Why do all developers that seem to know their stuff drinks, smokes or both? Is it some sort of a trade secret?

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They have seen so much shit that they need some way of coping with it. So they drink, smoke, or do both.

The same problem applies to medics.

The irony... The people who are dedicated to saving lives are slowly killing themselves.

Cause? Stress.

Is there any correlation in your question?

It is like asking why beautiful women or handsome men have sexual intercourse. It is just their preference or addiction

Yet me here, doesn't know her shit. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Some even inject man. Don't discriminate...

Stress and coping with it at some point create habits.

Statistically it seems that intelligence and drug consumption (as well as depressed and sad moods) are strongly correlated.

Maybe it can be a way to handle all that knowledge and being able to retain and contain it in their brain without constantly thinking about all of it..?

My guess would be that the people who enjoy the mental stimulation caused by working with code also tend to enjoy the mental stimulation caused by intoxicants.

Of course this is a blind shot in the dark but with the kind of fuzzy correlation your two presented activities have(coding and intoxicants), this sounds like a decent hypothesis to me.

@alcatraz627 trash ppl inject themselves with junk

In my experience your observation that every good programmer drinks or smokes is not true. There are some obvious external factors like taxes on alcohol and tobacco, general social acceptance, or even habit among colleagues that make this a local phenomenon.

I think it's kind of hard to find someone who does not drink at all in general.

And by that I don't mean being an alcoholic.

@Nanos Stereotype confirmed. I do both and lean heavily left of center. Whiskies mostly: bourbon, scotch and the like. On the bright side, I'm not offended by this stereotype. I embrace its truthiness!

Smoking = oddly unquestioned entitlement to breaks every hour or so when you're at the office. "Was [dev] just on a 30 minute smoke break? I dunno, man. He's gotta smoke. Don't bother him."

Meanwhile, the new guy takes a five minute walk every few hours and everyone loses it.

You have to grind to get skill. That comes with stress. You have to socialize to get paper, comes with alcohol. It's all about exposure, life experience is experience.

Because those things numb the pain of being treated like an idiot by people who don't understand even the most basic aspects of your expertise and having to be OK with it else you won't be paid, repeatedly, over the duration of decades.

Your question reminds me the whiskey I'm sipping would probably go better with a cigarette.

Not much of a trade secret but a coping mechanism

Coping... Maybe.

Stress reduction... Not really. Intoxication mostly increases stress, more likely the reward center emitting some funky hormones.

Everybody does drugs. In one or another way.

Let's see: Caffeine, Alcohol, Sugar, Stimulants, THC, ...

Tea contains caffeine btw.

It's not impossible, but very unlikely that a person does not do drugs.

When you tear apart a meal, you'll find several ingredients which can be seen as drugs, too.

Capsaicin, the alkaloid which makes things spicy / hot, induces pain - releasing eg endorphines... Hence the reason some people are fixated on eating unhealthy amounts to get a small high ;)

Complex carbohydrates seemingly play a role why we love things like chips / fries / bread and so on.

Unless you are 7 of 9 and your meals consist of nutritious jelly, it's most likely you do unwillingly drugs.

@IntrusionCM depends on your definition of drugs :)

Judging by your comment, anything is a drug (microminerals are practically in any food you can think of! and they are used in medicine to save lives)

@netikras that's the point. :)

Most people have a very narrow view / perspective on drugs.

It's everybodies choice, and I'm not a health advocate (which would be a
paradoxon in itself btw).

Just saying that everything can be seen as a drug or as "addictive".

So far I haven't met a person who did not have either an coping mechanism or an addiction... :)

@IntrusionCM

> Just saying that everything can be seen as a drug or as "addictive"

That's scientifically inaccurate, though. Addiction is a completely separate topic.

@junon Scientifically... Hm, not really sure what you mean.

The term drugs doesn't imply food either, or anything with nutritional value.

Hence: FDA - Food Drug Administration

But when something is addictive, it usually has an direct / indirect influence on your reward center, which emits hormones.

I said addictive - not addiction.

@IntrusionCM Not everything is addictive. In fact, there's a very small amount of things that are addictive.

It's a bi-product of depression and anxiety.

You do not need substance abuse to be a great developer!!!

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