Cassie

On Adderall I was argumentative and always had to get in the last word. I used to argue with my husband about political issues and other topics about which I knew little. But I was always adamant that I was right even if my logic didn't make sense. It was probably like arguing with someone who doesn't believe in global warming. My husband says the biggest change in our relationship has been my attitude improving since I quit Adderall.

ZK, I really liked that video, but I think there's a huge elephant in the room he misses - not everyone with ADHD is incredibly smart and talented like him. In fact, probably very few are, because few in the general population are as a whole. I know four people with genuine ADHD. One of them is very smart, talented and creative like this guy, and the other three are dodos. Guess which one of the four has never taken medication? The smart one, because his intelligence and creativity override whatever problems his ADHD give him. So, what do the below average intelligence ADHD people do when they don't have those same capabilities to fall back on? Maybe those are the ones that stimulants are sometimes appropriate for. I think he misses that truth - that people are born with different capabilities. I'd like to propose an alternate theory, that this dude is super smart, creative and successful in spite of his ADHD, not because of it. Maybe if he didn't have ADHD, he'd still be just as brilliant AND he'd be able to hunker down and do his taxes or whatever his biggest issue is. It's like saying cocaine helped Steven King's career because he wrote a bunch of books under the influence of it, when in fact he was a brilliant writer in spite of having the drug problem, not because of it. What do you think?

I ran into my old Adderall friend the other day. He was the one who used to give me Adderall pills in the days before I got my own prescription. He really has ADHD, but he takes a lot of Adderall, like 60 mg per day, so much that he needs to take sleeping pills every night. He also takes it to party and I've seen him snort it many times. So, to all the doctors that say people that truly have ADHD won't get addicted to stimulants, I say 'you're a moron.' Anyway, I haven't seen this friend since I was on Adderall and I noticed a couple of things I thought I'd share. One, when we were talking he was staring at me so intensely, it was sort of creepy. His gaze was just weird - it was as if he was having a staring contest with someone and his blinking frequency was off. It made me think back to this one day at work when I was on Adderall and was talking to one of my employees, and my employee asked me why I was staring at him. I didn't understand what he was talking about. But now I get it. It was like I was trying so hard to make natural eye contact with people that it came across like I was trying to stare them down in a threatening manner. The other thing I noticed is that my former friend is kind of boring. I never noticed before. This confirms that Adderall does not make you interesting person, and physically it turns you into a robot whose natural movements look stiff, forced and unnatural. I don't know anyone else who takes Adderall, so I'm glad I ran into him and could actually notice these negative quirks, now that I'm sober.

Me too. When I would take Vyvanse and start drinking, I got really mean, aggressive and argumentative. I would always get into a fight with whoever I was with, usually my husband. I could drink a lot on amphetamines because I'd be drunk but alert and focused.

Lots of people take Wellbutrin after Adderall. I remember when I was taking Adderall, I used to take Wellbutrin during weeks I ran out of Adderall, and it helped during those weeks. It is activating so it may help with some of the lethargy.

Congrats FW on the big 30! Cheers to a drug free future.

Thanks Jon. Haha, no, not medical devices. The last thing I want to do is contribute to the profits of the medical/pharmaceutical industrial complex and talk to doctors, lol. When I was hired for this job, the interviewer said he liked that I had a very easygoing personality and calm, collected way of speaking. That type of demeanor works really well for sales, and that's why I was good at it in the past. I just have to remind myself that by the end of my Adderall use, I was uptight, bitchy and angry all the time, and uncoordinated both physically and verbally.

So, I got a new job and I start next week. It's a sales position. The company is good and the income potential is high. I'm very nervous because this is the first job I'll be starting in seven years without Adderall. My confidence is shaky because the last sales job I held was done entirely during the honeymoon phase of Adderall (though I keep reminding myself that I worked for four years in sales before that without it). My last job as an education administrator was good for quitting Adderall because I was a manager and it was slow paced, no real deadlines, etc. But, I believe I naturally perform better in a fast paced environment (like sales) where I am paid according to my performance, I don't have to manage anyone, and the goals/outcomes are very straightforward.. My last job involved managing a lot of people and I found it to be a unique combination of stress and intense boredom. I just feel so rusty work-wise, because I basically slacked off the past year and a half at my old cushy job and then three months of being unemployed. I know I'm stressing myself out for nothing, because I won't really know if I'm any good at this new job until I try it. I just hate that after nearly two years of being off it, Adderall is still fucking with me by making me doubt my ability to succeed without it.

LOL I laughed hysterically at this line. HAHAHA. Seriously though, Vyvanse is an amphetamine and all you're doing is replacing one amphetamine with another. Hopefully you see the fucked-up-ness of that. I actually preferred the high of Vyvanse to Adderall (because it lasted all day and it's purer amphetamine - dextroamph) and my addiction really got bad after I switched from Adderall to Vyvanse on a daily basis. Even if you don't like it as much as Adderall, it's just as reinforcing. Also, you say '"we" came to the conclusion that I fit the "criteria" for a person who needs benzodiazapines long-term' but benzos are not supposed to be used long term. It sounds like you're falling into the trap of "this must be safe because it's prescribed by a doctor." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14731058 I hope you have the strength to get off all these addictive drugs for good someday. You sound like a smart person - you don't need all this shit.

Strattera or Wellbutrin

Um...did you expect amphetamine withdrawal to be fun? It's going to get worse before it gets better, that's kind of the punishment for denying your brain its happy pills. I was a mess for the first four months and I wasn't even a heavy abuser of the stuff. Your husband will see the benefits in time. It's not like you're going to be 100% right after quitting. You just have to take the long view and trudge through the beginning stages, knowing that you're going to feel like shit for awhile. Yeah, it sucks that our friends and family don't stand up and applaud our newfound sobriety and throw us a big collective party. It's really your own victory and recovery for me was a very lonely endeavor. I'm kind of a loner by nature and so getting sober on my own didn't bother me, but if you need the praise and encouragement of others then you would probably benefit from a 12-step program. I asked my husband recently if he noticed any positive changes in me now that I've been off Adderall for awhile (20 months). He thought about it and said, "Yes, you have a better attitude." Shocked, I said, "IS THAT IT!?" He said, "Well, when you have a better attitude, you're nicer, you're more pleasant to be around, and you smile more...so that's kind of everything."

Fuck no. It's hard enough when you DO want to quit. It took every ounce of strength I had.

When I quit for good I accepted that I might get fired from my job due to laziness and poor performance. I didn't particularly like the job even while on Adderall anymore, so I figured it would all work out. I also happened to be in a director position (I ran an academic library), so I was the boss/delegator of tasks and didn't really have any oversight, so my boss in no way even noticed the decline. I typically only saw my boss once a week, in passing. This was a blessing and a curse: a blessing because my boss didn't know I was slacking off all day or even what I really did on a daily basis normally, so no pressure there. A curse because my job was totally self-directed with no deadlines or deliverables - horrible for coming off Adderall. If I had a job with structure and deadlines I probably would have been so much more productive. Instead I just sat on my ass for months and months surfing the Internet and feeling anxious and guilty about not doing anything. The moral of this story? It's a double edged sword. If you have to perform at a job it's going to suck because you'll be overstimulated too soon. If you have to go to work but, like me, you can slack off, it's also going to suck because you'll feel tremendous anxiety and confusion about slacking off and you'll end up understimulated. If you're unemployed and have no daily routine/structure at all it's going to suck in an entirely new way, because you'll have to be self motivated, alone all day, anxious about money and with no distractions from your thoughts. Do you get what I'm saying here? The grass will always be greener. You're going to have to go through a very horrible, uncomfortable period regardless, so you might as well stay at your job. A lot of the poor performance is magnified by your dopamine depleted perception - and if your performance really is going down the dumper it will be a while before people actually notice, so it's not like you would get fired immediately. You could use that time to save up money in case you do need to job hunt. But chances are you won't even get fired. I thought I was going to get fired and I actually ended up getting a positive performance review and a raise 7 months later - and another surge of guilt, of course. If you want to quit it's gotta be your number one priority. And you have to sever your supply so you don't have a choice in the matter. If you have to go to work, working without Adderall has to be the only option or you will keep using your job as an excuse to use.

I think that SMART question is misleading because you can get addicted to drugs that don't get you high. Even if there's no euphoria with modafinil, don't you think people become dependent on the energy/wakefulness it provides? The no-sleep-required all day energy is surely addictive. The productivity that ensues is definitely addictive. Same thing with Ambien - pretty sure it doesn't get you high, but people get addicted because without it they can't sleep and so it becomes a crutch that they require to function. I think a better question to ask yourself is, "Does this drug have a habit forming warning on the manufacturer's label? If so, as a recovering addict, I probably shouldn't mess with it."

Agreed. I've never taken it, but it's a stimulant and anything that increases dopamine has addictive potential. No long term studies either. I think the ideal use of any of performance enhancing drug is an occasional, very sporadic use for a special occasion, like Air Force missions or taking the MCAT or whatever. Once you get a prescription for these drugs it's all over.

I was taking 30-40 mgs of vyvanse a day for 4 years. Not sure how much adderall that's equivalent to, probably 20-30 mgs of adderall. Before switching to vyvanse I took 20 mg adderall for a year. The most adderall I ever took in one day was 50 mgs, one time, and for vyvanse 90 mgs, twice. I was never a binger, just a daily maintenance user, which is even worse because you justify the habit more easily. Might take you a lot longer than a year to feel normal given your usage, but at a year you'll feel much better and have a firmer grasp on recovery.

"My mind knows I'm in one of the most important parts of my life up until now, and yet I can't muster motivation to action." If you want to keep moving forward with your project without Adderall, you'll have to figure out some way to do it in the absence of motivation. It's really hard, and why the advice on this site is to not push yourself at all for the first few months. Especially in the early months off Adderall, you can't muster motivation. Sometimes motivation might come after you start something, or it might not come at all. The best you can hope for is that you start working on the project and then get a bit motivated while you're working on it. If you have to do something self-directedly and there are no consequences for not finishing it, it's going to be especially difficult, because you don't have any fear motivation (i.e. you won't fear getting fired if you don't do this work). So, you'll need to put some outside parameters in place. Maybe you can have your wife drop you off at the library (so you can't leave), and leave you there for a set amount of time (say 2 hours) and that's the time you have to get your campaign thing done. The time restriction, sense of urgency, and accountability to your ride might help.

FW, Have you ever done Bikram yoga? (or any hot yoga). I first started taking Adderall for 'excessive daytime sleepiness' too, and when I tried to quit multiple times the fatigue was always a relapse trigger. It wasn't until I got serious about diet and exercise changes that I was able to push through. I did Bikram yoga 2-3 times per week for the first 6 months off Adderall, and ate mostly vegetarian, no fast food or sweets, etc. Also walked 20-30 minutes per day. Anyway, the intense yoga regimen was what really helped me get my energy back. I had convinced myself that I had borderline narcolepsy before Adderall, but the truth is there was always something holistic I could do to improve my diet, fitness, sleep, anxiety, etc., and after Adderall I did it. I noticed from your profile that we're the same age. I feel a lot more energy now than I did when I was in my mid-20s - our bodies and hormones and worldviews change and you might feel (with some sustained time off Adderall) that you feel way better than you did before. I think you really need to give it a year to start to feel these permanent energy changes though, otherwise you will keep relapsing at 2 months, 3 months, 4 months, etc. Why don't you commit to staying off Adderall for a year? - make it the 365 day challenge

It might help if he knew more about what to expect from withdrawal and addiction recovery. If you know what to expect then the depression/mood swings/existential boredom are easier to deal with. This can be accomplished in a few ways: 1) Reading a lot of books and articles about addiction, especially amphetamine/methamphetamine addiction. There are great articles on this site. There are a ton of articles/sites about meth addiction too. 2) NA/AA. If you're not a big reader then get the information from other addicts in person. 3) Rehab - you probably learn a lot of good tools there, but most people can't afford it so they do the first two. The other tip is for him to take it easy for the first few months, lower his stress level, and not make any major decisions for awhile. It takes a long time for your brain to recover from drug use. Think of it like weight gain and loss. Say you gained 50 pounds over two years and now you decide you want to lose it. Do you think you'll lose it overnight? No, of course not, the human body doesn't work that way. You'll probably aim to lose a pound a week. So, losing four pounds a month, in 12 months you'll have shed the 50 pounds. This makes sense to most people, but somehow when it comes to addiction recovery we think we should be cured in a week? No, it doesn't work that way. It works like the weight loss analogy. One more thing: he has to want to quit for himself, not for you or his relationships. He has to want to get sober, there's nothing you can do to make him see the light or anything like that. When I quit, my husband gave me tough love and good, objective advice. He did not coddle me or feed me vitamins and he called me out if I was being a bitch or taking my shitty moods out on him or others. Basically, he was supportive of my recovery but made it clear that it was not okay for me to act like a spoiled little baby. This was exactly what I needed to recover.

If you want to quit prescription speed you have to abstain from all versions of it - Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse, etc. They are all addictive. Yes, you relapsed with Ritalin, but it doesn't have to derail your quitting. You can shake it off, chalk it up to a minor slip and continue on. I suggest you go to NA meetings and get a sponsor. It sounds like you may need some accountability. Recovery is about learning to handle stress without reaching for substances of any kind.

During the first few months of quitting (or longer) you will feel a huge range of emotions, so it helps not to put too much stock into how you feel any one day. It's not going to be an upward trajectory of feeling better each day/week/month until you get into the later stages of recovery (like, after a year). This is a phase in your life where you will need to take the long view - of being recovered at a later date - and try not to hyperfocus on how you are feeling right now. It's good you are noticing little benefits of being off speed - hold on to those and keep your motivation for quitting high.

Your motivation will take a long time to return, as quit once said it can be up to a year or longer. Accepting this is a key to not relapsing. Some tips: 1) Wellbutrin rather than Zoloft will make the transition easier. It helps with focus and motivation. 2) Procrastinating your work until close to deadlines should help. If you give yourself an hour, say, to write a short paper before a deadline, the adrenaline that comes with this urgency should help you get it done, and you won't have time to think about how much you hate this. 3) Accountability. Maybe you could have friends call you before something is due to make sure you did it, and harass you if it's not done yet. Until my natural motivation came back, the only motivation I could respond to was fear-based, so use accountability and procrastination to tap into that. 4) Make it a habit to do your work somewhere quiet, away from your house, like the library. Make your environment more conducive to working.

I started reading this book called 'Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard.' I didn't set out to read it, I just randomly saw it at the library and was compelled to check it out. One section talks about the fixed mindset vs. the growth mindset. Basically, the fixed mindset is believing that intelligence and aptitudes are innate characteristics. The growth mindset is the belief that intelligence and aptitudes can be developed and always grow. Psychologist Carol Dweck coined these terms. If you've ever worked in education like I have, you're probably heard these terms before. Kids that have been repeatedly told they're smart are less likely to take risks (because failing will prove they're not smart), while kids that are praised for their effort are more likely to take risks and persevere when they fail. This is the fixed mindset vs. the growth mindset. Again, if you've been in teaching, this is nothing new. In this book, they apply this to business examples, and it really made me connect how this also applies so obviously to addiction recovery. An example they use is this design company working on projects. Here are some quotes, from p. 169: "When a team embarks on a new project, team members are filled with hope and optimism...they find that new ideas spring forth effortlessly...Then comes the difficult task of integrating all those fresh ideas into a coherent new design...at this stage it's easy to get depressed, because insight doesn't always strike immediately. The project often feels like a failure in the middle." The CEO makes a 'project mood chart' that predicts how people will feel at different stages of the project, and it looks like a U-shaped curve. Excited and motivated in the beginning and end, negative and frustrated in the middle. They go on to say that with this peaks and valleys visual of a project, "they are creating the expectation of failure. They are telling team members not to trust that initial flush of good feeling at the beginning of the project, because what comes next is hardship and toil and frustration. That's the paradox of the growth mindset. Although it seems to draw attention to failure, and it fact encourages us to seek out failure, it is unflaggingly optimistic. We will struggle, we will fail, we will be knocked down--but throughout, we'll get better, and we'll succeed in the end." "The growth mindset then, is a buffer against defeatism. It reframes failure as a natural part of the change process. And that's critical, because people will persevere only if they perceive falling down as learning rather than as failing." When I read this I couldn't help but think of quit once's post about the three stages of recovery, early recovery (months 0-3), middle recovery (months 3-9) and late recovery (after 9 months). At what stages was I the most optimistic? Early and late. When was I the most miserable? Middle recovery (which for me was more like months 3-11), because I felt defeated and like no significant progress was happening. Exactly like the project bell curve described in this book. Sorry this is so long - I just had such a eureka moment reading this and connecting it to the experience of quitting Adderall. I just wanted to share! This is a great book by the way - not your typical douchey business/management book, but really insightful in many ways.

Welcome to the forums. I think many of us can relate to your story. Certified drug dealer is right - I think the first thing you should do is find another doctor and tell them about your addiction to Adderall. Please find a different doctor. You can quit the Adderall cold turkey but you will need help weaning off the benzos. Not sure if it's better to get off the benzo or the Adderall first - I've heard arguments for both sides. Maybe it depends what you hate more, being tired or anxious. The good news is that you can get off this speedball and return to sanity and live a much better life in the future. I can answer some of the questions you posed here:

True, one positive thing about going through an addiction and recovery is that it gives you humility and empathy. Oh, how I used to look my nose down at people when I was taking Adderall, all those unmotivated, unproductive people. How the tables have turned, lol.