those ADHD meds are exceptionally addictive and long term damaging to your body/heart/mind. be careful.
Untreated ADHD itself is far more dangerous than any of the medications: high rates of mortality, suicide, addiction, job loss, relationship difficulties, car accidents, etc.
There is also some evidence that giving children stimulant medications for ADHD can make it less likely that they will continue to have ADHD as adults.
And you can't quit Intuniv without titrating off for a week or two or you'll feel pretty sick.
They are so unaddictive to people with ADHD that remembering to take them can be challenging.
People with ADHD are treated on a very low dose, and slowly titrated up which makes you much less likely to feel high. People without ADHD that are illegally using stimulants aren't getting treated by a doctor, and aren't going to slowly titrate up the dose, or take it consistently in low doses over a long period of time. People with ADHD sometimes do feel a small high or euphoria for a short time when they first start a new medication.
People without ADHD but using adderall illegally, e.g. as a "study drug" are not getting a high or euphoria if they consistently use a low dose like an ADHD person.
I have clinically diagnosed ADHD, but even the lowest possible dose of adderall makes me extremely high in an uncomfortable way and unable to sleep for days. Most likely, I also have a liver enzyme mutation that causes me to not metabolize amphetamines properly. Ritalin I metabolize quickly, and don't feel a high at all.
You can't diagnose ADHD by giving a medication and seeing how people respond. Even people with ADHD respond very differently to the same medications.
There is also the fact that medication with ADHD can give people executive control over hyperactive physical movement, so they may seem to be "slowing down," which kind-of looks like the opposite of a stimulant effect, especially to adults watching hyperactive kids calm down. But that is basically the opposite of what is actually happening- the increased stimulation allows the brain to regain executive control of behavior.
Here is a journal article reviewing the evidence and debunking this idea: https://www.nature.com/articles/1301164
Across ~4 doctors (1 PCP, 3 pysch), none have titrated up. They've ballparked and said things like "let me know and we'll reduce if you can't sleep and increase if it doesn't work. If you want, try doubling up or cut it in half (for non-XR)".
Given the variation in dosage visible in the literature (such as this case report of megadosing: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3407707/ ) I'd suggest that there are multiple underlying physical causes for the condition described as ADHD to the extent that sweeping statements like that aren't accurate. E.g. my (very different) experience and your experience being different indicates that we probably have different underlying causes, not that one is a myth or misperception and the other is the real take.
In my case I can't tolerate even 2.5mg of adderall, and I also have hypersensitivity to several other non-psychiatric medications that happen to be metabolized by the same enzymes as adderall/amphetamine, so I am nearly certain it is a liver enzyme issue. I do tolerate a reasonably high dose of methylphenidate (ritalin) without any euphoria or insomnia.
Society (American society in particular) has just decided that the medical benefits of amphetamine outweigh the risks for people with ADHD vice versa for those without.
There are good reasons why this seems to be true even if it isn't... you take a hyperactive person with ADHD, because they have poor executive control of motor function, and give them a therapeutic dose of a stimulant, suddenly they can control motor function. It appears on the surface to be almost exactly the opposite of giving someone a high stimulant dose. They appear to be opposite responses, but in fact are the same type of response... it's just that the ADHD person is regaining a level of executive control that the non-ADHD person already had anyways.
Just watch your blood pressure, but you should do that anyway.
> Research has shown that those with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have an increased risk for addiction disorders like alcoholism and substance abuse.
Wait, I forgot to take mine.
There have been studies done that show therapeutic doses of amphetamines over a multi-year period actually INCREASED the level of dopamine receptor expression in the brain.
It was by a very small amount, don't get me wrong (3-4%). But it absolutely debunked this entirely assumed theory that long term therapeutic amphetamine use would result in some kind of pseudo-addiction.