[Cold water immersion- an absolute GAME CHANGE]

If you’re going through either acute/post acute withdrawals and haven’t tried it yet, you must give it a try!

cold water immersion (anything below 60f/16c) increases your dopamine and adrenaline and brings you back to life for a few hours, there isn’t anything I can think of besides drugs that comes anywhere near this.

Start with the higher end of the temp range and go for at least 5 min, it will be hard at first but you will get used  to the feeling and come to crave it in time (there will always be some resistance, but real dopamine takes pain before it can be produced). Try to take deep slow and control breathes and use the time to meditate and contemplate, soon the dopamine rush will start coming up your head in a very similar fashion it does with adderall.

Im very fortunate to have a cold cree running near my house where I can practice this in nature, but when I’m at my parents I use the bathtub. It takes a lot of ice to get the bathtub cold enough, depending on where you live and how cold the water already is in summer.. here it’s about 25c/77f so I need to use about 90 lbs of ice, my paretents have a pretty big freezer so I fill up large plastic containers with water, freeze them and throw inside the bathtub while it’s getting filled up. I use a kitchen thermometer to measure the temp although you will probably know if it’s cold enough by just getting in and feeling that first shock.

Use the rush of energy and the need to warm up to get some exercise right away, you will feel amazing afterwards.

I know this sounds like a big hassle but the effects are absolutely worth it.

 

 

 

[3.5 Years Clean]

Congrats! I also tapered but only took me about 2 months (should have taken it much more slowly in hindsight), could you please share you taper schedule and whether you had any withdrawal symptoms? Also, what was your dose?

 

Thanks

[Made it to six weeks - feeling blah]

It does get better, but it’s a very slow process. It’s currently 4 months since I quit, and I will start to have stretches of better days but then there are also still stretches of bad days where I am incredibly fatigued and depressed. I was noticing I was drinking a good amount of coffee to deal with the fatigue and it actually made my symptoms worse so I’m currently cutting that out as well and it some seem to help a bit with my recovery.

 

[Waves of paws]

9 hours ago, sirod9 said:

You're welcome. Yes, the stories "seem" scary. I used to read them when I was just thinking of quitting and I had the same thoughts. In hindsight, it was my addiction that made everything seem scary. honestly, continuing adderall is much more scary. Adderall provides a false sense of control, and feeling the discomfort of withdrawal "seems" so incredibly out of control. Again, everything "seems" that way, meaning it is just our perception of it. 

As for my use story - Towards the end, I was using 90 to 200 milligrams a day for 6 years. so if I can do it, you certainly can! My addiction was pretty bad, so I had to flush my remaining pills and inform my prescribing doctor about my misuse of the drug. I literally had to tell them "do not prescribe to me as I am a liability." I tried every other way to quit, weaning myself off, quitting while keeping a "just in case" bottle, simple drug breaks, etc. I always went back to the drug, and ended up in the same place.

Out of everything, work is the biggest brain drain. And my motivation returns in spurts, and while my job is important and I stay on top of things, sitting in front of a computer for 8 hours a day is a UGH. Luckily, I have a good job, with good people, and I am good enough at what I do to keep my job. When I quit, I did inform my manager that I was struggling with prescription addiction and was quitting under the supervision of a therapist (who was available should documentation be needed). I let her know I needed to take a week off, and that the first year I may not perform above and beyond. They were very understanding and did not burden me with too much stuff. That also served as another point of accountability. Now my employer knew, so I had to quit for good!

The fact that you were taking such a low dose, you may experience a shortened recovery timeline. And the fact that you experience so much physical discomfort while using, is a blessing. How long did you use for?

Yes I was using a relatively low dose but I would pretty much always combine it with a bunch of other (non prescription) stims in order to magnify the effect.. 20mg plus 500mg of caffeine, yohimbine, l tyrosine etc can go a very long way.

I would also take it with sodium bicarbonate which increases the absorption and thus the effect due to its alkalinity. I would take all that as I woke up in the morning (or rather night) and go workout right away which would increase the effect even further.

I knew that asking for a higher dose would raise some red flags so I basically did everything in my power to get the most insane stimulus from what I had.

All in all I was on it for 3.5 years while actually being addicted for about 2.5 of those years with no breaks or anything like that.

I’m actually really happy I didn’t look up much on these stories before quitting as I probably wouldn’t do it knowing what is about to come.. I honestly thought that after a couple of weeks of feeling a bit low I’ll be good hah.

But now at least I have faith that things will get better eventually, if I didn’t know about paws and the fact that recovery is simply a long ass process I would have thought i made permanent damage and would have gone beck to using for sure.. with all of its negative downsides. 

[Waves of paws]

Thank you so much for your reply.

I must admit reading those stories of such long withdrawal timelines scares me quite a bit.. I'm not sure how i could handle life being so difficult for such an extended period of time..

Could you please share a bit more of your story? such as the length of time of your addiction and how bad it was in terms of dosages etc?

I have a ton of adderall left at my house as i was using a lower average dose than what i was prescribed for some time before finally quitting but i must admit i have zero cravings, adderall gives me very bad neck pain and tightness which I'm still battling with daily even though I've been off of it for a while and i simply know it will get worse if i take any and so this is more than enough to keep me away from it. now that I've also been through and still am going through the most difficult time of my life since quitting I'm simply scared like hell from this little pill.. i am so incredibly impressed by all of you who have gone through this thing, i never imagined coming off would be anywhere near as difficult as it is.

[Waves of paws]

Does anyone else experience that paws comes in waves? I’m coming up on 4 months off of addy, I almost felt like I was getting out of the woods  and then a serious wave of multiple days in a row of fatigue, extreme depression and suicidal thoughts hit me.

these days seem to come in waves of a few days in a row with stretches of almost normal feeling days in between.. this is such a non linear process which sometimes really makes me question whether I’m even making progress at all.. thoughts?

[90 days]

Thank you so much for the reply, really helps being able to discuss this with others who are going through something similar..

yes I absolutely do realize I need to get rid of those pills.. I have so many of them.. about a 9 month supply of 20 mg (I was using a lower average dosage the past year. But I’m finding this very hard to do, though I will say I have zero cravings for the drug at this point and don’t really feel a temptation to use.. something in the back of my mind kind of think I’ll be able to use them again in a lower dosage and only sparingly although I do know this is probably the disease talking in my head, I think maybe once I’ll feel better and see that I can function normally without it I will be able to truly let go.

 

It’s important to note this is my first try at quitting..I know it may not sound that bad but the withdrawals are a true bitch, I can only imagine what some of those with more serious abuse most go through..

 

[How to push past intense cravings]

Are you coming off cold turkey?

[Caffeine after quitting adderall]

Does anyone else here feel like they need to significantly limit their caffeine intake post adderall?

 

I’m 90 days off addy and find that anything beyond 1 cup per day makes things worse.. feels pretty much like a mini acute adderall withdrawal past the initial energy burst and jitters. Especially on the next day.

would love to here some thoughts and experiences from others.. anyone notice a positive effect on their journey from quitting caffeine as well?

[90 days]

Today marks day 90 since I quit adderrall, with a couple of small relapses 2 months ago

long story a little less long, I was on it pretty much daily for 3 years before I decided to quit, I had a 20mg prescription but I would take a higher dose on some days (up to 50 at times) while taking lower doses on others. During the past year the I needed it for EVERYTHING and the side effects really took off.. I would take 20mg in the morning along with a hefty caffeine dose and crash in the afternoon. I would wake up around 1-3am with pain in the back of my eyes unable to go back to sleep which I believe was the acute withdrawal symptoms. It would also give me extreme muscle twitching and neck pain/tightness which I thought would go away after I stopped using but unfortunately that’s not the case.. I am sure it’s the adderall though as during those small relapses it instantly got worse.

I had a window of opportunity with little obligation in June where I decided I would taper off and then only use it sparingly (yeah right). I tapered off in a pretty stupid way but it worked nonetheless.. I would use a gradually lower dosage every day while 3-4 days a week taking a higher dosage before a workout, I worked my way down to stupidly small dosages where I used a mg scale in order to weigh as little as 0.5mg worth of amphetamine at the end of my taper . This taper took me about 3 months until I was at zero on august 30th.. I’ve since then took 10mg a couple of times and 5 mg a couple of times on my first month off as i thought I’ll be able to use it only occasionally and feel fine.

I guess I’m not nearly as deep down the rabbit hole as some others here as I largely took my prescribed dose throughout but recovery is still insanely hard, honestly I’m happy I didn’t read up on it much before quitting as I wouldn’t have gone for it have I known I had such a long road ahead of me.. I had about a week where I felt much better but the paws hit me again a few days ago and it’s a bitch.. extreme low energy, depression and suicidal thoughts at times.  
 

im really struggling and reading some of the stories here really helps a lot, it’s great to have such a community.