Adderall OG

That’s amazing! Congratulations on your sobriety, engagement and everything else. It is so important to allow ourselves to feel happy, proud and positive about how far we’ve come. And also to share it with this community for those who feel like things will never get better. They do. Time passes, even when you are struggling and every day clean is a day closer to the life you want!

It’s so true! The fatal neural pathway. The grieving. Everything. When I got off adderall, as well as when I stopped drinking, I grieved. I laid in bed and cried. It felt absurd but I was so sad. But that grieving was really SURRENDER. It was part of my process. Letting go and admitting the relationship has soured. It’s toxic. It will never lead you down any road but only dead ends. I am so grateful to be on the other side of my addiction. I’m so glad I gave myself that chance!

I agree- this quarantine is a unique opportunity to get off adderall that we’ve never had before and might never get again. The world has literally stopped so what a great time to work on yourself. It will still be a long road to truly getting this monkey off your back, but getting through the difficult initial phases while you’re in quarantine is a great start. Regardless, once this is all over it is important to stay strong and keep your eye on the prize. You can do this!!

I really enjoyed this, thank you for sharing. It made me feel things, a lot of things about my own experiences. Sharing in this forum has been really meaningful for me because for so damn long I’ve been confused and ashamed of my addiction to adderall. I may have kicked it 10 years ago but i never ever realized the value in talking about it, or understood the profound impact my addiction and recovery has had on my life. Sharing it with people on here is a huge step and so validating.

I can relate so much. I think what we all crave and were chasing was that experience we had in the early days of our adderall addiction- before it became so problematic and we fell down the rabbit hole. It is an unfortunate reality that we can never recapture that because we passed the point of no return with our addiction. I stopped drinking in November and I have been having intense moments of craving and even debating with myself if I can start drinking casually again. I rationalize that my drinking wasn’t THAT bad and I had more good nights than bad. But then I remind myself of a metaphor that applies to drinking but also any addiction, especially adderall and that is that you can’t unpickle a cucumber. Once a cucumber has been turned into a pickle, it can never go back to being a cucumber. And I know that I can never go back to being a casual drinker and none of us can ever take adderall without slipping down the slope into addiction hell.

Same. For so many years I thought it was because I was weak. But now I’m finally realizing the drug is designed to make you its prisoner.

YUP. That’s exactly what I feel like. Adderall lab rat! Sometimes it’s still hard not to be resentful towards my parents for not having some forethought of all the implications putting me on this type of drug (at such a young age) we’re going to be but I guess they were just blindly trusting a doctor. I know I will never make the same mistake with my children.

Awwww yeah!!! Gotta celebrate the days you wake up feeling like that! You’ve earned it and all the ones to come!

YES! This! What I have learned from getting off adderall ten years ago and my current journey of quitting drinking (100 days sober today :-)) is that patience can be the most powerful tool to use during the times when we’re struggling the most. Back when I was hooked on adderall, my solution to any unpleasant feeling was to pop a pill. Fast forward ten years and I had gotten in a habit of turning to alcohol to escape my emotions. It was and is hard to endure negative feelings without looking for a quick fix. All of the suggestions in the comments above are great. But if there are moments when you are struggling to motivate doing anything at all, don’t forget that even just getting through those moments without relapsing is doing something. It’s huge actually. I was also hooked on adderall for 15 years- that first year off SUCKS. But you’ve come SO FAR. It won’t always be this hard. Just keep your eye on the prize.

Congratulations on getting off adderall and staying clean for 13 months! I’m a woman so I didn’t have this issue but I know my body was a mess for a while after I kicked adderall. With diet and exercise I was able to get back in shape but it took time! Keep it up

@Ready4Change such a beautiful message and sooo true. @dolssa the four months you have been off adderall May objectively look like a lot of wasted time but it has actually been a time of your body and mind HEALING, a necessary part of recovery. You are now 4 months closer to being your best self, adderall free. Even though you may feel like you’ve been weak and lazy since you got off adderall, I promise you that you will look back at this time and marvel at just how strong you were to get through this awful stage of withdrawal and feel very proud. I have been adderall free for over a decade but only recently started reflecting on my addiction since starting therapy a few months ago. And in talking about my struggle with the addiction and withdrawal, I am truly realizing and appreciating how badass I truly was going through all that and coming out the other side. The old adage is true- it’s always darkest before the dawn. Keep trudging, keep going. You’ll get there. ❤️

Congratulations on 10 months! You are still healing so be gentle with yourself. I am so familiar with that feeling of panic. Just like everything else, it will subside as you get more energy and more confident in your abilities without the aid of adderall. You’ve made it this far and that takes a LOT of inner strength. You can totally do this!

I feel your pain so hard. The first year is a bitch. Set expectations low and be gentle on yourself. Spent a whole Saturday in bed? So what! You didn’t take adderall and that’s what you have to focus on. Gained some weight? That’s ok! Your body and mind are healing and a little (most likely temporary) weight gain is a small price to pay for a clean existence. Keep in mind while you are going through the withdrawal, that is not the real you. The real you is buried inside and everyday you get further away from adderall, the real you gets closer to the surface. I gained a ton of weight, slept SO DAMN MUCH, and like you, felt angry and grumpy and just generally pissed. But slowly it got better. I got control of my life little by little. It’s so worth it. Those years hooked on adderall I was living under this dark cloud. Even when i was struggling through withdrawal, I was happy that I was finally free of that crutch. You just have to do it. Every day make a promise to yourself to get through it without Adderall. AND definitely get that shit out of your house and cut off the supply. You can do this!!

@Aurora29 hey there sweet girl- first of all I am so proud of you for getting off adderall and for seeking help when you needed it. You are brave! To answer your question about Zoloft- YES, I am on it and have been for years. I got off adderall ten years ago and for the first 5+ years I was against going on any new medications bc I never again wanted to be dependent on a drug like I had been on adderall. I have always struggled with anxiety and over that period of time I definitely experienced bouts of anxiety and depression. Finally, after the birth of my 3rd child, my anxiety got so severe I knew I had to do something about it. So I started taking Zoloft and it REALLY helped. I was happy to see it wasn’t the same experience as I had with Adderall- it’s not really a drug that results in abuse, at least for me, bc the effects aren’t felt as immediately or intensely as adderall’s were. It’s more of just a slow removing on the anxiousness. I was taking 150 msg for a few years and then this summer i decided to try an wean myself off of it. I was ok for while (and the experience of getting off of it was NOTHING like getting off of adderall), but after a while i started to feel my anxiety getting worse so i am back on it at a low dose of 50mgs. I had no trouble making this decision to go back on it because my experience on it was never dysfunctional like it had been on adderall. I have had no problem taking it as prescribed and never once did i abuse it or run out early or anything like that. Based on my experience with Zoloft, i would recommend anyone struggling like I was to go on it. Stay strong girlfriend- it gets better. You’re fighting the battle now but stick with it and you will definitely win the war! Xoxo

Well it’s kind of hard to say because every withdrawal symptom I experienced was secondary to the extreme, overwhelming EXHAUSTION I felt in that first year. Although I know that was a direct result of the physical withdrawal from 15 years of adderall abuse, exhaustion is also a symptom of depression so I am sure that was also part of it. But during my waking hours, I was still able to engage with people and feel happiness, especially as the months went on. It wasn’t easy at times. I gained a ton of weight and felt so insecure on top of everything else. But looking back I am proud of myself for my ability to keep going and sucking it up through the shitty parts. It did get easier and as I started to get some energy back, around the 6 month mark, I started to get my mojo back!

Ha! You have a few more months of sobriety under your belt than I do. I cut way back at the beginning of the summer, and then decided to be completely done after a bad night in November. Maybe it has to do with being 40 and just getting to a point in my life where I’m shedding things that are holding me back. Do you feel like that? Anyway, once I made that decision I also decided to start therapy to sort out some things that I’ve been avoiding for years. It was in therapy that I’ve really started to explore how traumatic my years of adderall abuse/addiction were, and talking about it has been so cathartic. I began researching adderall abuse online, which led me to this website. It is always so emotional to read about or hear of someone else struggling with this addiction and brings me right back to there, only now I’m able to look at it from the other side. Glad to have found this community :-)

@LILTEX41 thank you so much for your kind reply to my post! It feels so great to know my story has helped even one person. I can’t believe it never occurred to me until now to share my experience with others who are struggling with Adderall addiction. As you probably remember, back in 2010 when we kicked our habit, so little information was out there about this! I didn’t know if what i was going through was normal, abnormal or even if it would ever end. I just knew I couldn’t keep going on like I had been. I was so sick of worrying about how the future was going to play out- I knew I couldn’t continue like that but i also couldn’t imagine a life where I could be successful without Adderall. Now that I’ve overcome that, i have so much more confidence in my ability to do hard things. Before getting off adderall, I could never truly own any of my accomplishments because deep down I believed they were only due to the drug. Earlier this year I chose to give up drinking too. I just decided it was not serving me any more. It’s been hard, as you know, but not nearly as hard as getting off adderall. Kicking that habit has given me more faith in myself that I can do this too. But all these realizations took years to take hold- for a long time I just took it day by day and built myself up little by little. Which I’m still doing. Maybe that’s what we are all doing. But when you’re in the thick of withdrawal, it’s hard to believe it will pass. But it does. Feels so good to be on the other side of it! If I was able to do it, I truly believe anyone can! Much love!

This part is hard because it’s good. Nothing worthwhile comes easy. After I got off adderall I gained a bunch of weight (plus got pregnant so my body was a mess). It sucked going through it. But once I started feeling better I got into the routine of going to the gym. I lost all the weight eventually and it was even better because I was actually healthy and not just skinny bc of a pill. Plus my blood pressure went from being high while on adderall to totally normal. Hang in there. It gets better! And since you were on a lower dose it probably won’t take as long

@dolssa Stay strong! Honestly if someone put a pile of pills in front of me today, i would not even be tempted to take one because I know where that road leads. Even though it took a while to get here- I’m so grateful i gave myself the chance to! You deserve the same!

@eric thank you for your comment- I am so glad my experience gives you hope! Oh my gosh- living pill to pill and refill to refill- that was my existence for so.damn.long. Inconsistency was the hallmark of my life back then- at home, at work, and socially. When I was medicated I would over perform and once the meds ran out I could barely even do the bare minimum. Good job on making it to day 15- keep it UP! The farther you get from your last pill, the closer you get to full recovery! Be gentle on yourself during this process. It can be frustrating. After 15 years on it, my withdrawal symptoms were severe. I was depressed, anxious and unbelievably exhausted for months. I can still remember the day I noticed i was starting to feel better- I had the energy to go outside and do some gardening, which was completely unremarkable on the outside but for me it symbolized that I was finally feeling capable of accomplishing something without the aid of Adderall. It was small but meaningful for me. Now I am very productive and organized without giving it a second thought. Best of luck with everything!

Hi all! I have been adderall free for 10 years now, after a severe 15 YEAR addiction. I was among the first gen adderall users- being prescribed when I was 15 back when adderall first came on the market. I had been diagnosed with ADD when no one really even knew what that was. My mom took me from doctor to doctor and I just went along with whatever they told me to do, so when they said “take this pill”, I obeyed, even though I really didn’t want to be taking a medication every day of my life. But soon enough I started to experience the benefits of adderall we are all too familiar with- improved grades, weight loss, and just overall feeling of well being. And so my love/hate relationship with Adderall began and would continue until I finally kicked it for good at the age of 30. The years in between consisted of highs and lows- mostly comprised of binges after I got my Rx filled followed by crashes after I inevitably ran out early. I would spend days on little sleep and then crash for days after the meds ran out, unable to get out of bed without my little helper. It became a prison and I really felt scared for my life. I made a few attempts to get off it over the years, but the withdrawal was so awful that I truly believed that was what my life was going to be like without adderall. I had been on it for so long, I didn’t truly believe i could function normally without it. I barely told anyone my secret and lived way too long like this. Finally when my husband and I decided we wanted to start trying for a baby, I knew I had to quit. Not only for a healthy pregnancy but also because I knew I could not be a good mother living with this monkey on my back. So I got off it. A few months later I got pregnant. The combination of the pregnancy and withdrawals was incredibly difficult. That year is a blur. I just went through the motions and slept a LOT, overwhelmed by the exhaustion of pregnancy coupled with withdrawal. When my daughter was born, i was beginning to come out of my fog. I just kept doing what I had to do, and slowly it got easier. I would say after another year, I really turned a corner and was not only surviving but thriving. All those things I had truly believed I couldn’t do without Adderall, and I mean down to even the simplest of tasks- I was doing and doing well. Now I am 40, with 3 children and I am a person I never thought I could be without that damn drug. I recently started therapy for a bunch of different reasons. In my sessions I’ve been talking a lot about my 15 year addiction to adderall, which believe it or not I never really explored before now. Back when I was addicted and finally got off of it, there was not as much information out there about it so I just kind of struggled alone. But now, today, I am realizing the immense impact this has had on my life. Do I wish I never have had been prescribed adderall? Yes I do. I would have loved to blossom and evolve naturally and not have my teens and 20’s been so overshadowed by the medicated state I was always in. But it is what it is. I still turned out well and today have a life that I love. But since I have been revisiting this time in my life, and actually researching adderall addiction and truly realizing what a huge thing it actually is, I feel compelled to tell my story here. For those of you who are still in its grips, or struggling with withdrawal and wondering if it will ever get better. I’m here to tell you IT DOES. I don’t think anyone could have been more addicted or dependent on adderall than I was. And I’ve come out the other side. Thank GOD. Please feel free to contact me if you need encouragement or are scared. I know it’s scary. And it’s hard. But you can do it and it will be better than you imagined!