alt Hacker NewsI’ve seen a few friends and coworkers go down this path, usually as a result of work stress or hustle culture. They start on neutropics and energy drinks, then get scripts for Adderall or Vyvanse to handle the perceived insurmountable workload, stabilize on those after an initial euphoria, then build up a heroic tolerance to (dextro|meth)amphetamines. Withdrawals from that high level of addiction leads to anxiety, insomnia, delusions, mania and all sorts of craziness (I suspect the lack of sleep is the culprit).
Eventually this sends the patient to a doctor/dealer to escape their misery of detox/relapse cycles. The gates to hell are finally opened once a benzo is prescribed.
One entrepreneur ended punching a bouncer and attempting to flee on a bus to some random city, spending more than a week in jail. Another fled the U.S. after making a lot of crazy purchases and life choices, he is now living in a war zone voluntarily. The amount of DGAF/YOLO these drugs give the user are very understated. The withdrawals were much worse. I’ve never seen someone down almost a whole handle of bourbon just to get “normal“. The brain zaps and the tics/twitches were very noticeable.
Stevie Nicks has also spoken publicly about her struggles with Klonopin withdrawal. BEWARE!!!
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I run sometimes in a “party” crowd and see the same thing from the other side. People take drugs on the weekend, and a benzo to come down from it, and soon find themselves hooked just on the benzo.
Pretty wild how common it really is. In places you wouldn't expect. I started working night shift in a warehouse when I was in my 20s, and got to know a couple of the funny yet seemingly regular guys. I asked them for advice on how to adjust to the graveyard shift. They said you gotta stay up on weekends, keep the same nightshift schedule, no exceptions. "Come out with us for a few beer sometime."
So there we are in a regular pub, about 11pm. One guy starts dialing on his phone and says, "I'm gonna pick up. You want in?" I kind of smirked and said, "uhhh I don't smoke weed dude. Thanks." And he looked at me like I was an innocent deer and said, "umm, we're going skiing dude. this is how we stay up."
Oh boy. I was never addicted to it thank god, but what a wild couple of years that was.
Is it possible you have the cause and effect backwards? These people could have highly addictive personalities and were just switching from one drug to another and it’s not the actual drug that’s the issue.
Take the adderall and benzodiazepines out of the equation and they might just as well be using cocaine and barbiturates.
Oh so that’s how people turn into drug addicts? So simple solution is not to go for a “drug” fix, performance enhancer, but to just accept that you just “can’t” and figure out a way to not burn out. Seems insane to me that there is 2 roads - one to never be a drug addict, second one is to have an extremely high chance turning into a drug addict. What am I missing?
What are you seeing with Modafinil (Provigil)? It seems to be popular among the same crowd.
> The gates to hell are finally opened once a benzo is prescribed ... The amount of DGAF/YOLO these drugs give the user are very understated
... let's dial this back a little here. I've been a (prescribed) benzo user for ~15 years, across xanax, valium, and klonopin. I regularly go for weeks at a time without taking them or thinking about them. I have taken some very, very large doses before (as part of a now-resolved fear of flying).
Firstly, yes, obviously, they are addictive. This is compounded by the fact that people are generally prescribed them when they really need them, and they are highly short-term effective. If you have acute mental distress and someone gives you a drug that switches that off in the short term, you are going to really want more of it when that distress comes back. Many people seem to have at least some low-level mental distress, and so many people respond really well to benzos. They also cause physical dependence, so cessation if you've taken them chronically for as little as a few weeks is going to be somewhere between annoying and extremely rough, quite aside from the addiction.
Secondly, the "amount of DGAF/YOLO". Some users experience dose-dependent impaired judgement, probably similar to alcohol? If you've taken a serious dose, you'll know you've taken something psychoactive. This isn't something that needs to factor in to your risk profile for taking 5mg of valium. A very small number (1%?) experience severe impaired judgement. Test one first.
Overall, they are a drug to approach with a lot of caution, and with the help of a doctor who you think understands the risks, like opiates. But like opiates, they are a miracle solution to a very difficult problem. If your doctor thinks you need to carry some Xanax around in your wallet for panic attacks, don't assume all hell will break loose. If your doctor wants you to take klonopin for five days while you switch SSRI, that's probably OK. If you're terrified of flying, but need to make your once-a-decade flight, gladly accept a dose of valium. On the other hand, if your doctor is prescribing a four-week once-a-day schedule, urgently seek out a second opinion unless they sit you down and are very clear on the risks with you first, and even then do some of your own research.
But be aware that they are highly effective at removing your acute mental distress, and if that's an issue for you anyway, you might be about to feel better than you've felt in years, and you need to be sure you're not going to reach for them when you don't actually need them, and kick off an addiction that will be very, very hard to shake.
Bottom line: miracle drug, but be as skeptical of them as doctor-prescribed opiates.
> handle the perceived insurmountable workload
This is so wild to me because output and work quality rapidly decline at (or well before) 40 hours a week. It sounds like a joke, but I probably have 4 good hours in me a day. Sure, more if I'm really into something, but working 4 hours a day 3-5 (max) days a week will actually achieve peak results in my experience.