BrainBlitz.org

So it’s been about a year since I said goodbye to Adderall. And it has been one @%^@%! boring year. Every now and then I manage to get caught up in something for a few days – but never have the oomph to follow through and really create. Oh how I miss my old productive self.

I’ve come to the painful conclusion that I might actually have to go through an unpleasant re-training process. My brain became so accustomed to effortlessly cruising along, fueled by the little magical orange candy for $30/month, that it seems to have forgotten what real effort is. Now I mentally recoil at the thought of making myself DO something.

So I haven’t  spontaneously re-awakened after a year (@#%$!); I guess it’s time to be systematic about it. Set some goals or something (recoil! recoil! recoil!).

Coming up on July again.

July 4th of 2007 – all  of my “4th of July” memories are secondary to my “4th of July on Adderall” memories. Indeed, almost all of my memories from 2007 through 2008 are anchored to Adderall in some way.

“Oh, yes, that was the month I first ran out over a week early. I remember taking my last dose at 3am.”

“THAT was the time I took 60mgs at once. My feet turned blue, and my chest felt so tight that I simply had a lie motionless for an  hour. That was ok though, because lying there motionally, I had a flood of inspired ideas [for coding].” [And they WERE actually great ideas, that I will have time to pursue... when I win the lotto.]

“I do remember that… it happened a couple of days after my first experience of having the sun rise and birds start chirping while I was speeding away.” [It's very depressing the first few times the sun rises on you... when you first notice the cracks in the window blinds have gone from black to slighly gray.]

I can read through code I’d written (mainly for BoxCAD) and remember what time it was, what mood I was in, and how much Adderall I had left.

It’s not surprising that all of my memories are associated with Adderall in some way, considering that I had an explicit thought about the stuff literally every ten minutes max.

The “funny” thing is, in almost all of those memories, there is a vague unpleasantness. A hovering feeling that something is very wrong. While I might have been pleasantly speeding at any given time (I won’t lie – it’s very pleasant), my credit was ransacked, my wife was crying or angry that I was still dosing after two or three days awake (and my oblivion to my son asking to “go to the park,” among other things), and my house was starting to look like it had been abandoned.

So where are we now?

I haven’t touched Adderall for four or five months. An accurate measure of my obsession can be found in “Time between thoughts of Adderall”:

Just after last dose: 5 minutes
Week after last dose: 10 mintues
Month after last dose: 10 minutes
Two Months: 15 minutes
Three Months: 1 hour
Four Months: 1 day
Current: Every other day

I no longer crave it. I’m at about 90% of my pre-Adderall functionality.

But what would I do if I found a piece of Adderall laying around… that had been misplaced? I feel like I could resist, but I also know that the beast is simply asleep. It will probably never be dead.

There’s a lot more to say – things that might be helpful to other addicts in withdrawal. But, I have to say – I write at about half the speed I did before I quit. :\ So I will have to say my “more” in a later post.

Well, it’s been miserable saying goodbye to Adderall, to say the least; it has turned into a long and drawn out process. I’ve “quit” several times, actually – each time returning to it primarily out of neccessity (i.e. to finish a job, bill a client, then MY bills), but there is also a strong addictive component to my returns.

The last time I gave in (3 weeks ago), I asked the doctor for a 20mg/day prescription, down from 45mg. I did not use it as a continuous taper, but rather as two spaced binge events. My last usage was two weeks ago.

There are two primary withdrawal effects that plague me. First is drowsiness. For the first few days, I slept about 18 hours per day. Now, two weeks after last dose, I sleep about 12 hours a day.

Second is (initially profound) anhedonism and lethargy. And I’m not using the word “profound” lightly.

During the first week, I took about 2 showers. When I wasn’t sleeping, I was playing games on the computer. Or reading. I haven’t worked with music (normally an obscession), programming or anything else. Nothing sounded worth the effort.

Now, two weeks later, the anhedonia/lethargy is strong, but not as crippling. I still have very little interest in “hobbies”, but I have been able to work some.

More and more, I have very brief sparks of inspiration, where hobbies actually sound fascinating again. But it’s a very fleeting feeling. It seems like my brain is an engine trying to turn over; some times it fires a couple of pistons then sputters out.

Forcing myself to do “things” causes intense agitation. Earlier in withdrawal, simply taking a shower would cause feelings of childish tantrum throwing to run through my head. It’s not that severe now, but I still become mildly irritated if I attempt to work at something for any useful length of time.

Appetite wise – well, I’ve gained over 10 pounds over the last two weeks. Most of that was in the first few days. My appetite is currently at pre-Adderall levels.

So, why is this the “almost” epilogue? Because I know from experience that I will at some point face a seemingly irresistable compulsion to ask my doctor for a refill. Overall though, while I may end up doing so (as I have a couple of times already), I am making real progress. Each “quitting” cycle, the urge to abuse decreases, and I use less. I am currently in new territory; I HAVE made it two weeks before, but I didn’t feel this “well”.

Perhaps more encouraging than anything, according to my wife, “it feels like you’ve been gone for a long time, and just came back.” Indeed, my mood has improved – but there are much more vague, subtle ways that Adderall impacts your personality, and it’s in those details that the real changes have taken place.

One last note – I’m experiencing a near-total inversion of normal circadian rythms. I’ve always been a night-owl, but lately, I literally wake up at night as if it was morning, and literally go to bed in the early morning hours. I’ve also experienced some intense sleep-onset paralysis (something I have not experienced for 4 years or so). I read somewhere, once upon a time, that after chronic amphetamine use, sleep patterns continue to be modified for up to several months after stoppage. So I may have a ways to go…

Ah well. One thing at a time.