I’ve been curious about it since I’ve never tried it but many people I know have. I’d be curious how much better I would be able to focus/think with it.
But damn the first time in college I took a 20mg and it was like a whole new world opened up for me: I felt super-human and the amount of work I was able to churn out was incredible. But like all things, it eventually catches up to you and you turn into a cracked out zombie whos muscles hurt and can't sleep.
It’s not just the addiction that is problematic. It’s the long-term consequences of the chronic side effects. We all know you need to sleep and to eat. This medication makes it harder to do both of those activities if not managed properly and thoroughly. Combine a failure to do that with long-term usage (abuse) and you've got a recipe for permanent damage on your hands that can cyclically reinforce that dependence.
Here’s an anecdote. I did a group project with a guy in college who I got to talking with about it. He had one of these nightmare stories. He said he had to stop taking it because he was absolutely strung out. I asked him about his dosage and he told me he had been taking 80mg XR/day. I was unaware they even made dosages that high. He said that he didn’t realize it at the time but he just kept chasing the initial feeling (seems he didn’t understand the concept of tolerance), and his doctor responded by repeatedly titrating up his dosage. He was at that max dosage for about a year and a half. He said when he stopped he went through a months long phase of extreme depression and physical discomfort like he has never experienced in his life before. He shared some pretty brutal stuff with me. He said that it had been a year and he still didn’t feel like his old self. He said it was like his attention span was even shorter than before the medication and at this point he wasn’t sure if it would ever be the same.
The pitfalls are real but personally, being 3-4 months in, it’s been such a game changer in my temperament and quality of life.
I suspect many people are in this category and people just have a bad classification for 'normal'.
The explanation of how stimulants affect the brain, by increasing the amount of norepinephrine and dopamine and inhibiting re-uptake, is something I feel I understand now.
When I read the experiences of those with and without ADHD taking stimulants they’re pretty consistent. Those without take some, are in a ”high” get a load of stuff done, then crash hard. If they take it for too long, their normal starts to sound closer to the normal I experienced before taking medication.
I kind of agree with you in the sense of having a bad classification of normal, I did. The cause and treatment are some of the most well studied areas of psychology, and stimulant treatment is one of the most effective in all of psychology.
ADHD, aside from being incredibly poorly named, is looking more and more like something we will come to know as a collection of related but different conditions, that happen to all respond well to stimulant medication.
I’d also add, stimulants don’t solve ADHD. They’re not a cure, they’re at best a pair of glasses, a crutch for someone with a broken leg, or a wheelchair for someone with mobility issues. They can help a lot, but they’re only one part of living with ADHD.
Not all ADHD responds well to stimulant medication, so not even that.
My skepticism is that I suspect everyone shares the benefits you describe when they take the meds. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I haven't really seen compelling evidence otherwise (people will just state it affects non-adhd people differently, but that doesn't seem to be the case imo).
I have an easier time not taking my amphetamine pill than I ever did skipping my morning coffee.
I've found supplementing w/lions mane largely mitigates caffeine withdrawal symptoms. It also takes the edge off when taking high caffeine doses. It's kind of like a caffeine antidote. I used to abstain from it for decades because of these negatives. Now it's a quite useful, legal, and cheap stimulant I'll go on /heavily/ and off at will.
I take it so I have the mental strength to pick the trash up off the floor.
And from what I can see in the research, therapeutic doses of amphetamines do not damage the body by any meaningful level, while untreated ADHD may shorten life expectancy by 10 to 20 years.
https://www.ajmc.com/view/psychologist-barkley-says-life-exp...