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Comment by rsstack | Hacker News Reader

What's amazing, to me, about Adderall is how much of a magic solution it is to some people who have real ADD (and not self-diagnosed similar symptoms). My girlfriend didn't get diagnosed until the age of 30 but clearly has ADD. I assumed she knew when we met each other, my therapist "diagnosed" her from my stories, and yet one day she asked me "Do you think I have ADD?" and I answered "I assumed you knew.". She then got diagnosed and started taking Adderall once a day on week days. It totally changed the way she's able to complete uninteresting work. She no longer works until 2-3am and is able to end her day while the sun is still up. Total game changer, and no negative side effects for her. I know many people abuse it, and maybe people suffer from side effects, but as a medication it truly has a reason to be prescribed (by doctors).

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Completely agreed. It was a miracle for me. I felt like I was significantly less irritating and could concentrate on normal tasks.

It's important to talk about Adderall abuse, but at the same time, acknowledge its benefit for those who need it. It's such an embarrassing drug to admit to taking because it has so much stigma connected to it. I usually avoid talking about it because people's reactions can get very judgemental and uncomfortable.

I’ve never heard any stigma attached to adderall.

Adderall is a brand name of amphetamine / "speed". Enantiomers and purity notwithstanding, it's the same substance whether you acquire it from a pharmacy or a dealer, so any stigma applied to speed also applies to Adderall.

There's a lot of things you said in this one post which just aren't true.

1. "Speed" refers to a variety of amphetamine salts, not just the four in Adderall.

2. "Enantiomers notwithstanding" is an absurd aside: one enantiomer, levoamphetamine, has significantly less euphoric effect and as such isn't sold as a street or party drug, except incidentally as an impurity. Which enantiomers you're receiving is extremely relevant in this group of chemicals.

3. "Smoking meth" and "taking Adderall" have very different social stigmas. I'm certainly not saying there's no social stigma around Adderall, but there's definitely a lot more social stigma against non-pharmaceutical amphetamines.

Desoxyn (methamphetamine) has been used for ADHD treatment also. If I had to guess, it's somewhat less effective than other blends with a higher potential for addiction.

I have flirted with the idea of trying to get (pure) meth on the black market as an ADHD treatment during times where I was having trouble getting Adderall. I would only use it for this if I also had access to testing and could determine purity, so I could dose appropriate. Fortunately I've never been that desperate and unmedicated that I needed to take this risk.

I was also prescribed 3 different amphetamine blends over the last 26 years (Vyvanse, Adderall, and Dexedrine) as well as taken a 14-year break from all ADHD meds over the same period.

I do somewhat wonder if the size of the black market for amphetamines is so large in countries which outright ban amphetamines for ADHD treatment is in part due to people with ADHD self medicating (Yaba in Thailand for example, which now appears to be on the path to decriminalization)

Haven't you ever seen "they're giving our kids speed!" posts on social media? Everything in your post is true, but stigma isn't based on reality. Stigma against speed and Adderall are both fruit of the same poisoned tree. Trying to offset Adderall stigma by drawing (a correct!) distinction from speed is just furthering the problem.

> Haven't you ever seen "they're giving our kids speed!" posts on social media?

Yes, I have seen those posts. Have you seen the post you're responding to?

I made it very clear that I'm aware there is some social stigma around Adderall. I'm saying there is a much more severe social stigma around illegally-obtained amphetamines.

you must exist in a very narrow sect of society.

The sect of those who know what adderall is, is very narrow indeed.

Same for me, but took me even longer. I got where I am because I would spend whatever time it took to complete it, even when that meant neglecting family or sleep. Now I can do the same quality and quantity of work and learning, without all those hours wasting my time waiting for stress of the deadline to finally kick in to push out the ADD and just do the damn work. I can't help but wonder what the opportunity coat was for all that time.

The most interesting thing I learned is that it works only if you have ADHD. For normal folks, it gives the illusion of it being useful with lout objectively improving anything.

If you don’t have ADHD and are using Adderall, you are hurting yourself and society.

> is that it works only if you have ADHD

My understanding is that this is mostly a myth. Predictors of ADHD (and consider that a diagnosis can be highly inconsistent depending on the practitioner) don’t have a strong correlation with measures of productivity increase that compare treatment groups with/without Adderall.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/adhd-adde....

https://www.verywellhealth.com/taking-adderall-ritalin-witho...

That's an online meme unsupported by evidence.

The opposite of what I am saying is a popular meme like in the article we are discussing here.

Some recent research backing what I say:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/adhd-adde....

https://www.verywellhealth.com/taking-adderall-ritalin-witho...

You are welcome!

and an urban legend (did we use to call them?) before online memes were a thing.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/adhd-adde....

https://www.verywellhealth.com/taking-adderall-ritalin-witho...

We no longer live in the 90s.

Modafinil needs to be better represented.

Let your girlfriend know that she deserves treatment on weekends, too. ADHD doesn't take days off. Medication helps with much more than work and chores.

As someone with ADHD who has been on stimulants... yes, ADHD doesn't take time off, but it's not that simple, and you should be more careful with making confident assertions about what other people should do with their health.

Stimulants slowly stopped working for me at low-moderate doses, and at higher doses I started having bad anxiety from them. One potential solution to this was to take time off from stimulants at regular intervals (such as weekends) to reduce buildup of tolerance and stay at the lower dose while getting the effects when I needed them. I ended up not going that route (taking Strattera now) but it's something I've heard from a few people.

I'll also add that ADHD symptoms aren't always experienced as all bad by everyone. Some people experience it as more creative, or adjacent to flow, and only want "treatment" when they need to buckle down and do more "boring" work. I'm not in that camp, but a friend of mine is.

Obviously, my confidence can't directly change someone's prescription. Only their psychiatrist can do that.

My point here is that the many psychiatrists are working in a framework where the evidence they are looking for is that treatment helps the patient complete obvious tasks like improving at work or school. This is why children get the overwhelming majority of diagnoses: school provides a framework of hard data to make judgements from.

Work and school advocate for themselves. The rest of a person's personal life doesn't. That's why either a psychiatrist or their patient must advocate for holistic treatment.

> My point here is that the many psychiatrists are working in a framework where the evidence they are looking for is that treatment helps the patient complete obvious tasks like improving at work or school. This is why children get the overwhelming majority of diagnoses: school provides a framework of hard data to make judgements from.

And if that was your point you should have said that. What you actually said, was a medical recommendation based on assumptions you could not possibly know.

No, that was your uncharitable reading of what I wrote.

This isn't a programming language. Everything we write is context sensitive. It's always going to be the reader's responsibility to provide a sensible context. As a reader, you will always be able to frame my writing negatively.

> No, that was your uncharitable reading of what I wrote.

I am in general an advocate of assuming the best possible meaning, but there isn't a charitable enough reading to what you said in your first post that makes it mean what you said in your second post.

> This isn't a programming language. Everything we write is context sensitive. It's always going to be the reader's responsibility to provide a sensible context. As a reader, you will always be able to frame my writing negatively.

True. So what context did I miss that makes "Let your girlfriend know that she deserves treatment on weekends, too." an okay thing to say? All the context I'm seeing there seems to indicate that you are sharing an unqualified opinion on whether someone should be treated for a medical condition on weekends, which is none of your business.

Yes, it's readers' responsibility to read charitably, but there is also some burden on the communicator to communicate effectively. Maybe you intended to say something other than what you said, but ultimately readers can only make the best of what you actually said, not what you intended to say.

If you intended to say something other than what you said, there's no shame in admitting you misspoke. Mistakes happen. But I'm not going to take the blame for your poor communication if I didn't read your mind when you said something you didn't mean.

this is unsolicited, non-medical healthcare advice. yikes.

Well obviously they would have to talk to their psychiatrist, who would make the final decision. That is already legally guaranteed!

I just wanted to share the context that it is very common for people to approach ADHD treatment from the perspective of work, and not life. I've talked to many people who have had to advocate for their own healthcare in this context, and greatly benefitted by doing so.

> Well obviously they would have to talk to their psychiatrist, who would make the final decision. That is already legally guaranteed!

Good thing psychologists are totally unmanipulable and nobody ever breaks laws.

> I just wanted to share the context that it is very common for people to approach ADHD treatment from the perspective of work, and not life.

Then perhaps you should have shared what you wanted to share instead of sharing an unqualified medical opinion.

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