quit-once

Today marks ten years since quitting adderall. I still have my last pill which is a burnt glob on a rock that I placed into a fire. I look at it almost every day, grateful that I no longer have that awful habit. I plan to throw it into the river to celebrate the ten years of my life after adderall. I also quit nicotine about the same time. I have my health, I have my freedom, I am enjoying life and I recently became retired. I still use alcohol, smoke weed and drink coffee. Alcohol will be the next habit which I give up, for health reasons, although I am not committed to full sobriety just yet. If you are reading this post and thinking you might need to quit stimulants at some point in the future, I encourage you to plan your quit move on to a new life after the addiction. I was encouraged by reading posts of people who successfully quit and moving on with their lives. Quitting this drug is perhaps the most difficult challenge you will take on in life. It is 100% worth the effort.

Welcome to the Forum! You have a lot of positive things going on for only being four months stimulant free. There are lots of ups and downs in early recovery, and it sounds like you are riding it out very well. Congratulations for quitting and I wish you continued success with your Quit.

Great to hear from you, @hyper_critical. I'm glad your life is going well. I think it is so important that some of the long time quitters keep posting on this site. I know it gave me lots of hope when I quit to know that people can and DO beat this addiction and move on with their lives. I'm two years ahead of you, and I will be making my ten year post in exactly one month.

Congratulations for quitting and welcome to the forums. I quit after nine years on much higher dosages than you were on and I was about ten years older. I also quit nicotine about the same time. It can be done, and it must be done, because nobody can expect to spend the rest of their life on stimulants. and the nicotine will kill you. Weight gain, depression, anxiety, and lethargy are the classic symptoms of quitting. Keep your expectations for yourself tame and focus on the Quit and not going back. Things will be much better after a year or so. I gained about 15-20 lbs after quitting and it took about two years to get back to my pre-quitting weight. Best of luck to you!

Almost ten years post -adderall, my GI system has finally recovered. There are still a few foods that give me heartburn so I avoid them. Some kinds of bread, some kinds of cookies (and eating too many of them) and milk still don't agree with me, especially near bed time as they ness with my sleep. It is much, much better than five years ago. For the first five years of my recovery, I was convinced that I had permanently damaged my GI system. Oddly enough, my body weight has stabilized at what it was when I quit, although I now have more muscle where there used to be fat, due to regular yoga practice and / or workouts.

Cold turkey worked for me too. Almost ten years ago, I roasted my last two pills in the fireplace, and melted them onto a rock. I still have that sculpture. Congratulations for quitting and welcome to the forums.

Welcome, @Somewhere! Congrats for being off stimulants for the last two years. That belly fat is sure hard to lose, and it is the first fat to come back whcn you slack on the workouts. Losing those thirty pounds is a really big deal and I bet you feel a lot better not packing around the extra fat. I workout about every other day, although just at home. I am not comfortable going to gyms or fitness / yoga classes right now due to Covid. I also practice intermittent fasting, although skipping a morning meal is something I have done most of my life, so it is really no big deal to wait until noon for my first calorie intake. I reached a stable body weight about two years after quitting and it fluctuates up to ten pounds depending on the seasons. I find those extra ten pounds make a huge difference netween feeling fat and feeling fit.

Welcome to the forums! Jump right in and post your questions or comments to any discussion thread you feel you can relate to.

It scares me too! If you have confidence in your therapist. then go for it. However, I would thoroughly research the drug and its side affects and its withdrawals before taking it. I have no experience with SSRI drugs like Lexapro.

@NurseAddy, @sage I was 48 when I quit, almost a decade ago, after nine years of Abuse. It took me six months of planning and preparation but I wanted to get it right the first time that I sincerely tried quitting. I was ready to enter addiction treatment if I failed. The older we get, the more painful it becomes to continue abusing this nasty drug, It's really hard on your body at abusive dosages. An addiction to speed is like a mortgage on your future.

@sage What is your plan for quitting? 15 years is a long time on this drug, especially at abusive dosages.

Welcome to the forums! Both @SleepyStupid and @Sunbeams_findyou have shared some really good advice. If you quit for your baby's heath while you were pregnant and nursing, you should maintain that Quit so you can be fully present for your developing child as you are raising him. Post-partum depression, coupled with post adderall depression (you are still in your first year) is a double whammy so I can see why you are looking for some relief in the form of a familiar pill. You have already got the hardest part of your adderall recovery behind you. Perhaps you were not quite ready to quit when you became pregnant, but here you are, with almost a year off the drug. Seize that opportunity for a better life.

Don't be shy about starting a new topic. If you have information or experience with adderall tolerance post it in this forum or over in the "tell your story" forum.

Congratulations for your first year of freedom! One year is a huge milestone for so many things, and especially for kicking the addie habit. I wish you the best of luck living in Arizona. I share your wonderment of how I survived that awful addiction with my life and health intact, especially as an older user - I was 48 when I quit nine years ago.

Gordon, Congratulations on your decision to Quit. I wish you well. I have one question: What are the consequences of failure?

I am happy to announce that @sleepystupid and @EricP have joined the administrators team! Thanks to both of you for volunteering and helping to control the spam and keeping this great forum dedicated to helping people quit and stay quit. Please continue to report the spam and we will do our best to contain it. Also, I would like to acknowledge Mike for paying the server bills and keeping up the website he started 12 years ago, without any advertising. Mike is currently finishing up his PhD in Psychology. Thanks, @Mike!

I think I have deleted all of it, let me know if you find any more. I've been out in the wilderness backpacking for the last few days. I could sure use some help moderating. If anybody is interested, let me know and I will contact Mike to get that ball rolling, as well as renewing the Word Press account so the spammers have a more difficult time registering.

Go to your profile page and check your notification settings. You should be able to adjust them to your liking. I think you have to follow a person or a topic in order to get an email notification when somebody responds. You should also be able to get an email when somebody quotes you or tags your username with the @DelaneyJuliette .

Check your vitamin B12 levels or just try a sublingual supplement. Sometimes B12 and iron defeciencies go together.

Welcome to the forum. I was about ten years behind you - I started around age 40 and quit before I was 50. I'm 57 now. I have been on this forum since quitting nine years ago, and I have read several stories about people using only as prescribed and having a difficult time with withdrawal. I completely agree with you that one can't take it for the rest of their lifetime. That was one of the big reasons that I quit, in addition to realizing that it was an unsustainable addiction. The physical side effects of adderall abuse also caught up with me. Adderall made me feel like an old man in the later years of my addiction. It does take a long time to recover from this drug. I started feeling somewhat better about nine months after quitting, although it took about three years to feel mostly normal, and another three years or so before the bouts of depression finally abated. Congratulations for quitting. I wish you the best of luck in your journey through recovery.

So do you have a plan for quitting? or are you just waiting it out until the next script can be filled. What will be different when the time to refill comes along? It sounds like taking speed is an inconvenient addiction, at worst. The psychotic break does sound scarry. Are you sure you are ready to quit now?

After using Adderall for nine years, I quit on June 3, 2011. Nine years later and I'm still speed-free. Life is certainly better and easier in abstinence rather that chasing those silly orange and blue pills, and dealing with the awful side effects of the addiction and uncontrollable overconsumption. This forum was essential for my quitting success and I am grateful for its existence.

I have been unable to enjoy sugar since quitting adderall nine years ago. Regarding the OP at the top of this thread, my joints were so stiff and achy by the time I quit, I felt like an old man. The good news is that yoga and exercise has reversed that problem. Actually, my joints felt better after quitting and before I started exercising.

or put another way, by some wise QA member many years ago: ".....become a human being instead of a human doing"

Great to hear from you, HC! I was thinking of you when everyone was trying to fly home from abroad. Did you make it back or are you still in the middle east?