coach_fran

Hey quit-once, Great questions. The people that matter in my life knew about the first time I experienced this problem. I told me family and friends about my addiction, how it had persisted for several years, and about how I wanted to quit once and for all and needed their help. That was back in 2008. Now, I have a girlfriend (nearly a fiancee) and my family and close friends are in the dark to the recent issues I've had with Adderall. Mostly, this is because of the shame I feel for relapsing in the first place. I'm afraid that the incredible girlfriend I'm with would leave me if she knew... Yes, Adderall is the only thing I've ever been addicted to. I've never struggled with alcohol or other substances. The reclusion now is an effect of the shame and the guilt I'm feeling now... It's also part of the social anxiety I feel for the first week or so after coming off of Adderall. Nope... I have not dealt with the next refill attempt. I keep telling myself that this is the last one. I'm also somebody who is generally fearful of any kind of serious confrontation. Telling my doctor that I've been abusing the pills he's been prescribing me freaks me out. Yes, that sounds weak but it's honest. My friend who caused the relapse... He lives in a different state so I do not see him often. We do communicate a bit during the week over the phone. He's aware of my struggles with Adderall and is one of the few who knows about the recent relapses. He's never dealt with a problem like this though and I don't think he knows how deep the struggle goes. He truly is a good guy and has never before been a bad influence in my life. Actually, quite the contrary. If anything, he's been a source of reasoned strength in the past and with my recent struggle, ironically, he's been the one to trying to impose accountability measures on me. Anyway, hope that gives you an idea of what's been going on lately. I've been clean since Friday and the pills have been flushed. The fogginess feels like its starting to be lifted and I'm excercising 30 mins a day to assist in that process. - Coach Fran

And just put in 40 minutes running... Hopefully it'll help.

Feeling pretty overwhelmed with guilt today for the relapses I've had over the previous 3 months. Flushed the pills yesterday. Not feeling the tiredness from crashing yet but am definitely anxious and reclusive right now because other than those on this sight, nobody else knows... Family, girlfriend, buddies... Everybody would be terribly disappointed with me. I'm terribly disappointed with me. Stay strong guys.

I never would have expected there to be as many lawyers on here as there are! I'm also an aspiring lawyer (applying to schools this fall, taking LSAT in June) and I'm absolutely, positively, 100% committed to not taking Adderall or any other stimulant medication in the process and for the rest of my life. I saw a therepist for several months after officially ending Adderall and after I expressed my doubts about never feeling like I would be able to compete again (at least intellectually) I'll never forget what he told me - there is nothing this drug does that you couldn't have already done on your own without it. So much truer than I could have known at the time. After coming off Adderall, my GPA (around a 2.0 on Adderall) shot up to a 4.0. My memory returned and seemed better than ever. My energy and willpower made a complete recovery. It can be done. Stay the course my friend. You've got this.

Love it. Reminds me of another by Roger McGough - "The Act of Love lies somewhere between the belly and the mind I lost the love sometime ago Now I’ve only the act to grind." This one too is clearly about a relationship but the feelings, the emotions, the attachment to Adderall for any of us who have been there before all know that the feeling ended some time ago and the act is all that's left. - CF

jmac, Would it make sense to you if I told you my house was on fire and that in order to put it out, I was going to try kerosine instead of gasoline? My friend, you don't need it. Your latest post just proved that to us. You're feeling better, your energy is progressively increasing, the social phobias are going away, etc. There is one path to ever feeling 100% like yourself again and you're on it. Does that make it easy? Hell no. When someone takes this stuff over the course of several months or years, it physically alters your brain's chemistry - this is why the depression lingers, the apathy won't go away, and the low energy seems to never end. Your brain has literally changed in some significant ways. The great part is that the human brain is wonderfully adaptive and it does repain itself through a process called plasticity. What you're feeling now, difficult as it is to deal with, is your brain rewiring. Stay the course my friend and don't opt for remedicating unless it's an option of last resort... it gets better than you know. I speak from personal experience here too when I say that though it seems tough right now, the challenges you're facing are some of the biggest opportunities for incredible personal growth. Struggle and hardships take us to a place nobody ever wants to go but if we're to ever really change the brokeness and character patterns that got us there in the first place, it is the most necessary thing in the world and its result is a happier, more satisfied, more fulfilled you. That for me was the #1 lesson of my 3-year addiction to Adderall - that pain, if we let it, can truly be the most redemptive force in the world. You're worth it man. Stay the course. If you want this bad enough, you're gonna make it. - Coach Fran

Hey Motivation, That's the funny thing about addiction, right? You truly are just one lapse in judgement away from sliding down that icy slope. To illustrate the point, I remember a few years ago reading an article about how Robin Williams, in the late 1970's was majorly addicted to cocaine. After going through treatment, he was successfully able to stay off of it for some 20+ years until 2006 or something when he had a relapse. Scary thought. But as I'm sure your experience has taught you, our best defense against that kind of a mistake is a healthy, fuctional willpower that puts the brakes on making a bad decison and carrying it out. I flushed the pills just 20 mins ago so we're at least back to square one but the guilt and feelings of shame are weighing on me heavy today. It's no small struggle to go through this but oddly, there is some comfort that can be found in the middle of all the hardship. When the pain it takes to stay the same is greater than the pain it takes to change, you will always choose to change. While that painful place is something nobody wants to go to, its the necessary step in changing what's clearly broken and putting the pieces in place to move your life forward. Pain and struggle can be some of the most redemptive forces in our lives if we let them do their work on us and from my experience, the only true way out of this is through that pain. Thanks for your kind words and for your understanding. I read your post about the medications you were on... what a doozy. Glad to have you back man. I'll keep posting and making updates in hopes that this helps someone out there in avoiding this pitfall on the way to a happier and healthier life. Stay strong. - Coach Fran

Hey everybody, This is more or less a journal of my travels with this horrific drug thus far. My story is not as bad as some folks on here, and not as fortunate as others but in either case, I think it's worth telling so that hopefully someone might gain something from it. I started taking Adderall back in 2005 and like so many on here have experienced when they first take it, I thought it was the answer to all of life's problems. If I'm really honest with myself, I should have never pursued trying to get Adderall as there were warning signs that I might potentially abuse it as early as high school when I tried it with a friend and instantly liked it. I basically "faked" the psychological evaluation I was required to take in order for the psychologist to properly diagnose me and forward that diagnosis on to my doctor for prescriptions. Anyway, I took Adderall IR initially but then switched to the XR when the IR began to only last a few hours. From 2005 - 2008 Adderall proceeded to wreck havok on my life and destroyed all the things it was supposed to be fixing. In short, after a few months of some small benefit academically, I basically became a manipulative addict in the truest sense of the word and my purpose in life ceased to be anything other than the pursuit of more and more Adderall. Over the course of just 3 years I managed to fail out of school, destroy many of the most meaningful relationships I had (including a long-term girlfriend), and do major damage to my financial life by recklessly taking out loans and credit cards to fund my nightmare. Fortunately for me though, a change was coming that would correct my course. In August of 2008, I phoned my doctor to put in a refill order on my Aderall XR 30mg and the office told me that they would no longer see me because they were aware that I was seeing multiple doctors. I was stunned, scared, and very confused. To this day I don't know how (I suspect they used the state prescription monitoring program but I'm not sure) they caught on to my manipulation, but that action scared me straight and sent me running from Adderall. Great story right? Until now. Just a few months ago, a friend of mine had some Adderall and asked if I wanted any. I knew it wasn't good for me but I wanted to prove to myself that I could take it just like anything else now and put it in the rearview mirror of life after the evening was over. If only things were that simple. That was December of 12'. Having moved to another state, I went to a doctor's office down here in January and got another prescription. Knowing that what I was doing was wrong and stupid, I think I was able to justify it to myself by just requesting the 10mg amount of the IR stuff - I went through that in a matter of days. After the "come-down" was over, I told myself that I had slipped but that there was no reason it had to keep happening. Two weeks later, I was in the doctor's office again requesting another script. Again, because I've seen firsthand the devastation Adderall causes in my life and because I have no legitimate need to be prescribed to it, I've had the good sense to flush usually half of my prescription (which is now at 15 mgs, 2x daily) and try again to pick up the pieces before they become a mess. Basically I've got a needless pattern going now - get the drug, take some of it, feel guilty and flush the rest, have a listless week as I recover, tell myself I'll never do it again, and repeat it again in 3 weeks with some different justification. This shit is powerful. Even though I had been off of Adderall for basically 4 years and 4 months, all it took was one bad call to begin falling down the rabbit hole again. Let this be a cautionary tale to anyone out there... this drug is nothing to mess with. I'm new here so I'm gonna keep posting and following up. Since it's only been a few months and since I've at least minimized some of the damage by flushing some of my prescriptions, I know that with some accountability I can put an end to what should have never began. I'll also do my best to help out others in this struggle as well. I speak for myself and probably many of you on this site when I say that Adderall is something that we can never, ever touch again. I thought I could control Adderall this time around.... what I found out was that Adderall again ended up controlling me. We're meant for greater things guys. This drug and its side effects are beatable if you want to beat them bad enough. Struggles are never easy but it is in them that we learn the most about who we are in. Though they take us directly into pain and discomfort, they can open our eyes to things that we would have never seen during times of comfort. Keep fighting the good fight. - Coach Fran