ADDICTIONS

The Dark Side Of The Boom

At first glance, Tim, 33, seems like any dot-com drone, putting in long
hours and pulling down big bucks building Web sites for an Internet
business. Recently, he worked three 30-hour stints in a single week.

But it's not just six figures and stock options that keep Tim going. When
his workload gets overwhelming, Tim cranks up on methamphetamine, sometimes
for weeks at a stretch. "I go home late, have a bite, crash for a few
hours, and go back," he says. "Then I take the weekends off and just sleep."

The tech world's wired work habit rivals the cocaine craze that swept
stock-trading circles in the 1980s. A growing number of tech workers have
serious drug problems­stimulants such as meth and cocaine, mostly­and the
trend may be worsening, along with the sector's economic fortunes.

Help menu. "The way companies are folding right now, it's do or die," says
an executive at a Silicon Valley start-up who is herself a recovering
cocaine addict. "We're working our engineers around the clock­and it's not
coffee that's keeping them up." And even when workers lose their jobs, some
keep their drug habits, says Dr. Alex Stalcup, medical director of the New
Leaf Treatment Center in Concord, Calif., where dozens of digital-economy
workers check in every month. "It goes from 'I need drugs to stay awake' to
'Life sucks;I want to get high.' " Drug treatment professionals report that
tech workers, a type they rarely saw, now form a growing part of their
clientele. One company, e-getgoing.com, is even developing an online drug
treatment program targeting dot-com addicts.

There aren't yet any major studies showing whether drug use is more
prevalent among tech workers than other professionals. But high-tech meccas
are becoming drug bazaars. Police seizures of meth have soared in the
Silicon Valley area in recent years. In Durham, one corner of North
Carolina's Research Triangle, police confiscations of cocaine have doubled
in the past two years, and meth seizures went from zero to 6.4 pounds.

The long hours, high pay, and young staff make the tech world fertile
breeding ground for drug abuse. Its freewheeling atmosphere makes getting
high at work easy. Few dot coms test employees for drugs. On-the-job drug
use is particularly risk free for the many programmers who work from home
or at odd hours. "I have clients who go in at midnight, do coke, and work
until 6 a.m.," says Dr. Arnold Washton, a New York-based addiction
psychologist who treats many tech professionals. As anxiety replaces
arrogance in growing numbers of tech workers, those drug-fueled midnight
shifts may be getting busier.