Doge

I check this site as often or more often than facebook or my email. When I go a few days without checking back here (when I'm travelling or something) it doesn't take long before the cravings start to creep back in. I have an immensely long way to go still in my recovery.

It sounds like you are still wrestling with the question of whether or not you are addicted. Once you've binged. You are addicted. That's simple. Tell each and every one of them you are addicted and not to ever give or sell you another pill. Your noticeable resistance to taking that admittedly difficult step is more evidence of addiction. I don't mean to come across as judgmental in any way whatsoever. I have been where you are and probably much worse. I'm just trying to tell it like it is. I wish I could go back and tell myself so I could have gotten off the destructive path sooner.

nothing you tell yourself will work to stop the rationalization - addiction is like a split personality. once the romanticization starts you simply wont want to talk yourself out of it. tell whoever is supplying you that you are addicted and you need them to stop supplying you. if they are a decent human being they will respect your wishes, otherwise unless they are a thug and you are actually afraid they will hurt you, just threaten to narc on them if that's what it takes.

OH my god. Your usage most closely resembles mine compared to any other story I've ever read. I would go through the same cycle. Binge, then detox until available again. Never using daily and usually only going up to 2months clean until I could get my hands on more and the temptation was just too great. Don't let those clean periods fool you. Addiction is addiction and it is growing stronger every time you go back to it. Please read my original story here and see if it resembles your current situation. http://forum.quittingadderall.com/topic/2439-external-intervention/?hl=%2Bexternal+%2Bintervention If so there is only one way to quit. Make sure you do not have access. Do whatever you have to do or this will kill you eventually.

Burger King - I fucking hate myself.

Sorry I know nothing about the area but I am rooting for you. I'm glad you are reaching out.

Hoping for the best outcome for your family.

Thanks for sharing all of this Greg. I agree with others that you most definitely do not suck at your job. IIRC you barely started a little while ago. Everyone has a hard time with learning curves nowadays. Imagine being on adderall, and having people trying to train you get frustrated because you keep interupting them and going down tangents on unimportant details because you are jacked up on speed and NEED TO UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING RIGHT FUCKING NOW OMG and not able to stay calm and have a natural ability to prioritize important information and stay patient with things that don't matter as much right now. I know you are smart for sensing your vulnerability early and dealing with it right away. You are going to be great at this before you know it!

Me too! I got blasted with my family on the 29th at a celebration-sort of thing. I felt so much better today. NEVER DRINKING AGAIN

This is a hugely important thing to accept and is soooo easy to forget.

Nowhere near seattle and don't know anything about ED, but we're here for you on this site to help in any way we can! 5 weeks is awesome! You must be feeling some awesome effects of quitting already even though its hard amirite?

Hi there, it's great of you to reach out for help. Trying to help your wife is the best thing you can do for your wife and children. I don't know what to say about your situation except maybe offer a bit of my perspective with a few key things I noticed in your post. Don't feel like a dumbass. We addicts are incredibly good at hiding things from others. Unfortunately you cannot control others and it is ultimately going to be up to your wife to take the first step. But the way you are choosing to educate yourself and look for solutions is only going to make it easier for her when the time comes. Your family is lucky to have you. As for not knowing why she takes them and doesn't need them. I remember going through a phase like this before I finally admitted I was addicted. It took me a long time to admit it to myself. On low doses of adderall (like 5mg) I always found myself intensely good at conversations. No matter how off-topic the other persons rambling was, I would calmly look them right in the eye and listen carefully to everything they said and respond brilliantly. Once I started getting addicted and going into higher doses, (I would only talk to people on the phone, because in person it was obvious I was high) I would just never shut up and I would just dominate the conversation until nobody wanted to talk to me. This is unfortunate to hear. No recovery can even begin unless she admits that there is a problem. I have to agree with the others that the rock bottom is yet to come. I literally just woke up and haven't had my coffee yet so take this possibly inappropriate piece of advice with a grain of salt. Don't leave the kids with her. Go for full custody yourself when you get divorced. Hopefully that is enough to get her on the road to recovery. Your kids need their mom; but they need their real mom. Yeah its pretty stealthy and hard to detect. The single most telling symptom I exhibited was not being able to look people directly in the eye for more than a second or so when talking to them. But everyone is different, and if she's been on pills this whole time she will just appear to you to be looking normal I guess.

awesome you are doing so well!

This is IMO the biggest reward of quitting. You can find out what your body is ACTUALLY capable of doing. While the high of adderall is empowering in some twisted sense, life while abusing adderall is anything but....

Welcome to the boards! The circumstances will never be perfect and adapting to life without the drug will never be pleasant. The longer you wait, the harder it will be. BUT... that certainly doesn't mean strategy in choosing the timing for your quit isn't a good idea. This is probably something you and your husband can come up with a plan for. My opinion: Rather than endure the agony of these meltdowns every time you adjust your medication downward, most people on this site will attest to the fact that quitting cold-turkey and just ripping the bandaid off in one go was the best approach (myself included). If you decide to try tapering, which it sounds like you are doing, that may be best if you need to be present at your business. It's all about deciding what's important. Inconveniently, being under the influence of adderall makes it quite difficult to correctly determine what is truly important. Fortunately you have a husband who you can hopefully lean on during this difficult time. Good luck! Wishing you the best. Post lots and let us know how you are doing and if/how we can help!

First of all, welcome to the boards. I'm so happy to see you made the decision to end this madness. You seem to be conflicted on some things and I would like to respond to a couple of your statements. This is only half the story. If you ask us, "How long until I feel exactly like I did before adderall and am completely recovered?". Then yes the answer is many years. But instead ask the question, "How long will it take for me to start feeling happy without the pills again, and able to function like a normal human being. How long until I can feel genuine emotion again, without all the horrifying side-effects of pounding heartbeat, profuse sweating, jaw clenching, paranoia, rage, anxiety (I could go on and on)?". Then the answer is a happier one. I was almost exclusively a binge user for the record, and when I finally quit my official crash period was about 10 days. Within two weeks I was beginning to feel occasional waves of peace. Within 3 months I had a way more positive outlook on life. Now I'm approaching 7 months and I hardly think about it at all. When I do think about it, it's like, "Thank God I don't have to deal with that anymore." I don't even think about the high anymore I just think about the pain it caused. This is not true. The healthier you eat, the faster you will recover, and some exercise always help. But I chuckled a bit when you said "strict healthy diet". I ate so much unhealthy food: pizza, chips, frozen food from costco, chocolate, ice cream, etc. And I lay around as much as I possibly could just being lazy and binge watching netflix. This is initial recovery. Just drag your ass to work for the minimal expectation to not get fired, and then drag your ass back to the couch/bed/TV whatever. It does pass in time and you emerge the better for it. This made me laugh because it took me back to those binges. I would do sometimes between 100 and 200 mg (my highest was 300mg) in a single binge, working on what I felt was groundbreaking at the time. Now that you word it like that I must have felt like I really was inventing some sort of world saving device when really I might was well have been using a pencil to colour the squares on endless sheets of graph paper. I can't tell you how good it feels to be done with that. The years just whizzed by. This one does concern me. I hope that you do not know the combination to that safe. Once the initial crash ends, the adderall truly starts to work its evil on your brain and it is SOOO tempting to go back to those pills. If you really want to quit. Tell your doctor about the binges and tell them you're addicted and have him/her cut you off. I relapsed like 20 times man. I could have been getting sober a long time ago but I just kept going back to the pills once I craved them. The addict inside us tells us its harmless to just go back for *only one pill*. It convinces us that the pills were way better than they were. It makes us forget the negative side effects, the comedown, the crash. Worst of all, it tells us we aren't addicted anymore. Prepare yourself for the overwhelming desire to use again, and it may not hit for several weeks or months, but it'll come. You do not want those pills anywhere near you when it hits. Fortify yourself with safety nets because you won't want to go through this again. Aside from that, let me welcome you again. Thanks for sharing your story. Let us know how we can help. Post lots and check out the 30 day challenge in "Tell Your Story"!

Hey! I was just thinking of you today, wondering how you were doing and where you went! So glad to hear you are still on track! Congratulations can't wait to hear your story.

Totally. I remember this feeling. I was always racing against the clock because anxiety about "how long do I have before this wears off and I start to feel like shit again.....???" was always racing through my mind. Hi Andi, are you new to the forum? are you struggling with the decision to quit? are you looking for support? We're here.

Maybe Russian Roulette should be approved for treatment of boredom.

Did your latex get cut off or was that part of the joke?

Waaaaaat?!!? I wanna watch!

Definitely indulge in something awesome to celebrate!

I'm very proud of you. I'm sure you already know it but there will be tough times ahead still. I was plagued by thoughts such as "Oh, I'm not addicted anymore, I should get some and just use responsibly now...." or the very evil lie that "I quit once for two months, it wasn't really that bad.... I could just quit again" NEVER EVER forget how hard you had to fight to get to where you are now. Adderall temptation will try to tell you that it was easy. Sorry for this unsolicited ranting. It's just that I'm very excited for you and I happened to have some deadly cravings around the 3 month mark that almost completely annihalated my recovery and sent me back down a path of destruction.

It sounds almost exactly like the adderall articles I read when I was first exploring the drug and considering trying it.