Jennes

Since childhood I've had untreated ADD. Once being officially diagnosed 3 months ago, so many things about my life made so much sense. I had always thought ADD/ADHD was something only children could have, and I was skeptical that it was even a "real" disease.

But I could barely get out of bed because of all the anxiety/racing thoughts I had about doing one simple task. I wouldn't open mail and pay bills, and I was generally apathetic about taking care of important things one needs to do to function as "normal" in today's society. I had a "foggy" brain and had a hard time with working-memory and even speaking fluidly when I needed to, because I was over-stimulated by my surroundings and couldn't concentrate. School was a nightmare even though I was smart, my relationships suffered, and I became depressed for feeling like an incapable piece of s***. I also developed Anxiety due to lack of assuredness and I took benzo's to cope with panic attacks and GAD. But little did I know, the anxiety and depression was caused by the ADD.

I was against taking any kind of medication for this but once I finally tried it out, the racing thoughts stopped. I was able to take a step back and focus, and know what it was like to feel "normal." If I needed to focus on 1 thing, I could cancel out the 99 other things that consumed my thoughts and just focus on the one thing. I stopped loosing things, I stopped making so many mistakes (this often got me fired from jobs), I could read a sentence in a book without having to read it again 10 times. The ability to concentrate has increased my productivity and also made me feel more self-assured. As a result the anxiety stopped, and so did my depression about not being able to do anything with my life.

After learning more about what happens in the mind of someone with ADD, I found that it's caused by low dopamine levels in the brain, as evidenced by brain imaging. This is one of the reasons so many people left with untreated ADD develop substance abuse problems in their adult life. Along with having impulsive behavior, where you're unable to think through any negative consequences, It's practically a guarantee. I turned to self-medicating with alcohol for a short-lived increase in my dopamine levels. Alcohol makes everybody feel more confident and able to speak/think better at first. But for me, it was a huge release being able to ONLY think clearly after a drink...up until the point where I was drunk of course. I drank every day and often alone not to get high, but just to be able to stop the stress from the racing thoughts, and get something done.

Most people that use Adderall recreationally said that it makes them want to drink, and makes them capable of drinking much more than they normally would. For me, it was the opposite. The urge to drink virtually vanished. It seemed the medication was giving my brain the normal amount of dopamine it needed, so I no longer needed to self-medicate with alcohol. But I was still drinking even though I didn't feel the "need" to. For once, I was just drinking for fun.

After three months of taking Adderall as prescribed, ten days ago I decided to stop drinking as I was by definition an alcoholic. With treated ADD, it made me capable of recognizing the steps I needed to take to organize my life, and quitting drinking was one of them. Adderall however is a stimulant, and addictive. Taking any kind of stimulant while quitting alcohol is controversial, because it's known that an addict will do anything to get "high" or replace one addiction with the other. But what about those who want to go through alcohol recovery but who also NEED to be treated for ADD or other psychological conditions with medication?

I'm taking the adderall as prescribed and I don't even want to get high with it, I just want to be able to function. In fact, I CAN'T even get high from it even if I wanted to because it just makes me feel normal. The urge to drink is there, but it seems to be so dormant, like now I could start the process of quitting altogether, and so far I've gone 10 days without it. I honestly don't think I'd be able to quit drinking without being medically treated for ADD, and I'd continue my path of self-medication and self-destruction.

Without medication and therapy for this ADD, I have no doubt that I'd go back to abusing alcohol, on top of being a disorganized non-functional mess in general. I don't think I would have even recognized that I had an alcohol problem, let alone understood how to go about it if it weren't for the medication.

I'm wondering if any other ADD/ADHD-ers had a similar experience. It's difficult to find many personal accounts of this online. Typically I can only find people who abuse adderall and it caused them to become an alcoholic, or addicted to the adderall. But hardly anything about it helping get rid of alcohol abuse for those with the disorder.

Thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated, but please no judgements about stimulant medications while going through recovery. For most, it's just another gateway drug or form of abuse. But for people like me who do have the disorder and who take medication prescribed and responsibly, it's necessary.

Forward12

Substance and alcohol abuse with people that have mental health issues is very common. I battle with anxiety/depression, though I have a close friend who's story is similar to yours. She use to abuse coke, then later stopped using after she sought treatment and was put on adderal for her previously undiagnosed add.

Wastinglife

I was finally diagnosed with ADD at age 34 while I was in rehab for alcoholism. The meds worked for a short time before I built up a tolerance to them and then abused them to get high. I haven't solved my ADD issues yet but I need to get a handle on sobriety first. i self-medicated for 20 years with booze and am starting over with life at age 40