What things have gotten BETTER as a result from quitting Adderall?

[LiberatedMind]

We seem to focus a lot on the painful cessation process, and we discuss about how long the pain lasts, how long it takes to decrease etc... 

But my primary question here is from another angle relating to what gets way better that can simply not get better if Adderall is involved?  I find that sometimes focusing on the benefits makes the process a lot more bearable and even enjoyable!

Here are some positives I experience:

1) Everything is much quieter, no more constant mental chatter.  There is a balanced general feeling that eventually feels very peaceful.

2) I am able to choose how to react to my fluctuating states of mind, whether I am happy, sad, energetic, lazy etc etc.  I am not a slave to my current state.  Me, the inside me, the real me, can choose.  I may be tired in the evening, but if I have something that I should (or want) to be doing, I can do it despite the fact that I don't feel like doing it.  This in turn helps me be able to navigate and direct my own states of mind.  I have actual control over my mind and my decisions!!! 

3) SLEEP!!! Sleep is so much more refreshing and good and amazing!!!!

4) My concentration ability gets deeper.  Instead of just expanding my breadth at the expense of my depth, I have REAL depth.  I can focus and concentrate on minute details and mentally expand on them.

5) My ability to just continue doing any activity until completion increases.  I can just continue with no crash, so continuing while necessary to continue is very feasible and attainable and doable.

Those are a few of the things that get better within just a couple of weeks from the moment I stop taking Adderall.  Those are the most noticeable for me.

If any one else would want to share what gets better for them as a direct result from quitting, I would absolutely love to read that.  Love you all, have a great super wonderful balanced day.

[Danquit]

Definitely sleep, but it wasn’t till months 7-10 where I slept without waking up with some crazy dream and had to try to fall asleep again. I honestly can’t say there were any immediate good effects of quitting because everything was so miserable. But now at two years looking back I can tell you that there are many things that have gotten better after I quit.

1) I am not in Adderall. Mental and physical health way better.

2) My personality has come back and I laugh more, attitude much better towards friends and family.

3) My conversations with people are more real and I actually listen to people before I speak. Work meetings have gotten better because I’m not jumping all over the place speaking out of turn and volunteering for every task.

4) I don’t buy useless stuff online. My spending habits have gotten much better off Adderall so I’m saving more.

5) I enjoy food again (a bit too much). Appetite is definitely better but need to watch what I eat more, overall health is better.

6) I quit smoking cigarettes, breathe better.

7) I exercise all on my own strength, I can run a mile again without stopping:

8) I can see the big picture for life and for work so I don’t feel as overwhelmed as I did on Adderall. I’m way more relaxed in my attitude which makes me kinda lazy, but much better than Adderall driven which was completely fake over promising and not delivering.

9) My anxiety has gotten a lot better, I just dont freak out anymore. Life isn’t perfect, I just deal with problems a lot better.

10) I feel more, so my life experiences are more powerful and real, including the bad stuff. This makes life better, the experiences are more real and not shrouded in a n amphetamine blur.

Everything for me is better without Adderall.  But only after many months of hell of withdrawals.

[Cheeri0]

My body makes sense to me again. I know that sounds weird, but when I was on adderall I had lost all connection between my spirit and my body. Now that I'm clean, I can actually tell when I'm hungry, when I'm thirsty, when I need sleep, when I should go for a run, ect. It's amazing to feel connected to myself in that way. I had lost that ability for so long.

My writing skills have improved 10-fold. Idk what it was about adderall that made my sentences sound so strange... but I can finally put together a coherent academic paper that sounds impressive!

I'm not isolated all the time. I'm not so convinced that I'm "special." Oh, what a prison that was.

[LiberatedMind]

2 hours ago, Cheeri0 said:

My writing skills have improved 10-fold. Idk what it was about adderall that made my sentences sound so strange... but I can finally put together a coherent academic paper that sounds impressive!

I noticed this too.  I don't currently write academic papers, but I do a lot of email correspondence and when I take Adderall a lot I make stupid mistakes like writing "and and" or missing minor words like "no".  It would happen a lot!!  Same thing with verbal, I would find that I would have difficulty placing the right words together and expressing myself which makes me feel completely retarded because I know I can, but I can't seem to do it.

One other thing I noticed, and this part really scares me - I tend to drop things, a lot.  And when I take Adderall often, it happens so much more than when I don't.  And it's annoying as fuck.  It's mostly light things, like keys or my phone etc. 

[LILTEX41]

I've been off my adderall prescription for 7.5 years now.  The biggest change is emotional stability.  I am not the train wreck of highs and lows I used to be.  I used to be strung out for 3 weeks straight, then comatose for a week when I'd run out of pills.  I'd fall asleep at work.  I was very isolated from everyone unless I was high and trying to come down by partying.  I was pretty much bipolar and there was no consistency to my life.

Today I sleep 8 hours a night.  I show up to work and do a great job for 40+ hours a week.  I consistently the same person day in and day out.  People don't have to walk on egg shells around me or be nervous of who they'll get today.  I train for marathons and ironman's now.  I feel awesome.  I'm in the best shape ever again (I quit all drugs and alcohol btw) and I can get a million things done just like I used to on adderall.  I am highly productive.  I just planted an awesome yard of flowers and pimped out my patio, working on remodeling my condo, and go on lots of fun weekend excursions.  Life is so much easier when you are well rested and don't have a cocktail of speed pumping through your veins in which you are constantly battling all the negative side effects.

My relationships are a million times better and I feel absolutely great about myself.  I could go on and on, but I'll stop here.

Thank you for this topic.  It's a great one!

LT

[BeHereNow]

Haven't checked the forums in awhile since I've been feeling a little bit triggered these past few months, and sometimes it helps not to even think about it.

But I've been off the speed for 5.5 years now, and that is one of the biggest advantages.  Not thinking about it.  I used to expend so much mental energy thinking about adderall: when I could refill, when I could take another, how I would cope with running out. And in the first year of being quit, I still thought about it a lot, since I was focused on my recovery, randomly wanting to find/take some, thinking about quitting quitting, coping with the horrible depression and anxiety and emotional roller coaster that comes with quitting.... and wondering when it would end.  

The thing about any addiction is that it consumes a tremendous amount of mental energy.  I used to have a friend who got annoyed with cigarette smokers for this same reason: smokers are extremely needy when it comes to their addiction.  Always needing a new pack, lighters/matches, a place and time to go smoke, methods of making the smell go away.... (I say this as a former cigarette smoker who transitioned to vaping this past New Year's Eve, and I don't mean it as a judgment in any way.  It's just a fact of the addiction.  NOW I deal with the same issues surrounding vaping-- charging it, losing it, ordering vape juice, I could go on.....)

What else has changed for the better?  I'm not even all that interested in stimulants anymore.  Not even coffee.  I don't feel emotionally "hollow."  And that prison of feeling superior yet also deeply inferior?  Gone.  I'm just a human being.

It's interesting that some people mentioned improvements in writing skills.  I'd say that mine have improved too, but in kind of the opposite way.  Instead of taking an hour to compose the perfect, grammatically correct email, I spend 5 minutes.  My academic writing was very obsessive-compulsive on adderall, to the point that it became debilitating.  In some ways, without that level of OCD, it's a little bit messier and less formal.  Kind of like my sock drawer.  But the main point is that it gets done.

I can't say that I'm 100% yet.  I am recovering from finishing grad school, and a horrible 6 months spent applying for jobs and collecting rejection letters.  So I'm still in some sort of a "crash" state, except that stimulants were not involved.  I managed to squeeze my own energy to accomplish that, so I don't have that nagging sense that adderall did it for me.  That's something to be proud of.

Keep it up people, the journey is more worthwhile than you might be able to see right now. 

[SleepyStupid]

8 hours ago, LILTEX41 said:

The biggest change is emotional stability.  I am not the train wreck of highs and lows I used to be.  I used to be strung out for 3 weeks straight, then comatose for a week when I'd run out of pills.  I'd fall asleep at work.  I was very isolated from everyone unless I was high and trying to come down by partying.  I was pretty much bipolar and there was no consistency to my life.

this this this, x100.