"White-Lightening, Fine Wine, & Lascivious Women"
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: Alabama
Posts: 7
"White-Lightening, Fine Wine, & Lascivious Women"
The long late night I discovered Adderall I didn’t think about it twice. It was summer 2012. I was an athletic avid gym goer painstakingly poor, barely skating by fiscally. I bought it from a gangly kid with yellow skin and bags under his eyes. His hair was stringy. There were papers on the floor and piles of clothes on all the furniture in the room. Above his desk was a poster of John Belushi from “Animal House,” chugging a bottle of Jack Daniels and wearing a sweatshirt that read COLLEGE.
I had gone to his room with a friend. He told us the pills were $5 each. We asked where he’d got it. “I’ve been taking this stuff since I was 5,” he replied, and took out an orange prescription bottle and gave us each two small, round blue pills. He smelled sour. “It makes me feel like a zombie. But that’s only because I have ADD,” he quickly added to excuse the statement.
I started taking Adderall and things changed fast. I focused on virtually everything for hours without distraction. I cranked out a 3 vigorous workout sessions in one night, I could shut out the world. Any immediate distractions were rendered powerless. It was just me and whatever task before me. No more broken heart, no more drama or money woes were big enough to penetrate the tunnel vision Adderall provided. Sure, the desire to smoke cigarettes was uncontrollable. It suppressed my appetite, so I wouldn't eat as well, I lost a few pounds in that first week, I felt it was a small price for such a exponential gain. Condoned by the idea that the conglomeration of young men and women everywhere were taking it and now so was I.
A week after, I was burglarized. I then packed up my life and headed to Montgomery, Alabama where I had just been offered a new position at HMMA . I thought I’d find mature, motivated, sophisticated peers and a pace so consistent a degree of structure absent in my poverty stricken place prior to accepting the job. I couldn’t get there fast enough to start adulthood as the new me. With my ****-hole city a mere speck in my sporty Acura TL's rearview. I fancied myself a serious person, someone on the verge of making a real difference. I was 22 a vet in the arduous game of life. So wrongfully I assumed...
A few months into my new job, it was clear I was expected to work a bare minimum of 60 hours a week, with an immaculate eye for detail. After plowing through the one month probationary contingency contract I was now sorting through thousands of half manufactured Hyundai Engine components in a windowless Automobile Plant. I began to realize the job wasn’t on the noble path to social change I’d hoped to make. Nor was it the outlet for progressive employment opportunity I thought it might be. It did, though, yield a large and consistent paycheck, so I cashed in and succumbed into the settlement of gainful employment.
Soon billing extra hours became my primary focus, and I decided it was time to get my own prescription for this **** but never could I find the time. Instead of realizing that the job was not for me, I was blinded by the professionalism I felt working in a $1.1 Billion dollar plant and I wasn’t about to fail at what I considered to be the cornerstone of the New and Improved Me, a successful, independent young man I'd never seemed to be.
My time so restricted, held back from solidifying my own supply. Not until about a year later did I finally make this happen. My East Side doctor didn’t seem to care that I’d self-diagnosed. I was given a prescription for 30, 30 milligram pills at my behest for $50. After our first meeting, as I did with every meeting thereafter, I beelined to the closest Apothecary , avoiding eye contact with the pharmacist who saw me for what I was- Just another brick in the wall that built the halfway house.
It did not take long for my daily late nights as a now newly licensed R.E. Agent to segue into a voracious need for letting loose off the clock. I quickly became unable to socialize without popping the medication that now provided just enough extra energy required to maintain my outgoing side. Even on nights when I planned to take it easy, the meds had no off switch, so I’d find myself leaving my shabby sheik West Clinton Avenue office/ loft and head conveniently around the corner to the cities fly by night entertainment district to appease my energy that I didn’t know how to quell. The cocktail of Vodka on the rocks and a pocket of pills was a potent one. I was now getting high seven nights a week, every night a delicate balancing act.
I could have easily hidden my fiendish behavior, but it wasn’t necessary — it was a kind gesture to give someone a pill when they were tired. In the place where the party wont stop, what is better than being immune to falling behind? The only faux pas would be to lose control and capsize the boat to sink into the depths of the abyss.
I came close. When I finally admitted I was not cut out for a failing R.E. market, I stopped working and rationalized was a neat segue into the unemployment game with a little liquidity for disposal without the financial pressure that would usually come from pursing nothing outright. Unemployed, I chose to pay hundreds for a refill instead of buying essentials. I’d consume far more than my allocated dose, then spend sleepless nights tossing and turning, my mind racing and heart pounding, only to wake up and take another pill with a Monster Energy Drink to compensate. In my professional life, I met deadlines. In my personal life I was whimsical and up for anything, the person to call for a last minute show or night of debauchery. I never had to choose, I had energy for everything that was offered to me. I had fooled myself into thinking it was a sustainable balance, that the perks outweighed the pitfalls.
Romantically I became insatiable, smashing hearts on purpose. One after another women falling head over heels after every one-night stand, most of which exhibiting neediness that down right disgusted me — yet I rationalized that becoming a self-loathing depressive could be filed neatly into my persona as a tortured sad soul, material for stories I would surely tell someday. The problem was, it stopped being a persona, and became who I was as a person: uninspired, unproductive and miserable.
As my tolerance increased, I began to escalate my use. I would take pills if I yawned after I turned off my alarm. I took the bottle with me everywhere I took my credit-card. The take–as–needed-to-manage-boatloads-of-Bull **** basis soon morphed into need-to-get-through-the-day mood stabilizer. I smothered uncertainty with more mixed drinks, different women and a new 2 thousand dollar custom made suit. I was an emotional wreck, angry, disconnected and unglued. I could focus on licentious women equally as lascivious and into the fast living, but in my personal life I was blocking out the fear of facing my unfulfilled aspirations head on. I ignored red flags that before this promiscuous person- had kept a stern eye on, having had a history of alcoholism and drug abuse in my family. But because my drugs came from a doctor’s notepad in an office two blocks from the Metropolitan Museum amongst Million dollar mansions, I felt safe.
Eventually, I cared less about balancing alcohol and medication, and more about escaping my dim routine of dependency. My quest for a more polished self became so superficial that I lost track of my goals. It took my daughters mother's threat to expunge me completely before any course of action would come to fruition. After a night together where I far outpaced the Southern Oaks Pinot Grigio, smoke after smoke, love songs and Spectacular Sex. She turned to me and said with concern, “You're on something...”
When I finally saw outside myself for the first time.I broke down in tears over a hardly edible target hotdog, and knowingly I had been misusing my prescription. She looked at me with no sympathy: “Well, you ****** up like always.” It was clear as day everything was ****** up infinitely and it was in fact my fault. Unprovoked by anything other than my urge to irreversibly end this chapter of my life, I rode shotgun in her Escalade 60 miles north where it was there my mother and father sat to attend the surprise intervention put together for yours truly.
I wish it had ended that easily. In the first 48 that followed, I was exhausted all the time. I slept off and on and was unable to stay up to meet the criteria to solve this problem. The drug had curbed my appetite, and helped me operate. Without it now I was ravenous and neurotic about what I was doing and how I would ever ******* find my way. I was sensitive and emotional from the new chemical imbalance, now crippled and so alone, everything seemed forever exacerbated. It was hard to understand that I was experiencing withdrawal, because I was never aware of possible side effects.
Without the drug I felt stupid, unable to focus or follow a thought through to completion. I was shy, and unwilling to initiate conversation. The witty, articulate bad ass I once was seemed to no longer exist. I felt dumb, out of it. I spoke slowly because it took immense effort to gather and express coherent thoughts.
I didn’t understand what I was going through, and that made it more difficult to stay healthy. It felt like another phase of the depression I had become so used to. But once I made it through the hardest part, weeks where my body was literally recalibrating itself to function without the stimulant, I felt like my old self again — relaxed, yet motivated to take care of my mind and body; interested in engaging with the world around me. The person I was so eager to shed in lieu of a new, accomplished, adult me, actually ended up being the one most capable of handling the tumult of living in the hectic life of a 20-something in this big bad world full of twist and turns.
On my quest to become a mature, independent man, I made a major miscalculation — that there is a shortcut to maturity and success, and that the rate which we achieve these things is completely within our control. It felt good to finally understand!6 that the very self I was trying to shed had became my salvation all along.
2013-(256)
A.B.M.
I had gone to his room with a friend. He told us the pills were $5 each. We asked where he’d got it. “I’ve been taking this stuff since I was 5,” he replied, and took out an orange prescription bottle and gave us each two small, round blue pills. He smelled sour. “It makes me feel like a zombie. But that’s only because I have ADD,” he quickly added to excuse the statement.
I started taking Adderall and things changed fast. I focused on virtually everything for hours without distraction. I cranked out a 3 vigorous workout sessions in one night, I could shut out the world. Any immediate distractions were rendered powerless. It was just me and whatever task before me. No more broken heart, no more drama or money woes were big enough to penetrate the tunnel vision Adderall provided. Sure, the desire to smoke cigarettes was uncontrollable. It suppressed my appetite, so I wouldn't eat as well, I lost a few pounds in that first week, I felt it was a small price for such a exponential gain. Condoned by the idea that the conglomeration of young men and women everywhere were taking it and now so was I.
A week after, I was burglarized. I then packed up my life and headed to Montgomery, Alabama where I had just been offered a new position at HMMA . I thought I’d find mature, motivated, sophisticated peers and a pace so consistent a degree of structure absent in my poverty stricken place prior to accepting the job. I couldn’t get there fast enough to start adulthood as the new me. With my ****-hole city a mere speck in my sporty Acura TL's rearview. I fancied myself a serious person, someone on the verge of making a real difference. I was 22 a vet in the arduous game of life. So wrongfully I assumed...
A few months into my new job, it was clear I was expected to work a bare minimum of 60 hours a week, with an immaculate eye for detail. After plowing through the one month probationary contingency contract I was now sorting through thousands of half manufactured Hyundai Engine components in a windowless Automobile Plant. I began to realize the job wasn’t on the noble path to social change I’d hoped to make. Nor was it the outlet for progressive employment opportunity I thought it might be. It did, though, yield a large and consistent paycheck, so I cashed in and succumbed into the settlement of gainful employment.
Soon billing extra hours became my primary focus, and I decided it was time to get my own prescription for this **** but never could I find the time. Instead of realizing that the job was not for me, I was blinded by the professionalism I felt working in a $1.1 Billion dollar plant and I wasn’t about to fail at what I considered to be the cornerstone of the New and Improved Me, a successful, independent young man I'd never seemed to be.
My time so restricted, held back from solidifying my own supply. Not until about a year later did I finally make this happen. My East Side doctor didn’t seem to care that I’d self-diagnosed. I was given a prescription for 30, 30 milligram pills at my behest for $50. After our first meeting, as I did with every meeting thereafter, I beelined to the closest Apothecary , avoiding eye contact with the pharmacist who saw me for what I was- Just another brick in the wall that built the halfway house.
It did not take long for my daily late nights as a now newly licensed R.E. Agent to segue into a voracious need for letting loose off the clock. I quickly became unable to socialize without popping the medication that now provided just enough extra energy required to maintain my outgoing side. Even on nights when I planned to take it easy, the meds had no off switch, so I’d find myself leaving my shabby sheik West Clinton Avenue office/ loft and head conveniently around the corner to the cities fly by night entertainment district to appease my energy that I didn’t know how to quell. The cocktail of Vodka on the rocks and a pocket of pills was a potent one. I was now getting high seven nights a week, every night a delicate balancing act.
I could have easily hidden my fiendish behavior, but it wasn’t necessary — it was a kind gesture to give someone a pill when they were tired. In the place where the party wont stop, what is better than being immune to falling behind? The only faux pas would be to lose control and capsize the boat to sink into the depths of the abyss.
I came close. When I finally admitted I was not cut out for a failing R.E. market, I stopped working and rationalized was a neat segue into the unemployment game with a little liquidity for disposal without the financial pressure that would usually come from pursing nothing outright. Unemployed, I chose to pay hundreds for a refill instead of buying essentials. I’d consume far more than my allocated dose, then spend sleepless nights tossing and turning, my mind racing and heart pounding, only to wake up and take another pill with a Monster Energy Drink to compensate. In my professional life, I met deadlines. In my personal life I was whimsical and up for anything, the person to call for a last minute show or night of debauchery. I never had to choose, I had energy for everything that was offered to me. I had fooled myself into thinking it was a sustainable balance, that the perks outweighed the pitfalls.
Romantically I became insatiable, smashing hearts on purpose. One after another women falling head over heels after every one-night stand, most of which exhibiting neediness that down right disgusted me — yet I rationalized that becoming a self-loathing depressive could be filed neatly into my persona as a tortured sad soul, material for stories I would surely tell someday. The problem was, it stopped being a persona, and became who I was as a person: uninspired, unproductive and miserable.
As my tolerance increased, I began to escalate my use. I would take pills if I yawned after I turned off my alarm. I took the bottle with me everywhere I took my credit-card. The take–as–needed-to-manage-boatloads-of-Bull **** basis soon morphed into need-to-get-through-the-day mood stabilizer. I smothered uncertainty with more mixed drinks, different women and a new 2 thousand dollar custom made suit. I was an emotional wreck, angry, disconnected and unglued. I could focus on licentious women equally as lascivious and into the fast living, but in my personal life I was blocking out the fear of facing my unfulfilled aspirations head on. I ignored red flags that before this promiscuous person- had kept a stern eye on, having had a history of alcoholism and drug abuse in my family. But because my drugs came from a doctor’s notepad in an office two blocks from the Metropolitan Museum amongst Million dollar mansions, I felt safe.
Eventually, I cared less about balancing alcohol and medication, and more about escaping my dim routine of dependency. My quest for a more polished self became so superficial that I lost track of my goals. It took my daughters mother's threat to expunge me completely before any course of action would come to fruition. After a night together where I far outpaced the Southern Oaks Pinot Grigio, smoke after smoke, love songs and Spectacular Sex. She turned to me and said with concern, “You're on something...”
When I finally saw outside myself for the first time.I broke down in tears over a hardly edible target hotdog, and knowingly I had been misusing my prescription. She looked at me with no sympathy: “Well, you ****** up like always.” It was clear as day everything was ****** up infinitely and it was in fact my fault. Unprovoked by anything other than my urge to irreversibly end this chapter of my life, I rode shotgun in her Escalade 60 miles north where it was there my mother and father sat to attend the surprise intervention put together for yours truly.
I wish it had ended that easily. In the first 48 that followed, I was exhausted all the time. I slept off and on and was unable to stay up to meet the criteria to solve this problem. The drug had curbed my appetite, and helped me operate. Without it now I was ravenous and neurotic about what I was doing and how I would ever ******* find my way. I was sensitive and emotional from the new chemical imbalance, now crippled and so alone, everything seemed forever exacerbated. It was hard to understand that I was experiencing withdrawal, because I was never aware of possible side effects.
Without the drug I felt stupid, unable to focus or follow a thought through to completion. I was shy, and unwilling to initiate conversation. The witty, articulate bad ass I once was seemed to no longer exist. I felt dumb, out of it. I spoke slowly because it took immense effort to gather and express coherent thoughts.
I didn’t understand what I was going through, and that made it more difficult to stay healthy. It felt like another phase of the depression I had become so used to. But once I made it through the hardest part, weeks where my body was literally recalibrating itself to function without the stimulant, I felt like my old self again — relaxed, yet motivated to take care of my mind and body; interested in engaging with the world around me. The person I was so eager to shed in lieu of a new, accomplished, adult me, actually ended up being the one most capable of handling the tumult of living in the hectic life of a 20-something in this big bad world full of twist and turns.
On my quest to become a mature, independent man, I made a major miscalculation — that there is a shortcut to maturity and success, and that the rate which we achieve these things is completely within our control. It felt good to finally understand!6 that the very self I was trying to shed had became my salvation all along.
2013-(256)
A.B.M.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Long Beach, CA
Posts: 705
Thank you for that well written and interesting story of your addiction. I've never had an issue with amphetamines, but I know from reading and watching news specials and such that it can be a horrendous habit. If you've ever seen the movie "Requiem for a Dream", where Ellen Burstyn becomes addicted to diet pills and she goes absolutely bonkers, it scared the sh** out of me!
Welcome to SR. I know you'll meet many kind people who also have amazing stories to share.
Welcome to SR. I know you'll meet many kind people who also have amazing stories to share.
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