
Generation Adderall - duncanawoods
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/magazine/generation-adderall-addiction.html
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foopityfop
> When she is face to face with an addicted patient, Friedman explains, what
> is at stake is that patient’s very ability “to become a full person without
> the shadow of always needing something.”

The more I think about it, the whole idea of using stimulants if very Icarus-
esque. Societal pressures urge us to become productive, the sub-C-level tasks
involved with being productive tend to be tedious and despite our natural
inclination to be bored out of our minds when performing them, we force
ourselves to face them. One way we do this is through the ingestion of
stimulants, most notably caffeine and now, amphetamine. Staytner's ex-artist
patients who have sold out for "productivity" seem to embody this ideology to
the greatest extent.

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karmajunkie
I wonder a lot about the role ones individual neurochemistry plays in these
kinds of addiction. I've been on stimulants for ADD for years with almost no
ill effects other than mildly suppressed appetite and trouble sleeping if I
take it too late in the morning. I frequently will go for several days without
it on vacations, and about once a year I stop taking it for at least a few
weeks to kind of reset myself during the holidays. I can't recall ever having
had anything like the authors experiences.

Similarly, despite many ill-advised attempts to prove otherwise in my younger
days, I can't seem to develop addictions to substances like cigarettes. I can
take them or leave them for any period of time.

However, certain kinds of games can become almost compulsive for me if I let
myself play them... addiction is a strange beast.

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brazzledazzle
I've had similar experiences but I do seem to be impacted by minor withdrawal
symptoms when I skip days/weeks. Just being mildly lethargic. But the way
other people describe the feeling of taking much smaller doses than I do I
wonder if I need much more to get equivalent experiences and if that also
impacts how dependent I am.

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karmajunkie
I think it points to a few things. for one thing, the author pointed out
several things about herself that I think are probably contraindications (i.e.
panic attacks) and it doesn't sound as though she actually had ADHD to begin
with. I can't believe anyone would be surprised that absent the condition its
intended to treat that something like an amphetamine would have an addictive
potential for that subset of people (which may, for all i know, be the
majority.)

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ap22213
People reading that may also want to check out some research on the topic of
ADHD. It's useful to contrast the NYT article to the relationships between
untreated ADHD and reduced quality of life.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/?term=adhd](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/?term=adhd)

It's a balance, right? Few if any drugs are perfect. So, the consequences have
to be weighed.

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riskable
30,752 articles in that link? This is going to take a lot of pills...

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dqv
>I would open other people’s medicine cabinets, root through trash cans where
I had previously disposed of pills, write friends’ college essays for barter.

That's going too far and might have a deeper meaning than the drug's addictive
nature. I wonder if the sense of "I'm getting addicted to this" is innate or
if it's learned. For me, drugs like cigarettes weren't addictive enough for me
to continue after the pack I tried.

I am somewhat jealous of those with addictive tendencies. If they leverage
them properly, they can be wildly successful. I know someone who turned his
addiction to Valium into an addiction to exercise, money, and creativity.

I haven't been able to develop any habits that turn into an addiction, but it
could be nice, especially in the right circumstances.

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pitaj
Modafinil may be a safer alternative to Adderall which has more benefits and
almost zero side effects.

~~~
drvdevd
Certainly worth considering

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robattila128
> I found myself sobbing in a psychiatrist’s office in New Haven, where I was
> finishing graduate school, explaining to him that my life was no longer my
> own.

Although not as severe as the writers, amphetamines more so than other drugs
drained me of passion without it. Watching my friends be disinterested in
everything when their vices aren't around is depressing.

For every one person with ADHD I met that needed it, there was a circle of
people around him/her taking it because they think it makes their goals more
realistic.

