I live and work in Berlin for years now, working in startups, and I haven't met anybody that (openly) uses anything harder than tobacco or coffee, nor I met anybody who said they knew somebody to do that. 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.

Blahah 9y ago
I really don't see any reason you would notice it if you aren't doing it yourself. I connect with people based on it, and I find it easy to spot who is doing it because I've been around it for a long time. But most people in my life have no idea that I take stimulants, even though I don't try to hide it. It's just a tablet a few times a day, nobody notices. And the visible effects at work doses are mild, it doesn't turn you into a raving crackhead.

s73v3r_ 9y ago

Have you had your work evaluated by people who are not drug users, to verify if it actually is better? 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?

Blahah 9y ago
My work is evaluated by my clients, who as far as I know are not drug users. 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.

yannis7 9y ago

with all due respect my friend, and honestly I don't mean to insult you, but what you're describing "drugs are everywhere / everyone does them / everyone works best with them / it's all prevalent and normal" is a bit of a drug addict's mentality. 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.