quit-once

Very Good, Grumpycat. That lesson you learned will be key to your success. I learned the same lesson about nicotine before I quit Adderall which is why I only had to quit once. I don't know how many cigarette relapses to took me to finally learn that lesson, but my cigarette Quit was also successful when I coupled it up with quitting Adderall. It is a universal truth about addiction...that it only takes one lapse...one mistake...one moment of hubris thinking that you can handle it this time...just ONE little fucking pill... to bring on a relapse with all the guilt and depression that comes with it. "once you have crossed the line into addiction, there is no going back to controlled use and the addiction will always return" or something like that from the book "Unchain Your Brain". Now if you could only decide on what screen name you want to go by.....cat vs. dog

This thread is for those who have graduated from the Ninety Day Challenge and anybody else working towards six months of freedom from stimulants.

FLOW3 Congratulations! I knew that both you and BLUEMOON would make it around the board to GO. Collect your 200 dollars and roll the dice! The only way to collect your next reward is to keep moving forward. For what its worth, I didn't feel very motivated to exercise until the following spring after I quit - like around 9-10 months and then I started practicing yoga about a year after Adderall. Good luck both of you and keep on posting. Should we create a "six month challenge" thread?

I tried chromium picolinate. and it didn't seem to do much. The first time I tried it I may have dropped a few pounds, In animal research, it has been shown to be a repartitioning agent which converts fat into muscle in sheep and cows. I saw you are taking St Johns Wort in post #10. I use it, along with L-Tyrosine, whenever I feel a bout of depression coming on and it really seems to turn things around quickly. It does increase your photosensitivity and you will catch a sunburn more easily.

It has 200 mg of caffeine but that is from two pills. There may be natural caffeine in some the other ingredients as well and that would be in addition to the declared amount. But if you started with just ONE pill I think it would be fairly harmless.

Why all the duplicate posts, BeginAgain23? It seems like you are trying to promote a specific product. Almost like spam.

It looks like an interesting product. I had really good luck with a GNC product like that when I first quit. "Thermo burst super hard core" or something like that. It helped me to still get some kind of energy from a pill because it took a couple of years to wean off the habit of taking a pill when I needed an extra boost. I know there were some GNC products that were controversial but I think they have been pulled from the market. Go ahead and try it! If you start looking forward to the next pill too much or if it doesn't agree with you then be careful, but I don't think ANY supplement will ever come close to the addictive properties of Adderall.

If you are ready to quit now then by all means do it. I went back to work after my cold turkey quit and four day crash but the demands of my job wewe low at the time. It was at least a few months until i could think clearly and solve big problems. The resolve to quit can be fleeting. So seize that opportunity.

I suggest waiting until the semester is over. But what will your penalty be for failure to stay quit? Are you willing to leave your animals and go away to rehab if your Quit fails? I'm just sayin the stakes have to be pretty high if you are going to make this work on your own.

I think anxiety is a symptom of depression. And depression is a major common symptom of Adderall recovery. So I suggest treating your underlying and temporary depression with herbals or supplements like St. John's Wort, L-Tyrosine, vitamins, fish oil, good nutrition and yoga. Not everything works for everybody but anything is better than more drugs.

Stimulants have always been my drug of choice. I discovered Ritalin in high school and I sought speed ever since then until my addiction ended five years ago. I still like coffee, tea and sugar free redbull but not in copious quantities. I was mostly immune to coke and I hated meth so the white powders were never a problem for me. Before becoming hooked on Adderall, I was always looking for speed. I loved being stimulated. I look at stimulant drugs as one big, delicious cookie that you can only have once during a lifetime after the addiction happens. The maker of that cookie (my addiction) went out of business or died so there will never be another one. Then I discovered that cookies (drugs) don't agree with me and are actually bad for me so I don't even look for them any more.

As far as I know, the only two reasons that Adderall is prescribed are for ADHD and Narcolepsy.

I want to respond to your "dumb question" first. Why do you want to continue having the prescription but not the diagnosis? And why do you want to keep taking Adderall even though you know it is detrimental to your academic performance? How do you get unprescribed? Just tell your doctor you no longer feel like you need stimulant medications of any kind. Tell him how it diminished your GPA in only one semester. Tell him the Adderall makes you grouchy and distracted. Just don't fill your remaining scripts. Tear them up now. The Marines are looking for a few good men, not tweakers or addicts.

There are smart phone apps for food journaling, but for me, the simplicity of keeping a spiral notebook memo pad in my pocket or always near me made it work. It helped me quit mindless snacking and realize how many empty calories I was getting from alcohol. Are you totaling up the carbs and calories on a daily basis from everything, including beverages? net carbs? Have you achieved ketosis/ketogenesis yet?

I used to have dreams just like you described. I swallowed a pill during one dream, snorted a pill in another dream, but the pills never really kicked in and I woke up in a cold sweat fearing a relapse. I had this recurring dream theme where I would put the pill in my mouth, usually from peer pressure, and then forcefully spit it out. I have not had any kind of an Adderall dream in over two years now. Around ten weeks post-quit, I experienced that little energy bump you just described. What a relief. My next noticeable sustained energy improvement occurred around ten months post-quit, when I finally got off the couch and started walking my dog.

Flow3 and bluemoon: welcome to the 90 day challenge thread. It has been a pleasure to watch you make this journey together.

I discovered the low carb lifestyle about three years ago. I Started by reading the Adkins book and limiting all carbs to less than 25 grams per day. That was a pretty tough carb restriction and it only worked for about six weeks. I have kept a food journal a couple of times since then, once for over six months. It helped me realize the calorie content and carb count of all the foods I like, and fine-tune the portion sizes. The increase in my energy levels and positive mood when I began Adkins was amazing. Now it is just normal and I take it for granted but whenever I fuck up and have a carb binge if makes me feel really bad. Three years later, and I am still living a low carb lifestyle because those are the kind of foods I prefer. I accept the seasonal weight gain of 5-10 lbs in the winter and loose it in the summer from being more active. I am not anti-wheat, but I am fascinated by all of its bad publicity, thanks in a large part to your postings, Always Awsome.

AlwaysAwsome, have you ever kept a food journal (including calories) of your daily intake?

Thanks for this encouraging and informative post. Congratulations for ridding Adderall from your life and moving on. I especially liked item #1 on your list.... "When you're on Adderall, the illusion is that EVERYTHING is more interesting. The reality is that the only thing you can be genuinely interested in on Adderall IS Adderall and this gets way more intense as time goes on"

The boss calls a meeting on Friday requiring a 500 mile round trip drive. At the start of the meeting, she says "so how are we going to go about this project?" and it all could have been done on the phone

Quentin, your story is almost exactly like mine. I was 48 when I quit, used Adderall for 9 years, took even higher dosages than you do, took it for depression, and I abused the hell out of it too. My addiction was also destroying my health, and I was terrified of having a stroke or a heart attack. I smoked a lot of cigs, too, and I just knew that something bad was going to happen to my good health if I did not quit. So I made a solid decision to quit (Adderall, cigs, and Ativan) once and forever. I told my friends, my dealer and my doctor that I planned to quit. There was nothing good that Adderall could ever offer me in the future. It took a few months before I was able to work the Quit into my life after making that decision. I felt a great relief when I decided that quitting was the only path forward. Right now, you may have no hope for a better future if it includes Adderall in your life. But if you decide to quit, commit yourself to a plan for quitting, and treat it like it is the most important thing you will ever do for yourself, like your life depends on it, and you will have great hope for a better future. I suggest you start by doing some on-line research - both on this site and around the web - so you know what to expect and how to prepare yourself for a better life without Adderall.

I think sugar is evil. I gave up sugar, flour and milk about three years ago - not completely, but I really try to limit my consumption of those three white foods. I feel really bad when I over-indulge processed carbs. My rule of thumb is to limit sugar to less than ten grams per serving and total processed carbs to about 15 grams. If the carbs are natural then I don't need to limit them as much - like rice or potatoes. Also, I try to limit my intake of foods made with wheat. Diet soda? I think it is better than sugar sweetened drinks but still not good. Fried foods / fast foods are terrible. My eating routine forces me to eat at home whenever possible - at least 90% of the time. But at least I can read the labels and know what is in the food I eat. I eat like I am diabetic, even though I am not, and I really enjoy my food choices, especially the veggies.

Have you tried a basic vitamin B-complex supplement? Sometimes I take a B-100 which has like 100 times the RDA.

I went stupid before I quit. Moderate cognitive impairment. I realized I was losing my mind and that was the ONE thing I could absolutely NOT afford to lose due to addiction. You made a very good point, MX717: "They noticed while the brain is at rest when you sleep the cerebral spinal fluid moves in and cleans the brain. Almost acting like a waste management program" I was lucky to get five hours of sleep on Adderall. It was simply not enough sleep to keep me from catching the stupids. I felt like I had early onset Alzheimer's disease at the age of 47. I no longer take my mind for granted and I am incredibly grateful that it made a full recovery, even if it took a couple of years. I think I will go check out that TED talk now.

That was a close call. Great willpower and decision making skills. It could have gone the other way and you would be full of regrets right now. Victory! Now go treat yourself to some ice cream!