I need advice

[rick]

I was off adderall for the summer. I started using it again this Tuesday. I went off to college for the first time a couple of weeks ago and felt completely overwhelmed by the workload. I am a beast on adderall and can pretty much maintain a 4.0. 

 

I can't take the effects of adderall on my social life. I am not all there. I am completely different. I have done well in school in the past without being on adderall but I can't muster up the courage to actually try that again. I am very good at procrastinating and putting things off and admittedly I don't have my mom pushing me along anymore to remedy that. I am almost positive that I will be getting a lower GPA. If it were only slightly lower, I really wouldn't care.

 

For people who have gotten off of adderall while they were in school, how did you do after you stopped taking adderall? Should I take the risk and just see what happens?

 

I HATE ADDERALL! FUCK! I really am so terribly addicted to it when I feel pressured. The pressure is everything. The rock and the hard place feeling is making me going fucking nuts.

 

Guys :'( Where has my self-control gone?

[Cassie]

 I have done well in school in the past without being on adderall

 

 

 If you decide to quit Adderall, THIS is what you need to hang onto. Because if you succeeded before this addiction, you will again.

 

I didn't take Adderall for school, but I took it for work after I been done with college for a few years. If you continue to take Adderall all through college, do you think you'll stop then? I predict you will continue to take it for your job after college, because you won't feel like you can succeed without it (or do anything requiring effort without it). Then you'll be even more afraid to quit because you'll be facing another kind of pressure. Instead of worrying about failing a class, you'll worry about getting fired and losing your income, not being able to pay your bills, and not being able to find another job. Personally, I'd rather worry about failing a class.

 

Sorry, I don't have much advice for you regarding your classes. If you stop taking Adderall your GPA may very well go down - the price of taking performance enhancing drugs is that when you go off them, your performance declines. However, the longer you wait to quit, the more psychologically addicted you get and the self doubt just gets worse and worse, which reinforces the belief that you need amphetamines to learn and perform.

 

So, I hope you are able to quit, especially since you have admitted to yourself that you are addicted and can't rely on your inner resources to deal with stress like you used to. Talking to a counselor may help - they usually have them through your school.

[Zerokewl]

 I really wish I was in my first year of College trying to figure this shit out.  You really are in a good place in life to stop using. First year college is really all about figuring out who you are.  My advice if you are quitting:

 

1)drop a few classes or even take some easier ones.

2)Go through this forum and read posts from people in various stages of addiction and recovery. 

3) Start listening to the blues. 

4) Make your own path. Nobody really cares abou GPA's in the real world college is about making social contacts that will benefit you in the future. 

[Jon]

I HATE ADDERALL! FUCK! I really am so terribly addicted to it when I feel pressured. The pressure is everything. The rock and the hard place feeling is making me going fucking nuts.

 

Guys :'( Where has my self-control gone?

 

 

I'm sorry to hear that you started using again and it is causing you to suffer. You say that independence has caused your self-control to erode and makes you procrastinate your studies, thereby putting pressure on yourself to cram. That sounds familiar to me, close to home.

 

I think you should attend school while living at home with Mom. The campus life, while invigorating, can simply be too much for some kids to handle. I should know, I was one of them. My addictive behaviors were set in stone by the time I left college.

 

Seek help now at the school counseling center or risk spending a lifetime struggling with addiction. And not just an Adderall addiction. That is what I would do if I had my life to live over again.

[blesbro]

I was off adderall for the summer. I started using it again this Tuesday. I went off to college for the first time a couple of weeks ago and felt completely overwhelmed by the workload. I am a beast on adderall and can pretty much maintain a 4.0. 

 

I can't take the effects of adderall on my social life. I am not all there. I am completely different. I have done well in school in the past without being on adderall but I can't muster up the courage to actually try that again. I am very good at procrastinating and putting things off and admittedly I don't have my mom pushing me along anymore to remedy that. I am almost positive that I will be getting a lower GPA. If it were only slightly lower, I really wouldn't care.

 

For people who have gotten off of adderall while they were in school, how did you do after you stopped taking adderall? Should I take the risk and just see what happens?

 

I HATE ADDERALL! FUCK! I really am so terribly addicted to it when I feel pressured. The pressure is everything. The rock and the hard place feeling is making me going fucking nuts.

 

Guys :'( Where has my self-control gone?

 

What's up Rick,

 

I can totally relate to everything you're going through. I am supposed to be a freshman in college this year but am taking a year off because I don't think I'll be able to handle it yet, even at nearly 9 months sober. I had been a straight A student my whole life and about a year and a half after I started to take adderall, I got to a point where I had so little self control that I could hardly pass my classes anymore while on adderall. It totally destroyed my work ethic and took away my self control. I got to the darkest place I had ever been in my life and life continued to get worse month by month. I had insane social anxiety on adderall But yet, I couldn't stop taking it. It made me feel confident and good despite the million negative side effects that I didn't even realize. I knew I was addicted for a long time but wasn't able to bring myself to finally quit until it had done severe damage to my life. I am still having an insane amount of difficulty trying to get school work done despite my history with academics but I am making progress and I am thinking about going back to college in the spring, which will give me about a year of recovery time before I start.

 

I seriously recommend that you find a good time to stop taking it and do what you have to do to accommodate your recovery. I like the idea of taking easier classes or perhaps taking a semester off to recover before returning. You know you can't take adderall forever and you know it only gets worse as you continue to take it, so my advice is to make a plan to quit forever sometime in the near future. You and I know that you're a better person off of adderall, it just will take time for your body to adjust and to really become that person without adderall. It will be difficult to start getting stuff done without adderall but hey, no pain no gain and when you push through it you will be stronger because of it. I like to think that after a successful recovery, we become better people than we were before we took the drug. For me, quitting made me really grateful and much more humble and understanding of other people and their problems. My heart literally feels warm every time I think about how I quit forever because I was absolutely hopeless on adderall and there's no better feeling than being free from it.

 

Hope this helps!

 

Blesbro

[ashley6]

Rick,

I can really relate to this post, because I started using adderall my sophomore year of college; however, I was in a different place, in that I thought it was the answer to all things school-related. Let me tell you, though, I probably only saw an increase in my performance the first year or two. Then the side effects started outweighing the benefits, and I couldn't bring myself to go to class some days because I was so anxious. The drug actually did the opposite for me after a few years, and I was prescribed 60 mgs (I think) and not even abusing....yet, from what I can remember. Now, I'm 28 years old and finally finishing my college degree. Moral of the story is: adderall didn't actually continue to benefit me at all, it hindered me, due to the awful psychological and physical side effects, so if you continue using adderall this is not a guarantee for success by any means, if that makes sense.

[LILTEX41]

Rick,

 

I never took Adderall during college, THANK GOD. I can only imagine how different my experience would have been.  I'll be money on it that I would've destroyed so many friendships and not been blessed with the amazing experience that I had. I'll bet money on it that I would've been so into my pill popping addiction that I would've neglected the friends I made and people would've seen the worst parts of me.  I'll bet money on it that my teachers, friends, and everyone around me would've known I had a serious problem and I wonder if I would've even graduated.

 

What I can tell you is that by not being on it in college I had the best experience of my life.  I could do college all over again in a heartbeat. It was probably the best 4 years of my life. I played field hockey and LOVED my teammates. I joined a sorority and basically it was just so much fun.  Do your best to achieve and get good grades, but realize that college is so much more than just hitting the books.  It rounds you out.  You will meet all kinds of new fascinating people. You'll be on your own for the first time in your life and starting to figure out who you are and what makes you tick.  It all about balance. Strive to make your college experience as great as possible by getting active in all kinds of different activities/clubs, or what ever fires you up.  Find some things that you feel passionate about and enjoy.  You won't even want to be on Adderall if you can create a well rounded exciting fun filled life.  You won't need it!!  Make new friends and enjoy these 4 years to the best of your ability because you only get to do it once! 

 

I am actually super excited right now because I am going home in 3 weeks for a field hockey college reunion.  One of my bff's is getting inducted into the hall of fame for field hockey.  We are going to alumni weekend and I really just feel giddy about it.  These girls were my family and we all moved away after college. Had I been on Adderall I know I would not have connected the way that I did with any of them.  I would've been knee deep into my addiction and all of my attention would've been focused on trying to be a perfect 4.0 student.  Like someone else said, your connections are really meaningful and they will last a lifetime. Focus on the people you meet and you will have new relationships to cherish and treasure for the rest of your life!

 

Besides, you will be SO MUCH BETTER OFF if you kick this habit NOW while you are so young.  And you never know who you might end up helping in college.  I bet you will meet tons of fellow addicts!  Just imagine being the only person on campus who broke free from addiction and lived to share your experience with others.  You just never know who might come to you for help someday and how cool would that be?!

 

You CAN DO THIS!

 

HUGS!

[rick]

Guys thank you all. I've dropped a course 19 minutes before the withdraw deadline lol. Fuck. This is crazy. Thanks for the responses. Really. I was considering dropping it but this pushed me over the edge.

 

Looking for the best this semester. I'll look into counseling. Don't want to start Rutgers off on the wrong foot.

 

Scared for the future, hoping for the best. 

 

All of you are amazing.

[quit-once]

Rick, if I remember correctly from your posts last winter you said you never abused the adderall. But I can't remember why you said you quit (and why you used it) in the first place. Could you refresh that part of your story for us?

 

Addiction = the inability to stop a behavior despite great personal cost. (from the book "unchain your brain")

[Zerokewl]

nice dude! You are in a very desirable place. Ist year college is a great time to be doing this. 

[rick]

I can't function with or without adderall. i'm dying inside. This hole has been dug so deeply. 

[Motivation_Follows_Action]

Rick, what a great amount of support you've had from people here.  College (or "Uni" as we call it) was a long time ago for me, and sometimes I think the pressures placed on students today would drive anyone to want to take a magic pill to make it all better.  And that's what adderall was for some of us, for a little bit of time.  But like most have said, and have experienced, there is a turning point... where all the good stuff stops working, and all the bad stuff (like social anxiety) creeps in and takes over.  And once that's taken over, coming back from the loss of your identity and personality and humor and intelligence is just such a long, hard process.  We all struggle with it.  

 

What others have said is true.  Congrats on dropping a course - it's the right time to do it.  I don't think you should go back home to Mom.  College is about learning how to do LIFE, which includes sobriety and self control.  You can do this, on your own!  Albeit more slowly than you'd like, but you're setting youself up for a pretty fucked up life if you can't get through college without adderall... 

 

You are not dying.  Inside or outside.  You are just learning how to live again..  better now than in a year, 2 years, when you're 30, etc etc.  Be happy with the amount of choices you have to make about your life, and make them with confidence and go all-in!  The only thing you can do now is fuck up.  Adderall will be a great enabler if that's what you want to do.  But I don't think that's what you want... just go slowly, for now, until you're ready to take on more!

[LILTEX41]

Rick,

 

                 

You CAN function without Adderall!  Have your organs stopped working??? 

 

You just pull yourself together and get through this one day at a time.  How about instead of saying, "I am dying inside" say, "I GOT THIS SHIT. ADDERALL AIN'T GOT NOTHING ON ME.  I am DETERMINED I will go over this quicker than anyone else on this forum because I am like the youngest one here! I am vibrant and full of life and energy.  I do NOT need this stupid lame drug. I will fly through recovery quickly, easily, and I no longer struggle. I will get up everyday, do whatever needs to be done, and each day I don't take Adderall I am stronger and happier. Life is GOOD.  F- THEM PILLS!" 

 

DON'T YOU QUIT - KEEP MOVING ON!