@TraversyMedia
Incredible video brother. I love hearing stories like this. I have seen drugs and alcohol take so many friends and family members. They almost took my life as well. I love seeing people beat the shit out of their addictions and come out on the other side. Thanks for sharing and being so transparent.
@meltygear5955
I'm a 42 year old junior engineer and you've been a beacon of inspiration through and through. Thank you for sharing your story.
@joshpayne2600
What a phenomenal video man. God bless you for your openness. There are so many out there that benefit from you sharing your story, myself included.
@ThatManFromGermany
You radiate so much positive energy in your videos and streams and now we all know why. 🙂 Thank you for that!
@InnsmouthAdmiral
It's crazy how people with the most tragic backgrounds become very positive people that help thousands of other people. You and Brad Traversy both dealt with addiction and became success stories through hard work and dedication. These human stories help a lot of people.
@MrDaoJones
This got me pumped. I'm a 43 year old. My parents mostly left me alone, they weren't horrible, but I didn't have a lot of guidance. I'm artistic... I've always been into art and music. They always said I should go to college, that I need something to fall back on, etc. I went to art school and sort of just failed at that for years because of a lack of instilled discipline and drive. Eventually I got expelled and joined the military because I didn't know what else to do. I ended up using the GI Bill to go to school for IT because I needed the money for housing allowance. I got a help desk job, and worked my way up, and now I'm in DevOps. I fucking suck at DevOps. I've been doing it for 4 or 5 years... drinking the firehose of AWS and CI/CD and all of this shit I really knew nothing about. I got laid off from my first DevOps job, and then laid off from a cloud engineer job shortly after.... But... now I'm certified in AWS and I kinda know some shit. I also can fuck with Terraform and write some python. I'm not totally useless and I just got an offer at a shitty company I'm not that excited about. They do hardware servers and networks and things, but they also do Ansible and I've never done that before. I'm just trying to fill in the knowledge gaps. Ansible is a knowledge gap I have that I see on a lot of job descriptions, and I'm going to keep moving forward until I don't fucking suck anymore. Really, I'd prefer to just be a bartender or something... but I have people relying on me and debt, so that isn't really an option. So, as a guy that could be considered mid to senior, its not just the junior devs or people trying to get into it that you are speaking to here. This was inspirational for me as well. Hard work beats smart or talented every time. I'm going to take that into my next job and we'll see how it goes.
@ShawnThuris
What a story, very moving. It's hard to be this honest with your audience but the comments show it was the right call. You were already one of the small handful of dev channels whose videos I can sit through, but now I have a much better idea of who's talking. You have my respect and my best wishes for continued success.
@fasolplanetarium
This hit me hard. I was a hardcore heroin addict, homeless, no degree, broke and miserable. I got clean, taught myself to code, and now work at a FAANG company (not that this necessarily matters, but it obviously seems to resonate with people). It can be done; you don't have to live your life this way. Programming saved my life.
@xlittlexdevilx
in this dark moments you have been an inspiration to me, thank you for everything you do and the energy you put into it. Cheers from Argentina!
@radomane
There aren’t enough stories like this in this industry, most of them go untold. I really liked hearing this perspective, this is what I always found so inspiring with Andreas Kling/SerenityOS.
@cd-stephen
you are never too old to learn - what makes you old is when you stop learning - Prime, your stories are always inspiriational - merry Christmas
@christsciple
Dude my buddies were the tutors at the math center at MSU at the time you were going there! We probably knew a lot of the same folks! That's funny. I have a similar story as yours and really used a lot of the hardship and experiences to motivate me through school and eventually became a self-taught software engineer! Really proud of you and how far you have come! You're really a huge motivation for us all!
@jonathanduran2921
Side note.. thanks for being so vulnerable. It's refreshing and gives a person like myself hope in many ways.
@ChrisPatti
this is straight up a beautiful story, and you are one brave dude for being willing to tell it.
@kirillnovik8661
Thanks for sharing your story! And happy you were able to find a way toward becoming a happier person! Battling an addiction is probably one of the most valuable experiences in life despite being damaging, painful and miserable. I root for everyone who is battling their demons. Keep up the great work! You're awesome!
@snarr2
I’m a self taught programmer/hacker since 11 years old, a recovering heroin addict (clean almost 3 years) and I have never had a job (used to sell other stuff). I just wanted to thank you for the inspiration and strength, things have been quite difficult lately, spent the year applying and applying only to receive radio silence and maybe a couple automated rejection responses from everywhere. I almost want to just give up but I am going to continue trying my hardest. Thank you for sharing your story again.
@pertuck
You've told snippets of this story on Twitch, and it's incredibly humbling. It's great to see you coalesce them into this video. Big ups. Have a great holiday!
@Evan-Jame
going through a cs program currently, also nearly two years sober, battled depression and anxiety for years. Watching this video really gives me more confidence. You're an inspiration brother Thank You
@sebosebo4661
I personally admire your openness on your pornography addiction. I myself have a problem with porn, and knowing someone in my field also had the same problem - it makes me feel a lil less alone. Thank you.
@ThePrimeagen