Greg

I just saw Beautiful Boy. we will all relate to it. It deals with: dopmaine depletion fried nerve endings NA/AA Unfairly Expensive rehab hitting Rick bottom lethargy/anhedonia withdrawal acting irrationally dealing with your addiction and loved ones loved ones dealing with your addiction and much more . Halfway homes the pain of relapse depression, fear, desperation out of the addiction lying to fuel an addiction giving up , perseverance and much more . This is a great movie for any adderall addict to watch.

^this!

I'm so glad to hear this. Having known you on these boards for 7 years and reading so many of your inspirational posts I am not even slightly worried about your future trejectory. You know every step to take and all the right steps to take. I'm so glad you posted your update and please continue to do so!

Right now your goal should be getting your brain to start producing dopamine on its own again. Molly messes with all the chemicals in your brain that are already out of whack from the adderall like your dopamine. Your brain chemicals need to recalibrate. One of the things that used to help me resist cravings and all that was thinking about how disgusting it was how I was messing with all the Chemicals in my head. It was like I had been turning the Chrismas lights on and off and on and off in my brain which was so unnatural and appalling and the visual of it was gross. Thinking about that when I craved adderall or was feeling really really shitty from quitting really helped. A lot.

Lil Tex, I’m really sorry to hear about this whole thing! You’d think after almost 7 years clean (for anyone that doesn’t know lil Tex and I quit two days apart from each other) we’d be in the clear right? I’m not sure what to say except I think you have the right attitude going forward and you got this. I truly have no doubt you have this. You know more than anyone where this road leads and all the terrible bullshit that comes with it and you’re strong and you totally have this. You’ve come too far and worked too hard to ever go back down that road. Any updates since your last post?

Adderall broke everything in my life and there were quite a few things for me to fix. The first thing I focused on was sobriety at all costs. I also worked on getting over the incredible psychological dependency I had on it. It felt like I had to relearn how to do everything without relying on an Adderall to do it. I also had to get back into the workforce as Adderall had caused me to get fired from my job and I had built up a huge gap on my resume. I decided to go back to school to be in an environment that would set me up to go back into the workforce. I chose a school in Florida right by the beaches so I'd be in an extremely low pressure environment. Learning to study for exams and write papers etc without Adderall was an invaluable experience. Then I took a graduate assistant job in one of the departments (just answering phones, faxing and making photocopies). That gave me a lot more confidence I could handle working again without Adderall . Then I worked on explaining to friends and family that I had hurt and who saw me go down the drain what happened to me - I explained to them the mechanics of addiction and how it caused my neurotransmitters to get messed up so they could at least understand what happened to me. Eventually I started living a normal life again, had regained much more confidence in myself and regained more of friend and familys confidence in me. At the same time the physical after effects of PAWS kept dwindling away and there were less and less days where I felt horrible from my brain trying to recalibrate itself from not having the drug. Now that things are back to normal again, I always keep myself aware that if I take a single pill everything can come crashing down. That fear of losing everything I've rebuilt prevents me from ever considering taking it again.

Agreed on re activating neural pathways and memories of the drug- be extreeemly hyper vigilant about any thoughts toward this drug right now. You know how the addict's brain works. ' 'one is too many and a thousand is never enough' - NA handbook

This is terrific HC. Congrats on the five year milestone. Here's to a lifetime of being free from Adderall!

Before I started abusing Adderall I was abusing Ritalin insanely , with a couple prescriptions and buying them. I was going through a bottle in a week and snorting it. It is JUST as bad as Adderall in that it causes paychosis, its horribly addictive, makes you psychologically dependent on it and I've posted many times on here that I thought withdrawal from Ritalin was actually MUCH WORSE then adderall. Although it's clearly a pretty close race. I was never able to successfully quit Ritalin bc I couldn't tolerate the withdrawal. I went to hospital detox, outpatient therapy, NA everything and still relapsed. It wasn't until I switched to Adderall that I was able to successfully quit. Dont get me wrong though , quitting Adderall was still incredibly, incredibly painful.

OMG CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #SOOOPROUD

I thought adderall addiction was not as widely known, but today the president of ESPN for 20 years resigned due to substance abuse. Due to the nature of my industry there was tons of speculation and conversations happening around the office as to what happened to him. The conclusion by many was that it was an addiction to adderall due to the pressure associated with his job -- this completely surprised me that people in my office were so AWARE of adderall addiction. I just stayed quiet and listened. Im so glad its getting out there to the mainstream world that adderall is akin to painkiller addiction, xanax addiction and people are more educated about it. This wasnt the case years ago. I do feel sorry for the guy who resigned but at the same time the reaction to his resignation was very eye opening. Whether he was addicted to adderall or not, adderall is a quick fix to pressure - any kind of pressure. Thats why its so important to alleviate yourself of pressure especially in the early stages of quitting. My two years sleeping and reading on the couch with no pressure in the world was crucial for my recovery.

I think its important to let them know you are developing a problem with it so you completely shut the door with them. They know is schedule II controlled substance and highly addictive. Itll be a few minutes of embarassment but then its done.

Hey Geometric - Glad you are taking this step because everyone I've seen on this site who has rebuilt their lives from horrible adderall addiction has taken this action. Flushing down the toilet frequently results in getting refills 30 days later from what I've seen on this site. So when i hear about people flushing their pills I get a bit jaded from what I've seen. There have been threads on how to cut off your doctor in the past. Most people on this site just sucked it up, told their doctor they got addicted or developed a problem with it to get cut off and quickly got it over with. I told my aunt and she called my doctor and cut me off for me. I dont think there's any issue with having a family member do it. As long as the doctor is cut off. But again, most people just told their doctor and quickly got it over with...and i don't know a single person who has regretted it.

Welcome. Awesome and inspiring video. So many things hit home in what you said. Thanks for sharing and keep it up. Keep us posted on the progress. Also great job on cutting off your doctor and keeping away all access to it. That's always the hardest part.

Wow, i didnt know about Peter Bregin. Looks like he's written a lot of books on this topic. I always find reading literature about how its messing up the chemicals in my brain as extra motivating to quit. Its so unnatural.What kind of books have you read where he discusses ritalin, adderall, stimulant effects on your brain chemistry?