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This website inspired me to quit. I asked my doctor to cancel my prescription.

I have been lurking on this site for years and have followed many successful and impressive people on here reach major milestones. I so badly want to be off of this drug but can only string a few days together at a time before I almost feel “itchy” and run back to my psychiatrist for a script who tells me not to be so hard on myself for taking 10mgs per day. What I struggle with the most is how incredibly impatient I get with my kids when I don’t take it. They are so young and deserve a good mama. That’s one of my adderall hang ups. That it makes me more patient with them. But I don’t want them to have an adderallic mom. I feel like I try so hard to do all of the right things to get off of this drug. I eat gluten free, 75 percent dairy free, hardly drink or go out, meditate almost daily, workout 4-5x per week, have done tons of research and journaling about quitting, read this website for years on end. It’s incredible and nails everything. But mostly you all are who come back to share your success. I’ve read so much quit lit (Annie Grace is a new fave), watched videos on TikTok. There is a girl who talks about sobriety from alcohol mostly but in one of her videos she talks about how adderall was the hardest to quit most of all. I wish she would talk more about that. It’s wild to me how she posts so much about quitting alcohol when she says adderall was the hardest to kick! Anywho, if there are any moms out there who have advice or can tell me how long I will snap at my kids before they get their mom back I would really appreciate it. I take this pill and am nice to my kids but mean and petty about everything else in life. It makes me a robot and I know that but at least I am able to take care of them when I have some in my system. I sometimes tell myself I am prepping for the big day when I’ve finally, finally had enough and can be the person I dream of being and quit. I am learning that talking to myself kindly will help. I’ve made a lot of positive changes I just have to keep going. Thanks for listening to me ramble I can’t wait to post on here one day that I’ve done it for good!

Tomorrow it will be two years since I’ve taken adderall!!! Woohoo. Wow crazy. Just posting in case anyone is looking for encouragement. I was on adderal for about 10 years daily use about 40 mg a day.. it got so bad I would take it sometimes before I would get out of bed and wait until it kicked it. I was highly dependent on it and would be panicking if I had to go to work without it. Life seemed to revolve around when I would get refills and when I would take the medicine. It got to a point where I would use something as simple as doing the dishes for an excuse to take it. My mental health was terrible.. bad social anxiety.. no exercise, cholesterol and blood pressure were rising. I’m pretty sure adderal had a part in giving me thyroid disease but it could have been the massive stress I was under. Two main things pushed me to quit finally.. one was the adderal shortage started and it was harder to get refills and two I realized that my sleepless nights that occurred very often were very bad for me. There were many nights I would get two hours of sleep.. averaged like 5 hours a night and would take Benadryl every night just to sleep. im happy to report things are going awesome!! I’m killing it at my job.. im doing way better than I ever did on adderal, making more money. My cholesterol and blood pressure are normal and i sleep great. I also work out now 3 times a week which I never made time for before when all I wanted to do was clean and do work. It wasn’t easy it was one of the hardest things I ever did but it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

I’ve been prescribed adderall since march of 2023. It seemed positive at first. I obtained my drivers license and I bought a car to do Uber eats. That was working for quite a while. I stopped going to college because I decided at the time, that is was not for me. But suddenly I started to decline when my psychiatrist prescribed Zoloft. Zoloft and adderall do not mix. I spent my savings and racked up three thousand dollars in credit card debt from affirm, buying shit like game consoles, AirPods for christmas and heaters, etc. I stopped Zoloft, and adderall fucked my life up In a single month i said I don’t want any more adderall. I was put on Ritalin but that shit only made be high and tired. I crashed my car because of that. Luckily I was not on a trip for uber. Stimulants have destroyed my life. Taking these medications everyday is not for me anymore.

Me, too!!

Hi QA fam!! I was on here a few years back, but sadly, after 3 years of hard recovery, I decided that I wanted to dance with the devil once more. I went back on 10 mg for 2.5 years and sure enough, my life began unraveling. My relationship with my husband became distant. I wasn’t sleeping well. My friends began to distance themselves from me. My days were filled with chaos. I was angry and anxious all the time. I lost the 20 lbs that inspired me to return to the meds but after a few years I had gained it all back and then some. I knew it wasn’t the answer but I was caught in the trap and wasn’t sure if I would ever have the strength to return to my unmedicated authentic self. Then a miracle happened. I got pregnant. Something I didn’t think my body was capable of. I went off the following day and haven’t been back. Next week I will be celebrating my sons 1 year birthday. My first recovery was my “woe is me” recovery. I blamed everything on my lack of medicine. I focused on what I “couldn’t” do. This go around it has been different. It has been empowering. My relationships are blooming. My husband and I are stronger than ever. I wake up happy. I am a great mother. For the first time ever, I am proud of myself. I was put on amphetamines as a teen. Now at 38 I have finally met myself as an adult. This is the best version of myself, I’m never letting go of it.

It’s been one full month off of stimulants. Tracking how I feel and what’s changed. My energy and motivation is still quite low. I’ve been drinking far too much caffeine and using l-tyrosine, but overall I don’t feel my energy levels are quite back to where I’d hoped they’d be. I almost always feel like I need an afternoon nap, which is not something I have time to do every day. That being said, sleep is amazing. I love sleeping. I slept so little when I was abusing stimulants, it’s really spectacular to be resting again. My job performance hasn’t suffered, which has taken me by surprise. Although focus does require a little more effort, I don’t feel I’ve become worse at my job. That’s been a huge relief. My clothes are tight and I feel/look very bloated. I wish I didn’t care, but I am a dancer and part time Pilates teacher so I see my body in tight clothes in giant mirrors for hours every day. I so deeply wish I didn’t care. I’m considering starting the horribly lame and tedious task of counting calories. It’s so helpful to hear and learn from others with more experience in this process. If you have anything to share or offer I would truly appreciate it.

HAHAHA! It's March! How is it March 11, 2024? It was just recently October of 2022 when I was sitting in a coffee shop and writing a dumb little "dialogue" with some kind of personified Satan telling me to take 40mg instead of the prescribed 20mg. Just once. Just to get over a rough period of time with a high workload. I have very odd memories from the last 16 or so months. Maybe up to 20 months. Is it just me or do I get the impression that fewer people are sharing information about Adderall addiction in 2024 than, say, 2010.? I was just a little kid back then but--sifting through forums like this one--it seems like that epoch [early to late 2000s] experienced a sort of Renaissance of people who'd discover this "hidden under-current" of hyper-productivity and create social atmospheres that reinforced it and then eventually crash and try to find some kind of redemption. Is that 85% gone or am I just not looking hard enough for support networks? I have to say: this is a damn lonely endeavor... quitting Adderall. I may be able to talk virtually on forums like this but when I try to explain this experience to my coworkers they often look at me like I'm doing something righteous with my abuse of this drug. And that's how I rationalize it to myself. And the Western Judeo-Christian thought process... when it exists inside a religious person that I try to talk to... doesn't really know how to respond to my venting. They're much more used to people talking about sexual immorality or alcoholism or even speed but not this nice comfy and motivating gem of Adderall... which can flow through your system without many noticeable effects on the outside, while making you a skillful, righteous, creative, driven laborer on the inside. Everyone loves you! You yourself become creative and interesting and you can weave a nice narrative about yourself in your own mind out of memory of your meaningful work. Fortunately this time when I relapsed--after 16 days sober--the highest dose I was on was 30mg. This is unbelievable progress for me. I didn't even pull a single all-nighter in these 7-days of active use. Can you guys help? Where do I go from here? I developed a certain kind of addiction to my own breathing (specifically hyperventilation) and somehow--even when I'm not on Adderall--I often am compulsively aware of my own breathing while trying to sit down and do mental labor. I exercise a lot, which helps, but clearly it doesn't eliminate the mental temptation patterns. I am morbidly terrified of seeking professional help or "confessing" my "sin". Is that even a sensible way to think about this problem... as a sin? Isn't it more like a sickness? But a sickness of what? It can't be a psychological sickness alone because after 5-days of withdrawal I'm fine! I can come across as funny, interesting, even productive to other people without a single milligram of Adderall in my system. I don't even necessarily experience any sort of moment-to-moment "depression". Is it really just a metaphor to call this a "sickness of the spirit"? I am disgusted by the cynicism, hedonism, nihilism of the world... by how awfully young people like me conduct their lives. It seems as if my emotional or affective system is super-glued or perhaps fused to whatever part of my head makes rational judgments and so... every time I experience something like boredom, I rationalize the boredom into the conclusion that "Life and responsibility have left me. I have no real, meaningful, tangible responsibilities. What am I doing here? Why don't I just stay in this blithe coma and keep stumbling blindly through life.?" And then even when I'm on Adderall... when I experience those secondary effects of increased anxiety and such... I am repenting and hyper-rationalizing the stupidity of my decision while "enjoying" and utilizing the effect of the drug! I am presenting my body and limbs and face to the external world as one kind of character... and intrapsychically I am killing hundreds of ideas per minute as new ones are being born against my will. "When will I finish the homework? After I finish my shift. What am I doing in this shift? Feeding the middle class. Why am I feeding the middle class if there are dozens of health crises plaguing people because they don't get enough physical exercise. Why can't I just do 10 push-ups right now to give myself a bit of subtle endorphins to clarify my thoughts and set myself straight? Because I'm being morally righteous here washing these dishes. What's so righteous about washing these dishes here? Well, for one, it develops a certain kind of humility? Humility?! After this I'm going home to a cushioned middle class home in the most prosperous country in the world and I get to get 8 or 9 full hours of sleep! Wow, what an idiot! No, back to the task at hand!!" Multiply that by several hours each day for months on end... whether I'm on Adderall or not.! When I'm trying to do homework, on the other hand, I often read a paragraph of text and then close my eyes and visually imagine the representation of the abstract concept while imagining in my mind's eye... writing a paragraph response in my own words while deep-breathing. Then I'd open my eyes and jot something down for 17 seconds and read the next page. And I lost all touch with what it really means to study something. What is studying? To my subconscious it's a time of rabid indulgence in the value of ideas from the external world. The Western world does a rather poor job artistically representing pathologies like this. We have all the operational definitions and DSM diagnostic criteria and science-oriented mental health media in the world... and yet it's all aimed at some future that's... well, it's just the re-establishment of a "stable carnival of efficient human motion". Freeways. Red lights. Green lights. Buildings with doors and heating systems and plumbing systems. Brooms to sweep the floors. Courts to judge the sinners. All institutions.. all forms of human action... every twitch of the muscle... is operationally defined, sequenced in a socially-agreed context, and played out in a manner that's mildly pleasurable at all times. PEOPLE, ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME? HEAR ME, PLEASE! There's something odd about human nature where--when someone is crying for help in a way that's hyper-intelligent and maybe a bit excessive--the initial tendency is to turn your head and quickly look away. I've lost the only friend group I've had in my entire life 4 years ago because I was talking for MONTHS about how meaningless I felt life was. This was before I ever started really abusing Adderall. But see, what's my point? My point is I'm HERE! I'm AWAKE! I'm CIVILIZED! I expend herculean energy to be sane in the face of society and it's become a skill. I'm not some bum who poses an immediate threat to your safety. I'm just asking for a bit of social support. A reminder that maybe my thoughts--absurd and disgruntled as they are--were brought into being as part of this "spiritual war" I'm fighting. I can't be the only one fighting this, right?

Well I'll be back starting tomorrow made it almost 8 months. It's crazy to me how it fucks with my confidence, self esteem, my everything. I lose all strength and wallow in shame. Ppl don't understand wat it does to some ppl, it rips all my hard work out from under me and crushes my mind with negative thoughts and suspicious feelings, things that aren't me. My eyes dried out, mouth clenched, chest heavy, dint want to eat or drink, socially isolated, obsessing over things thatd usually never bother me. I can do this

I have also taken vyvanese....it acts on the brain just like all the other stimulants.. Like everyone said, you are replacing beer with wine. To beat this...u have to fully accept reality that you will have to go through a period of serious discomfort despite what else is going on in your life. Some people would call it detox...but necessary, can you honestly see your life going uphill from here with this problem in your life?

Hi and welcome. You've come to the right place. I was never prescribed Vyvanse, but I took it when I lived the drug-chasing lifestyle. To me, it's a bit milder, but it's a stimulant, and it acts the same way adderall does in your body for the most part. I strongly believe from experience, took adderall for 7 years, and I'm a year and a month clean, that no prescription stimulant can be used when getting clean. Getting clean from these drugs means complete abstinence after you've crossed over into abusing/addiction. It's like an alcoholic trying to stop drinking so they switch from beer to wine. I feel for you and my heart goes out to you. Recovery is hard, but it's so worth getting yourself back: mind, spirit, and body. You're concerned about how long it will take to feel normal again without stimulants, I understand, and to tell you the brutal truth it's a long road, but the journey is so much better when you're actually living life again, and it's no longer dictated by speed. I never thought I could quit, ever, but I saw life passing me by, and you deserve to live life with the good and the bad. Keep posting on here. I'm sure you'll see how amazing the feedback is from everyone on this site, and you'll find that you aren't alone in this journey.