[What day are you on?]

Day 21... and it's a hard one. I'm just sitting here reading old threads to remind myself that others have struggled and made it through. This one made me smile so I decided to bring it back!

After the first awful week, the fog lifted and the past 10 days had me feeling pretty optimistic. But yesterday and today I've just felt depressed. It's the weekend, and I haven't left my house at all except to go see a concert with a friend last night (which was fun). I got up to take a shower and then just got back in bed. Blah.

[Almost a month clean]

Congrats Workingthroughit, the strength it must have taken to make the decision to quit in your situation is admirable. And Sebastian05, you too. I am not a lawyer, but relate to the demands and high expectations that I created with adderall in my professional life. I started taking adderall after college while just beginning my first professional job. I was promoted to a director level position quickly and at a young age. I don't give adderall all of the credit because I was also a top performing student without it during undergrad, but it made me feel vulnerable to leave it behind at this point in my career.

Still, I cannot imagine having such a strenuous job that working "only 40 hours" was a luxury. My first week off adderall coincided with my first week at a new job, so thankfully I was able to get away with a lot (less) and pass it off as taking time to learn the ropes.

I was totally burned out and bored and slacking at my last job even with adderall though, so this is a totally new experience on many levels. Getting through the day without adderall, learning a new job without adderall, making a first impression on my new colleagues without adderall. It's almost like living a new kind of double life, celebrating the smallest of victories in private (finished the easy project and replied to all the emails and then ate a salad, yay!) and pretending to be Very Focused on Very Important Things in public.

[shoot - I meant to post this in here - how do I move it?]

MFA, the night sweating has been bad for me too these past couple of weeks. My boyfriend thinks I'm crazy for needing the fan on in the middle of winter! I do feel like the brain fog/depression is a side effect of Ambien withdrawal, and (crossing fingers) I feel it's starting to lift after twelve days off.

This quitting process has made me really curious about who else uses these drugs regularly. I have no idea how prevalent it is among my circles of people.

[New guy seeking help]

Hey Cody, I know what you mean about alcohol. For me, I spent the past four years in one of three mindsets: high on Adderall, drinking/being drunk, and sleeping with Ambien. My peace of mind depended on knowing I'd be able to take my pill to get shit done, drink to come down, and take my pill to go to sleep.

Eleven days ago I quit Ambien and Adderall cold turkey. I drank myself through the first several days, hours, minutes, seconds of fog and fatigue and exhaustion and anger. Knowing that of the three drugs, I just needed to quit the As. With a healthy lifestyle, without Ambien and Adderall, I am a responsible drinker. But in those first moments, I needed familiar emotions. Fog was not familiar. Exhaustion was not familiar. Dumb was not familiar. Being tipsy or drunk was familiar.

If you know yourself, you know what might hurt you temporarily and what will absolutely break you.

[shoot - I meant to post this in here - how do I move it?]

MFA,

I saw somewhere where you posted you quit taking Ambien. There way too many threads to see where it was, but I'm curious as to how that's going. I'm really starting to think klonopin is hindering my recovery, mentally and energy wise. I've talked about wanting to quit it for awhile, but lately I've started to focus on my moods after I take it to see if it has something to do with it. It just makes me feel there, but kind of numbs my happiness sometimes. I know this is a known side effect. Was it difficult stopping the Ambien? Did you taper?

Hey Ashley6, I quit Ambien and Adderall (actually Vyvanse) at the same time eleven days ago. Dear god, the first 7 days were awful. The extreme fatigue, lethargy, brain fog from Adderall withdrawals were bad, and I couldn’t even rely on sleeping at night to get relief. My “how to fall asleep naturally†muscles had atrophied as completely as my “how to get shit done†muscles. I was a complete mess.

Out of desperation after 4 nights of sleeping only 2-3 hours, I tried Nyquil. It made me fall asleep but I woke up SO groggy. Now I am doing half a dose of Nyquil. It gets me to sleep and wears off by the time I woke up. I would like to quit sleep aids completely, but I'm still considering refilling my Ambien prescription just in case. I know for sure I am done with Adderall, and I feel like having a backup way of ensuring sleep would ease a lot of the anxiety of not having that instant alertness in the morning.

Is Ambien a benzo?

[Favorite things about being adderall-free!]

Great idea! I am on day eleven. Yesterday and today I've felt great. The first nine days TOTALLY SUCKED. Previously I had been taking ADD meds for 4 years (first two on Adderall 40 mg/day, then Vyvanse 50 mg/day) and I'm a 27 year old professional. Never had ADD, just wanted the Adderall.

- Realizing I can actually accomplish MORE in an 8 hour workday than I could on Adderall (because of not spending hours on each email/one pager/etc)

- Hanging out with my boyfriend

- Not getting a headache at 3 pm

- Running

- Relaxing. Taking a bath. Going to the sauna. I hated baths/massages/anything relaxing while on Adderall.

- The types of food I'm eating: giant salads with cabbage, carrots, hard boiled eggs, cheese, beans, and seeds... and sandwiches... real food that people eat because good food is fuel. Before, after not eating all day and then crashing I would just crave pizza, burritos, and other crap.

- Drinking a glass of wine and enjoying it rather than a bottle of wine to cope with crashing.

- Letting the words flow. This would have taken 3x as long to write, and I probably wouldn't even go through with posting it.

- Singing and dancing around the house

- No more waiting at the pharmacy (worried I'd see people I know)

- Normal heartbeat

- Feeling like I own my own success