The question of HOW? Because I've only erred each time I tried.

[startingover]

On the same boat as most of the other posters on here. Stupid boat that cannot float upright without floaters in its assistance. I've tried to quit many many times but like you and many others out there, I went right back to it after a couple of months at best. At first it turned my into a beast in academia, but now I just feel like a weak scum of an addict who cannot stop abusing their med.

I want to quit, but don't know where to start and what to do differently to increase my success rate. I'm afraid that I will flush my uni GPA even more down the drain if I quit now in the middle of the school year. I cannot even consider being in that coma state again... that 2 weeks of hibernation right after stopping the med.

Im desperate in going through with this endeavor, but I know that I am weak in that respect. Cant help but wonder how everyone else did it and kept themselves clean for so long. I've always believed that I could do everything and anything I put my heart and mind to, but it just isnt happening for me now... maybe because I've only got the heart and no mind. Cutting out Adderall would be directly cutting out a part of my brain.

My psychologist talked me into taking it again after I tried to quit the last time. She convinced me that I needed it and that without it I will fail. She only doubled my true incentive to go back to that nasty habit. I wonder if she knows that I abuse it, it is obvious when a patient says they have developed tolerance. Anyway... I guess every time I went back for a prescription, I saved a glimmer of hope within me that I would experience a do-over with the drug and experience how it had helped me before. I was so productive on it the first 2 years, now I just stare into space or do irrelevant things on a ridiculous dosage above prescription levels. Seems like all I do now is wait for the drug to kick in while knowing that it probably wont.

So much time wasted... I feel utterly pathetic. My eyes are always dilated and I am always consciously avoiding eye contact with everyone I speak to.

Every once in a while I step into reality and get a quick glimpse of how I've destroyed my life, my mental capacities and abilities in carrying out everyday activities and most of all my relationship with every person who cared. Tonight is one of those times... the only difference is that I'm taking action (however little effort this is) and seeking help from you - the ones who know too well what this path is like and the construct of all of its contours. How did you succeed? I've read the responses to most of the posts, and I know this one isn't any different but will you pretend you are talking to a baby? Or a patient suffering from mental retardation?

Go into details on what you did, one step at a time. It is just so fucking hard... and I can't do it on my own anymore.

[sky]

the success is defined as making it thru the day without taking adderall. Since no one is ever really "in the clear" (hell, alcoholics count how many years, decades, etc...) we should consider each day we don't take it a success.... but the successive successes add up to more and more clarity with this stuff... it gets easier and easier the further away from it you get.

So to answer your question, at first, we all succeeded by the hair of our chinny chin chin. we each had our own realization or breakthru that caused us to really want to stop. We realized we were abusing it, that it was having an adverse affect on some aspect of our lives that was more important than the crutch of the adderall. something or someone caused us to want to change. And then we commenced the stopping. Most of us found this site seeking information on what adderall had done to us, or how to stop, or some google search. And a lot of us keep coming back and checking in, or reading posts, and staying the course... or not, but at least the seed of quitting has been planted, now its not the same, using adderall isn't the great secret that it was before.

I wonder if adderall would be as bad if we didn't abuse it. If we used it as prescribed, would it have the same bad effects? what happens if you try to take it as directed?