21–29 of 29 posts
I wonder if anyone uses drugs to enhance working (to gain productivity) rather than to relieve the stress... Like people who take Ritalin for studying
I wonder if anyone uses drugs to enhance working (to gain productivity) rather than to relieve the stress... Like people who take Ritalin for studying
Yes I'm addicted to heroin. I have a much easier time than my junkie friends with a programmer's salary but its not a life anyone would want.
Have you ever gone into work sick?
When I lived in LA I knew a few high-functioning heroin addicts. It gets the better of everyone eventually. The fact that you can go about your day-to-day and none of your acquaintances pick up on it can be reinforcement to go further, test the limits.
If you have a well paying engineering job you have the money to get yourself to a good doctor. Just saying.
I had quite a caffeine addiction but I recently kicked it. I was up to 900 mg/day at my peak. I think caffeine counts as an addiction. I had a strong dependency on it and couldn't function physically or mentally without it.
> I was up to 900 mg/day at my peak. How many cups would that equate to?
Don't take this the wrong way if you're reluctant to deal with the problem right now (before I got serious about quitting I hated it when people lectured me about this stuff), but here's what got me clean. It's really hard, but it's possible and I wish I had done it much earlier.
For me it took a stint in rehab (30 days), which I strongly recommend if your job will allow it. While it's certainly possible that owning up to your problem at work will cost you your job, HR folks usually have training and experience with employees with substance abuse problems, and if you're at all valued as an employee, they'll usually give you a chance to get your shit together. Most people have a sense that rehab is kind of shitty, but to be honest, I had a blast. Basically summer camp with group therapy.
Whether or not you're able to do rehab, you should absolutely check out Narcotics Anonymous. NA meetings are not all created equal, and some are really bad -- dealers showing up, no one really staying clean, that kind of thing. Shop around before you give up on it. I was pretty turned off by all the God talk, especially since I'm pretty sure that I couldn't actually get myself to believe in anything like that, but nobody shoves it down your throat, and in my own experience it works perfectly well whether you believe in God or not. It's mostly about social support.
Ninja edit: I don't have any personal experience with opiate withdrawal, but I've heard really good things from a lot of ex-junkies about Suboxone. It's not a magic bullet, but it's a fuck of a lot easier than being dope sick for a week.