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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.

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 :)

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.)

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.

>I can honestly say that stimulants make a vast, objective difference to my work output and quality

What objective measures are you using to evaluate yourself? are you in the top 1% of earners for your experience level, position, city?

I am not comparing myself to others, but to myself without stimulants. I simply do more and better work, by very simple measures like completing tasks and delivering projects to the satisfaction (or joy) of my clients.

> One thing I can promise you though, is that you do know people who are taking stimulants. They just aren't telling anyone

Yeah, I guess so. I'm also in Berlin, and a lot of people take some kind of stimulant. As someone not taking any stimulants (not even coffee), it was quite hard to spot it in the beginning. At one point I was working with a larger group of people and only after a few months I was told that more than half of them were on some kind of stimulant almost constantly.

So how do you spot that?

The closest I came was when I had some papers on my desk that were given out for free somewhere and somebody informed me that that was used mainly for smoking pot. I had no idea.

It's almost an opposite of Hanlon's razor: "Attribute to drugs what you could attribute to lack of sleep (or similar)". That plus physical tells are the biggest indicators. In the end I wouldn't say that could give a definite evaluation if someone is using drugs or not in most cases.

You have, they just haven't told you about it and you haven't spotted it.

drug people find other drug people because drugs

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.

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.

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.

what makes you resist going that route? Do you also feel pressure in the profession to work longer, produce more, etc.?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

> a handful of people binge drink to come down

Biologist here, and yep, that was the only real discernible downside to me. Especially when I was new to the drug (Adderall) and didn't know how to time the doses and therefore took them too late in the day, I would get a powerful urge to drink about 3-5 hours after the last dose to come down. However, if you dose early enough in the day you will come down naturally.

Besides the desire to "drink to come down", the other problem is that Adderall will make you feel clearer and more energetic for longer while drinking, making it easier to miss the warning signs that you are approaching (or have passed) the "too much" threshold.

I am not aware of stimulant use being very common among the people I work with, and you are absolutely right that it is easy to tell the symptoms.

Relevant article: https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080409/full/452674a.html

If ~20% of biologists (broadly speaking, and higher in younger cohorts) "have used" a drug to enhance performance, then the number regularly using must be lower, unless there is selection bias in this informal poll, and if there was I would suspect the bias would be towards an overestimate of use, as people interested in the question seem more likely to respond.

Overall, then, I would guess use in these fields is "semi-rare" (maybe 5-10% of the population are regular users).

>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.

That doesn't make sense. Being tweaked on caffeine doesn't make you more productive. It doesn't even make you feel more productive.

> there are a few who smoke weed / take xanax at work to calm down, but these are frowned upon somewhat.

I find that attitude hilarious. Rampant stimulant abuse is the norm and is accepted, but combining with another drug to calm down is a no-no? Amazing.

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?

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.)

I was at Cambridge for 4 years and I can safely say that none of the professors in my department were using stimulants other than coffee. I can clock someone who is up across a crowded room. None of them were ever up. A large number of the ambitious PhD students and postdocs were though, and a very large proportion of the undergraduates. I think it's probably a generational thing. Students sell to students. Nobody is selling to professors, and even if they tried, those people have already achieved their success in a generation of people that didn't have access to these things.

I think we will see a generation of people come into these positions (e.g. professorships) where a significant proportion of them are using pharmaceutical enhancement as one of the many tools in their box. Stimulants aren't magic, they don't make idiots clever. But if you're a clever person who is tired or stressed, they can (seem to) make a big difference.

how can you tell if someone is up? Just from years of using stimulants yourself or are there obvious, telltale signs? I missed a boatload of them with Peter.

Dilated pupils. Tense jaw. Muscles around the eyes are slightly more tense (small wrinkles temporarily disappear for example). People react faster and speak more coherently (or if they took too much, incoherently but very fast). Dry mouth (very slight lisping or tongue sticking when they talk). Straighter back, clenched fists, grasping or fidgeting hands that they don't normally have. A general appearance of alertness. Unusually impressive performance in a social situation.

Some combination of the above, but it's pretty obvious once you get used to it. At the same time, I'm pretty sure many people in my life have no idea that I take stimulants (though as I said, I don't hide it), but just see me as being at my best when I'm on them.

understood, thanks.

Flinches if surprised, picks at skin or scratches more than normal (there might be visible sores from this), intense preoccupation with things ordinarily beneath interest, hard to interrupt from work, drinks lots of water if responsible, particularly unconcerned with thirst if not. Particularly prone to discuss subjects at length, perhaps an unusually quiet or loud vocal tone.

There's also of course the side effect list, which usually reflects this sort of thing: https://www.drugs.com/sfx/amphetamine-side-effects.html

> Flinches if surprised, picks at skin or scratches more than normal (there might be visible sores from this), intense preoccupation with things ordinarily beneath interest, hard to interrupt from work, drinks lots of water if responsible, particularly unconcerned with thirst if not.

... is someone giving me stimulants without my knowledge? That's me at baseline.

Or should I cut out even my one cup of coffee per day?

(Excess) scratching, excess fidgeting. Staring off into the distance in the same direction for a while. Overconfidence and they really like to talk about stimulants ;-).

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?

IME, in academic biology, the answer is generally no. Personally, I do use, but it isn't a result of competition, but rather a desire to achieve the most I can for a goal I care about. I don't feel pressured in any way to make this decision; if anything, the pressure is slightly in the other direction.

The big trouble with it is that a drug -- any drug -- will alter your perception of the world such that it is difficult to know with absolute confidence whether you are taking the drug for purely rational reasons to further your personal goals...or not.

Amphetamines at least, based on my experience and reading of the literature, improve your ability to do huge amounts of light/easy work at the expense of "deep" thinking. This means that they would be most effective for people who are knee-deep in work that is too easy for them and need to get more throughput. Undergrad is exactly this -- tons of relatively easy work. Professional life is not; quality is in the long term valued over shitty quantity.

I hope your article won't be a complete hatchet job on white-collar drug use -- the reality is very complex. Humans in general, and white-collar workers in particular, are living in environments and doing things extremely different from what humans evolved for. Thus, some of us use drugs to tweak our biology to adapt to the situation. Assuming that these do in fact improve performance -- a very disputable assumption -- this would be a success story for human intelligence and adaptability.

I don't want to do a hatchet job on white collar drug use, no. I want to learn what's actually being used, the extent of the use and then draw some meaning from that, meaning that doesn't intend to say whether the use is bad or good but just why it exists and what that might mean about work culture, society, etc. If you'd be open to talking more about this separately, pls email me at zimmermaneilene@gmail.com. Thanks.

I'm in my last semester of college as a Computer Science student. I know a ridiculously large number of people who use adderall or vyvanse to gain a competitive edge.

Does that make you feel you should be using something too?

No. I think that I would enjoy them too much, so I know I shouldn't participate. Also, I still do better on exams than most of the people I know who use these, so it seems unnecessary.

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?)

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.

> 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.

This is patently false, and I think your assumed universality of drug use is based in no small part on your use, and the crowds that you've associated with because of that drug use.

I certainly know some people who've used stimulants from time to time (SF bay area), but that's the rare exception, not the rule. I know some people who have used MDMA, cocaine, etc. at parties, but it's not many. And, being in SF, I of course know a ton of people who use marijuana regularly.

I'll accept that drug use is probably higher than what I see (I have the opposite problem with perspective: as a non-user, I tend to associate with non-users), but suggesting it's the norm and is "everywhere" is an excessive exaggeration.

I'm not sure what you think I was saying, but I was saying exactly what I said. My friends and partner report that it's normal - obviously in their social circles. I'm not making any claim about wider society. You quoted the word "everywhere" but I didn't use that word.

You said:

> Students, software developers, people in finance - for all of them stimulants are normal.

That's absolutely untrue. For certain (very small) subsets of those people (well, software developers, at least, which is my main area of experience), it certainly happens, but it is definitely not normal.

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

Why weed? It would seem that would make you want to hang out all day and snack, or just sleep or watch television?

We just love weed? For me putting a little tincture in my coffee in the morning is the perfect combo. The weed takes the slight edge off my massive mug of coffee so I get the energy but not the cracked out feeling that lots of caffeine can give you. Plus, answering emails is boring as fuck, I'd rather have a little buzz when I do it. Also, some of my best code was written while high at midnight the night before a deadline.

seems to be what I'm finding too, thank you.

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.

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

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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 :)

Keep in mind the therapeutic dose people take to focus better is an order of magnitude lower then the dose people take for recreation.