Part of what drove me to leave the SF tech industry was the normalized daily alcohol consumption.
At one startup in SOMA, on my first day the CEO introduced me to the team and pressured me to drink a shot of booze as was the company's tradition. My first group interaction with the entire company (~30 heads) was responding "water" to the CEO's question "so what's you're drink?" asked while standing next to a bar on wheels rolled over for the occasion, which I had to repeat two or three times, when he repeated the question expecting me to cave under pressure.
Utter stupidity, may as well be insisting I smoke a cigarette from my perspective.
I left one software company, in part because they developed apps for pubs and restaurants, and most of the other employees came from a hospitality background and wanted to get wasted each Friday night. That I wanted to a) spend time with my daughter (on alternating weeks) or b) just go home and chill out alone was not acceptable, and my disinterest in the partying culture lead to many cold shoulders at work also. Much younger me had not even considered asking about the 'after-work' culture when interviewing; lesson learned!
The first time I ever did a “keg stand” in my life was not in college, but in my late 30s one week after joining a startup which had kegs in the office.
I believe my previous drug issues were strongly related to the drinking culture at the company I worked for during that time. I am at a point now where if I felt pressured like this I would not shrug it off like I used to, but instead contact HR.
At one startup in SOMA, on my first day the CEO introduced me to the team and pressured me to drink a shot of booze as was the company's tradition. My first group interaction with the entire company (~30 heads) was responding "water" to the CEO's question "so what's you're drink?" asked while standing next to a bar on wheels rolled over for the occasion, which I had to repeat two or three times, when he repeated the question expecting me to cave under pressure.
Utter stupidity, may as well be insisting I smoke a cigarette from my perspective.