Carsten Maschmeyer
“At times” he struggled with suicidal thoughts
Carsten Maschmeyer fought against a pill addiction for years.
© imago / Eventpress
Carsten Maschmeyer not only struggled with a pill addiction for years. The investor even had suicidal thoughts “at times”.
Burnout, pill addiction and finally depression: In his new book “The Six Elements of Success”, “Die Höhle der Löwen” investor Carsten Maschmeyer (62) is more private than ever. For years, the entrepreneur suffered from professional pressure, which in the end let him slip into a pill addiction. “At times” Maschmeyer even had to struggle with suicidal thoughts, as he now reveals in an interview with the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung”.
“There was a time when I visited my son in London. He had a student apartment on the 21st floor in Canary Wharf. Sometimes I looked longingly out the window,” the investor recalls of his “darkest phase”. But the fear of never being able to see his own children and wife Veronica Ferres (56) again prevailed at the time. “I decided to stay and eventually fight my addiction.”
Tablets instead of burnout treatment
Despite physical exhaustion after frequent “18-hour days”, Maschmeyer was often unable to fall asleep at that time. “In addition, there was pressure on the stock exchange. That gave me the rest back then.” The result: an incipient addiction to sleeping pills. His doctor did not recognize that Maschmeyer was suffering from burnout “and instead of recommending that I work less and go for a walk more often – gave me the sleeping pills and did not properly explain the addiction. What he said: Don’t take it regularly”.
Then it was easy to get the tablets in pharmacies. “My appeal to the health insurance companies: This data has to be aggregated, a warning lamp has to light up if a patient gets far too much of a dangerous drug,” says Maschmeyer. Nevertheless, he was able to hide his addiction for a long time by isolating himself. “Even to Veronica, who I met in early 2009,” recalls the 62-year-old.
Veronica Ferres gave him an ultimatum
“I visited her back then while she was filming in Africa. If I knew she was filming for a few hours, I quickly took a few pills and slept for three hours. On the first vacation together, I dealt with white lies when I was myself lay down. “
Nevertheless, it was Ferres who finally got her husband out of the addiction. “At that time I had serious deficits, I was slurping. Veronica saw how things were going and pulled the rip cord. Her tough message was: Either you make a serious withdrawal, or it is over.” Then he was admitted to psychiatry.
Today Maschmeyer is clean. He swallowed his last tablet eleven years ago and has since “taken nothing of the devil’s stuff”. Since his withdrawal he “never” relapsed. Since the third season of “Die Höhle der Löwen” Maschmeyer has been part of the group of investors who haggle over the best deals. This is also the case in season ten of the TV show, which has been on view since September 6th (8:15 pm, every Monday on VOX).
Help with depression is offered by telephone counseling on the free number: 0800/111 0 111