The thing about rich people is, that Ehen you have the money to buy all the drugs you want, you can do quite a lot of them until it starts to affect you financially.
Just think about how much cocaine rich people like to snort.
this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2026
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Elon Musk uses so much ketamine he ruined his bladder. He's also a nazi pedophile, but that isn't related
You'd be better off having the family pay and the person is killed anyways.
Take a look at the Reiner story. Being rich and famous doesn't stop drugs from ruining families.
I mean...
Exhibit A: Succession...
Literally every episode has drugs...
Its not a show about bussiness... its just parties, drugs, famiky therapy, a board meeting coup-attempt in between, more parties, and DRUGS
Yes, they do. I haven't heard about a human being that would consume drugs and will not gain an addiction to them over time.
That's a very strong assertion. How would you, personally, describe addiction?
Mental addiction I can describe as an internal reminder that recalls you how good you felt when you consumed drugs. Yes, you can ignore but it acts like Google alerts showing on your phone frequently and annoying you with phrases like "eat it, come on" or "you will feel so good, take them and relax".
Physical addiction is worse since your body got so adapted to drugs that it refuses to properly function. Metaphorically, not only you have constant Google alerts telling you to consume drugs, your phone literally starts lagging, glitching and etc. So drugs for you are as issential as an inhaler for asthmatic.
Bro narcotics are probably the most reliable thing that kills rich people
Elon Musk is still alive tho
While we all wish he would die early, unfortuntely we don't actually know how heavy his usage is. We hype any percieved ailment to the moon like Trump's usually non-lethal skin cancer. Hard to catch something late when these bastards have doctors on retainer.
Yeah his drugs of choice are of the "talked to Sauron and tweak out on the internet" schedule that you have to take a lot of to get any organ damage. But maybe we'll get lucky and somebody will lace his shit one day.
Never kill someone who owes you money - that’s terrible business. Kill for revenge or to send a message…
Yeah, the message is "pay this guy or he'll kill you". How is that not clear?
They have another name for criminals that lend you money and just ask you pay it back over time with some interest tacked on. They're called banks.
Drug addiction can happen among rich families, yes. Coke is common among them because it tends to be an expensive party drug.
As Noel_Skum mentioned, the dealer likely wouldn't kill the guy who owed them. Some much more likely ways the dealer would act:
- Kidnap the debtor and ask for a ransom from the family
- Get info on the family in order to kidnap some relative
- Steal from the family home (likely convincing the debtor to do that, as they likely know where mom's jewels are, etc)
- The two make a plot to kill the parents so the child can inherit the entire fortune and pay off the debt.
All of these have happened in real life
There are plenty of rich addicts. Charlie Sheen and Whitney Houston spring to mind. Anna Nicole Smith was a literal billionaire.
"Tough love" is also a real thing. Families throw addicts out all the time. the idea is that if things get bad enough the addict will "hit bottom" and seek help.
The idea of a dealer killing a customer is the part that makes little sense. The dealer wouldn't give an addict drugs without cash up front. Dealers know exactly how unreliable addicts are.
How about the addict tries to steal from the dealer and the dealer kills them in self defense?
You might want to look up the case of Carrol O'Connor. Famous actor, his son died after an overdose. O'Connor called the son's dealer a murderer and the dealer tried to sue him for defamation of character.
Killing your junkies don't make sense. Even with small dealers they know how much they can 'lend out' to their clients. After the client gets to the point they get cut off. But they will have 20$ next time. You will give them 10$ material and keep the other 10 for their loan.
How they got the money, you don't ask. Customer service even in drug business is the key to long term success.
And sometimes people who went to jail come back months later, because they hit big and they can afford to pay back that 16$ that you never thought you will see again.. and then spend more money that you didn't think they had.
Rich people do get addicted to drugs.
The unrealistic part is the fanily being killed because they can't pay.
Why can't they pay? I thought they were rich? And a drug dealer isnt going to kill the only people who could conceivably pay him.
I'm assuming they can't pay because the family cut them off. OP will need to come up with an explanation for the family refusing to help. Just being an addict would not be enough in a normal functional family, but it would depend on the protagonists past (mis)behaviour or maybe the family is very much against drugs for religious reasons.
OP is suggesting the rich family can't pay. So unless its a typo it doesn't really make a lot of sense.
Rich family WON'T pay is more realistic imo
OP is using they/them to refer to the junkie. I see what you mean, but I'm not sure it's the family that will get killed or just the junkie.
Ahhh. Now I'm rereading it, that kind of makes sense.
They tend to be pretty miserable and can afford them so my gut feeling is that they are actually more likely.
I would point out the way drug dealers kill their customers is unintentionally via overdose or bad drugs.
Also, if you're a parent, and you lost your only child to a drug dealer due to an overdose, that's really all you need to want to hunt down and kill the dealer.
A parent with nothing left to lose could be about as dangerous as it gets.
I’m with this guy. Drug dealers killing valuable clients is incredibly rare. ODs are common. It feels more natural. Even the cartels make people work off debt. Dead man can’t pay either.
More realistic might be the addict does something stupid out of desperation like try to rob his dealer and is killed in the process.
Elon is addicted to ketamine.
Not to mention all the celebrities who have OD'd throughout the ages.
If they were some kind of nepobaby and just given everything in life without having to work for it, it would be fairly realistic that they may not have the ability to make money of their own quickly enough to satisfy their dealer.
I grew up a middle class kid in the rich suburbs. That's so realistic and common it's practically cliche.
The only realistic part is the rich parents not making the kid out when it really came down to it. You don't hear about it more because Rich parents get their kids out of drug issues and DUIs like the rest of us run errands on a Tuesday night.
I have one example of a rich person who was addicted to drugs.
He was a gifted child so his parents treated him like he knew how to raise himself. They also probably weren't terribly interested in raising a child, so they basically abandoned him. He was cared for, but not by them.
Best example of this: I mentioned that I still remembered my mom teaching me how to tie my shoes. He remembered the maid teaching him.
Because no one would stop him, he started drinking in his early teens, and moved onto drugs soon after.
Regarding murdering because of money, I'd recommend making it a home invasion gone wrong. Addicted kid gets cut off from family, can't pay drug dealer, can't get drugs. Tells drug dealer he knows where the family keeps a lot of money. Like "won the lottery" money. Drug dealer tells someone else who convinces them to go after it. Hilarity ensues.
Yes, 100%. Fancy rehab clinics are there literally for this reason. The Betty Ford Clinic was a punchline for a long time as being a brand-name Hollywood-friendly rehab that specialized in keeping their client list quiet. The kids of wealthy people can and do get addicted to drugs - cocaine in college would be an easy one.
I agree that it's entirely unrealistic that a dealer would kill a family over money. A dealer would sooner blackmail the family, or threaten to harm the kid via "some associates." If the dealer kills the family....how would they get money? The point of leveraging fear to get paid is that 1) someone needs to remain alive and afraid of something worse so they have a reason to pay someone to stop things getting worse, and 2) sending a message that other people will see that someone needs to get paid or there will be consequences. Plus, any drug-addicted 20-something will crumple up and be totally useless in this situation, rather than get sober AND get revenge.
Just throwing an idea out there - let's say 20-something guy has a younger sister So we have 20, Dealer, and Sister for your setup. Maybe Loved One is a family member with skills the parents don't have. 20 owes a ton of money to Dealer. 20 goes to Dealer's place trying to score something and is already messed up and Dealer is about to throw them out, but 20's phone rings. It's Sister sending a message. Dealer gets interested, steals 20's phone, and starts to run a scam on Sister. Dealer get Sister into way deeper shit. Parents are useless and have no idea what to do, but cut off money to both of them. 20 goes looking for Sister, who is found dead from an OD. Or ODs and goes to a hospital, but is pregnant with Dealer's baby, or mangled in a car accident where Dealer was driving and Dealer was fine - whatever you want (please don't get too misogynistic with it). 20/Loved One goes after Dealer for revenge, but it makes more sense for 20 at minimum because we're invested in 20. You can only add Loved One if you introduce them as somehow "better" than 20, and more skilled.
Simply getting cut off from money is a pretty trite reason to get revenge because it will seem like it's only about money, not the emotional connection with the family. When you add the Sister as the catalyst, 20 will feel guilt over being the way that Dealer gets their hooks into a family member, the parents will be helpless, so 20 or someone else will feel the need to act since no one else can. Though, this might be a very done to death plot.
A lot of kids who grow up rich grow up bored, seeking ways to not be bored. When you can afford pretty much anything and you’re surrounded by people who promise to give you something new and exciting, it’s easy to get addicted.
To drugs. To booze. Sex. To adrenaline. And people are willing to provide all of it.
The unrealistic part is the drug dealer killing his user. It’s business. Killing your customers coz they got cut off is bad for business. Especially when the families are wealthy enough to buy their own justice.
Before it ever gets that far, though, the family probably pays off the drug dealer and lets them know there’s no more money there. The dealer might not cut them off, but they’re certainly not trusting that the addict is “good for it.”
Even if the dealer was that stupid, to let that debt large enough… there’s other ways they can pay. Access. Contacts. Information. Dirt.
All you managed to do with this post is very clearly and on several levels show everyone your unbelievable ignorance and idiocy. I'm sorry but holy hell... Everything you wrote is just so weirdly dumb and like you have been living in a closed room with no Internet access for your whole life until right before you made this post. HOW do you not know that rich people get addicted to drugs? It's like the leading unnatural death cause for them, and very obviously so. And then the plot hole chaos of completely illogical actions and events in your story, you managed to cram so much of it into three small paragraphs. It'd still be so oddly lacking in basic comprehension even if it turns out that you're 10 years old.
Rich folks despise their drug addict children and cut them off out of shame (the real spoiler is that these parents create the addiction). So the one who gets revenge should be the black sheep of the family who tried their best to keep the addict around.
Why wouldn't they?
Drugs =/= Drugs
But it kinda makes sense with coke and K..
Other drugs are either not that addictive / live destroying ( thinking MD/Acid) or too cheap low quality drugs (meth etc.) that don’t fit into the rich kid setting.
Of course MD and acid can have their place in the story, but I would concentrate on coke and K for realism.
Before 1900s puritanism ,lots of 'em were fucked on opiates too.
Indeed completely forgot those…
Personally I don’t connect opiates not with rich folks, but that may be regional and due to my age
From what I've seen & read, yes.
Doctors are often addicted to drugs, or just to medicating themselves.
I read an article by a woman who worked for a house-cleaning service, which ordered her to stop working too fast/competently.
So, she slowed-down, to keep her job.
& looked in cupboards, medicine-cabinets, etc.
She said that now she doesn't want to be rich, because they're consistently addicted to drugs/medications.
Hollow living .. people trying to "fill" themselves with chemically-enforced numbness..
I don't know if you ever encountered r/leaves the subreddit about people who've ditched marijuana-addiction..
"I got tired of not feeling anything meaningful" would be a good summary of many testimonies, there..
from what I can see, the story you're working-on is viable, except the loved-one's going to need a private-investigator or something, to level the playing-field against the streetsmart dealer.
no, they couldn't have got the money some other way: born-into-wealth means being brought-up in entitlement: it makes one's instincts incompetent-for-raw-survival, AND narcissistic.
( Dad was a medical-researcher & doctor: I know what I'm talking about in this context. )
Please read BOTH of John Truby's books, "The Anatomy of Genre" 1st, then his one on Story 2nd.
Your book will be massively better if you do.
& if you want the best editing book in the world, it is Coyne's "The Story Grid".
_ /\ _
Do rich people get addicted to drugs?
Yes, if they are stupid enough (many are)
Addiction isn't stupidity.
No, but when rich people get on drugs, then usually the stupidity was before.