Beginning Taper will I always be so tired

[NotEvenOnce]

I've made the decision to get off adderall. A little background been on drug for past 12 years past three months use escalated to 80 - 100mg total daily of xr and immediate release. I've stopped using the immediate release and have begun slow taper of xr. But I am already so tired and still have drug in my system. I have found a lot of good info on this site and trying to keep positive attitude. Any advice on how to end my addiction to this drug would be appreciated.

[JustinW]

You can do anything that you put your mind to.  The tiredness will go away over time and then you have to fight the "blahs" or what some call laziness but I believe it's more a lack of desire to do anything.  Everyone's journey is a little different so you need to just give it time and let it run its course without being too critical of your lethargic behavior.  Welcome to the forum!

[Jon]

Be sure to read Mike's articles on how to taper off Adderall and how to quit cold turkey. I believe that those aticles will address your question about advice. Knowing the using the drug hurts more than the tiredness you feel is your key to freedom. After 12 years of use you must be pretty tired of using. I know I was. I found a way to quit through this site and you can too. Keep coming back and let us know how you are doing. You can do this!

[LILTEX41]

Eat healthy and drink lots of H2O.  Take vitamins.  Do you exercise at all right now?

[NotEvenOnce]

I need to increase my water intake. I do take vitamins including fish oil and I recently started l-tyrosine. I've been walking 2-3 times a week. I would like to workout more but all I really want to do is sleep when I'm not at work. I know few people just absolutely LOVE to exercise but will my energy level and desire improve where I won't have to force myself to exercise?

[LILTEX41]

I think the hardest part of any exercise program is the starting.  Once you get in a groove and start feeling all the positive effects, it gets way easier and you miss it when you don't do it.  I can't promise you that I am always excited or LOVE to exercise as if it just comes naturally to me.  It is  something I force myself to do at first and then I reap all the amazing benefits after I do it. I actually came up with a little motto this week and it's helping me greatly.  My motto is, "I have never regretted a workout or eating healthy."  So every day when I wake up and I feel like I want to keep sleeping in I just keep telling myself to go through the motions because I won't regret it later like I will if I sleep in.  It's working so far!

 

I can also attest to making some major dietary changes  in the past few weeks and am already amazed by how much better I've been feeling.  That show, "The Doctor's" said something amazing this week that is really helping me too.  Dr. Travis said, "Let food be your medicine."  I couldn't agree more! 

 

But again, just be gentle on yourself and take things one day at a time and make slow gradual changes.  No need to attack everything all at once.  Chunk getting healthy down into smaller steps so you'll be able to sustain the quitting process over the long haul.

 

You've got this and you can do this! 

Have a great day!

[Cassie]

I need to increase my water intake. I do take vitamins including fish oil and I recently started l-tyrosine. I've been walking 2-3 times a week. I would like to workout more but all I really want to do is sleep when I'm not at work. I know few people just absolutely LOVE to exercise but will my energy level and desire improve where I won't have to force myself to exercise?

When I was on Adderall I used to run 20 miles a week, but when I quit I could barely walk for 20 minutes. For the first several months, I walked on my treadmill in front of the tv for 20 minutes every day, at a fairly slow speed. That's all I could handle. I did yoga too, and leisurely hikes. If you try to push yourself early on you will be setting yourself up for disappointment. That was my experience anyway. You have to really lower your expectations and realize recovery is an extremely slow process that you can't force or micromanage. I'd sleep if that's what your body is telling you. For the first year all I did was go to work, watch tv and sleep (and light exercise). I didn't have the motivation or energy to do anything else. I slept 9-10 hours a night for the first year off Adderall.

[Zerokewl]

I have to agree with Cassie though I've tried to fight it I've slept alot this year. I'm 10 months out and I  feel less tired for longer periods. But I sleep 10 + hours a day.  I think its just the body re calibrating to life without adderall etc. Sleep heals your mind grapes so embrace it and try to make life as easy as possible for right now. 

[LILTEX41]

Ok you guys.  I want to retract/reframe my statement here.  I do agree with you guys that you should absolutely have like zero expectations of yourself in the beginning and thinking you will achieve much outside of anything is just a miracle in itself as it is.  Especially in the first 30 days, do not push yourself or like Cassie mentioned you will be setting yourself up for failure.

 

However, what I would like to note is that everyone is different.  None of us will have the exact same recovery.  What worked for me may not work for someone else.  We are all unique and there are many paths to recovery.  I think it also depends on how long you used Adderall.  It's going to be harder the longer you've been taking it. I was only on it for 5-6 years and I started when I was 24.  If you are someone that has essentially grown up on Adderall or been taking it 10 years, etc., your process of quitting will most likely be much harder than mine.

 

With all that being said, I just want to relay the message of my own personal experience and what happened for me.  I went to detox on November 12, 2010. I was then loaded up on a drug cocktail of Citalopram, Lamictal, and Seroquel as they didn't know what was wrong with me, but thought it was possible I could have bipolar or possibly schizophrenia.  So from November -April I was on this drug cocktail. All I did was sleep, eat, go to outpatient classes, and work. I did the absolute bare minimum I hd to. These drugs tranquilized the crap out of me and I had zero energy to do much of anything. I was so out of I felt happy for no reason and just pretty much like a zombie.

 

I finally decided I'd had enough and all I wanted to do was get in shape and get back to feeling "normal".  I weaned myself off all 3 drugs over the course of a month. I remember the day so clearly, but April 14th I got to work ran up and saw my friend Kathy and said, "OMG, it's back!!!  I forgot how it felt!"  I was referring to my anxiety, but I was so ecstatic because I felt like I was bouncing off the walls and all I wanted to do was exercise. 

 

So from April on out I just started exercising again outside from running, riding my bike, going to the gym, just anything outdoors really.  I was SOOOOO happy to be off all drugs and SOOOOO happy to have energy back.  I felt great. 

 

But again, this is my experience ONLY and I doubt anyone will travel the same path I did.  I think for me, I was so grateful to be off all the tranquilizers, I had crazy motivation to exercise.  I went from one extreme to the other so my recovery was completely different.  I went from speed to downers to normalcy.  I can understand anyone just coming off of speed and not having a desire/motivation to do anything for up to a year.  Makes sense to me.

 

Ok, now that I got ALL of that off my chest, I'm going to go meet a running group for a 10 miler.    Hope this helps clear up thing a bit.

 

Have a great day everyone!

[quit-once]

 

However, what I would like to note is that everyone is different.  None of us will have the exact same recovery.  What worked for me may not work for someone else.  We are all unique and there are many paths to recovery.  I think it also depends on how long you used Adderall.  It's going to be harder the longer you've been taking it. I was only on it for 5-6 years and I started when I was 24.  If you are someone that has essentially grown up on Adderall or been taking it 10 years, etc., your process of quitting will most likely be much harder than mine.

 

This is so true.  In my experience of reading these forums for the past three years, having a best friend going through recovery as well as myself, EVERY STORY IS UNIQUE.  Everybody deals with their recovery in their own way.  For example the sleep thing that Cassie and ZK were discussing.....I would have loved 9 or 10 hours of sleep per night in my first year.  But recovery has turned me into a morning person.  I just can't sleep past 6 AM and overall, my general sleep requirement returned to my pre-adderall normal of about 7 hours per night rather quickly after quitting.  I used to loathe mornings, for most of my life.  But now? I feel good right away.  I think some of that has to do with kicking the cigs, too - not being in nicotine withdrawal from the moment I woke up.  Sunrises are pretty cool events.

Sometimes I find it hard to frame my posts in terms of my recovery experience and what worked for me, rather than generalizing and making blanket statements.

[Zerokewl]

So true what QUit Once and LilTex said.  Recovery is different for everyone for a lot of reasons.  I think adderall masks other issues like depression, OCD etc. So when you do get clean those issues come raging back. Listen to your body and do the self care things like sleep hygiene, exercise, nutrition and meditation or some form of spirituality. 

[NotEvenOnce]

Thanks for all the great advice. Continuing to taper off now at 20mg daily. Exhaustion isn't as bad as last few weeks. Trying to be patient because it is hard to know how to prepare because moods are still a little unpredictable. Cravings come and go. Energy level up and down. Moods change often, etc. So ready to be off this drug.

[Greg]

Jon said something earlier that I think is really important to emphasize. Don't be too critical of your lack of motivation to do much when you are quitting. I'd like to elaborate more on that. If I got upset about my lack of motivation to do anything I would never have quit successfully. The tiredness WILL go away but it may take awhile because you used it for 12 years. I was also using for 12 years, I was at 250 mgs +++ a day by the end. I gave myself PLENTY of time to recover without putting ANY pressure on myself. In fact I just studied for a business school entrance exam at my own pace (so at least I was doing something) but not much else. I distinctly remember watching every episode of lost, 24, alias and reading tons of leisurely books like every John Grisham novel. I also read tons of books on speed and adderall addiction. I was really depressed and I read a lot of self help books to improve my spirits. There is an old post I started in the lounge about books dealing with adderall/Ritalin abuse. That was so critical for me to recover. I think adderall addiction turns us into people with high expectations of ourselves, we probably were like that before in some capacity and adderall fed that mentality and only made it worse. In order to successfully quit I had to completely let go of that mentality if that make sense. And that meant putting no pressure on myself which meant no work and no school for a long time. Finally, I was ready to slowly begin putting pressure back into my life and I did it in small doses. A very non pressured internship. Slowly I stepped up the pressure I put on myself but all while learning to do it without adderall. Now I can study and work and do all the things I needed adderall to do without adderall anymore. Everyone has their stories of how they overcame the addiction and I recommend u look into older posts to see how people on this site did it.