Ed Note: This post is by Johanna Ryan who covers most of our stimulant related topics.
Dr. Larry Diller is a pediatrician who specializes in children’s behavioral problems, especially Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). He’s by no means anti-medication; he has prescribed stimulants to kids for decades. But twenty years ago he was already concerned about their overuse, and a tendency to over-diagnose ADHD in children. His 1998 book Running on Ritalin reported on a worrisome shift to diagnosing ADHD in older teens, and even in adults for the first time. It ended with this “ominous question”:
“As competition on every level intensifies, our preoccupations as a culture increasingly center on performance. Are we likely to see a time in the not-so-distant future when a large part of America will be running on Ritalin?”
That time has come, says Diller – and it’s worse than he could have imagined in 1998:
Today’s ADHD drug of choice is Adderall, not Ritalin. Now, it’s older teens and adults who are fueling an emerging epidemic of abuse and addiction. The not-so-distant future is here: We are living in the United States of Adderall.
The final chapter of “The United States of Adderall”, Diller’s four-part series for the Huffington Post, is available here. It contains links to the first three installments.
The over-prescription of Adderall and Ritalin to children is troubling, says Diller, but the rise of “Adult ADHD” diagnoses is even more dangerous. Clinical experience shows that adults are far more likely than children to like the effects of amphetamines, to crave more, and to become addicted. And by 2012, Diller notes:
“doctors were, for the first time, writing more stimulant prescriptions for adults than for kids.”
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. manufacturers in 2013 turned out six times as much methylphenidate (the active ingredient in Ritalin) as in 1996 – but an astonishing 28 times as much amphetamine, the active ingredient in Adderall. And a list of the top 25 psychoactive drugs in 2013 shows combined Adderall and Vyvanse prescriptions rising 42% just in the past four years.
This explosive growth in prescribing is not backed by medical evidence. There are no reliable figures for rates of ADHD in any age group, and what estimates we do have, says Diller, “are founded in sand.” In addition:
There remains no objective test for the disorder, no blood test or brain scan that can pinpoint a clear difference between someone with attention problems and someone without them. The majority of patients who land a diagnosis straddle a line where problematic attention and performance merge into variations of normal.
That doesn’t mean that ADHD is merely “a figment of our cultural imagination,” says Diller. It does mean that diagnosing ADHD remains a subjective decision. And the bar is falling rapidly: Children are being diagnosed who would not have been twenty years ago, and far more are being diagnosed for the first time as teenagers.
As for Adult ADHD, the very nature of the disorder is subject to “a great deal of theorizing and speculation among experts,” says Diller. Thirty years ago the diagnosis did not even exist; what we now call ADHD was known as “hyperkinetic reaction of childhood”. The few studies following children into adulthood are fraught with methodological problems. And we can say even less about patients who were first diagnosed as adults.
Amber’s story: Getting by with a little Adderall from her friends
To illustrate the dangers, Diller tells the story of “Amber” (actually a composite of several patients), who began taking Adderall in college to keep up with the demands of her pre-med program:
By her second semester, Amber was struggling. She’d scored a B-minus on her first organic chemistry test, despite pulling several all-nighters to prepare. So when a friend offered her one of his Adderall pills during a late-night studying session, she didn’t hesitate. “Man, I remember feeling like I’ve never felt before,” says Amber. “Just feeling fucking amazing, flying high as a kite. So from then on, I would take it only on occasions where I really needed to study for exams.”
It didn’t take long for her to feel like she needed the drug — and not just to study.
“I found myself popping it more frequently for school. It became a crutch. Then I would pop some before work. Then, after work. Then, when I went to hang out with my friends. Next thing you know, I’m literally popping up to 120 mg in a day to chase that Adderall high … I now have to take high doses every day just to feel normal.”
Clearly, Amber is hooked. Is she part of a small minority whose bodies cannot handle the drug, or is her experience more typical? Diller cautions that we don’t know exactly. But even if the percentage were extremely low – say, one in twenty – it would amount to hundreds of thousands of addicts.
The “medical route” to Adderall dependency
Amber bought her pills from an informal black market of fellow students who sold their prescriptions. Today one in six college students admits to having “abused” prescription stimulants. But as Diller notes, many more have obtained doctors’ prescriptions for Adderall on the shakiest of evidence:
For prospective patients, getting a prescription can be as simple as filling out a form full of predictable questions about their tendency to procrastinate, ability to focus, or feelings about whether they are living up to their full potential.
That’s how Mike, an Atlanta area college student, became a regular user. A fairly strait-laced kid with a solid “B” average, he knew he didn’t have ADHD – but he learned to love the effects of Adderall borrowed from friends. It delivered energy, confidence, and the focused stamina that helped him earn straight A’s in college while working full-time. Mike found it all too easy to recite the symptoms a doctor needed to hear and walk out with his very own Adderall prescription.
Is adult ADHD based on “patients” like Mike?
Mike’s experience highlights a notion that has become key to the selling of Adult ADHD: Amphetamines are presented as dangerous for the average person – but utterly safe and essential medicines for those with the disorder, whose brains are said to “need” them to perform normally. This view has been pushed by medical experts like Harvard’s Joseph Biederman, who educates doctors on “Managing ADHD through the Life Span,” and nonprofits like CHADD—Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder. Both have enjoyed substantial funding from Shire, the maker of both Adderall and Vyvanse.
And if your initial experience of Adderall is not a wild, disorienting “high,” but a pleasant burst of energy and efficiency that helps you accomplish a lot and feel good about yourself? That may be all the proof a doctor needs that you do in fact “have Adult ADHD.” More than a few newly-diagnosed adults have “discovered” their disorder after taking a pill prescribed to their child for ADHD, and finding they liked the effects. In an article on EverydayHealth.com, psychologist Russell Ramsay urged patients to be open about these experiences, which could help their doctors arrive at a “proper prescription.”
To the human body, speed is speed
In reality this is nonsense. For eighty years we’ve known that the majority of people feel more alert and energetic on amphetamines, better able to focus on boring or complex tasks. Earlier epidemics of amphetamine abuse were based on their “medical” use for weight loss and depression rather than ADHD. And as Larry Diller explains, the human body doesn’t care if amphetamines come from a pharmacy or a street-corner dealer:
Meth, Adderall, Ritalin, Ecstasy: they all work essentially the same way. Inside the brain, within the spaces between nerve synapses, they increase levels of dopamine and adrenaline by preventing these neurotransmitters from getting broken down or re-absorbed by cells. That, in turn, boosts all the feel-good sensations of speed along with a rise in energy levels, heart rate, blood pressure, and wakefulness.
Along with this comes an uptick in “executive function”, the capacity for self-discipline, focus and all the other qualities harried modern adults wish they had more of.
Here are a few of the symptoms that, according to Dr. Ramsay, “might lead you to wonder if you have ADHD”:
- You have trouble being patient with your kids.
- You feel like you can’t stay on top of everything.
- You lack the motivation to get things done.
- You procrastinate on important tasks, such as only starting to gather your tax receipts a few days before (or on) April 15th.
- You have a child with ADHD, and you see some of your own personality traits in the child.
- You remember having trouble concentrating and studying in high school or college.
Have you spotted yourself yet, dear reader? If not, just add your inability to lose weight and keep to a strict exercise routine – and you’ll realize how many adults might believe their first dose of Adderall had shown them a way to overcome their “handicaps.”
“I now have to take high doses every day just to feel normal.”
The advantage, such as it is, seldom lasts. As Larry Diller points out,
Over time, as use continues, dopamine levels become depleted, causing fatigue, dissatisfaction with life and a craving for more of the drug. No one knows exactly how addiction develops, but in lab studies, rats repeatedly choose amphetamine over food, eventually starving themselves to death.
As Amber said, “I now have to take high doses every day just to feel normal.” Without the drug, she endured bouts of severe depression and numbing fatigue; while on it she became ever more irritable and “hyper.” After initially peaking, her grades began to plummet as her life became more chaotic. She regretted “everything this drug is sucking out of me,” but felt she couldn’t stop. Amphetamines also have the potential to produce hallucinations, paranoia and other symptoms of psychosis, as the tragic case of Lawrence Fee made clear.
Mike, the student who talked his way into an official ADHD diagnosis, quit Adderall before his life spun out of control. What bothered him was a change in personality – especially a tendency to be impatient or unconcerned with people and obsessed with work. He felt he had to give up the drug to “buy back his soul.”
He went on to found a website, QuittingAdderall.com, which struck an immediate chord with other addicts—most but not all in their twenties. Many blamed their “Adderall personalities” for romantic breakups, social isolation and compulsive shopping, web surfing or binge eating. Several told of being misdiagnosed as “bipolar” by doctors who could not make the connection between their “medical” amphetamines and their erratic behavior.
Yet many bitterly resented being seen as addicts. They hadn’t turned to Adderall for thrills or escape, they said – they’d used it to excel at school, work and other worthy goals! Some (especially those working in IT) insisted their jobs could not be done without Adderall. In an article in the New York Times last year, workers in law, finance and yes, healthcare reported pressure to use the drug to boost their productivity.
This is Larry Diller’s final point, and one worth a book all its own. It’s bad enough that money, power and convenience have led our “medical-pharmaceutical complex” to dish out amphetamines. But are we also using them to “adjust” ourselves to an increasingly inhuman and unsustainable economic rat race?
One thing at least is clear: We need to keep talking about the United States of Adderall.
mary says
What an eye-opener! This article takes us to areas beyond any other that we have read here in my opinion. It seems that the whole of the human race is being judged and found wanting. Which company was it that recently had an advert which depicted a robot, with a slogan along the lines of “watch out, he’s after your job!”? – well, here we have it – no need for robots at all; fill us all full of Adderall and such likes today and we’ll be the robots of tomorrow.
I hasten to add that I am all for the ‘labels’ of ADHD, or any other specific difficulty, firmly believing that the whole spectrum needs to be discovered if we are to find answers to, or causes of, such conditions. I also find that the individuals, once given their specific ‘label’ can, with support, move forwards and gain confidence from knowing that they are not alone with their struggles. However, I DO NOT believe in medicating almost to oblivion. Medications have their place, as a crutch in the short term, for ADHD, IF really necessary to get the child or young adult to connect with strategies put in place to support them. They should then be removed and the child be allowed to continue to use the strategies which, in turn boosts their confidence to become an “I can” rather than “I can’t” individual.
I find the statistics for foster children really, really sad. Any child, taken away from his/her ‘normal’ background and placed in an ‘alien ‘ situation will obviously act out for a long while. Surely the purpose of a foster placement is to continue the ‘human repairs’ of continued love and trust; how do you get to this stage if you are being fed drugs which make it nigh on impossible for you to function as a human?
Having read this , I feel quite depressed myself – now, which ‘drug of choice’ shall I turn to in order to feel better? Thankfully, I need nothing more than a cup of hot water for that ( yes, water – not tea or coffee which I have not been able to touch since a dose of ‘flu about twenty ears ago!). I made light of the word ‘depressed’ there; I feel that companies these days make light of almost any condition – firstly, by suggesting a pill for each ill and, secondly, by making it so abnormal to be ‘normal’ and able to ‘cope’.
Johanna says
I have had personal experience with this drug, which I was given as an “adjunct” to antidepressants that weren’t working. I continue to be amazed at how modern medicine has un-learned so much it used to know about the addictive nature of amphetamines. They talk freely about the depression, cognitive problems and fatigue that hit addicts trying to get free of cocaine (a somewhat similar drug) and even methamphetamine (virtually the same as Adderall which is amphetamine and dextroamphetamine)! Yet they have somehow been sold the idea that Adderall has no addictive properties if you “have the disease” it is meant to treat. I hope to write more about what I have learned first-hand. It’s an ongoing process; I’ve been struggling to get off the drug permanently for several years. It’s tough.
One of American psychiatry’s dirty little secrets is the extent to which they are still using Adderall and other forms of speed to treat depression. I think it’s on the increase, too. Shire ran a very large trial of Vyvanse (lis-dexamphetamine) for depression a few years ago — but declared it a failure and did not publish the results. The drug ad at the top of this page really concerns me, because it indicates the drug companies are crafting a backup justification for putting depressed people on speed: They have “comorbid Adult ADHD.” I’ve heard this informally for awhile, but I guess doctors are now being taught it officially.
Bronwyn says
I have ADHD and i struggle with day dreams, procrastination and just starting a project and finishing it. I get distracted constantly and have even lost a job do to these symptoms. However i cant find myself being addicted as i forget to take tablet and can go days to weeks to months without it and then suddenly wonder why my brain just wont stop thinking and just focus. I got 30 tablets about 8 months ago and still haven’t finished the bottle. I find it makes me very tired that i could take a nap. The positive is that it calms my brain down and and helps me to pull myself out of day dreams easier but i still do struggle with focussing and procrastination. Its is still a struggle to focus and get in routine even on the drug but it quietens my brain and relaxes me. I feel more confident in tackling a task where normally id have constant anxiety because i dont know how to start a project or running behind on dead lines. It is true that you cannot get addictive to adderal if you truly have ADHD. Your body nor you crave the drug. You forget to take it half the time. Its not miracle drug to a person with ADHD because we still battle with our symptoms. It just helps us to be more productive in terms of calming our minds and taking us out of a dwell. It sucks have ADHD and i have very low self esteem from it. I battled through out my schools years. Where my pears had no problem ready a simple book – it was like climbing a mountain for me. You compete with you mind trying to control it that you just become completely exhausted and beaten down. Feeling like a outsider and stupid. Adderal has given people like me hope and a sense of ‘i can do this’.
clc says
I’ve lost track of how many ailments stimulants are being used for now, and clinical trials are adding to the queue for approval of new indications. Cocaine addiction, obesity, mental fog in middle aged women, depression in the terminally ill, negative symptoms of schizophrenia, adjunct to antidepressant, depression in bipolar disorder, OCD (Tom Insel pioneered that in 1983 but moved on to a TCA and thus started the drugging of children fad, or so it is alleged.) A study showed that when administered to inmates with ADHD in a prison, Ritalin treated the forgotten ADHD symptom, mood lability, and reduced strife and violence so effectively that the granting agency offered the researchers another grant to replicate or extend the work. That one doesn’t other me at all.
I became psychotic on and off for a couple of months in 2012-2013 using prescribed transdermal Ritalin. It didn’t stop when I discontinued. It was magical at first but turned foul and there were many serious bad consequences, which I am dealing with to this day, including loss of real estate and my retirement income. It was a perfect disaster of social isolation because I’d just moved, somewhat impulsively and after starting the drugs, worked from home, which was further isolating, and was to get help running my business or my brain once I started deteriorating. I’d been saddled with a bipolar diagnosis two years earlier after a manic reaction to iatrogenic sudden Effexor* discontinuation, so no one took much note of me anymore. That’s a casualty of ever having shown psychiatric symptoms; people no longer take your word for anything.
*OPTIONAL BACK-STORY
Oddly, I was on Effexor because a cancer doctor said I should see a psychiatrist for “adjustment disorder.” That’s not in DSM-5, but in -IV, the criteria are acute distress in reaction to something most people would not become quite so distressed about, and the absence of any known mental or mood disorders. I was having trouble adjusting to a decision by the doctors at a hospital I’d transferred for radiation after 6 months of chemotherapy that was going remarkably well in my stage 4 case. They’d never heard of using the chemo drugs I was on for my kind of cancer. The chemo drugs haad, by then, all but rid my liver of metastatic tumors, which is rare indeed. I was sure their refusal to continue the stuff I’d been on would kill me; what they intended was what the FDA recommends in stages 1-3. That regimen is not recommended by the nat. cancer inst for advanced cases like mine. They advise clinical trials or palliative care. (That’s despite know full well how effect my regimen is, I might add. Gotta keep pharma happy by loading up those trains with desperate stage 4 patients and unloading them at doors of the trialists. This way for the control group. This way for the drug that doesn’t work as well as Taxol.) The hospital’s chemo would have been a terminal disaster, but unbeknownst to any of us, I no longer had the liver mets that were meant to cancel my existence. The chemo I’d had for 7 months before I got the the new hospital had got rid of them before I arrived. This year, 6 years after, I have just seen that my oncologist at the new hospital called my chemo palliative care.
I did have one remaining sliver of tumor at the original site. On the new regimen, it grew, and I had to have a massive surgery that has changed my life. So massive two surgeons operate at the same time. The Effexor discontinuation was after a wholly unnecessary exploration of my liver 30 days before the massive surgery. My scans had been clean for 6 months but they insisted on propping open my thorax and digging around in hopes of being right; they’d said there was no way my liver could be free of cancer.
I don’t suppose I have to add that my initial diagnosis was delayed for 2 months by a denialist idiot, so that the tumor that ended up as the growing sliver went from non-existent or imperceptible to about 5cm in diameter. –Doc, how do you know it isn’t cancer? “Because it isn’t.” –But it’s a hard, attached mass. “Here’s some ointment.”
Why didn’t I demand she send something to pathology? Why, why why. It’s been like pachinko, and I’m the ball. Doctors, realtors, bankers, lawyers, judges, and law enforcement might as well have swarmed me and bashed me with baseball bats in 2007 when it all started. Taking 7 years to do it was unkind.
Forgive me if this is out of place. It started off relevant 🙂
annie says
All you have to do is read the Articles and the Comments from Psychiatrists/MDs to realise that when you become embroiled in Doctorspeak or Psychiatryspeak you are alone without a Prayer…
Disappointing?
http://www.madinamerica.com/2016/02/depressed-anxious-or-substance-abusing-but-dont-buy-you-are-defective/
Comments?
http://1boringoldman.com/index.php/2016/02/16/guarantee/
clc, thank you for your own tale of woe..who are these people?
Clc, thank you for your words on Rxisk.org
You, are entirely relevant……
annie says
S hits the F
http://1boringoldman.com/index.php/2016/02/19/un-ng-believable/
•
Johanna
February 18, 2016 | 8:09 PM
I wish someone would listen to Dr. Mickey before advocating anything as dicey as universal depression screening for teenagers.
I also wish we still had a few Amphetamine Control Officers–because they are utterly out of control, and the harms are not trivial!
https://rxisk.org/united-states-of-adderall/
Passion…….thank you..for yours..
10h
Adam Jacobs @statsguyuk
@fabrahamwriter Is your main concern that the people behind the #alltrials campaign are largely silent on this?
You Must Listen to Monica.. and.. Grace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjWWj4XQHEU&feature=youtu.be
Marten says
Dr Mercola was talking about that…10 years ago………………… and for all those “Dr”……”Non are so blind as those who refuse to see””
Sally Macgregor says
Way back, when my children were at junior school (around 1985/6) a neighbour’s son had what now would be called ‘behavioural problems’. It has to be said he was a royal pain in the ass – but he was only 8. Another neighbour – a child psychiatrist – persuaded the pain-in-the ass kid’s mum to try a new treatment – ritalin. It calmed him down fine – I don’t know if there were any long term consequences – but back in the mid 1980s it was exceedingly unusual for a young child to be medicated in that way. Now it seems routine.
One conceptual problem I suffered from for ages was not realising that ritalin and speed are one and the same – I couldn’t figure out why a hyperactive child would be given something that would – well – speed him up further. I understand better now but my guess is that lay people won’t make the connection between drugs for ADHD and amphetamines because it seems so counter-intuitive. So, if adderall/ritalin are perceived as specific, benign treatments for a distinct condition then those drugs are much more likely to be seen as beneficial? Non addictive, etc etc. And absolutely, utterly different to those appalling street/recreational drugs.
I think there is a massive public misunderstanding about the distinction between prescription and recreational drugs which will take a million years to undo..
Sally Macgregor says
Forgot to say – opiates and benzos seem to occupy the grey area inbetween. A deal of unease about their use, and people like me who became addicted to temazepam who are treated as drug addicts by the medics – with all the unpleasant, judgemental stuff that comes with it.
Carla says
Every individual is born a genius.
It worries me when a tablet is prescribed to placate individuals.
Whether it is hereditary, part of the process that some individuals go through when growing up, behavioural, attention seeking or some other underlying issue, one, if understanding and observant, will usually remedy the situation without a prescribed medication.
Long term effects and side effects, are worrying me because we never know the damage these prescribed medicines induce.
Most of the time, children want to go outside and play to release all their vent up feelings.
Some children are wired differently and need to get outside and play.
Others are born to study and absorb information at an incredible rate and so being in the classroom all day, benefits these minds.
All children play up during some stage of their life.
The more ‘ultra-intelligent’ children are the more ‘attention seeking behaviour’ comes out.
Children who have been labelled: ‘learning disabled’ are put into this category because they are not your ‘run of the mill type children’.
Children are all hard wired differently.
Imagine if you told a child who loves to read books all day, to play sport all day.
He/she would most likely tell you that they are suffering from an acute case of gastroenteritis. They will do anything to get out of sport, even if they have to fake their sickness.
Imagine telling a sport orientated child to read literature and recite poems. They would most likely make up any excuse to go to the lavatory and spend the whole day there. Anything to get out of what their minds do not like.
Are we getting the picture here?
We are all hard wired differently.
Well balanced educational systems will appreciate and understand that all children have different gifts.
They will do everything to accommodate to each and every individuals child’s needs.
Placating children with harmful substances really worries me because we don’t know the long term effects of prescribed medication.
We live in a society where every single ailment is treated with a tablet.
How can the genius come out of an individual if the ‘pineal gland’ is being numbed?
The same applies for adults.
Many adults still believe that a ‘magic pill’ does wonders for the mind..
Perhaps, many were never given the opportunity to explore or add more tools to their mental faculties because they were ‘programmed’ to believe that the ‘pill’ is the only solution.
Can you imagine if all the eccentric, different, quirky people were given a drug to mask their indifferences?
There would be no Beethoven, Sir Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei, Mozart, John F Kennedy, Princess Diana ,brilliant entrepreneurs etc…………… to change our world.
Next time, someone prescribes a tablet, try to ‘think outside the box’ and stretch the imagination and explore the unlimited possibilities of bringing out the genius out of someone before trying the next fad of ‘mind altering pills’.
What worries me is that too many people are ‘heavily over medicated’ and have forgotten ‘who they really are’.
Peter says
Ritalin is as dangerous as the amphetamine marketed as Adderall. A glance through various forums shows that the “comedown” off Ritalin is as ubiquitous as it is unbearable. I and others I know have had personal experience of this terrifying reversal in mood engineered by this drug. I honestly don’t know how teens cope with it – maybe in their formative years they are more resilient. But for the rest of us the nightmare begins as soon as the effects of Ritalin wear off – every conceivable worry and fear is amplified a thousand times. Many users recommend a sleeping tablet such as Zopiclone to cope with the comedown, hence raising the risk of cross-addiction, even while the aforementioned proves useless with very short repeated use. In my opinion, Ritalin induces a very severe form of depression in the wake of its terminating half-life. The feelings of dread and apprehension it induces are difficult even to describe. To anyone out there thinking of soliciting this stimulant remember that to be forewarned is to be forearmed. Avoid at all costs if possible.
Carla says
Peter, you seem to understand very well the effects these medicines – ‘poisons’ have on the individual.
I would not want to know the unnecessary harm it induces once you mix other medicines with this poison. What a frightening scenario : (
The other day, I spoke to someone about the effects that vaccinations may have on workers in the government health system.
It is all relevant when one wants to discuss the risks of all medicines.
Why should health care workers risk themselves to these poisons?
The notion that we are putting patients at risk when we are not being vaccinated is just all scare tactics and complete nonsense.
I asked her to educate herself about risks involved in taking medicines and asked her politely to come to this website and learn about innocent people who have been injured by medicines that are ‘deemed safe’.
She got on the defensive and personally it felt to me like she was protecting her career at the expense of others.
She said to me that ‘us health care workers’ are putting others at risk when we don’t get vaccinated.
This is called brainwashing by Government Health unions.
I asked her this question:
Do you know the statistics of how many people have been maimed or died as a result of being vaccinated for their profession?
She always had an answer to everything I posed.
She replied: ‘Of all the workers who have been vaccinated, no one has been harmed!’
I told her that she would not know how many innocent workers have been impacted by something that is ‘deemed safe!’
There was complete silence as if I had completely rattled her cage.
I said that she would not know how many people have had meningitis, cerebral haemorrhage, neurological problems and the list goes on form having vaccinations. These vaccinations do harm people.
I said if something is ‘deemed safe’ is should not harm you.
What makes one think that being vaccinated you have complete immunity from getting hepatitis B/C, aids, brain damage, cerebral haemorrhage, meningitis, neurological disorders etc……..
They induce these medical problems that they proclaim they are meant to protect you from especially, if you are unfortunate to get a random flawed batch.
Sure, out of one thousand people, one may be severely impacted and in my opinion, one life is one too many.
Motto to story:
Be careful of what you say because you cannot speak unless something unforeseen has happened to you.
I use to think like 99.9 % of you!
Take the time to listen to someone’s story before passing judgement.
We think we are all fine and that it will never happen to us however, we never know when it will happen.
Be grateful that someone has taken the time to educate even though it goes against the grain of what we have been programmed to believe.
Amy Lippincott says
I can’t disagree that Adderall is an addictI’ve drug. However I must say that it has been a miracle cure for me. For over 20 years I have been bed-ridden with depression, agoraphobia, and have been too overwhelmed to accomplish even the simplest of daily tasks. I did immense research online about the symptoms and behaviors of adults with add. I took all of the online tests, and had around 70 of the 72 symptoms or patterns of adult add. I went to a forensic psychiatrist who specializes in the diagnosis of adult add. He gave me more testing. He began me on a course of 15mg of Adderall twice a day. Immediately I was able to get out of bed and function. I did my laundry, cooked & cleaned, and was able to leave the house to do my own errands. All of a sudden, I was part if life again. I was by no means “high”, although I am aware that it is a Central Nervous System stimulant. I did not “crash” when it wore off. I was just all the sudden not overwhelmed by e ery little thing and could finally concentrate on the task at hand without having my mind become so muddled by tasks that I couldn’t think straight. For the 20 years prior to this, I took EVERY psychotropic drug on the market. I NEVER got ANY better. I figured if the cure doesn’t work than I don’t have the disease. We’ll Adderall consistently works for me everyday and I am finally able to complete thoughts and I no longer forget things like events and where I put objects. For the first time my life had a CALM, sensible rhythm to it. As I stated in the beginning, I know it is a physically addictive drug. But for the first time in 20 years I can live and think. For me, it is a God send.