Lilah

I'm in SF these days and about 4 years clean from Adderall. Happy to organize a meetup or have coffee with anyone who needs support.

Agreed. I had asked if I could publish it anonymously and they said no. They actually wanted to go so far as to have my photo attached to it because I "look like the quintessential girl next door". I ended up passing.

The withdrawal does suck, but after the first week or so it's largely mental. Exercise and a good diet are the most important things you can do. I also learned that "gamifying" my work day helped a bit. Give yourself some sort of reward at the end of the day, and if you get so many "points" then you get to have it. Then assign points to all the tasks you need to do if you complete them in a predetermined amount of time. It sounds silly but does help.

Aside from addiction post college, if you were writing about Adderall for a mainstream media outlet, what would you say or want to have said? I've been presented with the opportunity to do so and I'm considering it although I'd have to attach my name to it, so I'm hesitant. I definitely have my own opinions on what needs to be said but it would be great to get input from others as well.

I used to have some bad hypochondria episodes when I was on Adderall, especially towards the end when the dosage was getting really high. It definitely contributed to me quitting, but I think the real final straw was when the stuff was barely even helping me function anymore, when I started having suicidal thoughts, and when I started losing my hair. (Losing your hair is hard on a hypochondriac.)

Seriously? No one else in LA?

You'll be okay. I went through a few situations where I was forced to function without Adderall for a week or two for assorted reasons. It is completely possible to function on your own volition without Adderall, cold turkey. It just really, really sucks. I know exactly what you mean about things getting old. Eventually they'll get old enough that you'll make a permanent change. Think of this as a practice run for when you ultimately quit... because it sounds like you know that is what you need to do eventually. Best of luck.

Ltyrosine is an amino acid present in the food you eat. Taking it is safe, but if you're wary or want to go the all natural route, you can try eating plenty of tyrosine rich food. I found supplements never helped me as much as the real deal from food, probably because you get all the proper enzymes, complimentary nutrients, etc that way.

That is a tough one. I think the legal rule around adderall dosage is that they cannot prescribe more than one months dose at a time. But I do not know if there is a limit to how much that dosage can be. I was prescribed 120 20 mg pills a month. Any dr worth their salt could tell you that if I had taken as prescribed, which I didn't even at the height of my abuse because my heart couldn't handle it, it would have killed a 110 lb girl. But it was legal. Best of luck, I understand what a tough call this one is. If he really sees no problem whatsoever with adderall usage though, I don't think there is much you can do except work on YOURSELF and then serve as a shining example of the fact that it is possible to quit and there are positive benefits associated with it. Let me ask you this, what would it mean for your family if your husband lost or quit his job? As someone owns currently works in such an environment I can say that I couldn't have possibly kept up while quitting. Only after a good chunk of time of being clean could I handle it and even then the temptation to relapse was huge. Does your family have the means to survive if he took a lower pressure lower pay job for awhile while he recovered and found a better job or for him to start his own business? If so, you could frame quitting as an opportunity for him to come into his own, become centered, and then find a better job with a better boss, or pursue his own passions as his own boss. Again, best of luck. Focus on the fact that you're only beginning your own journey, and just for you being clean, your family is already better off.

I've done the master cleanse once. By the time I tried it I had almost two years clean of adderall so I can't comment on how it affected me in that way. I only made it 4 days on the cleanse plus 2 days of weaning off. Bay the time it was over I had lost a lot of weight, felt great about myself, and evveryone around me kept saying that I was "glowing".

Yes... pretty much everything has some wheat in it unless you go to great lengths to avoid it. Which is probably why gluten sensitivity is becoming so widespread. Anything you eat too much of you can develop an allergy to eventually, and we all probably eat way too much gluten considering its in things that don't even seem like they'd have wheat in them. Tomorrow my eating plan is: -Breakfast: oatmeal (not instant) with cinnamon, strawberries and hemp milk -Morning snack: Apple -Lunch: Spinach salad with assorted veggies (carrots, red peppers, onions, whatever else I have in my fridge), olive oil and vinegar for dressing -Afternoon snack: banana, one container non-dairy yogurt (there's a brand called So Delicious that produces products for people with food allergies, they have awesome coconut based yogurt!) -Dinner: Chicken breast grilled in homemade pesto (without the parmesan) and balsamic grilled asparagus Normally I'd eat a bit more than this but I'm having tummy troubles today so I'm planning to eat light tomorrow. On the complexion front, I actually finally did go see a dermatologist. He said my skin issues are related to me quitting the second most evil pill next to Adderall... Yaz. I have to say that quitting Yaz is an ordeal that warrants its own site... psychologically not as hard as Adderall but physically way worse. My hormones are all wonked out and its giving me really bad skin and crippling stomach cramping problems. Bleh. But he gave me a prescription for something called Atralin. Between that and my diet experiment, hopefully I'll have positive results to report!

I've always thought that ADD/ADHD is "real" in many cases. After all, I didn't originally go to a psychiatrist seeking Adderall for kicks... I really felt that I had symptoms that it treated. And after being off of it for over a year, I still do struggle with ADD-like symptoms. However, I don't believe it is an inherent neurological/biochemical issue that I have that I need to treat with drugs. Rather, I think it is probably linked to diet/lifestyle. I know for a fact that when I clean up my diet and exercise, my symptoms greatly improve. And when I don't feed myself the way I should and exercise regularly, they come back with a vengeance. Now, it seems the mainstream media is nodding to the fact that food intolerances may cause ADD/ADHD. As many as one in four people have some degree of gluten sensitivity, which could help explain why ADD/ADHD symptoms are so widespread. Check these out... the Business Week article is particularly interesting. http://www.health.com/health/gallery/thumbnails/0,,20439038,00.html http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/649603.html One thing I do know for sure is that when I 100% avoid wheat and dairy products (easier said than done!), my ongoing nasal allergies and complexion issues improve significantly. But I've never stuck to it long enough to really say that I "cured" myself. So as an experiment, I'm thinking about trying a strict allergy elimination for 30 days to see if my ADD symptoms improve. Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

For the first few years I used it, there was zero comedown for me. I could also pop an Adderall at 6pm and sleep at midnight. For the last few years I did it though, the daily comedown became intense. I'd have to smoke insane amounts of marijuana and/or drink alcohol and/or take Xanax to deal with and be able to sleep at all. My theory is that it gets worse as your dopamine depletion gets worse with continued use.

I don't have much time so I'm going to have to keep this brief... but I just wanted to quickly say that I experienced this too. Both at the two month mark and when I started a new stressful job slightly after the one year mark... so it sounds like you've got the double whammy going on. I've likened the two month itch to what happens after you break up with a partner that was bad for you- for the first month you remember all the good reasons why you left them, but over time the good memories become stronger than the bad ones and you forget why you did it, or at least you stop feeling it. Remember the feelings you had in your darkest hours on Adderall, focus on the bad, that should help. Also remember any job related benefit to starting Adderall again would only be temporary and ultimately probably result in you losing your health AND the job. Best of luck!