Cassie
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Posts posted by Cassie
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Congrats on your quit. Too bad you're in Tucson and not phoenix! Just want you know that it does not get better every day like sky said. Recovery is a non-linear process full of ups and downs, good days and bad days, and is a true test of patience. Remember this on your bad days and know that in the long run you will be so much better off without the shackles of adderall weighing you down. You can do this
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Thanks InRecovery, that means a lot. I'm feeling a bit down today to be honest because I'm just getting a little tired of interview upon interview upon interview. I am in a better place mentally but I've had 4 interviews this week, of which 1 over the phone and one by skype which was today. I hate skype interviews, they are always disjointed and poorly connected and you never get a good sense of flow like you do when you meet someone live. But anyway I'm just kind of bored of it all. I need a new job, but talking about myself for even 30 mins bores me to tears and I'm sure it's beginning to show.
Anyone got any good suggestions as to how not to become bored with telling your own story over and over and over again? I'd make a terrible politician...
Just try to think of it as acting and fake the enthusiam the best you can. Looking for a job and 'selling yourself' sucks so hard. You can't pretend to yourself that it doesn't. I hope you find something soon so the search can be over.
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What time zone?
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Research shows that use of tanning beds dramatically increases risk of skin cancer.
The retarded tanning bed trade groups are trying to downplay the cancer risks - I read this a couple weeks ago.
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Any job is going to suck when you initally quit adderall. I had a lot of downtime at work after I quit and it was just as bad as being too busy, because I had too much time to think depressive thoughts and not as much work to distract me. Time goes incredibly slow when you're not busy at work. I bet the stimulation of student interaction will cause less discomfort than sitting in a cubicle, watching the clock.
Many of us have quit while working full time jobs, and we didn't get fired. You just have to not care about your performance for a while. Definitely take some time off, especially if you've never quit before and aren't familiar with the withdrawal. In the long run, your teaching will be better when you're not tweaked out. Short term, it will take a hit. It's doable though.
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Poor family. You know, when ADD was first invented it was called Minimal Brain Dysfunction (MBD). I think they should go back to calling it that. I bet not as many people would have it. It doesn't sound quite as cool and destimatized and commonplace as 'ADD.' Sometimes a little stigma is a good thing, not for the individual but from a larger social perspective..
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Even if ADHD is a real diagnosis, what did people do before medication? Somehow they were able to live their lives, go to school/work, put food on the table, repeat..
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I have to agree with the others. I used to do the journal thing too (minus the color coding). I would write how many mgs of Vyvanse I took that day, along with how many drinks I had because I would drink at night to come down. If I was in danger of running out of pills, I would leave handwritten notes to myself to not take any over the weekend, or only take X amount for X number of days. I was always threatening myself in writing, and in vain. I would write things like "DON'T TAKE TILL MONDAY" on a post it and stick it to my prescription bottle, stuff the prescription bottle in a sock and stuff the sock in a winter boot. Well, the next day I would just go get the boot. I never obeyed myself. This pathetic charade will continue until you quit cold turkey, and when you are sober for a while you will look back at your amphetamine logic and realize how ludicrous it was.
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Send me a personal message - I'm in the east valley too.
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Hi Ashley,
My natural confidence came back over time (a long time). In hindsight, I wish I would have pushed myself less than I did because I had a lot of anxiety surrounding new challenges/experiences, much as you are having. There was a point in later recovery where I really felt my confidence returning, and it didn't have anything to do with 'getting out of my comfort zone'. It was a change in my mental state. Coincidentally, the change in mental state made it a lot easier to get out of my comfort zone (i.e. there was no anxiety surrounding these activities anymore). So, I think sometimes we get it backwards, like "I need to do all this stuff to move forward", when waiting until we move forward mentally and then doing the stuff is actually a lot easier. I guess what I'm trying to say is that while it's definitely good to try new things and have new experiences, don't put pressure on yourself to perform at the same level as you naturally will a year from now. Not sure if this really helps or even makes sense, just my own experience here.
As far as Harvard guy, is this a blind date? Just because he went to Harvard doesn't mean he's cool, nice, or more intelligent than average (he could be rich with family connections). He could be a total douche. You won't know until you meet him! It's not like you have to go out with him again if you don't like him, so just try to have fun and treat him just like you would treat anyone else. My husband is really good at this: treating people exactly the same, whether it's a homeless bum or a CEO. A couple weeks ago, he met a famous former NFL coach at a bar. All these other people were fawning over him, asking him a million football questions, and my husband was like, "Hey dude, how's it going?" and just shooting the shit. The coach ended up talking to my husband for longer than anyone else in the bar, because he talked to him like he was a regular person, not someone famous or important. It's a really cool talent my husband has that I'm always trying to emulate. Anyway, let us know how your date goes!
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I just wish I knew someone who knew if taking it will mess up my dopamine receptors recovering properly..
I wish I knew someone who had taken it in the beginning of recovery and still successfully recovered.
Go ask a pharmacist and report back.
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Why don't you take half the dose and see how you feel? You can cut the Sr pills in half - it doesn't break the time release. When I took wellbutrin a long time ago I took 50 mg Sr/day because 100mg was too much, and my doc agreed that it was fine to cut them, and cost effective.
But I believe if you want to just stop taking it altogether, you shouldn't be discouraged from doing so.
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Cassie why do you think amphetamine relapse is more common than for other drugs? Just curious.
Partially because stimulants work directly on your dopamine neurons (reward/alertness) and it takes so long to rebuild those, and partly because it's a performance enhancing drug that we take for alertness and productivity, rather than to escape life, so we feel like we're doing a good thing at first. For me, it was really easy to add Adderall to my life and have no one suspect anything. Productivity in itself can be very addictive. I don't have any statistics on this, these are just my personal observations.
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MFA, unfortunately, we do have a high turnover rate here. people post once and then vanish. As you probably noticed. I dont know what percentage of newbies stick with us. I don't know if its better than what i hear is the generally accepted statistic of 1 of 35 addicts cleans up for good. It would be great to see more. I know how INCREDIBLY desperate they are to quit when they come here with their first post, but then they're poof - gone. QO, Ashley, Cassie,kylechaos, lil tex and all you others...what do you all think about this?
then there are the people who post a lot and THEN disappear, and i really wonder how they are doing...
I can attest to people posting on this site in desperation and then bolting, because I was one of them. So yeah, I think if people post and then go away, there's a good chance that they've relapsed. When I posted and ran, I didn't think about this site at all until I quit again. I think relapse is common for quitting all drugs, but amphetamines especially.
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SearchingSoul,
Your doctor doesn't own you. This isn't some mental hospital from the 50s where you're strapped down to a bed and force-fed medication. Tell her you're getting off because of the side effects, because you don't like the way it makes you feel, because you don't need it anymore - it doesn't matter what the reason is. You're the patient who doesn't want to be prescribed it anymore. Or just send a letter to her office and cease contact. Get rid of that creep.
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Congrats on the flush! That is a lot of pills gone. That must have felt really empowering to say, 'good riddance.' Did you cut yourself off from your doctor? If not I recommend doing that immediately while you're still on the quitting high. It's really easy to relapse if you keep that window open. I flushed pills and tore up two prescriptions and two months later I went crawling back to the doctor because of the withdrawals. As MFA alluded to, the real mind-fuck cravings start hitting right around the same time you start forgetting why Adderall is bad for you, and that tends to happen around the two month point...
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You might want to try yoga, meditation, and avoiding caffeine. If you have to take something, kava is proven effective.
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Yeah, around the three month mark sucks balls. I remember those days of just feeling horrible for days and days on end. And fighting with my husband too (I found it easier to just be alone a lot for the first six months of recovery). It's the worst, but if you can make it through just a couple more months you'll begin feeling more sane and consistent. Distract yourself as much as possible so the time goes faster. Think of this as one big waiting game. Netflix can be your best friend. You're not a failure because you don't have a house and kids, and jobs come and go. Money comes and goes. Do you really want to be just like everyone else for the sake of conformity? I think some bored housewives would kill for your jet-setting New York life free of kids and a mortgage. I think a lot of moms who own houses hate their lives, and their kids and picket fences aren't making them feel like raging successes. There are pros and cons to everything and the grass is always greener on the other side. This depression shall pass (I know, I'm full of cliches but they're true).
I think the hardest part of early recovery is having faith that things will get better. We are really good at examining the past but terrible at envisioning the future, so it really is a test of faith. That's why us long timers are still here, to tell you that you'll feel different in another three months, and another three months, and another three months, until one day you feel better than you ever imagined you could, and you're so much better in every capacity than you ever were on speed. Hugs!
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Good luck! You can do this if you make quitting your top priority in life. Other things don't have to be perfect - just have really low expectations for yourself so you don't end up disappointed. Think of it like recovering from a brain injury or a stroke, relearning how to live again, and life will get a lot better after a while.
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There's no entry for it in the Natural Standard database, which is the authority on supplement info, so that means that there are no scientific research studies performed on it as a health supplement. I wouldn't waste your money.
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I guess if Adderall killed people it would get more attention. I mean, sure, a few people have died from it due to pre-existing heart conditions, but most regular people don't die from...staying awake. So the social costs aren't as obvious and shocking as DEATH. Plus, Adderall promotes the American values of work and productivity and is a convenient solution for some parents and teachers. Some parents will jump at the chance to give their kids a performance advantage, ADD or no. I think it's going to be a slower national realization that amphetamines aren't the answer for boosting school/work performance, kind of like the army learned over time during WWII that they did more harm than good when it came to boosting performance on the battlefield.
Fun fact: from 1898 to 1910, Heroin was sold as a cough medicine for children and a non-addictive alternative to morphine.
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Adderall isn't made from the same shit as street meth. It's safely manufactured in a clean laboratory, probably the same facility that manufactures aspirin and other pills. Multiple medications are manufactured in the same facilities. I would say the environmental effects are similar to antidepressants as far as the potential to end up in the water supply. But, I'm sure antidepressants and other meds end up in the water supply much more than amphetamines since they have no street value and are more prevalent. If anything, amphetamines might have a positive environmental impact because of the strong appetite suppressant/weight loss effect. People who are thinner and consume less food have a lower carbon footprint. Sorry to burst your bubble, I just don't think cigarettes and amphetamine pills are comparable in the environmental cost department.
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Yeah I wonder that too, if someone is really super attentive in class I look at them and try to see if I can tell if they are on adderall!
My best friend from college lives in Michigan now, and he just took took two classes at his local college because he's thinking of changing careers. He said he was talking to all these young kids in his class (we're 32), and almost all of them casually mentioned taking Adderall to study, or debated where they could buy some to cram for their next test. When we were talking the other day, he said, "I don't remember anyone in college ever talking about Adderall, do you?" I said, "Nope. I never even heard of it until I was 25 and a coworker gave me one." I guess he told some of these kids to be careful, that he has a friend that had a major problem with Adderall, and they just laughed it off. Probably thought he was some old fart.
Anyhoo, I think the way you feel studying off Adderall is the way I feel about working at a job, because that's what I used it for. I'm still getting used to it in some ways after 13 months. I'd be really nervous to start a new job right now, even though I desperately want to change jobs. Just think, the more you study and take tests the more you'll get used to it. The repetition will build confidence. You can't come to Vegas unless you meet your GPA, just remember that!
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Cassie, I have a burning question for you.....that new picture beneath your name....is that your brain on drugs?
Haha..yeah, I guess. Should I change it to a fried egg?
Yeah I'm done.In
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I can't see '8 minute abs' and not think of the hitchhiker scene from There's Something About Mary:
http://www.viddler.com/v/c8809791
7 minute aaaaaabs