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July 11th, 2011 by MikeDo you have something to say that might help somebody get through the rough process of quitting Adderall? Say it!
I want this website to be a complete resource, not just one guy talking. And that means we need lots of smart people like you weighing in with their insights to help others get through it.
Please post your story in the forums.
A couple notes:
- You don’t have to be finished quitting Adderall to write about quitting Adderall. Whether you’re on day 1 or day 1000, you’ve learned a thing or two that might be useful to others.
- I cannot begin to express how therapeutic it is to help other people through the same thing you’re going through. Writing about quitting will help you quit.
Hey Mike,
I’m currently about half-way finished in a progressive wean from Adderall. Before Adderall I took Concerta for roughly 6 years, and Adderall for about 20+ months. This site has been a great help and I’d like to give back a bit by contributing an article on an original topic. I have a few ideas of topics to write about…so I’ll see what you think.
(1) Diabetes and Adderall/Stimulants: The Adderall/Concerta regimen helped with the management of my Type I Diabetes on a few different levels. It cut the edge off the pervasive anxiety often associated with living with chronic illness, while keeping my weight at a level very complimentary to maintaining effective glycemic control. While losing these benefits is a great concern of mine, I’d like to discuss the process as it relates to managing a chronic-illness (the impact it will have on different aspects of the illness, and strategies I have and will use to cope during this transition).
(2) As an RN it is interesting to notice the impact it has on work — energy levels, focus as it relates to multitasking etc., working wacky hours without the “help” of a major amphetamine bolster.
(3) My experience in reading, filtering, and integrating both the bleak and inspiring content found within articles on this website. In other words, finding a balance in listening to others and writing my own story, so to speak.
be well!
Hi Jacob!
Those all sound like excellent topics. Send me an email directly so we discuss and get you all set up! Send me email here: mike@quittingadderall.com
Also: If you sent an email to write@quittingadderall.com (listed on the page above) I didn’t get it. I created this page way to late in the evening and forgot to actually make the write@ forwarder work. It’s fixed now, but if you sent me an email there already I apologize for losing it!
Either address will get to the same place!
I am married anfd my wife is on adderol. I’ve been feeling her becoming more and more distant, but where my situation is different from the articles that i’ve read is that, I actually messed-up by keeping in touch with an ex-girlfriend. She found out about it and understandibly lost it.. She now says that we need space and distance to salvage our relationship…I agree i am willing to do whatever it takes to make it work. But i notice that the more work i do the more distant she becomes… I totally feel the pursuer distanter affect that the drugs show symptoms of. She has an inability to show me LOVE. I’ve never known this Che. I’m afraid to mention it to her because she’ll say “This has nothing to do with adderol and everything to do with your actions…ITS BOTH….She cries so much when we talk about it..She either crys or gets as COLD and DISTANT as anyone that Ive ever met…I feel like she wouldnt mind if I died, and just 3 weeks ago we were talking about having childern,now thats no longer a possibilty.. I HATE ADDEROL.
I am suffering with this drug, i just quit after 2 years. i need help, support, i dont want to go back on this evil drug, i have been robbed of my happiness, my friends, my career, I FN HATE ADDERAL! I bought L-tyrosine, L-Phen, amino acids, wellbutrin xl, HOPING this will help. I used to be a facebook person, i just lost interest, dont want anyone to see how much weight i lost. I need some support please so i dont go craving those orange pills again. i went from 170pds to `129! I want to live, breathe, eat, laugh, love again!! Please i need support. i feel like a zombie!
@Taylor – You have to wear the cravings down by gradual erosion. Each time you resist it successfully, it gets a little easier to resist for the next time…until it’s not hard to resist it at all. But if you give in and relapse, it can set you pretty far back the longer the relapse back. That’s why it’s important to avoid relapses at all costs (and I mean ALL costs), and if one does happen, jump back on the wagon immediately.
Also, another important step is to identify situations that make you crave the pill, and try to eliminate or soften them. For most Adderall users, the cravings are the worst at work or under the weight of big projects and deadlines. When most people quit Adderall, they start by avoiding big projects and deadlines completely, and then gradually work back to being able to handle them again. Quitting Adderall is all about re-learning to prioritize your own life goals over the needs of the moment. Getting off Adderall is the first such goal, and to reach it you will need to put it above every other goal imposed by work, school, etc.
You can totally do this. If your goald are to breath, eat, laugh, and love again, then you’re in luck, because those things come rushing back to you from about day 2 onward. It takes a little longer to be able produce again…but the breathing and laughing part starts pretty much right away. 🙂
THANK YOU MIKE! its been 17 days now and im ALOT better than i was the last time i wrote. I am doing good on my wellbutrin, my sleep schedule is a little off still, my energy kicks in during the evening. Like all of a sudden i have this rush of energy. I do feel almost 80% human again.. This drug does some really weird stuff to your brain! WOW, I can watch movies now. It is a bit hard for me to do anything online, As in before i could literally sit at my computer for 6-7 hours trying to solve a problem that seemed pretty meaningless.
its REALLY interesting that you mentioned what you wrote to me above because that is EXACTLY how it happened!! You said…….
“For most Adderall users, the cravings are the worst at work or under the weight of big projects and deadlines. When most people quit Adderall, they start by avoiding big projects and deadlines completely, and then gradually work back to being able to handle them again”
Thats what happened, I have this HUGE email list that i needed to send out and i felt like it was a deadline and that i HAD TO GET IT DONE ASAP!!!!! Needless to say, that was my breaking point, I gave up with the email list, (which i still have) but even trying to do it right now seems impossible!! SO, i have decided to work on it maybe 30 minutes a day. I was COMPLETELY ENGULFED in this Email list that i had for my clients, and my mind was about to explode. I felt like i wanted to take over my work, i wrote my manager some emails i recall stating how i wanted to be promoted to a leader position cause i felt i was capable of it from my experience. WOW!!! Im so happy i have a VERY supportive boss. I spoke with him about all of this. I have been off work for 3 weeks, taking care of myself. I am a massage therapist at a large fitness center for the top Hospital System in Texas. So, this pressure was on, i had to do this!!
ANd then i just crashed and burned!! My email list did not get done, yet i still have it and you are so correct, i have to take things very slow cause i will start thinking of adderall. I have cravings daily Some are BIG and some are very small. But each time i talk myself out of one i feel AMAZING!!
I can taste food again and enjoy it like never before. I hope to stay the weight i am but add a bit muscle tone to my twigs. I went from 170 to 129. I dont ask my friends or family to praise me JUST yet, cause who knows what tomorrow brings, im not out of the woods yet… but i see the light ahead. Im headed out of this dark jungle. Thank You!!
T
Hi Mike, I want to write about what’s it like to deal with acne from Adderall. I’m a 28 year old African-American female, about 5 days off addy now, and it’s plain to see that Adderall was the cause of a lot of problems in my life, and I want to write about finding the solutions to them. I have really sensitive skin and have always had acne issues, but never as bad as when i was on Adderall, and now 5 days off–with a diet of mostly raw veganism (lots of salad and green superfoods), a strict regiment of skin, nails, and hair vitamins, Organic Skin Detox tea, tons of water, plus a ton of overpriced beauty products and tools (yes, some are motorized. Motorized facial tools, girls are girly!), AND natural oils, shea butters, and essential oils——-AFTER ONLY 5 DAYS MY SKIN is starting to heal although I have mad nasty scars.
This acne is really hurting my ego because i used to model, and while I’m worried about weight gain, how much weight can i possibly gain eating salads?
I do have a home exercise step aerobics plan I have been too lazy to implement as of yet, but that’s in the works and wait until I get the facial steamer…
Basically (and no I’m commenting on adderall, lol) I want to write from a woman’s perspective, and not just that, but from a diverse voice—which is sorely underrepresented in the world of Adderall.
A fact I’m glad of frankly. I was too stupid and wanted a shortcut through life, and I sacrificed my beauty…getting it back though….thoughts?
@Siren – Sounds great! If you want to put together a full article in Word or whatever you’re comfortable writing in (hell, scan a handwritten article on notebook paper if you must), send it to me at mike at quitting adderall dot com and I’ll get it up on the site!
Hey Mike!
This question is for Taylor…
You went from 179 to 129 after adderall. I gained 15 pounds when I got off adderall. Does the weight loss you report happen in the long run? Or are there other variables to consider?
How did you do it? I’m hungry all the time. Perhaps I need therapy. I just want to know and get rid of the weight I gained.
I was healthy before my doc prescribed adderall, I can be after. I just forgot how.
Imma re-read some of mike’s articles. The weight gain is a trigger.
First, let me begin by saying that I have been trying to get off adderall for several years now. I have taken it off and on for over 11 years, and just can’t seem to figure it all out. If that makes sense? Can u help me figure it out? Here is my adderall story…
I first began taking adderall in high school. It didn’t really affect me much other than me not ever being able to eat. I told my mom I could never eat, and that I wanted off of it. I stopped taking it, and then my freshman year of college, I was preparing for a test, and couldn’t focus. My roommate offered me adderall, I took it, studied all night, and had to have it again. I called my mom, and got back on the prescription. I took it all through college, and abused it when I had a test the next day. Not only did I take it to do well in school, I took it to keep any weight off I could. I am 5’6, and weighed 110 when i took it. I have always been thin, but when I took adderall, I was not only smart, but skinny too. This was another reason I wanted to keep taking it. it made me feel powerful.
I graduated, and got a job. I took adderall the entire time I held this job. I advanced, and got promoted for my hard work, and extra efforts. I don’t account this to anything but the adderall. I took adderall everyday, and would even abuse it when major projects were due in order to get ahead.
I recently got married and had a baby girl. I took adderall up until I found out I was pregnant. I stopped taking it while I was pregnant, and for a few months after she was born. Then my husband and I decided it was best that I stay at home while she was young. For the first few weeks after she was born people helped me around the house with things, so I didn’t feel I needed to do much other than take care of her. Then the helped stopped, and I was in charge of everything again. I needed something. I needed adderall. I went to my doctor, and started taking it again. Although, I didn’t take it every day. I took it when I needed to get things done. One day I would just hang out with the baby, take care of her, and do nothing else. The next day the house needed cleaned, and the laundry needed done, so I’d pop a pill.
I take adderall about 2-3 days a week now. My husband hates when i take it. He say’s i’m like a zombie. I won’t go to bed when he does, I don’t talk to him after the baby goes to bed, and all I do is focus on stupid tasks that I think are important at the moment. I am prescribed to take 20 mg a day for 30 days. I don’t do it like this. I take about 60-90mg one day, get a ton of stuff done around the house, and don’t take it again for 2-3 days, until something else needs done.
When I don’t take adderall I have no desire to do anything but sit around, watch my daughter play, or sleep. I sleep SO much more the days after I take adderall than I do any other day. I sleep from the time my daughter goes to bed (8pm) until the time she wakes up (8am), and I take a nap the same time she does, from 1pm-3pm. it is debilitating. I need to get away from this.
Another thing that is very alarming when I take adderall is my need to smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol. I never smoke when I don’t take adderall. When I began taking adderall i was a smoker, and it made me want to smoke more when I took it. I also had the urge to drink alcohol to calm myself down when I took it, in order to go to sleep at night ( it was in college that I developed these habits.) I quit smoking and taking adderall when I was pregnant, so I never had any urges after that. However, when I took my first adderall after giving birth, all I wanted was a cigarette. I smoke a lot of cigarettes when I take it, and I have to have a glass of wine or two to wind me down before I goo to bed after taking it. Does adderall enhance other drug habits like smoking or drinking (especially if you had them when you first began taking the drug?)?
Please let me know your thoughts! I really need help! You seem to know A TON about this subject, and mine is very unique, so you will be very helpful in solving my issues…
I also use adderall to help me lose weight. I gained about 30 lbs. When I had my daughter, and wasn’t able to lose the weight after she was born (probably because my metabolism was so slow from never eating because I took adderall for so long, or because I actually developed an appetite after not having one for several years.) I thought that since adderall helped me keep the weight off when I was in college it would help me now. It really hasn’t done anything but screw my metabolism up even more, and turn me into a zombie a few days a week.
I desperately want to get back to my normal self. WITHOUT adderall. Where I am able to maintain the household chores, keep up with my daughter, maintain a normal weight (not messed up by adderall,) and be the happy, outgoing self that I usually am.
How can I do this without being dependent on adderall to do the normal tasks that are usually so easy for everyone, but so hard for those dependent on adderall?
Best,
Alice
Aderall is simply a minor Central Nervous Stimulant. Its has been in use for over half a century with limited long term effects. This site is nothing more than scare tactics with the intent of curbing the use a perfectly safe medication. That should be left to the Dr to decide not a website operator.
@Dr. Adderall – Being “safe” with limited long-term effects is different from being “right for everyone it’s prescribed to.” Also, you’re missing the point of the site. Please read the disclaimer.
I am 28-yo and I have been prescribed Adderrall since 13-yoa. I was up to 30 mg BID, and of course it never really helped anything after the first couple of years. I have been sober from use for 21-days. I miss it like crazy, but for the first time in my life I feel like a person and not some animal scavenging and fearing when I need my meds or what to do if I run out. It controlled my life. It took 6 nauseating days to “withdrawal”. I can tell you though, those 6-days were a wake up call. I hold a Graduate degree in Psych and pyschophatmacology, and I can’t begin to explain why, but even for those who need it, it will turn you into a doppelgänger of the person you are physically, but not mentally. People who get upset or angry about this truth are still using and in denial. I was you for 15-years. Getting perturbed and defensive if anyone pointed out my dependence on this medication. I never doctor shopped and I never did anything illegal to obtain my meds; it still cost me a lot of wasted time.
It is hard to even grasp that I am done. One day though, you too will realize that it is only a crutch, not a long term solution.
Thank you Mike for this site. It has been a big factor that has kept me away from Adderall for 15 months. Some of the potential topics re: qutting Adderall are below I’d be happy to elaborate on.
I’ve been on here several times but skimming over this list of 9 truisms about what it’s like before/after Adderall was right on. I have been off of it for 15 months after over 10 years on it including the last few at 90mg a day. I lost my full time teaching job on it, got downgraded in a part time ministry job, and find myself clinging to hope and trying every supplement out there to make me “feel” like getting the things that are vital to my life done. It’s combined with lifelong depression, severe ADD, and anxiety that I also have to battle through. Just do it seems trite but so far the only remedy that actually might work. I say “might” because I’ve fallen so far short of achieving anything substantial. This is harder to take because despite my self-loathing and depression, I know I am an exceptional musician able to play most anything I hear immediately and have a music education degree on top of it. My supplement search has taken me through l-tyrosine, ginkgo biloba, ginseng, 5-htp, aniracetam (best so far), gotu kola, and rhodiola rose to name some, including bouts of actually eating all organic, and exercising for half hour to an hour every day and also some attempts at self-hypnosis and meditation. Still, I’d rather wallow in stagnation and lack of knocking down my “to do’s” apparently because here I am using procrastination method #593 to avoid what I need to do; i.e., writing about how much I’m sucking at life right now than doing something productive. My next hope that I get the same push I used to get from adderall will be (when I have some $$) to try adrafinil which is a precursor to modofinal as I understand it. To just feel half of the wakefulness and euphoria I felt on adderall especially the confidence that it gave me that I COULD succeed I would sure like to have. If I knew what I know now and had a redo of adderall at a lower dose is even in my mind which I need to forget because I know it’s not good.
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Today is my 60th day without adderall after having taken it for 4 years, abusing it mostly every day at 120 mg’s. To anyone out there trying to quit or in the process of quitting… HOLD STRONG! it gets better every day little by little. When I first quit I had such strong cravings, anxiety, and frustrations. But now I feel like myself again I promise you will love yourself again and everyone will too. I know quitting seems like the unimaginable due to the HIGH DEPENDENCE I had on adderall, I honestly would gringe at the mere thought of not having it in my life. I thought my life would fall apart, it may seem that way at first but that’s just the evil getting out of you. It does get better! and when it does you will not ever want to even touch those pills again. I’ll be honest, I never flushed mine down the drain like most ex adderolics because i was too scared to. but i still have them and I wont dare touch one, I dont even FEEL like it. it makes me hurl just thinking about those nasty things
Wow it’s hard to imagine Denise 120 mgs a day! I am thinking I would be better off not taking adderall at all. I am looking for alternatives for sure
This is a first time post for me about this subject. Oh shit….this could take awhile. I apologize in advance for the overuse of pronouns and poor grammar…..My name is Jon and I am 25 soon to be 26 years old. For the record, I have a brother who is 3, sometimes 3 years younger than myself. It was after being in the middle of a tough divorce and sixty mile re-location away from my father that I was diagnosed with ADD or ADHD, I don’t even remember the authentic diagnosis? Let me preface with a little bit about my forgotten childhood. I am convinced that my parents were suffering from the “in love” state when I was conceived therefore I can believe that I was considered an “accident”. Ok, so what? It doesn’t matter how hard I try, I cannot remember much of my childhood. I remember fragments of arguing between my parents during childhood but nothing extremely visual or breathtaking. Mom worked all the time and I can only recall my grandparents ever picking me up from school. My brother and I often completed our homework, ate dinner and fell asleep at their house as mom was working like 12 hour days at some accounting firm downtown. Grandpa was an alcoholic who never tried very hard to cover the scent of booze from us kids. At least he had the decency of hiding it under the drivers side front seat in a brown paper bag. Grandma was as clean as a whistle. Both were very genuine and gentle people who cared about anyone and anything regardless of their situation. To make a short story long, I can specifically remember the moment my life had changed and it was not the day I took my first adderall. I remember the scene like it was yesterday. My mom came running outside to my grandpa and began crying profusely in his arms. At the age of 10, I came running over to the two asking her what was wrong and as she was sobbing all I could hear her say was “I have to do this”. Given the context of the situation and from what I can remember, I knew she was talking about divorce. I cannot recall much after that moment. The only other thing I can reiterate about the divorce is when I was crying and yelling at my dad when he was taking all of the utensils that were “his” from the kitchen. Weird, right? I think my brother and I continued to live with mum for around 1.5 years before the inevitable happened. My mom had met someone. She left her job and we moved over 60 miles to the west in a completely different environment. Although I mentally cannot recall much of anything, I can assure you that my behavior was far from perfect leading to and after my fathers departure. I began to misbehave to the point of being suspended and I became very defiant towards everyone, including my little brother. I hated the world, which included mom, dad, brother, teachers, soon to be step dad, friends, etc. The only people that I didn’t hate was my grandparents and I think the move just added fuel to the fire because I had realized that spending time with them everyday was not plausible. I was ten and I had just lost everything. Misbehavior escalated at school and shortly after the move I was taken to a doctor and diagnosed with either ADD or ADHD. The meds were monitored and swapped for the first year or so. After we had come to the drug of choice, adderall, the D’s turned into B’s, motivation went up and the misbehavior was minimized if not dismissed. I felt motivated and began receiving positive feedback from my elders. I went from one day being an extrovert to the next an introvert. My social life faded and I became very insecure about myself. This only escalated and after time I began to care less and less about my grades and more and more about how I was perceived to the rest of the school. Ir was during high school I realized that I had become a follower. I was already a late bloomer, which yielded immaturity therefore I was doing anything and everything to become discovered by the well-liked students at school even if that meant participating in illegal behaviors. I was quick to learn how to “get by” in high school and never EVER thought about what I wanted to do with my life nor did I care. I lost my virginity to the “sexiest” girl in school at the time, was making good grades, had a car, etc. I was in fact “living the life”. I think it is important for you to know that throughout these years I was on adderall 30mg XR. Everything was great until I graduated high school. College? Why not? The next two or three years of my life were dedicated to trouble. I was in and out of trouble with the law, flunked a semester or two and pretty much wasted a couple years of my life. Not only did I waste a couple years of my life but I became more dependent on adderall. I began to take on the mindset that I could not succeed, focus, stay awake or live without the drug and I still have some of those same thoughts today. Adderall has been my own worst enemy. She has shown me great failure while also allowing me to believe that she is the reason for my successes. For example, I graduated high school with a 3.0 GPA. held a job for as long as I wanted and was the seventh man (backup) on a college golf team for my first semester of college. It was all good until…..I failed college. Wait?…What? Ok so my generalization for this was that I needed more medicine. This was the only logical answer I could come to at the time. So I went to my doctor and began upping my dosage until I hit the “so called” max of 60 mg or whatever. After I had failed it had gotten to the point to where if I knew I had to study or stay awake for an extended amount of time, I would set aside or make sure I had enough meds to get me through whatever that might have been. This went on for about 3 years and during that time I continued to fail classes even after I had chosen a career path. I wanted to quit life more times than you can imagine. I tried quitting college but after the seldom conversations I had with my mother, it was never an option. Ok ladies and gentlemen, I am 21-23 years old and I am still listening to my mother. Why didnt I just go off and figure out the world on my own? I HAVE NO IDEA. Every single time I failed, I wiped my eyes and kept moving forward, sorta. To make a short story long, I am 25 years old and after nearly 7 years in college I will be graduating in may with a bachelor in arts and sciences with a major in education (k-6). Among other things, I have a hard time dealing with failure and always strive for perfection even though perfection does not exist. Because I think the withdrawal would be to hard to deal with during this point in my life I want to quit/get rid of that bitch, adderall, after I graduate and before I start a career. This has been a short story of my life and I have left out many things such as hallucinations, which led me to call my mom telling her that I was going to kill myself on more than one occasion, the use of drugs, depression, anxiety, panic attacks and many other health factors that I believe were caused via adderall such as tooth loss, restricted blood flow to certain areas of my body, increased heart rate and hypertension. This is by far the most vulnerable I have ever been on the internet. I appreciate the owner of this website as well as all of the contributors.
~Life’s a garden, dig it!~
“Marinading” In Fear & Conquering It Post Adderall – A Different Approach
With the cessation of adderall, you find yourself constantly running away from the fear of boredom and exhaustion with every task you do throughout the day. Even if it’s your 2nd year after quitting Adderall, the feeling still sometimes lingers.
You know the feeling – there is that one task (or more) that you bury in the back of your mind and try to busily keep yourself occupied on everything except it. Sometimes it’s something simple like doing the laundry, the dishes, or mowing the yard, but whatever it is, it usually drives you crazy trying to avoid it and it constantly “pops” into your head every few minutes. This recurring pattern of the dreaded activity re-entering your mind and then being pushed back down is one of the most emotionally and mentally depleting events in your day.
However, you just don’t have the mental power to force yourself to do it nor the attention you used to. The thoughts come flooding in whenever you think too long about it – “I can’t make it through that whole task right now without more energy,” or “I just can’t focus enough to get it done,” or you procrastinate superbly deciding that you’ll handle it later after something that appears more important like getting stamps or fixing dinner. Whatever fills your head, it usually wins with these tasks and they remain incomplete because of your fear of them.
There is a way around this in the post-Adderall life and it seems contradictory but works beautifully. In zen meditation, Buddhists teach themselves to sit and observe their thoughts and simply feel them. Whether it’s anxiety, fear, pain, rejection, or anger, they have wisely learned that they can separate themselves from the feeling by merely looking at it as though it was separate from them and experiencing the feeling. When one forces himself or herself to marinade in the unpleasant feeling and identify with it and its effect on our mind and body, it’s like it becomes “used up.” That’s the best way I know to describe it, and you get a new sense of control over the each individual task.
Give it a try. One of these situations for me is actually writing thank you letters. I will put it off for days exhausting myself by running away from the task. What I’ve taught myself to do is instead sit down in front of the paper and pen and not write, but I just sit and do nothing in front of them. I observe how uncomfortable I feel, how I don’t know what to say, and any other feelings that come which had kept me from doing it without any intention of doing the activity (restraining yourself from starting is key, and I have this “pact” with myself that I won’t force myself to). Every time I have practiced this task, I have been unable to eventually hold myself back from writing the thank you note or whatever the task is, no matter how hard it was originally for me to approach the task. Sometimes it’s taking out the garbage or going for a daily walk for exercise. No matter the task or situation, it works.
The next time one of those energy-sapping thoughts comes into your head about a task you loath and don’t have the energy or focus to do, walk right up to it, restrain yourself from doing the task, and marinade in the unpleasant feeling just on the cusp of where you would do it without intent to actually do it. Identify what it feels like, how your breath changes, where your body tenses, and most importantly, “just be” in the middle of the feeling without any intent to complete the task that is bothering you.
In this way, you master the fear of the task you most completely loathed and see what was keeping you from approaching the task has actually now disappeared.
I hope this helps some of you as it has helped me.
To anyone reading this,
I just want to agree with everyone on this page that this website is LIFE CHANGING.
I happened to get my hands on prescription for Adderall in my second year at college. Till this day I still consider that year the most successful year of my life. Unfortunately my achievements that year served as incentives that continued to drive my need for Adderall. Looking back now I can see that every year I got worse and worse at the D1 sport that I played, with my school grades, with my romantic relationship, and with my social life. I went through very similar experiences these past 4 years as the ones talked about on this site. The crashes were big enough for me to miss important events, I only got more awkwardly social as I became more dependent on Adderall, my 4 year romantic relationship was bouncing back and forth between distancing myself and chasing rigorously, and I have went through episodes of depression and also what seems like bipolar periods.
I can see clearly, due to this websites help that I was doing well before I started taking the drug. Before the drug I met a beautiful amazing girl who I had an incredible relationship with, I was ranked among the top 20 athletes in my sport nationwide (in High school and in college), and I made it into an ivy league school.
Recently I quit Adderall for a month and I am beginning to feel alive again. My athleticism, to my surprise, is still there. My competitive nature is still there. However, I am still scared of letting it go. I still wonder if if I will achieve everything I ever dreamed of. I am scared that I will be mediocre and that all my hard work will not pay off. I lied, I am not scared, I am petrified. I ask myself these questions that make me second guess quitting my addiction…
1. Was it just my relationship that got in the way of my success and not really Adderall? Could it have been the case that without adderall things would have been much worse for me these past 4 years considering how bad it got with my relationship?
2. If I just learn to control the Adderall the way I did that second year in college would I get to a level of productivity that is otherwise impossible for sober me to get to?
3. Should I try Adderall now that I am not in a relationship? If I do would that show me that the toxic relationship is what hindered my dreams from coming true? Or am I going to end up regretting something unforeseeable the way I regret losing my precious ex?
This is the first time I have ever posted any website online besides Facebook. This website is incredible.
I have recently quite my adderall it’s been 6 days. I truly can’t express how much damage this drug has done to my life. I was prescribed 20mg salts 3 times a day however with my history of addiction it wasn’t long before I abused my script. I really don’t recall the moment I started to abuse it but it has been well more than a year
My 60 MG a day has become on average between 200 and 240mg daily use. My 90 pill script has yet lasted me more than 9 or 10 days. And I have found several outside sources to compensate the remaining 20 days a month.
The best way I can describe the last year or more of my life would be moments of manic behavior where I would get stuck in projects or work for days on end without sleep followed by chemical psychosis brought on from over stimulation and lack of sleep. I have obsessively attached myself to distractions with out ever finishing anything. And I don’t have much recall of huge blocks of time. This last year Is like a foggy dream.
Now it’s so hard to come to terms with what happened. I truly believed I had a great life with some real accomplishments. However the truth is that In the last 2 months I have lost my wife my house my entire life is so uncomfortable. Living on friends couches and facing bankruptcy so soon I won’t even have a vehical. I have destroyed everything even my marriage. I am absolutely devistated by the reality that adderall ruined my life and completely tricked my mind into never even recognizing it as a problem. My second day without adderall the reality had set in and I was obsessed with the idea of suicide. I fell as if I woke up and everything was gone and my future looks bleake I am getting help with the addiction and psychological help as well. The depression is hard and lack of hope is the worst. I am so hurt that I neglected every responsibility in my life till it was all gone. And I didn’t even see it. I can truly say I will never take this crap again. It’s awsome to find a site of people c who can relate because most people seem to not understand. It’s a lot like the plot for shudder island only with a different ending. “I’m not nuts”.
I decided to quit adderall and smoking at the same time cold, and this website helped me through the toughest first week. People describe withdrawal as ants crawling all over you, but to me it was like having my whole body covered in one giant poison ivy mosquito bite pulsating with no way of itching it. After years of taking stuff, my dosage was up to 60mg. Here I am 8 months later and to be quite honest, I feel like garbage. My experience feels different from everyone else’s. You know how people get sick of eating pizza every day or grow tired of snow? Well I feel tired of…living. Don’t worry, I’m in no danger. I just feel like I’m tired of waking up, tired of eating, tired of thinking, of not thinking, of everything. I’m not sad, however my life without adderall feels so…unfulfilling. I exercise, eat right, socialize, sleep routinely, volunteer, have a fun job, and despite how privileged of a life I’m living, everything still feels like shit.
What am I doing wrong? I’m 25 and life feels downhill already, but I don’t have the willpower to fix it. Even if adderall made me artificially interested in everything, sometimes I think it’s still better than real life and being interested in nothing. Looking back, my favorite memory on adderall was back in college, sitting my car in a walmart parking lot at 3am eating a burger and chainsmoking while watching the rain, pondering if a low GPA would be acceptable for jobs coming from a top 5 school (hint: IT’S NOT. Nobody worthwhile cares about your work experience or accomplishments if your GPA gets you filtered out). At the time I thought it was a hilariously sad foreshadowing of the rest of my life. Little did I know…it only gets harder. Hard work is rewarded by even harder work, and being good at something doesn’t make it any more fun or rewarding. Thanks for the pep talk coach. Anyways…
Thanks for reading. Can anybody relate?
To Jimmy and everyone else out there either on Adderall or trying to get off of it. My advice is to not take Adderall in the first place. I know, because I was prescribed 180mg of Adderall IR for about 7 years, and the last 3 years repairing my life and relationships. Jimmy, I can totally relate to your situation. You are so lucky that you are only 25 years old and have the time to figure out what you want to do! I wish I was in your situation. Whatever you do, don’t start taking Adderall again. I know you said you aren’t sad, however what you have shared sounds a lot like you do have depression. You said you took Adderall for years, correct? Each person is different in how long it takes to get back to feeling “normal”. Believe me, I know. People don’t realize how much damage that taking Adderall for years affects your brain. Trust me when I say this that Adderall, especially in doses of 40mg and higher is really the devil in disguise. People don’t realize that over time your body builds up a tolerance to it, and you have to keep taking more and more to get the same results as when you first started taking it. Have you heard of cognitive behavior therapy for ADD? I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but talking to someone besides a family member or friend actually does wonders. Everyone nowadays look for pills to fix everything, which I think is really sad. Doctors love to prescribe drugs for anything and everything in our society today. It’s horrible and irresponsible. Jimmy, what do you like to do? What interests you? You sound like an intelligent person who is at a crossroad in your life. I know right now it may seem like you are in the pits of hell so to speak, but your life will get better! You have the whole world at your feet, and you are only 25 years old! I could go on and on but I won’t. Whatever you do, don’t go back on Adderall! You will get through this, it does eventually get better. I promise.