risingpheonix

What a great report! You're doing great. Not needing to drink to come down is one of the great benefits of getting rid of this drug. Keep it going and keep sharing

My dear sirod9 - how are you doing? I feel like I have so much to learn from you and your wisdom. I almost always read quittingadderall on my phone and not on the computer, and I somehow can't log in from the phone, so I don't comment. But your support and insight here is invaluable. You are a good soul and your wisdom no doubt helped more than one person through the dark night (me!) How is life for you? I once read a thread here by a guy who decided to quit and who came back to write regular updates on certain anniversaries. It was super interesting. He ended up finding Jesus, something I don't expect for me, but his updates were still so encouraging to me. I am thinking it would be great if more people can do that when they are further along in their journey. So how's it going for you?

Hello all! It's a lovely spring day in NYC and I decided to pop in here to express my enormous gratitude to the forces that helped me get to where I am, including this wonderful forum. Right now, I'm sitting at the computer in my home with a cup of decaf coffee (trying to cut back!), there are fresh flowers on my desk that are so fragrant, I just washed all floors, windows are open, breeze coming in, nice little mellow music, dogs and cats are all cuddled up in their favorite spots (where the sun streaks, of course.) It's moments like these that I fought so hard for. I don't feel high. I don't feel a rush of happiness. It's just nice, it's just centered and good. Coming off Adderall was brutal for me. I know many people say it's no big deal. I know many people say "two months and you're good." I believe them. But that wasn't the case for me. I really think my body took a year plus to level out. More even. At the one year mark, I hit a depression like I never before experienced. Before you go freaking out saying "I can't go a year of hell to get off these pills", do realize that it wasn't a year of hell. That's not how I'd describe it. It was a lot like a diet, in that you start off strong with so much enthusiasm, you feel the effects of the enormous change you made, and even though it's hard, you believe in it. You feel your new commitment and are full of excitement for seeing results. For me, in the first months, while I slept a ridiculous amount and was not in the best spirits, the very fact that I saw myself get through the smallest assignment without adderall filled me with such a sense of accomplishment, it was so motivating! I was absolutely shocked that I could do x or do y without adderall. Each time I did something for the first time (since many years) without adderall, I felt like I summitted a mountain. So, it wasn't a year of hell. It was a year of hard, hard, hard work, and a slow trickling of hope. But after about a year, I started to experience what I can only describe as the most extreme reactions to every little thing. If something bothered me, it bothered me on a thousand. I could not see anything in perspective! I could not talk myself down! The littlest thing disrupted my sleep, made me feel like it was the end of the world, that I couldn't go on. One of the things that slowly happened, simply because I NEEDED RELIEF, was I started to develop little ways of self-soothing. Like coloring, reading journal entries, going away from tech for a walk. After doing these things multiple times during distress and finding relief, my mind started to associate these small acts with relief. So when I was upset, just the thought of "I'll leave my phone here and go for a walk" or "I'll go color" made me feel a bit easier. In other words, I learned to cope without a magic elixir. My moods also leveled out, no doubt, but I am still a high intensity person. I just no longer have this same "I must adderall!" because I have learned through repeated runs that it's not the end of the world without it. I chose not to go on anti-depressants when I first started to go through all this last year. This is not a recommendation to anyone. I am not at all endorsing white knuckling or refusing help where it is. For me, I tried Wellbutrin. It didn't work. And then I was simply too scared of a new psychotropic drug. My concern was: if it works, what's the end point? What happens when I need to get off, or my body acclimates? I guess I got burnt with adderall where the end point was a trip to hell and back. I know different people need to take a different path. My life isn't perfect. It's just nice. There are rarely any highs. But there's happiness, gratitude, laughter, love, pleasure, learning, growing. I actually came here because I have a bit of vacation coming up, and that reminds me of the vacations on adderall: time flying by and feeling like a million dollars. I don't need to feel like a million dollars. I know it's not worth it. I know the cost for those highs are friendships, balance, health, coping skills, so much. In the last year my social life has come around so much, I've reconnected with many old friends (still an introvert though!) and my career has gone to unimaginable places. I used to think adderall was the key to career success. It did help in some ways. It did make me FEEL like I was doing so much more. I guess less is more, or maybe I'm just doing more without feeling it, because I've had some really nice breakthroughs and it only took ten years to get here. (only, ha ha) I'm still single. Still sad that I'm not even looking for love because dating is like a second career and maybe I am not good at picking people whom I really want to date. I don't know if this will change and if, down the line, I'll be able to accept being alone in my older years. We'll see what happens. I don't overthink it too much. For now, I'm going to head out to the gym. Oh, did I mention my weight is much more even without those starving pills? I eat better. So much better. Keto-ish style, although not by any means actually keto. Just try to eat more meats, salads, soups. I've been at a good weight for the last year, something I simply couldn't achieve once the adderall honeymoon passed. So there's that. Pretty good all around, no? Much love and many thanks to all the warriors here. Thank you to all who understand what a hellish journey this is/was. The validation is so meaningful. I wish everyone so much luck. My advice to myself (and perhaps helpful to others) is "the only way out is through" or something like that? You know the expression? There are no shortcuts. You want to get to the light, you gotta get through the hard stuff. If that's not the case for you, I'm happy for you! Shortcuts never worked for me. So off I go, to continue this journey on the long path.

Time for an update? It's almost the end of 2022. It's now almost a full calendar year clean. Plus about half of 2021. I never abused my adderall. I was only severely, severely addicted to it and changed by it. My entire life revolved around it. It made me feel so good. It made me bookish, it made me intensely focused, it made me completely disinterested in people. I crashed and burned all my social contacts while on stimulants, because I believed they were holding me back. I'm still an introvert and I still need to pace myself, but on stimulants I simply couldn't give a rat's ass about people. If I had kept going, I'd slowly have ended up very alone. I loved stimulants. It also destroyed me. It gave me the illusion of success, grandeur and happiness while it depleted my life of everything meaningful. I don't know how it's possible that I decided to not celebrate what should have been one of the most important moments of my life, but that's who I was on stimulants. A different person. I couldn't imagine living without my precious adderall. But I was also getting less and less out of it, and I watched myself become a cripple unable to do the smallest thing without popping a pill. I was getting so little out of the drug by the end, that I was just fat, neglected, ignoring responsibilities, unable to do something as basic as get a haircut. If I used my adderall for the haircut, then nothing was left for going to the bank, so I figured out my priorities and chose one thing over the other. My life was becoming so thin and I was spending so much time in couchlock that I was wondering if I was sick. But the problem was that every time I tried to go off, things were so much worse that I returned to the drugs. I finally realized that I needed to just tough it out, and it was the most hellish (or nearly) thing I've ever been through. I was only on a prescribed dose for seven years, but for me, it took me a good year to come back to myself. But boy it was worth it! I might not feel euphoria, I might not feel like I'm doing much, but objectively my life has become so much richer. I'm so grateful to have been able to rebuild friendships and take on a bunch of fun projects. My self confidence is much better, I'm working out, I lost weight, and I got a new pet. One thing makes me really sad: I think I might have missed my chance to find a partner and settle down. I was pretty disinterested in dating while on stims, and now I think it might be too late. I know, I know, it's never too late, bla bla bla, but I feel like for me, and my personality... it might not happen. Still, I have plenty to be grateful for, not least that I'm able to wake up and do a bunch of things without taking a crazy pill that makes me jittery, intense, hyperfocused, antisocial and soon... paralyzed by the comedown. I think of my experience with adderall similar to experiences people have in relationships. Some people lean into them more than others, so it's harder for some people to move on than others. For me, I leaned into adderall in a way I don't think I ever leaned into anything. I enjoyed how it changed me and created an illusion of an easier life. There is some of it I miss, and sometimes I wish I was still that brainy self, but alas - I'm trying to accept myself warts and all. I'm grateful for what I got and hanging in for the rough parts. Sending love to everyone on this journey.

Good for you, DrewK15. I learned the hard way with Adderall that often with psychotropic drugs, you end up having to pay the piper, and boy does he charge...! BTW if you need help stepping off, the website Surviving Antidepressants seems to help a lot of people.

Hello friends. Just want to check in and update, because I know we update during hard times, but then we forget to mention the good. And I don't want to paint a skewed picture or be ungrateful. After two months of not being able to sleep at all, waking with the most unbearable emotional agony, (never had anything like it) and almost relapsing, things have turned a corner. I sleep so wonderfully, thankfully. No sleeping aids, no meds, only meletonin. I get great rest and wake up feeling good. I've had some good news a hundred percent thanks to pushing through the hard times. During the shittiest times I did some things and put myself out there in ways that I'm repeating rewards from. All in all, the cravings have passed and I'm enjoying life. I know the hard times will come around again, and I hope I'll stay strong. I've been keeping a gratitude photo journal. I take pictures of funny, sweet, happy moments, especially with pets, and keep it in an electronic journal. This way, when I feel like life is a never-ending slog of suffering (instead of an easy ride on Adderall) I look back to the sweet pictures and smile. Thanks all for your support, and wishing you lots of luck. Keep chugging!

This is so wonderful and helpful. Thank you for sharing this.

Yeah, it's a demon drug. You get tolerance to it very quickly, so you need more all the time. At the same time if you go off of it, you have to deal with terribly low mood and sleeping non-stop and just not feeling human. So it's a real catch 22. It's very hard to get off of it but maybe a taper is right for your son? Or even rehab?

I am so proud of you my friend. One year is a huge milestone. Your body has healed so much, that it can take you to great places in the next year. I will also always always want the euphoria but it comes with a terrible price that is never worth it. Wishing you lots of luck! Keep us posted. I hope you celebrated by treating yourself to something special.

Soooo.... Thought I'd check in. Update this thread. Somehow, I don't know how, that terrible cloud passed. I'm once again sleeping a lovely eight hours a night. I've always been fortunate that I fall asleep the moment my head hits the pillow and then I wake up all good - and that's mostly returned. It's very painful to not be able to sleep and my heart goes out to people with insomnia. My appetite also returned. And although I'm dealing with some real, not just in my head but real, challenges in my life, I'm doing fairly well at keeping things in perspective. I've enjoyed life. Good food, good company, good work, good workouts, good experiences. I think of adderall every single day. It's the instant feel good I crave. But I also can't believe how good life can be without it. Life is far from perfect, I have plenty reason to complain, and yet sometimes you let a cloud pass and it's kind of sweet on its own.

Fof4ever, so sorry for what you're going through. Honestly, I wouldn't guess that this type of behavior is due to his rx. Anything is possible, but I'd look at other culprits. Could he be doing other drugs? An illicit relationship? If he had started stims for the first time, I'd say it's more likely. But considering that 1) he was already on stims for many months (adderall) AND 2) he has been off of the stims for four days without any change, I would say look for other causes. The most radical effects that stimulants have stop within two days and he should be going through withdrawal, lethargy, sleeping. You should see a very radical shift in him fairly quickly, even if not for the better. This sounds like a very ambiguous situation and given that so many factors can be involved, it's hard to say anything from where I'm sitting.

Well, it's no longer a problem! Been taken care of...

Hullo. Still didn't jump! So Wednesday I decided to finally give up. Time to catch a break! I'm doing it, back on the magic pills! But it was late, I had work the next day and couldn't afford to stay up all night tossing and turning. I needed sleep. Pushed it off. Thursday's workday was too boring to waste on breaking my streak so I scheduled it for Saturday. So Saturday comes and I feel like shit and I'm ready for relief. I'm on the way to the gym and my mind runs its anxious monologue that goes like this. "What did I feel? Was that another pinch? Oh god, it's definitely now something I need to go to the doc for! So I will need a referral to a specialist, some scans, I'll stay calm, no reason to act like a neurotic maniac when I'm not one (lol) but omg, it's going to be so stressful and when do I have the time..." etc etc. I've had anxiety before but this kind of obsessive thought loops is a whole other level. And when it happens it always gets interrupted by "omg, I'll take adderall! phew, whew, relief! I can taste the happiness already! Turns out the whatever pinch or stab or ache is not a problem - all I need to do is go home and take the adderall. It'll kick in and I'll spend the day painting something gorgeous and feeling like a million dollars. So there. The pinch is fixed in a very roundabout and easy way." And then the niggling voice: "you sure that's going to end as happily? What after? What about a month later when I can't move without the pill, and I'm a cripple and recluse? When I'm still painting, eating shit, not working out, not talking to anyone, not taking care of all the ordinary everyday things that it takes to run my life??" And on and on.... So it goes inside my head. So on impulse, while I am going through this thought process for the umpteenth time, I decide that I am only making things harder by debating the IFs. "Stop making it an option!" I conclude, and impulsively call home and ask for the adderall to be trashed. And I feel awful despair over it. What am I to do about a pinch now, huh? So I get home and I've patted myself on the back and all and made my peace. And guess what. The adderall is there. No one bothered! So it's been sitting on my desk next to me all day. Not gonna throw it out myself. This shit is like gold to me. Too valuable. So it sits here... My sweet little blue devils.

Faith and Hope - I like the name. And I never heard of the program Able To. Thanks much! I will look into it now.

How wonderful! Congrats on one year, GRF. I'm so proud of you. Hoping my lizard brain will be inspired by your journey and that I'll make it to the my one year quit date in August.

Hello. Hope everyone is well. I called around looking for a therapist. This guy asks me what the situation is, and I tell him that I'm struggling with intense depression. He asked me to tell him more, and I explain that I've taken myself off an adderall script that I was incredibly dependent on, and that I'm still struggling to adjust to life without it. He tells me: "Here's what I need you to do. Go on to your insurance carrier's website and look for a psychiatrist. Not a therapist. A psychiatrist. Make an urgent appointment and explain to your psychiatrist what happened. You took yourself off an ADHD medication that you need. That could be extremely dangerous. You need to first get sorted out on the medications you need, and then we can talk therapy." Lol. I thanked him... even though his raising such alarms over the cessation of amphetamines is absurd to me. Guess who will NOT be my therapist! In other news - I've looked at my journal from 2020 when I experienced a few very hard months. It's so interesting. All I did then to get through those hard times was ONE thing: take adderall. It fixed everything. I spent all my time online on forums browsing away, doing nothing else, until a few months later it passed. Meanwhile, in this depression of 2022 sans the magical crutch I've dealt with it so differently. I've taken care of my physical and mental health in various ways, I've joined support groups, reconnected with old friends and made new ones, turned to family for support, taken up a few hobbies, taken up running, signed up for a class, cut out certain bad stuff from my diet, and began cooking good foods - among other things. So while this time it sucks so much more, I struggle so much more, the pain is also motivating me to fix things. I really believe we need to face our pain because it is often a signal that something wrong in our lives, something we need to fix. Numbing ourselves feels like a great shortcut, but then the problems remain. The single thing that's kept me from going back on this demon numbing drug (and wasting another half year of my life tweaked out and isolated and hurting the people who love me) is that I see that I'm a better person without it. Still -- the shortcut beckons day and night!

So I'm coming here to try to update. Just to kind of keep myself accountable. So far, things haven't changed. I'm still on the edge. I haven't told anyone in my life because I am afraid they'll stop me. I feel like I'm going through such a hard time - when it rains it pours, and it's been pouring! Now I have a medical issue that's really distressing me and I'm going to the doc for tomorrow. I just often have this internal monologue of "I can't, I can't, I can't!" that goes along with a visual of turning to the drug. I'm such an addict. I've always had an addictive personality up to the wazoo. I just never found the perfect thing to be addicted to until adderall. You can be addicted to food, and workouts and whatever else, but it's never this intensely life changing as stimulants have been for me. It never is that wildly a quick-fix. Adderall can feel so benign, which makes it also so dangerous. Because first thing you know you're taking a bit just to take the edge off, and then it's a half year later and your body can't do a thing without the help of this drug. I wish I was one of those people who happed off and never looked back but I wouldn't be me if that were true! Anyway, let's see how much more frustration and hardship life throws at me and how long I can hold out...

Faith, I'm so glad you made an account! I love reading other people's journeys and I am so glad for other people who share, especially now as the site is not very active. Welcome! And yes, this demon pill robs you of personality and turns you into something else. It can have such a powerful grip but it takes something so vital from us. So many people describe themselves as being humorless robots on it. Or recluses with weird obsessions. Bring back flawed, struggling, complex humans who can laugh and be imperfectly perfect!

Ha ha, love the crudeness - well said. I do feel like my addiction to speed is very similar to an addiction to alcohol. It is in the same category of that terrific quick fix that feels like it can solve everything instantaneously! But oh.... it is such a devilish liar!!

I absolutely believe this to be true. I really think that there is a combination of physical adjustment and behavioral/environmental elements that make getting off adderall so hard. So it's not just that your physical body is recovering in isolation; it is interacting with the larger world and receiving messages from the outside and adjusting accordingly. For me, for seven years, my body learned very strongly that pain is alleviated by taking the magical pill. And when I'm in pain, that's all my body wants. It's almost like it doesn't know how to say "she's feeling like shit; time for her to have a good cry and feel better." All my body can do with pain is demand the pill, and that becomes a whole spiral. The body is incredibly adaptive and long term use of a medication that you can take on demand really adapts the body. And while my body was doing okay without the pill when times were okay, once the going got tough I just couldn't cope. Never in my life experienced depression like this. But it helps me to believe that pushing through this will make me stronger, and that next time things go south, I'll naturally deal with things better. I'm hoping...

Well, so far I made it another day! You've encouraged me and inspired me. Let's keep updating here. Hope to congratulate you on your one year. What's your quit date?

Well - update. I made it through yesterday. I was SO close to taking some, I could already taste it. I somehow didn't. Made myself do a little shopping. Then a little cooking which came out really good. Then some lovely puzzling - that relaxed me. Also caught up with some good friends. Lately I've been doing cold showers and baths, or running, but yesterday I didn't have the energy for anything. But I didn't take any, and I was glad of it. Today is the same battle all over again. I know I remain on the verge of getting back into it, because if I had any courage I'd tell people in my life I'm not telling anyone because I don't want them to make me throw it away. We'll see what happens. Yes no yes no yes no yes no. That's the song in my head!

I wish I could go in on the pact! It's a good idea. I just feel like - I got it in my head that I can't deal with the struggle anymore and now my mind is sort of made up. I don't know how to undo it. I am playing the tape forward and telling myself "it will only be for a month until I'm out of the pits". Will that be it? Or will my brain again build up dependency and then I won't be able to imagine life without it? I can't see the future, I can't play the tape!

Hello, First of all, I want to say that I have read all the conversations on this forum, and they helped me immensely. I did not reply to any of them because... well, they are typically very old and I'm sure the users have long since moved on to new struggles and triumphs, and also because I could not get approved for an account on this site. I guess it was the spamprotection. Anyway, today I finally decided to try to create an account on my computer instead of my phone and huzzah, I'm in! So I want to say a thank you to everyone who years ago (or recently) shared their deepest struggles, thoughts, triumphs, questions, and more. Many of the posts had no response or very little engagement, and the authors might have felt ignored, but I want to say that at least one person out there read everything on here and is grateful. NOW - for my saga. It's not at all different from any of the stories here. From the moment I tried my first bit of adderall, I was smitten. It was my first experience with a substance that made me feel good. I had always felt good based on my moods or life circumstances. I had never tried drugs, no psychiatric drugs, nothing. I tried alcohol, it didn't do anything for me. But adderall was amazing! I felt like a goddess. Not only was my mood amazing, but my work was too. Oh, but wait, there's more. For the first time ever, I couldn't give a damn about what other people said or thought! I lived for me! My books, my work, my projects, my hobbies. It was perfect. That was seven years on 20mg. I don't need to tell you how this goes. It wasn't perfect. I THOUGHT it was perfect. What felt like me living for me, was me actually alienating and pushing away my whole social circle and neglecting important people's events, not inviting them to mine and not going to theirs, and ultimately, destroying these relationships. And what felt like amazing work was me just hyper focused on whatever insanity I'd gotten obsessed with. Sometimes it was good work, more often it was completely unimportant, lost-in-the-woods nonsense. If I look back at those seven years, I'm at once surprised by the amount of work I did and by how little of it mattered. I also do some writing and public speaking, and I can see now, by looking back at recordings and writing of the time, how much of it was garbage. I spoke too much! I was too tangentential! I thought I was brilliant, but I was often far too much. A lot less is more. I also realized that while I was so enjoying my great hobbies and all, I was completely living in my head. I was like divorced from my body; not taking care of it, not feeding it properly, nothing. I was all brains, no bod! And that is no good. I piled on weight, I didn't work out, I ate all the wrong foods. That then affected me in all the nasty ways weight gain affect us and I looked like shit which made me hide even more. Plus - on top of all this, I had only two working modes on adderall: intense happy working mode, and absolutely (abso-fuckin-lutely) couch locked. I just didn't do anything like a normal person, and I kept wondering how ordinary people had it in them to just keep doing all these minor chores and social things! All this only dawned on me after many, many years of feeling like my little blue pills were my best friend and the best thing to ever happen to me. It was a very slow process of learning. I learned it accidently: first, I tried to take some drug holidays for tolerance. Off of it for a bit, I began to see my adderall use in a whole new light. Eventually, I realized that I was destroying myself with those pills. (I never thought they were good for my health in the first place, and I often nicknamed them my "favorite poison", but I figured if it was so magical, it was worth the health consequences.) So alas, I decided to try to stop for a bit. And then I stopped for longer, and ever longer. And huzzah, suddenly I was adderall free! I felt like a huge battle was being won, and I was letting go of a very unhealthy, very intertwined relationship! I was also losing weight, socializing, doing work, and I was so fucking proud of myself. I was rebuilding myself without my whole life revolving around a pill. And while I struggled a lot, I felt like it was the only way for me to have a future. Unless I wanted to live forever like a recluse in couchlock coming down or going up, tweaking out on nonsense, I needed to fight hard to learn to go without this drug. And so it went, for nearly a year. Now I've hit something that I can only describe as the most acute depression imaginable. I've never had anything like it. It's like - while I sleep, terrible thoughts creep into my mind, and they wake me. It keeps happening! Every five minutes! I fall asleep and the terrible ruminations begin, worrying about the future and all sorts of worst-case scenarios, and then they jolt me awake! During the day too, I feel mostly despair. I think this depression was brought on, in part, by hard times in my life. But I know without a doubt in my mind that I wouldn't feel this way if I was still on adderall. And so, that's all that's playing in my head: take adderall and feel better. Enough with this suffering! It can't go on like this! You live once! Etc.... I feel like I'm just about to relapse. In fact, this Sunday I kind of had some dustings of the blue - not enough to feel it, but enough for me to surprise myself. I then rushed to my doctor for a prescription of Wellbutrin. I figured: I'd rather try a new devil than this old devil that is so hard to kick. Maybe Wellbutrin will alleviate things a bit without throwing me back down this dark deluded hole. Well, I took the Wellbutrin and spent two days in hell with my heart pounding out of my chest and the most intense anxiety imaginable. I decided it's not for me. I imagine some people would wait it out longer; I just can't deal with that kind of physical and mental torture. So now I'm back to no defense from the lure of the little blue pill fix. I'm thinking 24/7 about adderall. I can't decide if I simply should go on it for a bit, to build a bridge to a better place, or if I'm making a big mistake by taking that route. I honestly have no clarity. I'm writing here more for myself than to anyone, in hopes that writing this out will give me clarity. But it only causes me more despair. I suppose most people in my situation would take another psych drug but I hesitate to put my poor body through more of these harsh pharma compounds. This is a long post - I just wanted to put my dilemma down. My apologies for the ramble. I hope I feel better soon without breaking my streak. In the meantime, thanks for everyone on here for sharing their journeys.