On Stims
From Blind Spots: A Riches to Rags Story — Chapter VI
“There is no glamour and glitz in running a fund in the early years. It's no different than any other bootstrapped start-up. Wake up, work like a dog, stop to look at the clock, see that it's 1:00 in the morning and realize that you still haven't gotten started on the boring stuff.
Each day felt like I had seventy-two hours of work and only twenty-four hours to do it. That meant sleep was the first thing to go.
I clearly needed to hire. My inbox was full of resumes, but this was my dream and I didn't want to cede an ounce of control. Given the choice of putting $250,000 into my best ideas or using it to pay an analyst and a COO, I went with the former every time. Instead of hiring employees, like someone with a brain would do, I hired Adderall, espresso and cigarettes to assist in handling the Herculean, or better yet, Sisyphean workload.
This is how stimulant abuse sneaks up on you. I worked desk jobs for a decade and took 20 to 60 milligrams of Adderall each day. You're on stims from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., you go home, smoke a bowl, have a drink, go to bed and do it again the next day. As an entrepreneur working from home, there is no official end to the workday. I'd work 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and run out of energy, but still have six hours of work that had to get done that evening. Thus, another 20 mg enters the bloodstream, either orangepilling you out of your ability to get a full night of restorative sleep or leading to an outright all-nighter. It's a slippery slope.
I took stimulants as prescribed for close to fifteen years, with zero abuse. But entrepreneurship brings out your flaws, and while pressure is a privilege, pressure is also what shines a light on the cracks in your foundation. Turns out my foundation was fucked up. It's easy for us to recognize blind spots like these in other people, yet it's very difficult to recognize them in ourselves until it's too late.”
Stay clean,
GB
