Hey guys,
So I was originally prescribed Adderall in high school, and having ADHD (legit) using it gave me an overwhelming ability to enjoy life that quickly escalated into abuse. After getting into an ivy league school, freshman year I sold my prescription and escaped into booze and pot. Long story short, after that fiasco was over I got clean and made some great progress in 5 months.
Eventually, I convinced my doctor dexedrine was the call because it lacked the peripheral effects of addy. I was right, and it got me going for at least 7 months without increasing the dose. By the end of seven months, I was obsessed with being in that insular "zone" where nothing else matters, and isolated myself pretty tremendously. From this point forward, the addiction got pretty extreme. Tons of business starting, aggressive confrontations, manic and delusional thoughts, and total consumption with the prescription. I ended up ordering more stuff on the internet and on the street and basically just became consumed with that feeling. While I thought I was being tremendously succesful, in reality I was getting 4 hours of sleep a night for months and was a complete mental, physical and financial mess. Once I started filling double prescription and trying to consume the doses in other ways, I pretty much got fucked and didn't eat anything. When the doctor and my family figured out what was going on, my bullshit collapsed and I loss the prescription.
Needless to say, I was very aggresive and emotional for weeks after being removed because I still mentally thought it was the answer to all my problems. I got in some pretty messy situations that were frankly dangerous, in addition to sleeping all day, eating junk, gaining fifteen pounds and all the typical effects you would expect. After about a month, I came to the realization that stim meds actually destroyed my productivity and mind, instead of giving me a cognitive boost.
As many on these boards have said, the key eventually is getting the exercise and diet down. While there were lots of mood fluctuations at first, once I nailed the exercise and diet, I can tell you I have that I am healthier and more fit mentally than I ever was on the stimulants. I get the same hyperfocused euphoric feelings, but can turn them off at will and they don't affect my judgement. My two big takeaways are pretty standard but are VERY true.
1. Quit Cold Turkey. Admit you have a problem, deal with all the fallout (better now than later). After a month of disaster, you will quickly reflect on your experiences and realize your prescription did much more harm than you thought while you were on it. When you're on adderall, the illusion is that EVERYTHING is more interesting. The reality is that the only thing you can be genuinely interested on adderall IS adderall, and this gets way more intense as time goes on.
2. Change your thought process. Seek the long hard route to understanding yourself psychologically. Relieve the pressure you put on yourself to be perfect. Assure yourself this is only temporary and you will eventually come to exceed the "productivity" you thought you had on drugs.
3. When the mood fluctuations stop (a little over a month) and you are slightly depressed, but in control, start eating well and exercising a lot everyday. Take as much caffeine as you want to be productive at school in work. It is not remotely similar to adderall so you need not worry.
I usually don't post on forums, but have been reading this site for years, and declined to get clean. When I finally did, I can tell you the changes were dramatically more positive, easier, and quicker than I thought while I was intoxicated. Don't fool yourself by reading academic articles purporting that these drugs are "cognitive enhancing". They were probably written by people on adderall. There are no succesful people that take adderall everyday and are happy. You can do it and you know it.