Corey

Hello. I've been very addicted to abusing adderall for the past 2.5 years. I would binge and stay awake for days, had suicidal depression, etc. etc. It got so bad that I joined an IOP rehab program. I stayed sober for about 50 days. I then got a bunch of adderall from a dealer. I've been lying to my IOP rehab group, as far as they know I'm on "day 89". I lapsed once, thought maybe I could just pretend like it didn't happen and continue sobriety, but I just kept going back to the dealer. I've been paying for the IOP program out of pocket and I'm out of money to pay for it. Idk. I'm not sure where to go from here. I have to keep working to pay my rent but I find it so hard to work without adderall. I don't know what to do. I want to get out of this cycle.

Thanks friends. Your words of encouragement have helped a lot. Luckily my work load is pretty light at the moment, so I'm taking the opportunity to wean myself back onto working without adderall. I'm starting small by just working a couple hours each day. I got rid of my pills. Hopefully I caught myself early enough that it won't be too difficult to re-adjust like it was the last time I quit after four years of using.

Hi QA, Years ago, visiting this site/community helped me quit my adderall addiction, but I've recently (as of October) gotten hooked on the stuff once again. I'm a professional full-time illustrator and part-time illustration teacher. In October I had a huge project with a ton of work and a tight deadline that seemed impossible. I turned to adderall to stay up for days on end, putting a butt-ton of work into this project. The end result was so good, and I was able to get so much done, and the adderall high was so great that I kept using adderall to push myself as hard as I could in my work, telling myself that once I finished the round of projects I was working on, that I would quit. After 3 months of making excuses to keep taking it, despite progressively feeling more like crap when I don't take it, I'm looking around and realizing that I am clearly and unmistakably addicted. When I try to work without using adderall, I feel miserable and distracted and fixate on when I can next get my hands on more adderall. I think one of the most upsetting parts of this development is that I genuinely think my work has improved drastically since I've started taking it. I've never been more ambitious in what I try to achieve and my attention to detail. The idea of going back to a life of slogging through work without adderall and the fear that my work will get drastically worse if I quit is something I find very depressing. However, my personal life and emotional well-being has taken a nose-dive in the last three months. I don't wake up until noon most days, my apartment is a total mess, I weasel out of any social engagements I can so I can either work or spend the day "recovering" by being zonked out watching TV or playing video games. My addiction is a total secret from friends and family whom I routinely blow off. The only person who knows is my therapist (whom I don't get my drugs from) who hasn't been much help in getting me to quit adderall, though I do appreciate having someone to talk to about it. Can anyone give me advice and tips? How do you go back to a life of dullness and disinterest in your work? Will I ever be able to enjoy doing work again without adderall? Thanks for listening, Corey

I nearly relapsed today, upon receiving my new health insurance card in the mail; the connotation being I'd have cheap and easy access to adderall. I'd relapsed just before the start of the summer, essentially staying up and doing school work for 2 weeks straight after 8 months of being clean. I've been clean the rest of the summer, but a big factor in that was my health insurance through school expiring (until this month). Faced with temptation, I called and talked to my girlfriend, who was proud of me for asking her for help. As soon as I called her, I realized how ridiculous it was to even contemplate (when I relapsed, it only served to remind me of the debilitating side-effects and struggles that come with the drug). I feel really fortunate to have someone close in my life who understands the severity and seriousness of adderall addictions and who supports me, since most people seem to generally not grasp that there is a problem with being dependent on the drug in the first place. I am proud of myself for reaching out and am so grateful for the support I received; however small this event appears on the outside, I felt myself taking a very concrete step away from life as a hopeless addict and towards being an actual person.

Hey Lizzy, In my experience, yes, taking adderall made me far more neurotic and have many more mood swings, all of which I'd tend to take out on my SO at the time. I didn't quit until after we'd broken up, though I flip flopped desperately between feeling like I "needed" it, and feeling like it was ruining my life, which it sounds like your boyfriend is definitely going through. Breaking up and being by myself in a big strange city, without the foil of an intimate relationship to make me feel "normal," was the wake up call I needed to quit. Having said that, if your boyfriend is anything like me, he probably secretly wishes someone would call him out and help him quit, as it's often extremely difficult to do so on your own. The fact that he's dropping hints like "I think I'm taking too much adderall" tells me that this is the case. Though he might be both resistant and cooperative at different points, I know I would have really appreciated my girlfriend's support in helping me quit. It couldn't hurt to have a frank discussion with him about his relationship to adderall. Even if he feels like he needs it, and gives you a bunch of immediate future reasons why he can't quit, you can remind him of all the problems it's causing him and remind him how much better his life will be in the long run if he isn't living his life as a slave to adderall

Well, to be fair the congestion would only happen when I wasn't on adderall in the mornings and would go away after I took some. I do my fair share of nose blowing, now.

Hah, I used to use a neti pot almost daily! Definitely don't miss feeling like I HAVE to clear my sinuses just to be around people

Oh and an illustration I did while heavily into adderall (I barely remember making it) just won a place in a pretty big national competition (only 250 out of 8000 pieces were picked), while a non-adderall fueled illustration I did didn't place, all of which just kind of twists the knife further on my recovery

My workload at school (Masters in illustration) is really overwhelming and I haven't put in nearly the same amount of effort or attention to detail as I used to into my work. My teachers are starting to echo their counterparts from my high school and early college days, "you have so much potential, if you only applied yourself" which is frankly kind of humiliating to hear at the age of 25. I've been off of adderall for about six months now and I can't say I feel all that great; I'm definitely over some humps and am happy to not be a nervous, twitchy mess, but I still feel manic and depressed a lot (perhaps to a lesser degree, though) in a really flimsy way, like emotionally I'm just a cardboard cutout. I haven't really been proud of any of the work I've done since I quit with the exception of one piece that I did over school break because I could take my meandering, easily distracted time with it (I actually thought about making an uplifting inspirational topic on this forum citing my painting as an example of successfully overcoming addiction), but otherwise I just get fatigued and unable to take any piece to a satisfying end. Socially I'm doing okay, I definitely don't act like a crankpuss or a cokehead as much as I used to, but I still get mopey and socially anxious from time to time. If on Adderall my life was mostly Black punctuated by flashes of White, right now it's just a consistent muddy grey. Frankly I'm unhappy and unmotivated, even in the face of success, and I kind of just want to get back into my adderall addiction so I don't have to be present for everything

Thank you, InRecovery! I assumed this was the case since my own rapid heart rate issue disappeared after I quit. Hopefully she'll find this post reassuring

Hey guys, my friend, who was admittedly taking a higher dose than I ever was (60 mg daily over 3+ years) had a prolongated heart beat appear during an EKG she had administered at some point a week or so ago after taking adderall and not eating. She's since quit (yay) but is freaking out and thinking that adderall has permanently damaged her heart or something. She's wearing a heart monitor for a day so the doctors can try to determine why the prolongated heart beat happened (apparently it's very uncommon for there to be "misreadings" of this) and has convinced herself that she has Long QT Syndrome and is now having a lot of anxiety over it. Towards the end of my own use of adderall and for a while afterwards, I was having some weird rapid heartbeat stuff (that I then would have a ton of anxiety and feelings of helplessness over), but it's since gone away. Could anyone here shed some light on what's happening to my friend that would (hopefully) alleviate her concerns?

Thanks, Ashley, that was helpful to read. The urge to go back on adderall when I'm feeling low is very strong, and it's really nice to have a concentrated community like this reaffirming what a terrible idea that is. Most of my friends don't really get why I would struggle so much with the drug and I never feel comfortable admitting that weakness to anyone. I can't praise this site enough for being an extremely helpful resource in helping overcome adderall addiction.

Hi everyone, thank you for the advice. Sorry to only post when I'm wallowing, but I need some guidance. I was too depressed today to go to my morning class, and yesterday I just blew off an evening class because I didn't feel like it. Up until now I've been pretty good about forcing myself to at least show up to things, but now, I feel like it's not getting any easier to show up and do the work since when I first quit adderall, and some days it actually feels harder. I'm seeing someone tomorrow to talk about feeling depressed; part of me wants to ask for another adderall script just so I can feel like I'm the best among my peers again (I really was the best) but I know oscillating between adderall-fueled mania and depression is unhealthy. Honestly, though, it seems preferable to just general melancholy and complete lack of motivation

I flushed my remaining pills 5 weeks ago after a bad experience. After some initial success at being and feeling healthy and productive (after the withdrawal), I have been finding it increasingly difficult to get out of bed and stay productively awake. I exercise daily and eat reasonably well, but I still find myself unable many days to feel like a real participant in school (and life) because I just feel so damn tired all the time. I thought around the 3 and 4 week marks that if I just pushed through those feelings of sluggishness and forced myself to do work that I would eventually just feel normal again, but now it seems like I am backsliding into unhealthy lethargy, fatigue and depression. Is this normal? Should I just wait out these feelings or is there something beyond exercise and coffee-drinking I can do to combat the overwhelming urge to crawl back into bed all the time and close my eyes?

I took a typical 20mg XR supplement today and went to a nearby hookah lounge, working on homework for a few hours and being sure to drink water. When I went to pay I suddenly lost my balance, knocked over some stuff and blacked out for a hot second, at which point I came to, sitting on the floor and being given water. I apologized a lot, obviously, said I wasn't drunk, paid extra and left, still totally uncoordinated. At this point an intense headache and ringing in my ears developed which is still going on almost two hours later. Thinking maybe it was extreme dehydration I bought and drank a pedialyte, which hasn't done much. I also took ibuprophen which seems to have reduced the headache. The ringing in my ears is just as intense and I also can't hear any deep bass sounds, everyone around me sounds like they've just inhaled helium. The only thing I can do right now is sleep it off I guess and see a doctor in the near future. Does anyone have reason to suspect this is adderall-related? Have I just had a minor-stroke? I'm understandably freaking out right now and would appreciate any support, guidance, or similar experiences.