Dopamine isn't a simple 1-dimensional value that goes up or down with drugs. It's not even accurate to describe ADHD medications as dopaminergic drugs, as stimulants have significant norepinephrine activity as well.

There are even non-stimulant ADHD medications that have no dopaminergic activity at all (Intuniv).

Complex human thought processes can't be reduced to single neurotransmitters. Everything you do is a complex interaction of many pathways that use many different neurotransmitters.

ADHD also isn't purely a chemical disorder. Plenty of ADHD people learn to focus and be productive through therapy and constant self-directed change. Plenty of ADHD people treated with stimulants just use their chemically-induced focus to mess around on the internet and continue to waste time.

Effectively treating ADHD requires approaching it as a mix of medication and lifestyle changes. Reducing it to just dopamine is a trap.

A deeper understanding of the mechanisms can lead to all sorts of benefits, from more accurate testing to better targeted pharmaceuticals to better studies of genetics.

> I'm confused

Yeah. Took me a while to see the "2010"...

It's the point of almost all ADHD memes - thought it's common sense now.