SleepyStupid

hi Neildeni, first of all, welcome to the forums! you're in the right place, and it sounds like you're fairly early on into adderall addiction. NOW is the time to nip this thing in the bud (no pun intended lol). as a lifelong weed smoker myself, i absolutely relate to the marijuana addiction and how easy it is to fall into habitual use. in fact, it's getting easier and easier now with vape pens, THC cartridges and many states are now legalizing recreational use. i've always admired those people that can use it for energy, writing, creativity, etc. for me, it has always just been a numbing agent. not that a marijuana addiction isn't a serious problem.. but the adderall one is WAY MORE DANGEROUS, especially when you start convincing yourself that you "need it" for your condition. many people here have strong opinions on whether adult ADHD is even a legitimate condition, but that aside, know that most people will receive a performance boost from adderall, because it is literally just pharmaceutical speed. yes, but consider that continuing to take the adderall will also make you dependent on it, because stopping it will feel 1000x worse than a temporary loss of cognition from ceasing marijuana. i definitely understand the desire to please your parents and not feel like a disappointment to them... but adderall is not the answer. it will make things WAY worse if you continue down this path. perhaps you can consider taking a semester or two off? get an internship or a job and maybe explore some interests. maybe you're performance is low because you're simply not interested in those subjects?

you should check out the sticky thread at the top of this forum, it has some great content and also book recommendations at the bottom!

i am in the NJ / NYC area (mostly brooklyn on the weekends), let me know if you'd like to chat (:

this this this!! life can't be all ups. you asked how one can learn to overcome hardship and find passion in life? it happens naturally when you're forced work through something you don't want to do. it happens when you're sitting around bored as hell and decide to try something new. stimulants mask all these challenges, cause you're never unmotivated and bored.

this is a really interesting question. the weird thing (one of many) with addiction is, it goes against our traditional experience with memory. usually negative experiences (traumatizing, embarrassing, etc) are stored longer and recalled more vividly, which makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. but i suppose with those kinds of experiences, there probably isn't a pleasure-seeking and receiving component. also you mention having had very bad social anxiety before starting on dex, so it's not too surprising that the fond memories of feeling outgoing and personable will stay with you. unfortunately, the experience of drug-induced euphoria is something you can't un-know. for the first year or two while your body and mind re-balances, you may not have enough positive experiences to keep yourself from thinking back to the last time you felt "good". the road to recovery takes time, but soon enough you will start having more good days than bad days. you will reach a level of natural happiness where your mind won't need to look back any further (:

this. there isn't an all connected health record system that follows you around like that (yet). unless you get a new doctor and that doctor specifically requests your records forwarded from your previous doc, the only place your admission will exist is in his own notes. as far as i know, CPS can only be called if they actually observe any abuse, so you can put those worries aside and do the right thing (:

actually, there is something medicinal about it. it sounds like off-label, self-medication for depression which is a very dangerous road. as someone that still struggles with depression, i can tell you that Adderall does not manage depression so much as mask it. as you're keenly aware, it turns you into an entirely different person rather than helping the underlying person. i'm not clear on the details around your addiction (how long, how much), but there is a very simple question here: how long is this sustainable for? even if you have not suffered any acute health problems yet, can you honestly say that you're okay with taking this for the rest of your life? if the answer to that is "No", then you're in the right place here (: as @quit-once said, you don't need to bottom-out in order to make the decision to quit, but this is sometimes what it takes for people to stay quit. if you are unemployed currently, NOW is the time to give this some really serious thought and effort. imagine how difficult this becomes once you're reliant on adderall for not only personality but also financial stability.

welcome to the forums Invictus! that's a pretty heavy cocktail of medication you're taking, and to add Adderall and increased alcohol consumption to the mix sounds extraordinarily risky. that aside, the paranoia isn't very surprising. i had some particularly bad panic attacks around something similar. for a period of time i was convinced i had bed bugs, and always felt bugs crawling on my skin. its called "formication" and is fairly common with stimulant abuse. you do not want to get to this stage, i assure you. this shouldn't be a shocker, but Adderall tends to help everyone tremendously with school (at least in the beginning). the mechanism at work here is that it flips your natural reward system such that the dull part of schoolwork itself generates reward. this results in a feedback loop where you enjoy working so much that you spend more time finding and doing it. this is why people always think they're "drowning" in work and that there's no time for anything. my honest suggestion here is to tell your doc about the paranoia. if you absolutely need stimulants to function, perhaps there is an alternative available. you're still at a low enough dose of Adderall to course correct now. please don't add amphetamine addiction to your already concerning collection of psychiatric conditions!

hi tallcurrency, welcome to the forums! 100mg a day is pretty serious, especially given how quickly you upped the dosage. if you haven't had any major life problems, you soon will. your tolerance is going to clamp down hard, the efficacy is going to drop off, you'll start taking more and running out of pills... i think you see where this is going. is there a good reason you cannot tell your doc or family? this isn't as important in terms of support as it is for accountability. telling your doc will cut off your supply which is the first major hurdle. holding yourself accountable to loved ones can really make a difference. regarding your workload, there isn't an easy answer to this. as @Cheeri0 mentioned, the first few months will be about prioritizing and time management. assuming that you can't take a medical leave of absence, you really need a sustainable strategy. for example, you may have to pick your battles and just go for a passing grade on some courses. that being said, if you had the work ethic to make into med school, it will return to you soon! just give it some time and patience. this is the most important thing in your life right now, so treat it as such, and keep us posted! (:

hi friends! minus a couple of months of relapse, i am 3 years clean!!! (: i wish i had more to say about this, like some accomplishments to share and motivate others with, but honestly i am just so thankful to be living a normal life with a loving girlfriend, a stable job, planning for the future.. none of these things would have been possible if i hadn't made the decision to fix my stupid broken life 3 years ago. could i be doing better? sure. i still struggle with motivation, self-confidence, sense of purpose... but i am very confident in saying that it has nothing to do with adderall anymore! thank you to everyone here. this site and all the people here gave me my life back, and i intend to continue helping others get their lives back too.

congrats! 3 months is huge! i'd say 3 months is right around where you should be getting more natural energy back, and also a desire to start course correcting your life. it's hard to remember back that far, but i think around 3 months i stopped taking car naps during lunch, lol. it's okay to not remember what "normal" feels like. depending on how long you were on stimulants, it might not even be relevant anymore. what's normal for a young adult is no longer normal for an adult adult, no? also, one of the easiest traps to fall into during recovery is "looking back" , because it's hard to live up to those expectations (i used to be so creative! so outgoing! so.. so..). not to mention, your memory will be super biased. perhaps the thing to look forward to in the next few months is planning the new you (:

love this passage - it's so very true!

(all things are) possible.

something to consider: many people look and act happier than they actually are. it's kind of the same thing as presenting the "perfect" version of yourself on Facebook (which is basically the reason i don't partake in social media). i know it's hard to not compare yourself to others, but in this case i think it's especially important! i'd argue that you actually have the capacity to be happier than they could ever be, because you've experienced and conquered deeper pain. (:

overwhelmed

would you mind sharing your dosing at that time? i recently got switched from extended release to instant release, though the overall dose was reduced from 200 to 150 (75mg twice a day). some days i forget to take my 2nd dose, maybe because caffeine is providing enough of a boost to not notice, but i've also experimented with a 200mg extended + the instant and i certainly feel jittery enough, everything short of a seizure.

yes this is a well documented experience. it feels like struggling to retrieve words and thoughts that should be coming to you effortlessly. happy to report that this does get better, but one thing to consider is that amphetamines tend to lower your decision thresholds, meaning that you make choices faster but also feel satisfied with them much easier. if you go back to read something you wrote on vyvanse before, you may discover that it's not as good as you thought it was at the time. being somewhat of a writer and a creative myself, i definitely understand the frustration with finding that stream of consciousness. it will definitely return, but now you'll be in a much better state of mind to extract from it those nuggets of pure genius (:

it's hard. in fact, this is the reason why many people relapse—they mistake the addict voice for the new sober, rational voice. it's the same message, but it sounds like the real you and is all the more convincing because you've spent the last several months in recovery. surely i must be thinking rationally by now? this may not work for everyone, but what i found effective in establishing a "sober mentality" was to demonize Adderall. i had to convince myself that Adderall isn't just a tool, its a fucking hardcore drug (it is) that will kill me if this goes on. i relapsed after about 2 years sober for a month or so, but even during this time, i never once thought that i wanted to re-introduce this to my life, that i needed it to succeed, that it would be different this time. i knew full well that i just wanted to get high for a little while. i binged for a few weeks straight, then dealt with the aftermath. i know that doesn't justify the relapse, but i think its that underlying mentality that kept me from drawing that relapse out to much more dangerous waters. always remember: it will never be different the next time. there is no going back.

the hilarious thing about this statement (at least for me) is that i have NO PROBLEM convincing myself that it's true whilst expending 0 effort in challenging it. it's one of those things that you can't help but laugh at yourself for, but at the same time, i absolutely know how you feel. this is effectively the logic i used to let my musical talents go to shit and my passion fade away into nostalgia. my apologies if i'm reading too far into your choice of words, but i find "happy" to be a word that we as human beings typically have a poor internal definition for. most people don't have a specific need to define their inner values in a formal or consistent manner because they have enough emotional stability to safely neglect it. as a recovering addict, though, you are likely questioning the shit out of this all day every day. i guess what i'm getting at is that it may not be fair to ask yourself such a deep question while in the worst possible mental state for it. it's a bit of a trap in my opinion, and can lead to some nasty feedback loops. that being said, you are right about the forcing your way through thing. at this stage, i'm not sure it matters whether it (completing school and starting a new career) will make you "truly happy". i find that it helps to consider these types of things obligations rather than goals. it makes it easier for me to force my way through something if i'm not constantly evaluating its value. there will be happiness in your future, i promise, but for now, do the rational thing and force your way through. the future, happy NaterS will thank you (:

torn.

this is really strong work- congratulations!!!! (: i can't even imagine what 17 years of adderall does to a person's fundamental human qualities, but here's what i do know: "treading water" is a very normal feeling! most people at one point or another in their lives have the same experience. the difference for us is that we have this additional experience of a pill that seems to magically fix the water treading. as we've all come to realize, it's not true, but it's impossible to un-know how amphetamines feel. that also means that all of the things and activities you've truly enjoyed while on adderall may not feel as satisfying anymore (for a while anyway). i definitely struggled around the 1 year mark with trying to get back into things i enjoyed, but it would always be a constant comparison to how it felt on adderall. but that's okay- maybe that thing you're ready for is to try something completely new, an experience that adderall has never touched or influenced?

grateful. (for all things i have, and all the chances i've been given. things could be much worse) and at the same time... guilty. (for wasting these things and not being as successful as i could)

haven't experienced this myself, but here's an interesting explanation on the physiological effects of amphetamine on vision: https://drugs-forum.com/wiki/Stimulant_induced_blurred_vision

this is great news!!!! congrats on taking that first step and coming clean. it's immensely difficult to do. (: if i recall correctly, you're in school right? are you on summer break? any plans for the next semester or looking for a job? the next few months are going to be rough, so you should start strategizing as soon as possible.

totally know what you mean. it's definitely a double-edged sword! i think the thing to keep in mind about recovering from amphetamines though is that it will not provide the immediate and tangible results your personality is craving. this is not a sprint, it's a marathon. sure- within a week or two, you won't feel like sleeping 20 hours a day, but honestly the real difficult part starts after that. you'll still have to start doing all the normal human being things you're expected to do, but there will be no feeling of reward in doing them for some time. this is why it's important to not push yourself, and to temper your expectations. you have a lot of positive energy right now, and that's awesome! you should capitalize on it by putting into motion some good routines like exercising and diet. keep us posted- this is the best decision of your life (: