> 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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
>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.
> 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.
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.