Junior Wall Street bankers are swapping cocaine for focus-enhancing ADHD drugs and nicotine pouches in an effort to “get an edge” during the long hours, insiders say.
Jonah Frey, a former investment banker for Wells Fargo, told the Wall Street Journal that Adderall and Vyvanse are becoming increasingly common in the financial world to help ambitious newcomers get through 90-hour work weeks.
He claimed that a colleague “sometimes sniffed lines of crushed Adderall pills from his desk in the bullpen,” a common area for young bankers, and that “no one blinked.”
Frey said he also received a prescription from an online health care company for Adderall, an amphetamine used to treat narcolepsy and ADHD, or illegally as a performance enhancer, to cope with the long hours.
He told the outlet that it was not unusual for workdays at the San Francisco office to start at 4 a.m. to connect with customers on the East Coast and end around 2 a.m. the next day.
“I felt like I had to have an edge to make it,” he said, adding that he had come to believe the seven-figure salary outweighed the “downside risks.”
Frey ultimately resigned in 2022 and gave up his drug addiction, but said it took a month to get over the withdrawals, suffered from cold sweats and insomnia as he relearned “the basics of how to operate as a human being” and went back to business school.
The 2013 film Wolf of Wall Street depicted the excesses of working as a top stockbroker
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Jonah Frey said Wells Fargo staff could come in at 4 a.m. and work until about 2 a.m. the next day
Mr. Frey was not alone in his claims about the long hours and high demands of Wall Street jobs, and the more recent turn to prescription drugs.
Trevor Lunsford, a banker for Ascend Capital, told the WSJ that staff at the Washington DC office could “regularly” expect a 20- to 22-hour workday a few times a week.
He said he had been taking Adderall for seven years to manage the intense environment.
Lunsford added that the hours were “something I wouldn’t have been able to participate in, be focused and be quick with decisions if I hadn’t been able to take Adderall.”
Adderall is a lifeline for those suffering from narcolepsy and ADHD, helping to recalibrate focus and increase concentration levels by stimulating the nervous system.
But there are risks associated with long-term use of the drug, and dangers when healthy people use it illegally as a performance enhancer.
Students have long used the drug to direct their attention during long periods of revision.
Studies show that the drug helps with memory, self-regulation and executive functions in people with ADHD, but has ‘little impact’ on performance in healthy users.
Last year, 29-year-old Michael Bloom, who worked at the Royal Bank of Canada in New York, died from the combined effects of fentanyl and ethanol. A superior had expressed concerns about the Adderall he was taking to get through the day
The number of Adderall prescriptions has steadily increased over the past twelve years. The figures include prescriptions for both Adderall, branded and generic, in the US
Mark Moran, a former intern at Credit Suisse in New York, said he started using the drug to maintain his focus while working 90 hours a week.
It was colleagues who told him he could get a prescription after filling out a short questionnaire and speaking to a doctor at a Wall Street health clinic, he said.
Despite the fact that a psychologist in the family didn’t think he had ADHD, “the clinic gave me a script and within months I was hooked,” he said.
Mark initially reported some positive effects: he was able to work for hours and remained interested in the subject.
The pills can make even the most mundane tasks seem interesting by increasing levels of dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain.
The problem, Mr. Moran said, was that “you become dependent on it to work.”
Mr. Moran switched to Vyvanse, another stimulant drug used to treat ADHD, and slowly increased his dosage as he became more tolerant to the drug.
A doctor reportedly offered to prescribe it along with Adderall, which he declined.
The number of Adderall prescriptions given to age groups per year. Graph shows young people under 21 (light green), 22 to 44 year olds (light blue) and people over 45 (dark blue)
He said he started having palpitations as his body strained under the high dose of medication and the long hours, working until 5 a.m. in New York and back at the office at Centerview Partners by 9 a.m.
The 33-year-old has since left and runs his own investor relations company.
Others reportedly used Zyn – a nicotine pouch – for excess or blended energy drinks with extra-strength 5-hour energy shots to stay awake and focused, which put significant strain on their hearts.
The amount of caffeine was equivalent to five cups of coffee in one sitting, the WSJ reports.
Reports of high levels of stress and health problems have raised real concerns about the long hours and high demands on Wall Street.
Last year, 29-year-old Michael Bloom, who worked at the Royal Bank of Canada in New York, died from the combined effects of fentanyl and ethanol, it was ruled.
A person close to Mr. Bloom said a superior had raised concerns about him taking Adderall to manage his workload, something Mr. Bloom reportedly dismissed, saying he needed them to focus .
The DEA has warned that Adderall specifically could become the next opioid epidemic, given the rising number of new prescriptions and potential for abuse.
Elijah Hanson (pictured), 21, died by suicide in June. He had been struggling with psychological problems for years. His family said a recent Adderall prescription he received through Cerebral played a role in his death
A head of the Drug Enforcement Administration compared the influx of new prescriptions and the high risk of abuse to that of opioids in the early to mid-2000s.
The drugs have been linked to insomnia, anxiety, seizures, hallucinations and psychosis – and there is evidence they may increase the risk of heart disease.
Matthew Strait, deputy assistant administrator in the diversion control division at the DEA, said, “I’m not trying to be a doomsayer here… It makes me feel like we’re on the precipice of our next drug crisis in the United States.” ‘
Prescriptions exploded during the pandemic with the rise of telehealth companies – with prescriptions rising from 35.5 million in 2019 to 45 million last year.
Wells Fargo declined to comment.