Martin* is a 32-year-old bond trader who has given up the fight. Wide-eyed and looking a bit lost, he slumps back in his chair. “The Street is a nightmare” he sighs, shaking his head. “A living nightmare. Ugly doesn’t begin to describe what goes on there. It’s a piranha tank, but I make a lot of money! And I mean a whole lot. That’s what I’m doing there. I just bought a million dollar condo for cash with change left over, but I have to shoot dope before 9 a.m. to face my morning clients.”
Hal* is a 29-year-old investment banker. As he tells it, his breakfast consists of coffee, a bagel along with two 30 milligram tablets of Oxycontin just to start the day. “I never thought I‘d end up in this situation. Not me. I’ve always been a winner at everything I’ve put my hand to. But the wife is about to divorce me, and I know I’ll lose custody of the kids. I just can’t go on like this.”
Young men like these in their 20s or 30s, wearing designer suits that bespeak six-figure salaries, have been coming to my office for help with Oxycontin, Opana, or heroin addiction since I opened in 2000. There has been a noticeable uptick in the numbers of these men over the past four to five years, which makes me think that the opiate drug epidemic, especially on Wall Street, is ramping up.
