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Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

#81

Post by rayiner »

pchivers wrote: post #49
michaelochurch wrote: post #34

This made me sick. I don't know what's worst: the author's self-absorption, the victimization tone, or the fact that her colleagues had to do similar unhealthy shit in order to compete with her. It stinks the whole way. Using drugs to gain an unfair advantage over other people at work has unhealthy emotional side effects? Am I to be surprised by this?

I didn't like the article either. The whole thing struck me as melodramatic and narcissistic. Perhaps there are intelligent commentaries to be written about this culture's abuse of Adderall, but this is not one of them.

> The whole thing struck me as melodramatic and narcissistic.

She's a young aspiring writer living in New York City, as well as a UCLA grad... shouldn't be a surprise...

Re: Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

#82

Post by JohnBooty »

The comments to this article mainly focus on the medical benefits and side effects of Adderall.

I don't want a larger truth to get lost here...

While I've been prescribed Adderall for part of my adult life, and feel Adderall has benefited me, I'd like to say that there's far more to successful ADHD treatment than medication:

  - Proper environment
  - Getting enough exercise
  - Getting enough sleep
  - Support and understanding from loved ones 
  - Strategies/systems that allow frictionless organization
While nobody here is explicitly characterizing it as such, please... nobody fall into the common trap of thinking that successful ADHD treatment is just a bunch of pill-popping.

(Unfortunately, many psychiatrists do treat ADHD treatment as nothing but pill-popping. Mine does. There's a good chance yours will. If you're seeking ADHD treatment I'd urge you to do your own homework and read up on ADHD life strategies and consider seeing a therapist in addition to a psychiatrist. Whether or not you decide to go the medication route, those strategies will really benefit you. Good luck!)

Re: Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

#83

Post by nawitus »

clicks wrote: post #63
jpxxx wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an individual who was actually diagnosed with ADHD, I have an axe to grind with a medical industry that sold me amphetamines at 15. The results were ~nugatory~ at best.

As an individual who was diagnosed with ADHD, but whose parents refused to acquire medicine based on superstitious 'but isn't adderall just basically cocaine?' grounds, I assure you I've got an axe about 3,000x bigger than yours to grind at individuals like those who wrote this NYTimes article. I'm sorry to hear that you were diagnosed by an incompetent psychiatric physician, but I would hope you don't use your misfo…

>anti-science

Is debate allowed about in science anymore? It seems that everyone who disagrees with the status quo is branded as anti-science, therefore destroying all chances for a constructive discussion.

Re: Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

#84

Post by throwaway54-762 »

JohnBooty wrote: post #77
throwaway54-762 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't describe it like that to "sound edgy" or provide "shock effect." It's just pointing out that these drugs are very similar chemically and biologically, and that people should examine their own biases that divorce adderall (medicine!) from meth (evil drug!) in their minds — they are not so different substances.

However small the chemical difference, there is an enormous practical difference. Meth can produce an intense high. Adderall, not so much. I don't have any experience with meth so I can't compare Adderall and meth directly. However, I'd compare the extremely limited "high" from Adderall with... what a person with no caffeine tolerance feels when drinking a medium latte from Starbucks. And, like caffeine, you quickly…

> However small the chemical difference, there is an enormous practical difference. Meth can produce an intense high. Adderall, not so much.

This just isn't true. Adderall is several amphetamines and the drug definitely produces a high. The medical application of the drug is this rush of dopamine and seratonin allows users to focus and ignore distractions.

The high is an amphetamine high, much like meth, actually. You've noticed that tolerance diminishes these effects; so have many meth users.

Re: Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

#85

Post by wahnfrieden »

systematical wrote: post #35

There is a smart way to do this and not be a complete moron like the author. I take adderall a few times a year and have been doing so since my senior year (2003) in high school and have never come close to this trainwreck. It's a simple approach: know exactly what you have to do before taking it, eat a meal before (since you will have no appetite), take them in the early morning (so you can sleep by night), and fina…

How much are you taking at once that you space it by several months?

Re: Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

#86

Post by throwaway54-762 »

MartinCron wrote: post #57
throwaway54-762 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, the possible negatives I had in mind were brain-related: "diminishing returns" due to tolerance or other factors after long-term use, and adverse side-effects of the drug flooding your brain with seratonin and dopamine over long periods of time (obviously similar to that observed in long-term methamphetamine use).

I see. I wasn't a long-term user and was always extremely conservative with my dosage, so I didn't encounter any of those brain-related issues. Even with the fact that they are in the same family of drugs, comparisons to long-term meth abusers doesn't seem quite right.

Every person is different, and meth is definitely abused in higher proportions more than prescription adderall — I am not contesting that, or attempting to compare adderall users to meth users.

I am trying to highlight the similarities between the drugs themselves.

Re: Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

#87

Post by jpxxx »

clicks wrote: post #63
jpxxx wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an individual who was actually diagnosed with ADHD, I have an axe to grind with a medical industry that sold me amphetamines at 15. The results were ~nugatory~ at best.

As an individual who was diagnosed with ADHD, but whose parents refused to acquire medicine based on superstitious 'but isn't adderall just basically cocaine?' grounds, I assure you I've got an axe about 3,000x bigger than yours to grind at individuals like those who wrote this NYTimes article. I'm sorry to hear that you were diagnosed by an incompetent psychiatric physician, but I would hope you don't use your misfo…

While this is an op-ed being run by a web tabloid, there's no superstition or anti-science on display that I can sense.

So let's find some quieter common ground:

A class of prescription psychoactive drugs are increasingly being used by tens of millions. They substantially alter the motivation systems of the human brain, have a poorly understood method of action, are extremely easily and inexpensively sourced from the graymarket, and are being issued to children as young as five. Off-label use is increasing to the point where it's omnipresent in high-pressure social arenas.

There are no social rituals or consumption contexts that retard use of these amphetamines - they're privately consumed as "medication" (therefore perceived as "undangerous" and "acceptable") in a way that street drugs would never be considered.

But the results are the same. They're the same for ADHD folks, they're the same for non-ADHD folks, they're the same for the habitual user, and they're the same for the occasional user. Ferocious forever focus! ...for a while... with a comedown. And then: more?

The end-game for every single one of these users is potentially the same. Five years old with ADHD, 24 years old trying to make it in NYC, whatever. It's habit forming, excessive use comes with a boatload of major side effects, and it's directly monkeying with a core part of the human psyche for a sprawling number of reasons, all of them social in nature.

We're doing something new and big here as a society, and it's worth discussing.

Re: Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

#88

Post by dublinben »

sneak wrote: post #24
danso wrote: post #5

How do people who've taken it for most of their adult life cope with adderall usage? I mean, how necessary of a drug does it seem to be -- or, to put it another way, how bad are the withdrawals, compared to antipsychotics, painkillers, etc? And if you've lived with adderall usage, do you chronically feel like you have a reduced appetite and all the other kinds of symptoms? I've heard that happens for people who take…

Someone very close to me had been on it since she was 12. She's 23 now and stopped last fall. Due to her tolerance, she'd been on very high doses for basically a decade. After stopping, sleeping for 16-18 hours a day was the norm for about a month- but just getting to that point, first she had to cope with a weeklong psychotic break. It causes some serious dopamine desensitization after extended use. Depression is co…

It sounds like that person was on a much higher dose than most ADHD patients are prescribed to take.

Re: Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

#89

Post by catshirt »

systematical wrote: post #35

There is a smart way to do this and not be a complete moron like the author. I take adderall a few times a year and have been doing so since my senior year (2003) in high school and have never come close to this trainwreck. It's a simple approach: know exactly what you have to do before taking it, eat a meal before (since you will have no appetite), take them in the early morning (so you can sleep by night), and fina…

abusing unprescribed drugs makes you a "complete moron", but abusing unprescribed drugs in moderation makes you well informed. note taken.

Re: Adderall Addiction: The Last All-Nighter

#90

Post by JohnBooty »

throwaway54-762 wrote: post #84
JohnBooty wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However small the chemical difference, there is an enormous practical difference. Meth can produce an intense high. Adderall, not so much. I don't have any experience with meth so I can't compare Adderall and meth directly. However, I'd compare the extremely limited "high" from Adderall with... what a person with no caffeine tolerance feels when drinking a medium latte from Starbucks. And, like caffeine, you quickly…

> However small the chemical difference, there is an enormous practical difference. Meth can produce an intense high. Adderall, not so much. This just isn't true. Adderall is several amphetamines and the drug definitely produces a high. The medical application of the drug is this rush of dopamine and seratonin allows users to focus and ignore distractions. The high is an amphetamine high, much like meth, actually. Yo…

Your body acclimates itself to just about anything - the weather, sugar, MSG, even frequent shampooing or Chap-Stick usage. That doesn't mean those things are comparable to meth.

Nobody I know feels that Adderall provides much of a high. Anecdotal, sure, but it seems like a heck of a statistical anomaly.

Then again, I don't know anybody that's experimented with unsafe doses of Adderall. I'm sure that at dangerously high doses, the effect isn't unlike meth.

Then again, that's true of just about anything even remotely psychoactive when you talk about large doses. Heck, 500-1000mg of pure caffeine will probably get you meth-like results.

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