Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by MuffinFlavored 2314 days ago
How do you successfully co-found a massive hit while being addicted to heroin?
5 comments

One of the best sales people i've ever worked with I found out two years in that he was a daily heroin user

Most people think of the homeless or bums when they think of heroin addiction but there are a lot of very functioning addicts out there in the corporate world

According to some acquaintances, heroin is apparently a really good drug for "crank through enormous backlog" type work.

The problems are 1) heroin is highly addictive and has an absolutely ferocious withdrawal and 2) heroin is really easy to overdose.

So, as long as you keep the heroin going, you're "good". The problems all start when the heroin stops.

By having a steady reliable supply of heroin.
It's called high-functioning addiction and there are tens of millions of such people (mostly addicted to alcohol).
Or benzodiazepines and prescription painkillers. People switch to heroin when they run out of money.
I had heard high functioning is a misnomer. They may have one area of focus they can succeed under some definition, but the overall quality of life and relationships is very poor.
My understanding was that "high functioning" is relative to what is essentially "non functioning", where the person is unable to keep up even the semblance of a normal life.
Yes yes... But not anywhere near normal functioning.
Must be the alcoholics hitting the down arrow :P Here is a great article https://www.nytimes.com./2009/05/05/health/05brod.html ...
Having employees doing the bulk of the work helps, I'm sure.