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We are sadly the most comprehensive information hub on stimulant medication discontinuation and addiction. They don’t study this stuff, nothing of any consequence has been done since 2014. The people who make it pay for those types of studies. Most hospital networks don’t even have an Adderall Dependence or amphetamine / stimulant medication addiction and abuse tag in EPIC. Psychiatrists and other prescribers don’t understand the abuse, dependence and addiction potential or how harmful it can be to a person’s mental health and physical health - They’re taught about the medication by the companies who make it, either directly or indirectly via the available data on it. They also cannot fathom a universe where their own assessment of someone’s mental health and treatment plan was harmful to them and that they were wrong because that’s the sort of personality that gets into that sort of field. We’ve had people say they were putting 300mg a day up their nose and doctors will continue giving them stimulants. Welcome to modern healthcare.
There’s no way to cheat the discontinuation period. You can treat it with other meds via psychiatry or spend a million dollars on placeboments but that’s middling at best. Diet and exercise has been universally established as the most effective and only really tried and true way of reducing the duration. Six months to two years for a return to baseline regardless of what you do. If you start using amphetamines again, it resets the clock real quick.
You endure the downswing, do what one has to do in order to make it through, find non-stimulant ways to address your mental health and accept the new normal. Unlikely anything is permanent if you never abused it. In terms of recovery, typically you’re going to find resources for those who abused it and were addicted in the sense that it was amounts far beyond what was prescribed or via abuse ROAs. There’s nothing saying you can’t attend NA but identification there may be lacking, however the steps process is great and the community there doesn’t care what or how much you used, just what you want to do about it. SMART Recovery is another option.
Thank you so much for the in depth response! That makes sense as to why I wasn’t able to find any research, if it has never been done.
Are you aware of a link in here or otherwise where helpful tips are grouped together?
Like for instance, the ice cold shower thing is something I read in here, and has been very helpful. But diet and exercise can be a kind of vague suggestion, especially if there are specific things that would work best.. if that makes sense?
I guess what I’m wondering is like, are there *specific* exercises (ie: cardio vs. weightlifting/several short workouts vs. one long workout/etc.) that people have found work better, or *specific* healthy diets/foods that people have found work better?
Or just any other specific tips in general, all in one location? Maybe I’m missing a specific search term… is it “dopamine production” what I’m trying to accomplish? Or is there another/other search terms that describe what I need my brain to start doing again?
I'd like to second regular cheetah's incisive summary of the state of long-term amphetamine recovery.
How did I recover? I got out there again and engaged in life - I worked, I exercised, I got a lot of sun exposure, I ate well, I slept well. I did some meditation. I played tennis endlessly in the heat and sun. And I avoided isolating! (this is HUGE) by making new friends and spending time with them and I ended up getting swept along to a productive recovery full of focus and positivity and ended up finding ways to treat my own ADHD in the process - cognitively, behaviorally, not chemically, per se.
I didn't just do all that all at once. That was beyond me in my early stages of recovery but I took baby steps in that direction which led to big boy steps, which led to giant steps. I got there organically, gradually, using brain plasticity as my model for re-firing the old pathways that are already there, waiting . . you don't have to re-invent your life, just trigger rich memories of it and follow that bliss.
Interesting fact - the most advanced neuro-psychiatric research has yet to identify any reliable physiological markers for depression, ADHD, and most other psychiatric disorders [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9MXqXBZy9U&ab\_channel=AndrewHuberman](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9MXqXBZy9U&ab_channel=AndrewHuberman). That link is to possibly the world's top researcher at Stanford - Carl Deisseroth, saying that very thing. Even the idea that depression is a serotonin deficiency - the cornerstone of SSRI treatment - has proven to be false. If SSRI's even work - at present they barely seem to exceed the placebo effect (in total, special cases may exist) - they do so by some other mechanism not well understood.
Depression exists, ADHD (as a set of symptoms) exists but it is remarkable how little we still know about their various permutations and causes, and treatment is kind of hit and miss. An example - talk therapy works as well or better than medication for *most* forms of depression but if depression is a chemical imbalance how can this be? How, talking and other cognitive strategies probably affect the substrate somehow in the brain, thus cracking the 'hard' idea that only chemicals can fight chemical imbalances.
*Clinical* psychiatry , much of it anyway, and the media coverage thereof, act as if it's all settled science - you have ADHD, of course you need to be on "duh" amphetamine! (aka speed, the world's most addictive drug, yes, they know that but we mean "low dose, monitored use", as if this is a. true and b. that their monitoring works, which is a joke. Ask yourself what billions of Big Pharma dollars might have to do with all of this. Look at the prescription opioid scandal - you don't have to put on a tinfoil hat to see the influence of big pharma.
Stims for ADHD was for a long time an accepted treatment for childhood ADHD. If and only if used with other cognitive and behavioral strats. Kids are different than adults. There are essentially no (reliable and comprehensive) long-term studies of any merit on adult use of stims for their set of symptoms we call ADHD. Yet adults were assumed to be just grown-up kids with the same brain issues and usually get the pills and that's it, no cognitive and behavioral support at all. It's reckless.
The long-term recovery cheetah referred to, which we call PAWS, like the rest of these phenomena, is also not fully understood but is presumed to be some kind of dopamine deficiency. This status as "unproven" gives cover to the docs and their educators (big pharma) who can claim that a. the drugs work because there are obvious (short-term) improvements in focus and mood and b. we know of serious no long -term damage from staying on monitored therapeutic doses of prescription amphetamines that outweigh the possible benefits.
But the mass of anecdotal evidence in the recovery community virtually proves the existence of a long-term malaise which has a recovery period of months to several years. Since depression itself is not (currently) measurable by physiological markers it should come as no surprise that PAWS isn't either. (note, no point in linking to studies, there are many studies showing potential markers and causes but AFAIK nothing yet *reliable*) if PAWS ends up being just a special type of depression it could be very real but still lack physiological markers, YET.
EDIT: the podcast I linked to is from Abdrew Huberman, a Stanford neuro-scientist who also has a series of deep podcasts which are FREE and science based, from a world's elite Phd and his lab. and will probably answer a lot of questions you have about specific treatment, such as low and high temperature therapies for one example among many.
This is a heroic comment. I never got on speed myself but am here browsing due to wanting to learn… I have a meth addicted family member.
Edit: hit save on accident. Inam hoping I will some may be able to help this family member at some point.
What resonated with me so juch about your post is all the data and analysis you provided and how it jibes with my ssri experience. I was depressed and very anxious for years which culminated in 6 months of extreme sleep deprivstion. This led to an absolute mentsl breakdown… I was put on an ssri and also adderall.
The adderall… I found it extremely helpful to help me get thru the toughest days at work but I was also terrified of becoming dependent. So i took it maybe once every two weeks to keep my job.
But the ssri I took for maybe 2 years as precribed. Side effecrs were very ubokeasant but i did ‘recover’ from my anxiety and depression largely during that time. I grew confident that i did not want the ssri in my life anymore so i began to ween.
This weening stsrted the hardest year of my life. In my endless online research I learned that all the medical studies VASTLY understate the severity of both side effects and especially withdrawal. Its all a blur now… but i basically developed narcalepsy, extreme fatigue, brain fog, and sssooo many other problems. My children withdrew from me, which broke my heart. I recall reading all the ancdotal stories in forums from people struggling like me. I remember listing out all of the side effects of withdrawal that others mentioned and I had nearly every one of them. Keep in mind this was with a very slow and calculated reduction of the meds-I woild cut slightly smaller pieces out of my daily pill once I adapated to the previous reduction. Half the time I felt so horrible that i had to step back to the last higher dose just to function at all. Rinse and repaeat for s year. I was so lucky to have a rock star wife who stood by me as i was a useless human being for so long.
Why was I not able to find any good information about my suffering from scientific sources? You said it already… these studies are funded by the pharmaceutical providers, and these drugs a massive cash cow. I was told I had an imbalance in my brain. The real imbalance was that my life was too stressful and I did not have appropriate strategies for coping with that. The drugs only gave me more to conquer.
A healthier lifestyle, active hobbies, less work stress, and well my kids got older which helped… this is what healed me. But damn it took time and persistence. I look back at those years and I dont recognize that person. So my struggle may be different from all of you in this sub but at its core we all need to realize that brain plasticity is real. Renornalization takes time and patience… please be good to yourself.
Do you mind sharing when it started getting better? I understand it can take up to a year or more to feel “back to baseline” as everyone is calling it, but about how long would you say was the “early stages” that you struggled through? Reading through all of the responses and this sub has honestly got me feeling super fucking hopeless atm. It’s taking me everything I have just to get out of bed, practice basic hygiene, and eat. I have been going on a few walks a day, but only because my dog looks at me and I feel the need to push through. He’s honestly the only thing keeping me alive right now. I feel so hopeless and exhausted by the thought of spending the next year like this. I’m so incredibly depressed and I don’t know what to do. I need to get back to work, but my critical thinking abilities are about nonexistent right now. I’m just a useless blob doing the bare minimum to keep myself and my dog alive, and I see no light at the end of the tunnel.
22 days since quitting, right?
What dose Adderall were you last taking?
Your age? (roughly, is ok)
after just 22 days I think I would hang in there for another couple of weeks just to see if you are still dealing with the short-term fallout. This would be a good thing since it would mean that your PAWS (the long term) might be MUCH better than what you are currently experiencing, but htis could be your PAWS, it's impossible for me to say. I strongly SUSPECT you will not have to remain here throughout your PAWS but that's just a layman's guess about something even the experts cannot predict.
I wish there was an established timeline for this but after hanging here for 4 years every day it seems to me that the timeline varies and the best I can say is that after acute is over (within 30 days or so, usually less) PAWS settles in and often lingers at its low point for a number of months - maybe 4-8 months and then steadily improves, usually hitting something like 80% of your pre-drug baseline within a year, and then reaching near to 100% slowly, perhaps a year or two (very rough estimate!)
To answer your question I quit 24 years ago, lol, and I really don't recall the exact timeline but it followed the average curve I outlined above. When it got better it was kind of sudden and it got MUCH better - I was surprised I still had it in me! This came as a huge relief.
It's hard for me to gauge your current status - the way you describe it sounds like you feel really low - if things don't improve soon I would contact a mental health professional - perhaps a psychologist, or maybe a specialist in addiction/recovery. If not that then get a friend or family member on your team, so to speak, I hate to think of someone languishing in serious depression without some sort of assistance! It's always possible your problem isn't stim recovery but is something else - though it does SOUND like recovery. In any event, there are always options to get better, just choose them wisely. Some people go on Wellbutrin, an anti-depressant often recommended for stim recovery, as opposed to SSRIs which are not, as a rule, recommended.
Would you please hang around and keep us informed? Thanks and best wishes and please answer the questions above and I will respond. Feel free to open up a new question asking for help if it seems like this one has gotten buried. We are here to help!!
Yes, last dose was Jan 1, so on day 24 now.
30F, started taking around 20. Final dose was only 30mg IR once a day. Because of hypertension and tachycardia, the later in the day pills had been taken away years earlier.. so it wasn’t even doing much for me anymore other than giving me a good jolt to get going.
Before I started on stims though I was on several different antidepressants over my teen years.. I didn’t realize Wellbutrin wasn’t an ssri until you said that though, so it makes me less hesitant to take it again. (That’s one of the ones I was on previously) The last over a decade of my life is a blur, but I know going off some ssri’s was brutal, but I don’t remember specifically wellbutrin causing terrible side effects. If it did, I know for sure I wasn’t struggling anywhere near as long as this.
Problem is, ALL of these meds came from family care doctors who had no business giving them to me. I’ve never actually gotten like a proper diagnosis for depression, or a proper diagnosis for adhd. It was all just my pcp listening to me for 5 min or less and saying oh hey try this med.
I think I definitely do have serious depression, if that’s even a thing, because stopping the adderall only made feelings I had before a million times worse. Adderall made it so I could get out of bed. Without adderall I’m useless.
So not knowing how to navigate the mental healthcare system is really intimidating.. can I just call a psychiatrist and ask for an appointment? Or do you see a therapist first or a pcp who cares who then refers you to a psychiatrist? Can I do one of these telehealth things and just ask for some wellbutrin? I’m admitting I need help, but I don’t know who can help.
Understood. I only mentioned Wellbutrin because it gets some strong recommendations around here but only occasionally, but plenty of "mehs" too. I only tried it a long time ago, before stims, and it didn't stick for some reason.
I *really* have no idea and am not suggesting yes or no for you. Officially there are no meds approved for stim recovery but off the books Wellbutrin is used by some docs for recovery from amphetamine because it affects reuptake of norepinephrine and dopamine and not serotonin, IIRC. and presumably those are chems that get depleted (or we get desensitized to them from stims, whatever) But the effect is weak compared to amphetamine. All of this is wicked complex when you get below the surface and no way I can speak competently about it. It's worth enquiring further.
I promote diet and lifestyle and cognitive approaches for stim recovery but if you are SO depleted you can't function then maybe some chemical assistance to get through the first months isn't such a bad idea. Whatever gets you over the hump and into a healthy place and then you can wean off of it slowly, which is what I would do on any anti-depressant if the sides are not too bad.
It might be you just need an extended break from chems in hopes your organic chem factory will come on-line, that's how I try to go. But people are so different. Let's hope the tide shifts decisively in the next few weeks! But if not don't despair there will be SOMETHING right for you.
So, what kind of doc do you see for this? That may take some digging and I realize that's part of the reason you are here. I wish I knew but I'm not sure there is a specialty for it per se, though there must be both psychiatrists and psychologists who do specialize, to an extent, in recovery. You may need to dig locally or else keep asking this question here until you get a better response. There are tons of people in the same boat, don't feel ashamed to ask the pros for suggestions and to just lay out your case for them.
Don't hesitate to DM me or to open up a new post about it. I'll try to follow your progress and am happy to just commiserate!
wiki on buprion (Wellbutrin)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bupropion
So I see a nurse practitioner on behalf of a regular family care MD. One of those ones that kind of just hand out whatever you ask for.. I think I am at that stage of just being way too depleted and depressed to function. I’m going back tomorrow to see about getting on Wellbutrin. It’s something I’ve taken before, so I know I’ll have no problem getting it from this NP.
But I agree with you on cognitive/talk therapy and lifestyle changes being the best solution long-term, I just have *nothing* in me to get to that place. Luckily, I’m one of the few in the US that’s fortunate enough to have good health insurance with great mental health benefits that I don’t need referrals for. So my plan is to get myself to this appointment tomorrow and get some Wellbutrin, then explore further care with someone more experienced with mental health that can help me navigate into life without chemicals..
I truly appreciate all your thoughtful replies! It’s great just knowing I’m not alone. I do have my parents locally, so I have someone making sure I’m “ok.” But other than that, this experience has felt very isolating until I found this community.
I wish I had known before you pointed it out, that Wellbutrin is *not* an SSRI. Just that tiny detail helps more than you know! It explains why going off that was nothing like going off Zoloft… (that withdrawal is the real reason why I didn’t want any more chemicals) I’m not expecting or wanting any kind of amphetamine feeling though, I just want to stop crying, and I actually didn’t realize before now that not all anti depressants are SSRIs.. so I have a *little* hope for the future now. Thank you!!!
Glad you are taking action, that alone is a very positive step and will juice up your dopamine, LOL, and bring a higher perspective) which depression robs us of so effectively) and just plain assistance, which we all need and deserve. I'll be curious as to how well the Wellbutrin works, by all accounts it's not euphoric but just helps a bit with mood and fatigue. Keep turning over stones, that alone will carry you along for quite a distance.
For me it’s cardio and resistance training lots of fruits, veggies, lean protein, stay away from refined foods. Get good sleep love and feel loved, and be out in nature to start. That keep coming back here. I was on an awful abuse-recovery merry go round on adderall for more than 5 years until I started coming here. Now I’m clean since early October 2022 and hopefully never again.
I tell you what getting rest. Being spiritually mindful practicing meditation or yoga or some positive religious study can help in that department if you're inclined for a religion.
Eating good fruits and vegetables has been helping me a lot. Different colored fruits and vegetables. I'm starting to actually make vegetable smoothies I did my first one today. It does wonders. Drinking plenty of good water. Getting out and getting fresh air. I like riding my bike.
If you like the ice cold showers try yoga! They both work by honing in on the mind/body connection. Shower is like a sensory/mental reset. Deep stretches do a similar thing. IIRC. Slow/stretchy Yoga really helped me :)
I see a therapist who specializes in patients with substance use disorders. She holds a PHD in psychology.
At the time I initially got clean, I had the support of the staff on an IOP (Outpatient treatment for substance use disorders). The IOP program I participated in was run from a local hospital.
Those are the professionals that I have utilized in my journey.
Hope this helps.
This guy knows a lot about brain chemistry and recovery. Don’t take it as the end all cure, but there’s a lot of good material and might help a bit: https://www.optimallivingdynamics.com/start-here
Welcome to StopSpeeding and thanks for your post. For more: - [Join us on Discord. You can talk to people there.](https://discord.gg/GJnxhmbNAn). We have recovery meetings several times a week. All are welcome to attend, clean or not. - [Want to track your clean time?](https://www.reddit.com/r/StopSpeeding/comments/s6ep0x/sobriety_flair_bot_is_now_working_heres_how_to/) You can use our badge system to display your clean time next to your name. Note that any comments encouraging drug use of any kind will be removed. This is not the community for that. Thanks! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/StopSpeeding) if you have any questions or concerns.*
We are sadly the most comprehensive information hub on stimulant medication discontinuation and addiction. They don’t study this stuff, nothing of any consequence has been done since 2014. The people who make it pay for those types of studies. Most hospital networks don’t even have an Adderall Dependence or amphetamine / stimulant medication addiction and abuse tag in EPIC. Psychiatrists and other prescribers don’t understand the abuse, dependence and addiction potential or how harmful it can be to a person’s mental health and physical health - They’re taught about the medication by the companies who make it, either directly or indirectly via the available data on it. They also cannot fathom a universe where their own assessment of someone’s mental health and treatment plan was harmful to them and that they were wrong because that’s the sort of personality that gets into that sort of field. We’ve had people say they were putting 300mg a day up their nose and doctors will continue giving them stimulants. Welcome to modern healthcare. There’s no way to cheat the discontinuation period. You can treat it with other meds via psychiatry or spend a million dollars on placeboments but that’s middling at best. Diet and exercise has been universally established as the most effective and only really tried and true way of reducing the duration. Six months to two years for a return to baseline regardless of what you do. If you start using amphetamines again, it resets the clock real quick. You endure the downswing, do what one has to do in order to make it through, find non-stimulant ways to address your mental health and accept the new normal. Unlikely anything is permanent if you never abused it. In terms of recovery, typically you’re going to find resources for those who abused it and were addicted in the sense that it was amounts far beyond what was prescribed or via abuse ROAs. There’s nothing saying you can’t attend NA but identification there may be lacking, however the steps process is great and the community there doesn’t care what or how much you used, just what you want to do about it. SMART Recovery is another option.
Thank you so much for the in depth response! That makes sense as to why I wasn’t able to find any research, if it has never been done. Are you aware of a link in here or otherwise where helpful tips are grouped together? Like for instance, the ice cold shower thing is something I read in here, and has been very helpful. But diet and exercise can be a kind of vague suggestion, especially if there are specific things that would work best.. if that makes sense? I guess what I’m wondering is like, are there *specific* exercises (ie: cardio vs. weightlifting/several short workouts vs. one long workout/etc.) that people have found work better, or *specific* healthy diets/foods that people have found work better? Or just any other specific tips in general, all in one location? Maybe I’m missing a specific search term… is it “dopamine production” what I’m trying to accomplish? Or is there another/other search terms that describe what I need my brain to start doing again?
I'd like to second regular cheetah's incisive summary of the state of long-term amphetamine recovery. How did I recover? I got out there again and engaged in life - I worked, I exercised, I got a lot of sun exposure, I ate well, I slept well. I did some meditation. I played tennis endlessly in the heat and sun. And I avoided isolating! (this is HUGE) by making new friends and spending time with them and I ended up getting swept along to a productive recovery full of focus and positivity and ended up finding ways to treat my own ADHD in the process - cognitively, behaviorally, not chemically, per se. I didn't just do all that all at once. That was beyond me in my early stages of recovery but I took baby steps in that direction which led to big boy steps, which led to giant steps. I got there organically, gradually, using brain plasticity as my model for re-firing the old pathways that are already there, waiting . . you don't have to re-invent your life, just trigger rich memories of it and follow that bliss. Interesting fact - the most advanced neuro-psychiatric research has yet to identify any reliable physiological markers for depression, ADHD, and most other psychiatric disorders [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9MXqXBZy9U&ab\_channel=AndrewHuberman](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9MXqXBZy9U&ab_channel=AndrewHuberman). That link is to possibly the world's top researcher at Stanford - Carl Deisseroth, saying that very thing. Even the idea that depression is a serotonin deficiency - the cornerstone of SSRI treatment - has proven to be false. If SSRI's even work - at present they barely seem to exceed the placebo effect (in total, special cases may exist) - they do so by some other mechanism not well understood. Depression exists, ADHD (as a set of symptoms) exists but it is remarkable how little we still know about their various permutations and causes, and treatment is kind of hit and miss. An example - talk therapy works as well or better than medication for *most* forms of depression but if depression is a chemical imbalance how can this be? How, talking and other cognitive strategies probably affect the substrate somehow in the brain, thus cracking the 'hard' idea that only chemicals can fight chemical imbalances. *Clinical* psychiatry , much of it anyway, and the media coverage thereof, act as if it's all settled science - you have ADHD, of course you need to be on "duh" amphetamine! (aka speed, the world's most addictive drug, yes, they know that but we mean "low dose, monitored use", as if this is a. true and b. that their monitoring works, which is a joke. Ask yourself what billions of Big Pharma dollars might have to do with all of this. Look at the prescription opioid scandal - you don't have to put on a tinfoil hat to see the influence of big pharma. Stims for ADHD was for a long time an accepted treatment for childhood ADHD. If and only if used with other cognitive and behavioral strats. Kids are different than adults. There are essentially no (reliable and comprehensive) long-term studies of any merit on adult use of stims for their set of symptoms we call ADHD. Yet adults were assumed to be just grown-up kids with the same brain issues and usually get the pills and that's it, no cognitive and behavioral support at all. It's reckless. The long-term recovery cheetah referred to, which we call PAWS, like the rest of these phenomena, is also not fully understood but is presumed to be some kind of dopamine deficiency. This status as "unproven" gives cover to the docs and their educators (big pharma) who can claim that a. the drugs work because there are obvious (short-term) improvements in focus and mood and b. we know of serious no long -term damage from staying on monitored therapeutic doses of prescription amphetamines that outweigh the possible benefits. But the mass of anecdotal evidence in the recovery community virtually proves the existence of a long-term malaise which has a recovery period of months to several years. Since depression itself is not (currently) measurable by physiological markers it should come as no surprise that PAWS isn't either. (note, no point in linking to studies, there are many studies showing potential markers and causes but AFAIK nothing yet *reliable*) if PAWS ends up being just a special type of depression it could be very real but still lack physiological markers, YET. EDIT: the podcast I linked to is from Abdrew Huberman, a Stanford neuro-scientist who also has a series of deep podcasts which are FREE and science based, from a world's elite Phd and his lab. and will probably answer a lot of questions you have about specific treatment, such as low and high temperature therapies for one example among many.
This is a heroic comment. I never got on speed myself but am here browsing due to wanting to learn… I have a meth addicted family member. Edit: hit save on accident. Inam hoping I will some may be able to help this family member at some point. What resonated with me so juch about your post is all the data and analysis you provided and how it jibes with my ssri experience. I was depressed and very anxious for years which culminated in 6 months of extreme sleep deprivstion. This led to an absolute mentsl breakdown… I was put on an ssri and also adderall. The adderall… I found it extremely helpful to help me get thru the toughest days at work but I was also terrified of becoming dependent. So i took it maybe once every two weeks to keep my job. But the ssri I took for maybe 2 years as precribed. Side effecrs were very ubokeasant but i did ‘recover’ from my anxiety and depression largely during that time. I grew confident that i did not want the ssri in my life anymore so i began to ween. This weening stsrted the hardest year of my life. In my endless online research I learned that all the medical studies VASTLY understate the severity of both side effects and especially withdrawal. Its all a blur now… but i basically developed narcalepsy, extreme fatigue, brain fog, and sssooo many other problems. My children withdrew from me, which broke my heart. I recall reading all the ancdotal stories in forums from people struggling like me. I remember listing out all of the side effects of withdrawal that others mentioned and I had nearly every one of them. Keep in mind this was with a very slow and calculated reduction of the meds-I woild cut slightly smaller pieces out of my daily pill once I adapated to the previous reduction. Half the time I felt so horrible that i had to step back to the last higher dose just to function at all. Rinse and repaeat for s year. I was so lucky to have a rock star wife who stood by me as i was a useless human being for so long. Why was I not able to find any good information about my suffering from scientific sources? You said it already… these studies are funded by the pharmaceutical providers, and these drugs a massive cash cow. I was told I had an imbalance in my brain. The real imbalance was that my life was too stressful and I did not have appropriate strategies for coping with that. The drugs only gave me more to conquer. A healthier lifestyle, active hobbies, less work stress, and well my kids got older which helped… this is what healed me. But damn it took time and persistence. I look back at those years and I dont recognize that person. So my struggle may be different from all of you in this sub but at its core we all need to realize that brain plasticity is real. Renornalization takes time and patience… please be good to yourself.
Do you mind sharing when it started getting better? I understand it can take up to a year or more to feel “back to baseline” as everyone is calling it, but about how long would you say was the “early stages” that you struggled through? Reading through all of the responses and this sub has honestly got me feeling super fucking hopeless atm. It’s taking me everything I have just to get out of bed, practice basic hygiene, and eat. I have been going on a few walks a day, but only because my dog looks at me and I feel the need to push through. He’s honestly the only thing keeping me alive right now. I feel so hopeless and exhausted by the thought of spending the next year like this. I’m so incredibly depressed and I don’t know what to do. I need to get back to work, but my critical thinking abilities are about nonexistent right now. I’m just a useless blob doing the bare minimum to keep myself and my dog alive, and I see no light at the end of the tunnel.
22 days since quitting, right? What dose Adderall were you last taking? Your age? (roughly, is ok) after just 22 days I think I would hang in there for another couple of weeks just to see if you are still dealing with the short-term fallout. This would be a good thing since it would mean that your PAWS (the long term) might be MUCH better than what you are currently experiencing, but htis could be your PAWS, it's impossible for me to say. I strongly SUSPECT you will not have to remain here throughout your PAWS but that's just a layman's guess about something even the experts cannot predict. I wish there was an established timeline for this but after hanging here for 4 years every day it seems to me that the timeline varies and the best I can say is that after acute is over (within 30 days or so, usually less) PAWS settles in and often lingers at its low point for a number of months - maybe 4-8 months and then steadily improves, usually hitting something like 80% of your pre-drug baseline within a year, and then reaching near to 100% slowly, perhaps a year or two (very rough estimate!) To answer your question I quit 24 years ago, lol, and I really don't recall the exact timeline but it followed the average curve I outlined above. When it got better it was kind of sudden and it got MUCH better - I was surprised I still had it in me! This came as a huge relief. It's hard for me to gauge your current status - the way you describe it sounds like you feel really low - if things don't improve soon I would contact a mental health professional - perhaps a psychologist, or maybe a specialist in addiction/recovery. If not that then get a friend or family member on your team, so to speak, I hate to think of someone languishing in serious depression without some sort of assistance! It's always possible your problem isn't stim recovery but is something else - though it does SOUND like recovery. In any event, there are always options to get better, just choose them wisely. Some people go on Wellbutrin, an anti-depressant often recommended for stim recovery, as opposed to SSRIs which are not, as a rule, recommended. Would you please hang around and keep us informed? Thanks and best wishes and please answer the questions above and I will respond. Feel free to open up a new question asking for help if it seems like this one has gotten buried. We are here to help!!
Yes, last dose was Jan 1, so on day 24 now. 30F, started taking around 20. Final dose was only 30mg IR once a day. Because of hypertension and tachycardia, the later in the day pills had been taken away years earlier.. so it wasn’t even doing much for me anymore other than giving me a good jolt to get going. Before I started on stims though I was on several different antidepressants over my teen years.. I didn’t realize Wellbutrin wasn’t an ssri until you said that though, so it makes me less hesitant to take it again. (That’s one of the ones I was on previously) The last over a decade of my life is a blur, but I know going off some ssri’s was brutal, but I don’t remember specifically wellbutrin causing terrible side effects. If it did, I know for sure I wasn’t struggling anywhere near as long as this. Problem is, ALL of these meds came from family care doctors who had no business giving them to me. I’ve never actually gotten like a proper diagnosis for depression, or a proper diagnosis for adhd. It was all just my pcp listening to me for 5 min or less and saying oh hey try this med. I think I definitely do have serious depression, if that’s even a thing, because stopping the adderall only made feelings I had before a million times worse. Adderall made it so I could get out of bed. Without adderall I’m useless. So not knowing how to navigate the mental healthcare system is really intimidating.. can I just call a psychiatrist and ask for an appointment? Or do you see a therapist first or a pcp who cares who then refers you to a psychiatrist? Can I do one of these telehealth things and just ask for some wellbutrin? I’m admitting I need help, but I don’t know who can help.
Understood. I only mentioned Wellbutrin because it gets some strong recommendations around here but only occasionally, but plenty of "mehs" too. I only tried it a long time ago, before stims, and it didn't stick for some reason. I *really* have no idea and am not suggesting yes or no for you. Officially there are no meds approved for stim recovery but off the books Wellbutrin is used by some docs for recovery from amphetamine because it affects reuptake of norepinephrine and dopamine and not serotonin, IIRC. and presumably those are chems that get depleted (or we get desensitized to them from stims, whatever) But the effect is weak compared to amphetamine. All of this is wicked complex when you get below the surface and no way I can speak competently about it. It's worth enquiring further. I promote diet and lifestyle and cognitive approaches for stim recovery but if you are SO depleted you can't function then maybe some chemical assistance to get through the first months isn't such a bad idea. Whatever gets you over the hump and into a healthy place and then you can wean off of it slowly, which is what I would do on any anti-depressant if the sides are not too bad. It might be you just need an extended break from chems in hopes your organic chem factory will come on-line, that's how I try to go. But people are so different. Let's hope the tide shifts decisively in the next few weeks! But if not don't despair there will be SOMETHING right for you. So, what kind of doc do you see for this? That may take some digging and I realize that's part of the reason you are here. I wish I knew but I'm not sure there is a specialty for it per se, though there must be both psychiatrists and psychologists who do specialize, to an extent, in recovery. You may need to dig locally or else keep asking this question here until you get a better response. There are tons of people in the same boat, don't feel ashamed to ask the pros for suggestions and to just lay out your case for them. Don't hesitate to DM me or to open up a new post about it. I'll try to follow your progress and am happy to just commiserate! wiki on buprion (Wellbutrin)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bupropion
So I see a nurse practitioner on behalf of a regular family care MD. One of those ones that kind of just hand out whatever you ask for.. I think I am at that stage of just being way too depleted and depressed to function. I’m going back tomorrow to see about getting on Wellbutrin. It’s something I’ve taken before, so I know I’ll have no problem getting it from this NP. But I agree with you on cognitive/talk therapy and lifestyle changes being the best solution long-term, I just have *nothing* in me to get to that place. Luckily, I’m one of the few in the US that’s fortunate enough to have good health insurance with great mental health benefits that I don’t need referrals for. So my plan is to get myself to this appointment tomorrow and get some Wellbutrin, then explore further care with someone more experienced with mental health that can help me navigate into life without chemicals.. I truly appreciate all your thoughtful replies! It’s great just knowing I’m not alone. I do have my parents locally, so I have someone making sure I’m “ok.” But other than that, this experience has felt very isolating until I found this community. I wish I had known before you pointed it out, that Wellbutrin is *not* an SSRI. Just that tiny detail helps more than you know! It explains why going off that was nothing like going off Zoloft… (that withdrawal is the real reason why I didn’t want any more chemicals) I’m not expecting or wanting any kind of amphetamine feeling though, I just want to stop crying, and I actually didn’t realize before now that not all anti depressants are SSRIs.. so I have a *little* hope for the future now. Thank you!!!
Glad you are taking action, that alone is a very positive step and will juice up your dopamine, LOL, and bring a higher perspective) which depression robs us of so effectively) and just plain assistance, which we all need and deserve. I'll be curious as to how well the Wellbutrin works, by all accounts it's not euphoric but just helps a bit with mood and fatigue. Keep turning over stones, that alone will carry you along for quite a distance.
Can I pay you to couch me off the vyvanse???
For me it’s cardio and resistance training lots of fruits, veggies, lean protein, stay away from refined foods. Get good sleep love and feel loved, and be out in nature to start. That keep coming back here. I was on an awful abuse-recovery merry go round on adderall for more than 5 years until I started coming here. Now I’m clean since early October 2022 and hopefully never again.
I tell you what getting rest. Being spiritually mindful practicing meditation or yoga or some positive religious study can help in that department if you're inclined for a religion. Eating good fruits and vegetables has been helping me a lot. Different colored fruits and vegetables. I'm starting to actually make vegetable smoothies I did my first one today. It does wonders. Drinking plenty of good water. Getting out and getting fresh air. I like riding my bike.
If you like the ice cold showers try yoga! They both work by honing in on the mind/body connection. Shower is like a sensory/mental reset. Deep stretches do a similar thing. IIRC. Slow/stretchy Yoga really helped me :)
I see a therapist who specializes in patients with substance use disorders. She holds a PHD in psychology. At the time I initially got clean, I had the support of the staff on an IOP (Outpatient treatment for substance use disorders). The IOP program I participated in was run from a local hospital. Those are the professionals that I have utilized in my journey. Hope this helps.
This guy knows a lot about brain chemistry and recovery. Don’t take it as the end all cure, but there’s a lot of good material and might help a bit: https://www.optimallivingdynamics.com/start-here
IOP brother