5 months no adderall

[Lowkee]

Hello,

 

First time posting here, but I've been quietly lurking on this website for probably two years, and would like to say how much I appreciate everything this site has given me.

 

I started taking adderall for energy, I was going no where in life, had no education, and no motivation. Dropped out of HS and college. Adderall changed that for the better when I started taking 60-75mg a day for 5 years. It helped me through college, and got me a pretty good job that I became very good at and loved.

 

I quit adderall because it robbed me of the ability to connect with people. I went from being popular and having a lot of deep connections with people, to becoming a work zombie who ended up putting frivolous nonsense above all the people in my life that actually mattered. I lost everyone, and ended up spending nearly 5 years alone. I failed miserably at friendship and love. 

 

I've been on adderall since 2010 up until last May. I've also been a cigarette smoker for about 12 years. I quit smoking cigarettes and adderall on the same day 5 months ago. I felt like I could never quit smoking until I quit adderall because adderall made me crave cigarettes so much. Let me just say, quitting smoking was EASY compared to quitting A. I didn't even think about cigarettes nearly as much as I thought about adderall.

 

I quit on a day I was sick, and had already gotten days off work and was forced to not smoke or take adderall anyway. During that time I slept pretty much for 4 days straight.

 

I followed this site, and all of it's advice. I dragged myself into the office every day and did nothing practically. Just barely worked. Luckily I had a good relationship with my boss, and I was honest about what was going on. I admitted to taking adderall for years, and that I was quitting, and that my work performance may suffer. I'm really lucky he was alright with that. 

 

I think it took me about a month to fully get back to feeling normal without it. The first month was hard though. I got fat very fast. Or at least that's how I felt. It turned out I was just not dressing to fit comfortably, so I ended up going up a whole shirt size, which meant I had to buy all new clothes. I didn't have the power to quit junk food and adderall AND cigarettes, so I just filled the A void with junk food... Soda, fast food, etc.

 

I eventually made it through all 13 steps of quitting adderall. I ended up learning I was able to get work done and keep my job without adderall. I may even do a better job at it some days. I'm just not as fast as I used to be. The key is just to get sleep. No more working on 5 hours or less. 

 

I was able to take up exercising too. I also started excercising 5 days a week. I've learned that if I can conquer cigarettes and adderall at the same time and never look back, I could probably do just about anything. So I continued to challenge myself. I started using myfitness pal app and tracking calories goals, fitness goals, and diet. 

 

Recently I've even begun dating someone who is totally awesome. I feel like it's so much easier to emotionally connect with someone, relax and just be yourself. I can't believe how much easier it is. Also as soon as I quit, many more women were attracted to me. The only problem is that I realize that the ED has carried over, which makes things very uncomfortable. It's a nightmare, and I'm worried it will ruin everything I have going with this woman I'm seeing. I'm seeing a doctor for it soon, but was curious if anyone else had this problem after quitting. 

 

I've also made a lot of new friends though, and reconnected with a few old ones. It's much easier to relax and just hangout with people off adderall. I feel like adderall's not there getting in the way of your natural body language, making your eyes bug out and all your muscles tense. 

 

Oh and my sense of humor is back, people actually find me funny sometimes now. On adderall I was ultra serious all the time.

 

Overall, I work is more of a struggle. Some days I work hard, some days I don't. I have a pretty good balance between work and my social life at least. I'm able to make goals and achieve them, so I feel hopeful for the future. But I feel a lot of things now that I didn't before. There are a lot of emotions now. I live a roller coaster of doubt, sadness, anger, love, regret, happiness, all of it. I don't feel like I have that safety net that adderall gave me. I feel like if things were to fall apart, I would be tempted to use again. Or if I forget why I stopped it in the first place, then it could come back. One thing I never did was throw the last of them away.

 

It's still a struggle. But so is everything. Life on adderall is easy. Life off it is hard AF.

 

 

Some tips I can give, that I found helpful, is that starting the day with excercise helps give me energy and focus. Music helps you get through tough emotions. That's something I never realized the value of until Adderall took it away. Learn to eat good healthy food. This one's tough, because it's so easy to choose junk food, but good food gives you energy. It also helps you keep a low weight, because quitting makes you eat so much. No more all nighters, get 8 hours of sleep, take breaks, rest, make goals, take 1 step at a time.

[Zerokewl]

congrats on five months keep struggling. Keep Exercising focus on your self care. You-got-this just keep it up. Try the no window diet, don't eat anything that is served out of a window for a year. Amazing how much drive thru you avoid.  ( I just invented this diet) 

[survived]

Wow, a lot of the stuff you wrote I could have written myself. We have a lot of similarities. I started around the same time as you and spent 4 years alone and lost friends, because I thought I was "busy". Getting your sense of humor back is always a nice feeling.

 

Congrats on 5 months of quitting both Adderall and Cigs. You are very lucky to have such an awesome boss. Welcome back to reality, it's so much better here than on Adderall.

[Beback17]

Wow Lowkee, you are kind of a badass.  Quitting A and smoking at the same time - Bravo! 

[Doge]

congratulations!  welcome to the boards!