I started taking the medication back in 2016. Initially, it helped me...I was able to focus and be productive. Once I started abusing the medication though...it all went to hell.

I would be trapped for hours everyday making endless lists of things I wanted to achieve but would never accomplish, hours spent rotting away to pornography. So many missed moments, missed opportunities.

I am now 29 years old. Currently jobless, alone. I am trying to get sober but it is so hard. The urge to high is so strong even though whenever I do so I do nothing excpet waste endless amounts of time creatine lists and watching porn...only to immediately feel regret afterwards. I also have severe OCD which, I am sure you can imagine, the speed only fuels to the 9th degree.

My biggest regret is that I accomplished none of the things I wanted to. After graduating highschool, I came up with a list of classic literature I wanted to read. 11 years later, due to speed induced perfectionism/OCD....I am still working on that list, having to select the right book. I wanted to be an artist as well....I have completely stopped doing any art within the last few years. My mind makes me have to create a perfect plan before doing anything and, as such, I am never allowed by my OCD to achieve anything.

I have wasted the past 11 years largely....the best time of my life. I feel like it is genuinely too late for me. Even if I get sober, I will have too long of a journey to recovery. I think I am just done...I wasted my life and I hate myself so much for it.

I posted on here day 3 completely off adderall, all other amphetamines, kratom, and nicotine. That day and the day prior I was truly spiraling mentally, emotionally, and had a lot of physical withdrawal symptoms.

its gotten a lot easier as the days go on. I’m now on day 8, and feel a lot more comfortable overall.

However, several times per day I have this nagging voice that tells me to go get more, just us it as prescribe, it’ll be ok, maybe just one more time—-within seconds I’m reminding myself that this is the addiction talking, that the real me wants no part in it and I go through a list in my head of all the memories and the reasons why I DONT ever want to touch that crap again. any of it.

ive heard others say these voices will come and go for the rest of your life once you’re addicted. does it ever get any easier? Does that urge or thought of “just once more” ever slow down or become less and less as time goes on. I get it at least 4 times per day, it only lasts 20-30 seconds or so but it’s so aggravating and annoying.

Anyone experience this still in early recovery? I can’t fucking stand it.

I don’t really know why I’m posting this. I think I just need to say it somewhere people don’t know me.
I’m in my early 30s and addiction has been part of my life for a long time. I’ve been to rehab a number of times. Before my most recent rehab I had been smoking crack for a few months and things had gotten really bad. I was 8 months sober when I got out a couple of months ago.

I have a university degree and used to have a normal corporate job and a pretty functional life, and eventually everything kind of fell apart. But looking back, I was always addicted to something and I have BPD, depression, anxiety and adhd which I take meds for.

I ended up on welfare while doing a longer rehab program because that was basically the only way I could afford to stay there and my sick leave from my job was up and they expected me to go back or quit so I quit and went on welfare to go to this rehab after a year and a half of horrible addiction with hospital and psych ward stays (for suicide, not psychosis).

I got out thinking I’d rebuild my life (but I think deep down I know) and somehow I’m now escorting and using cocaine again.

The escorting started because I needed money. My first night I ended up spending most of the night with one client, made way more than I expected, and we did coke together. I feel like that opened the door again because he gave me his dealers number. Now I’ve been buying coke before I work. I’m not really doing it with clients, it’s more something I’m doing beforehand. And I’ve been doing it by myself like Im on it tonight because I ran out of vyvanse so justified it for that but I’m not doing anything? I end up just on my phone it’s so fucked. I also have a prescription for vyvanse that I’ve had a problem abusing for a while.

I know how insane this sounds after going through rehab so many times. I know where this can go. That’s almost the problem. None of this is new information to me anymore.

I’m not planning on killing myself. But lately I’ve had this really dark feeling of like… maybe this is just how I eventually die, and part of me feels weirdly okay with that because then everything would finally stop. I don’t actually want to overdose or intentionally die. I think I’m just so tired of fighting myself all the time that I’ve started feeling really numb about what happens to me.

I don’t need anyone to tell me cocaine is dangerous or that I should go back to rehab. I know. I guess I’m wondering if anyone else has reached this point where you weren’t actively suicidal, but you stopped caring very much whether your addiction eventually killed you. Or I guess I just wanted to rant.

Heres the skinny:

Drug? vyvanse.

Dose? 70mg.

Support system? yes.

Counselling? yes.

Hotel? On fire.

This has only been happening the last four months or so. I'm staring down the barrel of a major problem, but its the only thing holding my life together at this point.

:(

Time moves so slow.

When my meds wear off it's like the world gets put on 0.25x. I literally feel it happen. Ill go from being locked on whatever task I'm doing, to completely losing the ability to focus and everything being put on manual.

Every movement needs to be intentionally taken, every step needs to be thought out before I do it. Then after putting in a mountain of mental effort into getting something done, I'll look at the clock and only ten minutes have passed when it felt like an hour.

The most productive hours of my day are spent at work.

I spend all day busting my ass to make sure I meet expectations. Someone says jump, I don't ask how high I just jump. Coworker needs help, I'm there solving their problem to make things run smoothly.

Then I get home and my family and I are left with a guy that can't muster the energy needed to do enjoyable stuff, let alone the things that need to be done.

The Addicts Loop.

Go through the day feeling ok, crash, feel the need to take more, take more, feel guilt and shame for being weak, resolve to do better, wake up the next morning, and repeat.

Its like I'm watching from outside my body. At every step of the cycle I'm aware of what is happening, but there's no off ramp. The best I've come up with is to slam some melatonin gummies as soon as I get home and sleep until I need to go to work the next day.

Ill add more as it comes to me, just needed to vent a bit.

I am only 17 years old and I really need some advice. Before I even knew I had ADHD, I just assumed I was dumb. I could only focus and genuinely enjoy certain things that stimulated my mind. Basically just doing typical dumb shit with friends and playing video games. In my sophomore year, my sister gave me some adderall for fun and instead of being euphoric, I ended up completing an essay for school early and then after I was still interested in the topic and just researched it for a few hours. I started stealing it from my sister after that and for the next 9-10 months I abused it daily taking 90-120 mgs a day. Shit I don’t even think it was real adderall there was probably other stuff mixed in. Anyways basically after 10 months my body just couldn’t handle it and I forced myself to quit. I returned back to how I use to feel in a few weeks. I was so depressed because now that I knew how it felt to focus on a task, going back to using nothing made me feel trapped.

Anyways after that I didn’t touch anything from October 2025 to january. I never told my parents about me abusing adderall. After that I couldn’t handle being on nothing. My grades dropped again fast. I started self medicating again with insane amounts of caffeine and nicotine. I would have like 2-3 8mg nicotine pouches in my mouth every class, and I bought 2-3 bang energy drinks before school and drank them throughout the day. Despite all of this, I was always exhausted by the end of the day and my sleep was never affected. A few more months later during the start of summer, I finally convinced my parents to let me get tested for ADHD. I got diagnosed and finally could get prescribed medication. For some reason, my mom didn’t want me to be on stimulants, so I’ve been on quelbree since June. It hasn’t had the slightest effect on me at all. I’m at my limit bro. Everyday I fight the urge to grab adderall from my sisters room and start using it again. I don’t even care about feeling happy, I just want to make focusing on a task possible for me :/

Sorry for writing so much and the bad grammar. I was emotional while typing so I didn’t even notice.

I'm 34 and I'm looking specifically for advice/experiences from people who have recovered from long-term, high-dose Adderall or other prescription amphetamine abuse. I know everyone's recovery is different, but I'm desperately trying to understand what realistic recovery can look like after abusing it for as long and as heavily as I have. Here are the main points of my history:

• I do NOT have ADHD. I was actually evaluated when I was younger and did not test positive for ADD/ADHD. I was prescribed Strattera instead because anxiety was identified.
• Originally, I obtained a prescription for Vyvanse in July 2017 and switched to adderall within the following year.
• Over the years I went through periods where staying awake for 2–3 days was fairly normal.
• My sleep has become considerably more consistent during the last year or two.
• On the rare occasion I am without Adderall, I crash and sleep for 2–3 days until I physically can't sleep anymore, followed by intense anxiety and cravings, severe brain fog, irritability, crying, and basically zero stamina for interacting with other people.
• I'm currently prescribed the maximum allowable dose of adderall per day (60mg) and supplement the additional use by buying from others with a script.
• I generally finish my prescription within two weeks. Sometimes it's gone in 10 days.
• I binge when I'm struggling emotionally—relationship problems, work stress, depression, illness, etc.
• I actually quit cold turkey once in 2018 and remained completely stimulant-free for approximately six months. 
• I still felt profoundly impaired at six months clean; the brain fog and lack of motivation felt unbearable and incompatible with having a normal life, and eventually I went back to Adderall.
• Since then, despite all these years of use, I don't think I've gone longer than about a week without stimulants.
• At my worst, particularly 2025, I was probably taking around 4x what I am prescribed.
• I've managed to taper myself down to roughly 120mg/day overall, which is obviously still an enormous amount. (I realize this needs professional treatment and that continuing to manage it myself isn't a sustainable solution)
• The scary part is that Adderall isn't even working anymore.
• Until this happened, I had been a successful real estate agent for about five years, consistently closing $5M-10M annually. I haven't closed a deal since December 2025.
• I'm now filing bankruptcy and had to move back in with my parents. 
• My entire life has basically fallen apart while I'm STILL taking Adderall... and yet I'm terrified to stop.
• Without Adderall, I can't initiate tasks. Nothing interests me. I feel stupid because I can't think clearly. I'm exhausted regardless of how much I've slept. Nothing feels rewarding. I constantly feel like I need something, but nothing satisfies that feeling.
• Emotionally, I'm incredibly fragile. 
• Social interaction becomes extremely difficult, and being a real estate agent in that condition feels basically impossible.
• Adderall is also my only addiction. I don't have another substance I'm trying to quit at the same time.
• I've never received addiction-specific treatment, and my current prescriber does not know the extent to which I've been abusing my medication. I know that needs to change.

I'm not looking for someone to promise me I'll magically feel normal in X months. I understand nobody can do that. I'm trying to figure out whether people who went as far down this road as I have actually came back from it. Right now my biggest fear isn't giving up the high. I'm burnt out on Adderall and exhausted by what my life has become.

My biggest fear is giving it up, waiting six months, still being unable to think/work/feel motivated, and believing that this is simply who I am without stimulants. I'm terrified of losing my ability to function for months or years. That's the part of recovery that scares me far more than sleeping for three days or surviving acute withdrawal. I'm at a point now where I genuinely want out.

I'm fortunate enough to have family support and a place to live right now. As humiliating as it feels to be 34, bankrupt, living with my parents and watching the career I built disappear, I also recognize that this may be the best opportunity I'm ever going to have to stop trying to hold my old life together long enough to keep feeding this addiction.

I'm considering everything at this point: traditional residential rehab, intensive outpatient treatment, addiction psychiatry, ketamine-assisted treatment, and I've also been researching ibogaine programs.

***What I really need are experiences from people whose stimulant history was genuinely severe and long-term***

If you abused Adderall/amphetamine heavily for 5–10+ years and successfully stopped:

• How much were you taking and for how long?
• What did months 1, 3, 6 and 12 actually feel like?
• When did the brain fog noticeably improve?
• When did you regain motivation without needing a stimulant to manufacture it?
• When did ordinary things start feeling rewarding again?
• When could you reliably initiate tasks and follow through with them?
• When were you capable of working a demanding job again?
• Did you eventually feel intellectually sharp again?
• Did your personality/social stamina come back?
• Did you experience severe anhedonia (loss of interest/inability to feel joy in things), and how long did it last?
• Did improvement happen gradually enough that you barely noticed it, or were there major turning points?
• What treatment did you use?
• If you went to residential rehab, was it actually useful for prescription stimulant addiction?
• Has anyone with a comparable history tried ketamine-assisted treatment or ibogaine? Did it meaningfully change your recovery, cravings, depression, or ability to stay abstinent?
• What helped you survive the period when you intellectually knew you needed to stay sober but your brain was screaming that you couldn't function without Adderall?
• Looking back from long-term recovery, what do you wish someone had told you at the beginning?

I need to hear what happened to people who kept going anyway. If you've been there, I'd really appreciate hearing your story—the good, bad, ugly, and especially the timeline. Any and all advice/insight is welcomed. Thank you in advance.

I’ve been in the same routine a lot of you have experienced before. Taking around 40-60mg/daily for 2 or 3 weeks, (I’m prescribed 30mg/day) then just pushing through till my next refill once I finish early. I’m in sales, and I always thought I loved it because of the ability to push myself/motivation to hit quota/make commission etc. it’s unfortunately what I feel is the perfect job for someone abusing. When I don’t take addy, I don’t feel terribly bad, but I def don’t give 2 shits about making a deal. I’ve seen posts about career changes after adderall - but has anyone come from a sales background, and still found they enjoy the ebbs and flows of sales without stimulants?

I'm happy stimulant use got off my mind enough that I can kind of forget it happened.

"a few times a year" evolved into daily use, I kept up the daily use for about 8 months, and that was awful street speed that was most probably meth. I also added coke in the mix most of the time. Fully hid it from my entourage.

Luckily I kept my life together and moved somewhere I didn't know any plugs, and had the sense to not search for it. It took more than a year until I felt somewhat normal. I was convinced I had broken my brain for a while. But time went on and now I almost never think about it.

This made me realize I'm actually proud of myself for being able to kick it. I tend to have low self-esteem, that's part of what makes using so attractive to me, but this I can actually be proud of. It's a bit ironic because thinking on it, I'm not proud of the person I was back then, so I guess there was a bit of character growth there. I don't just not need it, I don't enjoy the idea of it.

Thanks for reading and good luck to anybody who's having trouble with it.

i’m loosing my fucking mind. if i gain another pound im actually gonna blow my shit clean off 😀

Been clean off meth and all other substances for four years. Two days I contacted an old dealer(it’s really impossible to eliminate their presence completely)
Had him blocked and everything but completely back slid four years of progress.

I’ve gotten a good job in the four years I’ve been clean. Got married and had two kids. I kept my kids completely separate from my stupid decisions for anyone wondering.

The last six months were particularly rough, my wife had a mental breakdown and was hospitalized and moved away for four and half months and left me alone out of the blue. We have very little support system and I had to pick up the pieces of everything.
We were considering divorce, our kids are little and high energy. It was a lot while working full time.
I’ve basically been trying to hold everything together and be perfect since my kids were born.

I’ve been in therapy for a year and a half and by the end I was feeling completely unheard. She was basically leaning into getting a divorce with my wife. I love my wife and we have reconciled and moved back in together.

I was open with the therapist about temptation that would come up when things got overly stressful and that I had tried SSRI’s and didn’t like how they made me feel, I also tried Wellbutrin.
I thought maybe I have adhd and Adderall might help me by being able to follow the doctors orders and plans.

I had a couple slip ups when my wife and I first got together but was always able to stop after one time.
I’m trying to give myself grace because in the past I’ve been extremely hard on myself basically feeling like a very shitty human all the time.
I know this was not okay at all so I’m still feeling a lot of that shitiness.

I was doing excellent for four years but temptation was always there. I know it’s not the life I want, It was just like for a minute I went back to my old addict self and said screw it and that’s a bit scary.
Judgments, comments and advice welcome. ✌️

I know this is discussed ad nauseam here, but it’s really driving me nuts lol.

I saw this post basically showing the “before and after” result of taking ADHD meds artist drawings, with the post med result WAY more complete and better quality.

6k upvotes, top comments all promoting ADHD meds as their savior to getting better as an artist, and the rest saying they’re considering using meds to get better. I even saw one that said “take your meds people” that had tons of upvotes.

This is in like in a beginners drawing subreddit… nothing to do with mental health or anything?

It’s really insane how much Reddit is biased towards ADHD meds? Are they bots lol or just people thinking that meds = yeah more power to ya!

All the creative professionals I know including myself do wayyy worse on meds…

Hi I was just wondering if semax would help while coming off of vyvanse? Has anyone ever tried it? I just need something to help the fatigue and brain fog the first few days after coming off of stimulants. I have so much I have to do this week and I cannot let the come down fatigue come in between what needs to be done. It’s just so hard

For a few years now I have been struggling to stop Adderall for good. It’s been consistent where I get it and by day 2-3 I feel like shit because I took extra and so I throw the rest away. I lasted close to a year once then started this cycle all over again. I was first prescribed as a young kid so I feel like I always find a way to justify maybe I do need it (which I know needing prescription meth is such a ridiculous claim but hey, we lie to ourselves lol). I’m not in dangerous binging territory but it absolutely is abuse regardless because I end up taking more than prescribed. Also if it wasn’t a problem I wouldn’t throw it away every single time by at least day 4. Yet once it’s time to fill again- I end up refilling. Rinse and repeat. This last time I threw away an entire 3 months script by day 2 because I took 2 extra the first day and just knew it was going to be a problem and make me feel so shitty rather than better. But here I am AGAIN, 3 months later refilled the script and day 1 took it properly, day 2 took an extra 10mg, and today took an extra 30. I was actually thriving without it, I have no idea why I even caved and filled it again. I’m sitting here feeling worse physically than I felt without it and I’m stewing over grabbing it and flushing another 3 months down the drain. I know if I don’t then I’m going to end up feeling even worse tomorrow and go through this feeling until I finally toss it again. I don’t even know what I’m looking for advice wise, I just had to share this because it’s so fucking frustrating.

224 days clean. I’ve only recently started having really vivid dreams of using again. The weirdest part is that they usually involve my husband or another loved one totally condoning my use and/or giving me drugs. When I first started having nightmares early in my recovery I started taking Unisom here and there to help me get a solid night sleep and quiet the dreams. So now that these terrible dreams have returned I tried the Unisom again not it’s not working like it did 6 months ago. The dreams are intense and disturbing and honestly some nights I’m afraid to go to sleep. When I do get to sleep, I usually wake up anywhere from 1-4 times in a panic, and struggle to get back to sleep again.

So my question is- has anyone else experienced this? Do the dreams ever stop, or do they come and go for the rest of time? Did anything help you get some sleep?

I was wondering if this is being caused by smthn else but i realized that even though im. 2 years clean from meth and going on 3 I still have extreme anhedonia legit nothing gives me pleasure I often am sleeping or vaping nicotine due to this and cannot seem to find anything that will give me pleasure for some background I started using meth at 16 and started with adderall and Ritalin at 15. I quickly progressed into meth and used from 16-19 at the time by now ex-girl was doing it and I started doing it once she started selling it she was older than me I was just wondering if this is being caused by MH issues or the addiction recovery / repair of the brain shit.

It is so frustrating when you fall behind on cleaning the house when you know amphetamines/meth would’ve had it done in 20 minutes. Everything is overwhelming

Hello, I was wondering if any redditors in here have experience with getting health panels done during their recovery and what scans/test would provide the most holistic view of cardiovascular health specifically.

For context, for the past 5 months I've heavily abused stimulants, mainly caffeine and Adderall. Took an average of 140mg of adderall IR a day, stayed up for 48+ hours regularly, and didn't work out/wasn't active. I've been clean for about 3 weeks now and I've had 'normal' withdrawal symptoms such as low energy, no motivation, and increased appetite. However, I've also had consistent shortness of breath, mild chest discomfort, muscle twitching/spasms, and occasional fleeting chest/arm pain. I was wondering if these symptoms would warrant a cardiologist visit and what tests other redditors here who have had similar experiences have had done in order to see if they had permanent cardiovascular damage.

I abuse my Adderall and don’t take it as prescribed and I am an addict. Not sure how many times again and again I’ve told myself this time is different. Flushing pills down multiple times, lying to my doctor to get a “replacement” script, lying to friends and family, etc.

I am not capable of taking this pill responsibly - It’s all or nothing for me. And I’m realizing that it’s necessary and it’s ok for me to admit that.

I had promised myself I’d never stoop to this level, but my Addy withdrawals were excruciating. I had an opportunity and jumped on it. It feels spectacular, but I’m know if in for it in the long run. Desperately want to cut this shit off before I run into an oncoming buzz saw. Thankfully opportunities to try meth don’t come along often.