Are you an academic who has taken drugs to keep up with work?
There is concern about the pressures faced by professors as one in five take drugs to help them with work, according to a Cambridge academic.
Dr Hannah Critchlow, a neuroscientist, said that academics were increasingly using medication which was meant for Alzheimer’s patients, narcoleptics or children with ADHD.
No. Well, unless alcohol counts. Then YES! Lots of cold, refreshing "drugs"...
ReplyDeleteNo, but I do sometimes bang my head against my desk until I am too dizzy to care about my job.
ReplyDeleteI learned fairly early in college that massive doses of caffeine (which were then available in the form of No Doz rather than Red Bull) significantly increased my ability to stare wide-eyed at a blank wall for extended periods in the wee hours, but didn't do much for my actual productivity. I never tried anything stronger (or less legal), which is probably a good thing, since cocaine was the stimulant of choice, at least for those who could afford it (which didn't include me or any of my friends) during my college years. One of my sophomore-year dorm mates dropped dead of a heart attack on the street corner outside the dorm, reportedly thanks at least in part to taking such measures. I developed,and maintain, a very mild caffeine habit (tea and sometimes coke, of the fizzy liquid sort), but that's about it.
ReplyDeleteThese days, ice cream is my main consumable coping habit. Well, that and remembering that there are some advantages to not having a tenure-track job.
no, but I eat badly when stressed and gained weight.
ReplyDeleteCoffee in the morning, red wine in the evening. Is that a problem? I don't think it's a problem.
ReplyDeleteMy experience with stimulants was like CC's. Lots of caffeine. I think amphetamines would have been quite useful at times--and I probably would have finished the PhD years sooner--but those pills would have taken a toll that I was afraid to pay.
ReplyDeleteThe bourbon has for many years--off and on-- helped me endure fucktard colleagues (faculty and administrators), sometimes by deadening the pain and sometimes by releasing inhibitions and making things more enjoyable.
In grad school and for a little while after, I also used hallucinogens to explore beyond the doors of perception. It was a different kind of education. Sometimes painful, sometimes amazing beyond words. I don't regret it. And I don't know whether or not I'll ever do anything like that again.
Amphetamines were fairly popular and easily available when I was in college in the 70s. (I never felt the need, myself, but plenty of other people seemed to.) The story was that the health center would provide them on request, to keep people from relying on the street versions that were less pure and more dangerous. The other, and more admonitory, stories were of people who went into final exams so completely under the influence that all they could do was write their own name over and over in their blue book.
ReplyDeleteNot me, as I said. Forty years later, I still don't have much of a head for alcohol, and other intoxicants have simply never appealed to me. Besides, the work I do now—copyediting and proofreading—requires close attention to detail; anything stronger than caffeine would be counterproductive.
Coffee & chocolate are an elegant sufficiency most semesters / projects.
ReplyDeleteA can of coca-cola signifies things are not going well. 2 - 3 times a year, maybe?
I think Coke's stock price dropped when I left school.
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