I'm a recovering alcoholic with ADD but can't take the meds because they raise blood pressure. I know several other folks in recovery with it as well. One said she improved significantly with medication. Suggest seeing a doctor.

OK Folks - here's the update:

In the couple of weeks between him viewing the videos & seeing the Doc, he seems to have become far more aware of his behaviors. He has shared more about ways he sees examples of his inattention & hyperactivity. That helps me paint a broader picture of his day to show him how things sort of layer up depending on just how frustrating of a day it was. How when YOU are the first one the creates frustration in your own world (miscommunications, missed deadlines, whatever) it doesn't leave a lot of room for the inevitable frustrations of daily life & interacting with others. How no matter what he does - he can't force his brain chemistry/structure to change to function on it's own....... but the failure/shame that he spirals into after trying to "force" himself to just "be better" does change his emotional state which affects everyone around him AGAIN. Double whammy. (if that makes sense....)

Like I said, I'm also owning the fact that I have had very little patience to give - I flat out told him that I literally do not have the energy or time to keep interacting with him in these ways. It's exhausting & endless & unfair so long as he's not doing anything to correct his own situation. It gets easy to cross over into Codie behavior & gets too blurry. I have made it clear - this is HIS side of the street.

I couldn't make the appt due to work but after 2 weeks of butting heads over the awarenesses/examples popping up like crazy he went in with a much clearer picture of things than he had had a few months ago.

Doc prescribed Adderall, which he is going to start asap. It's pricing out at like $175/month for the generics so I was trying to figure out the most affordable option but will go ahead & get the 1st prescription filled soon either way. He'll have to check in at the doc's to follow up before the end of the prescription to see what's working or needs to be adjusted. I don't know anything about the meds so I'll probably read up on that just for my own curiosity. He said the side effects didn't seem scarier than how he was living right now, lol.

So, that's where we are today. I expect to have the prescription filled no later than the end of the week & then we'll see if/how much it helps. Thanks again for all the input!!

Thanks for the update, firesprite!

I'm glad you finally have a plan of action; I know this has been weighing on you for a loooooong time. The only thing I will add is that adderall is WIDELY abused, because it's an amphetamine/stimulant. I'm sure your RAH had a discussion about that with his doc, and that his doc knows about your RAH's personal history.

Fingers crossed that he will see some meaningful results, and that it will take the pressure off of you!

I have lots of experience with ADHD.
 

Wonderful thread!

I would agree that more people have ADHD, whether hyperactive or inattentive or both, than we know and are self medicating because of it.

Marijuana, nicotine, caffeine... all of it helps ADHD people calm down.

That's usually why people who smoke say they need a cigarette when they are stessed.

ADHD people also have an oral fixation, and usually suck their thumbs as children and then the amount of time between sucking their thumb and say smoking is not very long because they have to so something with their mouths. Probably why alcoholics with ADHD need to always have a cup or bottle to their mouths.

I have stock in sugarless gum companies ;) because my kids go through it like water. Mints, cough drops.... all of it. It's better than biting their lips or chewing on pen caps... sound familiar to anyone....

I actually know that my medicine wears off when I start biting my lip....

ADHD wasn't even a real diagnosis until a few years ago, so I guess we can't blame ourselves or anyone else for not catching it earlier, but we do know so much about it now.

If anyone wants a ton of info on how to live with ADHD all they have to do is go to the website attitudemag.com or the CHADD website.

And if anyone is interested in supplementing their meds or just want to try something natural first... like if you're pregnant ... there is info about that.

Now it's said that focus can increase as much as taking meds just with the right dose of fish oil.

Magnesium, zinc and even iron are sometimes also needed and correcting a deficiency in those areas can relieve ADHD symptoms tremendously. Our child's psychiatrist said have her drink a coke or some other cafinated beverage before school to give her enough stimulation to give her time for her medication to work.

I also heard at one time 2 cups of coffee has as much stimulant as 5 mg of Ritalin, and so it's no wonder everyone needs a cup to help them wake up and then stay awake during the day.

I think PousFriend had one of the best descriptions that I've ever read about ADHD. It's spot on! Very frustrating, but people who have it like Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Michael Phelps...are all smart and talented, so it really kinda means you're smart if you have it... in my opinion. ;)

Helpful books.... The ADHD Effect on Marriage, Driven to Distraction.

Meditation, mindfulness also helps with focus. They did some studies on monks and nuns who meditated and recreated their techniques on some test subjects and their focus increased by something like 20% in 6 weeks.

The key is that the parties involved accept that they have ADHD just like we accept that people need glasses. (Usually glasses are a sign of intelligence too... just saying) And just like the alcoholic needs to hit bottom and decide they want to recover.

Also the latest and greatest theory about ADHD, especially for kids is .... wait for it..... to LOVE them. Go figure that they needed a study for that.

They realized that traditional school will pretty much not work for ADHD kids, they need no traditional learning environments, but most kids with ADHD are in public schools, so to keep up their self esteem, which won't be coming from their school experience most likely, parents, teachers, friends are just supposed to be positive, focus on their strengths, which they do have, and just accept and love them... kind of what Michael Phelps mom did. And then with the can do self confidence they get from being loved and supported, they can go on to great things.

Traditional discipline also doesn't really work for ADHD kids, or people. It's like the death penalty and a speeding ticket mean the same thing. Grounding and a 5 minute timeout mean the same. The severity of the punishment isn't a deterrent. It's the repetition of the action. Like a whole bunch of time outs or speeding tickets will produce a better response than one really large punishment.

Yes, it takes patience and time to actually have to be present to someone and not just push them through the system, but the results are worth it.

The challenges in my life are with my step daughters whose mom doesn't want to take the time to love them, probably because she has untreated ADHD herself, so she just lets electronics etc. raise them. Even though people want people over things.

Other challenges are my RAH who also doesn't always want to take the time to give the, attention either because of his ADHD or spending time working on his recovery, which doesn't seem to involve actually any activity on his part, just listening to people at meetings. He does take medicine, but I have learned that medicine alone won't do the job.

It takes learning the skills to survive in today's world, like using a timer to make sure you stay focused on an activity and then don't stay with it for too long. My RAH will spend 2 hours on you tube and think it was on,h 20 minutes. I have suggested he set his timer for 2O minutes, watch you tube for 20 minutes and then re-evaluate at that time whether he wants to set the timer for another 20 minutes or maybe choose to do something else he wanted to do. But this takes self control, which takes practice, and who wants to practice anything these days?

As a wife of a RAH, I realize how we got together.... ADHD do like new experiences and people and the dopamine rush infatuation gives you, but then when it's over, people usually move onto the next squirrel or shiny object... if you're married by that time, then spouses can learn new things together to keep the dopamine rush a,I've or they can start to self medicate with alcohol or drugs or whatever which is what happened to us.

Now that the alcohol is no longer a craving, RAH hasn't committed to learning the coping skills needed for ADHD people and so drifts from new addiction to new addiction.

Trying not to be codependent, I have to let him make his own mistakes and try to mitigate any damage he does to the kids, without being codependent, and unfortunately that means taking away his crutch, me, and moving on, letting him live the life he chooses, since it doesn't seem to be spending time with me. And I never would have been able to make these conclusions and move on to take care of myself if I hadn't been diagnosed and medicated. Wellbutrin is also good with another stimulant to help. And I can actually remember things when I take my meds. It always amazes me.

I'm sure AA will eventually lose its appeal, like everything else does and then he'll find something else. My first husband also had ADHD,,, emergency room doctor... lots of adrenaline rushes in that job, and then at home he'd go from one obsession to another.... African violets, then daylillies, then turtles, then fast cars.... I can see at all so clearly now. He always has to have a new project to keep him focused and high.

I wish there was an easier way to deal with life especially for those challenged with ADHD, but love and acceptance seem to work pretty well when applied. Vitamins, good diet, taking out additives, exercise, meditation, sleep, water, all the normal healthy things also work.

They just also came out with a study where they measured brain activity when people were using cocaine, having an infatuation emotional love high and those doing a religious practice and they found that all three activities stimulated the exact same part of the brain.....will be interesting to see if more studies are done.

Well, that's all the break time I have. Thanks for letting me vent and for all the good info I read on this thread.

I hope no one gives up and allows either alcoholism or ADHD to beat them!

This is such an interesting, eye-opening thread. As a retired teacher, I have worked with children with ADD and ADHD, and I know that the condition persists into adulthood, but I really had no idea of the ramifications for the family.
My alcoholic sib struggled with school almost from day one. I have always thought that he had an undiagnosed learning issue. Back then--1960s--no one knew much about these things. I figured something with reading. He struggled to read and has never enjoyed it or read for fun.
I don't think he has ADD or ADHD, but I don't know much about the adult condition. Going to educate myself. Won't help my sib, who is so far down the rabbit hole he will never get out.
So thanks for this thread. Really, really good stuff.

We had a girl who worked here with me a couple of years ago. She has the worst case of adult ADD I have ever seen actually. She could not focus for a second. Was up and down out every two seconds. Could not get work done. Once she was diagnosed and began meds, she did improve a lot. She's a smart girl. Sadly, she was going through a divorce and the meds were very expensive so she quit taking them. She also did not like the side affects. You see, she is so usto being hyped up that this leveled her out, but she did not necessarily like that. She had spent her entire life hyped up. So she stopped the meds.

Needless to say, we founds months of work she had hidden under her desk and she lost her job. She has now moved an addict in with her, and she herself has become an addict. She has no impulse control at all, and cannot stand to be alone for a second.

I can definitely see how it can contribute to addiction if left out of control.

That is just my experience. I spent 40 hours a week with this girl, so it was quite amazing to watch really. It makes me sad for her because she is a smart and caring person with so much potential, and here she is letting her life fall apart.

My RA boss was just diagnosed with Adult Attention Deficit (2 or3 years sober now). 1 month on meds has been life changing for her....and for those of us that work for her :)

Yep - RAH has seen remarkable improvements since starting the meds. Not just because they help him to feel better while he's on them but because now he can REALLY see the difference in himself with & without that influence. It's like he's finding out more about himself every day - questioning things he used to just accept without examination.

Luckily, the only adverse reaction he has had is that the meds make him jittery if he takes them on an empty stomach. Well - and that they wear off so delaying the dosage in the morning to make it last later into the day sometimes makes sense for him - especially when he knows he's scheduled to have a late day. He's definitely engaged in ways he hadn't been before - things like time management, communication, long-term planning, etc.

2Years - thanks for all the links, I've checked into some of them before. The oral fixation thing makes total sense - cigarette smoking is a far greater dragon for RAH to slay than drinking ever has been & he often used caffeine to supplement the absence of meds without realizing it.... sometimes drinking 6-8 cans in a days easily.

All those years of high energy, double-bass drumming, 4-6 nights every week in a working band helped a lot too - it kept him from bouncing from shiny thing to shiny thing because it was such an active, ever-changing world in & of itself. I hadn't thought about it until recent discussions, but he quit playing in active projects at about the same time that every other area in life hit high stress (his business, the recession, DD being born/young, I changed careers, etc.) It hadn't really occurred to me that he was losing more than just an outlet for stress & was probably a big part of keeping his ADHD in check.

Addictions, learning disorders, ADHD
 

Thanks for the responses to my post. Looks like this thread hasn't been used in a while.

I have several family members who also don't like to read at all. Slow processing speed has also accompanied the ADHD, which means they have to read the same sentence over and over to comprehend what it means. Very frustrating. Maybe you can tell your 60 year old brother that he's at least normal as lots of other people are the same way too.

I also love the quotes that were at the end of both of the reply posts. Are they yours or did you get them from somewhere.

Ina, being faced today with forgiving someone, who has not asked for forgiveness.... well at least doesn't want to make amends and it's heartbreaking. Trying to find strength to stay sane until the summer at least and to get my own act together.

And yes ADHD affects all family members. One, because it's genetic and everyone in family probably has at least a little. There is also the inattentive type too.

And just try and go through a divorce with someone with undiagnosed ADHD and then add you having undiagnosed ADHD. No wonder my divorcevand attempts to coparent following the divorce were such a flop.

Would have made life so much easier if I would have know.

My exhusbands sister didn't want to stay on her meds either because of not liking the high feeling without them.... she never graduated from high school, had two failed marriages, got arrested for drug related activity, has her parents raising her 3 kids... think having kids in your 70s...

It is heartbreaking to see people waste their lives and ruin the lives of others, but that's what addictions and such do.

I guess that's why we have prayer. So far it's the only thing that's gotten me through all if this.

I wanted to share this article here because while this isn't a heavily-responded-to thread, it has racked up quite a few views which tells me people are interested in the content to some extent. :)

I could have written this from the non-ADHD partner's point of view - it's astonishingly accurate with great detail while remaining concise & easy to read. The videos up-thread helped RAH see that there was another side to this equation, but this really helped him understand it better.... especially about his lack of empathy/literal inability to see this stuff on his own.

https://www.adhdmarriage.com/content...ced-it-matters

:scoregood