Adderall: College Students' Best Friend-- Or Worst Enemy??

I started to take it, and I got OCD and couldnt stop.ceverything had to be clean, from my hair to my bed being made to the house being clean, and Im still at home, I also started to pop my black heads or pull out in grown hairs If I was stressed, I had to stop, people thought I was cutting my self, in a way I was hurting my self, so I stopped and it's been a very long time since I had an anexity attack or had to pop a pimple

This is to help those who decide to take adderall for whatever purpose.
I have been taking adderall since I was introduced to it as a freshman in college, I am now a senior set to graduate in may, and have figured out how to make it most effective without any type of crash. First, take adderall after eating until you are stuffed, and eat mostly proteins or complex carbs that take your body a long time to digest. This is because your heart beat will be accellerated, causing you to digest food much faster than normally. The reason that you crash when the adderall wears off is because you're body is being forced to work much harder and if you dont have fuel in the form of food in your stomach, you will be buying that energy on credit which you pay back when the drug wears, causing you to have no energy. In addition, adderall will kill your appetite so you won't feel like eating after you have ingested it. Second, do not drink caffeine or alcohol while on adderall, instead drink water, and juice or lemonade (anything non carbonated with sugar). This is because adderall dehydrates you, giving you a headache similar to a hangover unless you are pumping water into your system faster than you are burning it up or pissing it out. Drinking juice or sugary non carbonated liquids heightens the experience because it gives your body more calories to burn without dehydrating you. Third, take a dosage that will wear off before you plan to sleep. If you time it correctly, 5 hours of sleep after coming off of adderall will feel like 10 hours of sleep normally and you will wake up more energized than when you went to bed. I usually take a 30 mg tablet, break it in half, and take half of it after eatting a breakfast of 4 or 5 scrambled eggs, and half after eating lunch. Before bed, I eat yogurt or something with protein so that my body has something to digest to recover from the day. The next day I feel great with no crash or headache and I can do it all over again. Doing this also minimizes weight loss and gives you plenty of energy without getting jittery. You can up the dosage as long as you give your body plenty of food and water and you should never have a crash. This is a far better drug than caffeine, you just have to know how to use it. As for heart problems, I don't see how this drug can cause them any more than being over physically active can. So have fun.

I think the biggest problem with people who do not have ADH/D that fake symptoms to get the perscription, at least in my area at the moment, is that there is currently a shortage of Adderall which they are only unnecessarily contributing to. I had to check over 5 pharmacies in the area before I could find one that had my perscription of generic Adderal in stock. I was suprised to find any at all after one of the pharmacies told me that it was highly unlikely that I would find any Adderall available at all in the area due to the shortage that has been apparently present over the past few months.

This article is one of the MOST biased pieces I have ever seen. The way they begin to the end is obviously geared toward some motive. It's completley uneducated and very annoying if you ask me.

people should have the option to get this shit for lack of motivation. But I know plenty of ppl who are smart but they're so over worked and occupied with like 2 jobs trying to survive that they need this drug to stay up during class and to stay up to do assignments. Its not just a lack of motivation its harking back to the days when truckers used to use speed to make a living its just a way to keep going in this rat race. Point is don't blame the substance when there are too many factors pushing ppl toward it. That's like blaming guns for murder.

I'm thinking about taking adderall for a 8 page final paper on about a 300 page book I have not read that need to be done 2 days from now. I should actually be working on it right now.

When it comes down to it, this is your future we are talking about here. It's the difference between an F and a D, D and a C, B and an A. That one assignment could be the difference between you graduating with a master's degree and getting a promising career, and you dropping out and working a dead end job. When you find yourself falling behind and you are really out of conventional options, you need to turn to something else. And even though I'm not in that dire of a situation, I'm gonna go to some sources and get a dose or two of adderall.

If you take it in a controlled matter, side affects will be minimum. I can't speak of this through personal experience, but i know others can and I know people who take it without having ADD / ADHD and they've said it helps them power through their work efficiently. I take their word for it.

What the hell are you guys talking about? honestly its all about how much self control you have, sure drugs do influence you, but with me, i DONT have ADHD or anything actually, im perfectly clear of any medical conditions, do i take it? yes i do, its having that motivation even before taking adderall, you have to take advantage of the effects and have enough control to realize that everything IS fine, the ONLY problem that i have experienced is the fact that i fucking cant fuck my girlfriend when im on it.... but its okay because i have viagra for that LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL IM JUST KIDDING... about the viagra part but no its a bitch explaining to her that its not because shes ugly (sdsu cheerleader) <--- hot. I work 40 hours a week, take 16 units, without adderall i worked 40 hours a week and took 16 units... same shit, only difference is the fact that i get so much more done in 1 day, dont waste time when you're on it. The entire POINT IS to have the benefits exceed the cost... lol cmon guys econ 120, zzz.

I've recently discovered that I am an ADD poster child. I've had symptoms ever since I can remember, but was never treated since I maintained great marks in school. You may be asking well how do I have ADD? I'm still trying to figure out how this is possible as well. I've been reading that without a subject the patient finds interesting the mind will wander and daydream. Impulsiveness. You work on things that interest you and half-arse everything else. It was evident in school: anything with less than an A or B I was just not interested in. Even now, instead of doing research on something I find that cant keep my interest, Marketing, but can potentially make my life better because of the opportunity, money, I am on an ADD website researching about adderall xr because I am VERY interested in it. This has translated into my entire life. I am 24. Since 18, I've been through 17 jobs in different feilds. I've been arrested 4 times. I have trouble with sustaining relationships; social platonic, and romantic, family is strained and burdened. I tend to abuse alcohol. I am developing anxiety and a slight depression because of my shortcomings. I have large debt issues because of my impulse spending and legal matters. Everything I tend to start sputters out soon after I start. I've been accused of being lazy, a slouch, irresponsible, a spend thrift, an asshole, a big mouth, all different types of reprehensible. On purpose? Never in my life. I spend nights up thinking about how I could of done my day better only to not get to sleep and wake up late and get to work late or blow an earlier appointment the next day. This disease is destroying my life. If I didn't have my father on this earth I don't know where I would be. It's horrible to think that a disease like this can make a fully grown adult as burdensome as I am. I'm prepared to take the risk of exposing my body to this drug for the rest of my life need be to have a fighting chance on being the success i know i can be. The point I am trying to make is that you reap what you sew. If you feel its necessary to do something to get where you need to be you take the risk and you run with it reassessing along the way. If you can't live with yourself doing it, then stop. When it comes to drugs, it is a victim-less crime where the end-user is the victim and the criminal. It only effects you. Be smart and do your homework. Establish your baseline, compare yourself on and off it and coming off of it. Establish how long until you reach complete normal mentality and reassess. Lots of way to figure logically how to handle yourself and keep whatever behavior your concerned about in check. Be part of the solution and not the problem. I'm not on the drug or any drugs right now. This is my natural state of fine execution. This type of thinking is what helped in school and got me this far in life.

I've been taking adderall everyday for the past 3 years, since the first day I tried it I was hooked-it's the overachiever's dream drug. I'm not ADHD, I simply felt that it would make me competitive against students who didn't need to work through college. Due to the current drug shortage I've been without for 6 days now and it's been the absolute worst experience I've been through. The crash is 10x worse than the benefit. I find it hard to get out of bed, find it hard to find interest in everyday life, I have 0 physical energy. I've decided to no longer take it, hoping that one day I'll revert back to who I used to be without adderall. I used to be so full of life and ambitious, just wanted an edge. However, I feel nothing of that left post adderall. Legal issues aside, it will very likely ruin your life as it has mine, don't try it.

To address the "cheating" issue:
"Unfair" doesn't mean anything in the education world. You aren't competing with other students, you are competing with yourself at the mercy of your educators. I understand that this translates to the business world where you actually are competing for jobs, but who on earth is arguing that capitalism is fair in the first place? If I'm not mistaken, the first rule of business is: "do what you need to to get the leg up"; not, "do what you can to make sure you have the same chance at succeeding as everybody else." You aren't advised to learn how not to cheat, you're advised to learn how not to get caught. It just so happens that I'm not particularly fond of the system as it currently stands, but I'd like to make sure we're all discussing this on the same terms.

To address the "taking adderall without ADHD" issue:
I take adderall when I have too much homework nowadays because it takes away the feeling of uselessness I get from wasting hours trying to start getting my work done. Since I began taking it not too long ago (very irregularly, and only around exam clusters), I have become more confident, because I know that I am capable of not being a hopeless space cadet (which was what my first two years of higher education had led me to believe). I don't just take it and let the effects ride me around like a mechanical bull, I try to learn patterns of focus while I'm on it and drill them into my brain. So far, it has actually helped me learn what I need to be thinking and doing to keep myself on track when I'm NOT on it. I don't look at taking adderall as cheating on studies any more than I look at drinking alcohol as cheating on getting laid, or drinking coffee as cheating on waking up, or ordering pizza as cheating on eating food. As long as you use the act of taking adderall as its own learning experience, I argue that you are doing yourself no existential harm by doing so *responsibly.*

To address the "morality" issue:
Ask yourself where your morals are coming from. Are you religious? Is it a "I don't want to disrespect this body that God created in his own image by treating it as insufficient" issue? If this isn't what motivates you, maybe it's because the consequences frighten you: addiction, health risks, legality issues, reputation, etc. It could even be a pride thing: "I don't need a drug to be better at anything," or "if I used a drug to get better grades, I wouldn't deserve them anyway." No matter what it is that drives your morals, these things are all choices. You CHOOSE to feel like a failure (or condemn others as such) for not being able to get through an exam without a performance-enhancing drug. That failure is non-existent in the objective equation—you passed the test, didn't you? You're still learning and getting better at things, aren't you? You're still (arguably) healthy, aren't you? Those don't really seem like failures to me. Ironically, two of the classes I'm using adderall to pass are Human Biology and Chemistry. They're teaching me a little about the sacredness we ascribe to the particular chemicals in our biological composition; who's to make the judgement call that it's a bad thing if we add a couple more to make the cogs run more smoothly? I understand this logic could be just as easily used to argue for the recreational use of every drug, and I'm certainly not advocating that (in fact, I'm not even advocating the off-prescription use of adderall—I'm rather just trying to de-stigmatize it so arguments can be a little more objective). But I'm just curious where all the negativity REALLY comes from. It's certainly there—I even have my qualms about it (for instance, even though I'm not buying mine, the friend who gives them to me is, and all that money goes right into the hands of some of the most compassionless and unethical people on the planet), but I've done a lot of thinking on both sides of the argument before coming to a conclusion—one among many that will certainly change often before I'm dead (or even finished with school). My crusade these days is about getting to the True logic of things, and that will take a lifetime or two of mucking through ideologies and acknowledging hypocrisies (my own included). This, however, is an ideological debate if I've ever seen one. Thoughts?