Where do I start

[The Madd Hatter]

First off kudos to Mike and the affiliates that started this site. It is a great support group. There is really no one else that can relate to our struggles and battles of trying to trounce this addiction to amphetamine salts. If you've never taken adderall on a regular basis it is impossible to relate to our collective experiences. I am glad I stumbled upon this site. I shall begin telling my story but can't help but feel like I'm telling the same story as everyone else on here.

I started taking adderall recreationally around 16 or 17 years old. I witnessed first hand the good, the bad and the ugly that comes from it. I was dating my longterm girlfriend and she attended an academically challenging all girls school. She was prescribed adderall which helped her get through her rigerous studies. She probably averaged 4 hours of homework each school night. I would spend weekends with her and she would try not to take adderall. When she didn't take it she just wanted to lay in bed and could barely get motivated to do anything. She would give me a 10mg adderall once in awhile and it would make me on edge, irritable, ect.. It clearly wasn't for me. She didn't like how I reacted to it and neither did I. I saw how she functioned while on and off it and right there I should have taken that as a warning. Then senior year of highschool I got a prescription which I've pretty much been on since. It helped to a degree I think but in my opinion ADD/ADHD are not disorders. Anybody can suffer from ADD/ADHD symptoms at one point or another in their lives and there is always a natural way to "cure" it. I digress,

At 23 I went through a bad break up with a very mature russian girl I'd been seeing. She told me she loved me but broke down all my flaws and hit the hammer on the head of the proverbial nail that was my meandering existence. I was smoking weed and drinking all the time while also taking adderall. My goals and ambition was non existent. I simply lived in and for the moment perhaps expecting the future to miraculously unravel in perfect order and form for me. Everyone needs a wakeup call, some often more than one. That was mine. I quit drinking, smoking and taking adderall cold turkey for about 1-2 months. I was a depleted emotional wreck. I could barely get out of bed. Overcome by lethargy and depression I laid in bed and read book after book. Seems I could focus better on reading and retaining information from a book when I was off adderall. Unfortunately quitting 3 substances at the same time cold turkey was crippling. I started taking adderall again to function. I became a social drinker and quit smoking weed at 25. I was in a healthy groove at 25 taking only 1 dose of 10mg of adderall in the morning( I was prescribed 60mg a day), then running 7 miles then going to work. I got a new job in the spring of last year and increased my dose up to the full amount prescribed (60mgs) which I think is a disgusting amount. In June of this year I visited friends down south and decided I'd smoke weed knowing I wouldn't make it a habit again andv because I was in a good place, I felt, in my life. Well I had an introspective breakdown about how adderall was destroying my life. I had a few drinks in me as well and tried to convince my friend to flush the rest of my script down the toilet. He wouldn't but agreed I should gradually quit, telling me it speeds up time in one's life.

So I began to ween myself off but it wasn't working very well. I recently just went to Montreal and through various similar circumstances, I realized the time was now. I am now on day 13 with no adderall. I've felt relatively fine until today. Today I feel the depression and lethargy to the highest levels. I take great care of my body in terms of food and exercise and since I've quit adderall my diet has gone to hell and I've lost all motivation to exercise. This is the most troubling part to me. I need to find a way to get motivated to push my body like I used to on adderall. Any motivational tactics specific to a recovering adderall addicts' condition? Thanks for listening