It's hard to know where to start when you're the type of person who doesn't know how to ask for help. So I'll start by introducing myself. I am Jacob and my story is like most of yours. I was first diagnosed with ADHD when I was 17 or 18 and was prescribed Ritalin by my doctor. For months I took it, lost 50 pounds and could focus on work. Soon it stopped working for me and all I had to show for it was a cranky angry attitude. I stopped taking it and was good till about a year ago. My partner (I'll call him Jt) has been taking Adderall for years now and when we moved in together I started taking it and it was great, it was love the fog had lifted in my head and I could do or be anything. I got myself back into school and planning my life out.
Soon when school started I wasn't going to get any sleep, so we decided to stay up all night and take Adderall to keep up going. I thought that was a great idea and at first it was nice because we would stay up all night and talk. That didn't last long; we both get so lost in doing random stuff and spend the night hours in silent darkness. We get 60 30mg pills every 24 days and at least 3 days we stay up all night, the day after is always horrible and we always decide to never do it again. A year and a half later we still are doing the same thing. When my partner first started talking about quitting this week I thought, ok you quit, I am not addicted to it and don't need to stop. I can see now how stupid that thought was.
Let me explain how the last 7 days has been for us. We were able to get a refill on the 26th, which we have no insurance for so it cost about $80, we needed if for Sunday so Saturday night we went to the 24hr pharmacy and got it after midnight. Jt had to be up at 530am so I decided to we would just stay up all night and we will be good. Sunday morning I was able to fall asleep at 7am and was back up taking more by 10am. Sunday night comes around and I still can't sleep so we decided again to stay up, Jt made it till about 3 and I was up all night, thus comes Tuesday night, Jt got home from work and we spent some together and he was off to sleep. I couldn't sleep still and was up all night but luckily didn't take any. Wednesday morning I was able to get 3 more hours of sleep, when Jt got home he wanted to take a half and so we did and he fell asleep no problem, I ended up being up all night. I had spent 3 and a half hours standing in the bathroom for no reason. Thursday morning I got to sleep around 7 and slept till 1230, just enough to dose up and make it to a job interview. I had to take more because I was so out of it and wanted to do good in my interview, by 3 Thursday night we both got to sleep. For 5 days I couldn't sleep, I had to force myself to eat and drink and I have absolutely nothing good to show for it. Today is the 31st and we have 7 pills out of the 60 we got, 18 days till we can refill again and have almost nothing left.
Wednesday night was the worst for me I was having chest pain, joint pains, I couldn’t focus my sight on anything more than 6 inches from my face so I came on to here. I started reading about what I need to do and I have decided that I am an addict and I need help. I told Jt Thursday that I was done taking it and that I would help him wean off of it. Today was supposed to be day 1 for me and about lunch time I was so irritable and hostile that Jt gave me a pill and I took it. It was at that point that I knew we have to do it at the same time and can't have it in our home.
I’m off to a great start. I need some advice on overcoming this and how we can both do it before it destroys everything that is important in our lives. I need so advice on how to get clean, and dealing with the withdraw symptoms?
