trying to move forward

[Alice]

My name is Alice

I am sixteen years old, and live in Minnesota.

I started doing addy a year ago at fifteen. My boyfriend, who is three years older than me, was addicted all his senior year. I was curious about the drug, and I begged him to let me try it, he begrudgingly gave in. In my room, with the beastie boys playing loudly to cover up the sounds, I snorted 25 milligrams of time release. 3 lines. pure joy.

It was then I fell in love. Since then, my boyfriend and I had been using every chance we got. It was purely recreational. We liked how the come down made you really talkative, and we would stay up 24 hours straight just talking and talking. I guess I was under the impression that we were communicating, when in fact; we were talking AT each other, not with each other.

My boyfriend warned me how dangerous and addictive it was. I tried to heed those warnings but the funny thing about addy is that for an adrenaline junkie, you are never careful enough.

I am the definition of "overachiever". I am scheduled to graduate a year early, because I do school work literally 10 hours a day. I also take advanced college psychology classes, and have plenty of knowledge in the field.Next to addy, Psychology is my one vice. I get a natural buzz learning about it, and even sober I would read Freud or Adler for hours on end. But addy made the overachiever in me double in power. That was tolerable, until my boyfriend and I realized we are destroying our relationship. We realized we were high together more often than we were sober and decided to quit, multiple times. This time is for real, it is only day one, but I am sworn off addy.

Last time I tried to quit, I had a 2 week binge, and overdosed on 80 milligrams through the nose. I hallucinated, and it took me hours to come back. The withdrawals nearly killed me, the depression and rage...the feeling of being stuck miles inside yourself with no way out, and that weird tingly pressure in your head that doesn't go away. The withdrawals were so bad I literally didnt know where I was most of the time.

I am scared of these withdrawals. My boyfriend and I both are. We love eachother, and always did even before the addy. I wont let it wash two years with him away. But jesus, I am so afraid. I dont know if I can do it.

[sboo]

You should start by knowing that you can instead of wondering if you can. Of course you can, silly. Embrace the withdrawals, it's just your body working its magic to get you back to normal. They'll go away. Staying on Adderall is what's scary. It made me similarly distraught and yet I managed to stay on it for 8 years. I abused the hell out of it to the point where it did nothing but make me feel like a tweeker in a bead shop. I quit 2 and a half months ago....withdrawals ended after four weeks...looking back they weren't bad... I think I slept most of the month. The worst is trying to convince yourself that you don't need Adderall to function in life....at all.....that has been the most difficult part of withdrawal for me.....the shit I went through on that stuff....it's good to be free

[LizH]

Good Luck! If you can, give yourself a couple of days when you can be a waste of space, and watch dumb TV shows that you love, or something that makes you laugh. If you and your boyfriend are quitting together, I would think that that would help tremendously. When one of you gets to the breaking point, the other one can talk you out of it. You can do it.