Castles made of Dopamine/Serotonin

[Tomasso]

Hey everybody...

I found this site about a week ago and I've been lurking until now. It was great reading everybodies story and I was able to relate with almost all of them. Reading your experiences motivated me to make a post about my own story, which I feel is very different from alot of the themes and topics covered.

This might be a long post, so don't say I didn't warn you.

Before Adderall, I was a slightly shy but friendly kid. Despite the shyness, I was confident and didn't have anxiety. I was small for my age and had always been picked on, but I always had friends to protect me. I played sports, had big birthday parties, hung out with friends, tried to impress girls, etc. I was a normal kid who was happy. In terms of popularity, I was probably lower-middle of the road. I had a financially and emotionally-stable family that loved me. Unfortunately, I had this thing called A.D.D. that took its toll on my grades once I entered High School.

When I was 16, I was prescribed 20MG of Adderall XR in the winter of my 10th grade year after 1.5 academic years of poor grades. I used it everyday for that Spring semester and my grades improved.

Retrospectively, the most important factor of my Adderall use during that time period is the effect that the drug had on my athletic performance (I was a soccer player for a recreational youth club team and my high school JV team). What effect did Adderall have on my athletic performance? I went from being a below average player who played because my parents said I needed exercise, to getting promoted to the top team at my youth club in my age group, I even made the Olympic Development Team for my state. I also was called up to Varsity. At the time, I had absolutely no idea that Adderall had anything to do with this, I just thought that I had gotten good.

My success in soccer made me very popular at my school for my 11th and 12th grade years. I was able to date a few of the popular girls at school that I never would have been able to in normal circumstances. I spent my school days high on Adderall and loving my life of talking to friends and feeling important while my brain was flooded with "happy chemicals"... Despite this, the side-effects I felt after school were too much for me, and I ended up quitting Adderall midway through the Fall semester of my 11th grade year. As you may have guessed, my performances in soccer dipped badly. That's when I found out, to my great disappointment, that Adderall was the reason I became good.

I knew that if I quit for good, I could lose my status, and the thought of losing my popularity was too much. So instead of quitting Adderall all together like a good person, I began abusing it strictly a performance enhancing drug for soccer, and I returned to my peak levels.

I vowed I would never tell anybody about my Adderall abuse, but as we all know, Adderall does weird things to you. One night, I ended up telling my teammate and best friend Adam about how Adderall makes you superhuman at soccer. He wanted to try it so I gave him a pill. He loved it. We then formulated a plan about how we could make our team state champions if we put more players on the pill. So we did. Me and Adam convinced our teammates one at a time to take the pill before games. The result? We convinced 9 other players on our club team to take the pill before games. We won the State and Regionals for the next 2 years. Adam and I went to the same High School and did the same procedure with the varsity team, winning the State title my 11th and 12th grade years. Towards the end of my final season, Adam and I had built such a tolerance to Adderall that it became useless if we took it orally. We couldn't take extra pills because then we wouldn't have enough for our teammates. So for our last 3 competitive matches and after a trial period at practice, we melted the pills down beforehand and injected it in the bathroom before each match. It was insane and I feel like the ecstasy I felt during those 3 matches have numbed me to normal happiness ever since.

The reason I just told you my Adderall doping story is to show you the theme that has dictated my life ever since. I built my entire ego and life on the positive attention I received from tainted victories, where I knew I was cheating the entire time, yet did it anyway because winning as a cheater was more important than winning with my own abilities.

Now, my traumatic life event:

I went to a Division 1 soccer college on a full scholarship. My parents were proud of me and I believed that I had a good chance of going professional. Unfortunately, life doesn't always go the way we plan. My first week of class, I was caught with LSD and was expelled. (Yeah, I had a weird period where I was obsessed with psychedelic drugs, don't ask lol.)

After I was expelled, my girlfriend of the past 1.5 years dumped me and immediately started dating other guys. I felt ashamed, abandoned and defeated all at the same time. I was a failure and everybody was laughing at me. I spent the next 4 months in my bedroom isolated, crying myself to sleep every night over how I had screwed up my life and wanting to commit suicide. My parents were disappointed but supportive, and I started attending my local university in the Fall.

I went back to school with a vengeance, vowing I'd prove everybody wrong who thought I was going to be a failure. Predictably, I turned to Adderall, the drug that had gotten me far with soccer, but arguably turned me into a mess of a human being. At this point I still had fond memories of my warm ego buzzes every day at school, followed by the rush of playing soccer at the top of my game. It was a no brainer, I would take Adderall for school, get top grades, transfer to a top academic school, get a great high-paying job, get rich, and laugh at everybody who ever doubted me. (Take note that the plan was to get RICH... rather than happy).

Now, fast-forward 4 years. I'm now 22. I have a 3.87 GPA and I'm interviewing for jobs. I had a very cute girlfriend until about a month ago, and if you hadn't read my story, you'd think I'm going places, but that couldn't be further from the truth. I'm depressed, anxiety-riddled, awkward, unfriendly and have extremely low self-esteem. I'm completely, 100% addicted to Adderall.

So what caused me to seek help with my Adderall problem?

It was my break-up with a girl who was my best and only friend in the world. Years of Adderall-usage destroyed my social life one friend at a time and eventually it was down to her. Once she left me, I was alone and all my academic and life motivation became completely derailed. It's hard to function or care when you have no friends or anything to look forward too. I have bombed all of my job interviews so far because of my lack of social skills and life experiences. After that, I stopped taking Adderall and began questioning all of my "accomplishments" in life.

Could I really say I accomplished anything if I used drugs to do it?

Who was I really?

Was I really Tomasso when I took Adderall? Ya know, that carefree guy who used to live in the present and have fun? That guy who was naturally friendly and confident? That guy who got the most joy in life out of making other people laugh?

Well after 3.5 years, I finally found out that Tomasso has been tied to a chair and gagged in the deep recesses of my brain. Who was the culprit? Why, it was none other than Addy-Tomasso, my alter ego.

It's my own version of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde, only this time it's very real and very sad.

I feel like I have woken up into somebody else's life. The past 3.5 years I have been a victim to my Adderall addiction, and the direction of my life during that period was dictated by what Addy-Tomasso wanted. And now my world is the world that Addy-Tomasso built.

I don't want to live my life as a slave to Adderall anymore. The isolation, the loneliness, the anxiety and the weight loss isn't worth it anymore.

I feel like I've lost 3.5 critical years of my life. My college years. The years where I was supposed to find out what I wanted to do and grow as a person have been robbed from me. Instead of connecting with others I sat in my room alone, doped out of my skull on amphetamines studying. I was getting good grades and impressing people, but deep down I always wished that I could connect with others. I was still so defeated from getting kicked out of my first college that I decided that the horrible side-effects of the drug were a worthwhile trade off for good grades, and possible prestige and something to hold over others in the future.

Who would I be today if it wasn't for the pills? Where would I be? Who would my friends be?

These are all questions that I will never be able to answer.

I've built my ego with glass and I'm afraid that if I stop the Adderall it will all fall apart, but at the same time, I want to be ME. I want to make friends, i want to connect with others.

At this point, I feel like my entire life has been a complete lie. I have never accomplished anything without Adderall and I feel horrible. Now all I want is to put this drug behind me and build a life for myself based on what I want.

I am going to quit Adderall.

That concludes my story.

Thank you to everybody who took the time out of their lives to read. I hope that this resonates with somebody and makes a positive impact in their life. I will be back on here tomorrow to respond to any comments.

[sky]

hey Tomasso,

your story resonates with a lot of us I'm sure... it's funny (not really) how in the midst of it all its inconceivable to imagine life without it... you're like "what an unfair advantage I have over everyone else! If only they knew the secret to being 200%!", but after awhile, the long term effects come on and you (hopefully) hit a point of realization that, "omg holy crap what has happened to me?!" as it robs you of your soul, takes friends and loves from you, and makes you into a dud. Thus the search for a way out, which is how a lot of us found this forum...

The thing to remember is that a lot of people (presumably) are doing really great without it. They're killing it in soccer, studying hard and acing exams, school, they party hard and dance all night, maybe feel like crap the next day, but still doing it and having a blast without the added addy bump. So if they can do it, so can we... we just have to trudge up that long rocky path to where we were before we started down that spiral to the hell we found ourselves... It ain't an easy battle, but no pain no gain, and in the end it'll be worth it... the small successes keep us going- feeling renewed senses of humor, feeling our "old" selves coming back, realizing we can make it thru a day, and then another, and then another, without taking adderall to do things like clean the fucking house, go to the gym, go on dates, interact, work, etc etc.... all things we used to normally pop a few to do we can do without the adderall. Day by day it gets easier, it becomes more normal again, and we realize that we are much better off trudging up that hill rather than remaining in the abyss...

Be grateful you discovered it early on in life, that you didn't ruin marriages, lose families, kids, your freedom because you let it get way too out of hand... It's not the miracle drug we thought when we were first discovering its "potential". It's an illusion, a disillusion, a confusion....... (hahhaha wtf am I Johnnie Cochran!?). anyway, welcome to the forum.... !

[ashley6]

Sky,

I love your post....VERY well put! You nailed it.

[ashley6]

Tomasso,

Welcome to the forums. You've come to the right place.

[unod1a]

Damn dude!!!

I can relate a bit with the soccer part, i also played college soccer but d3 and i took it during games sometimes but my heart rate scared me and i did not do it a lot. But it does make you super human. I can relate a bit to you but luckily for me, i realised what i was doing before i got really addicted to the drug. I did go through some tough times but i can now safely say i am back to normal. I have problems at work and studying but who does not? Not everything can be perfect, no one would stand out if everything was perfect right?

You probably already know but you have a tough time ahead of you man!! A tough ass time but it will get better. Trust me, and reading your post, are you from the VA/MD area? Region 1 soccer sounds familiar.

I am lucky i had a support system but i was alone for a while after i quit and it is a terrible thing to go through alone.

The best thing you can do is talk to a counselor/psychiatrist as soon as possible. If you don't have medical insurance, pay as much as they ask. It is such a stress reliever to just rant everything that is in your head to someone who will not judge you. Try exercising and try to keep busy, try not to think about adderall.

Good luck dude.

[Tomasso]

Hey everybody, thanks for the replies.

unod1a -

The thing I loved the most about playing soccer while on Adderall was that I never "thought" about what to do on the pitch, the game became instinctive. It was as if my body would automatically execute what my brain was thinking. Such clarity. Before Adderall I was a substitute center-back. After I started taking it, I was a starting support striker. Quite a radical transformation! I no longer take anything when I play and it astounds me how poor of a player I am playing natural.

And sorry, but I'd rather not say what Region I played in, I don't want to accidentally implicate my high school/club or former teammates in doping, as one just got drafted into the MLS and some are playing in their last season of college, but I'll say that I did not play in Region 1.

Do you still play D3? How are you coping without taking Adderall?