John256

Hey Canes, I am a 24 year old 3rd Year Exercise Science Major at a Major Pharmacy school, and I know exactly how you feel. I hate adderall for making me depend on it to be able to focus, study, and do my work for my classes. I hate it for making it seem like I need it to feel normal, and then when I take it I just act all nervous and socially awkward. So I understand your problem about not wanting to take it but worrying about the academic consequences that might have for your future. Its a really hard fucking choice. Well, it depends on how you look at it I guess, some people might call it a really simple choice. You either... A. Decide that the cons outweigh the pros on the scale of measuring adderall's place in your life, so you let go, take a chance, quit taking adderall altogether, and do the best you can to survive college and make good grades without it. OR B. Decide that your future and career are too important to risk losing just because adderall gives you unwanted side effects and holds you back from having much of a social life in college. So you decide to keep taking it to get through school even though sometimes you really wish you did not need it just to get by in college. Obviously, both decisions have consequences. I wish I could promise you that you will still do good in school without it and you will be able to get your social life back, but I can't because I don't know if it is true. All I can say is that you are not alone in having to make this choice, and it can be a really frustrating way to live. P.S. I don't understand all these people (guys mostly) who blame adderall for their failure to eat meals. I admit that adderall decreases appetite to the point of tempting you to just skip meals, but just because eating is not as pleasurable does not mean you can't eat. I work out every week and I still gain muscle mass. I just have to force myself to still eat three meals a day so my body gets what it needs to rebuild itself and build muscle. It may not be as enjoyable, but I still get all the food down.. Just because adderall makes you not hungry IS NOT AN EXCUSE to not eat meals. Just eat anyway because you know that is the only way you will get bigger..

Cassie, I hear you on the addiction thing. I mean, if you use that as reasoning or logic for taking the pills, it always seems okay or to make sense. It starts with "well I need them to study" and then.."well I need them to get my house cleaned today" ... Then before you know it you are taking them every day because you can always think up a reason to take stimulant meds that will help you be productive. Like that quote "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."..or something like that. So I know what you mean. But I also know that I can't just let my grades go to shit when I know there is something out there that I can take to help me pass and understand my courses. I get a summer break, a winter break, and of course spring break. Usually for those times I don't take any medications and just try to take a holiday from them as well as from school. What I wish is that I could either focus and concentrate the same without having to take stimulants, or that I could take stimulants and not be tempted to abuse them to feel high or to deal with the side effects from them. But I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too. Anyways, I guess all I can hope is to get through school as soon as possible, and then allow myself to learn how to cope with life without taking meds once I start a career. Fingers crossed, thanks for your advice Cassie.

Thank you Finding Freedom. I Appreciate you just empathizing, period. To everyone else, 71 views and only 1 response...really..?

yea not afraid is a great song, period. I'm glad he came back, and he looks wayy better now too. Healthier or something. This is a cool video about his addiction.

you just post the web address

Thanks Cassie. I don't feel "normal" really. But the really bad symptoms like constant sleeping, depression, and nonstop eating have ceased after a week. I also am starting to see my sense of humor again which is great. Some people say that you go through off and on rotations of the depression and tiredness then to feeling normal again and then back to the bad withdrawal symptoms. Maybe thats whats happening? I dunno.. I got off adderall and went a fulll 3 months clean. Then I got prescribed Vyvance and started taking that. Now I am quitting that too, so maybe because I have not been on Vyvance as long its a quicker recovery. Hmm

I feel you man. I am 24 years old and in college. I have been taking it for about 3 years now to get through school, and for about a year now I have been through the cycle your going through. I usually go for like a week or two without it, and then even when things are starting to get better without adderall, I convince myself somehow its a better idea to re-up on my prescription instead of just staying off them. This is just my theory, but I think maybe two things happen to cause you/me to want to go back.. 1. The addiction makes up reasons for you to go back to the drug. So your head tells you that even though your enjoying life sober, all those things would be a million times better if you took adderall again. 2. Its been long enough since you last used (if its been a week or two) that you forget all the bad things, the negative side effects, and your memory selectively only remembers the awesome times on the drug. We forget why we got off it in the first place. Kindof like,..if you have ever quit a really crappy job but still have a friend who works there, so you maybe visit him one time from your new, better job, and it doesn't seem so bad there anymore. Because your looking at things from the outside, and don't have to deal with all the bullshit ( a shitty boss, maybe bad work hours, ect) that made you want to drop it to begin with. As far as advice, that Im not as sure on man. Alot of people say to write down and post all the reasons why your giving it up and post it in a place that you see everyday. Then if you get cravings, you just look at the list of all the reasons you hated it and you cant lie to yourself as easily to go back to using. Also, cold turkey is really hard, I had alot of help my first two weeks off by substituting popping a pill with drinking like,..3 cups of coffee. Its almost the same feeling, for the first twenty minutes anyway haha. Good luck man, I know where your coming from and hope you get out of that crazy cycle.

Uhh,... day 7? Does that count enough? lol it feels like nothing in comparison to 620 haha

Hey GregZ, How long did you go of the "sober week" before you started to feel normal again. How long before cravings stopped happening so often and you felt more and more normal and happy being sober than just tired and depressed? I ask because usually after the first week I start to feel good/like myself again. Alot of the advice and posted experiance on here though makes it sound like even after 90 days sometimes you don't feel normal again? Is it possible (after about 2 and a half years of use) to recover after a week of withdrawal do you think?

Congrats on ripping up those scripts, LBRKS.. Your stronger than I was. If you have the stregnth to do that, I feel like you have the stregnth to drop it altogether. Just like they said above though, tell your doctor your done with it too, make it official. Also, maybe this is bad advice but I drank lots of coffee as sortof a substitute whenever I got cravings. It feels kindof the same if you don't have a tolerance to caffeine already. So far, if I have a craving and I drink like,...two cups of coffee in a row, the cravings goes away because I feel like I took a pill. Im not sure if this is a good long term solution, but it worked for me in the early weeks. Good luck to you anyway.

Hey Guys, So... I have been on and off Adderall/Vyvance since I started college in Fall 09. My doctor got me on Vyvance this January, and it is alot better/more subtle and mellow than adderall. I felt it was the perfect fit. But some of the problems with adderall still happen with Vyvance. For instance 1. Sometimes feeling uncomfortable in my own skin and paranoid those around me would notice. 2. Wanting to Isolate as the drug wears off. 3. Feeling nervous/anxious if I take it with coffee or an energy drink. 4. Inability to laugh or enjoy a joke. BUT... Its not so easy to just give it up altogether because of these things. Over the summer it is, because Im not really doing all that much that I need it for the ADHD symptoms. However, the Fall semester is coming up, and I can't imagine being able to make it through a school like mine (A Private Professional Health Sciences School) and being able to play soccer well for my team without it. I know/remember all the negative effects of the drug. I hate the sleepless nights, the anxiety, the high and low feeling. But I need it to study and get through class and my soccer games. Obviously, I know I cant get the good from it without also suffering the bad, but I don't have a choice. Its not so easy to drop it when you know that you need it to get through college and have a good life/future. So right now, as much as I hate what these drugs do to people, I can't see a way around re-upping on my prescription this fall going into the Fall semester and all these classes and games I will need it for. Trust me, I have tried to study and work on the course material without it, and It just doesn't work. I just don't understand things without ADHD medication... Especially math and sciences courses, which are about 90% of the classes at my school. So,..I'm not really sure what Im asking of you guys in writing this post. I guess I just wanted to get it out that I know a person is better off not being reliant on these pills, regardless of whether its Vyvance or Adderall, but that I feel like I will have to take them anyway to get through the upcoming year and graduate college with a decent GPA. What do you think? How would you feel if you were in my shoes? If you knew you were strong enough to stay sober, but you also knew that the only way you could make it through school and succeed in getting your degree was by taking the meds? A means to an end.., if you will? Maybe its the addiction talking,..I dunno. But I know this, I have never been able to get past school without medications, and when I tried, I could'nt study or understand the material.

I completely agree with Emmy9. That is exactly how it starts man. It's like,...the Earth rotating from daytime to nightime. Except in this case, daytime will never come again. It starts out changing your personality to all these great things, it makes you more confident socially around everyone, "gets rid of your insecurities" (falsely), makes you feel amazing, ect.. but then all those things start to wear off earlier and earlier. So then you take more, thinking that you have just developed a tolerance and that taking more will help keep all the positive effects of the drug working throughout the day. and you would be half right, taking more than you usually do will stall the tolerance problem for a short while, but It is inevitable that eventually the drug WILL turn on you regarldess of the dose you take. Eventually it will stop giving you the things you loved about it altogether. The day will come when even taking 3x your prescribed dose won't give you the positive effects (social confidence, euphoric feeling, focus and concentration, ect) and you will feel crazy all the time, anxious all the time, and you will be wondering what went wrong. Eventually you will be taking it just to try to feel normal. Trust me man, this is where your at right now. Right before it stops giving you all the good effects period.To keep my analogy going, it sounds alot like your at the point where the day is turning to dusk and the nightmere of the night is starting. Stop taking it now before it totally fucks you over.. Those "positive effects" you are getting now at the start of taking it will fade earlier and earlier and then end altogether. Look at all the posts on this website about that happening... Its always a similar story. Start of taking it: Feel amazing, confident, focused, motivated, ect Middle: Great effects start to wear off earlier and earlier each day End/Decline: Taking it only helps you feel normal, and then not even that, it just makes you feel crazy. Were not posting these stories as a joke, or on some anti-pharmaceutical mission, we felt the same as you do right now at the early point of addiction, and are trying to help other people before the decline happens to them. Learn from our mistakes bro..