Saltwater Soul

Hey all, Great to find this forum and I sincerely appreciate any feedback I receive. Apologies for the novel - I’ll try to insert some bullet points to hit the high notes for those that don’t have time to read it all! I am at the initial stage in determining how best to go about quitting. I’ve never been as motivated and failure is not an option. I have a young family that I love dearly, a beautiful wife that deserves the best, and a great career going that has only gotten better as I’ve entered my mid-30’s. Life should be great - and it is at the surface - but my wife has been fed up with my beyond unpredictable sleep habits that she can no longer stand and has given me an ultimatum. I’m staying at my parents house until I kick adderall for good or she will leave our marriage and she means business. Maybe it sounds harsh of her, but I’ve come to terms with the truth that I have a problem that is impacting my wellbeing, and more importantly my family’s. My background: Prescribed since freshman year of college - about 14 years now. Prescribed to 20mg 3x/ day. I typically take 10mg 6x/ day instead of prescribed dosage method as I’m probably chasing the energy burst - 10mg seems to be just as effective and taking every every 2-3 hours is more stimulating. History of quitting: I tried to quit once about 7 years ago as my wife encouraged me to do so and I gave it a decent shot. I went cold turkey and had success for a couple of weeks before: Faced with a large work assignment Had anxiety during internal work meetings as colleagues noticed I was a bit more reserved and less boisterous. I wasn’t faced with the same circumstances as I am now during this attempt. I recall it took a couple of days sleeping to crash the meds out of my system. Day 3 or so, I forced myself out of bed in the AM and made myself go on a run to get active and fight the fatigue. I feel like I was on the right track, but with less motivation and no ultimatum in this attempt I started taking adderall again for the aforementioned reasons. Profession: In technical sales / client facing position. Love my job and it affords me the flexibility to make my own schedule. I typically have 2-5 business meetings per week (varies). Some are with existing clients for dinners, lunch, etc., while others are prospective new client meetings that require detailed presentations geared towards client specific metrics. I meet with our team internally every Monday morning to review each week’s progress, forecast, etc. My preliminary plan for quitting: I am currently working towards turning a plan into action and appreciate any advice on how to conquer this. I have some work obligations over the next 7-10 days that I need to get ahead on, then I plan to take a week off for “personal time”. My initial game plan has been to go cold turkey as I had done previously, but this time forge ahead knowing there’s no other option. My hope is the support behind me and the realization that my family will be torn apart will take me past the previous 2-week mark, and this time carry me through. I plan to seek some weekly counseling / professional help in conjunction to support my efforts which I have some questions about later in this post. Having shared my plan with my mom, she has been adamant in her research that cold turkey is not the way to go and is almost certain failure. I don’t like hearing this because I’m so focused on my plan and feel good about it but I don’t want to be ignorant. My questions: Can cold turkey work? Will one week of “personal time” be enough of a buffer? My job is highly competitive and my company / industry demands high performance. Taking more than 1-2 weeks off with no production would be very detrimental to my company. I like the cold turkey method because I’m thinking it can fast track the process, and not require any suspicion on my employers part. I thought about being upfront with my company’s VP who thinks highly of me as it may take some stress out of the process, but a close friend who works in my industry advised that could be a bad decision as they could view me as a risk, etc. Any thoughts on this? Could it be largely beneficial, or too much of a risk? Should I seek out professional help that uses a medicine based approach to help me through, more of a therapist, or a combination of both? Thank you all for your support!