[tstrimple]

> the DEA now takes potential abuse of legal drugs much more seriously and adderall (an amphetamine- it's a cousin of meth) is at a high risk of abuse.

I know that I process Adderall differently having ADHD, but I still struggle to see how it's used recreationally. I took it somewhat consistently for over a year for ADHD treatment until I missed an appointment and couldn't get around to scheduling another before my prescription ran out. After that getting back on became more trouble than it was worth. Not once did I ever feel a high from Adderall. My best naps were on Adderall. Not once after dropping it did I ever feel withdrawals or the urge to take more. The only thing I felt while taking it was constant dry mouth and my brain no longer constantly jumped between topics outside of my control.

My brother abuses controlled substances. When I told him I was taking Adderall he warned me to be careful and talked about his issues with it and I just couldn't relate at all. I'm no stranger to addiction. I'm an alcoholic and am addicted to nicotine via fruity vapes. But Adderall? Nothing at all.

[adastra22]

My doc says the best diagnostic for whether you have ADHD is to prescribe Adderall and see what happens. Those with ADHD react very, VERY differently to the drug than the rest of the population.

[bratwurst3000]

i dont think thats true. I have ADHD and get amphetamine as medication. I gave it some friends and it had similiar effect as with me. they where hyper focused and aware. I think its what amphetamine does with every human. Regular humans have more focus and adhd people have suddenly focus but netherless same.

[adastra22]

Focus is the same. It's the euphoric high and increased hyperactivity in neurotypicals which is the divergent response.

[shlant]

the euphoric high also happens in those with ADHD but only when they first start taking it. I would assume if you took it recreationally and not consistently you would have the same effect

[drzaiusx11]

My problem is I forget to take my Adderall. I've also experienced shortages in my area for 3+ months. When I eventually start back on my meds after a long hiatus, it seems to work just like it did when I stopped.

I could use some more euphoria in my life, sadly Adderall does not provide it (for me.)

[notfromhere]

Eh. When you take it the first time the euphoria is more that you can focus and the mind becomes quieter. It’s not like a party drug

[pantalaimon]

The euphoria from amphetamine (in reasonable doses) is also rather subtle - it's no MDMA where it's very much in your face.

But lifted mood and energy is why it's taken recreationally, the euphoria can then come what you make from that.

[bratwurst3000]

thats where i have to disagree. if I give anyone 5mg dexteoamphetamin they would be less hyperactive and more focused on one thing. If you do too much it doesnt matter if you are regular brain or not. 80mg of dextroamphetamin would make everyone look like a speed freak.

If it would make people hyperactive it wouldnt be used for learning and sitting there 16h hyperfocused.

IMHO

edit: to explain better. imagine a adhd brain having dopamin swings between -1 and +1. While there are those swings people cant execute their plans and cant focus on one goal. when you give them adderal or similar they get a powerboost to blasting +2 dopamin lvl and can keep that for hours.

so if you give a regular human beeing the same amount of adderall it will blast its brain on +2lvl dopamin also.

so adhd people and regular people behave the samw on adderall.

the thing with adhd it is not a lack of dopamin but an iregular flow of dopamin that is the problem. The solution is to hypercharge the brain with dopamin to get constant lvl.

[beaugunderson]

your doc is buying into a very pervasive myth, see e.g. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/070674370200601S07

[chipsrafferty]

I doubt that very much

[LoganDark]

> I still struggle to see how it's used recreationally.

- Adderall keeps you awake. Some people use that to be awake for very long periods of time. Long drives, marathons, etc.

- Adderall can make boring tasks seem engaging, so it can be used, for example, to help a student study. Combining that with no need to sleep that night, can become a bit of an unfair advantage.

- Adderall can cause a high, even though I've only ever experienced that with pure dextroamphetamine. For me it caused everything to feel warm and pleasurable somehow, the first couple weeks I was taking it.

Now I feel nothing except the wakefulness, although when I stop taking it for a while and then start taking it again, sometimes I will spontaneously do every chore that's been building up over the past months in a single day. That's just how it goes for me apparently.

[radu_floricica]

That's not recreationally. That's actually a good, useful drug effect (even if not specifically for ADHD).

I'm more than a little pissed that governments don't let us use drugs like this responsibly.

[Henchman21]

Governments treat their citizens like children to be watched over, not like adults capable of making decisions. Until that changes, expect to be pissed off.

[LoganDark]

> I'm more than a little pissed that governments don't let us use drugs like this responsibly.

I mean yes. Proper education and harm reduction is vastly superior to this "controlled substances" bullshit.

[adastra22]

> Adderall keeps you awake

For many (not all) ADHD'ers, amphetamine or caffeine makes them sleepy.

> Adderall can make boring tasks seem engaging

This is true

> so it can be used, for example, to help a student study ... can become a bit of an unfair advantage

Unfair? This isn't sports. Nobody is being cheated by a study-enhancing drug.

> Adderall can cause a high, even though I've only ever experienced that with pure dextroamphetamine. For me it caused everything to feel warm and pleasurable somehow, the first couple weeks I was taking it.

Interesting. FYI ADHD people feel none of that. If anything, the opposite: on stimulants ADHD people feel relaxed and normal, bringing them down from hyperactivity and allowing them to focus on their life.

[LoganDark]

> For many (not all) ADHD'ers, amphetamine or caffeine makes them sleepy.

You're right, I was mainly speaking about people without ADHD using stimulants.

> Unfair? This isn't sports. Nobody is being cheated by a study-enhancing drug.

No, but it can lead to bad health effects for the student, and bad habits like dependence.

> Interesting. FYI ADHD people feel none of that.

I guess my ADHD diagnosis must be mistaken then? And my executive dysfunction must come from somewhere else...

ADHD is not a single neurotype. As even the most basic example, multiple different expressions of autism can each have ADHD.

> on stimulants ADHD people feel relaxed and normal, bringing them down from hyperactivity and allowing them to focus on their life.

Stimulants still help me regulate my sleep cycle and focus, but I don't think I experience hyperactivity from not being on them. (anymore at least; when I was younger I almost couldn't sleep without melatonin. That resolved itself before I ever touched stimulants, though.)

--

I have heard of people with undiagnosed ADHD self-medicating with meth. Slightly different than people without ADHD using stimulants recreationally. I personally hope to never touch meth because I heard it can ruin one's relationship with other stimulants, and I don't want my medication to become any sort of recreational thing because I need to depend on it and not seek highs, but I feel like self-medication can be perfectly valid if someone knows what they are doing. Big if though.

[adastra22]

My blanket statement was perhaps too broad. There are less than 10% of ADHD people whom do not demonstrate the paradoxical response to stimulants. That said, the percentage of misdiagnosis is at least that high, which makes one wonder. Mild bipolar is often misdiagnosed as ADHD, for example, and often discovered exactly because stimulants don't work as expected.

I missed on first read that you said the stimulants only had that high for the first few weeks though. That sounds different from what I understand to be the neurotypical response.

> Stimulants still help me regulate my sleep cycle and focus, but I don't think I experience hyperactivity from not being on them.

You may have the distracted variation rather than hyperactive.

[LoganDark]

> You may have the distracted variation rather than hyperactive.

Well, I do have a dissociative disorder. Though I'm fairly sure I would be ADHD combined type, because I do have extremely hyperactive moments.

By the way, "the distracted variation" is called inattentive.

[shlant]

> Adderall can cause a high

> Interesting. FYI ADHD people feel none of that.

Please don't speak for a whole group of people when you don't know what you're talking about. Euphoria is very common when people with ADHD first start taking amphetamines, it just goes away after a week or so.

[hirvi74]

> Interesting. FYI ADHD people feel none of that. If anything, the opposite: on stimulants ADHD people feel relaxed and normal, bringing them down from hyperactivity and allowing them to focus on their life.

That is common myth. It's a matter of dosage over time. If one takes 120mg of Adderall in one go, then I can assure you they will not be calm nor relaxed. The relaxed feeling comes with a build of tolerance over time and with the lowest therapeutic dosage possible.

I won't deny that people with ADHD might perceive more benefits from stimulants than those without ADHD. I person with poor vision probably would perceive more benefit from eyeglass than I do with 20/20 vision. The glasses work the same for both of us, I just don't benefit from the effects. Also, stimulants do not work for about 10%-30% of people with ADHD, and if the reactions were truly that different, then there would be no controversy about testing for ADHD. It'd be as simple as just examining the effects of a pill.

In the beginning, I felt euphoric from stimulants and I am ADHD as they come. On the rare occasion, I still might get hit with a glimpse of it. Though that is typically after I take a break from medication for some time.

Back when I was in college, I cannot tell you how many people I knew with legitimate ADHD that used to rail Adderall and Adderall XR pills (yes, the XR are just as easy to abuse).

Check out this subreddit if you care. Search for the term "ADHD" and you will see how the medication affects a portion of the ADHD population:

https://www.reddit.com/r/StopSpeeding/

[adastra22]

There’s a lot of myth in this myth-correcting post. I’ve doubled dosed by accident and although I felt like my heart was going to explode (and was very anxious over that), I still felt absolutely nothing resembling a euphoric high.

If you have good vision you do not benefit from glasses. In fact it makes things worse, as those with good vision are able to use their eye muscles to adjust focus but the glasses make that harder.

[hirvi74]

> I’ve doubled dosed by accident and although I felt like my heart was going to explode (and was very anxious over that), I still felt absolutely nothing resembling a euphoric high.

Doubling one's dosage does not mean much without stating the prescribed dosage. 5mg => 10mg is much different than 60mg => 120mg.

Also, the euphoric high tends to become lessened the longer one is on stimulants, even if the dosage is increased, due to neuroadaptation, i.e., a decrease in dopamine receptor availability and changes to downstream signaling effects of dopamine transmission.

Increasing the dosage on the second day of medication vs second year of medication may likely have significantly different effects in regards to the presence of euphoria.

[LoganDark]

> If one takes 120mg of Adderall in one go, then I can assure you they will not be calm nor relaxed.

If one takes 120mg of Adderall in one go, and they don't have a tolerance, I'd be surprised if their heart doesn't explode.

[hirvi74]

Unless you are a Finnish super solider like Aino Koivunen

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aimo_Koivunen

[lazide]

Notably, his heart almost exploded. It was 200bpm a week afterwards, and if not a conditioned soldier he likely would have died a long time before.

[idiotsecant]

Yes. Some brains react to some stimulants differently. That's the whole reason ADHD can be treated with Adderall.

[astrange]

This isn't true, it affects everyone the same way. But you could say the optimal dosage is different for different people.

I think people just like saying this because they're afraid stimulants will get banned otherwise.

[idiotsecant]

That's wildly inaccurate. A brain is a complex system with emergent properties that result in us. The basic effect is an increase in Norepinephrine interactions but the effect that has on people with ADHD is obviously very different.

It's like saying that engines with fuel and engines with no fuel respond the same way to adding fuel: it increases the length of time they will run.

Stop adding fuel and the resulting system behaviour will be quite different.

[hirvi74]

> The basic effect is an increase in Norepinephrine interactions but the effect that has on people with ADHD is obviously very different.

I've heard it described as a difference in magnitude. If a person with ADHD has an arbitrary "focus" score of 5/10, and a normal person has a focus score of 8/10. If a stimulant brings them both up to a score of 9/10, then the effects may appear more noticeable in the ADHD person because a 4 point jump is typically far more apparent than a 1 point jump.

[Arcanum-XIII]

I’ve seen friends with stimulant and can say with full confidence they are not reacting to them the way I am. They’re « high », ideas everywhere and nowhere, acting like their overstimulated, full of energy… when I’m quieter, energy level normal, can think at one thing at a time without switching… and sleeping under the effect is not an issue. I a have great nap.

So no. Maybe if I try a récréative drug will I have my adhd multiplied, but here it’s not. I think it should have been fun while younger discovering that amphetamine could quiet me when everyone was dancing under the influence.

It’s not perfect. No medication are. If you abuse it, take it without need… yeah it can be abused. Don’t try heart medication either. Or lithium for kicks. Or…

[hirvi74]

> I’ve seen friends with stimulant and can say with full confidence they are not reacting to them the way I am.

That means very little. Do you think all people react the same way to all medications? If someone takes an SSRI and it doesn't work, then does that mean they do not have depression, anxiety, or whatever the medication is indicated for? Do opioids only work for people with chronic pain?

As someone with ADHD, it's extremely common for people with ADHD to think they are some sort of rare subspecies of humans where everything different in their life is due to ADHD. In all aspects of life, people with ADHD are far closer to normal than they might want to believe. It's why people even doubt the existence of ADHD at times. I've yet to see anyone seriously doubt the existence of Schizophrenia, for example.

[wafflemaker]

All drugs affect everyone differently. Something that's ok with you can literally kill someone else - simple example - smoking weed with someone that has some lung disease.

That's why just having them illegal makes them 100x more dangerous. Through less knowledge among users, no guidance on packaging and difficult to identify the substance if someone had to be taken to the hospital.

[lazide]

Literally not true. There are clear, reproducible, and obvious differences in brain chemistry between people.

[LoganDark]

> This isn't true, it affects everyone the same way.

Adderall causes me to be essentially unable to move or function. When I tried it, I was very hungry but I couldn't get myself out of bed to get food so I had to sleep it off! Pure dextroamphetamine works a treat for me though.

[bratwurst3000]

this is true. Regular people get hyperfocus and adhd people get focus. real adhd is a neurologic disorder. its an instability in the flow of dopamin. so adderall puts dopamin flow on 200% and suddenly there is a steady flow for adhd people.

there are maybe 10% of people getting not focused and awake of adderal.

But "adhd brain reacts different then regular brain" is not true. For both its 20x dopamin release in 8 hours.