Doge

@LILTEX41I'm so happy for you. You made it back into the zone! I'm so sorry to hear about your fur baby's brain tumor. They really do leave us too soon. I wish we could give them some of our years. I'm glad you added new kittens to your family. They are so helpful with healing the broken heart.

Hi dyingalive, Please call you prescriber and tell them what's happening. It's scary to do so because they'll take the pills away but this is what you know needs to happen. You said it yourself. "Something is going to happen" if you don't stop. And you will die. Going through almost 4g in 4 days is taking an incredible toll on your body and health. We're here to support you but we can only do so much as we are strangers on the internet. Please, please, please seek help in person. I don't know much about the symptoms you describe but you may very well need medical attention already. Have you eaten? Haven you taken fluids? What you're describing sounds scary. Take care of yourself, we want you to get well!

Thanks to you also. We all need eachother!

PS - welcome! It may be therapeutic to tell your story (as much as you feel comfortable sharing). We want to know you and be here for you!

Congrats on 4 months clean by the way. That's the hardest part by far. I know what you mean about the intense cravings. I'm at about the 6 month mark after my (most recent) relapse and I've been feeling them too. I admit I've even been looking for new health clinics, plotting to get another assessment so I can get a new prescription. It's like you work so hard to talk yourself out of it, then spend a few minutes feeling positive and proud of yourself, only to have your thoughts turn towards it again. It really wears you down. I don't want to relapse again though. It's NOT worth it. I can speak from experience though, this is normal for this part of your timeline. Just take it one day at a time and do the BARE MINIMUM to get by in the meantime. That's awesome you haven't been drinking as alcohol is something I can blame almost every relapse on, at least partially. And yeah, it would be nice to have superpowers but that just not what the drug does for me anymore. I'd take it, do a couple hours of work, and then do exactly what you said -- slam an entire bottle in one night and be cracked out for a day and a half, left to pick up the pieces. Have you ever been to a narcotics anonymous meeting? I went to my first one a few days ago. I plan to go back once my schedule permits, at least once or twice per week. I didn't share, just listened, which everyone was fine with. And even listening to others really helps get your head back in the right space. They have online ones over discord now too so you TRULY are anoymous. Fire me a DM if you'd like the link. Posting on here is great too. Stay strong, friend, we love you!

This is so awesome to hear. Congratulations in advance! Take yourself out for dinner or treat yourself to something. 2 years is an amazing milestone to reach!. I loved reading your last paragraph!

So happy for you! Going back to it is common. I was clean for 6 years then went back to it in February. Glad to hear your outlook is so positive. Congratulations on having your child. Sure puts that 20lbs in perspective!

It's hard to say based on what you have said. But bravo to your son, who definitely dodged a bullet. ADHD stimulants seem wonderful at first, but then they start taking more and more away from you. As for your ex-wife, only she knows what's happening. I don't know what to suggest other than be ready to offer support for her and your kids as much as possible. Best wishes!

setbacks are gods setups for the bounce up. i love it

Hey @rosarita98168 to be honest sometimes it does feel that way, especially when you're picking yourself up off the ground from the lowest of lows. But ultimately, no, as long as you catch it fairly quickly, you don't go back to square one -- not even close. Speaking from experience, it's been 2 and a half months for me now, and aside from one fleeting thought that didn't last more than a minute or so, I haven't had a single craving. And I've barely thought about it, almost to the point of erasing the whole 3 month 'incident' from my memory. But to be fair that's not really a good thing. I should be reflecting on it more. But anyways the point is, this would have been unheard of for me back years ago when I first quit, where the first couple of months felt like the whole theme of every day was surviving the day without pills.

Yeah whenever you feel like shit and are hating on yourself for not having motivation, just remember by quitting you are doing something incredibly difficult. So if at all possible try to give yourself some grace. Do the bare minimum and congratulate yourself for it.

I promise you will continue to improve drastically, but it takes time and it is not linear. That is, some weeks might feel much worse than the week before. But overall you will notice an upward trend for years to come. As far as needing the energy earlier in the day, I sympathize. Maybe changing your sleep patterns would help? I know this is easier said than done, but melatonin helps a tonne in case you haven't tried it before. And HELL YEA on 2 months -- you ROCK. Let us know when the day hits so we can celebrate it together!

congrats cheesy! soon you'll be celebrating two months!

@LILTEX41 yep all is well with me, thanks for asking! but im already getting lazy and not checking this site frequently enough! *wags finger at himself*

Thank you @quit-once! I remember your story also about how you planned your quit so thoroughly and made it successful. Your dedication to recovery and the success of everyone else is so awesome. When I fuck up, I often ask myself, "what would quit-once say...", and I have imagined you in the back of my mind telling me when I need to do better. I'm glad your friend was able to quit as well. Amphetamines are so vicious. And you are right -- disaster is avoidable, but it's always freely available. Thanks for your comment and for checking in @LILTEX41! Your positivity and support helped me so much during those early years when it seemed impossible to get moving again. Funny you should mention that... I was already lurking here in February while waiting for my assessment/pills, probably thanks to the sane side of me knowing I was headed for a train-wreck. I hadn't taken the plunge yet, but the slip/relapse/whatever had already been set in motion as I had made up my mind to take the drugs again as soon as I got my hands on them. Anyways the story you shared a few months ago was on my mind the whole time, and was a huge part of the reason I was able to turn things around in time. So thank you so much for sharing your update when you did -- your timing was impeccable.

craving normalcy

I definitely forgot about adderall for the most part, and would often go months and months and months without it ever crossing my mind. When I did think of it occasionally, usually it'd just be something like "oh man, thank god I'm not living like that anymore". Good news is I forgot about adderall, bad news is I also forgot what it's like to be a junkie. It's been so long now that the timeline isn't totally clear, but I think around the 2 year mark is where I REALLY started to feel like "hey, I don't need that shit and I am so much better off without it". This is around the time I finally started losing all the weight I gained too. I think if I would have stuck around the forums this relapse wouldn't have happened. For context, I was never an every day user. I was always a "take the entire month's worth in a day and a half", spend 3-4 days recovering, then spend the next 3 weeks anxiously waiting to get my hands on more. Congratulations on 22 months. You are doing so awesome!!!!

Hell yeah, congrats on 6 years. I remember your name too. You're doing awesome! Thanks so much for the kind words.

Note: This was posted yesterday in General Discussion, but has been moved here. It's been an awful long time since I've had any sort of presence here, and many of the names I see are new, but I'm so glad to see this community is still going strong! As the post title suggests, I was doing very well for quite a long time (about 6 years) but I fell off the wagon a few months ago unfortunately. Today I mean to get back on track so I'm going to start off by sharing a bit here. To summarize my usage history, my addiction began the exact same day my honeymoon period ended, which was the day of my first binge, some time in May of 2013. For the next five years I would continue using on and off in some capacity. I didn't have an ADHD diagnosis, but I had a friend who took dexedrine and was prescribed way more than he was taking, so he would often hook me up. But rest assured however many pills I could get my hands on were gone in 24 hours. During that five year period I quit many times, but always seemed to go back to it eventually. The most important lesson I learned during that time is that I could not count on my willpower, no matter how strong or confident I may have felt at any point in time. I needed to cut off my source. While I found the necessary steps to be extremely difficult, it was simple. All I needed to do was admit to my friend who supplied me that I would usually popped 20 (or more) in a single day. When I did, he was as horrified as I was, gave me a tonne of shit for it, and next time I asked him for more he said no. And that was all it took to free me from amphetamine prison for 6 years. So what the hell happened!? I have long suspected I had ADHD, but was never diagnosed as a child. And this year I have been struggling both to keep up my performance at work and stay on top of life's demands, and have been dwelling on it lately and obsessing over whether I have it. My rationalization is that I was seeking to validate the difficulties I'm having, but obviously my addicted self was plotting to get amphetamines as well. I should probably see about speaking with a counsellor to help me work through some of this. Anyways, this March I managed to get myself in for an assessment, get a diagnosis for ADHD, and was prescribed Vyvanse. The rest of the story writes itself. I managed to take the medication as prescribed for exactly four days, and then on the fifth day I went through the rest of the bottle, and subsequently had to cover for myself by calling in sick at work. And suddenly I'm right back in prison again, arguing endlessly with myself over whether this was a correctable mistake or a foregone conclusion all along. When I got my refill in April, the first day I took 6 days' worth, a few days later I took 9, then a few days after that I took the other 15. And I was still arguing with myself, insisting I could fix this without quitting. I was scared by this point, as I didn't know how long it would take to actually take me to do what was necessary. A heavy cloud of dread was hanging over me. Was I going to continue this for a month or two first? Maybe it would be a whole year, which was more than enough time to light match to so many things I've worked so hard for. I've already seen that for me, the only way to be able to stop is to cut off the source. But every time that idea popped into my head I would immediately shoot it down and just make excuses and assure myself that next month would be different. When I chose this path, I let go of the steering wheel, so to speak. And there are no guarantees of when you're going to get control of it again. I got May's refill about a week ago and binged immediately, and then again a couple days later. Last night, as I was losing the battle with myself over whether to just have round three right then and there, I compromised with myself that I could go ahead and do whatever I wanted, as long as I let my doctor know first thing in the morning to inform them of what was going on. My inner crackhead found this to be acceptable, so we shook hands on it. So he got to get high one last time, and as usual I cleaned up the aftermath. Thankfully I followed through the next morning, the wave of relief felt so good afterwards I cried. I managed to get a bit of sleep, but otherwise this post was the only thing I accomplished today. I feel like absolute dogshit, but I'm so happy to be free.

Imagine if Frodo never let go of the ring. (Well I think he tried to keep it but still that's not the point).

-burntout! (smushed em together to make them one word) edit: oh yeah and TGIF!!!!!!!

amen

Here here!

Agreed with other people above! Now you have a firm reminder why you quit. Focus on the future, and rest assured things will get better faster than last time, at least for the first couple weeks. You can bounce back from this! The fact that you are already being honest with yourself is a great sign! What's the plan to prevent this from happening again? Do you have any bridges (access to refills down the road) left unburnt? Burn them!

How about just one more day? Can you handle it for one more day? Try to keep yourself thinking in those terms. Because then tomorrow, you can ask yourself the same question. Can you take it for just one more day? Just focus on the next step which is getting through the day. You don't have to deal with the whole upcoming year right now. Just today. It sounds cheesy but I promise it helps! A few of those days go by and then you probably had at least one that was a sliver better than days past, and it will gradually get easier with time. This too shall pass. PS - I really miss the tickers in our signatures. It used to be so encouraging to watch it go up each day. :'(