Once you take a pill, you can’t turn it off

Contents:

• Introduction: 5 examples of situations that made wish I could “turn it off”
• 1. The Friday work lunch
• 2. At the movies with my girlfriend
• 3. At the gym
• 4. The unexpected slack day
• 5. The recurring “too much Adderall” dream
• Why recognizing these occassions is a sign that you’re ready to quit Adderall
• Post your own examples!

Introduction

Once you take a pill, there’s no going back, even if you sometimes wish you could turn it off. Read through the 5 examples of times when I wish I could “turn it off”. Do any of thse situations feel familiar to you? If so, it may be an indicator that you are nearing the end of your love affiar with Adderall. Please post your own examples in the comments!

1. The Friday work lunch

It’s Friday afternoon and I’m out to lunch with all the guys from my office. Everybody is enjoying it. Everybody is laughing and cutting up and talking about their weekend plans; all happy to be wasting a couple hours of this last workday of the week so they can widdle down the hours they have to spend actually working when they get back to the office…before they cut out early to go enjoy their lives.

But not me. I’m too tweaked out on Adderall. I’m thinking about theproject I was trying to work on back at the office. I’m thinking about how much work I’m not going to get done because we’re out at this lunch; I’m thinking about how little time I’ll have to work when we get back to the office. 

I feel like a freak. Normally, if it were just a lunch on a typical weekday I wouldn’t feel as strange obsessing about getting back to work, but this is Friday. You’re supposed to cut loose a little on Friday.  But I can’t.  

I’m trying to focus on the conversation. Trying to enjoy myself. Wishing I could just turn off the Adderall just for lunch time so I could be normal for one damn hour.  I order a glass of wine to try and bring me down. It just gives me a headache and ruins the rest of my day.

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2. At the movies with my girlfriend

It’s Friday night. I’m standing in line waiting to get into the theater. My girlfriend and her brother are laughing and joking right beside me but it’s like their voices are muffled. I’m lost inside my head. A million thoughts going in all directions at once. She can tell something is up with me. Keeps trying to verbally poke me out of my trance but I keep lapsing back into it. That one thought over and over again: God, let me come down. Turn it off. Let me be myself around her. I hate this. I shouldn’t have taken that last dose so late in the day.

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3. At the gym

I just did 75 sit-ups. My heart is pounding so hard I can literally hear it popping and pulsing through my eardrums. Am I going to have a heart attack? Is this OK to do on the Adderall? This doesn’t feel right. I’m worried already and if I keep going I’ll be downright scared. I better not push myself this hard again. I’ll stick to the weights and avoid the stuff that’s really going to get me worked up. I wish I could just turn it off when I was in the gym.

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4. The unexpected slack day

It’s 8:30am. I’m driving to work. I open my pack of ciggarettes and tap the bottom until two little orange 30mg Adderall pills fall out onto my palm. I brush off the tobacco shavings and pop one of the pills in my mouth. I hold the pill on the back of my tounge (I’ve grown to appreciate the slightly bitter taste) as I delicately put the other pill back into my pack of cigarettes (for later). I grab the icy cold Vanilla Frappacino from my cupholder and take a couple swigs. The coffee taste clenses my pallet of that just-brushed-my-teeth toothpaste taste and replaces it with a wash of chocolate and mocha. The sugar and caffine will give me even more of a morning boost on top of the amphetamines now digesting in my stomach. 

I put the Frappachino back in the cupholder, take a cigarette out and light up. I drive and smoke and think all kinds of excited thoughts about the wonderous thing I’m going to build when I get to work today. The dose of Adderall I just took should fully kick in right as I sit down at my desk. I time it this way every morning.

I get to work and sit the half-empty Frappacino bottle down on my desk. I immediately start putting out the daily fires so I can get to that big glorious task I had thought about on the drive in. I’m done. Fires out. I’m about to start the big project.

This is going to be the best, most productive day ever. I wish I’d gotten in even earlier so I’d have even more time to work on all this great stuff.

That’s when the boss arrives. He’s in a happy, hyper-social mood, with smiles and jovial comments for everybody. He’s in a terrific mood. So terrific, in fact that he declares that today “I’ve got an idea.”, he declares. “Why don’t we just finish up the tasks we absolutely have to do, then he’ll take us out to lunch, then we can cut out early!”.

If were a normal employee, just working for the paycheck and not tweaked out on Adderall and a resulting over-inflated sense of daily purpose, those words would be music to my ears. I would be excited like a kid on a snow day. 

But it’s too late. I’ve already taken the pill. God fucking damnit, I think. Just shoot my day the head. So much for all those grand plans.

I wish I hadn’t taken that dose of Adderall. I wish I could enjoy this surprise day off. Wish I could be happy about it like a normal person. If only I could turn off the Adderall, but I can’t.

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5. The recurring “too much Adderall” dream

I used to have a recurring dream where I would end up swallowing too many Adderall pills and spend the rest of the dream terrified of what was about to happen as I grew more and more tweaked out and couldn’t stop it. I was always methodical about my Adderall dosing; never really was one of those kids who took crazy amounts at once, so that concept was pretty scary to me…so much so that it formed a subconcious fear that produced this recurring dream.

Incidentally: It’s been a year since my last pill, I still have a simliar dream every once in a while but instead of taking too many Adderall pills and regretting it the rest of the dream, I take one pill and spend the rest of the dream hating the Adderall feeling as it kicks; I nearly cry in the dream at the horrible choice I have made that feels like I just violated everything that I had worked so hard for. This dream is pretty effective at preventing me from taking even on pill on a whim.

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Why recognizing these occasions is a sign that you’re ready to quit Adderall

When you first start taking Adderall, it’s like a relationship with a new girlfriend/boyfriend that you’re infatuated with. The pill can do no wrong. It’s the most awesome thing in the world. Where has this been all your life? Any day is better with pills.

During the glory years of your Adderall addiction, you may occassionally have the thought “Gee, I kinda wish I could turn it off right now.”, but you’ll quickly dismiss it because all the other great things that Adderall is doing for you carry far more weight than a little moment of wanting to turn it off…carry more weight than a couple hours sleep or a few sit-ups.

But as the years go by and your Adderall addiction begins to loose its luster the scale starts to tip; these occassions of wanting to turn the Adderall off grow more and more prominent and carry more and more weight with you. You start to get increasingly frustrated by them.

I remember towards the end of my time on Adderall there were whole days when I said to myself (at the end of the day), “You know, self. I really didn’t need the pills today. I kind of wish I hadn’t taken them. The day probably would’ve been better and I would’ve enjoyed it more since I didn’t have the chance to get much work done anyway.” 

What about you? Are you having these kinds of thoughts? Are there certain times or even whole days when you wish you could “turn off” the Adderall? If so, you may be nearing quitting time.

Please post your own!

Please take the time post your own personal examples of occassions when you wish you could “turn it off” in the comments thread. I’d love to read them and I’m sure others would as well.

Throw away your crutches. Now move.

Adderall is a crutch. A big one. Quitting Adderall is like learning to walk without crutches again.

Maybe you haven’t been on crutches that long and your legs aren’t too atrohphied. Maybe you’re OK with weaning yourself off, taking baby steps. Limping a few feet a day with only one crutch, and gradually working up to being able to walk a couple steps without any crutches at all, and then one day you’ll be walking all on your own again, albiet carefully for a while and still using the crutches occasionally.

That’s one way to go.

Personally, after throwing 7 years of my life away on Adderall, I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t want to waste another second. So I chose approach #2.

Approach #2: Burn your crutches. Spend every moment of every day after that figuring out how to move on your own again because you don’t have a choice.

A year later, I’m happy with the choice I made. I’m glad I didn’t waste more time trying to wean myself off. 

But it’s up to you. However you get there. Just get there. As soon as you can.

How to get work done without Adderall (at first)

Or, how to complete a big, looming task that you don’t want to do…without popping a pill, and without putting a gun to your head in futility

The Situation: You’ve got a giant project weighing on you and you’ve got to get it done by the end of the week. How do you do it?

On Adderall, you put it off while you do a hundred other things, then the night before it’s due, you pop a pill and spend all night knocking everything out in one glorious work binge, right? Well, that doesn’t work so well when you’re not on the pills.

After you’ve quit Adderall, you’d be surprised how many of these old ideas and archetypes about work and how work gets done are still ingrained in you.

You keep trying to attack projects like you did on Adderall and then you get frustrated and angry at yourself when it’s hell and you don’t manage to finish all the work and just end up more behind.

You’ll notice this especially when you start adding some “have-tos” into your routine as advised on my How to Quit Adderall page.

It’s dangerous and sanity-threatening to base your current approach to work (now that you’re off the pills) on these old ideas that you formed when you were on the pills (e.g., “work only happens in the form of motivation-fueled binges”).

One of the growing pains of quitting Adderall is that you have to break these Adderall-instilled work habits and form new ones. This can be especially hard at first, so here’s what worked for me.

Break it up and lubricate it

This is the best advice I can give you for completing work off Adderall (at least at first).

Break it up: Do not try to complete the task in one giant work binge

Lubricate it: Add something to your environment to divide your attention span between something pleasant (e.g., television) and something unpleasant (the big task at hand).

Break it up

It doesn’t matter how much you break the work up, just break it up into more than one work binge. You don’t have to be perfect and super-responsible about it at first (unless you can!), but at the absolute minimum break the work into two half-sized work sessions instead of one big oppressive work binge.

Let’s say you have an essay for school that’s due by Sunday night at midnight, maybe you take an “inch it forward every day” approach and write 2 paragraphs a day so you have the required length by the end of the week when it’s due. Or maybe you still do a “lock yourself in your room until it’s done” approach but instead of locking yourself in your room the whole day of the due date, you lock yourself in your room on two nights: The first night (e.g., 2 days before it’s due) to make a big dent then the second night (e.g., the night it’s due) to finish it off.

You have no idea how much pressure this takes off. The first night you get to a stopping point and you start stressing that you’re not done and then you realize “Hey, I get to go home and sleep now and I’ve got a whole other day to finish this”. Then when you come in the second night to finish it off you start with “Hey, this is practically done I just need to finish it off!”.

If the work is due on Sunday, do a first wave attack on Saturday. The more you do on Saturday, the more you will be thanking yourself on Sunday. But even if you don’t make a huge dent on the first day, every little bit helps tremendously. At least you won’t be sitting at your desk on the day it’s due staring at blank screen wanting to cry, desperately looking for any excuse to be anywhere else doing anything else but facing this horrible task.

Lubricate it

I define a lubricant as “anything that makes you tolerate where you are or what you’re doing more than you normally could without that thing”. In that sense, Adderall is the greatest lubricant in the world. Pop a pill and suddenly math homework or your thankless job becomes super-fun, whereas normally it would be grueling and monotonous. Cigarettes and alcohol also fall into the lubricant category. With plenty of cigarettes, you can do pretty much anything for hours on end as long as you can smoke (e.g., sitting at a bar booth, hanging out in a parking lot).

Once I quit Adderall (and cigarettes to a much lesser extent), two things happened:

1. I realized the evil of those kinds of lubricants; how they kept me in place when I was supposed to be moving.

2. “Have-to” tasks got nearly impossible, because they were dry and un-lubricated.

Adderall is a bad lubricant because it’s too effective. It lubricates to the point of having it’s own current and twisted influence on your direction.

But that doesn’t mean lubrication is always a bad thing; doesn’t mean all lubricants are bad.

Examples of common (effective) lubrication…

1. Listening to music while running (or whatever)
2. The TV screens on treadmills
3. Entertaining on-hold music/audio when you call tech support
4. The TV sets playing cartoons when you’re waiting in line for a ride at Disney Land
5. Elevator music
6. Bowls of peanuts in the waiting area of a steakhouse.

The whole idea is to divide your attention span so you don’t have to focus so completely on the negative aspect of what you’re doing.

Now, when you’re first getting back into doing “have-tos” without Adderall, you may need a bit more lubrication than just your favorite music in the background. So here are some suggestions…

Home Example – Make a dent every commercial break: Sit in your living room with your laptop and find a TV station (a normal basic cable channel not a premium one…you want commercials) that’s playing a movie that you kind of want to watch. Bust out one paragraph of that essay you have to do per commercial break.

Tips for this method:

• Make sure to set the terms of the deal with yourself before you start. Get your head into the “I’m going to watch this movie but write one paragraph per commercial break” game and then start.
• Force yourself to follow the rule with the very first commercial break. It gets way easier after the first one because you’ve already started the routine.
• Treat it like a game. Take joy in the fact that you are cheating the system. You are slacking off and enjoying yourself and still getting the work done!

Modified version of this method: 10minutes of slacking/5minutes of work (note that this takes more descipline to maintain on your own without the natural pace of a TV movie and its commercial breaks)

Work Example – Multiple monitors and online TV: At my desk at work, I have three LCD screens (don’t call me excessive until you’ve tried it…multiple-monitors are an addiction like tattoos for me…once you’ve broken the seal you always want more).

On Adderall, I would fly between all three screens in a flurry of wild productivity with fast-paced music blasting through my headphones. Nowadays, one screen usually has hulu on it with some kind of TV series playing. I use the other two screens to do my work while the tv show is playing on the third. Two screens is enough for most of my daily tasks anyway.

On a good (productive) day, I’ll end up getting through one or two 40min TV episodes over the course of the work day (which means I hit the pause button a lot because my focus really zoned-in to a work-related task). On a bad (depressive, exhausted) day, most of my attention will be on the hulu screen and I’ll go through 5 TV episodes while I begrudgingly throw a few clicks and keystrokes at the absolutely-neccessary tasks of the day until it’s 6pm and I can go home.

Interesting environment-efficiency experiment: When I first quit Adderall I only had two LCD screens to work with (my original third monitor broke shortly after I quit), so I would use one screen for work and one for TV episodes… my productivity was pretty lousy and I was really distracted on all my work tasks, because the TV episodes were 50% of my attention span. When I eventually convinced my boss to by me a new third screen (no more investing personal funds in work equipment now that I’m not work-obsessed like I was on the pills), my productivity shot way up without any effort on my part…it just happened naturally because my physical attention was now divided as 66/33 work/slack instead of 50/50.

What’s interesting about that experiment is that I expected the results. I knew the 66/33 split would naturally make me more productive, and sure enough, it did. Just goes to show you that if you get a crazy idea for some environmental change that you swear will help you…go with it, even if it sounds crazy to others.

Side note: Give yourself plenty of time

For all the good points of lubrication, it can certainly prolong the time it takes you to complete a task, just like Adderall did (except it takes longer because you’re too zoned-out instead of too zoned-in). Make sure you give yourself plenty of padding time to procrastinate on, break apart, and lubricate the task to an extreme degree. The good news is that if you lubricate a task enough you won’t mind dedicating so much time to the task because the lubrication makes the time somewhat enjoyable.

Disclaimer: The ultimate goal is to not need excessive lubrication

Look, your ultimate goal should be to think explosively; to be as a perpetual explosion of creative brilliance. Like you were on Adderall, but way, way bigger and hotter and stronger. You’re not going to achieve that if you’re lubricating all your tasks so much that you’re spending half your life in some TV show’s alternate reality and quadrupling the time it takes you to complete each and every task. You will eventually learn to attack task after task with your own willpower and without the need for excessive lubrication.

I just offer this as a method for you to use as much or as little as you need to until you don’t need it at all anymore. And the way you get to that point is by gradually adding more obligation to your life…to gradually get better and better at completing work that you can’t avoid just on your own without the pills. The better you get at it, the more work you will be able to handle, and the less you’ll naturally need to lubricate.

Now, readers: Share your experiences!

What has helped you get work done without the pills? What kind of ways have you found to break up and/or lubricate unpleasant tasks?

A reader’s questions: What if you have a job, wife, and kids that depend on your Adderall addiction?

Reader Dave left this comment on the Your Challenge page:

Here are a few questions I would like to hear opinions on because I think there are alot of others in this situation.

What do you do?

If you have a masters degree in physics (which I hate it very much, but pays extreemly well) that you were never smart enough to get in the first place if it werent for adderall?

If you have large student loans, a large mortgage, an exotic car etc and your in debt over your eyeballs and the only way to pay for it is with your current job?

If you loose your job and cant get another, the current job market is very competative.

If you have a family that depends on your stability and income?

If you wake up still drunk from the night before every day and have to go to work everday?

If you have extreemly high blood pressure with weight spiraling out of control?

I am very happy for all of you that were able to quit, but I find this site a little too optimistic and out of touch with the reality of some. Unfortunately for people in my situtation the best I can do for myself and family is enjoy it while I’m here and make sure they are secure by keeping a good life ensurance policy on myself. I’ve lived life without adderall before and I was always poor and living in povery. I’m not going back there, Id rather die with dignity.

-Dave

Dear Dave, 

Why are you searching the web for tips on quitting adderall? Why are you even reading this blog? Why did you pursue it? What thought or urge in your heart made you look for it? Probably the same one that made you bitterly wish it could be that easy for you.

I’m not going to pretend that your life isn’t probably a thousand times more complicated than mine was when I decided to quit. 

But I do know this. If you had already made up your mind completely that Adderall is the way for you and you’re just going to have to live with it forever because you’d “rather die with dignity”, then you wouldn’t be reading this blog. You wouldn’t be searching for an answer because you wouldn’t be asking the question.

You know there is something more to be had from your life that could be attained if you weren’t on Adderall. And you want it. You’re curious about it. You just can’t see a way out.

You have to decide how badly you want it. You have to decide how badly you want to risk betting all your chips on that little voice in your heart.

If you can make up your mind that you want to fill-in that eternal question mark; that you want to find out what you were built to do naturally, then the rest is just a question of “how”. And “how” can always be answered. It just needs a strong “why” answer first.

Let me see if I can address your concerns one at a time…

If you have a masters degree in physics (which I hate it very much, but pays extreemly well) that you were never smart enough to get in the first place if it werent for adderall?

Your concern here is twofold.

1. I am already well-established in something I don’t naturally like. Fine, whatever, I don’t like it, but I’ve sunk so many years into it,  I’m kind of good at it, it provides for me, and that would be a horrific waste if I didn’t use it.

I think part of what you hate about physics is not that you hate physics/your current field alltogether, but that it’s not all you wanted to focus on in life. Imagine you found a way out of your current profession. Imagine you were already past it and your day was consumed by something completely different…something you really loved spending all day on. And then you go out to dinner with some friends and some physics questions come up in the conversation. You’d light up. You’d probably really enjoy talking about it and even get a little nastalgic. 

I know this because I am in the same position you describe with programming and web software development. The only reason I hate it is because I resent that it pulls me away from my purpose by consuming so much of my life. I hate that I have to do it and that I have to do it every single day and full time and it’s all that I get to do with my day even though it’s so far from the core interests of my heart…but there are aspects I would enjoy and like about programming and web software development if I wasn’t forced into it. If I could pick and choose…if programming was only a small, secondary part of my life…if the scale were reverse and programming was my hobby and something I really cared about was my full time job…that might work.

I have the same concern as you about wasting all of my IT knowledge. You know why? You know what job I hear my heart choosing for me now that I’m off Adderall? Police officer and writer. How far removed is that from web software development? Pretty damned far. 

But you know what? I’m not worried. I have this strange feeling that it’s all going to come together once my day is filled with the passions of my heart. I have this strange feeling that once I take that step into that other career (police officer), I’m going to stumble upon some adjacent desitiny that will connect all the dots…will use all my skills in all areas aquired to date…including programming and web software development (still waiting to see how that one gets reconnected but I have faith).

It is my fervant belief that the purpose of seemingly unrelated skills is only revealed by your ultimate destiny. And then it all comes together.

When I look back at my life, I can’t see it going any other way. I don’t like programming (as a career), and I know it’s not what I’m ultimately meant to focus my life on, but at the same time I can look back to my earliest years and recognize the beginnings of a decent programmer…I look back at my IT career that I accidentally fell into and realize that too many coincidences led me there…it was pretty much predestined that I spend some time in IT…the difference with me is that now, off Adderall, I remember that I was never meant to spend my whole life there…just enough time for me to learn whatever I was supposed to learn to do whatever I’m supposed to do with it. Maybe that’s too much faith for you. But I promise I will update this blog when my faith turns to fact for me. I know it will. I can hear my heart telling me my faith will be more than justified. And you should hear the same voice in yours.

2. I wasn’t even smart enough to get my degree on my own without the adderall.

Correction: You weren’t motivated enough to get your physics degree on your own without adderall. Adderall does not make you smarter. It feels like that, but it doesn’t. It just makes you passionate and focused and confident. You can feel the exact same way naturally but you have to be working on something you really, really enjoy. There have been times when I’ve pulled away from something I’m working and had the thought (God, I’m so tweaked out…I better drink some water or calm down or something…wait…I’m not tweaked out…I haven’t taken a pill in a year! I’m just that into this task naturally! Ha!).

If anything, you’re actually smarter without Adderall. It just takes something genuinely interesting to light you up. Adderall does not raise your IQ (take a test before and after if you don’t believe me). It makes you think more, but not neccessarily better. I think the “smarter” feeling is actually just confidence that you need to be developing naturally (and then you’ll be/feel “even smarter” because it’ll be real confidence).

If you wake up still drunk from the night before every day and have to go to work everday?

Ok that’s a whole other problem. Maybe related to the adderall if you’re on the up-down cycle and drinking the alcohol to come down from the pills. Is that what you’re doing? Because if so then you really should cut out the booze and just move your final adderall dose of the day a bit earlier so you come down in time to sleep at night. And FWIW, belive me falling asleep at night won’t be a problem when you quit the pills.

If you are drinking for any other reason, like as an escape or to lubricate a home life you have problems accepting/dealing with when you’re sober/on just pills, then that may be a whole different question/answer that I’m gonna need some more information on first.

If you have extreemly high blood pressure with weight spiraling out of control?

It seems strange to me that you’d have problems with (over) weight on Adderall. That’s kind of the opposite of what happens with most people. If you’re weight is spiraling out of control while you’re on a drug that is notorious for pusing weight down as a side-effect, then I’d reccommend even more that you quit Adderall.

One of the aspects of quitting adderall that I haven’t yet touched on in this blog is the oddly-natural increased urge to excercise regurlarly and do physical activities. I can’t explain it, but it’s happened to me every time I’ve quit in the past and doubly-so for this final time when I quit for good. At some point, usually a week or two after your last pill, you just have this odd thought come accross your brain that says “I want to move. I want to do something physical.” 

If you have trouble excercising on Adderall it’s probably because you’re depending on straight descipline and have no natural urge. Quit the pills and you’ll get that natural urge eventually I’m almost positive. I have seen it in myself and several friends who have quit. On Adderall I would work out maybe once a month “when I felt like doing it for the novelty of doing something good for my body”. Now, a year off the pills, I’m in nearly the best shape of my life. I do a 2-3 mile run at least twice a week because I feel like it. And that’s in addition to lifting weights 3 times a week.

If you loose your job and cant get another, the current job market is very competative.

That only matters if you have to turn back. If you give up. The whole point is here that your heart doesn’t want another job in that field. But that doesn’t mean you have to let go prematurely. Just when it’s time.

I have the same fear. I’m about to abandon the chance of a promising career in the internet business and every oppurtunity to know for a fact that I could have a family-supporting salary if needed it…I’m about to abandon it knowing that I can probably never go back…that while I’m gone the industry will probably pass me by and nobody wants an old geek (they want the young one full of idealism and bleeding-edge skills)….and I’m abandoning all of that on faith. Faith that somehow when you follow your heart it all works out. Even the money.

Perhaps especially the money.

I don’t need to faith to know that being a Police Officer will be exactly what I need to balance myself and make every day an adventure…that just requires knowing myself and what I need to grow. I know such a job will never provide financially enough for me. But I have this odd sense that somehow that part will work itself out…probably by me discovering some related destiny that I could’ve only discovered by taking the first step of becoming a police officer despite it being financially irrational for a little bit.

You have to have that faith. You have to maintain that faith. Or you will not be able to do this.

Unfortunately for people in my situtation the best I can do for myself and family is enjoy it while I’m here and make sure they are secure by keeping a good life ensurance policy on myself.

But you’re not enjoying it! You’re drinking every day and searching the internet for advice on quitting adderall and secretly hating your job and worried about your increasingly-serious health issues!

I’ve lived life without adderall before and I was always poor and living in poverty.

How long ago? Were you happier then than you are now? Did you feel more true and genuine depsite your poorness/poverty? Did you feel more like “yourself” back then? It takes time and the right discovery to turn natural happiness and being yourself into something profitable. Don’t blame yourself if you just hadn’t found that thing yet.

If you have large student loans, a large mortgage, an exotic car etc and your in debt over your eyeballs and the only way to pay for it is with your current job?

If you have a family that depends on your stability and income?

Look, Dave, this is where I feel like I’m treading a line…answering questions above my experience level. I don’t want you to come looking for me with a gun when you try this and it all goes to hell for you and you lose a whole family and your kids go into foster care or something horrible like that. I offer no garuntees.

All I can tell you is that if you decide to do this, everything I have ever obsereved in my life and in others, every gut feeling I’ve ever had, and all of my own direct experience, tells me it will work for you; tells me you will find a way; tells me that it may get very messy, but in the end you will be standing on a mountain of your own achievement with a glowing heart, laughing at how it all played out.

But maybe in your situation you want to gradually wean yourself off (vs. cold turkey). Maybe in your situation you want to save up some money first. Maybe you should wait a year until I’ve completed my own grand experiment and updated this post saying either “Oh my God, it worked just like I knew it would!” or “I’m closing this blog and going back on the pill because I just destroyed my whole life for nothing”. 

But be warned: If you find yourself using those “maybe you should” statements as excuses, disregard them. Only hear them if you actually still quit. Do not just use those statements to give voice to your procrastination. And for others reading this post that do not have a wife and kids and debt up to your eyeballs: Do not follow that advice. Quit now and take your chances or you risk wasting another year or more of your life that you could be spending making real forward progress with the self you are underneath.

It’s important that you’re good for your family. I can’t argue that.

But if you’re drinking every night and have serious health problems and you’re secretly misserable about your job, I’ve got to believe that your current family life isn’t exactly as rosey as it could be. And if your health feels like it’s so at risk that you’re talking about good life insurance being your “good husband/father card” then you’re pretty damn far gone. I don’t know you and I don’t know your family, but I’m guessing they’d rather have a husband/dad that “went through this crappy period where we couldn’t afford new shoes and he was really emotional but then became better than he ever was and we love him some much and he’s so amazing today you should meet him” than a husband/dad who “died X years ago but left us some money”.

There’s something I wish I would have said to my (now-ex) girlfriend before I quit adderall: “Short term this may destroy us, but long term it is the only way to save us.” As much as it killed me to lose her, I know it wasn’t right like it was, and if I ever get it back, our relationship will be a thousand times better than it ever could have been before.

I will leave you with that advice now,

Short term this may destroy you, but long-term it is the only way to save you. 

If that hits home for you. If your heart knows that to be true. Then quit. Find a way. Otherwise, keep taking your pills and living exactly the life you’re living now.

5 Situations that will tempt you

1. Your coworkers’ snide comments about your productivity

What you’re heart screams: Lazy? Unproductive?! I used to run this place! My years of hyper-productivity built the foundations you’re working from even today! Remember? Remember how I was the head ox pulling the cart? Most of my current attitude and lack of pro-activeness/productivity comes from the fact that I hate this job now because I don’t have pills that force me to like it!

The temptation: I so miss being the hero at work! I miss the admiration of my coworkers and the feeling of wild efficacy. I mean, I was happy and I had passion, right? Even if it was manufactured I was having so much fun! My days were so filled! And with all that I’ve learned and all the changes my mind has gone through over this quitting period I could accomplish so much more if I dived back in!

2. Your girlfriend/boyfriend’s frustration

What you’re heart screams: Please don’t go! I know it’s hard! I know I’m probably way less attractive to you right now, but please hang in there! I’ll get better I promise; it’s just going to take some time for me to rebuild! I’m still that guy you fell in love with! I’m even better…just give me the time to show you!

The temptation: I can’t lose her. Maybe I have to go back to my old way. It’s starting to look like the only way to save us. I know I’ll probably resent her for it, but I can’t take the way she doesn’t look at me anymore.

Tips: When the girl/guy you love is less attracted to you and secretly (or not so secretly) wants “the old you” back, it can kill you inside…way worse than the disappointed coworker agony.

First off, I really hope you took my advice and warned your significant other in advance.

Other than that, you have to make efforts to show her/him real signs of progress as often as possible (e.g., if you’ve started doodling again as a first step towards reviving your drawing skills, show her some of the stuff you’ve done…as crappy as you think it might be…at least make sure to tell her you’ve drawn some stuff).

But ultimately there may be nothing you can do. As difficult as it may be, you have to remember that you are doing the right thing for you. But you need to understand that expecting your significant other to stick by you and wait patiently while you revamp yourself from scratch may not be a realistic (or fair) expectation to place on them.

You can expect one of three outcomes in this regard…

1. It’s meant to be now. They’ll stick by you no matter what.
2. It’s meant to be later, but you’re going to have to break up first, rebuild yourself more, then meet again later when you’re better.
3. It’s not meant to be. You break up. That’s it. Later, once you’ve rebuilt enough of yourself, you find somebody who makes you twice as happy as they did.

You must be truly open to any of these 3 outcomes. Do not bet all your chips on the hope for one particular outcome (i.e., #1).

3. A good cause

The temptation: My newfound off-Adderall clarity has guided me to this wonderful idea that is so on-purpose and within my true passions — but it’s taking so painfully long for me to muster up the drive to execute it fully! And what if I miss out on my purpose because I take too long to execute it and somebody else does it and invalidates me? I could get half the whole project done in one night on Adderall! Ok, maybe two nights. But then I’d be done!

4. Disapproval/Accusations

In general your ego is going to be sensitive during your rebuilding period. When your ego gets threatened (i.e., when you have to face some accusation about how worthless you are), you are going to retreat into two places: 1. The superman you were on Adderall, 2. The vague image of the wonderful person you’re going to be once you’re done rebuilding.

What your heart screams: If only you could see me as I was or as I’m going to be! I’m not worthless!

The temptation: I could take a pill and shut you up right now.

Remember: Wait until they see you 2 years from now when you pull it off. Or wait until they’re old enough to understand rebuilding periods. And if they still don’t recognize then the necessity and difficulty of what you went through, then that’s there problem, not yours (as much as it may sting).

5. Depression/Losing Faith

The temptation: I’ve been miserable and worthless for way too long. I can’t be depressed my whole life! Maybe it’s just a chemical thing and I need my meds. Maybe Adderall was just the right medication for me.

It’s not that big a deal. Some people take Zanex because they have anxiety problems…maybe I just chemically need Adderall because I’m naturally lazy/unfocused and need to compensate so I can be as productive as others are naturally. Maybe this whole “robs me of my true calling” shtick I’ve been on is just me blowing it out of proportion. Maybe taking Adderall is actually the only way for me to be effective and happy as a person, and I’m here not taking it and wondering why I’m miserable.

What got me through it: Always remember that you are not depressed because of chemicals; you are depressed because your life sucks right now.

Hat tip to the exceptional post “10 articles that changed my life” by Shaun @ LifeReboot for pointing this out to me.

You’ve suddenly realized that the life you are living is not the one you want. The only thing that keeps you running besides your dull adhesion to a minimum daily routine (work, sleep, shower, etc) is the amount of faith you have that the vision of what your future can be is real and attainable and eventual. When you’re just running on faith and small steps, it’s pretty easy for you to slide into misery on any given day.

It’s easy to take a look at your immediate environment and get horribly depressed. But once you make that big step (you should know what that is within 6 months of your last pill) your immediate environment will be completely different.

Use your depression as a catalyst for big change. Stay strong. Keep the faith. It’ll pay off for you in spades. It’s just going to take some time. Fist concentrate on wrenching your life into what it was meant to be, getting yourself into that environment you crave. Once you get there your day is going to be so different that you will be different. And my guess is, your mood will be swinging from “quietly but deeply satisfied” to “dizzyingly happy and rapturous” (vs. swinging between “burst of faith and confidence in your rebuilding” and “fallen back into depression”).

And then one day you find it

That thing you love. That idea that just captures your attention and imagination. That first idea you decide to actually do something about. And you start to work on it little by little. I started by forcing myself to give it the last 15 minutes of my work day. And you find that once you start working on that thing it’s just as if you popped an adderral. You can’t let go. It sucks you in and you’re crazy-focused and loving every minute of it.

And then you start working on it more and more. You learn that all you have to do is start the task and you brain instantly goes into that adderall mode. So you start more often, with less hesitation.

Before you know it you are consumed by it, in a good way. You have that idea again that your mind constantly thinks about…constantly invents for. Just like with adderall, except you don’t have that fake feeling; you don’t feel like you’re just consumed with this thinking because of the pill…you realize that it’s consuming you because it’s real, because you love it, and because it’s going to be your contribution to the world.