SomedayDreamer

I do totally get that and it was very similar for me 'cause my FINAL semester in undergrad (I was a late bloomer, okay?LOL) was in the early honeymoon with addy and I did rock on it... fast forward to grad when I was a few years on addy already and it just made me feel fried. I regret it so much now.. I fucked up a great fellowship opportunity over that Now, one of my recovery goals is to go back "someday" haha.. and make good. Hang in there.. you CAN SO DO this, man!

Hi, I also have a diagnosis of ADD and there definitely was a time (about the first year or two on addy) when it seemed my life was better because of adderall. I might be overreaching but I can almost 100% guarantee you this: IT. WON'T. ALWAYS. BE. THAT. WAY. You might want to take a look at the post titled "8 phases of addiction" here... I think for the vast majority of those on adderall (even those prescribed it, like me) this is the path of decline that is just inherent to the nature of this drug. JMHO I was on it for 7 years. Highest dose was 40mg daily but in the last few years had been taking only about 20mg-30mg daily. Nevertheless, I got quite hooked and it went into the downward spiral inside and out. Oh, I just noticed you already do know what I'm talking about Well, welcome then

InRecovery, I know you have your own long list of negatives with adderall... but I'm curious, didn't you ever find it impeded you academically?? It always bemused me those who thought it helped them cram. I'm just recalling a couple years ago in my last attempt at grad school, (for a paltry one semester) adderall was totally getting in the way and messing me up. I'd overthink until I couldn't think or get deeply engrossed in some unrelated tangent. My mind just wasn't grasping and holding onto content like it did without addie. IDK, addie helped me with boring, mindless tedium but on complex tasks it was like a hindrance. Not so for you? I once worked on one lit review for 16 hours straight... I thought I cranked out 25 amazing pages... dude, it sucked donkey! The secondary research was solid, but it was really just overwrought mind-dump crap.

I just got through half of it last night... but omg, the shit I got done today! FFS I even finished my taxes. It's almost surreal... like an out of body experience, to knock out my to-do list like this LOL

oh man, that sounds a lot like how I felt Wednesday... yeah, looking around at my life saying "wtf good do I have to show for any of it!?" No friends, failed marriage, job's about to dry up, no money, house falling apart and all these kids practically hangin' off my t*ts all the damn time (not literally, lol.) I know commiseration is no real comfort...... all we can do is all we can do. It passed (like a kidney stone, but passed) hope the feeling passes for you soon too.

Thank you all very much for the replies. I do feel bit better today, also yesterday was the first really circumstantially bad day I've had since going off adderall- I mean one of those days were everything goes wrong right from the start of the day. On top of the mundane hassles, the organization I work for has moved up the date they'll be shutting down. I'd been in a job search anyway, but now it seems more urgent if I want to avoid a gap. Then one of my kids got sick, my two youngest were fighting non-stop and the oldest one had a full day of before and afterschool stuff . I have four kids ages 7-12, and I'm all on my own with them except Saturdays. Between them and work, it's just.... hard. Lea: That book is on my reading list now, thanks-- and you're so right about those feelings of looking forward to taking the next pill when all else in the day seemed like a pile of caca. For years I still looked forward to it even when I KNEW I wouldn't catch any good feeling on adderall anymore. MFA: 5-hour energy my go-to. It does help. BTW, that blog Dumb Little Man is awesome. I found so many incredibly useful nuggets, exactly the stuff I need to incorporate in my daily life! It was just a rough day. Going through it for the first time without the adderall wiring was hard, but I made it (if only because I have no pills and no access to any, but still). I'm sure there will be plenty more days like that, life is all practice

I know it is the addiction talking... and I will stubbornly endure it with gritted teeth. But right now... nope, it's not much better than that and what I am feeling is not real life it's the horrible realization that I have set myself up for failure by expecting that I as one person could single-handedly do all I have set myself up to do.. it's just impossible to be in two places at once. But you are absolutely right that the solution is not to pop a pill... no doubt about that. But it's really time for me to assess this whole clusterfuck and reach out to find some way to ease it up, call in some reinforcements and spread this load out a bit. My ex, my co-workers,etc. -- there is lots to be delegated and I have to just accept that I am only one person and I've been trying to go it alone for too long, if I don't change that it will lead to a relapse. So it's an eye-opener. *sigh* it's just a fuck day... This too shall pass

Ok, I knew full well quitting adderall was not going to be all sunshine and rainbows-- no constant upward trajectory welcoming each day as a new dawning on this journey into the light of recovery But today? SHIT!!!! I wish I spoke more languages just so I could have a broader vocabulary of swear words!! I was prepared for feeling anything except how I feel today. My addict mind is relentlessly harsh on me right now saying: "What good is it to try to be human again when my circumstances don't allow me to be human? Maybe the reason I was a machine all those years on addy was because you have to BE a goddam machine to do all this!" Job, more work, finding another job,more work, kids, more work, having to be 3 people at once...fuck! Tweaking on addy and just spending each day going through the motions sucked ass, yes... BUT at least I had no expectation of finding satisfaction in this fundamentally unsatisifying lot in life. It didn't matter on adderall if I was just getting through the day, it was enough to just DO IT. Get through the damn day, take care of the endless demands,, and the rest could just fuck off and leave me the hell alone 'cause they got what they wanted/needed from me! I did my part with no expectation of reward or reciprocity (because there's none to be had)..... so let me take my fuckin' pills and smoke my cigarettes because it's all I've got!!" My resolve is so weak right now... This is exactly why I knew I couldn't keep any addies around, because of times like this when I would just say "If this is all there is then fuck it!" and relapse.

As I'm a half-assed agnostic, I can appreciate what you mean about this book being accessible and enlightening to anyone. I'm not knocking recovery programs like the 12-steps, but I just don't believe in a "personal" god that micromanages our lives. Maybe the total sum of humanity has some significance, but not us as individuals.. DeMello was actually a Jesuit priest from India, but he was like it didn't even matter (the Vatican actually banned his books... all the more appealing to me ) I don't know why I'm babbling on like this... sorry

I read the Power of Now a few times because it was like a "process" for me to try to grasp it, but very good. Another author I think mentioned earlier here, Anthony DeMello, was a philosophical influence on Eckhart Tolle and I like his books very much too.

Congrats on 90 days.. and doin' all you can, no doubt it'll pay off "Wrong does not result from right, and a good present cannot give birth to a bad future" - J.A.

Lea, hi-five on two weeks in! I admire that you're willing to be so straight forward with your doc. I rather wish I'd done the same when I contacted mine, except I just kinda tapped danced around it. She did stop the authorization, which would make it a much bigger hassle to ever resume it. I just felt like I should've made it more purgative and come clean about the addiction. Still could, I guess... So, yeah.... I admire you for that

If you're not opposed to trying yet another supplement, look at L-Theanine. I suffered intense panic attacks in my twenties. They'd totally come out of nowhere, first one landed my in the ER it was so scary. L-Theanine helped alot whenever I'd start to feel the panic building, and seemed to work fast. I also noticed morning coffee didn't bother me, but any coffee in the afternoon did.. huh. Matcha green tea has lots of naturally occuring theanine, the less pricey brand is Good Earth Super Green Tea, can find it at most grocery stores for like $5 a box.

I realized another favorite thing about being off adderall... noticing these sudden wisps of, I don't know... nostalgia? I mean like when a certain smell or sound or sight takes you back for just a moment, to a good memory/feeling that you forgot about. Last week, I was walking my girls to the bus stop and there is a tall fir tree on the corner (in our otherwise very urban neighborhood), walk past it everyday and am sure I heard this sound 100 times but never noticed.The wind was blowing through that tree just right, making a whispering sound. I felt like when I was a little girl and used to go out to our cabin in the woods with my family, like I hadn't heard that sound in years. Just little stuff like that I notice and appreciate, stuff I just filtered out on addy.

Being outdoors does amazing things for the spirit (in general sense of the word). We're in a deep-freeze here right now, -30 windchill, but the sky is so gorgeously sunny, clear and deep blue that I wish I could get out there for just a bit. Can't wait for this cold snap to end in the next few days as I finally feel like getting up out the house for walk.

Your words ring so true! Like you said, one year tops of "wow, this is life-changing amazing!" then the next several years chasing that elusive feeling as your life slowly deteriorates around you. I know it's a cliche, but it's true that you start out taking the pill, but the pill ends up taking you.

Soulsearching 9- if the weight control is truly a big part of this for you, please listen to me..... I was on adderall for 7 years, and in the past 2.5 years, I GAINED weight on it. It was not because my appetite returned with increased tolerance, I was eating next to nothing in those 18 months, I subsisted on black coffee, cigarettes and about 600 calories a day of food. Yet, I put on nearly 25 pounds! It seems my body gave up and just hung on to every calorie I gave it (along with being sleep deprived). I also learned that adderall raises your blood sugar levels as part of the stress response. Elevated blood sugar levels increase insulin production-- insulin is a fat storage hormone. Adderall also makes your adrenals pump out excessive cortisol, another stress hormone that promotes fat storage, especially dangerous visceral fat in your belly. And so here I am as testament to that. While some (many?) users may become stick-thin, it doesn't always work that way and it's not sustainable in the long term anyway (you already know that) Miraculously, in the past 12 days that I've been off addy, I've LOST 3.5 lbs (oh happy day ) I realize that may not be typical in withdrawal.....but just something to keep in mind.

Ah, but then money doesn't necessarily correlate with happiness... in fact, the last time I won the lottery I was soooo happy until I kicked the door on my new corvette and scuffed my boots-- totally ruined it all for me

I remember once watching MSNBC or whatever and suddenly the news anchor's head looked HUGE compared to his shoulders-- I thought it was like a sight gag or something and turned to my (then) husband and said " what they did to his head?? Did you see how big it was? I don't get it, what's it about?" He looked at me like I was crazy... and I sulked away in embarassment. Again, this was on like 20mg. There was much weirder stuff too but it stopped whenever I wasn't on adderall.

InRecovery- did you believe the voices were real at the time? I mean, did affect what you perceived as reality? That had to be so scary. I just ask because I had hallucinations/hearing things too on adderall, but I knew they weren't real (well, after checking that none of my kids were crying and there was no radio playing) and it wasn't anything talking "to" me. But I did sometimes find myself believing some strange things while on addy. I've since heard that's not uncommon even for ppl in prescription range..... talk about mindfuck.

I just finished watching Happy tonight... the first full movie I've sat down to watch in probably about 3 years, so that alone made me happy but a great one at that

Hi John, there actually have been reports of people having auditory hallucinations at typical prescribed dosages (with or without long-term use). I had experienced it myself several years ago without any other indicators of psychosis. I'd hear what sounded faintly like a radio announcer (with no radio on, of course) or sometimes a baby crying ( I'd then check my little ones compulsively and they'd be sound asleep as I kept hearing a baby cry...no neighboring houses had babies..) It happened on and off for a few months, then it stopped. Like you, I was taking only 20mg per day. I should've been more alarmed than I was but I just shrugged it off "oh, I'm hearing things on adderall...huh" and kept taking it. But it sounds like in your case, it went to full-blown delusional. The voices you described are saying disparaging things about you as well as you feeling paranoid about conspiracies against you. If you continue to experience this, please see a doctor. Not to scare you, but I had a friend who used dexedrine (prescribed) and it triggered an underlying predisposition to psychotic illness, she got help early and has since lived a normal life for over 20 years now. Not saying that's you, but please do see a doctor if it continues.

Oh no, I didn't mean to make you feel self-concious... it's just I recognized it (hypergraphia) right away as something I used to do all time on the adderall. If I had originally posted my own story while still on addy it would've gone something like: "Well, you see, 35 years ago I came into this world as a wee but spry babe of 4lbs. 15 oz., despite being full-term, and then my early formative years were rather uneventful until one day in preschool......" LOL, I would've gone on in discursive over analysis, writing, writing, writing-- it was the adderall that did it. I hope you will continue posting as you go through this next part

My apologies to the OP, I really didn't mean to sound rude there. What I meant is that am not even 2 weeks into recovery yet and right now my attention span is about as long as my pinky toe- it's wasn't for lack of interest in your story. Sorry, just wanted to clear that up.

I don't know if I can explain this in a helpful way (that makes sense), but one of my favorite authors, Anthony DeMello, said that ridding yourself of a dependency/attachment does not come from renouncing it, to renounce it is to bind yourself to it even further (i.e. because forbidden fruit always tempts) Rather, it comes from real awareness of what the dependency/attachment does to you and what it steals-- it sounds like yesterday, the relapse made you very aware of what addy does to you, and what it ultimately steals from you. Maybe that awareness you experienced will safeguard you better than renouncing (don't mean to sound trippy but I find it helpful, personally.... just offering hugs too