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This made me sick. I don't know what's worst: the author's self-absorption, the victimization tone, or the fact that her colleagues had to do similar unhealthy

This made me sick. I don't know what's worst: the author's self-absorption, the victimization tone, or the fact that her colleagues had to do similar unhealthy shit in order to compete with her. It stinks the whole way. Using drugs to gain an unfair advantage over other people at work has unhealthy emotional side effects? Am I to be surprised by this?

jpxxx 14y ago
Tone it down. This is a sober (heh) account of a young woman finding herself in a place she thought she'd never be, not a personal ad.
- clicks 14y ago
  No, tone it up instead. From the comments on that article: My 3rd grade granddaughter has been put on adderall for ADD. This is really scary. It's because of people like her and her self-absorbed, nugatory account of her experiences being featured on a high-profile news journal that we drift into a world where mention of ADHD medicine usage gets you the eye-roll 'wow you druggie' judgement. She's doing a tremendous disservice to individuals actually diagnosed with ADHD.
  - jpxxx 14y ago
    As an individual who was actually diagnosed with ADHD, I have an axe to grind with a medical industry that sold me amphetamines at 15. The results were ~nugatory~ at best.
    - clicks 14y ago
      As an individual who was diagnosed with ADHD, but whose parents refused to acquire medicine based on superstitious 'but isn't adderall just basically cocaine?' grounds, I assure you I've got an axe about 3,000x bigger than yours to grind at individuals like those who wrote this NYTimes article. I'm sorry to hear that you were diagnosed by an incompetent psychiatric physician, but I would hope you don't use your misfortune as fuel for spreading superstitious, anti-science anti-ADHD-medicine hysteria, there's enough of that out there already.
      - adrianbye 14y ago
        your parents did you a favor. this is a diagnosis which is politically motivated. here's an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapetomania http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapetomania
        myko 14y ago
        What does this have to do with the OP and ADHD?
        cwzwarich 14y ago
        Many critics of institutional psychiatry hold that the construct of mental illness is often used to medicalize nonpathological behavior that doesn't meet social norms, putting a scientific stamp of approval on judgements regarding human behavior, morals, and ethics. Given the uncertain pathophysiology of ADHD, the degree to which symptoms resemble moral judgements, the dramatic increase in diagnosis following advocacy in the psychiatric community, and questionable improvement of long-term outcomes for patients treated with medication, ADHD is seen by them as a good example of this point of view. I assume that's what he was alluding to.
        adrianbye 14y ago
        very well said
      - killerdark 14y ago
        In case drapetomania doesn't tickle your fancy, try hysteria. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria
      - nawitus 14y ago
        >anti-science Is debate allowed about in science anymore? It seems that everyone who disagrees with the status quo is branded as anti-science, therefore destroying all chances for a constructive discussion.
    - lsc 14y ago
      meh, I am in a similar situation, and have mixed feelings. My parents were for it, but I was against it (because of the values my parents instilled in me... I'm pretty shocked they thought it was acceptable... but I think they were really scared that I was going to be a failure. I mean, I was a failure, at school.) Anyhow, I'm only the second person in my extended family to not have gone to college. If I performed in school how I perform now (when I am medicated) I would have done very well in high school, I would have gone to college, and I probably would have done pretty okay. But, then I would have graduated to the work force in 2001-2002 rather than in 1997. do you see the problem here? in 1997, I was able to get a programming job, essentially on enthusiasm. In 2001-2002? I would have spent considerable time unemployed, even with a degree. (of course, that was just pure luck) But yeah. I'm glad that the crutch is available to me now.
      - intended 14y ago
        Well by your own admission and logic its essentially a fluke that things worked out for you. If you were born 2-3 years later you would have been writing a thoroughly different comment. As a matter of fact, there is very likely someone who made a similar choice like you, only his time line was shifted forward a few years. His outcomes would be remarkably worse than yours. Not only would he have never gone to college, he would also have an non-competitive start in a tough environment.
        lsc 14y ago
        >As a matter of fact, there is very likely someone who made a similar choice like you, only his time line was shifted forward a few years. Oh yeah, that guy worked for me for a short period of time. He got a better job (first at hostgator, then at some fairly well-known generic-sounding consulting house) very shortly afterwards. He mostly just needed /something/ to put on the resume so people didn't give him shit about the empty years. But yea, random chance is absolutely huge, and I got lucky. >His outcomes would be remarkably worse than yours. Not only would he have never gone to college, he would also have an non-competitive start in a tough environment. College isn't one of those 'once in a lifetime' chances; I mean, unless you have parents or something that are willing to pay for it out of high school but not willing to pay for it a few years later, you /can/ go back a few years later. I think it's pretty destructive that the choice is presented to 17 year olds as "go to college now, or suffer forever because you did not!" Really, if I had to do my life over with what I know now? I would have spent much of the .com crash trying to go to college. I dono if I would have done very well, but I was much better equipped then than I was right out of high school. (well, that, or staying at MAPS. I don't know if I could have handled it, but if I could have, I would have been a thousand times better off than I was hiding out where I did.) I mean, my main takaway there? even authority figures that genuinely care about and want to do right by you often give bad advice. Your life gets vastly better once you gain self-determinism.
- joe_the_user 14y ago
  Uh yeah, I am seriously surprised at HN seeing the comments here.
smoyer 14y ago
"Using drugs to gain an unfair advantage over other people at work" Perhaps the ABA (American Bar Association) needs to implement a ban on performance enhancing drugs similar to what MLB (Major League Baseball) mandates?
- MartinCron 14y ago
  I drink coffee every day. Does that give me an advantage over those who don't drink coffee? If there is an advantage, is that advantage unfair?
  - smoyer 14y ago
    Good point ... I drink coffee every day too, but I'm no longer addicted (I mean that in the literal sense) like I was when I drank three to four pots.
    - Volpe 14y ago
      I think you mean your addiction is no longer outside the social norm. Caffeine is addictive, regardless what you rationalise or not. The only way to not be addicted is to severely limit supply...
      - smoyer 14y ago
        Actually, I mean that how my body functions is unaffected by my caffeine intake. If I don't have coffee on any given day, I continue to be functional ... in the "old days", I'd have had a killer headache within 30-45 minutes of waking up if I didn't down a large cup.
  - ruswick 14y ago
    I think the precedent is certainly different for use of prescription drugs that were acquired through dubious means.
  - nikatwork 14y ago
    Caffeine junkies like you disgust me. The use of an artificial stimulant to gain an unfair productivity gain is unethical, you CHEATER.
pchivers 14y ago
I didn't like the article either. The whole thing struck me as melodramatic and narcissistic. Perhaps there are intelligent commentaries to be written about this culture's abuse of Adderall, but this is not one of them.
- rayiner 14y ago
  > The whole thing struck me as melodramatic and narcissistic. She's a young aspiring writer living in New York City, as well as a UCLA grad... shouldn't be a surprise...
  - larrys 14y ago
    "She's a young aspiring writer living" Which makes you wonder what parts are true in the story and what parts are enhanced for dramatic effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Frey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Frey NYT also has a similar piece weekly called "Modern Love" typically by a writer with a screwed up love life that sometimes seems stranger than fiction.
  - runlevel1 14y ago
    That's a bit ad hominem, no? Before posting this I took a look at your comment history to make sure I wasn't feeding a troll. Instead, I found tons of quality contributions. You're better than this, my fellow HN'er.
Katelyn 14y ago
Dude, have some compassion. It's upsetting that this is the top voted comment. Not everyone is as well-informed and knowledgeable about things like this as you are, and this first-hand account of her experience will likely help a lot of people experiencing similar issues. >>Using drugs to gain an unfair advantage over other people at work has unhealthy emotional side effects? Am I to be suprised by this? Your claim that this stimulant gives its users/abusers/misusers an "unfair advantage" over those who don't use it (ie you) not only contradicts your following statement (that it causes emotional side effects) but also tells me that perhaps you're angered or upset by this perceived 'unfair advantage' you see this drug giving your peers. If you looked at the big picture, or her story, you'd see that the drug doesn't, in fact, give its abusers an unfair advantage. Whatever temporary 'gain' they are getting is unsustainable and clearly destructive both emotionally and physically.
- ruswick 14y ago
  First of all, the two are not mutually exclusive. She explicitly states that she was better able to perform at work and experienced a better social life, but also faced emotional problems. To the second point, he probably is. This is to be expected. There is very little reason to by sympathetic to someone who abuses prescription drugs in order to achieve success in school or outlast their peers in the working world. The fact that she decried her plight makes it all the more irksome: before she was a "victim," she consciously chose to abuse these drugs, then lied to her physician and continued taking them for months...
nikatwork 14y ago
> the fact that her colleagues had to do similar unhealthy shit in order to compete with her You are asserting that the law firm's long working hours were caused by her med use. Do you think you might have that backwards? > the author's self-absorption, the victimization tone She had a substance abuse problem. She's warning others that it's a slippery slope. Show some compassion.
- AnIrishDuck 14y ago
  > You are asserting that the law firm's long working hours were caused by her med use. Do you think you might have that backwards? It probably becomes a vicious cycle / race to the bottom. You take more drugs to work longer hours and compete with your colleagues, who start taking more drugs so they can work more hours to have the edge over you...
  - nikatwork 14y ago
    The long working hours of many law firms existed before the widespread availability of adderall. Drugs have absolutely zero to do with it. They are merely a symptom of the underlying workaholic culture.
    - etrain 14y ago
      I had a friend whose grandfather was a hot shot lawyer at one of the largest international firms of his day in the 60s/70s/80s. She told me that he was a speed addict for close to 20 years. Long story short he got into a situation where he had to quit cold turkey and did, successfully. Substance abuse to get ahead is nothing new. Drugs are not as new as we pretend they are, and it's been common practice to abuse them for personal gain probably as long as they've been around.
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
      - intended 14y ago
        This is a scale error. The industrial revolution was a shift in the curve. You could successfully argue that automation to get ahead is nothing new, but it would miss the importance of the scale of the new changes. Adderal and its ilk are a similar shift in the curve. People with access used to be people rich enough to afford speed. Now almost all school kids are entering the work force and know someone or have themselves used performance enhancers.
doctorstupid 14y ago
Agreed, she's totally self-absorbed. I found 97 uses of the perpendicular pronoun, not including all the uses of 'me', 'my' and so on.
lemmsjid 14y ago
I didn't get any sense of victimization from the article. I got the sense of someone who was coming clean on a bad choice they'd made, and bearing witness to the consequences of said choice. In fact, she did so in a quite self deprecating fashion. From your comment I assume that you only respect people who have made correct and logical choices throughout their lives, and/or people who make bad choices, bear the consequences, and don't tell anyone about them (lest they appear to be self absorbed). You are certainly welcome to only respect said people, though I hope that if you ever make a bad choice that the people around you will be more compassionate.
darkarmani 14y ago
> the fact that her colleagues had to do similar unhealthy shit in order to compete with her. This is one of the things that bothers you? The paralegals felt the need to compete with her?

jpxxx 14y ago

Tone it down. This is a sober (heh) account of a young woman finding herself in a place she thought she'd never be, not a personal ad.

clicks 14y ago
No, tone it up instead. From the comments on that article: My 3rd grade granddaughter has been put on adderall for ADD. This is really scary. It's because of people like her and her self-absorbed, nugatory account of her experiences being featured on a high-profile news journal that we drift into a world where mention of ADHD medicine usage gets you the eye-roll 'wow you druggie' judgement. She's doing a tremendous disservice to individuals actually diagnosed with ADHD.
- jpxxx 14y ago
  As an individual who was actually diagnosed with ADHD, I have an axe to grind with a medical industry that sold me amphetamines at 15. The results were ~nugatory~ at best.
  - clicks 14y ago
    As an individual who was diagnosed with ADHD, but whose parents refused to acquire medicine based on superstitious 'but isn't adderall just basically cocaine?' grounds, I assure you I've got an axe about 3,000x bigger than yours to grind at individuals like those who wrote this NYTimes article. I'm sorry to hear that you were diagnosed by an incompetent psychiatric physician, but I would hope you don't use your misfortune as fuel for spreading superstitious, anti-science anti-ADHD-medicine hysteria, there's enough of that out there already.
    - adrianbye 14y ago
      your parents did you a favor. this is a diagnosis which is politically motivated. here's an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapetomania http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapetomania
      - myko 14y ago
        What does this have to do with the OP and ADHD?
        cwzwarich 14y ago
        Many critics of institutional psychiatry hold that the construct of mental illness is often used to medicalize nonpathological behavior that doesn't meet social norms, putting a scientific stamp of approval on judgements regarding human behavior, morals, and ethics. Given the uncertain pathophysiology of ADHD, the degree to which symptoms resemble moral judgements, the dramatic increase in diagnosis following advocacy in the psychiatric community, and questionable improvement of long-term outcomes for patients treated with medication, ADHD is seen by them as a good example of this point of view. I assume that's what he was alluding to.
        adrianbye 14y ago
        very well said
    - killerdark 14y ago
      In case drapetomania doesn't tickle your fancy, try hysteria. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria
    - nawitus 14y ago
      >anti-science Is debate allowed about in science anymore? It seems that everyone who disagrees with the status quo is branded as anti-science, therefore destroying all chances for a constructive discussion.
  - lsc 14y ago
    meh, I am in a similar situation, and have mixed feelings. My parents were for it, but I was against it (because of the values my parents instilled in me... I'm pretty shocked they thought it was acceptable... but I think they were really scared that I was going to be a failure. I mean, I was a failure, at school.) Anyhow, I'm only the second person in my extended family to not have gone to college. If I performed in school how I perform now (when I am medicated) I would have done very well in high school, I would have gone to college, and I probably would have done pretty okay. But, then I would have graduated to the work force in 2001-2002 rather than in 1997. do you see the problem here? in 1997, I was able to get a programming job, essentially on enthusiasm. In 2001-2002? I would have spent considerable time unemployed, even with a degree. (of course, that was just pure luck) But yeah. I'm glad that the crutch is available to me now.
    - intended 14y ago
      Well by your own admission and logic its essentially a fluke that things worked out for you. If you were born 2-3 years later you would have been writing a thoroughly different comment. As a matter of fact, there is very likely someone who made a similar choice like you, only his time line was shifted forward a few years. His outcomes would be remarkably worse than yours. Not only would he have never gone to college, he would also have an non-competitive start in a tough environment.
      - lsc 14y ago
        >As a matter of fact, there is very likely someone who made a similar choice like you, only his time line was shifted forward a few years. Oh yeah, that guy worked for me for a short period of time. He got a better job (first at hostgator, then at some fairly well-known generic-sounding consulting house) very shortly afterwards. He mostly just needed /something/ to put on the resume so people didn't give him shit about the empty years. But yea, random chance is absolutely huge, and I got lucky. >His outcomes would be remarkably worse than yours. Not only would he have never gone to college, he would also have an non-competitive start in a tough environment. College isn't one of those 'once in a lifetime' chances; I mean, unless you have parents or something that are willing to pay for it out of high school but not willing to pay for it a few years later, you /can/ go back a few years later. I think it's pretty destructive that the choice is presented to 17 year olds as "go to college now, or suffer forever because you did not!" Really, if I had to do my life over with what I know now? I would have spent much of the .com crash trying to go to college. I dono if I would have done very well, but I was much better equipped then than I was right out of high school. (well, that, or staying at MAPS. I don't know if I could have handled it, but if I could have, I would have been a thousand times better off than I was hiding out where I did.) I mean, my main takaway there? even authority figures that genuinely care about and want to do right by you often give bad advice. Your life gets vastly better once you gain self-determinism.
joe_the_user 14y ago
Uh yeah, I am seriously surprised at HN seeing the comments here.

smoyer 14y ago

"Using drugs to gain an unfair advantage over other people at work" Perhaps the ABA (American Bar Association) needs to implement a ban on performance enhancing drugs similar to what MLB (Major League Baseball) mandates?

MartinCron 14y ago
I drink coffee every day. Does that give me an advantage over those who don't drink coffee? If there is an advantage, is that advantage unfair?
- smoyer 14y ago
  Good point ... I drink coffee every day too, but I'm no longer addicted (I mean that in the literal sense) like I was when I drank three to four pots.
  - Volpe 14y ago
    I think you mean your addiction is no longer outside the social norm. Caffeine is addictive, regardless what you rationalise or not. The only way to not be addicted is to severely limit supply...
    - smoyer 14y ago
      Actually, I mean that how my body functions is unaffected by my caffeine intake. If I don't have coffee on any given day, I continue to be functional ... in the "old days", I'd have had a killer headache within 30-45 minutes of waking up if I didn't down a large cup.
- ruswick 14y ago
  I think the precedent is certainly different for use of prescription drugs that were acquired through dubious means.
- nikatwork 14y ago
  Caffeine junkies like you disgust me. The use of an artificial stimulant to gain an unfair productivity gain is unethical, you CHEATER.

pchivers 14y ago

I didn't like the article either. The whole thing struck me as melodramatic and narcissistic. Perhaps there are intelligent commentaries to be written about this culture's abuse of Adderall, but this is not one of them.

rayiner 14y ago
> The whole thing struck me as melodramatic and narcissistic. She's a young aspiring writer living in New York City, as well as a UCLA grad... shouldn't be a surprise...
- larrys 14y ago
  "She's a young aspiring writer living" Which makes you wonder what parts are true in the story and what parts are enhanced for dramatic effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Frey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Frey NYT also has a similar piece weekly called "Modern Love" typically by a writer with a screwed up love life that sometimes seems stranger than fiction.
- runlevel1 14y ago
  That's a bit ad hominem, no? Before posting this I took a look at your comment history to make sure I wasn't feeding a troll. Instead, I found tons of quality contributions. You're better than this, my fellow HN'er.

Katelyn 14y ago

Dude, have some compassion. It's upsetting that this is the top voted comment. Not everyone is as well-informed and knowledgeable about things like this as you are, and this first-hand account of her experience will likely help a lot of people experiencing similar issues. >>Using drugs to gain an unfair advantage over other people at work has unhealthy emotional side effects? Am I to be suprised by this? Your claim that this stimulant gives its users/abusers/misusers an "unfair advantage" over those who don't use it (ie you) not only contradicts your following statement (that it causes emotional side effects) but also tells me that perhaps you're angered or upset by this perceived 'unfair advantage' you see this drug giving your peers. If you looked at the big picture, or her story, you'd see that the drug doesn't, in fact, give its abusers an unfair advantage. Whatever temporary 'gain' they are getting is unsustainable and clearly destructive both emotionally and physically.

ruswick 14y ago
First of all, the two are not mutually exclusive. She explicitly states that she was better able to perform at work and experienced a better social life, but also faced emotional problems. To the second point, he probably is. This is to be expected. There is very little reason to by sympathetic to someone who abuses prescription drugs in order to achieve success in school or outlast their peers in the working world. The fact that she decried her plight makes it all the more irksome: before she was a "victim," she consciously chose to abuse these drugs, then lied to her physician and continued taking them for months...

nikatwork 14y ago

> the fact that her colleagues had to do similar unhealthy shit in order to compete with her You are asserting that the law firm's long working hours were caused by her med use. Do you think you might have that backwards? > the author's self-absorption, the victimization tone She had a substance abuse problem. She's warning others that it's a slippery slope. Show some compassion.

AnIrishDuck 14y ago
> You are asserting that the law firm's long working hours were caused by her med use. Do you think you might have that backwards? It probably becomes a vicious cycle / race to the bottom. You take more drugs to work longer hours and compete with your colleagues, who start taking more drugs so they can work more hours to have the edge over you...
- nikatwork 14y ago
  The long working hours of many law firms existed before the widespread availability of adderall. Drugs have absolutely zero to do with it. They are merely a symptom of the underlying workaholic culture.
  - etrain 14y ago
    I had a friend whose grandfather was a hot shot lawyer at one of the largest international firms of his day in the 60s/70s/80s. She told me that he was a speed addict for close to 20 years. Long story short he got into a situation where he had to quit cold turkey and did, successfully. Substance abuse to get ahead is nothing new. Drugs are not as new as we pretend they are, and it's been common practice to abuse them for personal gain probably as long as they've been around.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - intended 14y ago
      This is a scale error. The industrial revolution was a shift in the curve. You could successfully argue that automation to get ahead is nothing new, but it would miss the importance of the scale of the new changes. Adderal and its ilk are a similar shift in the curve. People with access used to be people rich enough to afford speed. Now almost all school kids are entering the work force and know someone or have themselves used performance enhancers.

doctorstupid 14y ago

Agreed, she's totally self-absorbed. I found 97 uses of the perpendicular pronoun, not including all the uses of 'me', 'my' and so on.

lemmsjid 14y ago

I didn't get any sense of victimization from the article. I got the sense of someone who was coming clean on a bad choice they'd made, and bearing witness to the consequences of said choice. In fact, she did so in a quite self deprecating fashion. From your comment I assume that you only respect people who have made correct and logical choices throughout their lives, and/or people who make bad choices, bear the consequences, and don't tell anyone about them (lest they appear to be self absorbed). You are certainly welcome to only respect said people, though I hope that if you ever make a bad choice that the people around you will be more compassionate.

darkarmani 14y ago

> the fact that her colleagues had to do similar unhealthy shit in order to compete with her. This is one of the things that bothers you? The paralegals felt the need to compete with her?