Psychoactive substance use by professional programmers
arxiv.org
arxiv.org
PMs and other management may feel like this is a win in the short term, but it isn't sustainable long term. The sheer number of software engineers who face burnout and/or have to take long multi-month sabbaticals to recover is shocking when compared to other industries where it's largely unheard of. Of course income is a factor (most other industries people don't make enough to allow them to take months off) but I don't think that explains all of it. I don't have any data to back this up beyond my own experience working in different industries, so take with a heap of salt.
After so many years of this, it catches up to you. The difficulty performing is (sometimes, not always) a natural sign that your mind is overworked and needs a break. Regularly pushing through that and even using medication to help you is not consequence free. It's not just your mind that breaks down but also your body (especially adrenals). You can't handle unhealthy levels of drive and stress in perpetuity.
Take care of your self and remember that long after the company has forgotten you, you're still tied to your mind and body. Take care of those things as IMHO they are the most valuable possessions you have.
You're saying they were aware of the Adderall abuse as it was happening?
Or just that they saw all these stellar high performers around them and thought, "What's not to like?"
Waittasec. That happens?
But the way it's structured - at least on paper, there's supposed to be some way in which you can pass the "test" and endure an extra run of gaslighting and ostracization until they figure out another way to get rid of you.
Except for the burning out part. Which unfortunately seems to be the natural cost of spending any amount of time in this industry.
According to studies, there's tons of burnout in most industries - we're just the ones who can actually afford to take the sabbaticals.
Why would they care?
Long gone are the times where the majority of workers stayed at a company for a lifetime, so getting the most out of them for the few years that they will anyway stay is worth it in the eyes of their manager.
I eventually got better, so I have no idea how long a person can last before failing completely but it’s at least a year or two.
Shitty environments and lack of reasonable workloads cause burnout.
Adderall can help someone keep going in a shitty environment with an unreasonable workload longer than they otherwise would though.
It can also help them escape successfully when they’d otherwise be unable.
Is there data to back this up? Also, if engineers do take sabbaticals at a significantly above-average rate, is that because others don't need them as much or because they don't have the financial resources and relatively easy ability to get a job post-sabbatical (speaking more historically than for the current hiring environment) that software engineers do?
For context, I'm a PM who sometimes uses substances to help with work and has also taken a couple of sabbaticals, though I would not say the two are related. My sabbaticals aren't out of a deep need to recover from burnout, but because I'm very employable with plenty of savings. It's really nice to have a few months off, and interviewing is much more pleasant when it's your only job.
My totally uninformed take is that these individuals emphatically do not suffer from ADD, but are victims of the "ADD software engineer industrial complex" that basically preys on folks who need a lot of focus to do their job. They get on powerful amphetamines, like it, go deeper, and then suddenly there's a _real_ health problem. It is a fact that these drugs are over-prescribed; it's basically a crisis. And there isn't nearly enough awareness of the dangers or the long-term impact on mental health.
*Writing this as someone who has been down the addiction rabbit hole in the past, and knows the ropes.
I still vastly under-perform compared to my peers despite being medicated. Any person that was taking stimulant medications without ADHD would absolutely blow me out of the water -- it's the main issue I have in regards to stimulants. It's be like a professional athlete taking steroids or other PEDs when competing against a high school aged sports team.
When other people use stimulant medication for non-medical purposes then it causes me to be measured against an echelon of performance that is basically unobtainable i.e. the best I can function at is no longer "good enough."
I mean, sure, there are probably a few other factors that also contribute to my issues other than just medication (lack of organization skills, past traumas, etc.), but it has been something I noticed even back when I was in college a decade ago. I knew plenty of people that faked symptoms to get a prescription. Meanwhile, I had to go through all kinds of testing, interviews, etc. to get legitimately diagnosed.
However, I do not fault the individuals who take any substance medicinally or otherwise. We are all trying to make in this world, and I think a lot of our culture has created a demand that leaves many with no other options -- sink or swim.
I am prescribed stimulants for ADHD. Just because you need something doesn't mean it can't be addictive (I know you didn't say otherwise). With that being said, I am without a doubt dependent on the medication (that's kind of the point), but am I addicted? Well, I ask myself that everyday. I would argue to some degree, I probably am too.
It would be like if someone who suffered from chronic dehydration worried they were addicted to water because they were drinking the amount prescribed for them after having a medical diagnosis related to it, so they stopped. Then, of course, went back to the prior state which was ‘normal’ to them.
Which is why it’s all best done under the supervision of a qualified professional who hopefully isn’t a fuckup.
While I have been addicted to tobacco, I fail to see how a people who are addicted to tobacco/nicotine are different than me (a stimulant is a stimulant). Is the difference sheerly due to the harm tobacco causes?
I do not feel like if I lost access to medication I would go and start pawning off stolen car radios to get my fix, but I feel like I would absolutely "hot-swap" to something else like caffeine (it's what I used prior to medication).
I do not think I abuse the medication or anything -- no all nighters, no running out before my next prescription, etc.. I try to take one day a week off them, but that one day is sometimes uncomfortable.
I would say my relationship to the medication is very "Flowers for Algernon" in a sense. I've almost lost access to medication due to all kinds of non-behavioral reasons like prescription issues, medication shortages, etc.. That always sends me into a spiral of anxiety and stress, but mainly because I feel like my life will fall apart quite quickly without the medication.
However, at the same time, I wonder if I am being delusional because it's not like the medication makes me some kind of FAANG developer or anything. I'm still just your lowly below-average developer working at an undervalued and dead-end job for my local government. It's about as easy as it gets in terms of jobs, and I feel like I can barely keep my head above water.
Did/do you compulsively seek caffeine despite significant adverse consequences to yourself and/or others?
If someone really like having coffee, but can afford it and it doesn’t hurt their health - they aren’t addicted.
If someone can’t hold down a job because they constantly drink coffee to the point they can’t work, then they’re addicted.
Or, if they suffer from heart issues or whatever (I’m reaching, I know) due to all the coffee they drink, but can’t stop. Same.
So the question is - does the Adderall or whatever help you function, actually?
And in totality improve your life?
If so, then you aren’t addicted. It’s rational. Seeking it, as long as it isn’t compulsive (aka it is based on a reasonable need and in proportion to the benefits/circumstances) is a reasonable thing to do. Like looking for Tylenol is if you sprained an ankle.
The challenge is, Addicts (of all kinds!) are often incredibly delusional on this front, and Adderall et al IS addictive for folks without ADHD brain chemistry/ADHD dosage. It isn’t as bad as meth, but same issues.
So someone who is an addict will often say yes, everything is fine to all those questions (and often mean it), but anyone looking in from the outside who knew them would often go whoa buddy that’s fucked, and they will have noticeable issues with functioning at some point.
Others may be non-addictive personalities and be able to use the meds (and get high) but will not be addicts. They can take it or leave it.
Many (well, early stage) addicts often tend to think they are these people. It’s part of the problem that makes them addicts. Some substances are very, very addictive and only a small portion of the population will not be a problem.
Others, it requires a really special person to get addicted (in real terms) to it. Like coffee.
Where interestingly, ADHD folks will often wonder constantly if they’re addicts while their life (and symptoms) noticeably improve - inside and out, and while they actively try to cut themselves off from the meds.
Weird huh?
If you’re really wondering, writing down in a daily journal can help if you do it consistently and review it after awhile.
If your life circumstance is such it’s safe, taking a pause for a week or two on the meds while doing this can be very informative - but I wouldn’t recommend it without discussing with your Dr. first as it can be a real problem if there are real issues you need the medicine to help you address.
I had a cousin who ended up homeless every time he went off his meds, for instance.
ADHD memory is the worst.
It’s a pretty meaningful, objective difference actually between ‘normals’ and folks with ADHD.
The neurochemistry is different for them, objectively and visibly so.
I've had a lot of people tell me I'm brilliant etc when working with me (not a humblebrag), and that's fine. Internally I absolutely know I'm operating at like 15/100 and I could be operating at 100% with medication. The issue isn't being smart or not, its about impulse control, the ability to focus and put in long hours, etc. I get so much less done than I could get done because I can't focus on the task as much as a normal person can, even if my decision making/research is good.
so enjoy or not enjoy, if you want to be operating at the same level as your peers in high performance workplaces what you enjoy doesn't really enter into it. I just found for me the medication was too habit forming, and I'd rather be me at 15% forever and figure out what I can do with that than be at 100% and addicted to amphetamines. I completely understand the other decision, though.
I often think that I'm simply screwed for life: Without medication my life goes off the rails within days, with medication I'm at least barely able to hold it together, but I hate the nausea, hate the rebound (disorientation after the effect wears off), and the fact that I still don't remember to eat and rehydrate properly. I think I would need a life coach for a while, but as I'm surviving on a subsistence level, that's not an option.
If possible, using them to help get started tackling the other issues may be worthwhile. CBT and Mindfulness/Meditation have evidence supporting their efficacy.
Unfortunately, many prescribing Dr’s just do the one button (meds), and never mention or provide useful refs to anything else.
Also notably, talk therapy is not recommended (it tends to encourage rumination, instead of using different, more useful thought patterns which CBT helps with).
It might be worth investigating.
‘How to ADHD’ on YouTube seems useful to a number of people I know, and is pretty ADHD friendly - unlike a great many other resources.
I love my ADHD medication, but it probably has to do with the fact that I'm taking pure dextroamphetamine directly instead of Adderall (which also contains levoamphetamine). When I did Adderall, it did nothing for weeks until I raised the dose all the way to 20mg and then it suddenly made my ADHD way worse.
Switching to dexedrine fixed everything and zapped my ADHD completely for a while. I don't really have any side effects besides urinary retention, which is very tolerable in return for what I get, honestly.
Everyone's mileage varies, but here I am, someone who enjoys their medication~
The way I read this comment (in contrast to your followup to hirvi74), it sounds like, extrapolating from the 3+ people you know, that everyone who has ADD (an antiquated term) takes Adderall, are drug addicts, bad employees, and poor coders to boot.
There's a reason why some people with ADHD don't talk about it at work and judgements based off an uncareful reading of anecdoes like yours are why.
Tough for the kids who get misdiagnosed, huh?
Common side effects of Adderall may include:
stomach pain; loss of appetite; weight loss; mood changes; feeling nervous; fast heart rate; headache; dizziness; sleep problems (insomnia);
long lists of side effects are common even for the most benign and common drugs. that's standard.
for example i could say that the common side effects of tylenol[0] tell a different story:
nausea, vomiting, anemia, rash, dyspnea, abnormal breath sounds, pulmonary edema, hypoxia, pleural effusion, stridor, wheezing, coughing, peripheral edema, hypertension, hypotension, tachycardia, chest pain, muscle spasms, insomnia
They are over prescribed, especially to below average performers who want a boost. Everyone wants to believe they are actually really really smart but have a "condition" which makes them underperform. Don't worry this little pill will "fix" your brain.
I also don’t feel that it is over prescribed. In fact there is a huge lapse and stigma would being signaled out as neurodiverse.
I would suggest to look into what is ADHD and typical symptoms and see how it overlays to a normal drug user non stimulant user. You’d find that it is 1:1 in what you described but does not correlate to drug user.
I was really surprised in business school how many students, guest lecturers, and pretty much everyone was on adderral, beta blockers (without medical necessity), or even cocaine and illegal stimulants. And part of many peoples “stacks” involved visits to specific doctors who would write scripts with combinations that let them focus and work very long hours.
I agree with you on taking care of yourself but it was really illuminating the habits that people sustained for 30-50 years without any spectacular blowouts. Of course not everyone is so lucky, but I never imagined that people would sustain pharmaceutical benefits for so many decades as just part of their routine.
Makes me wonder how many people maintaining 4am daily workouts are doing so without chemical assistance. Although I’ve known many people with really rigorous daily routines (running 8-12 miles) that claimed to abstain from everything, even caffeine and headphones.
This is counter to interviewed individuals who, despite drug use, largely ignored company drug policies.
[1]: Which I always do, as a person who has been prescribed Adderall since childhood[2]
[2]: Yes, the diagnosis is legitimate. It was diagnosed by a trusted family pediatrician during a regular check-up and was not solicited by my parents[3]
[3]: Yes, it is exhausting to explain myself, my parents, and my medical history like this whenever the topic comes up. Woe is me, woe is me, etc.
It seems this is much less popular today than it was 20 years ago. It was prevalent back then.
Now these people I knew were also lauded for the frequency of their PRs and promoted. I suppose the crux is that if you’re going to start such a regimen make sure your company uses perverse incentives as rewards.
Most people don't advertise or even share their list of medications/prescriptions with their colleagues, so I would be careful about drawing conclusions based on your sample. There are most surely people you worked with that were taking stuff that you had no idea about.
Can I function without meds? Sure. But then I have to spend every single day wrestling my brain to the ground continually. There is no room in my life for anything but "functioning at work", because it's tremendously exhausting (much more than "normal") and leads to rapid burnout.
I'm a fairly decent SWE. Ceteris paribus I am - post meds - roughly at the same quality level/volume of output I was before, but I have a better life overall.
So maybe don't bulldoze a whole bunch of innocent bystanders because you personally had bad experiences with a few people abusing stimulants? (Also: Not all ADHD meds are stimulants)
After having spent over a decade in the field, I benefit a lot from taking medication. I've been diagnosed with ADHD twice independently, and was initially opposed to medication. At this point in my life, I simply can't recapture the drive I once had that helped me overcome my dysregulated attention. My meds have helped me to not burn out.
However, caffeine in small doses (up to ~5 cups / day) is much easier to get used to without burning out, and after a period of regular use becomes more of a tool giving you control over the time you want to be awake and alert, instead of giving you superhuman focus.
one cup has ~120mg of caffeine. This is 600 mg of caffeine. That's not a small dose. I would say it's above even a "moderate" dose. To be safe I looked it up, and I find up to 400 mg is considered safe. Above that is considered a high caffeine intake [1].
[1] "only limited evidence is currently available to ascertain the safety of high caffeine intake (greater than 400 mg/d for adults [...] Limited data suggest adverse health outcomes" from https://health.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/Scientific-Re...
That's a fairly generous estimate, but that depends on which coffee you're drinking and how it's made. I usually make a cup of coffee by using at most a teaspoon of instant coffee powder, which contains ~50mg of caffeine. So 6 cups for me would be ~300mg of caffeine. That's a small dose when compared to my >1000mg caffeine pill habit in college, which caused the amphetamine-like burnout.
Though, it's good that you've brought this up - "a cup" is not a well-defined measurement of caffeine, and this elaboration resolves the ambiguity of my original post.
I'd suggest that most people, if they're drinking '5 cups a day' level, are brewing a pot of filter coffee via a drip machine. At that rate, each 'cup' (defined as 8 fl oz of coffee) should have something like ~100mg of caffeine.
If a 'cup' of coffee is something like a Starbucks Venti (20 fl oz), Starbucks claims it has somewhere between 410-475mg of caffeine. Two of those and you're approaching 1000mg of caffeine alone.
It's okay to use a bit, but not so much that it takes over your life, and gives you withdrawal symptoms whenever you try to stop, making you think that you Just Don't Function Without It.
There are people who legitimately need caffeine just like there are people who legitimately need amphetamines (usually those with ADHD or sometimes narcolepsy).
But people who don't need caffeine still end up unnecessarily addicted and dependent, just because society makes it out to be perfectly safe and normal. Oh, everyone drinks coffee! Coffee is at every store! Nobody ever talks about the risks of coffee because it's totally risk-free. Other than, you know, making you into a zombie whenever you stop taking it, fueling confirmation bias.
As if "can't talk before my morning coffee" is somehow supposed to be a universal expectation. Why are people putting these kinds of drugs into their body, that over the long-term make them that way? You don't have to be a zombie in the morning. You're only a zombie in the morning because of all the caffeine.
I've never used caffeine in my life and I'm just fine. Was even just fine before I ever started my ADHD meds (around 3 months ago). I firmly believe that coffee dependence is not a necessity for most people... just like nicotine dependence.
BTW, I don't turn into a zombie when I stop taking my meds. I just sleep for around 15 hours. It honestly feels less harmful than caffeine would be. Because I'm not using it recreationally.
It works quite well. Well enough to keep using it as a getting-through-the-wall technique, certainly.
New ideas will present themselves. New perspectives become apparent.
I recommend it.
(Attention is like a flashlight in a dark room. One of those focusable flashlights. You can narrow the beam to a very bright spot. Make a very small place very clearly lit. But that also renders the rest of the room pitch black (how deep is that darkness? Do you know???). Sometimes the broader beam is called for. Sometimes it's useful to lose control of the light entirely.)
I'd only suggest doing that once every 2 week, and sleeping normally at least each night for the week before for maximal results.
Also, it's a bad idea to code when tired (due to risks of negative productivity): it's better to just think and take notes, draw diagrams etc
BTW I've heard people who are on ADHD drugs report a similar "too focused" attention: a very narrow beam on a very bright spot.
And that darkness, that wraparound blind spot. It doesn't exist. You know what I mean? It, in all likelihood, is not accounted for at all in your reality.
I mean, you don't say to yourself, "gosh, I'm blind to all this stuff". No. the stuff just doesn't exist.
And add habit to the mix, that subconscious robot. Habit that governs this universe-dividing attention.
Titanic feats of reality-conditioning could be happening right under your nose, constantly. And you'd never even know it.
I also thought the article would be more about the recent trend of microdosing psychedelics. I was also quite disappointed.
if you are presented with a bag of a hundred coins, and another bag of a million coins, and you sample 26 of them from each bag and flip them, you will establish the same level of certainty about the bias of the coins in each bag. or something like that?
I'm sure there are people here who can explain it better than I can, my point is to say "don't question a sample size of 26 unless you really know what you are doing"
None of that even matters much because there's barely any stats in the paper. I didn't even see anything besides descriptive statistics. It is, by their own description, a qualitative study.
The description of "drug abuse" has morphed a few times, from "addiction" to "abuse" and of course, the framing of addiction as a Medical Disease that can be Treated Medically, and finally to this non-judgemental terminology of "substance use".
Apparently, the psychiatric establishment has chosen to stop passing judgement on those who abuse illegal drugs, in favor of incorporating those drugs into the tapestry of treatments available. Just a few weeks ago, I attended a brief seminar on Sleep Hygiene, which was led by a physician. One of the other participants boasted about how good his sleep was after smoking a joint, and the physician, as the Medical Authority in the room, explictly condoned this drug abuse and said that whatever this person perceives to help must be good and alright.
I used to be friends with a certain person who lived in Boston but moved to San Francisco. She suffers from several poorly-specified mental conditions, such as bipolar disorder and anxiety. She is absolutely open to treating these conditions with drugs (and not any other way such as CBT or other talk-based therapies.) But she is also an inveterate abuser of illegal/quasi-legal drugs, and often discusses her experiences with marijuana, gummies, Ecstasy, LSD, etc. She has hired a psychiatrist who does not accept insurance, so she pays out of pocket for visits, and this psychiatrist basically turns a blind-eye to the illegal drug use while also prescribing psychotropic meds, including scheduled ones like Xanax.
So my opinion is that the aforementioned friend is simply a recreational drug seeker and enjoys the extra boost from legal prescription drugs in the same way as she enjoys the illegal ones.
But mental (sorry, behavioral) health professionals are not allowed to judge this as "abuse" but must instead refer to "substance use" and incorporate usage patterns into treatment plans, as if this self-medicating is not detrimental to someone who already has issues when they are 100% clean.
I’d be interested in learning about drug use not during programming tasks too, especially for something like weed or psychedelics there’s going to be much more use not at work, compared to adderall and caffeine.
Somehow stimulants became focal point of conversation because they are more commonly used -- I think the same idea tech workers are looking for a way to enhance their performance beyond taking a cup of coffee
There are trade-offs to taking stimulants such as side-effects and addictiveness, so hence the appeal of certain psychedelics individuals are perhaps using to self-medicate or gain an edge in the workplace.
I love this
21 Prescription Stimulants (e.g., Adderall, Ritalin)
14 Cannabis (e.g., Marijuana, Weed)
13 Alcohol (e.g., Beer, Wine)
11 Mood Disorder Medication (e.g., SSRIs, Wellbutrin)
7 Psychedelics (e.g., LSD, Psilocybin)
7 Tobacco (e.g., Cigarettes, Vapes)
3 Cocaine
2 Benzodiazepines (e.g., Xanax)
2 Opiates (e.g., Codeine)
I have to admit, I haven't heard that one before.
table 2.
many of these were pros in more way than one.
[EDIT] Not "professional", though, admittedly. Usually "computer programmer".
"Software engineer" I reserve for certain contexts in which I suspect I might be penalized for using another term. I don't think it's very accurate for like 99.5% of all "software engineer" jobs. Feels like using "sandwich artist" for "dude who works at Subway".
And no, I am not speaking just based on stereotypes, I personally observed it happen with a significant frequency with friends working in the industry. And the fact that the big finance office building I've been to had a very bice lounge-like area with chairs, sofa, wardrobe+coat hangers, and a coffee table as you enter any bathroom didn't help that perception either.
Side-tangent note: I want to clarify what i meant by "a pre-bathroom lounge-like area", because it indeed difficult to tell what i was talking about just based on the paragraph above.
You walk through a hallway and see two bathroom doors (M and F), so far everything is very usual. You open one of the doors, and instead of a typical bathroom, you see the type of a lounge room I described above. Literally just a normal lounge relaxing room, with a coffee table, a few comfortable lounge chairs, a small sofa, etc. You also see another door inside this lounge room (in addition to the door you entered through from the hallway). And that door is where the actual regular public bathroom is, with a row of stalls, sinks, etc. So the lounge room basically acts as a buffer room between the hallway and the actual bathroom.
Is it a thing at all big finance companies? I don't know, and I think probably not, so this shouldn't be treated as a concrete proof of anything. And I honestly believe that only a small minority utilizes that room for anything but its officially-intended purpose. But it is a bit telling.
And no, I don't think this makes finance people as a group unprofessional (or even as individuals; that would depend on their actual behaviors and interactions at their workplace). Just like I don't think a significant number of people in tech being into various drugs makes them unprofessional as a group.