R.L. Kramer

I am not a medical professional and what I have written is a personal essay, I am not advising the use of nor the stoppage of any medication or treatment. I am speaking only from my experience.

If you have grown accustomed to using adderall to manage life, by way of integrating them into your routine to treat behaviors labeled ADHD, quitting it may be the hardest thing you ever do…so far.

Quitting adderall while taking it feels impossible. It’s like a butterfly telling a caterpillar what’s coming next.

When that medication stops showing up in your organism, you will be unsure if the rattling of washers and loose change off the walls of your skull are the medication’s withdrawal or the latent untreated ADHD in your constitution. It’s both. You can sort the lot out. You have to train and focus harder than you ever have and the thing you have been using to focus is unavailable for its routine assistance.

When someone quits adderall, the dopamine system is out of whack. Whatever adderall benefits were provided from taking adderall, they are not only taken away, they are reversed. If adderall gave you energy and focus, suppressed your appetite and provided wakefulness – upon departure from your organism you will find yourself depleted, distracted, hungry, and sleepy.

As soon as you are able to question if you are addicted, you are probably are getting there. It took me 12 years to get there.

A seed of doubt in the moment of the swallow. Something that always seemed passive, normal, healthy and good all the sudden was put under the microscope of introspection.

“What is really going on here?”

I kept taking it anyways. I figured I’d already gone this far, may as well carry on.

What kind of relationship is this? A person and a pill?

I liked the way the medicine made me feel and I liked who I was on it, but what does that do the person I am off of it?

Do I need this?

Then justifications come. Crafting explanations on adderall is a seamless process of reasoning construction. A scaffolding of logic that justifies action. A sharp, resolute mind.

– I do have a neurological condition and this is medicine.

– I am really good at my job/school/hobbies.

– I am happier and I feel in control of my life.

– I am skinny.

– A doctor gave it to me, they are very knowledgeable.

– I like it.

– It saves my life because when I stop, I have thoughts of ending my life.

Now. What I just described is a known side effect of the withdrawal. Once you find yourself on adderall island, the beach and the water are full of monsters, waves and storms. To navigate away from the shore is disorienting, and appears to hold in it fateful consequence. While there are enough resources on the island. It is safe. Co-dependent relationship. The challenge and unknown nature of leaving adderall island makes the comfort of its resources that much more desirable.

When you don’t understand that these flagrant suicidal ideations are side effects of the medicine and not your true inner voice are just a side effect of the withdrawal, you can endure them. Like a fever breaking to activate the immune system. So desperate the call to CHANGE SOMETHING.

Nothing will change unless something changes.

The knowledge alone that this mental phenomenon is a part of the withdrawal is armor against it. Resist it and remember and while the intention is to stay alive and depart from this drug, resisting this, builds the mental fortitude needed to rebuild the attention span, ability to focus, work and thrive – without amphetamines.

You (proverbial) have made taking adderall an essential part of your productivity routine and character.

You take amphetamines. That may not be what the bottle says on it… but you take amphetamines and they are very addictive. “Habit forming” and dependence are all variations on the same experience. In one way or another, it gets to the point where I needing this drug to be myself is more of a problem than a solution. I am dependent on it to get work done. To get out of bed and participate in all of my life with this energy.

So you do something crazy. In defiance of science, you don’t take amphetamines. You struggle to crawl out of the cavernous belly that swallowed you up. You see the light at the end and see that it is you that crawls to it. You accept that the path of your development in accordance with work, time, organization, etc., has been detoured and modified by a long term stimulant habit. You experience real life struggle and challenge. You come to terms with your limitations and work hard to stop trying to change yourself into what you think you should be changed into and you figure out where you fit.

You learn to sail away from the island prepared to learn how to sail.

For more on this topic, refer to my book, Hocus Focus: Coming of Age with ADD and its Medicines