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Comment by whalesalad | Hacker News Reader

Adderall and Cocaine.

I remember a CEO of one of my early startups would give me 5mg addies to help me get more done. I appreciated it because it was great to get the added boost to focus.

I eventually worked my way up to taking 30mg of XR daily (legally, doctor prescribed) and it was the most productive I have ever been in my life. I worked 24x7. I was working a normal consulting job while also working on a startup/app in my spare time. I did ui/ux/frontend/backend/api development and sent cash overseas for an iOS developer that I managed. None of this would have been possible without stimulants.

It's only way to do some of the things that the really successful engineers are doing. You forgo eating, exercise, etc... and spend 110% of your time on working and chasing the high of getting shit done.

It's not sustainable though. I eventually went cold turkey. I do NOT recommend that as it will completely ruin your life for 6 months to a year. I was not productive, I gained tons of weight, my self-confidence went to shit. My life really went into a downward spiral.

Now I am 100% drug-free and am not at the same level I was back then, but I am very productive and focused. I would not go back to where I was, even for the productivity gains. I eat clean (low-carb, ketogenic), weightlift in my basement, row 5k/10k every few days for cardio. My only vice is really coffee and the low-carb cocktails on weekends. Best of all, I do not wake up in the morning needing a tiny pill full of amphetamine salts.

View on HN

Seeing a manager go this path, and seeing his productivity plummet, I'm pretty sure the productivity boost is merely perceived.

There was a story on HN with people trying to microdose on LSD, and the alleged benefits - long story short, when they asked peers about their performance, they noticed they're more distracted and not more productive, while those doing the microdosing thought they're on a super productive trip.

We notice this manager is in a constant state of "brain fog" to a point where his speech changed (like he's drunk), while I'm pretty sure he thinks he's a 10x machine and wouldn't be able to pull all of his workload off without drugs.

You get more sick days, you need more time to recharge, while thinking you're on your absolute productivity peak. And when you crash, you're basically unemployable / unproductive for 6 months to 1 year.

Not worth it IMHO.

Is this manager still going this route? And do you think any of the microdosing (or other drug use) goes beyond the 10x productivity stuff? Could it be some of the tedium of programming work? Does it relieve any of that? I'm trying to determine too if all of the drug use in tech is really aimed at enhancing performance/productivity or if it's also used to stave off depression, anxiety or just that feeling so many of us have and have had that we're not doing anything particularly meaningful in our professional work. Peter was very depressed, so I understand why he did opioids, for sure. And he had an immense workload, so the amphetamines also make sense.

> I'm trying to determine too if all of the drug use in tech is really aimed at enhancing performance/productivity or if it's also used to stave off depression, anxiety or just that feeling so many of us have and have had that we're not doing anything particularly meaningful in our professional work.

This is a fascinating possibility, and apparently there's at least one researcher working on exactly that. [1][2]

On a much lesser level, I know this is a common reason for the divide between focus tips ("listen to white noise, silence, or wordless music to avoid distraction") and people's self-report techniques ("listening to intense EDM helps me code"). The goal isn't to avoid distraction, it's to break through tedium and help code longer without losing focus. I'd hardly be surprised if more intense things like LSD microdosing had similar effects.

Anecdotally, I know at least one very skilled programmer who insisted she couldn't work without marijuana. She didn't think THC did anything to raise her core abilities, but rather said that it stopped her from getting impatient or bored and let her work more methodically for longer.

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-with-...

[2] http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21507740.2014.990...

The emotional blocks to productivity are a very real phenomenon. I've only ever done this once, but I pushed through a really annoying emberjs refactor through Ballmer Peaking overnight.

I completely agree. When I'm unhappy with my productivity, part of my self-assessment involves taking a careful look at my emotional state and seeing if there's anything there that isn't compatible with the calm/attentive/enthusiastic/alert combination where I do my best work. And if I turn something up, I either switch tasks, take some time off, or try to resolve the impediment one way or another.

The referenced xkcd https://xkcd.com/323/

Thanks for the links.

Ha! I was just noticing this recently, smoking a joint early in the day makes it easier for me to focus and way more productive.

Microdosing LSD and taking adderall are going to have completely different effects. That’s a pretty apples to oranges comparison. I can’t imagine how any dose of LSD would ever increase productivity, but adderalls benefits as a stimulant are pretty well documented - you will be able to stay up and focused longer, although as you noted you may end up paying for it in other ways.

As someone who has both microdosed LSD and taken smal amts (<5 mg) of d-methamphetamine, LSD can certainly increase productivity. It’s a similar energy boost as any of the ‘phetamines, but without the classic linearity.

Note: to have an effective microdose you have to take a small amount. <=5ug. I tried 25ug and it was basically a super light trip (distinctive lsd body high and everything).

Anyway, for 98% of people microdosing won’t help productivity in the long run.

Edit: just to preempt the obvious questions, I’m talking about oral methamphetamine, I’ve never smoked it. Orally, d-meth is just objectively better than amphetamine (okay, that’s subjective, but the peripheral stimulation of, say, l-amphetamine is a huge negative)

I think this kind of goes with the idea that if you want to do something then you will do it. Drugs are not as simple as "If I take this pill it will make me do my homework I don't want to do.", but it makes you focus on whatever is really on your mind. I hear stories from people all the time that they will do whatever drug to help them get something done, but instead end up cleaning there house and such. If you really want to be working on what you are then the drugs will help you not to care about anything but that.

Stimulants are not free energy, that’s for sure - my impression is you get more done for 2 days, nothing done for 1 and less done for 2 days, making it a net loss of productivity. So they’re ultimately only useful in short spurts where haste is needed.

as somebody diagnosed with adhd at older age and that is taking ritalin (legally) i would say it helps a lot. but im taking less then prescribed because i dont want to be dependent on it. i always wondered it the effect is stronger for somebody without adhd.

> i always wondered it the effect is stronger for somebody without adhd

i've wondered this myself. i often hear people say stuff like "people with real adhd can't get high from stims", but i suspect that some of this is just that people want to distance their legitimate use from those tweakers over there.

if there's any truth to it, i'd bet it comes down to the way the drug is used. when you take an extended release formulation (or instant release every n hours) regularly, you tend to have relatively stable blood concentrations of the drug (ie, you don't get "high"). recreational users, and also probably people who self medicate, will end up with peakier blood levels, which results in the perception of being "high". the concentration level over time can be an extremely important factor in how the drug ultimately affects you.

> "people with real adhd can't get high from stims", but i suspect that some of this is just that people want to distance their legitimate use from those tweakers over there.

I don't know if "High" is the right word. I've accidentally taken too much, and it makes me super impatient, which makes me kind of an asshole. I've also taken WAY too much on accident, and it just made me paranoid and think my heart was beating out of my chest.

I will say, being on a normal amount is kind of the best kind of high. Living with ADHD is like drowning, like you have these short moments of coming up for air and being productive, but quickly become distracted for everything else.

Being on the right amount, is like someone finally shut all the extra TVs off in the back of my brain. Like there's no challenge in determining the priority of what needs to be done. I feel human, not anxious, not depressed by my inability to remember where I put my keys 30 seconds ago. and thus, more productive.

Now I don't claim that my experience with ADHD is like another's, but this is my experience.

Thanks for the explanation, really good imagery. I hope you took some acidic vitamin C when you overdosed to kill the metabolism of amps.

I was prescribed too high of a dose of Adderall for ADHD once, and I had what could be described as a manic episode, with some mild hallucinogenic effects. I was awake for 36 hours straight without any fatigue, and my resting heart-rate was elevated by almost 20bpm.

It was terrifying enough that I don't think I'll ever abuse the stuff, but I can definitely believe that some people would like the feeling.

On the other hand, correctly dosed Focalin significantly reduces my symptoms (as in I go from being unable to complete a simple 5 sentence e-mail to being able to be mostly on-task). Avoiding all simple-carbs before noon significantly improves the efficacy of it as well for me (a traditional sugar/starch american breakfast would make me hypoglycemic around the middle of the day).

I think it’s the same for any drug that has the potential for abuse but is medicinal, such as opiates or cannabis.

When you have to take it day in, day out just to feel more normal, the dosage is either too low for pleasurable effects or tolerance negates them, and the side effects start to wear on you. Since it’s something you’re legitimately doing just to feel normal, but you inadvertently suffer from some of the drawbacks of drug addiction, ultimately you'd rather not be doing it.

they're more like an energy loan, and you better believe there's interest.

I came to the same conclusion after taking modafinil daily for 5 months. I quit because I was getting completely drained by 7pm. I had to hit the bed as soon as I got home, and then slept for 10-12 hours straight. I did the arithmetic and it wasn't worth it. Supposedly, there isn't such thing as a "modafinil withdrawal," but I was nonfunctional for about 6 weeks after I left it cold turkey. Not only that, but because I wasn't aware there was a withdrawal phase, I thought my symptoms (not being able to wake up, narcolepsy, nausea) were an ominous sign of an underlying disease.

Yikes, are the effects still lingering? Have you returned to baseline energy/focus?

That was four years ago, and I was back to my baseline self in about two months.

A month ago I was diagnosed with severe apnea, and since starting treatment I feel like a different person. I wonder whether the apnea was worsened by modafinil four years ago, and that was the reason for my constant wearing down. Maybe I'll do an experiment just to see, but I don't need stimulants anymore to be productive, not even coffee.

Isn't modafinil/stims a treatment for apnea?

I believe you're thinking of narcolepsy

Taking modafinil daily, especially for that amount of time was not a wise move. It's a uniquely "safe" substance but even the most avowed users stress not to take it daily even if for nothing more to preserve perceived effectiveness.

Every study I've seen of Adderall (and amphetamine analogues like bupropion) says that it really does improve focus and productivity, even in non-ADHD users.

There are two big hurdles, granted (apart from side effects). One is how long-term toleration works - users report continued efficacy, while objective tests seem to suggest decreased sensitivity. Two is how amphetamines mix with intelligence; normal-IQ users appear to have unchanged or worsened performance on intelligence tests despite 'feeling smarter'. (The same goes for Modafinil.)

But neither of those things really challenge the core observation: in the short term, Adderall and similar substances improve attentiveness, focus/willpower, and probably memory.

They often aren't worth it, and non-medicinal use is often unsustainable. But if someone is showing up with "brain fog" and underperforming while feeling skilled, that really sounds like something else is up. Either a paradoxical reaction to the drug, or some substance other than core focus/'smart' drugs.

edit: I just looked, and paradoxical drowsiness is a known response some people have to amphetamines. I'd bet that the person you're describing has an atypical response to amphetamines.

IME the paradoxical response has more to do with tolerance. I’ve never met someone who sidn’t get stimmed out from amphetamines when they didn’t have a tolerance.

But if tou take them wirh a tolerance and your underlying physical body is fatigued, it becomes very, very easy to fall asleep (or worse, to be too stimmed to sleep but too tired to be productive)

> But if someone is showing up with "brain fog" and underperforming while feeling skilled, that really sounds like something else is up.

One of the things that sustained stimulant abuse contributes to is sleep deprivation and the disturbance of sleep patterns. "Brain fog" - confusion, problems concentrating, memory problems, are all symptoms of sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation experiments have also consistently produced psychotic symptoms (hallucinations, paranoia, disturbed/unusual thinking - the person undergoing the psychosis of course thinks they are doing fine) - the earliest experiment I am aware of being Randy Gardner's[1] in 1964. "Stimulant psychosis" is supposed to be one of the effects of amphetamine abuse; I think the psychosis is likely due to the sleep deprivation involved in multi-day binges.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Gardner_(record_holder)

Wow never made this connection, very insightful observation.

> There was a story on HN with people trying to microdose on LSD, and the alleged benefits - long story short, when they asked peers about their performance, they noticed they're more distracted and not more productive, while those doing the microdosing thought they're on a super productive trip.

This aligns with my experience. Microdosing is good when you have physical tasks to do (i.e. running around town all day, reorganizing / cleaning your house), but focusing on creative tasks is harder.

Tbh, the only thing I'd recommend it for is for people struggling with chronic depression or anxiety - for these two, it can be a life-changingly effective "aspirin" (i.e. not a cure, you still need to fix the underlying causes) without the significant side-effects of traditional medication, and any lack of focus is massively offset by relieving the brain fog of depression/anxiety.

There was a book about systematic drug use in Nazi Germany called “Blitzed” that is worth reading.

Meth was extensively used in the German military and probably contributed to the victory over France. Basically to can stay awake and endure, but cognitive ability is impaired in some ways.

> I remember a CEO of one of my early startups would give me 5mg addies to help me get more done.

Jesus. If that happened to me, my first stop would be to the board/investors to report it, and my second would be out the door and to a new job.

> It's only way to do some of the things that the really successful engineers are doing. You forgo eating, exercise, etc... and spend 110% of your time on working and chasing the high of getting shit done.

I suspect your belief of the effectiveness here is quite a large exaggeration. You might have tunnel-vision focus and the ability to stay awake for long stretches and work, but the quality of that work just cannot be top notch. If you don't eat, exercise, or sleep much, your brain is not getting the fuel it needs to work properly, and no drug can replace or mimic that. Over the (very) short term you'll see a benefit, but after that it's just vapor.

I won't advocate the abuse of any particular drug, but I will say it's not as simple as trading quality for focus. There is a margin of overhead that comes with poor focus, so sharpening can lead to improved productivity without loss of quality. To a point, after which your comment applies.

I'm saying this not to say "Actually..." but so that no one discounts your valid point just because they have some anecdote where it didn't apply. There is a point where you pay (or at least stop winning), and our understanding of where that point is and how stable it is is very lacking. Likewise, our judgement under the influence of something should not be considered 100% reliable. Neither should our judgement NOT under the influence, but people tend to become zealots when defensive, and fewer people are defensive of being "normal".

I had a friend that I was discussing nootropics with - It's a topic I'm very interested in, but I'm not interested in any notable experimentation because, well, I've only got one brain and our understanding of it is pathetic. His answer was that by experimentation you'd discover what worked. We were definitely coming at it from opposite ends despite similar interests.

Anecdotal, I know, but I've heard of this at two companies. One of which jokingly put them in Pez dispensers.

> I remember a CEO of one of my early startups would give me 5mg addies to help me get more done.

That person ought to be in jail. A CEO is definitely not in charge of the pharmacy, anything of this kind should be prescribed by your doctor.

Even though the entire ethos of my comment suggests that you wanna stay away from this stuff ... occasional/recreational use is not a big deal. He never pushed it on me, it was just something that I could take advantage of on occasion.

I don't look back on it and think it was predatory or a big deal or a malicious thing. I definitely don't think he deserves to be in jail or punished.

The guy is in a power relationship with his subordinates, he is definitely not the one to go and prescribe medication. The best thing he could have done is to send you to a doctor.

If a CEO here in NL suggested I take some pills in order to improve my productivity and offered to supply them my first step would be to inform the board in writing and my second would be to resign my position. This is simply not ok, and not acceptable.

>If a CEO here in NL suggested I take some pills in order to improve my productivity

I'd agree that it's not professional/ethical, but the OP didn't say the CEO suggested it.

For all we know, poster might have initially asked (Of course, agreeing to hand out arbitrary medication is of course not the right answer).

Who the hell would ask their boss for drugs?

I dunno, maybe the CEO was open about using the medication for productivity reasons and both folk had a laid back attitude to the subject?

Point is I'm trying not too read too much into their dynamics and make assumptions based on a short HN comment.

It says 'to help productivity' which to me sounds like a benefit to the employer more than to the employee, which in turn suggests which way the flow was. That could of course still be wrong.

This conversation reminds me a little of the Vernor Vinge novel A Deepness In The Sky where the antagonists subjugate their conquered/enslaved foes with chemically-induced “focus” in order to improve their productivity/output. Explored is how this arrangement is not unambiguously good for the employer nor unambiguously bad for the “employee”.

Not that it makes a difference completely but I have a feeling the employee was 22 and the CEO was 24

These moral fiat statements are unhelpful to no one. You simply don’t know the context. In a very flat power structure or a very small company (2 to 3 employees) at the office, social dynamics change dramatically.

Never mind that caffeine is legal yet it’s the shittiest productivity drug I can imagine yet everyone is falling over themselves to serve it to you and get you one while they’re out on break. I’d much prefer people ask me if I’d like a pill of modafinil to the addictive cranky horror that is caffeine.

> These moral fiat statements are unhelpful to no one.

Nice to see we agree.

> social dynamics change dramatically.

I'm sorry, but whatever the 'social dynamics' as a person in a position of authority over another there are some lines you should never cross. Not knowing what your mandate is as a CEO is a recipe for disaster.

If an employee has a productivity issue a CEO does not have mandate to prescribe - or even suggest - medication. The fact that that needs spelling out is worrisome.

This sounds kind of in line with the theory that drugs are kind of a zero-sum game. You got a lot of speed earlier on and achieved a ton, but then paid for it later on. Kind of like a, "no such thing as a free lunch" economic theory, but for drugs! Not to knock you or your methods, just an observation.

I look at it as a loan. You're borrowing a little of tomorrow's (good mood, productivity, energy, etc. etc. depending on which drug it is) to use today, but you'll eventually have to pay it back with interest.

> a no such thing as a free lunch theory, but for drugs

There's some reason to believe this is literally true - and true in the same sense as the economic rule! In this context, it's been nicknamed the Algernon argument. Gwern (of course) has the canonical writeup.[1]

The short version is: "if some chemical change could make us smarter, why wouldn't it already been in place?" Or, framed differently, "why would the brain evolve to benefit from a chemical it doesn't normally have?" This argument doesn't say cognitive performance enhancement is impossible, only that there has to be some tradeoff for it or we would have evolved it already. If we're going to get rewarding "brain boosts", we need to find tradeoffs that are more appealing than they were historically.

One simple possibility is this one: we can find chemical supplements that let us rearrange when we're performing well, without net gain. Caffeine is an obvious example: it doesn't actually diminish the value of sleep, but postpones the feeling and helps us manipulate our schedules. Amphetamines might be a more extreme case of the same, 'borrowing' energy more generally and paying for it later.

The other dodges are less relevant here, but a fascinating read if you check the article.

[2] https://www.gwern.net/Drug-heuristics

One of the obvious ones is consuming excessive amounts of nutrients scarce in the ancestral environment. Like, you evolved in a place where you can't just buy Choline supplements, so "you're smarter but run out of Choline" isn't a thing that comes about.

Yeah, certainly true. I wish I had summarized more of Gwern's take, because he goes into piracetam + choline as a specific example. His take is that it doesn't violate the rule, but provides a case of a changing environment - burning choline for minor cognitive improvements is a vastly better deal than it was in a choline-scarce environment.

This is a fallacy. There are many things we can accomplish through medicine, or technology more generally, that evolution never could. There are reasons other than it being a net disadvantage that evolution may not have produced something; for example, a particular chemical may not have an easy and cost-effective way to be created in the body (particularly when food was much harder to come by), but be easy enough for us now to synthesise.

Your argument doesn't make sense to me. If the chemical is harder to synthesize, then the receptors could be more sensitive, or bind longer. Why would our bodies evolve to use a messenger molecule that was so prohibitively expensive to make that we couldn't make enough of it?

These drugs are just changing the balances of existing pathways in our brains. They aren't creating new pathways. Either they are causing a substance that your body naturally limits to exist in higher quantities or lower quantities, keeping a messenger molecule from being removed as fast as it would be normally, or removed faster than normal.

So I agree with the parent, it is likely we can choose the tradeoffs, maybe needing to avoid predators and scavenge for food is not our priority anymore and we can turn off some of that so we can think more deeply. But chemically I doubt we can improve ourselves without any drawbacks.

But yes, technology in general, physical things, can have a more pure benefit, and we are already reaping the rewards of those benefits. A new macbook pro is likely to make me more productive while not interfering with my sleep :)

A net benefit is when we can synthesize drugs to allow us to adapt to externalities, which produce fewer side effects than benefits. Vaccines are a net positive in the presence of Polio. It could be argued that stimulants are a net positive in the presence of having to stare at a glowing rectangle and think in abstractions all day.

The Algernon argument is concerned with our inability to make simple, tradeoff free improvements to performance. It says that if you find an improvement, you should be able to explain why it isn't a free lunch. None of those examples make it a fallacy - there's a reason I ended with "The other dodges are less relevant here, but a fascinating read if you check the article."

Gwern outlines three general ways to work around the Algernon rule:

1. We can live under different conditions than evolution prepared us for

2. We can optimize for different goals than evolution rewarded

3. We can make major/multifactor changes unavailable to an local-maximization algorithm.

Condition two is easiest: caffeine is a sensible response to electric lighting, while staying awake long after dark was largely unhelpful in our evolutionary past.

Condition one is sometimes rewarding: piracetam shows efficacy with choline supplements, because we can massively overload a relatively scarce chemical. Other kludges may exist, like boosting immune response by simulating a summer day/night cycle to signal "safe conditions, energy is cheap now".

Condition three is incredibly hard wrt to the brain. It's obvious for the body - eye surgery can improve on 20/20 vision - but I don't know of any drastic better-than-well interventions for the mind.

Could it be that one reason we use chemicals to "enhance" our brains is because we are living in ways we aren't intended to live? Human beings aren't made to sit in front of a screen for 16 hours a day. We probably shouldn't be as isolated as we can get, we shouldn't be living the way we live (in crowded cities, say, disconnected from family or community, doing one thing--coding, for example--for 10 hours at a time, etc.)Does that makes sense to anyone?

I instinctively like these arguments but I think we should be careful about indulging them. A big part of the human animals biological advantage is just how damn versatile it is. The range of diets, climates, and lifestyles which we tolerate is vast, compared to other animals. Different permutations may produce different outcomes in terms of happiness, health/longevity, and so on, but I doubt that you could find some particular permutation that is "the right one."

There is one version of this idea that I like though, which is that I doubt that we're built for 8+ hours a day of intense abstract reasoning, which seems to be what the modern information economy demands of those aspiring to a middle class or better existence. The vast bulk of humanity did not earn their daily bread this way for most of human history, so I don't think our brains are adapted for "abstract reasoning above all else."

Nor for non-movement and staring at a glowing rectangle all day while doing the intense abstract reasoning. We have all sorts of natural mechanisms in our bodies to produce reward chemicals that are not used at all in our lifestyles.

That's what I'm thinking (as I stare at a computer screen for 8 hours...)

I don't think this type of thinking is very productive - it's a romanticization of an ancestral past. The ancestral environment is useful for context for why things are the way they are, but it tells us nothing about the future. We can point back to the habits and lifestyles of the past and imagine cargo-culting their behavior will grant us the outcomes we prefer, but there's no understanding in it. Various communities even implement this, with varying success - see the Amish or Mormons.

As an aside, drug use was extremely common among indigenous peoples all across the world. I don't even think this naturalism fallacy supports these particular claims.

I think it depends on exactly how the question is framed, yes.

It's very useful to recognize when we aren't 'made' for something, because it implies we can get benefits from either avoiding it or supplementing our performance at the task. When we are "made for" a task, like walking for long periods or throwing objects with good aim, it's tough to improve on human baseline. (At least, not without serious side effects. There's a reason drugs to boost strength and physical endurance tend to be risky.)

But that distinction has to be kept separate from a values judgement. As I mentioned in another comment, "reading a good book" is something I'm not evolved to do. That might mean I should be prepared for challenges with the task (e.g. back pain if I sit for too long), but it's unrelated to whether I want to keep doing it.

The 'ancestral environment' stuff is likely to be easy or optimized-for, but that's not the same as being a better way to live.

Yes - this is one of Gwern's big points.

There shouldn't be any easy way to improve on what evolution tried to do, because evolution would have done it. But there can certainly be ways to optimize for things evolution didn't try to do, like preparing us to do symbolic logic for 40 hours a week or stay up well past dark. And there can be ways to optimize for goals evolution didn't/couldn't reward, like "never having kids and staying healthy until age 90".

I do think there's risk in blurring the moral point with the practical one, though. I'm not particularly evolved for reading books, but it's something I enjoy and I want 'hacks' to do it better - whether that's reading glasses or a cup of coffee. I don't like commuting while tired or being stationary for hours on end, and if I had free choice I'd stop doing those things instead of hacking myself to be better at them.

But in "enhancement" terms, they both count as "doing a thing I wasn't made to do" regardless of whether I want to keep doing them.

> why would the brain evolve to benefit from a chemical it doesn't normally have?

You could apply the same logic to Aspirin or any medicine - if reducing swelling was beneficial, why doesn't our body do it for us?

That seems like a misunderstanding of evolution. It's not a master plan driving toward perfection. Our biology is a bag of traits, some of which were useful and some of which just haven't been selected out yet.

I think it applies to aspirin too. You thin your blood, reduce some swelling. You feel better. But maybe you don't heal as quickly. Instead of being immobile and allowing resources to gather at the wound we get back to our work. But our work is leisurely these days and we probably don't need to heal quickly.

Perhaps if you are a runner and you take these seemingly benign medicines to reduce pain and swelling, you end up causing more permanent damage by continuing to run when you should not (I have experienced this).

I think a lot of medicines work by turning off or on processes that are important but inconvenient at the time. Painkillers are probably the best example. We shouldn't take them when we are healthy, it would be dangerous. Other medicines, such as antibiotics, work by killing pathogens directly and don't affect our bodies like the drugs in this discussion.

Yes, thanks for this.

It's I suppose possible to hit a simple optimization evolution hasn't found yet, but that's rarer than people seem to think. The major examples we have are either things which evolution lacks the tools for (e.g. mechanical prosthetics) or major biological leaps (e.g. your antibiotic example).

The things that look quick and easy like "eat some willow bark extract" have tradeoffs, even when they aren't obvious. Taking 'painkillers' to the extreme - morphine - makes it especially obvious. It's generally a terrible idea unless you've recognized that there's a problem and gotten someone else to take care of keeping you healthy while you're out of commission.

> "why would the brain evolve to benefit from a chemical it doesn't normally have?"

That's the thing, that's not how it works

The brain didn't evolve to be affected by substances unknown to it, it's plants that evolved substances that have CNS effects. (Though the body did evolve to depend on a lot of external substances - be that calorie and protein sources or vitamins)

Nicotine is literally a pesticide (and yes, people do use it as such in some occasions). Not sure how other substances evolved though (I think caffeine made the coffee seeds travel further)

Our brains exist as an adaption to allow us to survive long enough to procreate. We did not evolve a brain to work harder, smarter or faster. The fitness function for evolution is not intelligence, it is survival and procreation.

It does not follow that evolution would maximize intelligence or performance.

Human intelligence exists as a by-product of many cumulative adaptions for survival.

Caffeine certainly is a good, tame example. It's chemical effect is basically to block your brain from fatigue signals, perhaps analogous to anesthetic that blocks pain signals. It doesn't actually prevent fatigue, just as anesthetic doesn't actually prevent injury or damage. You are still burning through energy and accumulating sleep debt like anyone else.

The analogy I like to use is "buying on credit" - you can choose the time and place of your enhanced productivity, but you pay for it later, with interest. You're not actually creating any new productivity, just shifting it around.

I think it is more a sprint vs a marathon. Many people don't ease into drug usage nor do they try and follow any way to actually tell if they are getting any gains from it. We see this in all aspects of life specially in sports where athletes might actually hurt their performance because they start doing something like some oddball workout that is suppose to improve you or by working out more to try and get gains. Without data, numbers, and a third party watching you then you have no sure fire way to tell if you gaining anything from drugs. People abuse them hard starting out thinking they are a silver bullet, then burn out fast.

What made you decide to go cold turkey? (which sounds almost not-doable it's so tough). Did you hit some kind of wall? And would you mind commenting on what you think happens to engineers who don't use some kind of stimulant?

I went cold turkey because I did not like the fact that I needed the drug to go about my day. I also started to get into crossfit/fitness and the really high dose stimulants made intense exercise feel like it was taxing my body way more than it should have.

I wanted to achieve everything naturally. I knew going off the drug would slow me down, but I was willing to trade general health and well-being for a drop in productivity.

Do you ever feel like everyone around you is doing some substance to make them work faster or better, and that you'll somehow fall behind or be at a professional disadvantage if yo don't?

I felt that sense while I was down in the dumps after going cold turkey ... but now that I have more of a grasp on my life (married, dog, money in savings, living a healthy lifestyle, etc...) I no longer feel that way.

I don't live in Silicon Valley any longer though... so that might be part of the reason I don't feel the pressure.

Right now I might call myself a big fish in a little pond (not really, I am more humble than that) but compared to SF where you are a small fish in a big pond ... there is a lot more pressure to stand-out and be excellent.

Good point. And I'm interested in knowing how being in SV, as opposed to outside that particular fish bowl, affects drug use

My anecdote: In undergraduate engineering, a lot of the people around me were on ritalin. I never felt disadvantaged because I felt it didn't give anyone a clear advantage in the hardest subjects like mathematics or nonlinear control. From what I saw, it didn't seem to improve intelligence that much; rather it helped the distractable people to not get distracted from studying for example.

Suddenly ceasing stimulants does not involve nearly as acute or prolonged a withdrawal as opiates. There's no risk of seizures like there is with benzos. Your dopamine receptors will reset their tolerance much quicker than the 6 months I see cited throughout this thread. I have stopped stimulants many times with no more than a 1 week (maybe 10 day max) period of physical dependence symptoms.

When people experienced prolonged withdrawal symptoms from ceasing stimulants, I think it is usually due to being forced to confront life conditions that were being avoided.

I'm wondering if it's life conditions in many cases that is part of the reason for using in the first place? Yes, needing to work long hours is very real, but maybe the drugs also help to avoid life conditions that we don't want to deal with...

I see "helps me work" used pretty often as a rationalization for drug use that's actually a coping mechanism.

> I think it is usually due to being forced to confront life conditions that were being avoided.

This certainly may be part of it.

However, there are long-term changes in the brain that occur with chronic stimulant use/abuse. I'm looking for the correct number, but I believe it takes about 24 months for the brain to revert to its normal state after stimulant cessation.

Source? (not nitpicking, genuinely curious)

I'm pretty busy so I can only do a cursory search. I cannot find the source I originally read this on, however I will try to find it when I am at home.

Here's what I could find via a preliminary Google search on my phone:

From drugabuse.gov [0]:

> In the aforementioned study, abstinence from methamphetamine resulted in less excess microglial activation over time, and abusers who had remained methamphetamine-free for 2 years exhibited microglial activation levels similar to the study’s control subjects. Another neuroimaging study showed neuronal recovery in some brain regions following prolonged abstinence (14 but not 6 months). This recovery was associated with improved performance on motor and verbal memory tests. But function in other brain regions did not recover even after 14 months of abstinence, indicating that some methamphetamine induced changes are very long lasting.

Here's a graphic they included [1].

This is another source [2]:

> Stopping drug use doesn’t immediately return the brain to normal. Some drugs have toxic effects that can kill neurons—and most of these cells will not be replaced. And while changes to connections between neurons in the brain may not be permanent, some last for months. Some research suggests the changes may even last for years.

I cannot find the studies these articles cite, but I'll try to find them later.

This is related, but is not specific to stimulant or methamphetamine use:

Delta-FosB, an enzyme that is critical to achieve an addiction state in the brain, has a half-life of ~208hr [3]. Multiply that by the standard 7 half-lives to estimate significant elimination, and that alone yields a maximum of 60 days until it is cleared. This enzyme is key in drug and behavioural addictions.

This paper [4] speculates about changes in the brain that last longer than the time it takes to eliminate elevated Delta-FosB levels in the brain.

[0] https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/meth...

[1] https://d14rmgtrwzf5a.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/met...

[2] http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/brainchange...

[3] http://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/17/13/4933.full.pdf

[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC58680/#__sec5ti...

"changes in the brain" is too vague to be useful.

Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome (PAWS) is supposedly a thing that can last months, but it's just an observation of a collection of symptoms - no analysis of a specific mechanism causing it that I have seen.

> "changes in the brain" is too vague to be useful.

I would hope that someone trying to do something useful concerning addiction and the brain wouldn't go by a comment on Hacker News that was posted via a cell phone.

Anyway, please see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16477351

I have a similar productive output currently as you described your amped up self to have and i drink 2 (sometimes 3) coffees a day. I get 1-2 hours cardio in 4 times a week and i spend time with my family. I sleep 7-8 hours a night. I take at least 1 day a weekend off completely.

Pills wouldn't help in fact they would make it more difficult. Organisation, ruthless priorization and discipline are the key. The rest is just distractions.

> Now I am 100% drug-free and am not at the same level I was back then

It pains me to think the abuse left permanent damage.

What kind of food do you eat on a "clean" low carb ketogenic diet?

You never had full blown ADHD so you literally were getting high off stims and pulling through insane hours. Amps make the ADHD brain feel baseline normal to that of neurotypical brains.

Congrats on kicking the pills.

Any chance you can explain why? Not enough hours in the day kind of thing? Is the only route to success in software engineering to work 24/7?

I think a human being is really only capable of like 6 hours of solid mental work throughout the day. And even that is tough, with all the distractions of modern life. When you take something like Adderall, that doubles to, say 12 hours and enables you to get hyper-focused on the task at hand. Sure, you can still get hyper-focused on the wrong thing, but if you can reign that in you're golden.

Not only that, the amount of things you accomplish in that time span is far greater. So it really does turn you into a 10x engineer. If you're already very strong, experienced, pragmatic, etc.. then the stimulants will truly make you feel invincible.

So if you see a software engineer at a big company who is making 200k a year while simultaneously putting out dozens of open source projects a year, maintaining them, speaking at conferences, managing complex hobbies, etc... chances are that is due to a stimulant drug. I know very few people who are capable of that naturally.

Out of curiosity, did the stuff you learned during that time also increase 10x? Did it all stick with you, or did it just temporarily increase your ability to hold it all in your head?

Yes, absolutely. It's still here, thankfully :)

It's great for long-term memory, but short-term memory loss is a side effect of amphetamines. You can read a textbook and retain all of it, but you may not remember where you put it when you finished.

Very insightful, I think, about the exec at a big company. A therapist who treats tech people in Sil Val said she has been told there is coke being done openly at some exec committee/board meetings, etc. and pressure to do it. Like Wall Street in the 1980s. Do you think there's any validity to this?

I'm not so sure about that (never seen it myself)... but cocaine is a LOT more prevalent than people realize.

There is a funny meme I saw recently that rings true:

    Two biggest shocks of adult life. 

    1. everyone does cocaine

    2. cheese is fucking expensive

Man, I really wouldn't. My understanding is that of the people who present to the emergency department with chest pain, something like a third of them have been using cocaine. It causes Real Problems.

https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/drug-relate...

thanks for the link. I need to find updated stats on that. I wonder if the number of those in the ER because of cocaine has risen....

Manchego on the other hand, worth every penny and a great source of butyrate, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304454916_The_neuro...

This is a little disingenuous, without further elucidation. As far as the statistic you have quoted is concerned, it tells us nothing about how dangerous cocaine is. We need to know how many out of the total population of cocaine users experience chest pain, how many of them go to an ER, and then how many of those (who in total make up 1/3 of ER presentations with chest pain) are further diagnosed with some actual serious problem...

if we don't know what the outcome of these ER visits are, then it could well be that for some tiny percentage of cocaine users there is a side effect that causes the perception of chest pain, which disappears with no ill effects after a few hours. or, maybe, this represents almost all cocaine users - 90% of them experience severe enough chest pain to warrant an ER visit, all of whom are pronounced dead withing minutes of arrival.

annoyingly, the website you linked to which details this singular datum, does nothing to clarify as to what the truth of the matter is. it certainly doesn't appear to be "advancing addiction science" in any useful way...

That could also mean a third of the population uses cocaine.

While I'd give you the point, my personal experience is that its only prevalent in certain circles, and in those circles its EXTREMELY prevalent.

I don't think this is actually true. I've certainly been in places where there have been people on cocaine (and sneaking off the bathroom to "top up" mid-party), but in my experience that's rare, and even rarer for it to be an in-your-face, obvious thing. There are certain social/professional groups where it _is_ the norm, but more so in the sense of being a "vocal minority".

As someone who has been on stimulants since they were thirteen, you still only have 6 hours of productive time. You just also have 6 hours of flailing about like a headless chicken. Sure it'll help you with mundane and routine tasks, but not with stuff that requires a ton of brain power.

Edit: What I see a lot of is people who think they are super productive while churning out lines and lines of garbage.

If it feels more like flailing now than super productivity, have you stopped taking stimulants (or do you have to because of an attention issue)?

I have to. For me stimulants help me put my six hours of productivity to work. I have pretty severe ADHD.

This is very true. I didn’t realize I had ADHD until after a year of college, but basically the first few days of taking stims are basically borderline hypo manic - you havw (seemingly) limitless enrgy, enthusiasm, confidence, drive. Work is intrinsically fun (although it’s actually extrinsic since it’s drug induced).

Then tolerance rears its head and it becomes exactly like you said. For me it takes till I get close to t_max (peak blood concentration) that my day really starts, which is from 1-3 hrs after dosing (closer to 3 for the drugs I take)

That's the perception, and you're likely to find that perception in this thread, but I don't believe it.

Work smart or go home.

This is an addict's (unreliable) perception, not reality. In reality, software engineers are so valuable and highly sought after that you can have basically any lifestyle you want and still be successful.

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