DOSE:

repeated

oral

Amphetamines

(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

230 lb

Lack of concentration, motivation and sleepiness during the day were all definitely symptoms of my depression, which at the time, September 2004, I was unmedicated for. I didn’t think I was depressed, just tired from work and home life. I was 31 years old, feeling as if I was at a midlife crisis. A friend of mine suggested I get a prescription for Dexedrine to help with my ADD *wink wink*. It was easy to pull the wool over the eyes of my doc, but as I soon found out, I was pulling myself into a downward spiral of addiction and mental anguish.

There I was, at work, holding my new found bottle of Dexedrine! 60 little tan pills, I felt excited and fascinated, but I had doubts about its abilities. I was typing away at a report and decided to try one 10mg pill. I swallowed it down, forgot I had taken it and kept on typing. After about 25 minutes I felt so great about this report I was writing, the words and ideas flew out like a speeding bullet, one after the other. I became excited about the work and started to intercom my co-workers to chat about it. I felt like the happiest man alive, like there wasn’t a problem I couldn’t face and solve.

The day went great til about 4 hours later when I began to feel like utter shit. My limbs were sore, my jaw ached, I felt mentally drained and depressed. I didn’t want to talk to anyone and I was hungry as a vulture, eating up every piece of food in my townhouse. It was 6pm, so I decided to take another one. Within 30 minutes, the good feelings were back!

I decided I knew the addictive nature of the medicine (yeah right) and I would hold off on taking any but once a week. On Fridays I would speed up as a reward to myself making it through the week. This seemed ok for me, it worked for a few months, and I continued to pile up the prescriptions into a nice little nest egg. I began taking the pills around with me, as I found during tough days I would use it to breeze through. Those tough days turned into 2 or 3 days a week.

Pretty soon I found myself in this eternal state of speeding and crashing. The weekends I would try to recover. I did realize I had a problem, so I switched to Adderall under the false assumption that this was a less addictive drug with milder side effects. I noticed I would have to take double the amount to get the same feeling as Dexedrine.

The weeks turned into months, months into 2 years. In those two years I went from the prescribed amount of 40mgs a day to binging on upwards of 120mgs a day or more. I would have 2 or three scripts at a time, some XR some tablets, as I carefully orchestrated the filling of these scripts with 3 or 4 different pharmacies. I would have to pay out of pocket for 2 of them since I found out my insurance company would notify the pharmacy if I filled to early. I would have doc appointment after appointment to keep up with my ever growing habit.

Not one day went by were I didn’t take some, just to make it through the day. I'd walk around with pill bottles in my pocket, I'd count them on an hourly basis, making sure I'd dose up before I'd start crashing. I got scripts of Klonopins and Seroquel to help with the crashes. I found drinking helped as well at night.

The more I took the quicker the good feelings would wear off. Now I begin my dosing day with 60mgs instead of 20mg just to launch off. It still never felt the same, it just made me feel normal now. Without it, I'd be falling asleep, my mind clouded, worthless feelings of depression. Even though the good effects left the bad side effects got amplified due to the larger and larger does. I would stay up all night sometimes and even begin to see things moving in the corner of my eye. I became irritable and even gained weight due to my food binges at night. I ballooned up to 230 pounds from 190 even though I hardly ever ate during the day.

It took me yelling at my son to realize what I was doing to myself. The addiction snuck up on me like a tidal wave pushing in from the ocean. I see it coming but I didn’t think it was going to get me until I was already underwater.

Ending the addiction has to be one of the worst feeling things I've done in my life. Over a 5 month period I tried to detoxify off of Adderall finding day 3 - 5 being the worst. I could never seem to make it through day 4 as it seemed I always had something to do. I always had to be there for my family or work. All I wanted to do was sleep and eat but I couldn’t do that. It got to the point where I almost checked myself into a rehab clinic to find the time I needed to sleep off the addiction. If I could just sleep I could conquer it. Finally, however, I found a weekend I was able to rest and timed those days to be day 3 and 4. Day 5 I called sick into work and day 6 I made a light day at work. I ended up spending 2 hours in my car sleeping.

Today is day 12 and I am just starting to feel like my old self. The sleep attacks are few and far between now, but I still crave the speed. It's like a best friend I lost, who I will never see again. I am on Paxil now, which has helped with the depression and anxiety. I took a lot of caffeine and Sudafed over the last 12 days which helped a bit with the sleep attacks. That first pill is like a city, a beautiful city, with lots of beautiful buildings and streets, but behind those walls is nothing, as if a cardboard set on some Hollywood stage.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 55352
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Dec 8, 2008	Views: 19,478
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Amphetamines (6) : Retrospective / Summary (11), Depression (15), Hangover / Days After (46), Multi-Day Experience (13), Addiction & Habituation (10), Not Applicable (38)