Doge

Can confirm from experience. I think I was rounding in on my tenth month clean when I managed to manipulate my way into getting my hands on some. I did 15 pills in about 12 hours. By the time they were gone I was bawling. I had been doing so well, and was on the road to happiness and threw it all my progress away in an instant. And for nothing. I pulled an all nighter so what? It wasn't even fun or productive or anything. I've actually been reading a lot of your posts Frank, I think you may have started posting here during the time I was away on my relapse and couldn't bring myself to log into this site. I really feel you man. I find your posts inspiring really. You are so honest about where you are at and your dedication to quitting comes through in your words. Whenever you are feeling like you are hating yourself just try to remember how massive of an undertaking it is to get off of two different extremely abusive substances at once. You are a winner right now. Remember that. As for your last sentence, I'm really glad you have kids then, it breaks my heart to hear you talk like that and yet on the other hand I totally understand feeling like my soul is dead inside and there is just no point. One day not too long from now you will find true happiness again, even if it starts off coming just in little small doses.

i feel like a pathetic piece of shit lately too. no wait i am one

At around 5 months I had a horrible weeklong craving that just didn't let up and I was convinced I was never going to be over adderall. Then afterwards, within a couple of months, life was full of bliss in comparison, just for being normal. I still didn't have my productivity back, but the misery had passed for a while. I now look back at on it as the calm after the storm. The worse you feel during this phase, the better its going to feel when the pendulum swings back the other way. You're still working towards equilibrium at this point. Stay strong you are doing great!

phew! amazing! i can't even seem to finish a whole mile lately

Bah, i didn't even notice this thread when I did my analysis of L-Tyrosine. Yeah it gives me headaches too unless I go exercise right away on it. For some reason I had no negative effects from 5-HTP, its my favorite supplement. It really balances me out when I'm feeling shitty, and I have zero compulsion or desire to take it when I'm feeling fine so I am not worried at all about it becoming a habit. I go though about a container (60 capsules) per year or so.

oh god those 3pm naps..... so important

yeah i still feel like that right now but only when im trying to force myself to focus on work. when it comes to doing things I enjoy, the hours still just fly by. but of course it wasn't like this during early recovery. sometimes watching TV was exhausting lol i think the biggest challenge many people face when coming off of adderall is accepting that they've let adderall convince them they had passion for something they actually hate (like whatever job it drove them to take)

i smoked one to two packs a day of cigarettes while using adderall, now that im off it i have zero cigarette cravings. so i bet your alcohol dependancy will fade too once you kick the pills i feel your pain about the relapse. I pulled a similar stunt last november. was really disappointed in myself. there is only one thing to do though, just jump back on the wagon and start again. it doesn't matter if you need NA or not honestly. if it helps and you feel comfortable going there, why not use it as a tool to help yourself heal? that's what its for right? as for denial, looking back my whole addiction was one big fluctuating denial phase...... hope you are doing ok and welcome to the forums. we can all get off this bullshit together!

as far as early withdrawals after a cold turkey quit during the first couple of days? just feeling like i weighed 100 pounds more than i do, light headed, dizzy, tired, foggy, feeling like my brain is only running at 30%

I think sometimes waiting for a strategic time to quit is not always a bad thing. But it can be easy to procrastinate quitting using this as an excuse. It's probably good to just ask yourself hoenstly which one it is. You can be happy again! You can be exaclty the same! It just doens't happen over night. But you'll notice huge improvements in as little 2-3 weeks if you stop taking them I promise! The battle doesn't end there, but life does keep getting better again. If you were happy, you were already successful. What good is motivation if it's just keeping you from the things you really love? What good is confidence if its not real? What good are motor skills if you are chained to a substance that doesn't let you be who you really are? I'm sure you've already contemplated these questions since you are here. I do believe that men and women face unique challenges, struggles and expectations that society puts on us. Adderall doesn't distinguish between them however, and it prays on your vulnerabilities and insecurities to make you think you need it to be a complete person. I think you should throw your prescription away, call in sick for a week if you can manage it, get a grocery cart full of your favorite snacks, and jump into bed with netflix and refuse to do anything but veg/sleep for a few days at least. Things start looking a little bit better surprisingly fast! Good luck! and know that we are here for you!

dont worry, i haven't been able to run even half a mile for some reason lately. i keep lacing up and getting on the treadmill but i keep crapping out around half a mile. (today i only made it like 0.35) i think my problem is the monotony of staring at a wall while running. it's not an escape. i need to suck it up and learn to run on the ground like a normal person

Congratulations! 4 years is really exciting, and your success is really encouraging to the rest of us. It's nice to have something to look forward to!

Necessary Disclaimer: Nothing safe and healthy will ever work like adderall did. So don't expect anything to. But some supplements can be helpful. Plenty of users have mentioned this supplement in the past, and not without good reason. It does help focus for a bit and it kind of elevates your mood, but it does have side effects. It can cause headaches, and nausea, which is why after buying some last summer and trying it twice, it sat on my shelf untouched for almost a year. They can also keep you up all night if you aren't careful when you take one. I do realize now that I bought the 1000mg capsules, which is a pretty strong dose. And breaking them in half feels like swallowing razorblades. As for the headache/nausea problem, a solution I've found for myself is to make sure not to take them before sitting in a sedentary position. So if you feel the need for a mental boost to sit and work on your paperwork hunched at a desk, I advice sticking to coffee and a multivitamin. Taking them before going jogging however has worked well for me, particularly if I'm trying to sweat out the beers that I shouldn't have had the previous night and feel like crap. I run on a treadmill currently so the biggest obstacle in my progress is boredom. They moved our stuff around in the gym so there is not even a TV nearby like there used to be (which was really nice). Anyways, I do have to say that L-Tyrosine does help you get mentally "in the zone" before exercising. This is just my personal experience but in all other settings it does nothing but bring me down. For anyone who thinks it might be helpful for them and is thinking of getting some, be sure to get the smaller dosage capsules.

congrats elaina! 5 months is so huge I am very happy for you! keep it up! you are doing awesome!

more puppy pics plz

hello ashley, welcome back. people were just talking about a member named ashley only a couple weeks ago, and wondering how she was doing. now we all know. congrats on your upcoming child! quit-once, apple fanboy here as well. the newer windows versions are just a nightmare macbooks certainly cost more but they last way longer too. the one I'm using now is about 3 years old and still runs like new. never crashes or anything. i only had to reformat once so far and that was because i was playing around iwth stuff i shouldn't and didn't know how to fix it. I fully expect to get another 6 years out of this machine

This thread was totally an example of the social anxiety that adderall causes to me, both when I was on it, and now while I'm still adapting to being off it. I constantly think back to conversations and relive them and think about how I said the wrong thing or something. It applies to forums too. "Oh I shouldn't have said that, etc."

Just wanted to say it really irritates me when people interupt and hijack threads and make everything all about them. OK glad to get that off my chest. Cause there is one particular user that is doing that a lot lately: me! It's a side effect of recovery for me. I feel like I gave myself ADHD by abusing adderall so long. Even though I never had it and only got adderall through other illegal means. I am dealing with it now. So apologies to those who I've done it to. I think they took it with grace and class cause they are nice people but just wanted to say I am working on improving with that. Life is not all about me, who knew?

You need to find a way to remove the option from your life. Explain to your supplier what is going on and that it is killing you (because it absolutely is, you are headed for an early grave but it's not too late to quit and be fully recovered before 30). But you could easily continue down this path. Think how fast the past few years have felt. That speed will accellerate if you continue what you are doing. The first step I think is to clarify to yourself just how bad this problem is. Because I remember when I was in the thick of my usage, I would convince myself it wasn't that bad. But it's poison. Pure poison. The second step is to cut yourself off, and reach out for help. You have to cut yourself off somehow, because as you know the cravings are unbelievable strong once you stop for a while. You can do this!!! And we are here for you! EDIT: Don't worry, you aren't doing anything malicious so it's not a problem. We get you are speaking from your heart. There have been a couple people that have registered on here, posing as recovering addicts, and then start pushing products on us to try and prey on the vulnerable and this really hurts our feelings. But from reading your post I didn't get the slightest inclination (and I'd imagine nobody else could either) that you're one of them. Speed is a vicious evil thing and causes so much pain. Don't worry. Everyone here knows that when people reach out for help here they are hurting and in a lot of pain. We've all been there so we understand. We're here to be your support network to help you get through this.

ive put whippping cream in coffee before and its amazing. butter i've never tried though, that sounds weird, is it good? probably a dumb question obviously you like it or you would never do it...

i think even just this little bit of cardio has been really good for me today. the last few nights i've had severe insomnia, not being able to fall asleep at all, until like maybe half an hour before i have to get up. now it's only midnight right now and i feel like my head weighs a tonne. hopefully gonna go sleep like a brick for 9 hours!

its definitely true. there was a saying somewhere.... what's the difference between a rich drug addict and a poor drug addict? one goes to rehab, the other goes to jail and yeah the media is extremely dishonest, it makes me so frustrated some times

Yeah this is a big thing that came up at some point last year. Whenever we have good days, we tend to eagerly come here to share them with friends because we're really happy and excited about it. Then when we have shitty days we tend to be more quiet. So this creates the false impression to some people that everyone else on this site is doing awesome and enjoying every second of their sobriety, and then they wonder whats up and why they aren't feeling like that. I think we made a bitch/moan thread somewhere in one of the subforums for doing precisely the opposite. Posting when we were feeling shitty and talking about how shitty our day was going. It's therapeutic in its own right, but it's a good way to dispel the myth that if you aren't just thrilled to be alive every day of recovery then something must be wrong with you. Keep your chin up. You are tackling two extremely hard challenges at once! Just keep your eyes looking forward and things will slow and surely get better. I promise you are going to emerge from this so strong if you just keep going one step at a time and don't ever look back.

by the way I googled this and it looks really fun. did you paint yourself too? haha

yeah this cannot be emphasized enough. the way you describe your xanax use is exactly how my adderall usage started. I would give anything to be able to go back to that point armed with the knowledge I have now. i realize it's not like you're just doing this for fun. you've got a problem that you're looking to find a solution for. there are so many simpler solutions and coping methods that you should explore first. you definitely don't want to be playing around with that stuff, especially at your age. remember how much adderall took from you. dont give the leftovers to a new drug!