coffee

[Greg]

I actually wrote a whole post on how adderall makes a person worse at work (even when we think it makes us better) and I deleted it by accident. So maybe Ill rewrite a later time!

Pushing myself to do things i dont want to do is my biggest challenge right now. My motivation muscle needs to be repaired. And suddenly I have things going on in life again.

Today I had fill out a six page application for something really important.I had to address all my employment gaps caused by my adderall addiction. Facing all this and sorting it out on paper was super stressful and I found myself chugging coffee in a similar manner to popping adderall. I felt like i NEEDED coffee to start this task. Then halfway through I took a break and was like 'ok, im going to grab another coffee and then push through the rest of this thing" So that's what I did.

Should i feel guilty about doing that? That is what I did with adderall. Any thoughts? By the way, I finally got everything done and am relieved now. Every time i get through things that seem hard without adderall, it makes me stronger.

[quit-once]

The Mormon Church would certainly want you to feel guilty for drinking coffee if you were a member in good standing. Drinking hot coffee or teas containing caffeine is a full-blown sin requiring confession AND repentance to restore your member-in-good-standing status. But if you are not a Mormon, then getting everything done was a huge accomplishment worthy of pride instead of guilt.

Why do you feel that using coffee as a crutch is worthy of a potential guilt trip?

[Greg]

I guess I felt guilty because drinking coffee to get something done, reminded me of the way i thought when i was popping pills. Pop a pill, get something done. pop a pill, get more stuff done.

today it was drink coffee, get things done. was too eerily similar if you know what i mean.

[Cassie]

Ironically, I drink way less coffee now. When I was on Adderall, I would drink a cup or two in the morning and then feel an Adderall crash in the afternoon so I would go to Starbucks and get a huge latte or maybe one of the ready made frappucinos from the grocery store. It seemed like I always needed caffeine with Adderall, much as many of you needed cigarettes with Adderall. Even right after I quit, I only had the urge to drink one cup of coffee a day in the morning. More just didn't do anything for me.

I think if you're worried about ingesting any substance, you should ask yourself the question, "Has this ruined anyone's life?" And the answer is no, no one's life has ever been ruined by coffee. So you shouldn't feel guilty about drinking it. But more than 3 or 4 cups in a day probably isn't good - like everything there's a point at which more isn't beneficial anymore. More than two cups a coffee makes my stomach hurt and is counterproductive, so I stick to one to two cups a day.

[FALCON]

I will agree with cassie there is a limit to all substances even caffeine it is still a substance and to much of any substance is not good for you everything in moderation is the key .You can over stimulant your self on coffee, tea, red bull , gurana , yambe or whatever your using as a stimulant it is well documented at the hospitals ER room people coming in for taking to much of the so called legal stimulants. No more then 3 cups of joe in a 10 hour paired is expectable in my opinion .

FAL:CON.

[Greg]

thanks all...it is true. you dont usually hear about people's lives falling apart because of coffee, lol. caffeine pills maybe, but not coffee. I suppose Starbucks would go bankrupt if that was the case.

[Cassie]

I think we all remember the dangers of caffeine pills from Saved by the Bell...

[ashley6]

Cassie,

I was just talking about this episode a couple of weeks ago

[FALCON]

Hey a question for you all its how much is to much that is the real debate here .A little story what would happens if you drank 5 coups of coffee in a 2 hour time line in the morning try it one time and you will experience what to much caffeine will do to your nerve system butt don’t make your coffee like piss water make it like the king of coffee makes it strong and bold. Well hers my story my first week of quitting adder all. I did this I drank 5 coups of coffee in the morning in a 2 hour window I fond my self walking around like I jest snorted a gram of coke .Then I found my self with a numb face had no feeling at all then I was holding my chest because my heart rate was 180 bpm then I found my self holding the phone getting ready to call 911 to come and take my sorry ass to the ER lucky for me I new how to bring me back down I drank a gallon of cammamel tea it columned me back down in about 30 minutes well theirs my story all you no it alls try it see what the fuck happens to the nerve system from to much coffee every thing in moderation like I said on my last post 3 cups of strong coffee in a 8 to 10 hour timeline will get you thru your day jest fine for most people some people of course have a higher tolerance to caffeine.

THE FALCON

[Greg]

lol, just one of the best moments in television...

who will ever forget the danger of caffeine pills?

This is totally off topic, but someday i have to read this..

[Greg]

I dont know if you ever saw this..but on that show desperate housewives, one of them gets addicted ADHD medication

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLXDZ15uNt8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYhmiAnr6f8

[Cassie]

What's funny is, I used to take caffeine pills (NoDoz) to pull all nighters in college. I didn't even know what Adderall was until I was 25 and tried it from a workplace friend. I guess all my friends in college were potheads/drinkers because no one ever talked about speed, nor did I know anyone who had any. Don't worry, I never pulled a Jessie Spano.

[quit-once]

Coffee

It gets me off...y

My cup is always full

And even when it's not...

Just grind more beans and make another pot

an original poem by quit-once

[Defunct]

InRecovery,

I'm sure I have missed it but this is the first post of yours where you are asking for help yourself. It's nice to see as you have been so insightful and helpful to others. Makes you a bit more human, if that makes sense.

Re the coffee question, it's your own choice whether to feel bad about needing caffeine to get you enough motivation to do mundane things... but to state the bleedingly obvious, if coffee does not do the following things, but gives you just enough energy to get stuff done, then I'd say go with it until you can take a vacation.

What do adderall and coffee have in common?

- energy (of course)

- dehydration

- headaches

What does adderall do that coffee does not?

- make you spend 3 hours doing something else INSTEAD of filling out your application and then worry more about the thing you did do than didn't do

- make you hate the person who asked you to complete the application in the first place

- make you second guess all your answers and do the whole thing over three times

- stop you from being motivated to think about the application as a means to an end, and lie to you by thinking that the application itself IS the end goal

- make you worried about which particular individual will be reading the application and think you may have been tweaking or crazy when you completed it

- make you check and recheck the application for spelling errors or incorrect dates, etc

- fill you with hatred for the human race for even creating application forms

etc

etc

etc

... did that help?

[Defunct]

P.S. Congratulations on getting it done anyway; and guilt is a useless emotion. Win win!

[Greg]

Thanks, that was helpful. You know..I just can't imagine how I would have faced that application with adderall! Probably would still be working on it instead of getting it done in a couple hours.

And gosh what you said about not asking for help was really nice. I've been helped so much by you guys but you're right I don't usually start off a post asking a question, which I'm going to do more often now that I think about it.

Thanks everyone for your feedback on this issue. I guess the general sentiment here is coffee and adderall are simply incomparable.

[Kyle_Chaos]

I wouldn't worry about getting hooked on coffee, it's..coffee..not a big deal at all.

I take Jack3d on a daily basis almost (to run 3 or 4 miles) and I don't feel guilty about that. I don't even think getting hooked on something mildly stimulating like coffee or energy drinks is that big of a deal, whatever keeps you off meth.

[Greg]

So I finally have my quitting adderall success story to tell...

So this important application i referred to in the original post was for a competitive scholarship to business school and I actually got it. I didn't mention what it was for before because I didn't want to jinx it. It will cover most of my tuition, and give me a living stipend, I also have to work as a graduate assistant for 20 hours a week. And as long as I keep my GPA above 3.25, most of my education will be paid for.

Now let me just say, this is a miracle because my résumé was filled with lots of gaps of time that were caused by adderall, and going in and out if rehab treatment..etc etc. which was a big part of the application., but also more importantly to me, I did this whole process without adderall, this whole process. And I'm finally seeing how people say it gets better when you are not on adderall. There were times i never thought i would be able to do stuff again without that pill. Your life gets better. And you can do things again. And accomplish things again. You just have to throw out the pills and trust in your ability to heal and retrain your motivation muscle. For two years, I did nothing but now I'm beginning to see it was all worth it. I may get PAWS still all the time, but I have lost all faith in the adderall addicted me and have started gaining a lot more faith in the adderall free me. I just wonder how the adderall addicted, psychosis driven me would have performed through this process.

I am now interning 9-5, taken an intense four hour exam, been accepted to b school with a scholarship all adderall free and ready for the fresh start.

[ashley6]

InRecovery,

Congratulations! That's wonderful. You're finally seeing the fruits of your labor (giving up the junk), and I'm really happy for you.

[Greg]

Thanks Ashley!!!

[Defunct]

InRecovery,

I really needed to read this today. I was in fact wondering about what it was you had applied for, because you'd told us already about B School, so I was wondering -- was it a mortgage? Student loan applications? But I didn't want to ask.

CONGRATULATIONS!!

And here is why I needed to read your post today - after having a pretty successful beginning of the week, my Thursday and Friday have been slow and tiring. Today it's raining and cold outside and without a job to get up and go to, I have found myself wallowing in sad thoughts. I don't know how I'm going to get another good job, I have such low confidence in my abilities and I'm not sure of, well, really anything any more. Just super depressed. I applied for 3 jobs this week and haven't heard anything. I know it's probably still early, (6 weeks yesterday) but I am staring at the last 3 years and wondering how I go about reparing all that damage... I seemed to have it all together for so long; I worked on wall street for over 10 years, in three different countries, in highly stressful situations, and so I know I've had a track record of success. I just don't have any faith in myself any more -- I want the old me back!!

So thanks for the encouragement of your own example, InRecovery. It tells me that it is possible to succeed, even to do better than before, once you've recovered. I'm a bit scared that it took you such a long time and that makes me terrified I wont be employable for quite some time (in this job market that's not a good thing at all), though. I guess today's just not a good day and I am having a little pity party here in my (messy) living room.

[Jon]

_{I seemed to have it all together for so long; I worked on wall street for over 10 years, in three different countries, in highly stressful situations, and so I know I've had a track record of success. I just don't have any faith in myself any more -- I want the old me back!!}

So thanks for the encouragement of your own example, InRecovery. It tells me that it is possible to succeed, even to do better than before, once you've recovered. I'm a bit scared that it took you such a long time and that makes me terrified I wont be employable for quite some time (in this job market that's not a good thing at all), though. I guess today's just not a good day and I am having a little pity party here in my (messy) living room.

 

 

I have wondered what happens to people who have posted on this website for a while and then just dissappeared? If you are lucky enough perusing the forum archives, you can stumble upon a post by the ghosts of Christmas Past that lay out their demise, like this one from Defunct. I liked reading her posts. They have helped me. I am sorry she is no longer with us.

[quit-once]

I feel like a goddamn historian, but here is a little history about "defunct"

 

This "defunct" member started out as "Goldman" then she became known as Motivation Follows Action and she is still with us!

Somehow, all of her Goldman posts became defunct.