Motivation_Follows_Action

You guys are really lucky. Honestly. Nature is a proven anti-depressant. I grew up on a farm in Australia in the middle of nowhere - 40,000 acres of bushland, where my toys were horses and anthills and mice. I used to swim in the creek and climb fences and you could stand on the porch in the evening and see the whole enormous sky from horizon to horizon. Now I live in Brooklyn, where nature doesn't surround me, and I have to make a real effort to see it. Prospect Park is nice, but there are always people or dogs around, and it's only really in the summer and spring when there are leaves on the tree-lined streets where I can see nature, kind of. It really does make me grateful for my background and really happy that those of you who do have access to it, take advantage of the nature that is around you. You are very lucky. Nature is better than xanax, any day.

Emmapea, you sound like you have a lot on your mind right now. Not just getting through semester, but getting on to live the life you want to live, and that you have wished for for a long time. Congratulations on taking that first step towards that goal. You have realized, along with all of us here, that you will only be slowly backing away from your life as long as you continue on adderall. So although you might be grieving your loss of the last little while, you actually should be celebrating! You've begun to take positive steps to recovery. And recovery will lead to success. If you can, just cling on to the positive in your life right now. Sounds like you have a good relationship with your mom. Sounds like you have people around you who, although you think they have no idea, want to care for you and support you and see you get better. Don't feel guilty - don't feel like you've wasted time, just be glad and grateful that you've had the strength to do something positive. And don't think about whether or not you can do this long term, but just whether you can get through today. I used to think it was weird counting days off adderall, especially because up until I discovered this forum I thought that the side effects of coming off the drug were supposed to last only 2 weeks. But really, the strength that has come from knowing I could get through 14, 20, 50, 70, 80 days (not quite 90, but that's ok!), has been really cool. It makes going in to tomorrow seam easier. One day at a time, and try to stop thinking negative thoughts. Just rest, and let your brain heal. It is the same powerful instrument you had before, it just needs a little patching up.

Just be thankful you're not this guy... http://gawker.com/5977456/australian-library-moves-lance-armstrongs-books-to-the-fiction-section Nope, no one is limitless. Not even people who recycle their own blood in their veins for better blood.

"Play, having new experiences, friends and family, doing things that are meaningful, appreciating what we have. These are the things that make us happy. And they're free. The more we have, the more everyone has." What an amazing movie, thanks so much for the recommendation.

PS Hey Cody, it's 7 days since your first post in this thread. How are you feeling?

Just re-reading this thread and there is a LOT of wisdom here. Thank you, everyone, for going with the flow of the winding conversation throughout this forum and posting gems here and there. There are echoes of, "Really?! Me TOO!!" to "yeah, I know it sucks" to "I feel your pain" and then real gems of insight. You guys and gals rock.

Hey Blesbro, how are you doing? Just checking in...

Welcome to the forum. Lots of people like you here. (Sebastian, are you out there....??). Keep talking. There will be awesome days and shitty days and everything in between. We are here to ride the waves with you.

Preach it, sky! Very, very wise words. You've just described the perpetual cycle (more like downward spiral) of addiction and trauma:

LILTEXT, this is a great idea. Well done! You're absolutely right with the organization piece, and having small daily goals that you can feel happy/proud about accomplishing every day. There is actually a lot of literature out there about goal setting and what makes the goal setting process successful vs not. The trick is to think long term but act today, just like you did with your Ironman *congrats, by the way*! Here's a few on my list: The "10 min tidy up". As part of the getting-ready-for-bed ritual, do a sweep of the living room and kitchen , whatever you can do in 10 mins. It's quite astounding what you can get done in 10 mins if you put a limit on it. One goal at a time. Focus on what you're good at, not what you're bad at Get moving. (I sometimes put all my laundry that needs folding on the couch before I go to bed so when I wake up, I have to fold it before I am tempted to lazily migrate from bed to couch) One day a week, make your only goal to "lose time" in something you love And this site, which is just awesome: http://www.dumblittleman.com (Also you can subscribe to the daily emails which are pretty great at motivation). Again, great idea!

Confidence and capability is what draws us to adderall; it's what adderall takes away from us; and it's what we eventually find deep within ourselves in greater measure than we ever knew possible once we're free from it. Here's to recovery.

Look, if we all felt that way then I'm sure we could all have a competition with you about who is the biggest fuck up. To me, the thing you will need to try and grapple with is to accept yourself, warts and all. You need to know that gaining weight is probably pretty inevitable if you're going to quit stimulants. Unless you are lifting weights a lot or running 50 miles a week or so, your metabolism is going to slow down. You have to be okay with that trade off for a while. Otherwise you will relapse and relapse and relapse every time the scale hits a certain number. And then you'll be fucking up with your health BIG time. Let me be an example to you -- I probably won't be able to have children because I've abused my body so much over the years. I've had stomach ulcers, chronic back pain and a whole host of other things because I punished my body to be unnaturally thin through my 20s and 30s. But you'll listen to one person - you. Just try to find a place where you can hear what she is trying to tell you. Your body wants you to be kind to her... not binge, not starve, not confuse, just be kind. One of the hardest lessons women ever ever learn, especially in this bloody westernized protestant culture we live in.

Dammit I missed the original post!

We allllll relate! I'm back in my "fat" jeans now, blah blah. I do feel strangely more at peace about it this time around though. Last time I gained 20lbs. This time I've gained 12. Want to know how I arrived at a little less of an anxious place? I have started realizing that so long as you reach a certain "acceptableness" in relation to your appearance, the rest of the attractiveness equation is about what's going on upstairs. If you're 36-24-36 but can't hold a conversation because all you spent your entire weekend doing was hanging out in the hairdresser/mall/nail-salon (and let's face it, beauty takes a shit load of maintenance time), that hardly makes you a great conversationalist. Honestly, no one around me who really cares about me gives a flying shit whether I am a size 2 or 6, but what they do care about is whether I am connecting with them as a human being, and whether I am able to listen to what's going on with them, and whether or not I like being in my own company. So, I'd recommend put the scales down for a few days, hang a sheet over the full-length mirror, just concentrate on being fully in the moment, and enjoying the health that is YOU not on adderall.... try it, it's kind of a nice place to be if you can accept it....

Krax, I'd recommended it to Rick here, in entry #34: . I find it really interesting how we in this forum have so many overlapping tastes... what's that all about I wonder...? (and btw neversaynever I would probably never go to a concert today, but I LOVE Soundgarden... didn't know they were even together still)... you must be v excited for tomorrow night, are you going to wear your doc-martins-and-white-tank-shirt-with-the-black-bra-underneath look? tee hee...

You sound like you need to read some Baudrillard... sometimes some post-modern deconstructionism is just the ticket to make us feel about as nihilistic and solipsistic as we could possibly be. Isn't solipsism one of the indicators of amphetamine addiction? I wonder which comes first... a personality who trends that way or a drug that takes advantage of it. Which reminds me of my favorite quote of happy Jean Baudrillard's... "All societies end up wearing masks". From America. (Try reading THIS while listening to David Gilmour for a wholly tortured experience): http://www.amazon.com/America-New-Jean-Baudrillard/dp/184467682X

I never realized until this very moment that there was a way of "cheating" in to AA, if you know what I mean. Feels weird doesn't it to say "alcohol" when you mean "adderall", and the whole purpose of AA is to be true to thine own self.... I went to a few meetings, and I don't know what it was about it that I didn't like, but I usually left feeling guilty about the fact that I was genuinely entertained by how magnificently people had managed to fuck up their lives.... would parade their battle scars with pride almost. There's an AA open meeting on Sunday nights just down the road from me and sometimes I used to go, ahem, because it was more entertaining than the telly. Talk about learning through storytelling. And man, does it give you perspective. But I digress. As for the "how long" question, I guess it doesn't matter, so long as I just never return to it as long as I live. I quit in 2012... that's all. Thanks again everyone, the entire dysfunctional family chipped in here and I couldn't have asked for anything more or less. I'll let you guys know one way or the other whether I get the job.... and will try to relax and enjoy the weekend while I can. I hope you are all doing the same thing. By the way, I went to a party for a little while tonight... a friend of mine was having an "early inauguration" party for our [your?] Presidential commencement this week. Yes it was kind of boring and ho-hum and I wanted to be at home in front of the telly; but I did observe that my social anxiety is definitely dissipating, and I wasn't the uncomfortably shy woman in the corner that I would have been a few weeks ago. I was shouting in my Aussie accent up there with the best of them, raising my diet coke, debating healthcare and the economy and fiscal and social policy like only the most neurotic New Yorkers can. I make a good impostor, if I say so myself... and I can say just about anything and people smile, because it's coming out in a weird accent....

We all have our drug paraphernalia, and our rituals. Altoid cases, hat boxes, maybe a special colored prescription bottle, all those tell-tale signs that only you would know about that make the addiction ever so much "better" or part of the fabric of your life. For me, I couldn't leave the house unless I knew I had adderall in my Altoids case, in my coin compartment of my wallet (gross I know), and a few lying in the bottom of my handbag or coat. Sometimes I would even store them in a baggie in my bra. Close to my heart indeed. And as for psychosis, for me as people will know on this forum, I never heard voices or saw things, but I became absolutely delusional about my own existence.... the definition of schizophrenic. Take a look at the "stages of aderrall abuse" on the other "announcements" page in this forum, and I was pretty much the definition of 7a. Scary. Let us know how you are doing and whether you have a long term plan to quit?

My heart goes out to you, Occasional1. Your writing is so visceral, so real... it's like we're with you through every stage of recovery. Your writing represents the highest of self realization and the lowest of the grieving process. If I were to assume, I'd think you're probably entering a pretty depressing place right now. If you can, try to take the supplements religiously (they were a lifesaver for me), and cut up your day in to chunks, that way it seems a little more manageable. And do some reading of a nature that will make you feel more empowered. I've just started reading, "The Power of Now", which is not normally my type of literature but it's quite transformative. And listening to music and connecting with it again is great, but sometimes you can get lost in the deep wallowing that comes with certain types of music [Pink Floyd, anyone]? I can always tell if I'm depressed if I find myself listening to hour upon hour of Pink Floyd. You are on your way to the life you know you can live. You've taken the first steps. Just. Keep. Walking. Before you know it you'll look up and see you're nearly at the zenith.

Just so you're aware, meth can be up to 100x stronger than adderall. You will be killing your brain if you continue with that stuff..

No I haven't had any other cravings, and even if I did I have abolutely zero access to adderall now. I changed doctors, told my previous doctor he was a drug pushing lunatic and threatened to litigate, actually; and I am dealing with the hows and wherefores of addiction/recovery with my new doc, so there's no way she will prescribe it to me ever. I think you're a wise dude, so I get where you are coming from. I just think that there needs to be a balance with motivation. I have come a really long way, and sure the journey is by no means over, I haven't reached the stability and assurance that you, InRecovery, Ashley, Cassie and others may have, but I'm a damn sight straighter than I was 3 months ago. I just think starting at zero again would make me unnecessarily depressed, and I'm hard enough on myself already as it as...

You haven't lost it, not forever anyway. Maybe temporarily while you still continue to use. You, like so many others on here, experienced amphetamine psychosis (btw, I find it a little hard to believe that you did so by taking only 20mg a day for less than half a year, most of us who've experience psychosis were taking much more than that over an extended period of time... unless you were not sleeping at all and not eating, which can exacerbate the side effects significantly). The psychosis stops when you stop. It worsens the longer you take it and the more often you go on-off-on-off, the more likely you are to enter psychosis with each use. All of us have taken adderall because we wanted to be confident and successful. And all of us here have found the opposite to be true. You will be ok, it will take time, it will be difficult. But you can be successful, just not on adderall... I'm telling you something you already know... what's your plan to quit? You mentioned you have done so, how many days are you clean and how are you feeling?

Thanks QA. Well re-worded. I get it, and that's what I was also trying to rephrase in my earlier post as well. The adderall factor will never go away from my memory of the interview. But yeah, I still really do want this job. You asked the question I've been dreading to answer. No, I haven't told my husband. Partly because I'm a pussy and I know it would distress him to no end; and partly because he had a super shitty week - he didn't get the promotion he was wanting, nor did he get the bonus he was expecting. He found those two things out this week, the day after I had my relapse. I want to give him a bit of time to breathe and relax before we have the conversation. But I will tell him, this weekend sometime or early next week (depending on whether he relaxes at all this weekend, he's in a pretty bad place right now and doesn't want to speak to anyone really). You're spot on - he's my sponsor and my best friend so he deserves to know. I hope he doesn't give me a really hard time but I'm sure he will. Thanks for taking the time to rephrase. But there is one thing you said at the end... are you really telling me that I start again from zero? SHIT. I was counting down the days till day 90. Great. Now it's nearly April before I can say I'm clean again?! C'mon really? That makes me depressed beyond measure.

Wow, I need a RI glossary! I'm Australian. I get nothing (except how to kill big fucking spiders with the back of my shoe... I'm bloody awesome at that!). Girl on the blue bus? Here's some language in my mother tongue in reply: no wucking furries , mate, she'll be apples, you're a pretty good shiela.. .... Anyhow, today I've been flat out like a lizard drinkin and it's time to roll out my Matilda and look at the inside of me eyelids for a jif. Nighty night, you great big nong. (translated: no worries, everything's going to be fine... you're a lovely woman. it's been a very busy day so I'm going to go to sleep now. Goodnight, you big loser - but in Australian that's actually a kind of compliment if said in the right tone). Noighty noight!

By the way, just a thought: are you sure adderall is the only amphetamine you're on or have tried? If you are in search of the ultimate high I just wonder, maybe in the back of my mind, that it's meth you're dealing with too. Tell me I'm wrong, I hope to the flying spaghetti monster I am.