High Finance: An IDD Web Exclusive
Long hours, lots of money and loads of ambition can be a recipe for addiction.
December 21, 2007
The bottom came just as a career was reaching new highs.
The problem was that ‘John’ was reaching new highs, too. For the young Wall Street executive, times were good. He had a managing director post at a bulge-bracket bank, the respect of his peers, and more money than he had ever dreamed of.
So he did a little too much drinking. Not the first guy on Wall Street guilty of that. The coke? Well, he thought he could control it. The second divorce? Hey, things happen.
Then came the 30-day jail sentence, which served as a wake up call. A frightening, sobering, and very likely life-saving, wake up call.
****
The United States makes up about 4% of the world’s population, yet we consume more than half of the world’s pain-killing and mood-altering drugs, and two-thirds of the world’s illegal drugs. While no statistics are available on the extent of substance abuse specific to Wall Street, it’s safe to say that the numbers are just as discouraging. Indeed, during the course of conducting more than a dozen interviews for this story, it wasn’t difficult to find folks on the Street who readily admit they drink in excess (often directly related to their work) and partake in the “casual” use of marijuana and cocaine.
In conversations with recovering addicts from the world of high finance, doctors, Wall Street firms and law enforcement officials, it’s clear that the combination of the Street’s lucrative salaries, the required relationship building (often done in bars), and long hours can lead to a greater chance of getting into trouble with narcotics—prescription drugs, in particular—and alcohol. Add to the mix the certain personality type that can be attracted to work in the canyons of lower Manhattan, and you’ve got a recipe for addiction.
That shouldn’t come as a great surprise. After all, there’s no reason why Wall Street, despite its highly educated and career-minded workforce, should be immune to the devastation of alcohol and drug abuse. And the US on the whole is in the midst of a discouraging return to the period when the country was at its drug-consuming worst, according to Joseph Califano, chair and president of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University. (JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, incidentally, is a CASA board member. He declined to be interviewed for this story.)
Califano, author of High Society: How Substance Abuse Ravages America and What to Do About It, says the high point in illegal drug use came back in 1979, when there were about 26 million people using, while usage bottomed out in 1992 when the number fell to 12 million. Today, about 20 million Americans are using drugs illegally, he says.
Clearly, the pace of the Street and the pressure to entertain clients in a testosterone-filled environment are clear factors for abuse. But less obvious is the fact that, for addicts, good times can lead to increased abuse just as often as bad times.
“First use may be due to entitlement,” says Dr. Mark Gold, distinguished professor and acting chairman of the department of psychiatry at the University of Florida College of Medicine and McKnight Brain Institute. “They have the disposable income. They have lives which are often responding to the next crisis. They have access to drugs, drug-using friends, and associates, and they feel that drugs are part of the spectrum of entitlement. Wharton may have prepared them for (Wall Street), but they are not prepared by evolution or experience for cocaine, heroin, or other potent drugs of abuse.”
Good Times, Bad Times
For John, who started his career on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, it wasn’t until the money really started rolling in that things got dicey. Having left the Big Board, he joined one of the largest and most recognizable names on the Street, initially in sales. (The recovering addicts mentioned here spoke freely with IDD, but because of the sensitive nature of this story some names have been changed or excluded.)
For more information on related topics, visit the following:
