Mike

Nice! Think I'll post this on the main site...

Hmm. I've never heard of purple teeth before (purple gums maybe), but my teeth generally did go to hell when I quit Adderall and cigarettes (not sure which was the culprit). My dental hygienist actually said something about a backdraft effect related to quitting smoking. Like apparently my teeth (or gums; I can't remember) were actually going to get worse for a while right after quitting. In any case, I ended up having nearly all of my teeth capped in the following years, as I've chronicled previously. Definitely a pain...especially the part about the money.

Nice find! Thanks for posting. I'm going clip this up into a blog post... EDIT: Done.

Congrats, mka! After 35 days you're probably over the hump in terms of withdrawals. Isn't it wonderful to truly be able to sleep again?

Hey Jon! It's so hard to explain to others just how drastically Adderall alters your personality, especially if they have nothing to compare it to. At least, if you start Adderall in the middle of a relationship, the person can notice the changes and be aware of the contrast. But if they don't even know what you look like off it, they'll just think it's how you are, for better or worse (in your case, worse). Most of those people think of Adderall like a medicine, not realizing how much like a drug it is. They may have tried something else like Prozac and assume the effects are of similar nature and intensity...but they have no idea. I feel really bad you had to go through that. You still have the option of showing her who you can be without Adderall, but it may be a while after you quit before you feel like you have the strength for that. Right now she thinks Adderall is an excuse, but she hears you keep referring back to it. If you were to call her one day and say "I quit" I think at least part of her brain would be curious to see if you were right...to see if it really was the pills. There's a second chance in that curiosity for you. And if she really is the love-of-your-life type, you have much better odds of being able to win her back than you may think. Or, you don't. Keep in mind that when you quit Adderall, your preferences change drastically about everything, including the opposite sex. If you were to ask me what my ideal girl looked like when I was on Adderall, and then again when I had spent some time off it...my answer would be COMPLETELY different. Like polar opposite. So take that for what you will. Anyhow, good luck on quitting. Post updates!

Yay Alliee! Good for you. Oh, and on this... Funny you should say that! I always felt that my writing drastically improved when I quit Adderall because I no longer went on a bunch of Adderall-fueled "detail for the sake of detail" tangents. Sometimes laziness in writing is a good thing. It'll make you say "I don't feel like making this sound fancy, so I'm just going spit it out and let it ride."

Yay that sounds amazing! I'm so happy for you. You've more than earned it! And that's a great list too. Any interest in turning that list into a little article called "Erin's Hard-Won Success Story" or something like that? I'd love to post your story on the main blog.

Hey Crayzechick! Congrats on all the progress! I wouldn't be surprised if your diet contributed to your surprisingly resilient energy levels. On the weight gain: This seems to scare everybody back to the pill, especially girls (thanks to trait #2). But in your case, we're only talking about a few pounds! 5 pounds is nothing to go back on the pill for. First off, from what I've heard the weight gain does normalize. I've spoken to several people who put on weight when they quit and then just dropped it back off a few months afterwards. Second, diet isn't the only way to lose weight! With your talent for calorie awareness, you could probably keep that 5 pounds off (and then some) with a measly 30min of cardio per week. Like, just go out and run around your neighborhood one night every week. It would be easy. Speaking of which, I'd better wrap this post up because I've got a long bike ride to go on... Stay strong. You've already done better than most in terms of energy levels and weight gain. Don't piss it away!

Sure! PM me when it gets closer to September and we'll swap info, make arrangements, etc. Looking forward to it!

I'll take a stab at these... Yep! This never goes away. Nope. Not for a while. Unless you really, really care about the thing. It will come in small, infrequent bursts. And then you'll learn to farm it. These will flower and grow beyond your wildest imagination. Not until you develop and exercise habit and a consistent sleep cycle. You will have to rebuild it. Same thing as for attention span. Hope that helped!

Hi kmbsj, In general you can expect derivative side-effects of cold turkey. Because really, what you're doing is several mini-cold turkies. Each step down you take, expect to feel a little more fatigued than you usually are, and a little less *into* the work you're doing. You'll have to force yourself a little to get things done (as in, more raw willpower than you usually need). As you get into the lower steps, it'll get much rougher, especially if you've been letting your work ethic lapse to meet the lower dose. You want to try as hard as you can to build up your willpower to compensate for the lower dose at each step. Otherwise you're going to have to do it all it once when you're on a small or zero dose. That's the general idea. There are several stories on here from people who have tried the step-down method, but I can't think of any specific ones to link you to offhand. Good luck! Let us know how it goes!

4 days and you're already painting? That's really good progress. It felt great painting without the pills, didn't it? I remember the first time I wrote something without Adderall. It came out so much clearer. Adderall helps with technical and mental tasks, but sometimes it suppresses the heart and impulsiveness that good art demands. Anyhow, congrats on the awesome progress. 11 more days till withdrawals are over! You'll probably get through them even faster if you keep sweating it out on bike rides. I keep having to go under the knife for dental surgeries, so I've spent the last few weeks trapped in my house hopped up on Vicodin, unable to go outside and run/bike until the swelling goes down. I'm jealous of you for getting to go biking!

Yay! Glad it helped a little. I cannot begin to express how normal (and personally familiar) what you're going through is. Regrettably, those miserable feelings are just part of the process...steps on the trail.

Dear Alliee, You can fix yourself. Where you're at right now is the most miserable place possible. You're hovering above ground zero, knowing that you need a big change but afraid of it. So drop. Hit bottom and start your recovery. There is another side to this. That person you used to be, before Adderall...that is your natural state, and that is who you will gravitate towards when you quit. Look at it this way: You've cut a three-year gash in your life and your spirit. The first step towards healing it up is to stop making the gash worse. The instant you stop taking Adderall, the healing starts. Much like the way your body heals a big open wound, it's not pretty: There will be puss and scabs and pain, but given enough time and care...your wounds will heal up, and all that will be left is a swath of extra-tough skin in that place. You can do this. You have clarity now. You've seen what Adderall has made you. You've seen the wonderful self you lost in the process. So now you know what to get away from, and what to get back to. Three years is very, very recoverable. In fact, you're kind of in good shape. It's hard to quit Adderall when there are lots of good aspects to your life. But if you've lost so much, then you've got little left to lose.

mka, You're almost there! I can't believe you're already down to 5mg. That's amazing progress. You're in much better shape than many people are when they first find this site. Plus you've already quit the Effexor. So once you've killed off the Adderall you'll be totally med free! FWIW, you may experience a slight freakout when you go totally off the meds for the first time. That is, when you go from 5mg to zero. Even at a small dose like 5mg, you've still got the placebo effect working in your favor. If this happens, stay strong. If you can survive on 5mg, you can survive on 0mg. Good luck this week, and make sure to come back and post updates!

Hey AJ, *hug* Don't give up hope just yet, for your Adderall problem or for that gaping hole in your heart. The lifestyle you've been born into (moving around all of the time) has effectively forced you to live as a hyper-introvert. That is, you're living as if you were someone that is so isolation-minded that they literally avoid all contact with others. But I don't think you're naturally that type of person. At least, not as much as your circumstances have force you to be. Adderall is the ultimate drug for this introverted lifestyle. You can literally live your whole life alone, and as long as you have enough pills and enough things to keep busy with, you'll be able to feel contented. For you, I can see where this made sense. You didn't have another choice. It was either find a way to be contented with not being able to grow roots, or go crazy. That's the rub of abusing mental health drugs that you kind of need. Often, it's not a choice between high or level; it's a choice between high or crazy. And that makes it very tempting to continue rationalizing. Forget your Adderall/Vyvanse problem for a minute. Focus on that hole you've always had in your heart. You will not be able to succeed in quitting Adderall think of something else to plug that hole with. This is not an easy task. Superficial things like exercise and having fun with others...those will only dull the pain a little, temporarily. You need something big. Something so hugely fulfilling that it fills up even that hole. As far as I've seen, there are only two things that are capable of being that fulfilling: A family or a calling. It's hard to systematically work to earn a family, so focus on the calling. You may need to reduce or quit Adderall to figure this out though. That's one of the greater side effects of quitting: Quitting brings pain and discomfort back into your life. And those are powerful forces for change. It can be hard to figure out what you really love to do when you're hopped up on a drug that makes you love doing anything. You can do short or long-term experiments to help you find what you want to do. Short term: Stay off Adderall for a week, and load yourself up with different kinds of task, ranging from work to hobbies. Try them all sober. Which one didn't make you miserable, even when in the midst of Adderall withdrawals? The long-term option, of course, is to try staying off Adderall for several months or years, and see where your heart gradually leads you. But whatever you choose, you need to start prioritizing figuring out what fills that hole. I promise you there is something. You are very wrong in thinking that it's permanent. A hole is not permanent, but a thirst may be. A hole is something negative; it will drive you to impulsively escape. A thirst can be quenched from a fountain of your own invention. Great things come from thirsts. You just have to figure out what you're craving. Love? Success? Freedom? Commitment? Depth? A home? Then go for it, at all costs. I know you may feel all alone, but you're not. You have lots of kindred spirits, and whether you know it or not, you are fighting alongside many others like you. Hang in there, and keep posting updates!

Hi Alliee! That's a pretty scary story about that creepy guy at your work. I hope your car close by and your parking lot is well lit. You mentioned that you got a response to your letter that was "only scientific writing". Do you still have that response? I'd kind of like to see it.

Hi John! You have a powerful confirmation that you can do this in those 4 years you stayed off it. Not because you managed to make it through, but because you managed to make it through and actually be pretty happy during those 4 years. I've heard lots of stories about relationships ending over Adderall. It either goes one of two ways: The relationship ends when you quit, or the relationship ends when you start back up again. As hard as this may be to hear, you are one of the lucky ones. The fact that your ended when you went back on Adderall means that she loved the real you, and that the real you was competent enough to secure a relationship for 4 years almost to the marriage threshold. Those are very positive indicators for what you are capable of without Adderall. When it comes to the harder job that drove you back to Adderall, that's understandable. I would start spouting advice about how to deal with that, but since you already quit it's not an issue. My question for you now is: How are you going to approach things differently this time, work-wise? Are you going to shoot for a job you can better handle without the pills? Are you going to shoot for a job with the same level of difficulty and try to build up your willpower so that it becomes strong enough to handle it? Either path is possible. But decide in advance what you're going to do. Where you get into trouble is when you start going hyper-ambivalent about what to do, while you're committed to one. Easier to set your mind going into the battle, so you can start to prep your brain and heart for the nature of the war ahead. Now you've got a chance to do that. As for the porn: Pornography addiction is a very common side-effect of amphetamine use, from what I understand. Dr. Drew even talks about that links sometimes. I think the good news about your porn problem is that porn is a very binary boundary. Either you allow your brain (and your mouse pointer) to go in "that" direction, or you don't. And once you stop it's easy to stay away. Your brain thinks porn is gross. It can come up with plenty of reasons why it's probably not healthy for your psyche to look at it. And then your dick chimes in and all bets are off. The more you ignore your sex drive for a little bit, the more your brain takes control, and the easier it is to let the brain have its say on decisions like porn. So whereas a drug addiction may take weeks or months to break, most porn addictions can be broken pretty easily. Go a full week without porn, and your boundary will be pretty strong already. And then you should just focus on being busy with things you care about. When it comes to porn, there's a lot of truth to the saying "idle hands are the devil's plaything". Fill up your day. Plus quitting Adderall will very much help you avoid being so obsessive about porn and spending way too much time in what I've heard called "the porn trance" (where the addict spends 5 hours picking the right scene, and 3 minutes...using it). This might be interesting to you: True Porn Clerk Stories It used to be available free online, which is how I stumbled onto it. Very interesting read. You learn all about all the porn addicts that come into the shops. For your purposes, it will help you externalize by seeing what porn addiction looks like from the outside. Anyhow, good luck and hope that helps! And yeah, don't worry about this girl thing just yet. Get you shit straight first. And even better, get happy again.

Interesting find. If you do skim it, let me know how it is, and if you like it. Could be good to add to a booklist or something. I think that's really the attitude more doctors should have: pills supplement other treatment, not the other way around. I would buy it for my Kindle, but it seems the Kindle edition is more expensive than the paperback. Sigh. Stupid Kindle.

Hmm. That's really interesting. And now I have two good links to add to the "ADD science/articles/studies" section I'm eventually going to start. How do you give up wheat? Offhand, I can't even think of anything I eat regularly that doesn't have wheat in it. What's left that you can eat? In other news: I finally got my complexion issues sorted, I think. The magic thing for me was a daily dose of Bactrim, and then I have a topical steroid that I rub on my face after I exercise (and shower). I've read that dairy affects complexion too, so I'm interested to hear your progress (on the ADD and complexion fronts). Good luck!

Hi Mary Beth! Welcome to the forums! Out of curiosity: Have you ever tried taking a lower dose of Adderall? There's an extremely fine line between "ADD Cured" and "over-stimulating", and it's difficult for anybody besides you (i.e., your doctor) to guess the dosage that meets that line exactly.

Yay! Glad you guys like it. More cool stuff coming after this (especially once this semester ends). You think so? I'm actually going back and forth a lot on this in my head. Adderallic is a new term invented here at QuittingAdderall.com. It's perfect once you process it and "get it". But is it too off-putting for people who haven't seen it before? Or is it instantly recognizable? And what about to non-users? I kind of want to focus-group it haha.

In case any of you are interested, here's a screenshot of the final design comp for the QuittingAdderall.com redesign project I've been working on for the last month or so. Let me know what you think! Notes: 1. That middle block is supposed to say "For Non Users: Understanding Adderall and Adderall Users", but it got all garbled when the designer saved it out. 2. I just used random avatars to show the recent forum posts, sorry if any are inaccurately associated! 3. I'm probably going to drop the whole "Adderallic" thing from the home-page and just say "Adderall Users"

Hey tjtigers14! Two ideas: 5. Stick to those 4 things you outlined at all costs, even when you lose passion for them. 6. Lighten your classload a little until you figure out how to work without Adderall. (it's like learning to work all over again...you have to develop all new tricks to outsmart your own laziness)

colourordie, Anxiety is like a balloon in your mind that's expanding and putting pressure on your every thought. When you quit Adderall (especially cold turkey), it's like you shrink your brain for a little bit so it only has enough room to focus on quitting and dealing with your withdrawals. This shrinking of your brain clears up a little extra room in your head, and relieves some of the pressure from the anxiety balloon. For a time, you don't care about your normal anxieties as much because you've got more pressing concerns (like how to get out of bed and get to work relatively on time without wanting to kill yourself). After a while as you recover from the withdrawals and start growing into your sober self again, you start to feel the pressure of that anxiety balloon again. Now, when that happens, here's the trick: you can't just pop the balloon and knock all the pressure out in one big wooosh so suddenly you're all better --- it's not like a dream where there's always some easy, magic way out. This is going to require very uncomfortable and unpleasant effort. The way to get rid of the balloon is to pick one section in particular, and make a pin hole in it, so it leaks out a little air and relieves a little of the pressure. Coming clean with your parents about your debt and school situation makes a pin hole and leaks out a little pressure. Coming up with a budget that includes a consistent way to start paying down your debt a little makes a pin hole, and leaks out some more pressure. And knowing that for all your scars at least you've conquered the Adderall beast and are on the road to being better....that makes a pin hole too, and relieves a little more pressure. Once you get into a groove with facing up to your anxieties and deflating them with action, the realization that you're able to face your anxieties and vanquish them will make several more pin holes, and leak out lots of pressure from that anxiety balloon. And here's the final secret. Every whisper of air that you release from that anxiety balloon flows into the happiness balloon in your heart, lifting you up and making you stronger. Good luck. You can do this!