Hi. I just found this site a few days ago and have read a lot here. It sounds like most of you are in your teens or twenties, maybe thirty. Well, I'm 57 years old, took my first stimulant at age 17 and here I am, taking very high doses of an amphetamine again. I have spent all my adult life using, misusing or abusing some dopaminergic drug or other. After the "diet pills" in college it took me quite a while to function normally again but I did until I discovered that some opiate type drugs would give me what I had been chasing after with the stimulants - energy, motivation, an interest in things around me and would also take away the bad stuff - the constant feeling of boredom, apathy, lethargy and just not really feeling much enjoyment of anything. Everything that other people do for fun has always just seemed like one more chore and too much effort for very little reward. Dysthymia is probably the correct medical term. I used drugs of and on as short breaks from the grayness. I even got physically addicted to something a few times but I always managed to quit cold turkey at home, by myself, even a daily 13 year heavy dose of benzodiazepibes.
But this is different. I don't know if cycling on and off phentermine (the diet pills) for 2-3 years ruined my brain chemistry but I am pretty sure my biology and my childhood set me up for mood problems from the get go. (I was once in the hospital for 2 weeks and have had electroshock treatments when things were very bad.) I'm nowhere near that state now, but I truly don't remember the last time I felt normal, just normal. Or the last time anything was either "funny" or "fun" or even interesting except on Adderall.
I started out on Nuvugil, when I kept telling him about feeling so tired and sleepy all the time. I ended up abusing it and going through withdrawals worse than anything I ever thought I could bear - over and over and over. I would quit, determined to get my life back, make it a month or a week or seven weeks or 2 days but always at some point the feeling of needing to feel "good" would become so urgent and so intense that I would get some more and then be end up right back where I was. I tried everything to help myself: you'll have to trust me that I truly did, with groups, therapy, church, exercise, nutrition, etc. But during my first couple of years of trying to quit my husband was still taking it too and would give me pills in the middle of a long spell of clean time. He wanted me to stay on them too, so he wouldn't feel so bad about himself I think.
I finally decided to cut off my supply for good for sure (I had already done this by phone but my doctor would forget) by going for an office visit with one purpose only. I told him about taking it, the many nasty side effects, that I would get high tolerance very quickly and that then I would increase the dose on my own. And that that made me feel guilty and a drug addict and I could NOT take it ever again. Not to every write me another script for it.
And he interrupted me, still talking, to say "that's okay I've been wanting to try you on another drug anyway - Adderall." I asked what was in it and he said mixed amphetamine salts. " I knew I needed to get out of there quick but the thought that MAYBE I could take this ADD drug properly and be able to actually get off the couch sometimes was too tempting and that's how I got started on Add