TL;DR: I've had issues with alcohol in the past, and am currently on prescription drugs to focus at work. I've bounced around a bit. After losing my job in '0

TL;DR: I've had issues with alcohol in the past, and am currently on prescription drugs to focus at work. I've bounced around a bit. After losing my job in '00 I started drinking pretty heavily. That was probably my worst period, and definitely in the abuse zone. I was able to pull myself out of it long enough to get work, which helped me keep out of trouble with it for a while. In '06 I was working in the banking sector in NYC. There was a pretty string drinking culture there. Never at work, but afterwards you'd head out to bars and have a half dozen beers, then maybe go to a whiskey bar. I'd stumble home at least one night per week. I had to do a lot of introspection about this and decide whether I wanted alcohol in my life at all. In the end I feel like my drinking was trying to avoid a shitty point in my life. If I hit a point like that again I stop drinking altogether (this has happened once since then, and it went well). But otherwise I don't really worry about it. I probably drink about twice/month, and usually only a drink or two when we go out for a nice dinner. These days I've been having focus issues. I've always been borderline ADD. After my son was diagnosed with ADHD he started on Methylphenidate (in the Ritalin family) and I saw a night and day difference. So I saw a psychopharmacologist and I'm taking 60 mg Vyvanse (in the Adderall family) most work days. I don't use it when I'm not working, and I never stack more than one. But there has been a lot of pressure to keep up with peers. I'm 38 years old and have two kids, working as a software engineer at Google, my team lead is 22, and the average age of the group is 23. I just can't match their work-life balance. The Vyvanse keeps me focused on my job, and my peers and manager have noticed and commented on the increased productivity. I've gone through periods when I smoked pot heavily to unwind from stressful work. These days I smoke extremely rarely. After dabbling in the alcohol addiction, I don't want to fall back in that, so I keep a pretty close eye on myself. My wife also feels comfortable telling me if she thinks there's a problem, so I feel supported by the people around me.