Big Tiny Steps

After about 15 years of taking Adderall, I’ve decided to make my second attempt at escaping its seemingly inescapable grip.

Up until recently, I’ve been taking it as prescribed. But as supply of Adderall has gotten increasingly unstable over the past couple of years, I’ve found myself being relegated to other brands and denominations of milligrams that have often been weaker than what I was used to. So in order to stave off the nasty withdrawal symptoms, including headaches, exhaustion, and depression, I’ve had to take an extra 5 or 10 mg here and there.

And to be clear, going above my prescribed dosage has never been about getting high or numbing my emotions. At the time of this writing, I am 21 years sober, and I know exactly what it’s like to rely on drugs and alcohol to insulate myself from my feelings.

This is not that.

But what this dependency is, is an affront to one of my highest values, which is personal freedom.

There is no freedom in experiencing the fear that comes with every time I have to refill my prescription, hoping that it’s in stock TODAY because the pharmacy will not fill my prescription until I have completely run out.

So if by some chance, there is no Adderall in stock TODAY, then it’s day 1 of cold turkey time.

Luckily, I’ve never had that experience because my doctor has always been able to either send over a prescription for tablets in a different denomination (5mg instead of my normal dosage of 20mg), or prescribe me an alternative drug like Vyvanse, which is pretty similar in its effects.

But still the stress is too much.

Despite having lived through some very, very…VERY tough times in my life, extreme physical discomfort would be a new experience for me. Maybe it’s because I’m a guy and generally speaking, we’re wimps when it comes to long-term discomfort or pain. At least more so than most women who have to deal with crap like periods and that whole pregnancy/childbirth thing.

Stories of Gloom and Doom

Surfing Reddit and reading fellow Adderall users’ accounts of quitting, I heard people sharing accounts such as feeling depressed and well below baseline levels of dopamine two years later. Some claimed that they’ve never been the same since quitting.

All of this only served to ratched up the fear of being forced to quit cold-turkey as a result of some complete and total depletion of Adderall and it’s alternatives due to the chaos in the world with supply chain issues, tariffs, catastrophic weather events, etc.

Further frustrating the challenge…

At this moment in time, life is damn tough. Tougher than it even was during my days of drinking and drugging.

For the sake of respecting the anonymity of loved ones whose privacy would be violated by my divulging more about my current life challenges, I won’t get into any details in case I ever do decide to go public with my actual name as the writer of this blog.

And anyway, those details aren’t really directly relevant to the purpose of this online journal.

Suffice it to say, I do not have a day-to-day lifestyle that would offer me the opportunity to slow down and focus on the rest and self-care that one would normally want while going through this process. Riding horseback and enjoying chef-prepared organic meals in Taos is not in the cards for me right now.

The Three Pillars of Quitting “Warm Turkey”

So the three main components of this effort are going to be:

1. A very forgiving “easy does it” weaning schedule
2. Adding other medications and/or supplements to blunt the discomfort of any withdrawals
3. Arranging my life in such a way that allows for more sleep and overall physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health.

The third bullet point here is especially interesting, as it is in line with what I believe that the primary goal, or “theme” of this process is going to be…

THRIVING instead of just surviving during this period.

Non-Toxic Positivity

Rather than this being one of the worst periods of my life, I am going to shoot for making it one of the BEST periods of my life, as I work my way towards a new level of personal freedom.

I am one of those people old enough to remember that idiotic thing we did here in the US during the second Iraq war where we shit all over France for (wisely) not participating our sham escapade with the whole renaming of french fries to “Freedom Fries”.

So in that same spirit, if I get a withdawal headache, I am going to call it a “Freedom Headache”.

Or if I am feeling depressed, I can say I’ve got “The Freedom Blues”, and so on and so forth.

Feel Free to Chime In

Lastly, if you somehow found your way to my little online journal and care to leave a comment sharing your own experience or thoughts on the topic of getting off of Adderall or anything at least somewhat related to that topic, then I’d love to hear from you.

My hope is that the comments section of the website serve as a place to inspire and support eachother and not yet another hub of “gloom and doom” stories that are all problem minus solution.