[HN Gopher] Zappos CEO's final months describe drug-addicted psy...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Zappos CEO's final months describe drug-addicted psychosis in court
       documents
        
       Author : randycupertino
       Score  : 111 points
       Date   : 2021-10-28 17:37 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.8newsnow.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.8newsnow.com)
        
       | joncrane wrote:
       | Wow. I didn't realize he had died. In early 2018, I came || this
       | close to working for Zappos as a Cloud Architect to get them
       | moved onto AWS. Presumably because Amazon had owned them for
       | several years by then. I wonder what it was like working for
       | Zappos at that time.
        
       | NotSashaShulgin wrote:
       | Dissociatives (e.g., ketamine, nitrous oxide, xenon,
       | phencyclidine, dextromethorphan in cough syrup) are too
       | addictive, too pleasurable, and reliably produce long-lasting
       | delusional states (e.g., as observed in John C. Lilly and Marcia
       | Moore and Tony Hsieh).
       | 
       | It is disturbing to read Marcia Moore's "Journeys Into the Bright
       | World" (http://pdf.textfiles.com/books/journeysbrightworld.pdf)
       | where she recounts that John C. Lilly warned her to stop using
       | ketamine. She died in the woods not long afterward, hypothermia
       | after injecting ketamine, trying to hide her addiction from her
       | family. John C. Lilly himself went clean after decades of
       | delusion, but never fully recovered, mentally.
       | 
       | For a frank summary of the dangers, see D. M. Turner's "The
       | Essential Psychedelic Guide". Before he died in his bathtub
       | (after injecting ketamine), he wrote the following
       | (https://www.ketamine.co.uk/dmturner/index.html):
       | "A major concern regarding safe use of Ketamine is its very high
       | potential for psychological addiction. A fairly large percentage
       | of those who try Ketamine will consume it non-stop until their
       | supply is exhausted. I've seen this in friends I've known for
       | many years who are regular psychedelic users and have never
       | before had problems controlling their drug consumption. And I've
       | seen the lives of several people who developed an addiction to
       | Ketamine take downward turns."            "After about two years
       | of once-per-week Ketamine use I even found that I had developed
       | an addiction. Although it was less severe than what I've
       | described above, it took considerable effort to break the cycle
       | of repeatedly using it, even though I was aware of detrimental
       | effects that it was causing. Since that time I've used Ketamine
       | only occasionally, but find that I must continually exercise a
       | high degree of will power to prevent myself from falling into a
       | pattern of regular use. Amongst those I know who use Ketamine,
       | I've seen very few who can use it in a balanced manner if they
       | have access to it."
       | 
       | So, all the dissociative psychedelics (NMDA receptor antagonists)
       | seem to be bad. They should be avoided.
       | 
       | On the other hand, there are other classes of psychedelics that
       | are unambiguously good: tryptamines (e.g., psilocybin) and
       | phenethylamines (e.g., mescaline). These drugs produce
       | informative, useful, introspective, challenging mental states and
       | are NOT prone to abuse. These are the valuable psychedelics.
        
         | dang wrote:
         | What happened to Lilly? I was always curious about that.
         | 
         | (Side note while I have you: if your real name isn't
         | SashaShulgin can you please email hn@ycombinator.com with a
         | different username we can rename you to? It's distracting to
         | use a username like that if it's communicating the wrong
         | thing.)
        
           | NotSashaShulgin wrote:
           | Sasha and Ann Shulgin famously believed that dissociatives
           | have no safe role in psychedelic therapy:                 "We
           | are strongly prejudiced against psychedelic drugs which cause
           | such mind-body separation, as we are against any drug which
           | causes separation from feelings and emotions. However, we
           | acknowledge that the ketamine state can be highly instructive
           | for researchers trying to understand the functions of the
           | human mind."
           | 
           | Alexander (Sasha) Shulgin passed away in 2014. He is a
           | historical figure. His lab will eventually be an official
           | historical landmark.
           | 
           | Is it really so confusing that I use his nickname as a handle
           | online?
           | 
           | John C. Lilly died of heart failure at age 86 in Los Angeles
           | on September 30, 2001. His remains were cremated.
        
             | dang wrote:
             | I thought he might have had a kid named Sasha and that it
             | might be you. So yeah, I'd say it's confusing - you have to
             | distinguish your own point of view (no doubt entirely clear
             | on the point) from the rest of us who are looking at this
             | with a lot less information and widely varying assumptions.
             | Not everyone knows that he has died, for example.
             | 
             | Re Lilly - sorry for not being clearer - what I'm curious
             | about is that you seemed to imply that at a certain point
             | he was adversely affected by his own use of dissociatives,
             | that it had some profound effect on him, and that he never
             | fully recovered from it. I was curious to hear more about
             | what happened there. I'm not super familiar with his work
             | but I read a bit and found it to be a mixture of
             | penetratingly lucid and completely unintelligible (mostly
             | the latter).
        
               | SashaShulgin wrote:
               | Ok, rename me to NotSashaShulgin if you must.
               | 
               | John C. Lilly's later books are a beautiful example of
               | ketamine delusions and loss of contact with reality.
               | 
               | Quoting Wikipedia:                 In 1974, Lilly's
               | research using various psychoactive drugs led him to
               | believe in the existence of a certain hierarchical group
               | of cosmic entities, the lowest of which he later dubbed
               | Earth Coincidence Control Office (E.C.C.O.) in an
               | autobiography published jointly with his wife Antonietta
               | (often called Toni). Lilly states that "[t]here exists a
               | Cosmic Coincidence Control Center (CCCC) with a Galactic
               | substation called Galactic Coincidence Control (GCC).
               | Within GCC is the Solar System Control Unit (SSCU),
               | within which is the Earth Coincidence Control Office
               | (ECCO)."
               | 
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Lilly
        
         | dimal wrote:
         | I think your generalizations are very wrong. Ketamine may be
         | bad when abused, but when used correctly for depression, it can
         | be extremely effective and good. It changed my life greatly,
         | for the better. And I wouldn't say that psilocybin is
         | unequivocally good either. The worst trip I ever had was on
         | mushrooms. It was extremely traumatic in a way that had lasting
         | effects. It changed my life greatly, for the worse.
        
           | Natsu wrote:
           | So, I'll agree with that but with a caveat, because I have a
           | loved one who was part of a licensed esketamine (s-ketamine)
           | trial. It certainly can pretty much just "turn off" some
           | depression and I've seen it do that (even somehow avoiding
           | problems from accidentally forgetting to take the other meds
           | soon after).
           | 
           | But it can also cause powerful and disturbing psychosis. In
           | our case, I woke up at knife point to someone driven to tears
           | by a psychosis telling them to kill me. I managed to de-
           | escalate that without any harm done, but suffice it to say,
           | caution is strongly advised with such things.
        
         | diegoperini wrote:
         | > NOT prone to abuse
         | 
         | Citation needed.
        
           | nawgz wrote:
           | I picked psilocybin for you.
           | 
           | "Psilocybin is not considered to be addictive nor does it
           | cause compulsive use" - [0]
           | 
           | [0]: https://drugpolicy.org/drug-facts/are-psilocybin-
           | mushrooms-a...
        
             | SashaShulgin wrote:
             | For those too lazy to follow the link:
             | "Psilocybin is not considered to be addictive nor does it
             | cause compulsive use. One reason is that the intense
             | experience, which can be physically and mentally
             | challenging, may cause people using psilocybin to limit
             | their frequency of use."            "Another reason is that
             | the human body quickly builds tolerance to psilocybin, such
             | that people require much higher doses after only a few days
             | of repeated use, making it extremely difficult to have any
             | effect after more than four days of repeated usage."
        
             | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
             | I know people who got fucked up for years due to a single
             | shroom or LSD trip. Some of them got sorted out eventually,
             | others didn't.
        
               | pacoWebConsult wrote:
               | Anecdotally, After my one and only use of Psilocybin
               | where I cried for about 5 hours straight, I did not feel
               | the desire to do it again.
        
               | otikthecessna wrote:
               | For me it was all fun, until i got a paranoia that this
               | mental state will never end. Well it ended - but this
               | couple of hours have been the worst.
        
             | andrewl wrote:
             | You can still be damaged by a drug even if you are not
             | addicted to it.
        
               | nawgz wrote:
               | Yes, but that has nothing to do with drug abuse. That has
               | to do with the fact that it's drugs.
        
         | colinmhayes wrote:
         | > unambiguously good: tryptamines (e.g., psilocybin) and
         | phenethylamines (e.g., mescaline).
         | 
         | My friends uncle died jumping off a building on acid. Not one
         | of the psychedelics you named, but having done all three I
         | certainly think such a drastic action is possible on mushrooms
         | or mescaline. Whether this means they aren't unambiguously good
         | is up for debate I guess.
        
           | jacquesm wrote:
           | Stupid tourists on mushrooms have killed themselves in
           | Amsterdam more than once by defenestration.
        
         | twofornone wrote:
         | >On the other hand, there are other classes of psychedelics
         | that are unambiguously good: tryptamines (e.g., psilocybin) and
         | phenethylamines (e.g., mescaline).
         | 
         | I don't know that I would necessarily classify hallucinogenic
         | psychedelics as unambiguously good. I suspect the potential
         | negative effects are understudied and under reported. Beyond
         | hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (admittedly rare),
         | medium-long term induced psychosis (also probably rare), while
         | users frequently report positive effects both short and long
         | term, there are potentially profound psychological/neurological
         | alterations occurring post use which may not be obviously
         | detrimental. What further complicates the issue is that,
         | because of the strong dependence on existing psychological
         | state (set and setting), its quite possible that a user's
         | culture becomes a significant confounding factor and that some
         | groups of people may in fact be worse off after using some or
         | all such psychedelics.
         | 
         | Personally, a year or two post experience I noticed that
         | certain emotions are more apparent to my perception which
         | honestly I would have preferred to continue ignoring.
         | 
         | I still suspect that for the vast majority of people
         | hallucinogens can be positive but let's not make the mistake of
         | preemptively asserting that they are harmless.
        
           | samat wrote:
           | Would you please elaborate on emotions which are more
           | apparent then before? In email s@samat.me if not in public.
        
         | axtheter wrote:
         | I'm not going to argue with you in general about the dangers of
         | ketamine et al, I have seen it myself. But personally (this is
         | anecdata) I have never had the compulsion to use it like so
         | many others for some reason. Quasi-autism, a very strong
         | internal governor limiting any compulsions <other than
         | work...>, my NON-use of it as a substitute for cocaine like the
         | majority of people... Drugs are only the tools for trying to
         | manage whatever internal psychological processes are driving
         | you to take them and if those processes are too 'strong',
         | people go down the path you speak of. It is not the tool's
         | fault, etc.
         | 
         | I was using K as a temporary vacation from reality aka k-hole.
         | Lovely wonderful experiences and I innately knew it was helping
         | with the depression. The most important factor was the
         | set/setting/almost ritualistic use. And I don't do it anymore,
         | never did it so much like so many other people.... and no
         | compulsion to either. I have been sitting on some MXE for a
         | decade now as well... I am an outlier??
         | 
         | Ritual is an element that is sorely lacking in the majority of
         | westerner's use of psychedelics - it does comes with the
         | ayahuasca package "just because that is what you're supposed to
         | do" aka drugs tourism. But the other stuff... This element of
         | ritual is what I think you're overlooking. Ritual also would
         | have prevented DM Turner from taking ketamine before taking a
         | bath which is a very really bad idea; he was really blatantly
         | ignoring the risk factors for whatever reason.
         | 
         | This reminds me of a psychologist, Mexican I think, who in the
         | 70s IIRC was using datura and other such things in his work
         | helping patients. He's a bit obscure and I haven't found much
         | info (I will hunt down my notes if people insist). So my
         | opinion is that dissociatives have their use, but you really
         | need to know what you are doing which most people do not.
         | Personally, I think salvia is very useful... but I am sort of
         | autistic and there is an Internet theory I came across that
         | only the autistically inclined really take to salvia;
         | neurotypicals can't handle the weirdness at some deep level. I
         | have no proof of this but from what I've read and personally
         | know, of course...
         | 
         | As an aside, I met Ann and Sasha a number of times 20 odd years
         | ago. So I personally find it a bit irksome you're using such a
         | handle. You've agreed to change it which I commend you for...
         | For the newbies who know the name, but not that he's dead, it
         | would be confusing. But you are relaying correct and valuable
         | information, so that is good - except for the wide ranging
         | generalizations ... ;)
        
       | mdoms wrote:
       | This Jennifer "Mimi" Pham seems like a real piece of work. Real
       | scumbag behaviour.
        
         | rexreed wrote:
         | There's a whole lot of fakers and takers in these communities.
         | Lots of people who want to ride on coattails and take what they
         | can but have very little to give.
         | 
         | As they say "it's lonely at the top" so people like to be part
         | of those inner circles and take advantage of those who can.
        
       | dzonga wrote:
       | if you want a thrill, without doing drugs please engage in these
       | hobbies: motorcycles, planes, freediving / cliffdiving and well
       | ultra triathlons etc. rich people like larry ellison take up
       | sailing and buy used fighter jets. the important thing is to
       | realize you need a thrill in your life, something dangerous that
       | makes you kiss death every once in a while, while not dying or
       | frying your brain!!!
        
       | isoskeles wrote:
       | What a tragic end to this man's life. The "personal alarm clock"
       | gets me more than a lot of the other behaviors, as it would be
       | quite alienating and disrespectful to have a friend make such an
       | absurd offer to you.
        
         | max_ wrote:
         | Whats sad is how everyone simply took advantage of him.
        
           | cm2012 wrote:
           | He pushed away people who tried to give him the honest truth
        
             | crate_barre wrote:
             | He wasn't in his right mind for that to be held against
             | him.
        
       | orangepurple wrote:
       | Nitrous oxide abuse is really dangerous
       | 
       | > Hi Everyone,
       | 
       | > I have quite probably taken more Nitrous (at least in Whippit
       | form) than anyone else alive. So I feel compelled to share with
       | all of you - my experience.
       | 
       | Read more: https://www.bluelight.org/xf/threads/nitrous-oxide-
       | experienc...
        
         | tudorw wrote:
         | Glad you're still here to share your (mis)adventures, the
         | streets here are littered with those little silver 'bullets', I
         | thought we had a problem, now I'm just wondering where you
         | live...
        
           | orangepurple wrote:
           | Not the OP; the original poster lives on Vancouver Island,
           | British Columbia
        
       | yevpats wrote:
       | very sad though not new story about addiction and depression.
       | 
       | Here is my comment 10 month ago after reading his book
       | "Delivering Happiness":
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25326510#25326860 . Worth
       | checking out the book in this context - a shadow-story about
       | depression.
        
       | Scoundreller wrote:
       | For those in the EU that 8newsnow blocks:
       | 
       | https://archive.md/ZEG3D
        
       | sergiotapia wrote:
       | I could have sworn the Zappos CEO died after being murdered by
       | his personal assistant in New York. Who am I thinking of?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | randycupertino wrote:
         | I think you're thinking of someone else. The Zappos CEO died in
         | a house fire in New London, CT.
        
         | sokoloff wrote:
         | Probably Fahim Saleh:
         | 
         | https://abcnews.go.com/Business/police-arrest-assistant-tech...
        
         | atombender wrote:
         | Fahim Saleh:
         | 
         | https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/nyregion/dismembered-body...
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahim_Saleh
        
       | NelsonMinar wrote:
       | This picture is sad and disturbing. I also fear something like
       | this could happen to a lot of people in the tech industry. Take
       | care of your friends.
        
       | Xenoamorphous wrote:
       | > Our European visitors are important to us.
       | 
       | > This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the
       | European Economic Area while we work to ensure your data is
       | protected in accordance with applicable EU laws.
       | 
       | I wonder if sites will ever stop lying about this.
        
         | sokoloff wrote:
         | "Important to us, but not profitable to serve."
        
           | jacquesm wrote:
           | No, even profitable, it's just that they can't be bothered to
           | disable their tracking.
        
             | sokoloff wrote:
             | If it was profitable enough to bother, I'm sure they'd do
             | it.
        
             | short12 wrote:
             | If they are an American company with no presence in EU they
             | can blatantly ignore the privacy laws
        
         | gojomo wrote:
         | I wonder if Europe will ever lift its Iron GDPR Curtain to
         | allow its residents to access free-world websites!
        
           | short12 wrote:
           | You can just ignore it if you are not in the EU
        
           | jacquesm wrote:
           | Note that this curtain isn't put in place by the EU, nor that
           | compliance with the GDPR is hard.
        
       | CameronBanga wrote:
       | Tony was probably the smartest person I have ever met. Such a sad
       | and tragic story.
        
       | dwohnitmok wrote:
       | Anybody have a link to the court documents referenced in this
       | news article, because I can't find it in the article itself? (As
       | an aside I really would prefer news articles that are
       | summarizations of other documents to please also provide the
       | original document)
        
         | pseudolus wrote:
         | The case is docketed in Nevada State Court (District Court,
         | County of Clark). A portal for various Nevada courts can be
         | found at:
         | 
         | https://www.clarkcountycourts.us/Portal/Home/WorkspaceMode?p...
         | 
         | Searching is enabled at the bottom of the page. The index
         | number of the case is: A-21-828090-B (the case caption is: Baby
         | Monster LLC, Plaintiff(s) vs. PCVI LLC, Defendant(s)).
         | Unfortunately, you have to register on the site and pay for a
         | copy of the requested documents.
         | 
         | The Daily Mail printed a story with more detail - some of the
         | individuals named in the original post really come off as
         | horrible - in which they've embedded some of the pleadings:
         | 
         | https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10116643/Late-billi...
        
           | dwohnitmok wrote:
           | Awesome, thank you so much! Unfortunate that registration and
           | payment is required for a government portal, but the Daily
           | Mail's embedded images look to have a decent chunk of the
           | arguments there.
        
       | 1024core wrote:
       | If I were close to him, I would have had him kidnapped and put on
       | a remote island, far away from all these leeches.
        
       | narrator wrote:
       | This Zappos article is like the whole catalog of rich people
       | problems in a nutshell: drugs, parasitic relationships, arrests,
       | and dumb accidents.
       | 
       | I know some people who know people who made a lot of money in the
       | 2000s dot com boom. One of them got a "guru" who he paid several
       | thousands of dollars a day to. The "guru" fed him Ayahuasca and
       | people who visited the rich guy at his house said he had removed
       | all furniture from his house, was wearing robes and said he could
       | control the winds with his thoughts.
       | 
       | They often say that there's no one more hopeless than a rich
       | junky. If they have a very large amount of money, they never hit
       | rock bottom until they're dead.
        
         | LurkingPenguin wrote:
         | > This Zappos article is like the whole catalog of rich people
         | problems in a nutshell: drugs, parasitic relationships,
         | arrests, and dumb accidents.
         | 
         | Not all "rich people" have these problems. You just don't tend
         | to hear about the ones who live normal lives.
        
           | 1cvmask wrote:
           | I don't think he was referring to rich "normal" people. The
           | types of problems you can only have if you have a lot of
           | money. Most people can't afford to be on 2 week drug binges.
           | And you probably need a job to pay for your drug habit and
           | most of those jobs like being a forklift operator come with
           | mandatory drug testing.
           | 
           | But if you have 200 million to play with then that is a whole
           | nother ball game.
        
             | crate_barre wrote:
             | Lol, do you how many homeless drug addicts there are? It
             | doesn't take that much money to go off the rails and
             | sustain a habit. Even if you're going broke and can't get
             | the expensive stuff, there's always alcohol which can be
             | had for as little as $1.50 for a 24oz.
        
               | FormerBandmate wrote:
               | Homeless junkies and criminal junkies don't act like
               | Zappos guy did
        
           | Scoundreller wrote:
           | The point being made is that it's hard to get by and be deep
           | in more one of those situations if you're poor.
        
             | Kranar wrote:
             | Poor people don't get deep into drugs, aren't involved in
             | numerous parasitic relationships, don't get arrested or do
             | dumb things? That's only something rich people get deeply
             | involved in?
             | 
             | Of course not, it's just no one cares when a poor person
             | does it. The reason we care about when rich people do it is
             | precisely because we don't expect someone who is rich and
             | seems to have it all to get into these situations, and the
             | reality is that for the most part, they don't.
        
               | Scoundreller wrote:
               | It can get a lot worse when you have the money to enable
               | drug use, have money to be parasitized, have lawyers for
               | any arrest to pay a meaningless fine, or house-arrest on
               | your compound(s) instead of jail time, pay for any
               | accidents and pay to do dumb(er) things.
               | 
               | So yeah, rich people can get wayyyyy deeper in any and
               | all of those than poor people.
               | 
               | A rich person is just a better resourced poor person. I'd
               | argue their quality of life isn't much different except
               | one can buy their way out of any problem while the other
               | has to suffer it directly.
        
         | lapetitejort wrote:
         | Bill Murray said try being rich before being rich and famous.
         | I'm rethinking the rich part.
        
           | nostrademons wrote:
           | Rich is better than famous. Plenty of people are quietly rich
           | and basically just go about their business and live their
           | lives, secure in the knowledge that there's money in the bank
           | if they need it.
           | 
           | There's no such thing as quietly famous. Many of pitfalls of
           | being rich & famous, like greedy enablers and a larger-than-
           | life lifestyle, stem from the "famous" part.
        
             | lapetitejort wrote:
             | The key is to _slowly_ become rich. Tony Hsieh died at 46,
             | around the time most pre-rich people haven 't even made it
             | out of upper middle class. Amass wealth slowly and your
             | poor grifting friends will slowly be replaced with rich
             | friends whose grifts will at least have a chance of return.
        
             | ipaddr wrote:
             | You see many examples of quiet famous people from
             | Letterman, Carson, Conan or most politicians or most actors
             | like Nicole Kidman. The ones making the headlines are a
             | small percentage.
        
         | GDC7 wrote:
         | > They often say that there's no one more hopeless than a rich
         | junky. If they have a very large amount of money, they never
         | hit rock bottom until they're dead.
         | 
         | Why doesn't anyone make the argument of quality vs. quantity
         | when discussing such examplers
         | 
         | 5 years spent as a rich junkie must be worth a lifetime as a
         | 9-5 cubicle worker
        
           | agustif wrote:
           | Tell that to your (non-existent) kids
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | Waterluvian wrote:
           | "5 years spent as a rich junkie must be worth a lifetime as a
           | 9-5 cubicle worker."
           | 
           | This claim demands great evidence.
        
             | manquer wrote:
             | In theory if you value variety of experiences than 5 years
             | as junkie _may_ be better outcome than the a desk job.
             | 
             | Most people don't value variety all that much which is why
             | 9-5 workers are lot more common than perpetual travellers
             | etc.
        
               | WJW wrote:
               | Not saying that your "may" is invalid but in practice I
               | don't think most junkies vary their experience all that
               | much. Getting high/stoned/intoxicated/etc every day does
               | not variety make.
        
               | schnevets wrote:
               | Romantics yearn for a life where the highs are higher and
               | the lows are lower... until they hit that first low.
        
             | GDC7 wrote:
             | I don't think there is a measurement who'd satisfy the
             | requirement of statistical evidence.
             | 
             | Empirically it seems to me that people nowadays are more
             | scared of death than they are euphoric about life.
             | 
             | All sorts of problems happen when this condition presents
             | itself in vast pockets of the population.
             | 
             | The fact that nobody makes a quality vs. quantity analysis
             | is further proof of this
        
             | selimthegrim wrote:
             | John McAfee is not here to testify but I think the last few
             | years of his life are certainly evidence - whether for or
             | against that proposition I'm not sure
        
           | sb057 wrote:
           | Of course, you're assuming that a quality life is measured by
           | the amount of worldly pleasures experienced.
        
         | akudha wrote:
         | I have never tried any drugs/alcohol, but I'm curious about
         | Ayahuasca. Don't know anyone personally who has been through
         | the ceremony, but I've listened to a bunch of interviews, read
         | a bunch of articles about it.
         | 
         | It mostly _seems_ legit, but I have no clue. Anyone here tried
         | it? What was the experience like?
        
           | gojomo wrote:
           | Googling [ayahuasca experience reports] should provide a
           | better mix of writeups (including both rigorously-reported
           | mainstream articles & deep-forum anecdotes) than any number
           | of responses inline here could.
        
           | vincentmarle wrote:
           | If you've never tried any drugs/alcohol then I would strongly
           | recommend not do it. I've tried plenty of drugs but ayahuesca
           | is still something that I would have to think about before
           | trying it.
        
           | jacquesm wrote:
           | I've seen enough intelligent and otherwise reasonable people
           | go down that road and not come back that I would caution you
           | to be very, very wary and to suspect that anybody that
           | invites you to join them in their trips is a lobster looking
           | to pull you down into the pot, not to lift you out of it.
        
           | tudorw wrote:
           | Ayahuasca, hmm, a drug you might choose to use for health
           | reasons in the same way a car accident might re-align your
           | back, it's extremely dangerous to use and anyone who tells
           | you different is probably trying to sell something that
           | cannot be bought.
        
           | captainredbeard wrote:
           | I know someone who, for all practical purposes, destroyed
           | their life after an Ayahuasca trip. He was a VP at a major
           | international company and is now a new age hippie.
        
             | ipaddr wrote:
             | It sounds like he found something and left the rat race.
             | Was his life destroyed?
        
             | InitialLastName wrote:
             | Is he less happy now? A burden for anyone else?
        
           | potatoman22 wrote:
           | Try shrooms or acid before Ayahuasca. DMT is something not to
           | be taken lightly
        
         | weq wrote:
         | lol at the money junkies trying to justify there high over the
         | people who use substances to give them delusions of grandeur.
        
         | jacquesm wrote:
         | > One of them got a "guru" who he paid several thousands of
         | dollars a day to. The "guru" fed him Ayahuasca and people who
         | visited the rich guy at his house said he had removed all
         | furniture from his house, was wearing robes and said he could
         | control the winds with his thoughts.
         | 
         | I think we have this acquaintance in common.
        
         | teakettle42 wrote:
         | > They often say that there's no one more hopeless than a rich
         | junky. If they have a very large amount of money, they never
         | hit rock bottom until they're dead.
         | 
         | She's fortunately still alive, but when I divorced my ex-wife
         | over her substance abuse, she walked away with ~$1M in cash.
         | 
         | It took three years of partying, but she finally ran out of
         | money, hit rock bottom, went to AA, and is actually looking for
         | a job.
         | 
         | It was sad to watch, and infuriating to be forced to be her
         | enabler by the state after she'd already cost me so much. No-
         | fault divorce is a broken system.
        
           | twiddling wrote:
           | "No-fault divorce is a broken system."
           | 
           | Or was it a community property state?
        
             | teakettle42 wrote:
             | It's an "equitable distribution" state; property is divided
             | without regard to marital misconduct or fault.
        
           | jjtheblunt wrote:
           | > No-fault means what?
        
             | specto wrote:
             | I believe they are referring to half of all assets going to
             | your spouse without a prenuptial agreement even if there
             | was a good reason for divorce.
        
               | to11mtm wrote:
               | That's not the same as no-fault divorce though. That's
               | typically a Community Property provision.
        
       | pinewurst wrote:
       | I'm strongly reminded of Howard Hughes, as mentally ill, drug-
       | addicted prisoner of his "staff".
        
         | hacksnewer wrote:
         | You're not far off but the sad thing is that Hughes died 30
         | years later. He died due to malnutrition and for years his
         | various control centers had run operations separate enough from
         | him that he had no clue what was going on sometimes, but he
         | still was running much of his empire in that penthouse up to
         | the early 70s.
         | 
         | Hughes was a direct part of Watergate.
        
         | s5300 wrote:
         | Howard Hughes had severe allodynia in an age in which there was
         | no real medical treatment for it
         | 
         | Still, to this day, there is no amazing treatment for it.
         | Especially because there are more than a few not well
         | understood causes of it. Some medications work well for some,
         | but not at all for others.
         | 
         | Hughes was, by all accounts, essentially a prisoner of his
         | unrelenting misfiring nervous system. I think he lived out his
         | final years with it in a fairly reasonable way.
         | 
         | Speaking as somebody with a moderate case of allodynia caused
         | by a functional musculoskeletal condition, if my case was a bit
         | worse, with no hope for treatment in sight, and I was loaded
         | like he was - I too would likely spend my time in isolation and
         | on a _lot_ of drugs, really anything that would relieve the
         | sensory pain, no matter how cognitively impaired it may make
         | me.
        
           | Scoundreller wrote:
           | For some of us:
           | 
           | allodynia: "Allodynia is a type of neuropathic pain (nerve
           | pain). People with allodynia are extremely sensitive to
           | touch. Things that don't usually cause pain can be very
           | painful. These may include cold temperatures, brushing hair
           | or wearing a cotton t-shirt. Allodynia can result from
           | several conditions."
           | 
           | https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/21570-allodyn.
           | ..
        
           | pinewurst wrote:
           | From the biographies I've read, it sounded like OCD was at
           | the center - not dismissing persistent pain originating in
           | multiple airplane crashes...
        
           | walrus01 wrote:
           | There are also a number of credible reports that Hughes had
           | severely screwed up his lower back, spine and tendons,
           | ligaments and musculature in earlier airplane crashes. Never
           | properly treated, and medicated over the years with
           | increasing amounts of self-administered drugs of his choice.
        
             | jacquesm wrote:
             | There was at least one crash that he simply shouldn't have
             | walked away from.
             | 
             | https://www.latimes.com/visuals/photography/la-me-fw-
             | archive...
        
       | ebanana wrote:
       | clearly struggling with extreme depression. like i get it, it is
       | good to produce products and build a better life for us all. but
       | there are unaddressed societal issues that cause this type of
       | outcome
        
       | nobrains wrote:
       | ketamine seems lately to my very common in drug and addiction
       | related cases, including deaths.
        
       | Scoundreller wrote:
       | > According to friends, Hsieh used "as many as 50 cartridges of
       | nitrous oxide a day, often in public, or during 'meetings' with
       | people
       | 
       | I mean, it's a lot, but I'm surprised it's not higher. Each
       | cartridge yields a minute, maybe two, of intoxication before a
       | quick return to baseline.
       | 
       | Probably less intoxication than hits of ketamine with its half
       | life of 1-2 hours.
       | 
       | But it may have been on top of other substance use. Nitrous use
       | is just very overt.
       | 
       | The chronic nitrous use will make it extremely difficult to
       | maintain adequate vitamin B12 levels. Nitrous is very effective
       | at deactivating it, and diet doesn't have a ton. B12 deficiency
       | has lots of nasty neurological effects:
       | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12_deficiency
       | 
       | Even passive (same room) exposure to nitrous oxide leads to 25%
       | reduced b12 levels.
       | 
       | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17951609/
       | 
       | Who the hell knows what else nitrous is oxidizing away over the
       | long term.
       | 
       | Cartridges often have a little machine oil impurity that will add
       | up when consuming the amount that would be in 1L of whipped cream
       | 50x a day. Hopefully he acquired the good ones.
        
       | AlbertCory wrote:
       | Before he died, there were stories about how he'd tried to
       | single-handedly reinvent downtown Las Vegas (not the Strip). Does
       | anyone know what happened to all that?
        
         | MentallyRetired wrote:
         | More than stories. He put $350m into it and it's still going.
         | https://dtplv.com/
        
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