@suauhwang
Porn -> LSD -> Meth -> VIM, the story checks out.
@sharoncohen318
Most "failure" stories I see in tech are "I didn't get into Harvard, I only got into Berkeley", "I didn't get the internship at Google sophomore year but got it junior year", etc.... It's refreshing to see a story of someone actually struggling and turning things around and succeeding.
@holyfreakinguacamole
Thank goodness for this! Former addict turned programmer. After 250+ applications last year, landed my first job for $120k! 5 months later (now)… laid off. (They’re outsourcing software development.) Anyway. Thanks for reminding me it’s the hard work through the struggle. ❤
@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.
@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.
@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.
@ChrisTitusTech
I'm proud of you brother. My story was a lot like yours and It's good to see you found a balance in your life and not killing yourself with work or drugs.
@dehrk9024
Dang, i thought this was a joke after the first sentences
@lawrencefitzgerald4744
Thank you for sharing your story. I struggled in college, dropped out, and joined the work force. Years ago, I decided I wanted to learn programming - for many reasons. The road has been very difficult. Over the years, I feel like I've banged my head against a brick wall over and over again. I look at code (in a language I have some understanding of) and can tell you roughly what it's doing, but I struggle to write my own code. Hearing stories like this are refreshing, and give me more motivation. Thank you for taking the time to encourage people you've never even met.
@ThatManFromGermany
You radiate so much positive energy in your videos and streams and now we all know why. 🙂 Thank you for that!
@narekmusic
You're super brave and so down-to-earth – really admire that. Thanks for letting us in on your story. Just found your channel and I'm hooked on all your videos. Keep doing your thing; it's awesome!
@devicemanager131
The one saving grace of going through tough times and making mistakes in your life is learning from them and coming out the other side to teach others not to fall into the same traps. Proud of you Prime.
@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.
@morgancodes
I know how hard it is to share a story like this that is so personal . The way you completely turned your life around when most people would give up is absolutely inspirational ! Thank you for sharing this.
@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.
@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.
@johnathanrhoades7751
The “finding joy where you are” is amazing. I learned that in a decade in customer service. Excellent video.
@discoline10191
4:41 Hey man I started tearing up cause I was in a dark place two years ago, but I started learning Linux and Youtubed Vim and blam you made me believe it could be fun and I could do it. You've been with me the whole journey man. I'm now a DevOps Engineer at a very stable company on a great team, and it's amazing to see how you've grown and inspired others as well. So thankful for you man.
@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.
@ThePrimeagen