Using drugs to gain an unfair advantage over other people at work has unhealthy emotional side effects? Am I to be surprised by this?
You are asserting that the law firm's long working hours were caused by her med use. Do you think you might have that backwards?
> the author's self-absorption, the victimization tone
She had a substance abuse problem. She's warning others that it's a slippery slope. Show some compassion.
It probably becomes a vicious cycle / race to the bottom. You take more drugs to work longer hours and compete with your colleagues, who start taking more drugs so they can work more hours to have the edge over you...
Substance abuse to get ahead is nothing new. Drugs are not as new as we pretend they are, and it's been common practice to abuse them for personal gain probably as long as they've been around.
The industrial revolution was a shift in the curve. You could successfully argue that automation to get ahead is nothing new, but it would miss the importance of the scale of the new changes.
Adderal and its ilk are a similar shift in the curve. People with access used to be people rich enough to afford speed.
Now almost all school kids are entering the work force and know someone or have themselves used performance enhancers.
Drugs may enable and perpetuate this behaviour today, at least in some countries, but I don't think there's much of a case that they caused it. At least if they did it arose in places like the UK without that assistance.
From my experience the root is far simpler - greed. They dangle the possibility of partnership with all it's attendant wealth and status in front of the bright young things and watch them scrap it out and burn out. I have a friend who made partner with one of the magic circle firms and while the rewards are amazing, I wouldn't swap his life for mine in a million years.
It used to be that about 5% didn't make partner. It was like getting fired-- in the 1970s, when that itself was rare. It was harder to get an associate position, but once you were in, you were solid. Also, work hours were not at the extreme that they are now.
Now, instead of 5% not making partner, it's about 5% who make partner.
That's because some really evil, greedy fucks got in charge and realized they could replace partnerships with overworked, churn-and-burn associates.
Or could it be that there are way too many lawyers being produced every year and the realities of a highly competitive market have set in?
http://flustercucked.blogspot.com/2010/07/40-years-of-lawyer...
The upside (at least for those competing) is that many who don't make partner will still go on to secure corporate lawyer jobs earning six figures...
This is true. However, a lot of people will take away the message 'stay off adderall' whereas
(1) some people apparently benefit from it, (2) some people whom doctors wouldn't prescribe to may benefit (e.g. the mathematician Paul Erdös took ritalin, a similar drug), (3) all people who abuse drugs do so because of personality problems -- thus if she hadn't taken adderall then she may well have gotten into some other drug or obsession leading to some other addiction or disorder
And saying that "all people who abuse drugs do so because of personality problems" is obviously quite ignorant. Genetical factors are often important of course, no doubt about it, but to suggest that everyone physically addicted to really addictive substances do it purely because of personality problems, and not the addictiveness of the drugs, is really strange.
You seem to think that being addicted is a simple choice. That might be true for psychological addictions (although I doubt it), but it is certainly not true for physical addictions.
Indeed.
>And saying that "all people who abuse drugs do so because of personality problems" is obviously quite ignorant
Nah. The truth in this whole drugs business is far from obvious. Check out Gabor Maté on youtube, he has some interesting things to say. Apart from that, perhaps when we have a theory of consciousness we will be able to re-frame mental disorders as disorders of consciousness.
Meanwhile 'addiction' and 'abuse' are problems -- are you saying they're not to do with personality? Some people do talk about genes in this context, but they have no explanatory theory connecting genes to specific mental traits, so I think they're mistaken. And, if they did, those genes would then be part of the personality
>You seem to think that being addicted is a simple choice
No, I think addictions are a form of unconscious behaviour, so not a matter of choice, although the cure might entail making a choice
Her drug abuse, obviously not. Drug abuse by young professionals? Yes.
The cocaine boom and the increase in law firm hours (from about 40 to about 60) both happened at the same time: the 1980s.
>>Using drugs to gain an unfair advantage over other people at work has unhealthy emotional side effects? Am I to be suprised by this?
Your claim that this stimulant gives its users/abusers/misusers an "unfair advantage" over those who don't use it (ie you) not only contradicts your following statement (that it causes emotional side effects) but also tells me that perhaps you're angered or upset by this perceived 'unfair advantage' you see this drug giving your peers.
If you looked at the big picture, or her story, you'd see that the drug doesn't, in fact, give its abusers an unfair advantage. Whatever temporary 'gain' they are getting is unsustainable and clearly destructive both emotionally and physically.
To the second point, he probably is. This is to be expected. There is very little reason to by sympathetic to someone who abuses prescription drugs in order to achieve success in school or outlast their peers in the working world. The fact that she decried her plight makes it all the more irksome: before she was a "victim," she consciously chose to abuse these drugs, then lied to her physician and continued taking them for months...
From the comments on that article:
My 3rd grade granddaughter has been put on adderall for ADD. This is really scary.
It's because of people like her and her self-absorbed, nugatory account of her experiences being featured on a high-profile news journal that we drift into a world where mention of ADHD medicine usage gets you the eye-roll 'wow you druggie' judgement. She's doing a tremendous disservice to individuals actually diagnosed with ADHD.
I'm sorry to hear that you were diagnosed by an incompetent psychiatric physician, but I would hope you don't use your misfortune as fuel for spreading superstitious, anti-science anti-ADHD-medicine hysteria, there's enough of that out there already.
Given the uncertain pathophysiology of ADHD, the degree to which symptoms resemble moral judgements, the dramatic increase in diagnosis following advocacy in the psychiatric community, and questionable improvement of long-term outcomes for patients treated with medication, ADHD is seen by them as a good example of this point of view. I assume that's what he was alluding to.
Is debate allowed about in science anymore? It seems that everyone who disagrees with the status quo is branded as anti-science, therefore destroying all chances for a constructive discussion.
I've always seen debate as the fundamental principle of advancing science (and have no idea what Popper may think on the subject).
> Is debate allowed about in science anymore?
Of the type we are discussing? It's never been allowed. It's always been discouraged. You can see similar types of debates when people talk about teaching the controversy.
In fact, science is not about debate. It's about presenting facts in support of an argument. Merely arguing is pointless.
What science "is" is a subjective opinion, and there are many different claims what science really is. In my opinion debate is important to science. In addition, 'presenting facts in support of an argument' is debating in my opinion.
Anyways, I'm not about to explain why allowing holocaust denialists equal time is a silly proposition.
So let's find some quieter common ground:
A class of prescription psychoactive drugs are increasingly being used by tens of millions. They substantially alter the motivation systems of the human brain, have a poorly understood method of action, are extremely easily and inexpensively sourced from the graymarket, and are being issued to children as young as five. Off-label use is increasing to the point where it's omnipresent in high-pressure social arenas.
There are no social rituals or consumption contexts that retard use of these amphetamines - they're privately consumed as "medication" (therefore perceived as "undangerous" and "acceptable") in a way that street drugs would never be considered.
But the results are the same. They're the same for ADHD folks, they're the same for non-ADHD folks, they're the same for the habitual user, and they're the same for the occasional user. Ferocious forever focus! ...for a while... with a comedown. And then: more?
The end-game for every single one of these users is potentially the same. Five years old with ADHD, 24 years old trying to make it in NYC, whatever. It's habit forming, excessive use comes with a boatload of major side effects, and it's directly monkeying with a core part of the human psyche for a sprawling number of reasons, all of them social in nature.
We're doing something new and big here as a society, and it's worth discussing.
> But the results are the same. They're
> the same for ADHD folks, they're the
> same for non-ADHD folks...
It's kind of like saying that platform shoes make everybody taller. Yes, they do, but some people need platform shoes just to reach an "average" height.
(To be clear, I'm not a medical professional)
For someone with ADHD, a single Adderall isn't going to make them stay up all night. It isn't going to cause them to stop eating. There is no "razor sharp infinite focus".
Instead, it just brings things up to normal. Rather than being unable to even have a chance to focus, the possibility now exists.
Where did you get this from? Using psychostimulants to treat ADHD is one of the most researched treatments in psychiatry. We've been prescribing Adderall for almost 100 years now. We know it works, and it works well when prescribed correctly.
Either way, if you want drugs to get up in arms about, better choices are SSRIs and atypical antipsychotics. Those are the drugs with poorly understood mechanisms of action that are given to way too many people.
This woman shared her negative experiences related to abusing Adderall. Note that she was never even really diagnosed with ADHD (and she makes mention of this fact). This is clearly an essay about the dangers of addiction and substance abuse, not about the dangers of Adderall. Perhaps secondary themes might be the disturbing "performance at all costs" attitude found in many workplaces and the ease with which legal drugs can be obtained without proper diagnosis.
These are real problems for society. The fact that the illiterate take the wrong message from something doesn't mean that it shouldn't be published.
Anyhow, I'm only the second person in my extended family to not have gone to college. If I performed in school how I perform now (when I am medicated) I would have done very well in high school, I would have gone to college, and I probably would have done pretty okay.
But, then I would have graduated to the work force in 2001-2002 rather than in 1997.
do you see the problem here?
in 1997, I was able to get a programming job, essentially on enthusiasm. In 2001-2002? I would have spent considerable time unemployed, even with a degree.
(of course, that was just pure luck)
But yeah. I'm glad that the crutch is available to me now.
If you were born 2-3 years later you would have been writing a thoroughly different comment.
As a matter of fact, there is very likely someone who made a similar choice like you, only his time line was shifted forward a few years.
His outcomes would be remarkably worse than yours. Not only would he have never gone to college, he would also have an non-competitive start in a tough environment.
Oh yeah, that guy worked for me for a short period of time. He got a better job (first at hostgator, then at some fairly well-known generic-sounding consulting house) very shortly afterwards. He mostly just needed /something/ to put on the resume so people didn't give him shit about the empty years.
But yea, random chance is absolutely huge, and I got lucky.
>His outcomes would be remarkably worse than yours. Not only would he have never gone to college, he would also have an non-competitive start in a tough environment.
College isn't one of those 'once in a lifetime' chances; I mean, unless you have parents or something that are willing to pay for it out of high school but not willing to pay for it a few years later, you /can/ go back a few years later. I think it's pretty destructive that the choice is presented to 17 year olds as "go to college now, or suffer forever because you did not!"
Really, if I had to do my life over with what I know now? I would have spent much of the .com crash trying to go to college. I dono if I would have done very well, but I was much better equipped then than I was right out of high school. (well, that, or staying at MAPS. I don't know if I could have handled it, but if I could have, I would have been a thousand times better off than I was hiding out where I did.)
I mean, my main takaway there? even authority figures that genuinely care about and want to do right by you often give bad advice. Your life gets vastly better once you gain self-determinism.
I am seriously surprised at HN seeing the comments here.
Perhaps there are intelligent commentaries to be written about this culture's abuse of Adderall, but this is not one of them.
She's a young aspiring writer living in New York City, as well as a UCLA grad... shouldn't be a surprise...
Which makes you wonder what parts are true in the story and what parts are enhanced for dramatic effect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Frey
NYT also has a similar piece weekly called "Modern Love" typically by a writer with a screwed up love life that sometimes seems stranger than fiction.
Before posting this I took a look at your comment history to make sure I wasn't feeding a troll. Instead, I found tons of quality contributions. You're better than this, my fellow HN'er.
From your comment I assume that you only respect people who have made correct and logical choices throughout their lives, and/or people who make bad choices, bear the consequences, and don't tell anyone about them (lest they appear to be self absorbed). You are certainly welcome to only respect said people, though I hope that if you ever make a bad choice that the people around you will be more compassionate.
Perhaps the ABA (American Bar Association) needs to implement a ban on performance enhancing drugs similar to what MLB (Major League Baseball) mandates?
Anyway, caffeine works in vastly different ways. It blocks adenine receptors (which keeps your heart rate and blood pressure high), it does not flood the brain with neurotransmitters used in parts of the brain responsible for learning, retention and the reward system.
- desmopressin,
- galantamine,
- Phenylpiracetam
This is one of the things that bothers you? The paralegals felt the need to compete with her?