Want off this hell-ride!

[SomedayDreamer]

Hello all, I have read posts here off and on for over a year. I wanted to join but couldn't bring myself to post. I am a 35 year old divorced mother and I have struggled with adderall for 7 years now. Nobody except my doctor knows that I use it. Here is my story:

I was always a disorganized, scattered, day-dreaming mess who constantly wished that someday I could just finally "buckle down and get my act together"

At the age of 28. Finally someday arrived! I got a diagnosis of inattentive-type ADD (which was in fact, accurate but that's besides the point) and was prescribed 10mg Adderall IR 2x's a day.

At first it was glorious! I was every bit the super-woman I wanted to be. I was bursting with enthusiasm, organized my house, kept everything spotless, kids routine like a well-oiled machine, rocked the projects at work and felt like I had woken up from my slothful paralysis... ah, THIS was how life was meant to be lived! It was all so wonderful... until it wasn't.

Over the course of a year, I noticed I was changing. I was withdrawing from friends. My world became smaller and smaller as I focused tightly on always "getting stuff done" -- writing for work, cleaning, organizing.

Then it became all about not really getting anything done, but ruminating non-stop and going out on the back steps to smoke cigarettes one after another. Writing became a nightmare of wordy hyper-focus and stoppage, agitation. Cleaning was no fun anymore. I became so agonizingly annoyed with my kids. I just wanted to be left alone to think and think and smoke and pace from room to room, mindlessly picking up after everyone and compulsively pulling through my hair. I'd sit down to do research online for work and spend hours focused on totally unrelated searches- article after article of things completely off subject until 2 or 3 am, "sleep" for a few hours then get up to get through another day of the same.

It's become hell. I wake up in the morning and eagerly await for the addy to "kick in" so I can spring into action for about a euphoric 90 minutes of "getting stuff done".. then BOOM! Good feeling gone but the clenched, wired buzz still hums and I don't wanna do anything but smoke and ruminate in racing thoughts. Take a second bump in afternoon, but it's just not the same. More keyed up and getting quite agitated, so have a couple glasses of wine or a few beers to soften the tension. Smoke, think, pace, clean- sometimes cry or ruminate in trapped circles over how to escape this madness.

I don't binge, but the extra half-pill here and there causes me to always run out early. I am a zombie those days, I want to just sleep but can't because I have too much to take care of. So I get the bare minimum done, slog through the day and can gain up to 15lbs in 2 weeks. The day the script' can be refilled feels like winning the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes and but oh, THIS TIME I'm going to really stay on track and appropriately use this valuable therapeutic miracle to fulfill my true potential ... puh! Someday is never now.

These past 7 years have been a blur- I don't recall really any details, I just haven't been present for it. I live on add-fueled autopilot. It makes all the other compulsions worse-- especially smoking cigarettes. I can't take the up/down roller coaster anymore and I feel like caught in ever-tightening circles of a narrow, rigid world. Unless it's to go grocery shopping or make a run to the liquor store when the kids are staying at their dad's place, I seldom leave the house. What for? I've got my addy, my coffee, my cigarettes, my computer and an emergency stash of double India Pale Ale for when the racing thoughts and bruxism get to be too much.

To now, I couldn't admit my problem that yes, I AM an addict. Because (like probably all of you here) I still attend to my responsibilities, I meet the demands on me, and keep up appearances of normalcy, I thought I could deny it and no one needs to know-- but my life is consumed and passing me by as I stay locked in this reinforced shell... I'm hoping to find the strength to break free from this .

[Searchingsoul9]

Hello all, I have read posts here off and on for over a year. I wanted to join but couldn't bring myself to post. I am a 35 year old divorced mother and I have struggled with adderall for 7 years now. Nobody except my doctor knows that I use it. Here is my story:

I was always a disorganized, scattered, day-dreaming mess who constantly wished that someday I could just finally "buckle down and get my act together"

At the age of 28. Finally someday arrived! I got a diagnosis of inattentive-type ADD (which was in fact, accurate but that's besides the point) and was prescribed 10mg Adderall IR 2x's a day.

At first it was glorious! I was every bit the super-woman I wanted to be. I was bursting with enthusiasm, organized my house, kept everything spotless, kids routine like a well-oiled machine, rocked the projects at work and felt like I had woken up from my slothful paralysis... ah, THIS was how life was meant to be lived! It was all so wonderful... until it wasn't.

Over the course of a year, I noticed I was changing. I was withdrawing from friends. My world became smaller and smaller as I focused tightly on always "getting stuff done" -- writing for work, cleaning, organizing.

Then it became all about not really getting anything done, but ruminating non-stop and going out on the back steps to smoke cigarettes one after another. Writing became a nightmare of wordy hyper-focus and stoppage, agitation. Cleaning was no fun anymore. I became so agonizingly annoyed with my kids. I just wanted to be left alone to think and think and smoke and pace from room to room, mindlessly picking up after everyone and compulsively pulling through my hair. I'd sit down to do research online for work and spend hours focused on totally unrelated searches- article after article of things completely off subject until 2 or 3 am, "sleep" for a few hours then get up to get through another day of the same.

It's become hell. I wake up in the morning and eagerly await for the addy to "kick in" so I can spring into action for about a euphoric 90 minutes of "getting stuff done".. then BOOM! Good feeling gone but the clenched, wired buzz still hums and I don't wanna do anything but smoke and ruminate in racing thoughts. Take a second bump in afternoon, but it's just not the same. More keyed up and getting quite agitated, so have a couple glasses of wine or a few beers to soften the tension. Smoke, think, pace, clean- sometimes cry or ruminate in trapped circles over how to escape this madness.

I don't binge, but the extra half-pill here and there causes me to always run out early. I am a zombie those days, I want to just sleep but can't because I have too much to take care of. So I get the bare minimum done, slog through the day and can gain up to 15lbs in 2 weeks. The day the script' can be refilled feels like winning the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes and but oh, THIS TIME I'm going to really stay on track and appropriately use this valuable therapeutic miracle to fulfill my true potential ... puh! Someday is never now.

These past 7 years have been a blur- I don't recall really any details, I just haven't been present for it. I live on add-fueled autopilot. It makes all the other compulsions worse-- especially smoking cigarettes. I can't take the up/down roller coaster anymore and I feel like caught in ever-tightening circles of a narrow, rigid world. Unless it's to go grocery shopping or make a run to the liquor store when the kids are staying at their dad's place, I seldom leave the house. What for? I've got my addy, my coffee, my cigarettes, my computer and an emergency stash of double India Pale Ale for when the racing thoughts and bruxism get to be too much.

To now, I couldn't admit my problem that yes, I AM an addict. Because (like probably all of you here) I still attend to my responsibilities, I meet the demands on me, and keep up appearances of normalcy, I thought I could deny it and no one needs to know-- but my life is consumed and passing me by as I stay locked in this reinforced shell... I'm hoping to find the strength to break free from this .

I feel for you. Reading your story, i thought i could have written the same exact thing. Especially the part about the pill kicking in for a good 90 minutes tops and then it all comes crashing down. You are left feeling less motivated than before you took the pill and end up feeling like an emotionless zombie for the rest of the day. It sucks. I long for the high i once got from the pill, but as we both know, it fades quite quickly.

My heart goes out to you. I am only on my second day without the pill. I wont lie, it is not wonderful, but it IS better than the adderall crash. You don't feel the need to do do do , with no desire to do anything. I have actually cried for the first time in a long time and it doesn't totally suck. It's a decent way of getting those crappy feelings out there.

"These past 7 years have been a blur- I don't recall really any details, I just haven't been present for it. I live on add-fueled autopilot." This quote certainly hit home for me. Although i have only been heavily abusing the drug for about a year, it feels like one extra long month. I don't recall memories, moments, dates...it's all one confusing mindfuck. I know none of us want to look back on our lives and wonder what Could have been if we just slowed down and learned how to enjoy life. Take it for what it is, good, bad, ugly, everything. It's amazing that you finally posted on here. I promise it will help you immensely. You have the desire to quit, now all you need to do it take it one step at a time. Some good advice i got on this site was to take it minute by minute. It really helps to just be in the moment. Realize you made it through one minute, hour, day, week...etc. It is very overwhelming to think, "Well how am i going to survive without it? I have this and that to do next week and this do to next month!"

Just breathe. Feel your emotions. Let yourself cry it out. Alone or with a counselor. Or here. xox

[sky]

SomedayDreamer, your story sounds familiar and like the natural course of events that gets people to this forum... you're not alone.

So where do you go from here? You've come to realize and accept that there's a problem, the solution is to stop taking it. As scary as it sounds, that's the first step... so, are you ready to stop? Are you ready to give up the hellish existence in exchange for a better daily life, a real life full of ups and downs, and ready to deal with life head on in all it's sometimes banal, sometimes ugly, sometimes exciting, sometimes wonderful, sometimes hard, sometimes boring, sometimes depressing glory? Are you ready to free yourself from the zombie state and crack the shell and be reborn (in a completely unreligious use of the word) as a new you? You can do it, it's not that bad, it hurts for a couple of weeks but not as bad as the flu or a migraine, it's doable and lots of us went thru it and are now on the other side, taking strides and leaps and bounds away from that era of our lives....

[Krax]

the fact that you're here and very self-aware to me shows you are ready to do it

[SomedayDreamer]

Indeed, stopping it is my objective. I can't keep living this way even if everything appears normal on the surface.

This drug is an insidiously clever demon. Here's the thing with me: I go through withdrawal every month because I always run out about 7 to 10 days before my doc will authorize a refill - the first day is easy, the second day is what I always call "the crusher", day 3 is a little better and by day 4 I have pretty good energy (just unable to focus it) and I am spontaneous again, I'm relaxed and easy if only a little scatter-minded, it's not so bad.

So why do I keep getting the scrip refilled? Because even though I feel pretty alright and more authentic after a week or so of no addy, I long for "the oomph", the focus, the zing that lets me "get 'er done!!" even though that 90 minutes of exuberant efficiency transforms into tweaky, frustrated, pacey agitation for the rest of the day and the second dose is spending long nights in suspicious thoughts, anxiety and the same continuous loop of mental chatter over and over- and I can't see the bigger view of life- only through a keyhole.

It's because of the 90 minutes of kick-ass productivity (despite knowing that the other 22.5 hours in each day are hell because of it)- that I kept getting it refilled for the past 7 years. Like how water slowly erodes rock, my demise has been sloooow and a longtime coming, it's been a gradual dissolving of myself bit by bit until almost a decade is gone now-

Like in that great Talking Heads song "Once in a lifetime"

".... well, how did I get here? Letting your days go by..."

"... you may say to yourself 'MY GOD! WHAT HAVE I DONE!"

Yep, I can't keep this up. So that's why I finally posted here

[sky]

well good! keep posting, keep going day by day n not using adderall to zing thru days, trudge like the rest of us n the rest of the folks out there getting by w/o it. no matter what drug or substance it is we think we need to get thru n couldn't possibly live without, there are tons of folks doing without n probably better off... I feel better today than I have in probably 20 years. 20 years of always being on something or multiple things... and life is a hell of a lot better now too.

[Motivation_Follows_Action]

So why do I keep getting the scrip refilled? Because even though I feel pretty alright and more authentic after a week or so of no addy, I long for "the oomph", the focus, the zing that lets me "get 'er done!!" even though that 90 minutes of exuberant efficiency transforms into tweaky, frustrated, pacey agitation for the rest of the day and the second dose is spending long nights in suspicious thoughts, anxiety and the same continuous loop of mental chatter over and over- and I can't see the bigger view of life- only through a keyhole.

your breaks from adderall unfortunately are not going to be enough to restore your neural pathways sufficiently before you start taking it again, so unfortunately you've built up quite a resistence. It sounds to me like you're always in a slight and perpetual withdrawal, except for the first 90 mins of the day, which was the same for me for about the last 6 months of my addiction.

I hope you're able to come to the realization that you will be better off without adderall before it does some serious damage, to your health (maybe it has already? are all your teeth ok? blood pressure? not to mention long term neurotoxicity potential) or your relationships (sounds like your kids have had to put up with a lot) or your safety.

We are here for you as you go through the journey. Let us know when day one of your recovery is and we'll be your greatest cheerleading squad! YOU CAN DO IT!

[SomedayDreamer]

Motivation_Follows_Action,

Thank you. You're absolutely right about the neural pathways. I can feel how I light up with anticipatory excitement when it's almost refill day- that was one of my earliest red flags that "hey, maybe I like this stuff a little too much". That's also why I, personally, won't feel any real sense of progress until I've made it at least six weeks without any add. That will be a record for me, and I know that's just the start of long road ahead.

My last 10mg from this 'script was yesterday and the earliest to refill would be next Thursday. Except for fatigue, I will make it through these days with relatively little discomfort because that's what I do every month- but on refill day, oh God help me, THAT day will be where this effort truly begins for me.

I've never doctor shopped or tried to score it elsewhere-- when it was gone, it was gone and that was that until I could get it refilled- but go without refilling after waiting all those sloggy days in anticipation? Oh hell no! So, not getting that refill this time is going to take all I can muster, that's why I'm here

Is resistance the same as tolerance in addiction parlance or does it refer to something else? I'm just wondering because even after all these years, the most I've ever taken in one whole day was 40mg (my prescibed dosage is still 10mg/ 2x's daily, what I started out at) in recent years I been taking about 20mg to 30mg total a day. So even though I really wasn't "abusing" it, I still got hooked. There's just this strong compulsive urge to take it even when I don't *want* to feel that way anymore.

Ironically, I think the fact that my "exterior life" hasn't totally gone off the rails has made it harder to quit and easier to deny that it's a problem for me. I've never broken the law to get add, never snorted it nor bumped a psychotic 150mg... but I just couldn't stop taking it and it is my "inner-life" that has suffered the most. As I said, this all slowly snuck up on me and I just want freedom from it. Thank you all for the welcome.

[Greg]

Hello all, I have read posts here off and on for over a year. I wanted to join but couldn't bring myself to post. I am a 35 year old divorced mother and I have struggled with adderall for 7 years now. Nobody except my doctor knows that I use it. Here is my story:

I was always a disorganized, scattered, day-dreaming mess who constantly wished that someday I could just finally "buckle down and get my act together"

At the age of 28. Finally someday arrived! I got a diagnosis of inattentive-type ADD (which was in fact, accurate but that's besides the point) and was prescribed 10mg Adderall IR 2x's a day.

At first it was glorious! I was every bit the super-woman I wanted to be. I was bursting with enthusiasm, organized my house, kept everything spotless, kids routine like a well-oiled machine, rocked the projects at work and felt like I had woken up from my slothful paralysis... ah, THIS was how life was meant to be lived! It was all so wonderful... until it wasn't.

Over the course of a year, I noticed I was changing. I was withdrawing from friends. My world became smaller and smaller as I focused tightly on always "getting stuff done" -- writing for work, cleaning, organizing.

Then it became all about not really getting anything done, but ruminating non-stop and going out on the back steps to smoke cigarettes one after another. Writing became a nightmare of wordy hyper-focus and stoppage, agitation. Cleaning was no fun anymore. I became so agonizingly annoyed with my kids. I just wanted to be left alone to think and think and smoke and pace from room to room, mindlessly picking up after everyone and compulsively pulling through my hair. I'd sit down to do research online for work and spend hours focused on totally unrelated searches- article after article of things completely off subject until 2 or 3 am, "sleep" for a few hours then get up to get through another day of the same.

It's become hell. I wake up in the morning and eagerly await for the addy to "kick in" so I can spring into action for about a euphoric 90 minutes of "getting stuff done".. then BOOM! Good feeling gone but the clenched, wired buzz still hums and I don't wanna do anything but smoke and ruminate in racing thoughts. Take a second bump in afternoon, but it's just not the same. More keyed up and getting quite agitated, so have a couple glasses of wine or a few beers to soften the tension. Smoke, think, pace, clean- sometimes cry or ruminate in trapped circles over how to escape this madness.

I don't binge, but the extra half-pill here and there causes me to always run out early. I am a zombie those days, I want to just sleep but can't because I have too much to take care of. So I get the bare minimum done, slog through the day and can gain up to 15lbs in 2 weeks. The day the script' can be refilled feels like winning the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes and but oh, THIS TIME I'm going to really stay on track and appropriately use this valuable therapeutic miracle to fulfill my true potential ... puh! Someday is never now.

These past 7 years have been a blur- I don't recall really any details, I just haven't been present for it. I live on add-fueled autopilot. It makes all the other compulsions worse-- especially smoking cigarettes. I can't take the up/down roller coaster anymore and I feel like caught in ever-tightening circles of a narrow, rigid world. Unless it's to go grocery shopping or make a run to the liquor store when the kids are staying at their dad's place, I seldom leave the house. What for? I've got my addy, my coffee, my cigarettes, my computer and an emergency stash of double India Pale Ale for when the racing thoughts and bruxism get to be too much.

To now, I couldn't admit my problem that yes, I AM an addict. Because (like probably all of you here) I still attend to my responsibilities, I meet the demands on me, and keep up appearances of normalcy, I thought I could deny it and no one needs to know-- but my life is consumed and passing me by as I stay locked in this reinforced shell... I'm hoping to find the strength to break free from this .

I remember when that was my existence...smoking cigarettes, ruminating and pacing from room to room. That's what I did all day. It's not an existence. You are addicted to the rush of dopamine between your brain synapses that pill releases. It's not really about the 90 minutes of productivity you get from it, it is about the 90 minutes of invincible feeling it gives you -- DOPAMINE. A feeling you can start to get over and begin to let go of as you remain off the pills.

But you will be stuck in the cigarettes, ruminating, thinking lifestyle until you quit for good.

Anyway, hang in there. Life slowly gets better after you give it up.

[quit-once]

.

..

I can feel how I light up with anticipatory excitement when it's almost refill day-

.

This reminded me of an experience I had about a month ago. I paid a visit to a friend and it just happened to be his refill day. When I was leaving, he asked me if I could take him to the pharmacy before closing time so he could refill -with about a half hour left in the evening. This was the friend who introduced me to adderall ten years ago. His excitement and anticipation were unmistakable, even though the conversation did not revolve around adderall. I started to get excited too, like I used to when it was time for my refill to occur. After all, we shared many visits to the drugstore over the years. It became very uncomfortable and by the time we got to the pharmacy, I just dropped him off at the front door and told him to take the bus home. I tucked my tail got the fuck out of there ASAP.

The next day we were doing a project and I told him how that made me feel and he appologized for putting me in that position. It was not hard to be around him when he was high on adderall because I was kinda used to that, and we did get a lot of shit done that day. But I learned a good lesson - that those exciting and anticipatory feelings are still close to the surface and I must avoid those situations that cause me to feel those emotions and excitement.

[Motivation_Follows_Action]

Motivation_Follows_Action,

Is resistance the same as tolerance in addiction parlance or does it refer to something else? I'm just wondering because even after all these years, the most I've ever taken in one whole day was 40mg (my prescibed dosage is still 10mg/ 2x's daily, what I started out at) in recent years I been taking about 20mg to 30mg total a day. So even though I really wasn't "abusing" it, I still got hooked. There's just this strong compulsive urge to take it even when I don't *want* to feel that way anymore.

Ironically, I think the fact that my "exterior life" hasn't totally gone off the rails has made it harder to quit and easier to deny that it's a problem for me. I've never broken the law to get add, never snorted it nor bumped a psychotic 150mg... but I just couldn't stop taking it and it is my "inner-life" that has suffered the most. As I said, this all slowly snuck up on me and I just want freedom from it. Thank you all for the welcome.

it's worth noting the difference between addiction and abuse. Addiction can be characterized as a continued craving for drugs and the need to use these drugs for the psychological effects the drug brings. Abuse is defined as the use of drugs,usually by self administration, outside of what is prescribed to an individual for medical use.

You are addicted, but you may not be abusing. You may be mis-using the drugs.

Try to get your hands on this book, you might find it really helpful:

http://www.amazon.com/Overcoming-Prescription-Drug-Addiction-Understanding/dp/1886039887

Also, I think what you say about your inner life vs outer life is really astute. You think that as far as you can tell, most everything on the outside seems to be relatively ok, but what you're screaming for on the inside is some rest from the addiction that's getting a firmer grip on you every day. I hate to say it, but you're probably wrong... I'm almost positive it's affecting you in your external life, it's just that there's probably been no huge drama about it. But believe me, people will have noticed.... the change in your personality, your withdrawal, your lack of empathy for things and life in general, your pacing, your little obsessions.

I remember coming home from a business trip once early on a Saturday morning, and walking in the front door to see my husband crying (I've seen him cry exactly 3 times, and one of those times was the anniversary of 9/11 where he saw people jump out of the building windows, so it was kind of a shock). He told me he felt really, really ALONE. That this life with me is not what he signed up for. That he didn't know who his wife was any more. I remember looking at him with cold eyes and thinking, "why the hell is he crying? what is the matter with him, can't he just get over himself... I'm here now, aren't I... everything will be just fine so long as he doesn't interrupt my crash for the next two days so I can get back on the adderall train for my next business trip on Monday"

That's the kind of inner thinking that adderall inspires. It's not right, and it's not me.

The good news is that if you haven't been abusing for too long, and you haven't been addicted for too long, your path to recovery shouldn't be as severe as some may have experienced. But you'll never know until you start recovering. What's holding you back? What are you afraid of?

[Cassie]

I was on fairly low doses too, about 20-30mgs. You don't have to abuse the drug to be addicted. In fact, I believe the addiction can be even more dangerous at low doses because it becomes more subtle, more justifiable, more insidious. Abuse level dosages aren't as easily rationalized internally. I avoided quitting for so long because I thought I had to be abusing the drug and/or hit rock bottom first. I later realized that was fallacious thinking. If you want to quit I recommend cutting off your doctor access. Until I did that I just kept right on getting my scripts filled each month. Recovery takes a long time, at leatst a year, but trust me, you won't even realize how addicted you were until you quit. It is so much better to sacrifice a year of feeling crappy in recovery in order to be free of addiction for the rest of your life.

[Krax]

Oh man, those posts really hit home for me. That lack of empathy and understanding towards your partner, and them feeling so alone - Motivation and Cassie are right, the external effect is much greater then you realize. Remember, the person making this judgment inside yourself, it's not really you, it's addicted you -

[ashley6]

Wow, those feelings of lighting up with anticipation are uncomfortable for me, because I felt that way every single time I was getting my prescription....every single time for 7 years. Quit-once, I would've hightailed it out of there too. It's nice that your friend apologized for it. It kind of just goes to show how unaware we are of people and things around us when that prescription comes up. I once had my friend who had newly quit adderall ride with me to our dealer's house. How could I have done that to her? Because I lacked empathy of anyone around me. I later apologized after quitting and told her I should've never put her in that position.

Motivation,

Your post is so spot on to how I was. People having feelings and wanting our love and attention while we're on adderall is just annoying. How self-centered addiction makes us.

[SomedayDreamer]

Cassie-

Yes, that's EXACTLY what I'm talking about. How insidious this addiction is, how easily one can rationalize the continued use because "hey, I'm not abusing it! They give higher doses than this to 10 yr olds! How bad can it really be??" and it's because of that rationalization and countless others that I had continued to use this drug that hasn't *done it* for me since the honeymoon years ago.

I didn't mean to minimize the issue with what I said about the effects on my "exterior life"-- there's no denying it's been adversely affected. No drama, but the cumulative damage from subtle effects is real. My inner life directly correlates with my interpersonal relationships, so yes, even though I've made sure my kids were always well-fed, clean, cared for, supervised and safe- I was like a machine doing that, not "mom".... and that's just sad! Like I said, 7 years on autopilot, I was there but I wasn't present.

Today is day 2 without any addy. I wouldn't have been able to have it right now anyway, so it's no feat of willpower yet. I know what I really must do is call the doctor and say don't let me have anymore. THAT would be quitting, unless I do that I can sit here and B.S. myself with false-confidence. ... oh, God I have to do this- okay, guys I'm having a "holy sh*t!!" moment. Help me pleeease

[Motivation_Follows_Action]

Change happens when the fear of taking a new step is less than the fear of doing what's been familiar.

Unfortunately we can't make you call the doc - you have to do it on your own, brave lady...

[sky]

you can do this. doc or no doc, it's in you. you know both sides, choose the one you want and go with that with all of you. you got this, it's only a little bit of time before the pressure lets up and it starts to get easier. push the thoughts out, the urges go away if you don't dwell on them or give them the attention they desire, change your thoughts... you got this! trudge thru it, it gets better!!

[Cassie]

If you're afraid of the finality of quitting forever, do what I did and commit to quitting for one year, then at the year point you can go back on it. I mean, what's one year in the grand scheme of your life? Just get through one year and you can take adderall again. Thing is, after a year you will never dream of taking yourself up on that offer because you will be thinking rationally again. Look at the long timers on this site - me, inrecovery, quit-once, Ashley - that have been clean about a year or more. You will never read in any of our (later) posts that we are afraid of, or in danger of, relapsing.

[Greg]

Wow, those feelings of lighting up with anticipation are uncomfortable for me, because I felt that way every single time I was getting my prescription....every single time for 7 years. Quit-once, I would've hightailed it out of there too. It's nice that your friend apologized for it. It kind of just goes to show how unaware we are of people and things around us when that prescription comes up. I once had my friend who had newly quit adderall ride with me to our dealer's house. How could I have done that to her? Because I lacked empathy of anyone around me. I later apologized after quitting and told her I should've never put her in that position.

Motivation,

Your post is so spot on to how I was. People having feelings and wanting our love and attention while we're on adderall is just annoying. How self-centered addiction makes us.

Oh god. I remember that giddy feeling of going to pick up adderall. I would be in such a good mood. Ian's when I got my pills I would be like I was carrying a winning lottery ticket or something. So giddy. It was weird because after I quit, when I would pass by pharmacies I would still get a rush of excitement.

I think it's worth noting to everyone on this forum that the majority of the long timers on this site (if not all of them) had doctors access removed from them, either themselves or other people for them. Now for all of us, it was horribly scary at first but look now.

So, for people who have not quit, I mean look at the track record of removing doctors access.

[SomedayDreamer]

All yesterday afternoon, evening and through this morning, I went back and forth with myself to call or not. I am scared of the finality. But I know that if I didn't restrict the access, I would end up refilling at some point when the psychological cravings peak.

I left a message with the doc's office but carefully skirted any reference to dependency/habit/addiction (is that disingenous of me? ) instead I said the med was no longer effective in managing my ADD symptoms and even 1/2 the prescribed dosage was making me extremely agitated and nervous (that's all true). I also said I felt it was best for me to adopt some non-medication approaches to managing my ADD with a therapist or something..something.

Today is day 3 of no addy and for me that's always been when the physical fatigue begins to lift and the aching heaviness in my muscles becomes less incapacitating. The mental fog, however, and apathy, anhedonia, ZERO motivation, seem endless and unrelenting, that's when I would always comfort myself by counting down to refill day. Well, too bad now.... oh, lawd!

[sky]

GOOD! That is very much committing to a new life sans adderall... now the hard part and footwork some in to play. Yes there is the drying out period where you have to let your body heal and adjust to running without the addy fuel, but soon you've got to start doing those things which will create the new and improved you........... you have to figure out what exact formula that works for you, for me it was- Reading positive literature (not self help books, but things that changed my way of thinking and perspective about things, gave me new tools to use to cope, to get excited about life, and to broaden myself... I personally like James Allan books, but there are a ton out there that are great, again, whatever works for you... but we have to remain positive and excited about the changes and not remain psychologically the same... ), DIET!! Diet is so key, the book Healing ADDtalks a lot about treating ADD with diet and exercise. It is a great read. But we all know that proper diet can address A LOT of issues and a bad diet can LEAD TO a lot of issues... so if you don't already, EAT FUCKING HEALTHY! and Exercise!! Exercise is known and proven to fight depression. If you don't already, EXERCISE!!!!!!!!!! hahaha I sound like a nut. seriously though, you made a commitment, make it work! we can't just sit on our hands and expect miracles, we have to work for it!!

I can not tell you how much fucking better I am doing now than I was 3 months ago. I feel better now than I have in 20 years and it is because I made major changes in my lifestyle and all I can do is try and share that because I truly believe that it is those changes that led me to this place.............

[lea]

hi -- it's day 3 for me too. I had energy until about noon but more and more exhausted every hour -- minimal work activity followed by too much tv, eating and blowing people off which I hate... I'm hopeful though -- going to bed early trying to get as much sleep as possible. Exhaustion sucks but not as bad as being on the hellride... as I try to be optimistic. But I know that's true.

I've been on ritalin 3 years, abusing the past 6-8 months but once the abuse started it progressed very fast -- scary -- was taking 100+ mg/day for the past month unable to taper so had to go cold turkey. I have to talk to my doc as well - give me strength... xo

[sky]

good good lea, yeah rest up!!!!!! no guilt, your body needs to adjust, we all did the same thing, lived in sweats, felt like crap, boo, but congrats on day 3, it starts to get better and better soon enough......

I got a physical yesterday, doc was running thru my history, and mentioned the Wellbutrin and Adderall, he asked how that was working for me cuz he also saw that the Wellbutrin/ Ritalin combo didn't work so well (was mostly my manipulation, I didn't want Ritalin, I wanted Adderall, so I said it made me feel worse, which it maaaaybe kinda did, who knows, I wanted addy), I told him I had stopped taking both and that I was a hell of a lot better now than when I was taking it, which is true, so yeah, burned that bridge, no more refills for me either.........

[quit-once]

Sky, did you tell him you were abusing the adderall?

[sky]

absofuckinglutlynot.