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I wasn’t exactly feeling optimistic when I woke up at around 7:00 on Monday morning. I was convinced at that point that things would be back to normal. By 12:00 noon, I’d be dead tired, and done being productive for the day. I’d leave work 15 minutes early, and go straight home and straight to bed for and hour or two. I’d wake up around 6:30 or 7:00, drag myself out of bed, and spend the rest of the evening with a dull sleep headache.

By 8:00 however, the pessimism melted away as I felt the surge of energy.

Being well into my third week of medication, and after hours of research, I still have no idea why the Adderall was so impotent on Saturday and Sunday. But on that Monday, I didn’t really care; there was a bit of hope.

If I sound a little melodramatic about this, you have to realize how profound the first few days on Adderall were. For the first time, I wasn’t horribly drowsy all day. For the first time, I didn’t look at the clock every 15 minutes, longing for 4:15, so I could leave work 15 minutes early.

I have always found little chores to be nearly insurmountable obstacles. Paying bills, doing homework, taking paychecks to the bank, etc. In fact, my coworkers used to make fun of me for hoarding paychecks. I’d often take them to the bank in sets of 3, and only then because I had a $230 health insurance  check ready to go out, and only $80 in the bank.

I always wondered if I was just somehow very lazy. It was a little bit paradoxical, because I tend to be able to work very hard on certain things – obsessively hard – but only when they are intrinsically interesting to me. I love electronics (i.e. robots, high voltage projects, etc). I love things that fly (latest craze is RC Helicopters). I love producing music in my little amateur home “studio.” I have always tended to excel in the areas that interested me.

But give me a small chore – a five minute detour on the way home from the bank to drop off a check – and I’d be at a loss. I’d procrastinate. Procrastinations would build up in the back of my mind into huge burdens. When there was absolutely no grace-period left (time to pay the bills!) I could muster up the desire to get it done – finally.

That has completely changed in the last 2.5 weeks. I have no problem with those nagging issues. I don’t have lingering splinters in the back of mind. I get things done. There is no such thing as “boring”, and “insurmountable” is now within reach.

And THAT has been indescribably wonderful.

So I hope you can understand if I sound a little melodramatic!

Anyway, back to my day. The amphetamine’s effects kicked in around 8:00, and while there was still no rush, I was simply happy to be so awake! Monday was a very productive day.

Having felt zombie-ish after work the previous couple of work days, I took my second dose later, around 2:00. With the attenuation in side effects, I didn’t think it’d give me such severe insomnia. It didn’t. I lasted a little longer that evening – till 7:00 or so, before the zombie effect came on.

Over the next couple days, the side effects continued to lessen, but the general “wakefulness” and motivation did not. The game now was to find the balance in timing; late enough to avoid blowing the evening as a blob on the couch, and early enough to avoid insomnia. Basically, I was (am) aiming for 10:30 for the zombie effect to kick in.

By Wednesday, I started running into a new problem – even the wakefulness seemed to be lessening – not so much in intensity, but in duration. By Thursday, it seemed to be lasting for about 5 hours. This meant that with my first dose at 7:00, I was starting to come down around 12:00. So I started taking my second dose around 11:30. the developing issue should be apparent to you! – by 5:00 pm or so, my second dose was wearing off, and I was crashing.

On Friday, I tried a new tactic. First of all – I usually do ok in the morning without Adderall. I was able to move the first dose a little later, around 9:00 or so, and not take the second dose until I was coming down from the first dose (which meant about 30 minutes around 1:00 where I’d feeling the yawns starting to well up). But by 1:30, I was good to go till 6:30.

I tried no to take it over the weekend, attempting the debatable ”Adderall Holiday” I’d read much about. It’s common with other fast acting medications as well, including Ritalin, and is suppose to retard the development of tolerance. Some people swear by it, some people say it makes no difference. In my case, the jury is still out.

So Saturday was simply a sleepy day (I don’t mind that on the weekend, when I can take my nap earlier in the day and still wake up enough to have a productive evening, and then get to bed at a decent hour). On Sunday my wife and I went out after church for several hours. I was feeling extremely tired in early afternoon, and so took half (5 mg’s), which did the trick nicely. No intense stimulant effects, just a lack of sleepiness.

My second week of Adderall ended with pleasant sleep Sunday night, and optimism for the coming week.

Day four marked a dramatic change in my reaction to the Adderall. I took it right at 7:00 after an OK night of sleep. Sure enough, in 30 to 45 minutes, I felt wide awake.

But the “rush” never came.

The rest of the day was a very productive, cotton-mouthed sweaty-handed day. I took my second dose a little after 12:00 pm. There was a little rush, a little excessive talkativeness, but the intensity of the side effects was far less than the first three days.

To be honest, I was a little dissapointed, and a little worried. Does one really build tolerance to Adderall this quickly?

I went home at 4:30, and like the previous day, felt zombified shortly after. I spent another evening as a blob on the couch, too unmotivated to do anything but read. And read I did. I probably spent a good 3 hours looking up information on amphetamines in general, and Adderall specifically. I’ll compile some of that information in a separate post, and continue to focus on the actual experience here.

By 11:00 or so, I was dead tired, and went to bed. I woke up 10-hours of solid sleep later.

Saturday seemed to cofirm my suspicion of tolerance. I took it at about 10:00 in the morning, and didn’t feel a thing. I took the second one at 12:00, as normal.

At 2:00 I was tired, and took a nap. I had no problem falling asleep. This was a major let down, after the first several days seemed so promising. Sunday was a repeat of Saturday; the drug had no noticable effect. At this point I was extremely anxious about going back to work Monday morning.

The same as day two, I woke up on day three feeling “yucky” – having gotten only about 3 hours of sleep. But also the same as day two – I didn’t feel sleep throughout the entire day. The “physical” tiredness was becoming a bit of an issue at this point, however. I felt wide awake, but by late in the day my eyes were starting to ache, and looked a little dark and sunk in. My muscles felt a little tight and fatigued.

 That didn’t stop me from having a very productive, long day at work though. I took the second dose just a little earlier, at noon.

By the time I got home from work around 5:30 though, I was starting to feel mentally like a zombie. I spent the rest of the evening sitting on the couch with the laptop, feeling too unmotivated to do anything but read or play games.

At this point, I was getting very anxious about sleeping. Thankfully, after several days of sleep deprivation – I fell asleep very quickly that night. It wasn’t GREAT sleep – I had vague memories the next morning about waking up frequently – but it was a heck of a lot better than the previous two nights!

Day Two started at 6:00 with the odd sensation one gets when one goes to sleep as the sun is coming up. That miserable, unnatural feeling, where you know you have disobeyed some fundamental rule of humanity, and are going to suffer for it.

In a strange contrast to how I was feeling mentally, however, physically I jumped right out of bed at 7:00, having laid awake since 6:00, and felt fine. Breaking from my morning ritual of taking medicine after showering, I took my 10 mg dose immediately after getting up. By the time I was out the door at 7:30, I was beginning to feel the effects of the amphetamine. I felt absolutely awake, motivated and ready to go – amazing, considering my two measely hours of sleep.

Even more amazing was that the 100% wakefullness continued throughout the entire day. The effects were the same as the first day – memory, wittiness, concentration, wakefullness, etc. More notably this day was the lack of appetite. By the end of the day, I had not eaten a single thing, and wasn’t the slightest bit hungry. That is something I’ve had to watch since; I tend to do pretty good forcing myself to eat at least lunch and dinner (with the help of my wife). That effect has lessened somewhat over the last week or so.

Despite the fact that I was not sleepy, I did feel some physical effects of sleep deprivation; primarily a heaviness in my face and eyes.

I added another side effect to the list on the second day – very sweaty palms. I probably just didn’t notice it the first day, having been overwhelmed by all of the other effects.

The second day ended with another bout of extreme insomnia, even though I took my second dose earlier than on the first day – about 12:30. I finally went to sleep at 3:00 am Thursday morning.