My story - requesting advice - highly motivated

[Saltwater Soul]

Hey all,

Great to find this forum and I sincerely appreciate any feedback I receive. Apologies for the novel - I’ll try to insert some bullet points to hit the high notes for those that don’t have time to read it all! 

I am at the initial stage in determining how best to go about quitting. I’ve never been as motivated and failure is not an option. I have a young family that I love dearly, a beautiful wife that deserves the best, and a great career going that has only gotten better as I’ve entered my mid-30’s. Life should be great - and it is at the surface - but my wife has been fed up with my beyond unpredictable sleep habits that she can no longer stand and has given me an ultimatum. I’m staying at my parents house until I kick adderall for good or she will leave our marriage and she means business. Maybe it sounds harsh of her, but I’ve come to terms with the truth that I have a problem that is impacting my wellbeing, and more importantly my family’s. 

My background:

• Prescribed since freshman year of college - about 14 years now.
• Prescribed to 20mg 3x/ day. 
• I typically take 10mg 6x/ day instead of prescribed dosage method as I’m probably chasing the energy burst - 10mg seems to be just as effective and taking every every 2-3 hours is more stimulating. 

History of quitting:

I tried to quit once about 7 years ago as my wife encouraged me to do so and I gave it a decent shot. I went cold turkey and had success for a couple of weeks before:

1. Faced with a large work assignment 
2. Had anxiety during internal work meetings as colleagues noticed I was a bit more reserved and less boisterous. 

I wasn’t faced with the same circumstances as I am now during this attempt. I recall it took a couple of days sleeping to crash the meds out of my system. Day 3 or so, I forced myself out of bed in the AM and made myself go on a run to get active and fight the fatigue. I feel like I was on the right track, but with less motivation and no ultimatum in this attempt I started taking adderall again for the aforementioned reasons. 

Profession:

In technical sales / client facing position. Love my job and it affords me the flexibility to make my own schedule. I typically have 2-5 business meetings per week (varies). Some are with existing clients for dinners, lunch, etc., while others are prospective new client meetings that require detailed presentations geared towards client specific metrics. I meet with our team internally every Monday morning to review each week’s progress, forecast, etc. 

My preliminary plan for quitting:

I am currently working towards turning a plan into action and appreciate any advice on how to conquer this. I have some work obligations over the next 7-10 days that I need to get ahead on, then I plan to take a week off for “personal time”. My initial game plan has been to go cold turkey as I had done previously, but this time forge ahead knowing there’s no other option. My hope is the support behind me and the realization that my family will be torn apart will take me past the previous 2-week mark, and this time carry me through. I plan to seek some weekly counseling / professional help in conjunction to support my efforts which I have some questions about later in this post.

Having shared my plan with my mom, she has been adamant in her research that cold turkey is not the way to go and is almost certain failure. I don’t like hearing this because I’m so focused on my plan and feel good about it but I don’t want to be ignorant. 

My questions:

• Can cold turkey work?
• Will one week of “personal time” be enough of a buffer?
  • My job is highly competitive and my company / industry demands high performance. Taking more than 1-2 weeks off with no production would be very detrimental to my company. 
  • I like the cold turkey method because I’m thinking it can fast track the process, and not require any suspicion on my employers part. 
  • I thought about being upfront with my company’s VP who thinks highly of me as it may take some stress out of the process, but a close friend who works in my industry advised that could be a bad decision as they could view me as a risk, etc. Any thoughts on this? Could it be largely beneficial, or too much of a risk?
• Should I seek out professional help that uses a medicine based approach to help me through, more of a therapist, or a combination of both?

 

Thank you all for your support!

[GettingOffOfIt]

I have quit cold turkey before and most recently I have successfully weaned off.  I like the weaned off better but both worked.  You have to have will power to wean off, but you have to have it to go cold turkey too.  I quit cold turkey with the help of alcohol and developed an alcohol problem.  I wasn't even a drinker but I became one.  After over a year I went back to Adderall to get off alcohol but I just got on both.  I was able to finally kick the alcohol almost a year ago and have been weaned off the Adderall for 5 months.  

 

You will experience withdrawals and the first 2-4 weeks will be hell.  You will have some good days.  After that it gets better but you will still have challenges.  Everyone has a different timeline and symptoms but its tough for everyone.  I found that weaning off helped the timeline and symptoms a whole lot but that was after several failed attempts at cold turkey.  Whatever way gets you off of it is the best way.

 

The bottom line is are you going to try to quit or have you made up your mind that you are quitting and moving on?  That will be the key to your success.  Even if you just want to try, I would recommend to go for it so you will at least get to experience withdrawal so that you will know what to expect, since it sounds like you like to plan things out.  Oh, and I would forget trying to plan things out.   You will have good days and bad days but you will have no control over when they come and go.  I would save taking any days off until you absolutely need to use it.  Keep your subscriptions to Netflix and HBOMax active for when you quit.

 

So to answer your questions:

Yes, cold turkey can work, but weaning off will be better if you don't want to mess up things at work or home.  Whatever works is best.

Don't schedule any personal time up front.  It could be a week or two before your full withdrawals kick in.  Take it as you need it.  You will experience a "crash" for 2-3 days when you stop, which sucks, but that comes before withdrawal.  Its the same as what you would experience when you pill wore off each day but amplified.  

I would not be up front with anyone at work about it but that's just me.

There isn't any meds that will help you through this so I would not try to get help from a therapist unless you wanted help weaning off.  Weaning off will take you on a series of mini-crashes that last a day or two at a time in a month period and sometimes people need help though that to stay on goal.  There are lots of supplements that help and you can find those searching through these forums.  I took zinc, vita-d, fish oil, L-dopa, l-tyrosine, 5 hr energy, alpha brain, and pure encapsulations energy extra to get through the bad times.  Sometimes nothing will help and you just have to make it to the next day.

To get things done, search the web for tips on how to cope with ADHD.  Even if you don't have it, you will for a few months as your brain tries to heal itself

 

That's all I got. Good luck.

[ALA]

@Saltwater Soulhow are you doing now? I resonate with the family component being the inspiration to make this change. Deep in that 2nd week and come on here to not feel so alone - this site truly helps. 

[Nicky_B]

I tried to wean myself off several times, but to no avail because of stress at work. I finally made the decision that my life was more important than my career and I went cold turkey and I've been off Adderall for 2 1/2 years now. The good news is that it is possible to pull off going cold turkey, but it will be bumpy in your career and that's just the price you're going to have to pay unfortunately. I work for a fortune 25 company which can be high stress along with high expectations. I think that if you can pull off the first 90 days you're fine the rest of the time very doable, but in my case I had to take naps at noon for an hour and order to keep up my first few months.

I guess I think that if your wife is a solid woman that you wanna be with the rest of your life, then the sacrifice will be worth it even if you end up getting canned in the process and have to look for a new opportunity with another company once you get cleaned up and off the drug. I think for many of us we have a leg in a bear trap, and we have to make the choice of giving up the leg or saving our lives. Sometimes there are no easy answers when you're dealing with Adderal.

It's so much easier to find another job, then to replace your soulmate...

A friend of mine, who is an alcoholic told me one day, "one is too many and 1000 is not enough" when it comes to anything, you've been addicted to in the past.

 

Best of Luck...you can do this friend!!

 

Nicky