1776Reporting
Wall Street’s relentless grind is pushing young bankers to their mental and physical limits. To keep up with grueling workdays that sometimes stretch as long as 22 hours, many are turning to prescription stimulants like Adderall and Vyvanse—and no one seems surprised.
“Nobody blinked an eye,” a young banker told The Wall Street Journal, describing colleagues openly using Adderall as if it were a cup of coffee or even cocaine. The drug, meant for treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), has quietly become a crutch for many striving to get ahead in finance. Energy drinks with caffeine levels off the charts are another common go-to.
Take Mark Moran’s story, for example. At 33, Moran recalled his early days as an intern at Credit Suisse in New York. The pressure was immense. To survive 90-hour weeks, he visited a health clinic and got an Adderall prescription, even though a psychologist in his own family didn’t believe he had ADHD.
“They gave me a script, and within months, I was hooked,” Moran told The Journal. “You become dependent on it to work.”
The costs of such extreme work culture are devastating. Earlier this year, the tragic death of Leo Lukenas III, a 35-year-old Bank of America investment banker, raised alarms. Lukenas, a former Green Beret, died of acute coronary artery thrombus after routinely logging 100-hour work weeks to finalize a $2 billion deal.
This incident prompted scrutiny into Wall Street’s treatment of employees. A follow-up investigation by The Wall Street Journal revealed that Bank of America often ignored its own guidelines, which were supposed to prevent workers from enduring dangerously excessive hours. The fallout was enough to push companies like Morgan Stanley to cap junior bankers’ schedules at a still-exhausting 80 hours per week.
Yet, despite these reforms, stimulants remain deeply ingrained in the culture. Dozens of bankers, from entry-level associates to senior analysts, admitted to leaning on pills to sustain the pace. Trevor Lunsford, a mergers and acquisitions banker at Ascend Capital, didn’t mince words about his reliance.
“It’s a very core, integral component of my life,” Lunsford said. “It’s something that is a very, very important tool.”
For Lunsford, business trips epitomized the grind. Flying from DC to Denver, he recalled weeks spent waking up at 6 a.m., catching multiple connecting flights, then heading straight into meetings that lasted for hours.
“For a couple of days of the week, it was very regularly a 20- to 22-hour day,” he shared. “That’s something that I would not have been able to be on for, be focused and be quick with decisions, if I wasn’t able to take Adderall.”
Jonah Frey, another investment banker, knows this all too well. Working in health care banking at Wells Fargo in San Francisco during 2020, his days often started at 4 a.m. and didn’t end until 2 a.m. When he joined Leerink Partners in 2021, the pressure intensified, and his workload nearly tripled.
“That’s when things started to go south,” Frey admitted.
To cope, Frey began increasing his dosage. What started as a twice-daily pill for weekdays soon stretched to seven days a week. “I was working most weekends,” he said. The side effects became undeniable. Frey lost his appetite, dropped 25 pounds, and struggled to keep track of time.
“I went in understanding the downside risks,” he said. “But the reward was making managing director and pulling in a seven-figure salary. I felt that I had to have an edge to make it.”
By 2022, Frey hit a breaking point. He quit his job and gave up Adderall. Still, his story reflects a troubling reality for many young professionals striving for success in finance.
The unrelenting pressure to meet deadlines and deliver results continues to take a toll. And while reforms have been made, the question remains: How much is too much?
Representatives from Credit Suisse and Leerink Partners declined to comment on these allegations, while Wells Fargo and Ascend Capital also offered no statements.
Wall Street’s culture of overwork remains an open secret. The human cost, however, grows harder to ignore.
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