Comment by onetwotree | Hacker News Reader

Comment by onetwotree | Hacker News Reader

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You sure you're not me? I got into coding seriously in college after I started to take adderall to help study, and ended up making a career of it. I was absolutely terrified of quitting, because I felt like I couldn't do the one thing I was good at without it. I tried quitting and lost jobs over it, several times. It got to a point where I couldn't function as a human without it - I'd just sit in bed and feel sorry for myself. My addiction progressed to needing more than I could convince any doctor to prescribe, so I started getting more in various illegal ways.

I've been off the stuff for about 4 years, and I don't miss it at all. I'm actually a much better programmer without it - I don't get sucked into unimportant details, I have a more realistic sense of what I can and can't accomplish, and I'm more creative. More to the point, I have a life outside of a little bottle of pills now.

I got off of it after talking to some people who'd also gotten off - this helped alleviate my fears that I would have to give up my sweet programming career, and re-framed the problem as a matter of underused and atrophied motivation and willpower. It wasn't easy, but with a lot of love and support I managed to quit for good.

Hit me up if you want to talk - jonathan dot j dot mason, gmail.

Very good points. I do notice while on it, that it's extremely easy to get sucked down into rabbit holes, losing sense of time and of what's important.

I've also run into the same problem you described, of running out of adderall due to more and more tolerance. In desperation it even led me once to get some darknet speed pills off the internet, containing what I later found out to be meth... all due to a lack of available prescription alternatives. (I quickly learned methamphetamine is a completely different animal -- far more addictive, dangerously euphoric, and seriously neurotoxic. I learned to never do that again.).

I'm now experiencing my first health wake up call, which I'm convinced is linked to adderall use: just in the last few months, while using my iPhone I started to notice a very slight shaking in my fingers. Turns out: I have a family history of essential tremors and Parkinsons (caused by accumulated damage to dopamine receptors)... with ALS as a possible risk factor. That's right: A L fucking S.

And I'm only in my late 20's.

Terrifying. The illusion of my own invincibility has been shattered. For the first time in my life, it's abundantly clear that my problem with adderall is no longer just psychological: it's physical. That if I don't make changes soon... things could start going downhill for me -- fast.

I may take you up on that offer when I can muster up the courage. Thank you.

> I may take you up on that offer when I can muster up the courage. Thank you.

Please do - it's always a pleasure to help someone out of a bad situation that I've been in. And remember, fear is a prison without walls - you just have to make a decision to walk through that fear, and you're free.

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