Adderall Showed Me The Light But Burned Me In The End...

[addyholic]

I'll try not to tell the whole life story here, but I feel like it's all pretty important to see why I started craving adderall and why I decided to quit.

So I grew up as a spacey kid. Teachers would always write on my report cards that I was bright and capable, but I would usually lose focus and stare off rather quickly. My brother is moderately autistic, making me the "normal" kid in the family. Normally I may have been diagnosed ADD (like every other kid in America) but I'm guessing my parents pushed to have me as their problem-free child. I was an average student, played sports, was pretty happy, and loved to procrastinate.

Fast forward to high school. New school and no new friends at first made social anxiety start to kick my ass. The worst was with girls. I had the craziest sex drive as a teenager but I could never do anything about it.. sexual anxiety made me fear rejection and value the opposite sex way too hard. By the end of high school I had good friends, partied, drank and did all the typical teen stuff. The only problem was that I developed a nauseating panic attack from girls- more specifically, hooking up with them. I remember I was pretty much "lined up" to hook up with a girl who was definitely out of my league, when it happened for the first time. I got a nervous stomach and had to excuse myself to go puke. This kept happening with any girls, and it even got to the point where I anticipated it and would throw up before every party in order to get the nervousness out of my system. From then on, I got anxiety from having my anxiety attacks in public, which just proceeded to build upon itself. Shitty, I know.

Fast forward to summer before junior year of college. Had a surgery that got me a lot of opiate painkillers. I was never addicted to them, but they kind of opened the door to pill popping.. since I was previously fairly anti-drug. Went looking through my autistic brother's old medications one day to see if I could find anything fun. Found a bottle of generic adderall, looked up the effects on google, and decided to take one for the hell of it. You ever get that feeling that you just found something that changes EVERYTHING? Well this was it for me. I walked out of my house with no confidence problems or anxiety whatsoever, and went to my friend's party. I felt like the f*&%ing man. I was funny, quick, confident, and could drink forever and never get the "stupid drunk feeling" after having a little too much. Most importantly, I had no social/sexual anxiety. I laughed at the fact that I was seeing a CBT therapist that summer and was determined to fix my problems without medication. Why the hell did I need her when I had this?

That year in college I started by mixing it with booze on the weekends. I know, it's terrible for your heart and I do not recommend anyone does this either. I had no script- just an old bottle of medication so I knew I couldnt be careless with it. I treated the stuff like gold and saw it as a complete emancipation from my anxiety ball & chain. My confidence shot through the roof, I had tons of energy, I hooked up with tons of girls, it made me incredible in bed, and it also kept me focused on projects? I was sure I had the wonder drug. I ended up meeting one girl near the end of the year who I actually really liked, and was convinced getting with her would be the fitting end to my amazing year. Well, I did, but when it came time for sexytimes, I got hit with some adderall E.D. I blew it off like I had too much to drink, but then it happened the following weekend too, and then the semester was up.

Now looking back, this was a defining moment for me. No matter how much you chase the adderall high and think it will last forever, it will ALWAYS burn you in the end. Just to speed things up a bit, I'll give a quick rundown of the events since then:

junior year- Adderall = 4.0, confidence, beastmode, blah blah blah

senior year- got a prescription by BSing the college counseling services lady. All of a sudden it was open season and the drug was not in short supply. Started taking it for school on a daily basis and started doing very well. I also started losing my sex drive altogether and compulsively going to the library to work. Working out all of a sudden didn't feel so good, and neither did eating. Started getting a bit obsessive, but not in a good way. I would do my work well, but always in a perfectionist fashion that just wasn't efficient. Lost my creativity. Going out became a chore instead of a pleasure.

...I'm pretty sure that's what you call adderall-zombie mode

Oh and the girl? Once she came back from studying abroad I scared her off by acting like an obsessive, needy loser rather than the confident dude she once knew. Oh well. That's the price you pay when you take the adderall route, right?

Long story short, I've been on it for about 2 years since. Been making half-assed attempts to quit for about a year (that always failed), but lately I left myself with just enough left to comfortably wean myself off over a couple months, and chucked the rest. I'm just getting into my 2.5mg/day week, so the finish line is close.

Quitting really sucks. I may only have been hitting a max of 40mg a day during my peak days, but it was the daily consistency that's hard to kick. Everytime I have a bad day, or am a bit tired/unfocused, I get a strong craving for another pill. My anxiety has somewhat reared it's ugly head as well, though it's not nearly as bad as it was in high school. Hitting random bouts of depression for no reason is really getting tiresome though, especially when you know that orange pill will just make everything so much better.

On the good side, I'm working out more than ever. I'm starting to enjoy friends and certain activities without dopamine coursing through my brain. My sex drive is recovering, and I somewhat feel like real man once again. I know it's a long road, but little things like those are good reminders of why I made the decision to quit.

Overall I gotta say I'm glad I found adderall. The stuff kicked my anxiety's ass, gave me wings, kept me focused, and showed me what I was really capable of without stupid anxious thoughts to hold me down. Ironically, I started taking it to be more social, but it made me antisocial and more socially withdrawn in the end.

Writing all this down has actually been really cathartic for me, and a good reminder of why I need to quit. If you managed to get through it all without popping an adderall (haha) - Thanks for reading!

[Gregs Z]

Yea, I can totally relate with the girl anxiety thing. I've read that people with ADHD tend to be late bloomers during the their school years, I guess that goes with dealing with the opposite sex as well. I was terrified of girls while I was in high school and never dated. Its really a shame cause looking back I was a damn good looking kid and could have done really well with the girls if it wasnt for the idea popping in my head that all the girls were out of my league just like you mentioned.

You said- "I would do my work well, but always in a perfectionist fashion that just wasn't efficient". Man I gotta tell ya that just described me completely! I just couldnt explain it like that. THANKS!

Greg

[addyholic]

Glad you can relate Greg! It's funny how we can read each others stories and just get struck with how similar our situations can be..