Rampage

My hope was that individuals would incorporate some of the suggestions I posted that have made it possible for me to take adderal less and less and when I do take it it's for a reason and not abused. But thanks for being negative, hopefully you get something positive out of this site.

I have been taking adderall for a year and a half. My doctor has me on a 10 mg in the morning with two 20 mg Xr as needed throughout the rest of the day. My father suffers from depression/bi-polar, I am not sure exactly since he refuses to get help. But I think I have a portion of whatever it is he has. I was born with some unique vision issues that prevented me from being able to learn how to read and write. It was a blessing from heaven that when I was 8 years old we moved to Florida and just happen to live within an hour of one of the 3 doctors nation wide that could help children like me at the time. If it had not been for that doctor I would have been labelled as special ed. (Side note: if you have children that are struggling with focus and school, look up vision therapy before resorting to medication, PLEASE!) As a result of my eyes issues, school work or anything that required me to focus was exhausting for me. I would get horrible head aches and stomach aches, I fell asleep a lot, and absolutely hated reading. I was never taken to a doctor for focus issues because my Dad does not believe in medication or psychiatric help and once my eyes were fixed, the major symptoms were resolved. I went on to sign a college baseball scholarship and did very well in school, I am actually finishing a masers degree in accounting within the next year. As I got older I noticed behaviors in myself that resembled my fathers depression, only I was able to manage it and not let it affect how I treated others or how productive I was. Once I was married, in school, and working, all symptoms became worse and the focus/fatigue issue associated with school like task became a real issue. I could not handle life, I was mentally and emotional broken and overwhelmed. That is when I got on adderall. Honestly, it has saved my life, I don't know how I would do it without it. But here are a few thing I do to keep myself from developing a tolerance and from abusing the drug. 1. DO NOT take adderall 7 days a week. I find that when my schedule calms down, I am able to go without (thats usually only on vacations when I am not required to focus mentally for extended periods.) I usually do not take it on the weekends to left my mind reboot. If I have been taking my full daily dosage, I might to one 20 mg Xr on Saturday then nothing on Sunday 2. Use substitutes for adderall to lessen the negative feeling associated with days you do not take it. As a former college athlete, fitness and lifting are a daily part of my life. I take pre-work out supplements that contain a good amount of caffeine and also include additional stimulates that are legal. When I take a day off of adderall or if I feel like I should stop for a period, I will start taking pre-work supplements prior to my early morning work out and then I will sip on a lemonade Rockstar (these energy drinks are not carbonated and contain very little "extra's" that enhance the affects of caffeine on the body like most other energy drinks, it like the "natural" energy drink out there) through out the day. You do not want to over due you caffeine in take, so gauge how much is needed on a case by case basis. Some days I need less than others and some days I need none. There are a few reasons I substitute. First, caffeine and other stimulant in pre-works outs affect the same portion of the brain as adderall. Since I consume zero caffeine when I am taking adderall, I am very sensitive to caffeine when it comes time to use it. I swear it tricks my mind into thinking nothing has change and after a day or two, I feel like I never have taken adderall before, there are pretty much zero withdrawals or mental side affects for me. I can then easily reduce or eliminate my caffeine in take. 3. If you are going to take adderall, diet and hydration are essential. You need to eat a well balanced meal first thing in the morning and consuming a gallon of water each day is a must. Your brain does not function at it highest potential when it is deprived of nutrients. When adderall becomes the substitute for a health diet, you need to stop taking it. In addition to this, I try not to take adderall later in the day if at all possible to ensure a good nights rest. Sleep is an incredible part of health. Our bodies rebuild and grow during sleep, hormone release each day occur's at its maximum levels during sleep only if we are sleep for the proper amount of time and maintaining a good diet. Your days memories are organized and filed away and long term memories are stored. One of the first things your body stops producing at normal levels when you eat horrible or do not eat enough and sleep for short amounts of time is the production of essential hormones. (Hence the increase in over weight men being given "testosterone therapy" as early as 30 years old). Abnormal hormone levels has proven to have an affect on your mental state as seen in women after they give birth, when men and women get older and go through menopause and men go through andropause, and more famously, "roid rage" or extreme mood swing in individuals who abuse steroids.To make my point, if adderall has any chance of being a productive drug in your life, you need to make sure your body is producing hormones and happy hormones (dopamine etc) at its optimal levels first by sleeping and eating healthily. I have seen depression and bi-polar like symptoms disappear as friends have start a exercise routine, have become very strict on their diet, and sleep atleast 7-9 hours a night. Lets face it, we all would feel better, look better, and be more alert through the day if we actually took care of our bodies. I would not take adderall until your lifestyle is fixed. Adderall should not be used as drug to help us simply "function" day to day. I believe that if we all were maintaining a health diet, exercising atleast 5 days a week, and sleeping 8 + hours a night, we would quickly see a reduction in the number of individuals who "need" the drug at all. 4****MOST IMPORTANT!!!***** Don't get too excited, I do not have a quick fix to the daily issues we all suffer that result in each of us feeling as though drugs are the solution. Like anything else, moderation is key and this requires us to exercise the most valuable tool we have. Our individual ability to make choices, to make hard choices that result in positive change. When I was depressed one day driving home, I had a thought that change my attitude and outlook. HOW I FEEL A LOT OF THE TIME IS NOT A CLEAR, ACCURATE, OR REALISTIC VIEW OF WHAT REALITY IS. When you learn to step outside of yourself and take a look at yourself, recognizing the negative thoughts, feelings, and anxieties, we can then make the choice to ACT in a positive light that is in contradiction to how we feel. Just because we feel a certain way, why do we have to act that way? This is by far the hardest skill to learn and to be consistent at. But imagine how shocked your brain would be if you woke up feeling depressed and you just wanted to sleep all day while smoldering in a pool of negative thought patterns and then you said to yourself, "My life is not that bad, I am choosing to get up and to be productive." at which point you choose to force your physical body to act in the exact opposite way your minds feels and thinks. Once you have regained control over your physical body you can then begin to replace the paralyzing mental and emotion state of mind by coming up with a few sentences that are extremely positive and give your mind a depiction of the perfect person you want to be, and repeat those sentences over and over until you mind believes you. Our thoughts become reality, our image of ourselves determines everything. To summarize, once you obtain the skill have recognizing the symptoms that you hate so much and then CHOOSING to force your body to act positively and in direct contradiction to the negative symptom being experiences, you will realize that your feelings, emotions, and negative thought patterns do not need to rule body. Master your, take control, do hard things, and change has to be the outcome. In my life adderall helped me accomplish this extremely difficult task. I remember very soon after getting on adderall I was in a situation that usually would have produce very negative behaviors and feelings and possibly a period of depression, but because I was on adderall I did not feel those negative emotions. My thought in that moment was, "You mean this situation is not a big deal? I don't need to feel the depression and negative emotions I usually feel in this situation and everything will be ok?" It was an eye opener for me and since then when I am not taking adderalll, I am able to recognize similar situations and even feel the depressing and negative emotions and thoughts coming on and stop myself and say."Pause and look at yourself, you do not need to feel this way or think this way, you choose the path your life takes". And then I make the difficult choice of acting in contradiction to how my body feels and my mind thinks and eventually the body and mind change completely. Note, this truly is the hardest step to master, it was something I came to understand even more when overcoming an addiction to chewing tobacco and alcohol. William Ernest Henley wrote a poem that I absolutely love: Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. William Ernest Henley