Tech execs are stressed out. Half are heavy drinkers and 45% take painkillers, a new study says

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 191 points –
Tech execs are stressed out. Half are heavy drinkers and 45% take painkillers, a new study says.
businessinsider.com

High stress and job insecurity have many tech executives turning to alcohol and controlled substances to cope, a new survey says.

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When it's tech execs, they are "stressed out". If this about regular people the title would say they are alcoholics and drug addicts.

And that wouldn't even be inaccurate. You don't take pain killers for stress. If they wanted to manage stress, they would be taking benzos. They are just drug addicts.

You make a good point, but benzos can reduce productivity, which is why a lot of us turn to pain killers. I stay far away from pain killers because they are a really bad trap thats almost impossible to get out of. But like you said, anyone using drugs to cope is also a drug addict. But pretty much all drug addicts are doing it for the same reason, to cope with their life or try to run from their pain. People don't just become drug addicts, there is usually something that pushes them into it (like the stress of their job).

Their “stress” is also bullshit. A rich guy being worried about his pile of gold getting smaller is not the same as a struggling mother worrying about feeding her kids, or a miner worried about a cave-in.

Stress is relative to your own personal conditions. It's not absolute. A tech executive might have a nice house and financial security, but if he's working 80 hours/week under intense pressure to meet some deadline, that's still stressful. Nobody wants to be perceived as a failure at work, even if their personal financial consequences for failure are minimal.

Your argument seems to imply it's impossible to feel stress if you're comfortable in life. Even the poorest Americans can count on access to food, clean running water, electricity, internet, etc. For most of humanity's existence, and still today in some parts of the world, these would be considered enormous luxuries, so anyone with access to them would be seen as extremely comfortable in life. Clearly though, people can still be stressed out despite having access to these sorts of things that most of history would consider luxurious.

Stress is relative, not absolute.

Even the poorest Americans can count on access to food, clean running water, electricity, internet, etc


Millions of Americans can't actually...

The mind is not logical or attached to others suffering. It’s the same stress response.

Yes, but one of them can stop working and live from their pile of gold and the others have to power through their pile of shit.

The stress isn't about money, but having to be responsible for an organization.

I get that it isn't the same as the stress of a poor single mother, but it isn't like there is no stress.