I once knew an alcoholic who made good money.
Not that he took much of it home with him.
He had, by means of connections, landed a cushy job in a major high tech monopoly. He'd cash in every stock option and spend it on booze and bimbos. He had a Corvette and a Camaro. His wife and kids were in rags, and subsisted on peanut butter sandwiches, until the wife hauled him into court and got part of his paycheck redirected to her.
Eventually he drank and smoked himself to death. He never saw his 60th birthday. He didn't leave much of an estate. There were no lasting accomplishments of any positive sort. Everything he still owned was in a state of decrepitude. He lived only for himself, and when himself was gone, there was nothing left to mark the fact that he had ever lived, short of a few bitter relatives who would have preferred he hadn't. There was only one sincere mourner at the funeral, a person of transitional gender who had once been his drinking buddy, back before the hormone shots.
Oh, and the monopoly from which he benefitted no longer exists. Eroded to nothing by antitrust action.
Whenever I try to imagine the sort of people that work for Microsoft, I keep seeing this guy.
But this guy was something of an exception. Most of the alcoholics I've known, and I've known a lot of them, don't manage to land such cushy jobs. They drink themselves to death, but it's the cheaper stuff.
