Drug

Hey guys, I wanted to share my story with the community for inspiration and encouragement. I simplified it as much as possible but it's still pretty long. I hope you enjoy and get something out of it. Happy to answer questions. I grew up middle to upper-middle class in a small town in the US. There were some issues in my family— divorce, mental illness, etc, but they are good people and I don’t blame them for anything that happened. In school I was “gifted” and got good test scores but never was a great student. I struggled to pay attention and always preferred messing around with my friends and playing video games to studying. I loved computers and technology but never really had a direction. This lack of work ethic would come back to bite me later on. I did the absolute minimum to apply for colleges but ended up getting into a state university because my teachers and parents pushed me (thanks guys). Around this time I started smoking weed and I loved it. It coincided with me moving away from home, so I could get away with smoking all the time. It was just weed in college after all. Harmless, right? Soon I was smoking multiple times a day and partying on the weekends, not taking school seriously at all. I didn’t even declare a major. I started dabbling in other stuff— Adderall to study, ecstasy and acid at an EDM show, Xanax or Vicodin to chill out. People would express concern about my behavior but I was in denial. My life started falling apart. I flunked out of school. I was always high, always broke, relationships falling apart from my shitty behavior, working shitty jobs to buy drugs first and then pay rent if there was money left over. At some point I got introduced to heroin and that was the beginning of the end. I descended really quickly into full-blown addiction. I completely destroyed my life, did terrible things to people I cared about. I got a really nasty spine injury while intoxicated and still have the side effects. At one point I almost died from an overdose. I only survived because someone found me in the bathroom. I woke up in an ambulance. I was totally broken as a person, facing homelessness, living off food stamps. It was by far the worst time of my life and I won’t say any more about it. Eventually I asked for help and spent a year bouncing in and out of treatment, community support groups, etc and eventually managed to get sober. Happy to go more in depth on how I did it but it was a lot of work as well as help from other people in my life. I reached out to the school I flunked out of and ended up talking to a dean. I told him my story and he helped me get back in. I was broke but loans, grants, and cheap in-state tuition came through for me. At one point I had three part-time jobs in addition to my classes. I picked engineering since I could get a 4-year degree and start making money right away, but switched to computer science because it was fun and I couldn’t get into the engineering program due to my shit GPA. I am very, very glad I switched to CS. It was hard trying to stay sober and go to school and work and learn how to program in my mid-20s. At one point I slipped up and relapsed, but I again reached out to the people around me for help and got back on track. I was fat and lonely and wanted to date, so I started working on my fitness, learning to dress better, putting myself out there on dating apps— these are other things I’m very glad I did. All this shit sucked and I was unhappy but I kept going. It’s not like I had a better option. My classes were hard but I kept trying and gradually built up my work ethic. Through persistent effort I started to do well in school for the first time. I was making friends, I lost weight and found some sports I really enjoyed, and I was even going on dates. Eventually I went to a career fair and found out you were supposed to get an internship. What? I applied for a few and got demolished in the single interview I had. I took classes over the summer instead. The next year I went to the career fair and went to literally every table. I failed the interviews cause I still didn’t know what I was doing but I followed up via email on my prospects and found a program where someone had dropped out and they needed a replacement. Nice! This was my big break. They hired me with almost no interview. I was absolutely terrible in my internship, working with kids way younger than me who somehow were way smarter than me, but I kept showing up. I built relationships with my coworkers and they let me work part-time during the school year and full-time in the summer my last two years of school. Not because I was some bright shining talent but because I showed up reliably and was pleasant to be around. I was never any good but I learned a lot and earned enough money to stop taking out loans (huge win). The fall before my graduation I knew a lot more about the job market and what interviews were like. I got a book on coding interview prep and practiced as much as I could. I went to every job fair and found every new grad hiring program I could online. I applied and got a ton of rejections— but also a ton of interviews. I ended up graduating with 8 job offers. Most of them were for smaller companies in my state but one of them was at a big coastal tech company with comp in the mid six figures. I seriously could not believe it and accepted. Life has been fantastic since then. I’m over five years sober from drugs and booze and engaged to be married to a great person (and a doctor!) I have a job I enjoy that can be challenging and stressful but is ultimately very rewarding. I work on cool technology with people I respect and learn from. I like where I am but I keep my skills sharp in case the time comes for me to move to a different company. I never would have thought I would have this lifestyle or earn this kind of money— more than any of my friends or family and I’m still very early in my career. One thing I absolutely cannot forget is that every day is a choice to keep working and doing what I need to do to keep my life on track. It would be so easy to fuck it up and go back to where I was. Lessons learned: ​ 1. Fix your problems. If you have something wrong in your life, mental illness, toxic relationship, addiction, family issues, whatever, get it under control however you can. Sometimes that means separating yourself from people that are messing your life up. Once your life is in order, everything else will fall into place. 2. Do whatever it takes. I had to desperately seek recovery to get and stay sober. It had to be my top priority and I barely made it. But I did it. When I applied this to other parts of my life such as fitness and my career, those took off as well. Learn computer science fundamentals (data structures and algorithms). Practice coding problems— they will make you smarter and the best jobs will test your knowledge in interviews. I’ve seen people on this sub make all kinds of excuses why they don’t do this, but let’s be honest, it’s just laziness. You can do it. Keep working at it until you get where you want to be. We have it easier than pretty much any other profession. 3. Be a three-dimensional person. Take care of your body— it’s meant to move and not to sit in front of a screen all day. If you’re overweight, learn how calories work and fix it. Find hobbies you can get into and relate to other people about. Video games don’t count. Pick something interesting. Side projects are fine but you need to have a life outside of tech. I have made a lot of friends through my hobbies. Learn to present yourself well. Dress well, practice good hygiene, develop social skills. Don’t be a stereotypical smelly weirdo nerd. All of this is learnable. I was a fucking creature when I first got sober and now I am a well-rounded member of society. edit: An addition to this one is pick a high-quality news source such as New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist and pay for a subscription. Keep up to date on what's going on in your country and the world so you can talk to others and be part of it. Learn to differentiate between news, opinion pieces, and toxic bullshit that gets shared on social media. Having a political opinion is good but stay away from extremes. 4. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. I was poisoned by self-pity but the truth is, life is hard and unfair. No one is going to fix your problems for you. And yes, some people are born lucky and everything just falls into their laps. If you want to have a great life you need to go out and build it piece by piece. Let go of your entitled bullshit and accept that you’re going to have to struggle and do things you don’t want to in order to grow and be happy. 5. Drugs and booze and other vices— many people are able to do these things occasionally and function fine. I am not one of them. You need to be honest with yourself about this. If you go to a party once every few weeks, you’re probably ok. If you’re smoking weed every day, sorry to tell you but you might have a drug problem. Cut that shit out. It will only hold you back. If you are an addict like me the only option is to stop completely. Resources are out there to help you stop. 6. Don’t live in the past— I can never take back all the pain I caused, the bad choices I made, the injury I got. All I can do is try to make it right and do my best to do better going forward. 7. Anything is possible. I quit heroin and came back from death. I am a mediocre engineer but very successful because I keep trying. You don’t have to be born special to kick ass, it just takes hustle. TLDR: Started doing drugs, stopped with enormous difficulty, went to school, hustled hard, got a great job