Of both pharmaceutical drugs and illicit drugs? I suppose at one time I was. I was in university and with some psychological issues I forged a prescription continuously for 3 months of benzos along with codeine. Saved me money going to the GP but it did land me a caution from the police in my country. I’m currently not on anything.
My family thinks it’s insane but apparently in the drug world, there are people from doctors, lawyers, businessmen who function on “downers” (benzos, GHB, alcohol) and “uppers” (cocaine, methylphenidate - ADHD medicine, crystal meth). There are also people who microdose on LSD but I don’t think that can really be considered addictive. Since I live in Europe, there aren’t that many drug test that one would be subjected to if the lived in the US.
Do you personally know of people who take moderate/heavy amount of drugs daily and still maintain their job, relationships, and finances?
99% of my family are substance abusers. Mostly liquor, some drugs. I guess maybe 75% are gainfully employed. Some really successful. So yea, I know a few.
Plenty of folks get habituated to mood altering drugs, and function on them. Those that lose control and escalate doses to chase the original high are the ones that get into trouble the most rapidly.
Note: The topics of drug abuse and addiction are far more complex and nuanced than my first comment implies, but it’s not a bad rule of thumb.
I once had a roommate who was a cartographer for the county, he drew maps and plats and such. Every morning at breakfast he smoked a joint before going to work.
I have a friend that works in the movie and TV industry and makes great money, manages to function but abuses prescribed and illegal drugs like clockwork, he says pretty much everyone in the industry does.
I have a friend who used to be an alcoholic while functioning as a first class mathematician. I knew another who just drank steadily all day every day, while functioning as a mathematician. I don’t know how they did it.
On the other side I had a close friend (and collaborator) who started life as a really brilliant mathematician; his early work is heavily cited, who started using pot more and more heavily and whose mathematics deteriorated into triviality that he still believed significant. It was pathetic. But I don’t believe it would have been any worse had pot been legal.
I assume you are talking about mind-altering drugs, since I take 6 prescription meds every day and it doesn’t interfere with my functioning (AFAIK).
The jury is apparently still out on whether or not pot is addictive, but I can tell you confidently that I go through pretty obvious withdrawal if I do without for more than about two or three days.
That’s not to say that I’m baked 24/7. I never smoke before 4:20, an arbitrary (and probably stupid) rule that I impose on myself. But when I have the money, I’m baked pretty much every night.
Old friend of mine is a carpenter. He works hard 5 days a week outside building houses in the year round heat on the dry side of the Big Island in Hawaii.
For many years now he’s been addicted to meth. He never eats solid food, it makes him sick. All the calories he consumes come from beer. Its the only thing he can keep down. He is thinner than he should be, but still functions
While those substances are somewhat mood-altering and tobacco at least has other MAJOR health issues, they are generally not judgement/emotion impairing nor do they cause life-threatening withdrawal syndromes. One functions fine while under their influence.
I had a boss who would sometimes be warned that he’d left a white moustache in one of his visits to the bathroom.
Whether behavior such as:
insulting subordinates who got sick
assaulting a subordinate who’d just come out of the hospital after being kept there for a week due to gastrenteritis (the subordinate turned out to be a former international wrestler; he proceeded to explain the subtle differences between different standard holds),
leading the majority of the male consultants during several hours of clowning around (the head programmer had some choice words to say about that),
forcing people to stay after hours despite having no work for them,
telling me when I got sick that “if you leave, you’re out”,
then begging me to stay (I’d sent in my 15-day notice before leaving)
would have been the same, less bad or worse without the cocaine
is not something I can tell. Can’t say I give a fuck either, mind you.
If we’re including alcohol, well, my uncle used to be a marine merchant captain. His alcohol consumption was normal as far as I could tell when he was on land, including once he left the ships to marry, until some late life events led to him separating from his wife (they still lived in the same house but split it in half for all practical purposes) and jumping into a bottle of vodka.
My Idiot Aunt will tell anybody who listens that she’s never touched alcohol. The first time I heard her make such a declaration was during a family celebration. Her daughter (we’re the same age) looked at me for confirmation that yes, the one who was nuts was Idiot Aunt and not Cousin: Cousin had to drag her mother into bed more than once when we were in our teens. She did hold a job, but I’m not sure how much “functioning” enters into it, since she had it in the first place thanks to her father’s contacts and back-scratching.
Legal drugs; quite a few to maybe a lot. Some are chronic pain sufferers with everything from crushed discs to advanced cancer.
Illegal drugs; probably way more than I am aware of. With the bikes and all I could name a handful of meth-heads and maybe one or two pot smokers who have reached the level of clinical addiction but its not something I ask about or really concern myself with. I just note that “Bob” isn’t someone I want to ride near in a pack.
People who take meds for chronic pain may be physically addicted, but they don’t fit the definition of “drug addiction” if they are using them as prescribed and have no desire to continue taking them if the pain goes away.
As for recreational drug use, everybody knows people who are “functioning” (to various levels) addicts, whether we know it or not.
Over the years, I worked with a number of HCPs who were addicts, whether I knew it at the time or not, and I can guarantee that it will always catch up with you if you live long enough.
