>I let some non-ADHD friends try a low dose of Ritalin when I had switched off of it and had some left over, and they were bouncing off the fucking walls -- I would strongly not recommend taking stimulants unless medically necessary.
>For people with ADHD, they can be truly life saving. For recreational use, avoid.
Just so you are aware, amphetamines are and have been used widely, and successfully, by people without ADD/ADHD. It has addictive qualities for sure, but I appreciate that people are allowed to try whatever substances they would like to try.
> For folks without ADHD, you should know that stimulants, like Ritalin and Adderall, do not usually cause the same response as in non-ADHD people.
I can confirm; I have ADHD and this even applies to stronger stimulants like cocaine. Cocaine doesn't do much for me, so I never understood why my friends were always bouncing off the walls while I was just chilling, like "what's the big deal with this drug". I didn't get it until I was diagnosed with ADHD and understood how our brains are wired differently.
> I'd 100% recommend having stimulants in your toolkit, and chances are you're already supplementing with worse stimulants (like mountains of coffee or soda), so do give them a try, but be careful.
I'll second this. I've got an old friend and former coworker who clearly has serious ADHD and self medicates with tons of coffee/soda/cigarettes. He's killing himself and he knows it, but hates doctors and has a negative view of shrinks.
Anec-data: I cut out carbs and only eat during certain windows and that has done wonders for focus and stick-to-itiveness. Coffee and alcohol hit me extra hard, and I've cut back on them.
> It’s amphetamine. The energy is from the amphetamine.
Energy still comes from food, and if you forget to eat on stimulants your body will eventually catch up with you.
Like coffee, stimulants let you better tap into that energy.
> The mechanism of action (norepinephrine and dopamine reputable inhibition) isn’t far from that of cocaine or methamphetamine.
Yep, they’re all stimulants. ADHD meds however, are manufactured in very controlled conditions, and taken in specific doses. Street drugs are more variable in quality, ratios, ingredients and strengths, and so not relevant to the treatment of ADHD.
Methamphetamine is a legitimate treatment for the most severe ADHD cases, it’s often a last resort. It’s sold as Desoxyn. It’s rarely used, but it _is used legally and successfully_.
> Let’s be real here. Amphetamine is known to skew one’s self assessment of their performance while on the drug.
If you don’t need it, stimulants are going to have a different effect.
People with ADHD are in my experience, going to be able to self-assess performance on their meds better than off them.
Don’t assume one experience is universal, especially when we’re talking about neurodiversity. Even among those with ADHD, experiences are not universal. We may rhyme, but we don’t always repeat.
Yeah, no. That's just really misleading. The first day on stimulants was the calmest I experienced in years. The whole idea of hyperactivity is (extremely simplified) that your brain fills the space of missing external stimulation. That's where self-stimulation comes from.
> I would at least try the meds for a couple of months.
Whether or not you have ADHD, amphetamines will improve your life if you measure quality by how much you get done.
So I think the real question is: Are you prevented from functioning according to your expectations without daily amphetamine use, or not? And do you even see that as a problem?
I've used various (legal) amphetamines and modafinil variants for years, and they always made me very productive and happy, because I like getting things done. They also make me very high-energy.
Disclaimers:
- Amphetamines are physically addictive
- Being productive is psychologically addictive
- Take time off, or the productivity effect will even out, just like too much coffee.
> Before going down a road that involves powerful stimulants that have a high likelihood of abuse or misuse -- the danger is that they're fun, and one develops a tolerance, just like other similar illegal drugs -- it might be worthwhile to investigate a mediation practice, or other exercises to improve your attention. If you're already high functioning its likely not as bad as it seems.
Sure sounds like advice to me. You're not just throwing this stuff into the ether for a purely academically interested observer.
>Just because stimulants _can_ get you high and be addictive doesn't mean they will when taken appropriately.
I'm definitely calling out inappropriate usage, so I don't disagree.
>Plus both cause slight dry mouth, appetite suppression that I have to forcibly eat through, and insomnia if I take them too late in the day. Not to mention the fundamental hassle of taking pills every day within narrow bands of time, something I regularly procrastinate and/or forget.
Yeah the side-effects are not great. Throw in teeth-grinding, compulsive behaviors, irritability, aggressiveness, etc.
>If I had no ambitions or responsibilities, I would be more than happy to throw my medicine away and sit around on my computer all day every day. Unfortunately, I do have ambitions and responsibilities and medication helps mitigate my crippling, career-threatening inability to get things done. So I'll take that tradeoff.
I'm happy to hear about your self control. I wish I were effective as a person naturally, I'm sure you can relate. Unfortunately they don't work for me as well as they once did.
> However, being on stimulants is very exhaustive for your body, and it temporarily stops the racing thoughts many people struggle with, even some time after taking it.
Exhaustion is not the mechanism by which stimulants calm people with ADHD, as far as we understand it. Very approximately their internal world is less stimulating than that find restful so they’re constantly looking for more stimulation to reach a pleasant level. The stimulants let them reach that level without more environmental stimulation. One of my friends doesn’t drink anything with caffeine in it because it puts him to sleep.
>Neurotypical people actually get a kind of high from amphetamines
This is intellectual dishonesty to the point of nausea.
Amphetamine is very well understood as far as drugs go and affects those with and without ADHD in the same way. Neurotypicals also experience increased focus at therapeutic doses, just ask anyone who's taken it as a study aid, and ADHD-sufferers also experience a high from the flood of dopamine.
The most damning evidence for me is the absolutely obsessive relationship many ADHD patients have with their medication. It's immediately obvious and unlike any I know of.
Society (American society in particular) has just decided that the medical benefits of amphetamine outweigh the risks for people with ADHD vice versa for those without.
>If you feel like you need stimulants to perform well in a job, you need to reconsider your career choices. It shouldn't be a rat race.
If you need Ed medicine to have sex maybe you shouldn't have sex.
If you need asthma medicine to breath maybe you should think twice about breathing.
Seriously, you don't have a clue about what you're talking about. Neuro divergents are almost an evolution good or bad (hyper focus can have it's benefits), most medicine for the brain is liable to do the opposite.
Caffeine and ginseng are like really good cold medicine to my wife she practically goes into a coma.
If you don't think people's brain work differently:
Do you have an inner monologue?
- yes?
- talk to someone who doesn't, there's many, I found this absurd because mine is always going.
- No? Talk to someone who does... Try to imagine what it'd
Repeat the above for people with synesthesia or aphantasia.
Reality, the brain, consciousness... It all exists within the circuitry of our brain and the flow of electricity and hormones paint your experiences in life
With a deficiency in dopamine which we all mostly have (ADHD), you do need help.
For you, you could end up overdosing on dopamine which itself can cause some major mental issues.
Best to lay off other people's meds.
Hell, I take Vyvanse my wife Adderall, when I ran out I took hers as she's on a dose that about matches my vyvanse but they have different internal mechanism.
Adderall gave me anxiety, depression, and jitters.
Even within ADHD circles it's probably best to stick with the meds you're prescribed.
>I see this repeated often and I've never been able to find a source for it. I do not believe stimulant medications affect people with ADHD and without ADHD differently.
I'm sorry but you clearly haven't even tried to research the subject, so I'm not surprised you don't believe it. People with ADHD have been scientifically proven to have deficiencies in specific neurotransmitters, namely norepinephrine and dopamine. There's multiple studies on ADHD and reward pathways you could find with a simple google search.
If you understand how amphetamine based stimulants such as adderall work, you'll know these are 2 of the major neurotransmitters that they target along with serotonin.
The entire reason for using these types of medications is to improve availability of neurotransmitters to those with abnormal production that impedes cognitive function. Sure people with normal levels can take stimulants and see effects, since these drugs don't balance levels, they just increase them. In a person with normal dopamine production it's just going to lead to an imbalance, and result in the euphoria feeling they're seeking, whether they want to admit it or not.
Edit: the article you posted doesn't even support your argument. It seems in people without ADHD, the medication resulted in increased impulsivity and distractibility.Most likely as a result of abnormal levels of norepinephrine. This is evidence of the drug having literally the opposite of it's intended effect when taken by people without ADHD.
> comparing a drug to a wheel chair is just ridiculous.
Not every disability is visible. By definition they have a significant impact on someones life, as such there isn’t use for competition.
A wheelchair is a great comparison. Both enable someone to do something they previously couldn’t. Both are temporary, and stop being useful when removed. Both have a very different effect on someone who does not need them.
> I don't want to get addicted to another thing in my life
FWIW, among those I know with ADHD taking stimulant meds, addiction is not a concern but remembering to take them is.
> I don't feel "more like myself" on speed
Do you have a deficit of dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine? If not you’re experience will be very different from someone who does.
Even then, some stimulants work better for certain people, and for other only non-stimulants work.
Our brains are complex, and our experiences are not universal.
Speed is also a pretty catch all term, and the ratios of salts have a huge impact on the effect. It may not be very comparable to pharmaceuticals.
> I seriously doubt most positive effect would persist after a year of using and rising tolerance.
People have been taking stimulants for ADHD for decades, but I think its effect is not what you think to an ADHD brain. It’s more akin to reading glasses.
> and to motivate an action to be performed vs procrastinating
I’ve watched several peers go down the path of trying to use stimulants for motivation starting in college and again later in my career. There’s no denying that it works at first. They are stimulants, after all, and they stimulate people especially well when they first start taking them.
The problem is that the motivation from stimulants is famously prone to tolerance and rebound effects. It’s also very prone to habit-forming associations. I’ve noticed several people try to use prescription stimulants in an “as needed” fashion when they need to get a lot of work done quickly and they don’t really want to do it. It doesn’t take long before it’s obvious to their friends and coworkers when they’re having an off day or an on day, even though they might deny any rebound effect. It gets scary when they do this so long that they forget how to self-motivate without taking stimulants because they’ve built such a strong mental association between “I have a lot of work to do” being a trigger for “I should take another pill today” or even “I’ll save this work until tomorrow when I can take a pill”. It gets even scarier when tolerance sets in (to the motivating/stimulating effect, not so much the intended attention-enhancing effect) and they’re now flirting with escalating doses, double doses, combinations with ‘nootropics’ to boost effects or ‘reduce tolerance’ and other slippery slopes.
The short-term productivity boost shouldn’t be denied, but I think it’s also short-sighted to hold these drugs up as a free lunch productivity boost. Let’s be honest: A little experimenting here and there isn’t going to show tolerance, extensive rebound, psychological associations, or other effects, but that’s also what gets people in trouble when they start to think it’s a free lunch. There’s a reason the traditional ADHD treatment approach involves taking the same dose every day rather than encouraging the patient to build psychological associations between taking the drug to alter their mood state.
The strange part about this conversation is that if I wrote all of the above text about drinking 2 energy drinks at the start of a work day, few people would argue with it. The tolerance, rebound, and dependence effects of caffeine seem to be well known in pop culture. For some reason people with a little exposure to prescription stimulants seem to think that the normal rules don’t apply to them, at least at first.
A lot of people who have minimal or sporadic experience with stimulants seem to think they’re no-strings-attached productivity boosts, but there’s no free lunch. The brain will adapt over time.
> I don't have data on how high the risk is, but it does exist.
While addiction can occur in anybody, the data seems to support the opposite conclusion^1 in regards to ADHD people and addictions to prescribed stimulants. Though a simple search on the topic can yield you many other sources citing the same observations.
In fact, people with ADHD are far more prone to developing addictions if ADHD is not treated properly. In an elementary way of thinking, the ADHD brain craves dopamine. So, in a sad way, the options for many ADHD people are:
1. to acquire their dopamine through the care and monitoring of licensed and trained medical professionals => improving their life.
2. to acquire their dopamine through whatever means works for them, typically the ways of boosting dopamine are quite dangerous, unproductive, inefficient, etc.
The average person is either ignorant or refuses to admit that ADHD psychostimulant medications are by far one of the most well researched and well understood medications ever utilized in medicine. This might sound a bit alarming for those unaware, but it's actually hard to find a medication that has this large of an benefical effect with so few side-effects in the large majority of individuals who use them properly.
Speaking of dangers, almost no one ever mentions the dangers of a person with ADHD going untreated. If you want to learn more, I would recommend you read points 78 - 136^2.
>For people with ADHD, they can be truly life saving. For recreational use, avoid.
Just so you are aware, amphetamines are and have been used widely, and successfully, by people without ADD/ADHD. It has addictive qualities for sure, but I appreciate that people are allowed to try whatever substances they would like to try.
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