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InRecovery, I'm sure I have missed it but this is the first post of yours where you are asking for help yourself. It's nice to see as you have been so insightful and helpful to others. Makes you a bit more human, if that makes sense. Re the coffee question, it's your own choice whether to feel bad about needing caffeine to get you enough motivation to do mundane things... but to state the bleedingly obvious, if coffee does not do the following things, but gives you just enough energy to get stuff done, then I'd say go with it until you can take a vacation. What do adderall and coffee have in common? - energy (of course) - dehydration - headaches What does adderall do that coffee does not? - make you spend 3 hours doing something else INSTEAD of filling out your application and then worry more about the thing you did do than didn't do - make you hate the person who asked you to complete the application in the first place - make you second guess all your answers and do the whole thing over three times - stop you from being motivated to think about the application as a means to an end, and lie to you by thinking that the application itself IS the end goal - make you worried about which particular individual will be reading the application and think you may have been tweaking or crazy when you completed it - make you check and recheck the application for spelling errors or incorrect dates, etc - fill you with hatred for the human race for even creating application forms etc etc etc ... did that help?

Well written. There are many reasons I could spout about why you should quit and not rely on adderall to get you through your job interviews, make you (what you perceive to be) more employable, make you feel more confident or whatever. But I think someone else on this forum said it themselves - you won't give up until you believe that the fear of being on adderall is greater than the fear of being off it. I just hope that happens before you ruin your whole life; as it seems like you're young and have a lot of it ahead of you. You've clearly got enough self awareness to pay attention to the still, small voice in your head that is encouraging you to be kind to yourself and stay off amphetamines... i really hope you have enough self respect to listen... Be safe, and be gentle with yourself...

I am needing some advice from those who've fully recovered. I am really quite scared about what I may have done to my brain, permanently. I quit 5 weeks ago and although my personality is stabilizing (don't get me wrong, I still burst in to tears at nothing at all occasionally), the 2 biggest things that really honestly concern me are the following. I would really like to know if others could help me by giving me a prognosis by sharing their own story or insights... 1) Loss of executive function/decision making/good judgement: People at work and in my life used to tell me how good I was at navigating sticky political and social situations, how my actions and interactions would seem to demonstrate utmost diplomacy. It's funny, because I never really knew what they meant until I lost the ability to do these things with adderall. I still am having difficulty after quitting, being able to have confidence interacting with and influencing others. It's like a residual paranoia is still there, telling me there's always another side to a story or perspective I haven't thought of yet, and halting me from making executive decisions. It's very frustrating as it's such a finite skill that requires much intuition, balanced with logic and is very hard to describe... can anyone relate to this? Any insights or advice on when this ability will return, or IF it will return? 2) Short & medium term memory loss. This one is really, really bad and has me very concerned. I literally cannot remember the simplest things -- I memorize something and 30 mins later it is GONE. Someone will explain something to me and if I don't write it down, it will be like the conversation never really happened... I will remember talking to the person about a topic, but all the details will have disappeared completely. My notes have to be very detailed or I won't even remember the prompters. Any insights here would be really appreciated. I am terrified I may have done some serious damage. I just feel so much more stupid, if that makes sense.

For what it's worth, I told my doc I was quitting cold turkey and asked for recommendations for supplements and after giving me the standard, "there has been no correlation found between change in brain chemistry in recovering addicts and vitamin or supplement usage", he did say if I "wanted to take something" then try zinc. I am, but anyone else tell me if this is what they've heard too? Here's all the supplements I've heard are helpful: - B12, B6 - L Tyrosine - L Phenylalanine (sp.) - DHEA - Cellinium (sp.) Interesting discussion.

This is incredibly profound. Seems maybe obvious to some but just so reassuring to know I'm not the only one who has observed these kinds of personality "revelations" now I'm off it.

GetToIt, I'm new here but your story is almost 100% the same as mine, just add "....and slimmer" to your " Basically, I wanted to be smarter", and you describe me. I am in my late 30s now and having gone through what you went through not once, not twice but three times, in increasing amounts of drama and delusional thinking. You are lucky to have listened to yourself after one year. For what it's worth, you do sound very smart and articulate, just like so many people on this forum...

I think I'd like to put this as my screensaver, it's so true!

You have no idea how much this helps... I always thought that psychosis was associated with hearing voices, etc, but I never went through that. Knowing this is what was happening to me is a relief, somehow. Oh, also the paranoid schizophrenia piece was very insightful - I had wondered if there was any connection. Does adderall ever cause permanent schizophrenia?

http://thedetoxforum.yuku.com/topic/878/Decent-info-on-PAWS#.ULfRKrQhcWk

I was taking/abusing adderrall for about 3 years on and off. This is when my career started heading south, and although I lost my job about 6 months after I started taking pills, I managed to find another one pretty quickly. But, I screwed that up too within 12 months of joining, and had to find another one again. Anyway this last job was really insane - I worked for a company that paid really really well (it wasn't Goldman, by the way, just in case you're thinking that) but was in fact much more morally bankrupt than you'd ever imagine... just not a good place...especially for an addict. I had a very senior job, was traveling to different countries about 70 percent of the time and that's where the addiction really ramped up. I used it to get over jetlag, then just to get up, and so on.. we've all been there. After a 3 day binge about a month ago where I had about 4 hours sleep in 72, ate about 300 calories a day and was drinking heavily, I had what I think was a psychotic break (?), in some kind of dissociative fugue where I kind of assumed a different personality... it was so weird and I can't to this day really explain what happened... I told my boss a whole bunch of lies about myself that, ended me up getting fired. Of course he was right - if I'd had someone working for me who did the same thing I would have fired her ass too. But the experience itself still scares me... It was like something inside of me really wanted me to fail, and took over my mind one night. I'd love one day to understand what happened. I've told no one, except my attorney and my shrink. Oh and you. I was in Istanbul at the time, and flew back to NYC where I live, having given up cold turkey the morning of my flight. That was October 25th. Since then I tried to take vacation with my husband (but just slept the whole time, the poor man has put up with so much), and I have had no end of health issues -- yeast infections, stomach acid, body aches, acne, gained 10lbs and I am a roller coaster when it comes to my emotions. Today I just feel like sitting around crying. Yesterday I was more productive than I have been for a really long time. I can't really predict what makes a good or bad day any more. Strangely, although this is a really emotionally harrowing journey, I have never once wanted to go back on adderall. The feelings of constant paranoia, annoyance at my memory loss (I want to learn more about this as it's kind of scary how I feel like someone has cut out whole CHUNKS of my brain), and the pervasive sense of hopelessness that adderall brings is something I never want to replicate. I am learning to discover who I am again. I'm off to my first intake at the Outpatient facility today, and I guess I'm kind of scared about it, but in a "I'm about to do something big" kind of way, if that makes sense. I had previously thought that what I was going through mentally and emotionally was just an immense loss of confidence that comes with job loss for a very driven career person, but in fact I do now believe that a large majority of my psychological issues are related to the drug, both being on it and coming off it. I am looking forward to reading more of your stories - this site is a gift, really... congrats to the moderators/creators. Ironically, the fact that I'm not the only one who has done this to themselves, I find very reassuring. Sorry for the rambly message, those of you that have stuck with it.... and here's to putting one foot in front of the other. Eventually.

wow. I think you look a million times better in the 2nd. So much healthier. You remind me of something that used to happen when I was tweaking - I never wanted to smile. I thought smiling never felt right, or something. It's nice to have my face back.

This is AMAZING. I quit 5 weeks ago and ended up in a mental hospital with crippling depression. Got out a week and a half ago. Today is a bad day. Your story gives me hope. Thank you, bearman, your life makes me want to live my own.

I think you and I must be at the same stage... I quit 5 weeks ago today. Since then, I've gained 10lbs, and have had on average about 66% of those days sitting on the couch. Just. No. Motivation. People say you feel more like working out. I can't stand looking at myself in the mirror at the gym, have zero stamina and get really sore bones (if that's possible) even going for long walks.

Stanford Law, I'm not sure if you're tweaking as you are writing or positing to this forum, but you seem smart to me. Other posters have said it and I repeat it - Adderall will make you always feel like you need it (and more so over time) to perform. I worked for over 10 years in Investment Banking and only in the last 2 years started taking it, which is when my career started heading south. Now I have no job and I fear have ruined my professional reputation; all because I can't measure how poorly I was functioning and communicating while I was on adderall. You are young and so before heading in to the all-encompassing abyss of lack of confidence, followed by adderall, followed by reliance on it for even the most simple tasks and therefore increased lack of confidence, please be kind to yourself and heed the warnings on this excellent site. It's just not worth risking your already-capable-mind and bright future for. I know, I've been there.