Doge

1) "motivation to study" and "better work-ethic" are all middle school fairy tales. That ended a looooong time ago I know that feeling. The honeymoon stage is what everyone talks about. But us addicts know that it ends very quickly and turns into a disaster, and by the time you realize it, it has this inexplicable "grip" on you. 2) after I realized that it was mostly the psychological side of the addiction affecting me, to a certain extent, I just gave up I can definitely relate to this too. At first I was relieved to realize I wasn't just the stupid person on the planet for continuously destroying myself when I kept swearing I would stop. After a few more relapses the relief turned into despair and terror when I realized that I had totally lost control and would never be able to control it. Much like you, I just pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind and popped anything I could get my hands on. 3) haven't taken it since yesterday if I take another one now, I can just keep it regulated. This is the romanticizing that I have no doubt we all experience. It's like your mind just wants to remember how it was when you *first* starting using it. You want to re-capture that demonic productivity that first turned you onto the drug. You can use it to fix all the problems that have been piling up. But it's a lie. If we could control it and regulate it none of us would be here. ------ It sounds to me like you know you want to quit but can't stop. I was exactly there almost 3 months ago. For me the solution was obvious but it took me a while to finally gather the courage to do it: cut myself off. I confessed my addiction and permanently cut off my supply. My heart was breaking for you when I read your post as I can totally understand. We all want to help you and we are here for you. Just tell us what we can do!

That's a good one, and I forget it all too often!

That must have been horrible to go through. I can easily see myself getting to that point. I did get caught by the cops with over 50 pills on me, for which I did not have any valid prescription. Without the slightest hesitation I went and got 50 more the next day.

Oh man that one is creepy to read. Especially the screenshot of her texting her dealer. That was totally me. Ugh... it's making me want to send a text myself now..... *slap face*. No!

I was on it for 2.5 years, but I wasn't taking it as prescribed. I would binge... crash... binge... crash. etc. So I don't know how my recovery experience will compare to yours. But maybe this will be helpful, if you are wanting to try quitting cold turkey. The first 72 hours or so I felt useless. (I crashed on a 4 day weekend thankfully.) The next two weeks or so got pretty easy for me because each day I felt noticeably better than the day before. Also because I work unsupervised so I could drag my ass at work without hearing too much shit for it. Then the next month was hell. I was more or less just feeling crappy all the time. I'd have trouble sleeping, I'd start feeling exhausted by 6pm and all I could do was lie around and veg on the TV. This was crappy because it wasn't a true escape. All I could think of was how much work I was procrastinating and how much of a piece of shit I was and how I had fucked my life up. My mind was just in general in a horrible place. But every once in a while; but very rarely, I would smell a nice breeze, or just get a tingly happy feeling for no reason at all. At about the 6 week period I hit a boiling point where I was desperately seeking to get more addy. I went back to my 'doctor' who I had already asked to cut me off. Fortunately he refused to 'prescribe' me any more. This was the absolute low point for me. For the next 3 days or so I felt worse than ever. Then suddenly things progressively started getting better ever since. I recently celebrated two months clean, and I'm happy to report that the next two weeks went by really fast and things are still getting better every day. As for caffeine, be prepared to rely on it like a crutch. It won't be the same as adderall obviously but it will keep you awake at least. It sounds like you have been using for a long time, but you never mention upping your dose and binging at any point. This is a good thing. The physical dependency you will have developed will be rough to overcome. But for me this was the easy part (because I literally did it every month after I ran out way early and had to wait several weeks for a refill). The psychological addiction was a brutal battle for me and I still think about it EVERY day. I don't know the science behind it, but I'm pretty sure these binges are how you develop the psychological addiction for adderall, which lasts FAR longer than the physical withdrawals. ---- TL;DR Days 1 - 30: This may be counter-intuitive, but I felt good and positive even though I was drained. I was pretty easy on myself and just had lots of snacks and watched a lot of netflix. Days 30 - 60: I put too much pressure on myself to up my performance and these days were the worst for me. As I mentioned above around day 45 I hit my rock bottom (the worst I have ever felt since I quit). Days 60 - present: I feel way more social, and when I'm in tough situations I really feel like I **DO** have what it takes inside to get through them. I think about adderall every day, and literally consider and plot ways to get more. But the thoughts have been fading a lot quicker and the thoughts are getting easier to push away. Please post back and let us know if and how we can help! Welcome to our community! I promise you are not alone!

Not having to worry: am I going to be done this by the time my adderall wears off? I don't miss that tell-tale feeling where I realized my buzz was ending, and then being overwhelmed with the compulsion to take another pill to make it go away. And the thought in the back of my mind (and me trying to push it back further, even as the supply dwindled) dreading the fact that EVENTUALLY I'm going to have to come back to reality. I'm grateful that's gone.

60 days confirmed. (I went back and counted just to be sure.) This feels pretty good to post.

53 days confirmed. Thanks guys, last couple days have been so much better. I still have been thinking about it every day, but not like when I snapped. Been reflecting lately I think as I start to really wake up I am hit with the horrifying reality of what it took from me. What adderall offers is: "Hey I can make you stop thinking about that and escape from it again, if you just let me take the rest." Music has been a huge source of healing for me. It's been the source of most of my joy on the good days, and one of my last places to hide during the worst ones. I'm also learning to intertwining it with work in small time intervals, to rejuvenate myself and keep semi-engaged with my job.

Day 51 confirmed. Feeling way better now. I think I just hit a low point and reached out from desperation. If I hadn't have confessed my problem 51 days ago I'd probably be high right now. I'm glad I was denied and cut off. Thanks for the encouragement.

Day 47 confirmed..... Every day has been worse than the one before it seems. I finally broke down yesterday and asked for a refill and was denied. I feel sick to my stomach with humiliation. Psychologically I feel not that much different than during a crash. I guess what's what I wanted so badly... and now I got it. Update: Literally going through my crash ritual right now. Didn't even realize it until I had cleaned up a bunch of garbage and got a load of laundry started. (This is always how I would try to make myself feel better while I hated myself for relapsing). I feel so crappy right now, but at least I don't have an impending 3 day recovery period awaiting me tomorrow. Maybe this is what true recovery is supposed to feel like.....

Day 43 confirmed. Things are going fine over the last few days. I have absolutely nothing to complain about. Yet the cravings are worse than ever and I can't help but feel like I'm going to cave. Sometimes I don't think it's my willpower that's keeping me from using, but rather it's my inner addict acting strategically. This is literally my thought process sometimes: If I were to ask for more adderall now, he would just say "No! You told me to cut you off!". I would have to convince him that I'm not addicted anymore. It's too soon for that. Wait a bit longer, maybe another month or so, and then act like you just needed a break. This is usually what I'm thinking during cravings, and then after they pass I am of course glad that I'm clean and glad I couldn't get any. But due to the nature of my situation, the longer I'm clean it feels like the louder those thoughts become. When I have work to do, and the energy to do it, I'm fine. But once I get tired and it's time to relax afterwards, that's when I feel the most vulnerable. I can't seem to take pleasure in just chilling out, doing nothing. Instead I think about work, and how I'm not doing it. I'm in this constant state of discomfort/guilt. I think that's why I found early recovery so much easier. I would just sleep through all this crap.

I remember feelings of bitterness and resentment towards people that invited me to do things. HOW DARE THEY.

Day 42 confirmed. Another weird dream with a much darker theme. I got my hands on a huge bottle full of about a 2 month supply. I was about to just start going mental and having a hayday when my best friend caught me and we had a huge argument. Eventually he gave up, and somehow pulled another stash out of his pocket. He threw it on the ground and it exploded with pills flying everywhere. I scrambled to the ground to start picking them up. I barely noticed him walking away saying to go find a new friend. I was just thrilled to add his stash to mine. That pretty accurately sums up my inner addict. I was really bummed out yesterday and spent half the day plotting to get my hands on a refill so it was probably not a coincidence that I had this dream. Saddest part was, when I woke up, I was kind of disappointed that it was just a dream.

Ditto!

I don't know your situation so I won't pretend. All I can say is that I think it's amazing you have been able to stay away from it for almost two years now (from looking at your ticker). As it has already been said above, it would be such a shame to throw all that away! Edit: One thought that just occured to me.... I am horrified whenever I read the Calvin and Hobbes comic on this site, for obvious reasons. The sad reality is that outcome (just getting hyper focused on productivity and literally ignoring everything good and pure in life) is the BEST possible outcome. I don't know about you, but whenever I take those pills I feel like I experience the WORST possible outcome (taking more and more compulsively, binging and spending time doing things that absolutely horrify my true self).

Day 39 confirmed!

Awesome success story! I went back and read some of your earlier posts, sounds like you are doing awesome!

The night of my first binge was the same night that I remember fully feeling the absolute uncontrollable NEED for more cigarettes so much that I walked an hour to the nearest store at 3am to get some. That is also the night I mark as when I became officially full blown addicted. Probably not a coincidence.

Yeah I barely have any friends right now. I didn't really piss anyone off or destroy any relationships (because I didn't have many to begin with) but eventually people just gave up trying to hang out with me and stopped calling. I'm still friendly with them, but we've drifted apart. And it's not as easy to repair those friendships as I would have thought before. Others have said it like this before me but I'm working on trying to look on the bright side. It's a chance to start new, as hard as that may be.

Day 37 confirmed. Had first adderall dream last night since this last quit. It was different: I somehow got my hands on a full script bottle and I had counted out exactly 4 that I was going to allow myself. Then I thought of you guys (even in my dreams this site saves me haha) and since I couldn't face falling again I put them back in the bottle and put them away. Then I woke up. That's not how my adderall dreams go usually.

I can't really add much to this but I at the very least in my case, having healed for about 2 months and then gone back on the drug was psychologically damaging. I feel like it was where I began to really question myself and whether I really had any say in the matter. I totally lost faith in my ability to quit and I went right back to crazyland for a good 3 months. I don't have any valid medical opinion but I do think you will get a great reward from breaking through that 9 month mark where you finally feel like you are making new ground. I could just be projecting my hopes and what I want to believe. Either way hang in there it is so awesome that you made it 6 months clean I am looking up to you!

Nooooooooo doubt! At first I wasn't concerned since I only smoked cigarettes when taking adderall. When I was using it responsibly, this was usually one or two smokes maximum, because they seemed to extend the duration of the adderall high. When the binges began it was more like 2-3 packs in 36 hours. Horribly disgusting. The binges were frequent enough (sometimes weekly) that someone else smoking 1/2 a pack a day consistently would have gone through less packs. Now that I quit, cigarettes gross me out just like they did before I ever tried adderall. My ticker below might as well be for both - the only difference is I don't crave cigarettes (or maybe the post-crash cravings for adderall are really for both). I wonder if the cigarette/stimulant combination makes the stimulant addiction stronger?

Congrats on 216 days from me also. I hope everything is OK with your doctor visit. You are inspiration! If the doctor doesn't suggest it, I'm not sure how old you are but maybe ask to have your thyroid tested?

I kind of lost count now so I'll just go by my ticker. 34 days sounds about right so I'll just go with that. It's give or take a day from that anyway. So Day 34 confirmed! Had a couple of cravings today but they weren't interfering with my reasoning too much and it was easy to see them for what they were - just bullshit. Love you guys.

Just thought I'd share. I literally got about 3 hours sleep last night, I went to bed around 11, and was up by about 2:30am without any hope of falling asleep (already whined about it in my other thread). Needless to say I was a bag of shit by 7am. But I went to work and went through the motions anyway. About 2 hours later I just couldn't do anymore. I snuck a quick 45 minute snooze right after slamming a HUGE coffee in my office (I don't think I actually fell asleep at all). But when I came out I was like a machine. Coincidentally I found this article later, suggesting there's actually something to this. Try it! http://lifehacker.com/306029/reboot-your-brain-with-a-caffeine-nap