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!

I bought the 2 movie tickets for $9 deal on LivingSocial the other day with the intent of seeing this. I think whoever came up with the concept may have come across Adderall at some point

Be aware that it might not totally work if the rest of your diet is still high sodium/low potassium, because if you have overall low levels potassium relative to sodium, one simple banana is not going to do the trick. If you have persistent acne problems, you might need a diet overhaul. Just for the sake of example, here's what I ate today. This is the type of diet that seems to be helping my skin slowly but surely. BREAKFAST: Smoothie of one organic d'anjou pear, half cup mixed frozen berries, 1/4 cup fresh raspberries, half cup organic unsweetened vanilla hemp milk, 1.5 cups chopped kale, 1 tablespoon flax seed. Also a glass of fresh squeezed tangerine juice on the side. I also dissolve 1 tablespoon of brewer's yeast in a glass of water and drink it. Brewer's yeast is very high in B vitamins, a deficiency in B vitamins can cause oily acne prone skin. MORNING SNACK: Little 200-calorie packet of raw almonds LUNCH: Salad of romaine lettuce, handful of edamame, handful of garbanzo beans, slice of red onion, grape tomatoes, low fat vegan peanut dressing. On the side I drank a coconut (you know those fresh young coconuts they have at Thai places that you can cut open, stick a straw in and drink raw... that's the real coconut water. Its extremely high in potassium and delicious) I also took a cod liver oil supplement on the side. AFTERNOON SNACK: Organic Granny Smith apple DINNER: Stir fry of broccoli, cauliflower, red bell pepper, carrots, onions, cashews, parsley. For the stir fry sauce I used rice vinegar (sparingly, high in salt) fresh ground pepper, minced ginger and minced garlic. After cooking I diced up some raw kale and threw it in (cooking destroys the nutrients.... kale is the most nutrient dense of all vegetables against which all others are measured) I also took a Bio Zinc pill on the side.

I'd be happy to write a post like that! Although honestly, I don't think any one recipe will do the trick. You just want to eat a healthy, well balanced diet in general. Also, I strongly suggest anyone who really feels they struggle with ADD tries cutting out gluten for a few weeks to see what happens. 1 in 4 people have some level of gluten intolerance, and it could be affecting you more than you know. For some people it manifests in digestive issues, for some people skin issues, for some people nasal allergies, for some people its just feeling off in some way-- disorganized, depressed, etc. I'll gladly share some of my recipes in the future here (I'm actually toying with creating a recipe blog which I'll share here of course when/if I finish it) but in the meantime here's a few of my favorites: http://foodsforlonglife.blogspot.com http://mynewroots.blogspot.com Also as far as acne goes... I haven't totally won that war yet. Then again, I quit birth control (Yaz) about three months ago, so my hormones are going wild. However, since I started eating well, it has gone from so horrible that I was in tears and my neighbor was dropping off Proactiv at my door in an attempt to help (talk about embarassing) to only about 4-6 pimples at a time. I am hoping if I keep eating healthy it will continue to improve. The main thing that I think made a difference was upping my potassium intake. Your body is supposed to maintain a certain balance of sodium/potassium, but most Americans get too much sodium and not near enough potassium. Google potassium and acne... acne is a low potassium symptom. Since you get acne after working out, I suspect that might have something to do with it, you lose potassium when you sweat. After you work out, make sure to wash your face shortly thereafter with a gentle cleanser like Cetaphil, and then eat a banana to replace the potassium you just lost. Hope that helps!

Some of you may have seen my last thread where I said I needed support. And I did, and you guys provided it. I'm really grateful for that. But yeah, I was basically on the verge of slipping back to Adderall... even after a year long hell of a battle of getting it out of system. My job was overwhelming and I felt like I couldn't handle it. But I figured out what was even worse than the actual demands of the job was what working so many hours did to my lifestyle. I went from working out almost daily and and eating really well to eating like utter crap, overdosing on caffeine, and never working out. In addition to some horrible acne that I'm still recovering from (lame) my "ADD" came back full swing. At this point, I'm pretty much convinced that adult ADD, in most cases, is a symptom of insufficient diet and exercise. I went back on the diet bandwagon January 5th and at this point I can say I went from the point of almost going to see a doctor to get a new script and having Adderall cross my mind every fifteen minutes to never even thinking about it at all, ever. I'm going through hell at work right now, I'm heading up a total redesign that's launching next week of a massive site that gets high traffic (2.5+ million uniques a week), and while a few weeks ago I probably would have caved to Adderall to get 'r done, I now just come in to work, start working, and don't leave until the job is done, and take very little issue with it. I'm still not where I need to be with exercise but I've definitely added more than I was doing to my routine. What seems to have made a big difference: I've cut out red meat (sticking to fish and free range poultry), candy, soda, pastries, chips, roasted nuts (raw nuts are ok, but roasted ones don't have near as much nutritional value and a lot of added fat and salt), caffeine, alcohol, cookies, bread, and most processed foods in general, I cook most everything myself from scratch. And if I do eat anything processed, I make sure it is low in sugar... no more than 10 grams. What has made more of a difference than what I don't eat though, is what I do eat. Basically I had replaced most of the good stuff I was eating with all the crap stuff aforementioned. Now I'm making sure to get several servings of veggies, fruit and quinoa a day, and a few servings of salmon a week. (Ginger salmon by the way, is my new favorite thing. I dream about it at night.) I am able to focus on tasks without stressing easily now after just a few weeks. I'm sharing this so that maybe others who are struggling too will take a second to consider their diets again if they aren't already. I was a believer before, but after seeing how it could flip my mindset and ability to handle stress and focus in just a few weeks, and the way that falling off the bandwagon affected me, I'm a double believer now.

Mike mentioned traffic in his Atlanta thread but I'm fairly sure we've got him beat here Anyone else in the LA metro area or nearby on here? Let's organize something!

Thanks so much to you both for your posts. They both really hit home and you're both totally right. CosmiKitten- whoa. Are you sure we don't know each other or something? Reading your post... I could picture myself right in it. I literally felt like I was watching a crystal ball of myself by this summer if I were to go back to the Adderall. Powerful stuff. That knocked the cravings right out of me for now. I haven't used yet. I probably would have done so if the opportunity had presented itself in an easy to seize way... but I wasn't to the point yet where I was going to do something dramatic to seek it out. Thanks for helping me detour. I appreciate you taking the time to share all of that more than words can say. Really. I just really want to excel at this new opportunity I've been handed, but in order to do so, I'll really need to work on the Adderall-cracked-out level, and its so hard to do that naturally. For New Year's I quit coffee, which I was using pretty heavily as a crutch but I noticed it wasn't really doing anything except add to my stress level and keep me up too late. I've also really cleaned up my diet and have been trying to exercise more... I was really, really on that before I got this position but now I really just don't have time... I wake up, have an hour to get ready, half an hour to drive to work and then back. By the time I get home I have 2-3 hours before I have to go to bed if I want to get a full 8 hours of sleep. So I've been getting lazier about food and exercise and I think when you go from an A to a C- on the healthy lifestyle grade out of nowhere you really do feel the difference. Hopefully that will help. I'll keep checking in.

Hi CosmiKitten, Absolutely try to take some time off. At minimum get a four day weekend. This will allow you to just sleep through the very worst of the crash. Also, if you can taper down first, the level of crash you will experience will be significantly less. Also, look for my Cushion Your Crash Landing: Nutritional Needs After Adderall posts on this site. It addresses your dietary and supplement questions. Best of luck!

Hi everyone! A lot has changed since I last came around. I got hit out of the left field with an incredible (I mean, really incredible) career opportunity at a very well respected Fortune 500 company. The kind of thing that, if I succeed, will bolster my resume and earning potential beyond words. The title? Great. The perks? Great. The pay? Amazing. I'm suddenly making more money than I know what to fucking do with. I started about a month ago. But it comes at a price. It is very high pressure, and the hours are fucking long. (10+ hours a day on average) I went from freelancing and having a pretty carefree schedule and life to having hardly any free time. Worse off, I don't really like the work. It doesn't interest me. And I have tons of responsibility on my shoulders... so the stress is in epic proportions. My shoulders are rock solid with knots and I'm breaking out like a teenage boy going through puberty due to all the stress hormones. I'm pretty sure a lot of my colleagues use Adderall. What can I say? It takes one to know one. I've been off Adderall for over a year now. I was doing fine. Suddenly, I think about it all the time. I've caught myself thinking about how I could go about getting a prescription again. I know I have friends that could get it for me if I really wanted it. That scares me. I've been thinking things like "if I don't get a scrip... I just buy a couple pills a week off of so and so... then my supply will be really limited and I'll just get ahead on the days that I take it and it will make the other things so much easier..." I don't want to fall prey to this! I could use any words of support or advice you can offer. I want to succeed at this job... everyone I know is so so so proud of me that I got it and it really is a life changing opportunity. I just feel incapable of doing it without chemical help.

Just wanted to share that I took my last Adderall pill one year ago today officially. Funny, I felt so accomplished today... but couldn't tell anybody about it. So I just decided to share my joy here where people understand, and reflect a little bit on the experience, because it really is different than I thought it would be when I first shoved my pill bottle in my boyfriend's hands and instructed him to take it and not let me have it back for any reason. A year ago I honestly never thought I would be here. I didn't lose my job because I quit Adderall, but I did quit my job voluntarily and then moved over halfway across the country. Not to get away from the Adderall exactly, but just because without Adderall I couldn't keep playing the game: going to work everyday and pretending I liked my job and the city I lived in, when in reality I was not satisfied with either at the time. Now that I've lived somewhere else (its the first time I've lived in a different state in my life) I have a whole new appreciation for where I came from, but I'm having a lot of good character-building experiences here that I'm grateful for. I'm also working as a freelance web designer now. I worked as an in-house designer for years while on Adderall, and after quitting Adderall design and/or programming work was my biggest craving trigger. The work of a web designer is both creatively demanding and technically tedious... it is a job that lends itself well to Adderall. I swore I'd never be able to design again after quitting. But I managed to keep up at my in-house job for 7 months and left on a good note. I noticed I could actually do my work a lot less time without Adderall because I didn't obsess over details, and I actually think the quality of it might have improved a little bit. However, the urge to procrastinate and put off getting the ball rolling meant it still took me longer time total to get things done. After moving (about 8 months clean) I found myself having to (grudgingly) take on freelance web clients to survive because I was having a hard time finding employment (I was at the time seeking employment of any kind, as long as it had nothing to do with design). Just now, after finishing a few freelance projects, which initially make me crave Adderall like the devil, I realized my fears were irrational. I was able to design off of Adderall, and even enjoyed it to a degree (after all, I did start designing long before I started Adderall). Furthermore, people still liked my work. So just now, a year later, I am just beginning to unearth my passion for something that Adderall ended up burying for awhile. I've discovered new passions too. Once I realized the impact good nutrition had on my recovery, I obviously had to develop my so-so kitchen skills, because eating out every time I needed something healthy just wasn't going to be financially possible. I have discovered a real love for the kitchen since then. I went from being able to make a handful of dishes that my mom had taught me (which never turned out half as good as when she made them), to making up new things all the time and routinely having friends and family ask for my recipes. When I was on Adderall, I never wanted to eat badly enough to prepare myself anything in the kitchen. When it came down to the point where I had to eat because I'd pass out otherwise, I'd grab whatever snack food was conveniently around. So I never would have discovered this passion if not for quitting, and my health is certainly a LOT better thanks to my new diet of real food. I struggled with depression, anxiety, OCD and "ADHD" most of my life. Before Adderall, I'd tried almost every FDA approved antidepressant there is, not to mention Xanax and Valium, to deal with these problems. Now that I eat right, I realize how many of those problems really stemmed from poor diet, because for the most part, they have all gone away or become so faint that I rarely notice them. That's all! Just wanted to share because it just feels like a big moment to me

Fleetwood Mac - Landslide One of the songs that pushed me to quit. A lot of people suspect it was written about quitting cocaine. Gypsy by Fleetwood Mac is also good.