BeHereNow

I feel like any major diet change like that should be made semi gradually, so you start building up habits, and learn to prefer eating that way. I have never heard of anyone having long term success by instantly jumping on a diet change-- it doesn't stick, because we haven't built up enough of a taste for the new diet, and miss the foods that have been cut too much. I think it's more sustainable to start incorporating certain foods and cutting others, slowly. And, to forgive yourself if you 'cheat' a little here and there, while maintaining your focus. Anyway, GO FOR IT MFA!!!

Ashley!! Two things: 1) Life is shorter than we can imagine! 2) You are better than you even realize! Conclusion: Your life is too short and too precious, and you are way, way too good, to be wasting any more of your time on someone who isn't treating you like a queen. You deserve to be with someone who respects you, challenges you, and makes you happy. You know, today is the first day of spring......

Hey BarbieDahl, I can't even express how sorry I am to hear you're going through all of that. I cannot even imagine what it's like. I will offer you this: there's a silver lining in that you've taken the step to come here and post, that you have had those thoughts and taken those steps towards quitting. You said it, there must be a life for you that is better than that. You won't be in it alone, as long as you keep your support networks strong (your family, friends, and us here.) But it is ultimately up to YOU to begin creating this new, better life. It sounds to me like these doctors have really done you wrong. Question: Can you say a little more about your lifestyle? Do you exercise? Spend time outside? What do you eat? How about sleep? (Yeah, the things adderall takes away, but do you balance those things in at all?) Are the people in your life good to you? I ask because I think that we can make big differences through lifestyle. Even if you keep up all those prescriptions, and make small, positive life changes, you might start to feel the kind of results the pills are intended to help you with. And that might help create a space where you can start to consider tapering off the meds, if that's the right choice for you.

WOW girl!!! you never cease to amaze me with your strength! What a weird psychiatrist! Is this person getting paid to write you scripts? Total drug dealer behavior...... Or maybe she doesn't have enough patients, so she wants to fill up her time. No idea. I wonder if you could block her phone # so you don't have to deal with any more triggers......

You sound like you're all set and in a good place to quit! Low pressure, have a job lined up, part time classes.... sounds ideal! Also great job on that essay!! How many days clean are you? Honestly, it sounds like your inability to concentrate on your readings or listen in class without adderall is at least in part withdrawals. It takes time, but the ability to focus DOES come back. You are not illiterate. (I am still figuring that out about myself, almost 3 months in! LOL!) Part of the purpose of adderall, from a dr's perspective, is to help train your brain, so that when you come off of it, you can focus without it. Maybe that will happen for you too! I did hear about the doctor with the treadmill desk. It makes perfect sense! Bringing a book to the treadmill, or stairmaster, or elliptical, or whatever, does help me focus. Anyway, congrats on your decision! Hope to see you around here more often! This place is a lifeline for many of us

It's all practice Motivated by the the fact that I hate sitting still!

Nobody here will tell you that quitting adderall is easy. Especially when you have things to accomplish and you need to figure out how to get them done all on your own. Especially when you're used to depending on a mind altering drug in order to concentrate and think analytically in the way that you're used to. But, lots of people on here have quit successfully during school or in a hardcore job, so you're not alone. It IS doable. You might already know this: adderall + grad school = a road to hell on earth. It seems great at first, like a secret weapon. But grad/law schools put more work on you than you can possibly accomplish. They do this intentionally. To see how far they can push you. It's a high-pressure, competitive environment that generates collective anxiety everyone seems to buy into. Adderall helps you put the pressure on yourself. It gives an artificial edge. And it promotes anxiety, especially work-related anxiety. The thing is that adderall makes you believe that you can somehow accomplish the unrealistic work load they ask of you. That you can get through reading EVERY LAST SENTENCE before class. Does it actually work? Can you actually get through your entire work load on adderall? Maybe you are one of those people who can, and if so, then I admire you. Maybe it's just my program, but I'm pretty sure nobody can actually get through every single thing assigned to them. Well maybe some of them can, but if so they must be taking NZT-48 (drug from the movie Limitless.) When I was taking adderall, I was convinced everyone else was accomplishing EVERYTHING. But now that I'm off of it, and I'm not reaching for those unattainable standards, I'm realizing that a lot of other people aren't reaching for them either. We're just doing the best we can. Even on adderall I never could get through my whole work load every week, not even when I was taking insane amounts of it daily, and constantly "busy" working 12-14 hour days. Yes, I got through more than I do now.... a whole lot more, and I miss that sometimes. But I also got too bogged down in small details....and eventually I started getting really scattered. It started preventing me from using time efficiently, because I'd spend way too long on one task. I'd also submit everything late. (Which I still do now that I've quit, so there's not much difference from the outside.) It seems to me that handing some things in late in grad school is pretty normal. It's known that the work load is heavy, and that quality takes time. So, that's one strategy. Things are going to take you longer, especially at first, but you'll still get them done. Find a way to submit some things late. Going to class unprepared? Yeah, that was really scary at first. You'll figure out how to balance it out. You'll have to find a new definition of what being prepared means. For me, on adderall it meant having attempted to closely read every last word of the thousands of dense pages I'd been assigned, then being so overwhelmed by information I couldn't even speak in class. Now, it involves skimming, giving a quick close reading to what's most interesting to me (all of this within time limits of course), and guess what? I have a lot more to say in class now. A lot of students do after quitting. You'll also find that quitting benefits you socially. And your social connections are just as important professionally as getting through that assignment. Quitting adderall will help you with both, though the latter is less obvious at first. Other strategies: Skim your readings, except those you need to know REALLY well. This is what most "normal" people do. (You DO NOT need to know every single thing in depth.) Work in 20-minute chunks. (Or 5-minute chunks. Whatever.) Take notes in the margins as you read. It helps you retain the information. Move your pen along the page as you read the words Take lots of naps, then work right after the nap. Find your best time of day and take advantage of it If you have even the slightest bit of motivation to do something, TAKE ADVANTAGE Take pride in everything you do on your own Talk to your professors. Connect with them in general, ask questions, go to office hours. This can be especially helpful if you're struggling with a class. Spend some time focusing on friends and social life (not at the expense of school, but in balance--a balance adderall takes away.) Make plans with people, have social time, connect with new people, whatever. This is important not just for your own happiness, (which you're going to need to work hard to build and maintain,) but also to help you learn new coping techniques for school. It will help you see that not everyone is taking adderall, and not everyone is accomplishing everything the way they seem to be from the outside. Any others? EDIT: One more thing! You hate sitting still, have you tried setting up a standing desk? You don't HAVE to sit while you read. Standing is better for your back. Sitting all day is bad for everyone. Or, try bringing a book to the gym. Me, I like to hula-hoop while reading. Or, just exercise until exhausted, so that sitting still and reading is kinda nice. Just keeping things mixed up is key.

MFA....! I'm sorry to hear your week was like that! It sounds so demotivating and painful. Lots of hugs to you!!! Is there any way you could switch the lens (or change the channel) so that you could view it as peaceful hibernation you need? Rather than as a frustrating or depressing burden? Is any way you can try to just let yourself relax and rest, and maybe even try to enjoy it? Take-out sounds nice, so does sleeping and doing nothing. At this point, you might as well add some chocolate, popcorn, and/or funny movies to the mix. Maybe a hot bath. Once you're fully in the swing of your job you will be super busy and you won't have time to rest like this. Sounds like most of us have had somewhat similar experiences so I'm guessing we can safely blame it on the quitting process. I think that experiencing adderall sets a new subjective standard for what it means to be awake and energized , while simultaneously draining all our adrenals and dopamine and stuff until we are completely fatigued in the long run. Double edged sword. Even where it's unrelated to adderall, recovering from adrenal fatigue can take up to a year. It's just the roller coaster. A really long, intense roller coaster. All we can do is ride it out. Like you said, the only way out is through.

I enjoy astrology, mostly just for fun. I'm sure there are some interesting correlations with addiction. Haven't come across anything specifically. Speculating, a number of people I know who are fire signs have addictive tendencies. Mostly towards party substances. My sun sign is Capricorn, which is known for being extremely driven and hard on themselves and needing to always be doing something. I do happen to have those tendencies, and I think they pre-dispose me to a drug like adderall. Something worth further research? I'm hanging out with my astrology guru friend later today so I'll let you know if I come up with anything.

Well said. Most people just go and sit there and listen. They also space out and daydream and stare at the clock and pretend to pay attention while doing stupid shit online, or doodling, or writing poetry when they "should" be writing notes, or whatever. They smile and nod. Attention comes in and out. It's human. Being hyper-focused like adderall brings out is not human. I used to think that everyone else around me must be taking adderall if they were functionally getting through the day. If they were seemingly capable of listening and doing stuff. But now that I'm not taking it, I realize that (with a few possible obvious exceptions) nobody else is, either. Most people can't even drink caffeine at night. Most people have trouble paying attention. They struggle in school, struggle waking up, etc. Most people have other shortcuts than amphetamines, like b.s.ing their way through it, or doing a good job with other ways of self-management. I mean, what human being can just sit there like a robot-zombie like that for hours on end and actually care about all those stupid details? I relate to you 100% on the feeling that you need it. But once you let go of it and give yourself some time, you'll find that you really don't need it. And especially now that you've crossed that addiction line, adderall won't even work that way for you anymore. You'll have to take a ton of it for it to work, and you'll be sitting in that meeting all tweaked out and either not even paying attention, or paying too much attention. Past a certain point with adderall, there is nowhere to go but downhill.

So, I'm noticing an interesting pattern with most of our adderall dreams on here. (Apart from the colors and the visual image of the pills.) It doesn't seem like anyone ever actually TAKES the pills in the dream. (I'm sure there are exceptions to this...anyone?) We see them, we hold full bottles of them, put them in our mouths (Ashley and InRecovery), have it injected by other people (SearchingSoul)...... But we never actually swallow them! Why is that? Is it a reflection of our willpower? Is it in any way parallel to how most people never actually die in their dreams? How we just wake up instead? If so, does this imply a correlation between adderall and death in our recovering minds? Maybe there's nothing behind it, I don't know-- I don't want to be reading too much into this, but I do think dreams can be significant and it's very interesting to me that this dream pattern is happening to our little recovering village.

I have to agree with what everyone has said so far MFA. PAWS, food, plus maybe life/emotional stuff in general. I am with you though, cooking and cleaning are pretty daunting. Leaving the house is too sometimes. Showering, working, exercising, etc. It all sounds soo awful and impossible sometimes. The daunting-ness of everything seems to be a part of recovery and it really sucks. I once read an article once that offered 10 tips for staying on track working out every day. It told a story about a guy who never even thought about working out, or how far he was planning to go, or how big the hill was, or anything related to the workout being intimidating. He didn't set out with a required distance. He would just put on his sneakers and walk out the door, and that was all he needed. But once he started flowing, he would run really long distances. The key was just taking the small step to get started. So I guess the lesson is that sometimes things seem bigger and more impossible than they actually are once you get the flow going. You know, like your name says, action generates motivation to continue the action. Even a small action can be motivating. Well, you already know all this, but anyway. It's kind of like InRecovery's online form strategy. If you pretend it's a really easy simple task, and do something small, that can be the blow that tricks you into getting moving. Maybe little baby steps would help? For example: -Put on your shoes and just step outside and see what happens. Even if you just sit on your front porch. But maybe you'll go for a walk! (Which you said you are so hooray!) -Turn the shower on and see what happens. If you don't feel inspired to actually shower, turn it off. (showering, meh....) -Pick up just a few healthy things from the store (not diet coke though!) You might get inspired to make a simple healthy meal. -Or, like you were saying, just try one recipe and see how it goes! etc. I'm finding that staying really busy-- like, scheduling lots of things during my unstructured time-- is working wonders to fight off the blues. If I'm running around doing stuff, I don't have time to stay home in bed and dwell on things and feel like a failure and all that PAWS. Like you, i don't like doing nothing, so for me, I'm finding that continuing to do nothing only makes it worse. But on the other hand, it's all moderation, especially since you ARE starting a new job soon. Hope this helps! And hope you feel better!! xoxo

You could always just stick with plain old tylonol.... or ibuprofin. Probably not asprin though since its a blood thinner.

Excellent point here MFA. I don't have an easy answer to this one. The amount of groveling and dependency that accepting the offer would generate is enough to demotivate me right now (and has been for some time, even in my near-relapses.) But in terms of promises.......hmmmm........I'll have to get back to you on that one, because I know things are about to get harder for me. Thanks for the support and for helping me stay on track, as always!

Thanks Ashley!! You're right, it's a big victory. I'm pretty proud because the only reason I originally quit is because these refills were cut off and I had no choice. And now that they are back on offer I don't want them. Woohoo!

My former enabler just offered me a full refill of my old script. Oooooh, the old faithful blue supplies could be on their way back into my life. And, small victory! I didn't even think twice about it-- I said, "No thanks. I've come way too far to turn back now."

GETTTT ITT CRAYTHUR!!!!!! You know what you ultimately want and need to do! There will be a lot to deal with and it's not gonna be easy. But if you have the desire you seem to be expressing here, then you've got this! There is a better life waiting for you!!!

WOW step one, being 100% honest with yourself about the good things it did. Rather than writing it off as 100% negative or denying its draws. What a powerful tool for compartmentalizing the addiction so that you recognize what was good, when you might relapse, and how to deal without it. LOVE IT Acknowledging all aspects of the process. This tool is pretty deep! Thanks for sharing LILTEX!

SearchingSoul is this still happening? Feeling any better? Just seeing this now... I feel ya, crying is a good release. I feel like it releases those relaxing chemicals in my brain. I find it really hard to cry too. Maybe a sad movie? Something you can relate to? Or sad songs? Not to encourage wallowing in sadness, the blues, depression. But sometimes, when you need to cry, you just need to get it flowing. Sometimes, we just need it-- we need to honor and release our sadness. Sometimes we are chemically depressed. Sometimes we just need to mourn. I think the trick is to navigate the difference and recognize when it's keeping you back from your life.

You caught the virus but you were one of FEW who survived! ........ In a location that housed an epidemic so deadly, everyone was quarantined. Could it have been a pharmaceutical epidemic you survived there?

I don't know about non-narcotic meds, but I've had 3 root canals (and even scarier oral surgery I won't speak of, involving the deep nerves) and they gave me NOTHING for any of this. Well, they gave me novocaine. And actually, I was 100% fine. It didnt even hurt afterwards. The concept of a root canal is worse than the procedure itself. You'll be ok!

I'm going with # 40: "If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back." Thanks for sharing this!!! WOW.

It sounds like journaling could be good for you. I mean I have to agree with Sky, I think it's good for pretty much everyone. Personally, I can relate to you on the motivation factor--it can be hard to get into. Since quitting, I've gotten really into post-it notes. I have a variety of sizes, including the big ones. I just scrawl down random ideas as I get them and put them anywhere I want. It's less intimidating than a whole journal, which has scary white empty blank pages bound within a whole huge book. I'm hoping that as I recover more I'll be capable of journaling again, but for now it's whatever works.

Beautiful, inspiring, and so well said! The best part is that these illuminating words and thoughts would never have come to you if you were still taking adderall. One of the worst parts of adderall is that it blocks out all (or almost all) inspiration and ideas of this quality. Thank you for sharing. Keep it coming!!

!!!!! Rev&Rush that is probably the most tragic thing I've heard in a long time!!!