LordAtlas on June 5, next [β]. I have a few friends who work in restaurants not Michelin-starred ones , and something I found peculiar is that pretty much all of them seem to be using hard drugs and consume excessive amounts of alcohol on the regular. I worked in fine-dining for several years before reaching a point where I had to make a choice to sacrifice everything for my dream, or take care of myself and give up on the dream. I saw many things that contribute to the rampant alcohol and drug abuse.
You work obscene hours. Also, you're only getting payed around 35k a year with minimal benefits, although this is changing somewhat in the last few years. Drugs and alcohol are just kinda needed by most people to cope with the stress. You work odd hours. Most fine-dining restaurants close around 11 pm, which means you'd get out somewhere between midnight and 1 am. There's nothing else to do when you get out besides go to another bar or restaurant and get wasted.
You're surrounded by it. This is one of the most important ones in my opinion. When I worked in restaurants, it was very common for wine vendors to pop in during our prep periods and say something like, "Hey, we just got a special shipment of wine from this fancy place in Italy.
Here's the pricing and a free sample bottle for you guys to try out! A lot of what prevents me from drinking is that I'm just lazy and it's expensive, but if someone is going to bring me booze for free to me on a regular basis, you better believe I'll be getting drunk on a regular basis too.
The people it draws. Restaurants are known for being pretty lax when it comes to background checks so it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone when you get people who have more clandestine backgrounds. I'm not sure, but I think this might be be regional. I worked as a chef doing fine dining for like two catered dinners, and it was actually the hardest physical labour I've ever done in a long time, but it was also immensely fun.
