I’m Quitting Adderall — Who Cares?

This isn’t a Medium article with any real how-to or case study on my quest to rid myself of Adderall’s hold over me. It’s just something I want to write to put this out in the world that I’m doing it. Hopefully, by the end of my little rant there will be some semblance of an article worth reading and possibly a bit of motivation for anyone else looking to quit. I promise to follow-up in the future when I feel I’ve actually kicked this nasty habit to provide some insights.

Side note — sorry for the grammar and misspellings. I’m obviously going through some withdrawals and won’t be editing this.

A little backstory…

I wasn’t one of those kids prescribed Adderall or Ritalin. I discovered it in college…my 5th year of my 6 year undergrad. The roommate of my girlfriend at the time had a medicine cabinet full of the stuff and gave me a few pills to study for fall finals.

Oh. My. God. I have never felt so intelligent and unstoppable with it.

That started a college career of seeking out Adderall to cram for tests. Without medical supervision I ended up in the hospital one night, which led to a 3 day stay. Whoops.

After I (barely) graduated, there wasn’t much need for the stuff any longer. My first job was in advertising sales, making decent money. But I moved west to chase a dream job. The journey to that dream was low paying, so I had to also take a night job working at a club. I convinced my doctor that I needed Adderall to cope with not being able to pay attention at work, which I mainly used to stay awake until 4am when my late night job ended.

I do believe I have ADHD, but I was using it for the wrong reason.

I finally paid off enough debt and saved some money so I could just work my day job, but I still kept taking the Adderall to do better — career advancement and whatnot.

Then I started some side businesses online, which meant I obviously needed the extra focus on the weekends. More Addy.

Dream job didn’t work out so well, so I moved back home to my parents as a 30-something year old man. Desperate to create something of an online business, I started doubling my Adderall intake to get more done.

That business did not work. That sucked.

When I decided to quit…

The last few months I have had the worst time falling asleep and staying asleep. I started to take more Adderall and drinking way more coffee on the days I felt too tired to do simple things like read emails. I’ve been grinding my teeth and biting my lips so much that my mouth has been bloody for the last few weeks.

I just kept telling myself I’m stressed from failing at the businesses. I wasn’t addicted to anything. My doctor prescribed the medicine and I wasn’t getting high, I was being “productive.”

Last week, I went on a family vacation that my brother booked. I took Adderall at the airport so I could focus on some emails and read a book. The next morning I decided I wouldn’t take any Adderall all week so I could just enjoy the time with my nephew and niece without being drugged out on Adderall.

I felt horrible! The first 2 days I could barely function. I had absolutely zero energy and felt so bad I couldn’t play hide and seek with my 2 and a half year old nephew.

Day 3 they all went to The Crayola Experience in Orlando and I was in a mental rut, so I stayed back to sleep and watch TV all day.

Realizing how hard it was to get through those three days Adderall free, I knew I would never attempt that again on my own. I decided that night I would quit for good.

Luckily the next day I had a little bit more energy and was able to force myself to be active. Each day was a little better. Each day I started to feel a little more human.

The plan…

I flew back home last night and had the best sleep in my own bed than I’ve had in years. Today I was still mentally and physically drained, but forced myself to do some normal things like grocery shopping, meal prep, and housecleaning.

I’m still scared to throw out the pills I have left. I did however have the guts to email my doctor and say I want to stop. I’d imagine once he knows that it is doing actual harm to me and that I want to be done with it, he’ll avoid prescribing more to me. I also want to make sure I’m quitting the right way and getting advice on how to cope with the hell I’m expecting to go through.

I have found some support on Reddit from others who have quit or are in the process themselves. The advice I keep getting is to exercise, hydrate, and sleep. I’m also looking for diet changes and supplements I can take to counteract the mess going on with my brain right now that’s trying to figure out how to work on its own again.

But my main change is ripping off Nike. Just Do It. I thought about writing a post on Medium about this and my first thought was, “Ugh I need Adderall to write something like that.” Well, that’s the reason I wrote this mess. No more relying on Adderall to get things done. Just fucking do it.

If you read this far, wow…welcome to my psychosis. I really hope this resonates with someone and I hope in a few weeks or months I can shine a light on how to get through this hell.