| (Posting on throwaway for obvious reasons). I was on Adderall for mild ADHD for 10 months in 2016. Software Engineers in my late 20s. I found that I was not finishing any of my side projects. Was working (and still do) for a FAANG. Consulted a real doc i.e Psychiatrist in San Francisco and he diagnosed me with very mild ADHD Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) Apparently this is quite common in adults these days, esp. in high intensity brain-work related professions like Software Engineering, Finance / Wall Street and such. My prescribed dosage was 5 mg / day of Adderall, the lowest possible dose. I was very concerned about long term side-effects and the doc assured me that it was perefectly safe. He said that it's not the same as crystal meth like the media would have you believe. In my last outing , I mentioned the "Take my Pills" netflix documentary and his take was that the documentary featured extremes cases of very high dosages (the 3 people featuered were on atleast 50 mg / day, = 10x my dosage) and also that 2 of the 3 didn't have any ADHD or ADD symtoms - the football player and the girls in school. Now for the effects, I can say it's incredible. The first day I felt lazor like focus. I walked into work, and finished a javascript library that I'd been stuck on for days, in like 4 hours. I even helped a super-star Russian coder fix a nagging complex multi-threaded bug. I didn't (and still don't feel) "high" from it. What I feel is extremely sharp focus, like I notice very small things out of order and correct them, in codebase and outside in my daily life. In the first month or so, I also got lot of "life-things" that I'd be procrastinating on done, like I did my TRUST, Living Will etc. |
My side-project procrastination was the main reason I decided to see a Psychiatrist. Before Adderall, I had about 8 different side-projects in various states of progress, with a couple hosted and launched, but I was doing nothing to market and grow them. Now, a couple of years later, I have successfully grown the 2 that were launched and were languishing, launched 3 more, killed 3 that were going nowhere. I am now very satisfied mentally with my situation, do not procrastinate, and am making about 1000$ per month across all the side-projects. These projects were more for learning and keeping up to date, so money is not a concern for me, completion is (/ was)
Word of caution: I did as my doc about micro-dosing LSD. He gave me a very stern warning. According to him, LSD, even in micro-doses, "fries" the your serotonin production network in the brains and destroys neurons permanently. He strongly advised me to not try it even once.
And for those looking for Adderall or LSD, I would advice you to consult a Psychiatrist, if you believe you have ADHD. For people that don't have ADHD, Adderall, Ritalin etc don't work, and they end up getting addicted on high doses and land on documentaries like "Take my Pill".
LSD is only available on the "dark web" as far as I know, so you'll need to use TOR and Bitcoin. It's also shady and you have to purchase a "Tester Kit" (who knows if that tester kit is also legit?!). Don't do it.