America’s Love Affair with Adderall
America’s Love Affair with Adderall
And what happened when we were forced to live without it.
The title makes it sound more provocative than it really is. It's like saying "America's Love Affair with Glasses" or "America's Love Affair with Insulin".
The article is actually pretty good. For many Americans Adderall and other stimulates to treat ADHD let us function in society and the shortage was hard on millions of Americans.
"function in society" is a weird way of saying "hammering someone into a productive overworked cogwheel, because heavens forbid that we actually give people unproductive idle time or try to accommodate diversity"
I'm sure that's what's happening in some cases, but I will say that every single person I know that takes stimulant drugs to treat ADHD need it to literally function on a day to day basis.
And no, I don't mean "function as an overworked cogwheel." I mean "remember to eat food regularly and in reasonable quantities." I mean "be able to remember to and stay focused on exercise to stay healthy." I mean "not be so constantly burnt out trying to catch up with chores that they have the energy to go out with friends." I mean "being able to provide more than sporadic, partial attention to their family or romantic partner." I mean "being able to fully enjoy their hobbies or other passions because they can focus long enough to actually take part."
I'm not suggesting there aren't people either abusing prescription stimulants for "the grind." And I'm not suggesting that some people aren't prescribed stimulants improperly when maybe therapy would be a better solution or even when there is no real problem to begin with. But I am suggesting that prescription stimulants have changed millions of peoples' lives for the better, including the at least 5 I know personally.
While I understand the sentiment, this is rather hostile to the group that take adderal to function. My sister takes hers at 6 am sharp so she can actually get out of bed and make breakfast. Without it, it takes hours for her to get up and she'll struggle to eat and do things. I'm on a non-stimulant these days, but I need it, otherwise I struggle to keep up with hygene.
Because that's not why many of us are on these meds. For me, they allow me to not burn the house down cooking dinner, and ensure that I still have enough executive function left after work to not lose it on my kids due to the chaos they cause in my house. I don't take the meds to be a productive worker bee, I take them so that I can be a decent mom and take care of myself and my family.
That's a weird way to say "I don't understand the difficulties that people with ADD/ADHD face and how those difficulties still exist during unproductive time."
My wife has ADD and she needs medication to live. Her inability to filter stimuli means constant migraines. We're not from the US but even here there's been shortages of Methylphenidate-like substances and it's scary as fuck because not only does it mean hell but she also can't really function in daily life.
Before I was diagnosed and medicated I flunked out of college, my marriage was strained, and I couldn't hold down a job. I am much more thoughtful, intelligent, well-spoken, creative, and happier on my medication.
I acknowledge that my experience might not apply to everyone but your comment is disregarding people with ADHD that want to be, well, part of society.
This is something that concerns me about the recent excessive self-diagnosing of ADHD I've been seeing people do in the US. I think our late capitalist system has us convinced that we need to be constantly focused and productive. Distraction is a disease. I worry that when our expectations of how a person should function begin to look unnatural and based on how humans function on something like Adderall, then we slowly begin to act like there's something wrong with just being a normal person that takes their time living a more naturally paced life.
As someone with diagnosed ADHD (and finally on medication), I cannot emphasize enough, how much this view/attitude hurts those who probably have ADHD but are influenced by this attitude (including myself, as I now finally get my shit together in a relatively consistent way without being distracted by literally everything, after being unmedicated for 20 years...).
I even know a few who very likely have ADHD that share this view and don't want to take medication.
Fine, everyone should obviously decide for themselves if they want to take medication (or any other drugs at that), but please don't spread this attitude, it harms those who probably have ADHD but don't get diagnosed and just think "that's (my behavior) probably normal".
Also it's not just "being productive" in a capitalist system, but rather to get your life together (not forgetting important stuff, executive dysfunction etc. i.e. function better in society (impulsive behavior can be a problem sometimes)).
The shortage AFAIK is pretty artificial and caused by the DEA. So I would rather "shit" on the failed War on Drugs than on those who self-diagnose on ADHD and take/"abuse" medication. Drug abuse is a different topic and omnipresent and a social blurred sense of reality with hard drugs like alcohol (it's actually a harder drug than stimulants like Adderall...).
IMHO everyone should decide themselves what they take if it doesn't harm others...
Non the less, if one suspects they have ADHD they should obviously talk to a (good) doctor to verify and check side-effects, probably different medication (for me e.g. Atomoxetine works better for executive dysfunction, and stimulants are good to keep the focus on one topic, while not being distracted (but doesn't fix executive dysfunction that well)).
I don't doubt that ADHD exists and that your experience is valid. But I also think we need to be really careful about our expectations. I know I don't have ADHD. I can focus plenty when I try. Social media has shortened my attention span and made me prone to procrastination, but it's definitely not something I am actively incapable of. Yet so many people have self-diagnosed me with ADHD.
I have at least one friend who in college landed a prescription for Adderall because he wanted to be able to get extra focus even though he knew he didn't have ADHD. Later on he went off of it and managed to become a lawyer and made it look easy. This is someone who never struggled with focus. I knew him since grade school. His use of the drug was clearly abusive.
I get angry at people like my friend because I know ADHD is real. And I know his abuse of Adderall only makes more people out there minimize the existenxe of real ADHD. But just as you're saying my rhetoric makes it difficult for people with ADHD, I think overdiagnosing hurts people without it. Like I said in my first comment, if I'm in a really competitive environment like a school and I'm going against people that are using a "performance enhancing drug" for focus, then our societal expectations for what I should be capable of are out of whack and I start to be expected to perform and focus like someone on Adderall.
There has to be a compromise between handing it out to everyone and refusing to give it to people who genuinely need it. I have no idea what that compromise looks like and I'm truly happy that people like you and another friend I have who genuinely has it are able to get their medication. But outside of the very real world of ADHD, I see it becoming a problem. My wife who has been able to write an entire PhD dissertation in a very normal amount of time and experiences far less distractability than most people I know regularly questions whether she has ADHD. It's that state of mind where everybody thinks they have it that I worry about. We don't need to all be on Adderall.
Eh, the problem I have with that approach is that in my case, Adderall helps me do stuff like "get the trash out to the dumpster" and "make phone calls". Executive dysfunction is a bitch and a half for plenty of reasons that'd still be there even if we finally attained fully automated luxury gay space communism.
Let me share my story.
I’m AuDHD but didn’t know the Autism element till this year at 31. For 20 years approximately until I was 25 ish I took adderall. Diagnosed with ADHD young and took it mostly for inattention it did several things to me. First thing is it turned me into a productivity machine. Yes it works great. Second thing is it kept me thin, that’s a plus. Now on to the drawbacks. Third thing is it made me a very angry and reactive person, especially as a child. This is a well known side effect, but if you take it as a kid I’m afraid at least for me it became my personality. Also extra productivity, especially for someone with existing social problems like Autism, made productivity what defined me. Up until 25 and even now, I feel defined by my work more than my relationships. Anger issues almost had me get in trouble in my masters, and productivity focus caused me to totally burnt out. I became suicidal feeling that the only worth I had and the only thing my life would be is the 9-5 grind. Then it hit me: anxiety. Panic attacks I had only experienced a few times in my life became a daily occurrence. I quit adderall. Now I have enough internal motivation to do my job because it overlaps with my hyperfocus, so I’m lucky in that regard, and it took YEARS to regain skills I leaned on with my adderall, and I’m no where near as productive, and I now have MASSIVE anxiety I never had before, but I think the worst is behind me. I think adderall use over 20 years caused or elevated my anxiety disorder, because its not something I consider part of my base personality, I think it created the conditions in my personality that led to burnout and depression, but I also think it got me my current job. I also think if you don’t work out while you’re on it, you will develop heart trouble, and if you don’t sleep you are increasing your risk of a thousand neurological disorders.
My advice is to just be careful. It’s a blessing and a curse. I would not prescribe it to anyone under 18. All the pressure we feel under 18 is made up by society. Be an annoying, hyper, inattentive kid.
Have you tried Atomoxetine? I'm not diagnosed with autism (but ADHD), but I score a little bit too high on all the autism tests I took (and after watching a few videos of AuDHDers, it just makes sense).
For me stimulants are a slippery slope, I can be in a constant hyperfocus without being distracted by stuff (which can be super great when programming), but I forget e.g. eating (certainly way more than with Atomoxetine), my emotions are dampened, more hypersensitive to sounds I don't like, I'm less social, more autistic I'd say (also maybe because ADHD and autism kinda work against each other AFAIK).
Atomoxetine is quite different for me, way better for executive functioning (less so for focus unfortunately), and (social) anxiety is definitely better (good explanation from the ADHD scientist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnS0PfNyj4U). I'm now varying stimulants depending on what I'm doing on the day (e.g. more if I almost only want to program that day, and if I have much social contact, I'm ditching it).
Tbh I think I’m just done treating ADHD with meds. I’m in a place where I can survive thankfully
I really dislike the title but the article itself is great. Shame that news organizations have to result to clickbait journalism even on really good write-ups.
Honestly I don't like the article (as someone with long-undiagnosed and unmedicated ADHD). A good doctor will guide you (you have to communicate correctly though), try different medications (stimulants like Adderall aren't the only drug that is prescribed for ADHD), maybe try without for sometime (when your environment has changed to monitor the effects).
What I'm reading in the article is that a lot of people are just uneducated (including the author of the article) about ADHD and effective treatment. And a distorted view on drugs in general, I read a lot of abuse, but no word of the most apparent (and dangerous) drugs that are totally legal and widely socially accepted but IMHO cause quite a lot harm to society (spoiler: I'm talking about alcohol and tobacco, and (although I also consume cannabis and can see quite a few good medical effects of it) - increasingly cannabis at least in the USA).
What I would really like to see at some time is really good neutral science-backed education about psychiatric conditions, substances, abuse of them and liberalization/normalization of them (because war on drugs has just failed anyway), so that we don't have to have these articles anymore (the main reason for the shortage AFAIK is that the DEA artificially restricts Adderall).
We Like Demonizing Outsiders: The Article
From the title, I expected the article to be much more judgmental, but I think it did good job of acknowledging that some people need this medication to be productive.