Danquit

Get rid of those pills immediately! There is no such thing as taking a few to _____. That is the drug lying to you. Trust me, I remember when I went through hell because I relapsed about 7 months ago, I remember telling myself, "I'll just take a few so I can nail this new job" and 2 months later I was in the hospital for Adderall induced psychosis. Fuck Adderall! It's not worth it, you know that, hang in there. We are all in this shit together.

Yeah Frank, Addy lies to us and tells us that we are friggin' amazing and can handle any situation and talk to anyone and deal with anything, but only when we're on Addy. The truth is, we can do all of these things without Addy and we can do it better. Adderall made me waste so much money on the stupidest things and I managed to piss off a few really good friends because of this too. Remember that the enemy here is Adderall. No matter how hard it gets, we can never go back to Adderall. Fuck Adderall forever! You are doing great and I look forward to all your updates, good and bad. I am following your footsteps. Yeah, celebrities that bitch about addiction don't get my sympathy. But they suffer just as bad as we do. A lot of them don't make it; Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger, Prince, Brittany Murphy, Robin Williams. They all had money but look where they ended up. I guess my point is that money is important, but not nearly as important as staying away from this fucking god-awful drug! The way I look at it, each day that we survive without Adderall is a big fuck you to the pharmaceutical industry and Shire and the medical establishment and that makes it worthwhile. Hang in there! You are not alone and you are already so much better off than you would have been if you were still on this poison.

I can't believe I made it through the worst six months of my life! The first 3 months was brutal with anxiety and depression. I somehow made it through by telling myself that If I can make it just one more day, things will get better. Things did get better but very little. My acute anxiety (worrying about the worst possible outcome of every little thing) slowly got better. I found that writing in my daily journal was helpful because it allowed me to monitor my progress. Months 4-6 were still painful but there were some good days sprinkled in there. I managed to force myself to spend some time with friends during the weekends which helped a lot. Just getting out of the house was a problem during these months, but when I did make it out, I felt better. I'm heading into month 7 and I can honestly tell you that I am hopeful about this whole recovery now. I am still struggling daily with some anxiety but it's nowhere near as bad as it was in the beginning. The worst is boredom and procrastination. I hate everything! I can't stand having to deal with work and I have to force myself to get outside. I find it very difficult to make decisions that would have been very easy before Adderall and especially during Adderall. It must be one of the symptoms of withdrawal. I just wish I had my old confidence and decision-making skills back. I do think that some of my confidence is returning but ever so slowly. I wish this update could be more positive but I still consider this early recovery for me. I am very thankful for this forum because I swear reading all your posts saved me during the worst times. I read and reread posts daily. I'm looking forward to hitting the 9 month mark and beyond, but again, one day at a time.

160 days off of Adderall and I am hanging in there. I don't know how I've made it this far but I am very proud of myself for getting through the worst hell on Earth. 20 more days to go until I reach the 6 month mark and I can't wait!

Very encouraging Frank! I'm glad to see you're doing better at almost 10 months. You're living your life without Adderall! Bluemoon, I'm sorry to see you not doing so great but keep on going and don't look back. Just put one foot in front of the other and move forward. Caffeine seemed to help me in the early days but now when I have a cup, it gives me anxiety even though it does help me wake up in the morning. I just don't understand how Adderall, a potent stimulant, could remove all my anxiety and fears. I guess that's why I loved it so much. Anyway, hang in there, I'm sure you're close to another breakthrough!

Congratulations on breaking through! I really need to hear stories like this heading into my 5th month and although I'm not miserable like I was in months 1-3, I am definitely not out of the woods yet. I am so unmotivated and I have anxiety about the littlest things. I am so glad to hear that your anxiety just vanished at 7 months, it gives me hope. Anyway, thanks for sharing your progress, it helps so much to see others who are ahead of me making it through recovery. For those just quitting, hang in there because I am just like you and I know what you're going through. It does get better!

I just hit 100 days yesterday and I feel ok. It seems like the depression and anxiety got better right at the 3 month mark for me. I don't really feel anything lately, no sadness, no joy, no excitement, no pleasure. I'm just existing right now. I know my brain is rewiring itself especially around my pain, pleasure, reward center but this anhedonia is agonizing. I can't seem to be happy about anything. Is anyone else feeling like they are just existing without a purpose or hope for the future? I suppose it's good that I'm not feeling suicidal and I don't have thoughts of impending doom, but I really miss being content. That's what Adderall did for me, it made me feel content with whatever I was doing, it didn't matter if I was unemployed, I was just happy with everything, I didn't have a care in the world. Now, I have a job and all I do is worry about what if I lose my job, I won't be able to pay rent. Is this normal at about 100 days? I am really struggling even though I may look ok to others and I may even sound ok here. I know I am better than I was 2 months ago because I can remember how awful I was feeling then, but I'm afraid this is as good as it gets and I get very discouraged. I guess that's why I haven't posted here in a while, it's true that we only tend to post when we're feeling good.

Shire pharmaceuticals did 6.4 Billion dollars in total revenue in 2015. They manufacture Adderall and VyVanse. I am sure they would never let a show about Adderall addiction come out. It's always about the money. That's why I am so happy there is this site. At some point they will probably try to shut it down.

Adderall definitely changed my brain chemicals but it's not like permanent brain damage. It just rewired some neural pathways and my brain is repairing or rerouting these pathways now that I'm off of it. The fact that I can remember my life when I was on it means it didn't completely ruin my brain. I have hope that my brain will come back stronger than ever given enough time. I'm coming up on 3 months and I definitely feel like my brain has healed quite a bit since I quit.

Adderall sucks all of the love chemicals out of our brains and spends it on useless tasks! I know we'll be able to love again because our brains will heal and our dopamine and serotonin levels will be back to normal. God I hate Adderall so much. I ruined some wonderful relationships with girls that I could have married because I was an insensitive prick. I have so many regrets about relationships when I look back on my 4 years on Adderall. All of the regrets involve people that I hurt. I don't regret the experiences I had on it though, let's be honest, it was a lot of friggin' fun at the time, but at what cost to my relationships? We're all payin' the piper I suppose. I'm really glad I'm not alone in this experience, you all are truly the best!

It took several weeks until my initial withdrawal was over and I started to look back on how crazy my thoughts were when I had my psychotic breaks. I chased the rabbit so far down the hole that I ended up in the hospital twice! I don't know if it's because I am prone to psychosis or what but I know that Adderall will definitely make me crazy if I take it again. The thing is, I took it for almost 4 years with no psychosis, but because I mixed it with pot and I did not sleep for 5 days, it opened my mind to psychosis and once that has happened, taking Adderall again will definitely cause another psychotic break. The scary thing with my situation was that I truly believed my hallucinations and delusions. I'm lucky to be alive.

For me the physical withdrawal seems a distant memory at almost 3 months. The psychological withdrawal however is a daily battle for hope. I was prescribed 60mg daily for 4 years and I abused it every chance I got. The dopamine that Adderall releases was incredibly high and when you quit, your brain is in shock from dopamine deprivation. This causes depression, anhedonia, and massive anxiety attacks. The only thing that will fix this is time. But know that it will be fixed. Our brains are elastic and will bounce back eventually. It's a rollercoaster ride though, not a straight line.

Wow, it's so good to hear others' stories about what this horrible drug will make you do. I also believed I uncovered the secrets to the universe and time itself. I thought I was the only one Butterflies but now I know that it was the drug that made us believe this crazy stuff. The scary part is, I sometimes feel like Adderall did open my mind to another spiritual world or something. I know it sounds crazy, but a part of me thinks that we did uncover the secrets to the universe but we are not allowed to remember it when we come back to reality so we can't explain it to anyone else. I look back on how I was on Adderall in disbelief. I really fought demons, communicated with aliens, and invented unlimited energy sources to benefit mankind, all in my head. Wow, what a total mind job. The lesson I learned while I was in psychosis is that I really do want to work on technology that benefits mankind, mainly solar energy, electric cars, electric aircraft etc. I think Adderall opened my mind to my true passions but it took me too far into the unrealistic pursuit of perpetual motion and zero point energy. My point is, if you can look back to your time on Adderall and try to learn a lesson from it, then the time you spent addicted to it will not be a complete waste. I spent about 4 years on Adderall at 60mgs a day and I abused it pretty much the whole time. I learned a lot of lessons from this horrific drug and I am still dealing with the effects of withdrawal to this day.

I am so sorry Traceme, Fuck Adderall.

I definitely feel better towards the evening. I'm almost 3 months in and I am finally able to respond to some of these posts. I remember in the first month when I wanted to die, I just came to this board and read everyone's posts and it helped me so much. I can't believe I've made it this far but it's still not anywhere near where normal is for me. Everyone's posts on here mean so much to me and I thank you all for being here. I find that if I can drag ass out of bed in the morning and make some coffee, the coffee will usually get me through to the afternoon where I begin to feel a bit better. This of course is if I'm not dealing with an anxiety attack that's usually triggered by one of my early morning work calls. When that happens, I get stuck in a cycle of doom and gloom thoughts and I find it helps to vent by writing all kinds of curses in my journal. Later when I go back to read it, I remember how I felt and it makes me feel better. I find that writing on here is helpful as well. Definitely reading all of your posts helps. I can't wait to get to 90 days.

Wow, I think I had a decent day today. I always wake up feeling shitty but as the day progresses it gets a little better. Yesterday was the worst I have ever felt in my life though, so any day where I'm not completely depressed and filled with anxiety is a good day in early withdrawal. I totally agree with the "fuck stress" and worry mentality. It totally makes sense when you think about the big picture. I've always battled anxiety because it runs in my family. That's why adderall was so friggin' great in the beginning, it made me completely care-free. But that is also it's biggest problem, it makes you not care at all about how you affect others or how you affect yourself in the long run. I used to obsess about the most random task for hours and days on adderall, now I can't even focus on a work task for 5 minutes. I guess the pendulum needs to swing back and forth before it comes into balance.

I'm at day 78 after quitting and I was just thinking about the two psychotic episodes I had that landed me in the mental hospital when I was abusing Adderall. I remember being in my friend's mom's basement thinking that all of the answers to the world's energy problems were to be found in that basement. I seriously believed there was Atlantean technology buried down there for me to discover and share with the world. The second time was similar, I stayed up for a couple of days researching hidden technology online and was convinced that Tesla had discovered how to transmit power through the air but big energy monopolies squashed the technology. I was so paranoid that I ended up escaping from my roommates and ended up on the side of the highway talking to god who I thought was living in the Sun. These were the two amphetamine induced psychotic episodes that led me to quit for good. Looking back though, everything I did on Adderall was kinda crazy. I spent an insane amount of money building a recording studio in my apartment in New York. I would spend countless hours rearranging everything in my apartment over and over again. It's like Adderall made me come up with some crazy idea and gave me the energy to realize these crazy ideas no matter the cost. I remember the all night cleaning sessions, holy crap. I can't believe what this drug is capable of when you abuse it. Anyway, I was wondering what you all might have done while on it.

I'm desperate too and I'm looking for healthy ways to combat depression and anxiety. I woke up this morning feeling like I was deep in a hole and there was no way out. I remember that feeling and then drifting back to sleep. I woke up again feeling a bit better but I want to take L-tyrosine to prevent that from happening again. I'm adding l-tyrosine and the DL-phenylalanine to my daily multivitamin regiment. I am at day 51 of quitting and all I can say is fuck Adderall forever.

I'm 6 weeks into my second time quitting. Don't beat yourself up too much about relapsing, it won't do you any good. Just pick up where you left off and this time know that it's the last time. I blame the drug, it's so powerful and it can literally control your mind. I remember the first time I quit, it wasn't a choice really because I had an Adderall induced psychosis that ended with me in the emergency room and then I was in a mental hospital for a week. Even after going through that and being clean for 4 months, I somehow managed to get another prescription and ended right back in the hospital. This stuff is very bad for me, I am still in shock over the fact that they prescribe this to children, that is insane! Anyway, I totally understand how disappointed you feel that you relapsed, but don't let that get you too down. It's what you do from here on out. Just know that you're not alone, I can't wait to reach the 2 month mark.

Hey, I'm in New Jersey but I lived in NYC for 10 years (5 on Adderall) I still like visiting the city from time to time. Where do you attend the NA meetings? I am looking for one to go to.