Watch the video of me reading this letter, or read it below.
Dear Adderall,
Sometimes I miss you.
I think of the sleepless nights we shared in an impassioned fervor of madness on the edge of genius and insanity. Roaming the hills of my mind and creative force, we manipulated the material world vigorously and with precision in our deepening solitude; hacking away at art with open expression and an urge to know everything.
I had to tell people what I created, I created without you. You were my secret helper. I took credit for our collaborations. When I tried to create after we broke up, I just couldn’t do it alone. The work looked tired, and the work didn’t have the detail you provided. It looks rushed and vague. I don’t know if i was ever even a painter with you or if I was only your brush. You stroked my mind, gushed me full of serotonin and dopamine. You violated my identity.
There will never be place for you in my heart, your place was only ever in my brain. Where it is gets smaller in the rear view of my existence as I have learned to be myself without your influence. What we created together is beautiful because it is fun to watch things combust. After things fall apart in a beautiful explosion of color and life, there’s nothing left but the pieces that held it together in the first place.
Your touch was addictive and it took me years to get over what we had. You left me half a man as I had given half of who I was to your influence. When I see my friends with you, I worry that you’ll hurt them too. But it’s hard to say or do anything because I know how convincing it is to be with you. You assured me that I was being who I truly was and in the days without you, I was a lost, confused, incomplete version of myself. I was chemically depressed without you.
You inadvertently taught me who I was. The very hard way. I sought my true self as I departed from the false self we fabricated together. It was hard to mourn for the person I was with you. I had to leave a part of myself behind.
Remember that time my insurance deductible wasn’t met and I paid full price for you? I had only six hundred dollars, no income, and I didn’t hesitate to spend half of it on bottles of you. One hundred and eighty of your little orange bodies in two orange bottles inside my backpack, with my name on them — literally. Anxiously, in the parking lot of the CVS, I took out a 20mg, swallowed it and pedaled home to work on binding empty notebooks to sell at a fraction of their worth.
At times, I’ve longed for these intimate moments of creation. I remember the clear vision you supplied. I felt like a Super Mario Karter who just rolled a star. Problems bounce off a delusional self confidence as music and art rolled of my fingertips. It’s easier to work hard than it is to sit still l when I am with you. With you, being lazy hurt. With you, I feel like an empty shell on fire. A stunningly articulate egomaniac. A machine. I felt like I can finally rise up to the occasion of all of society’s expectations. I understood, instructions, I understood how things worked. I felt like I was accessing who I actually was. I felt more authentic and in touch with myself. But you leave. You fade away and I have to go countdown to myself to get the motivation to get out of bed and use the bathroom. You left wake. It was a delusion.
You take up so much of my life at some point, it is hard to see others. I flock to you, heartbroken, and together we cowardly waltz into a brief sneak peek of chemically induced psychosis. You made me incapable of loving another human being. I am not a pill, I am a human. I need to be with other humans. You age me. We were doing too much too fast. I was awake too often. I was not eating enough. I thought I was too smart to be social. This is a delusion. You were misleading me.
When I am shown what real medicine is, you appear as you are; an imposter. You are a party-drug. You are not a sacred human medicine. You are meant for dubstep producers and wall street brokers, if that. You are meant for overly ambitious ivy league students and doctors and nurses on twenty-four hour shifts. You are meant for fulfilling expectations beyond our assumed capacity. You were designed to be sold, marketed and distributed. You are probably not meant for kids. Perhaps, if students need the effects you provide, they can experiment with drinking coffee in the morning like the rest of us. Coffee at least is a plant that loves the sun and loves water. Coffee and I have that in common. You and I have very little in common. You came from a lab. I came from a mother. Medicine from the earth is godly, natural, pure and honest. Plants choose to exist without us making them exist. You were forced into existence by Gordon Alles in 1932 and he only wanted you for the money.
Over time, I appreciated this intensity. You conditioned me to like it since I was seven. Since then, I have reduced this desire to a level where the stimulation provided by coffee is enough for me to have energy for mundane human tasks without the complicated psychological issues that come with taking a daily dose of amphetamine.
I was assured you were safe and we were brought together for the sole purpose of me doing good job in school and not bothering my teacher.
Adderall, you left some of your junk in my head. And maybe we made it together. You were with me during formative years. I still occasionally enjoy our love of patterns. I sleep now. I eat food. I am in love. I have to work hard to get things done. It’s hard. I was so used to you helping me and now I am on my own. I know I am better off. I take time trusting doctors. I don’t trust the pedagogy of American public schools. You blurred all these lines. These institutions introduced me to you.
The least I can do is tell people what you’re capable of before they are entwined in your nonsense. I have to tell people about you. You are a strange, silent epidemic at work.
For a long time, I did miss you.
I will choose being an honest failure over a false success — any day.
Hey listen kid, be careful out there. You’re strong. You’re a masterpiece of human understanding of chemistry. Your power is a lot to handle. Be careful alright.
Yours Truly,
R.L. Kramer
This letter has been updated/edited and was originally written in June 2017.
Feel free to consider my book, Hocus Focus: Coming of age with ADD and its Medicines
R.L. Kramer 
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