Quitting For Good After A Very Perplexing Year

[ANiceJewishGirl]

hi there lovelies,

 

I just threw away my prescription bottle with almost a whole month’s supply in it. I expect the withdrawal to be fairly brutal in the coming weeks. I’ve been on it for about a year, abusing it for about eight months. I first got my prescription in 2016 and took it until 2019, when I relapsed on alcohol, went to rehab for my crippling blackout alcoholism, and then spent two years completely sober.

 

During those two sober years I felt brain dead, dysfunctional, and cartoonishly depressed. I couldn’t do laundry, or make a plan, or keep a plan, or pretend to care about whatever job I was working. I never called my parents and barely spoke to my friends. I wrote nothing, read very little, made zero art, wrote zero songs, and had no real interests besides sleeping and consuming TV in endless rotation. 

 

As soon as I took Adderall again this past year, I cried from happiness. I felt like I was finally myself. I had missed myself so much. I could think again! I had ideas and thoughts again! I was funny and happy again! I promptly entered into a surreal new era of productivity. I read books and newspapers by the armful and returned fo writing poetry, I wrote music on the piano (which I hadn’t done in years), I got a new job, I took interest in my friends’ lives, I did laundry and I called my parents. Regularly. 

 

I taught myself to oil paint and started my own art business, which has completely changed my life and given me direction like nothing before. it introduced me to my current boyfriend whom I love. 

So…it’s been…mostly great. When you look at the sum total of ways my life has dramatically improved since I got back on it, you can really see *why I was prescribed it in the first place.* 
 

The only problem is - while my *life* has statistically never been better, my *body* is falling apart, and my *soul* is very scared. 
 

Because you know how it goes. It’s a brutally addictive substance, and after a while you’re just stuck in it. It’s a never ending cycle of binging and crashing and insomnia and anxiety and neck pain and joint pain and moments of total despair and moments of frightening anger. Entire days go by where you are just alone in your own buzzing, obsessively focused mind. You no longer feel like yourself. You feel hollow. And you’d kill for a massage, and you’d kill for a good night’s sleep, and you just want someone to take it away from you.

 

So I took it away from myself. I’m not sure how this will go, but I have to try.
 

I am worried I will not be able to paint without it, and I’m worried I won’t ever feel like playing the piano without it, and I’m worried I will go back to feeling dumb and dead inside without it. I’m worried all my thoughts will go completely radio silent for a long, long time. 

But I have to try. I suspect I *can* actually live without it. I suspect life may be even better without it, if I can just get to the other side of this thing I am in. 
 

Sorry for the long, rambling rant here…I just had to vent all of this. It’s part of the effort of quitting.
 

Oh, Adderall! I have loved you so much, and in your deranged, manic, slightly demonic way you loved me, too. But you’ve given me all you can give me. I’m run down, and I’m hungry, and I miss being able to sleep. I must learn how to be myself without you. 
 

And I’ll be here to support all of you in your journeys, too. We’re all here together. Just knowing that helps. 

[m34]

As someone who also paints I can assure you when you recover your creativity will be better than before. You may paint differently, but it will be better. Your story sounds identical to mine (minus I haven’t made my art a business yet). Although, it will be incredibly tough you can get through it. I think a lot of us are creatives who didn’t have a proper outlet and got on adderall to meet society’s standards of the hustle culture. You can do this.
 

Now that I’m over 3 years clean from adderall.  I can honestly say I would have never gotten on Adderall if I understood I just needed a creative outlet. My adhd symptoms were me not fulfilling my purpose and poor diet. If you need support you can private message me! Hope you are ok today! 

[GettingOffOfIt]

It’s been almost 4 days since you posted this.  I hope it all goes well.  This site and the forums are full of useful resources.  Here is a link to a pdf that I also found helpful by laying out what might be coming and what to do about it.  I would read it when things got bad. Maybe it can be helpful in addition to this site and forums.  Good luck!