Hmm. I believe your consumption reports. Why would you lie? Tolerance is a very real thing, and the more you use certain substances over long periods of time, especially if it's an every day thing, then hell yes, you'll develop tolerance others wouldn't think possible.
But that's not the issue here. Your concerns have to do with minimizing the dreaded withdrawal symptoms. I am no stranger to withdrawal and it was my greatest fear for 20 plus years. Opiates, alcohol, benzos...those were the worst for me personally. Of those three only opiate withdrawal isn't life threatening if not managed medically. For nearly 30 years I used downers almost exclusively, and when withdrawal symptoms would start, I tried to cope by just taking more of what was causing the withdrawal. I'm going into this info to make a point though; I'm going to answer your questions as best I can.
It was only 8 years or so ago that I switched from downers to uppers. I'm a drug user and I think I always will be, but experience and age, along with research etc have, it seems, enabled me to live a drug using life (all kinds of drugs) in a manageable way, not in constant fear of withdrawal, and more or less able to get things done. To a non drug user, I'm just a regular guy. But...I use every day, and while it's nowhere near as magical a thing as it once was, decades ago, I still enjoy it well enough.
The trick, it seems to me, is to use a variety of substances you like the effects of, and to not only use CNS depressants or stimulants, but both. I know it's a little late for me to tell you this now, but you might want to try to use only the smallest amount of said drug per session in order to keep your tolerance as low as possible, and to minimize the unpleasant side effects that an enormous habit of almost anything causes. If you can do this, you will keep your system "guessing" as it won't have only one type of substance to defend itself from, which besides keeping your tolerance lower, will mean you get to enjoy a variety of substances along the way. Yeah, right...that would never have worked for me in the early years, wouldn't have helped me in the least for 20 some years, because I was really a bona fide addict. My actions when it came to using weren't choices, they were needs. I was enslaved. Enter the stimulants.
Around 8 years ago, toward the end of what was probably my 12th time in treatment (all but the first were court mandated or similar, and not one stay in treatment "helped" me; I tend to think the only few people who do benefit from it probably weren't real addicts in the first place...but I could be wrong), I was prescribed Adderall in order to help my "treatment resistant depression," which is the medical term for a condition that's diagnosed only after a patient has been prescribed high numbers of antidepressants over many years but with very little success, even when tried for months on end at least as they usually are for therapeutic benefit to become possible. Yes, besides ADD, ADHD, narcolepsy etc. potent stimulants are sometimes (rarely) prescribed for that reason, which was mine. I cant be sure because I have no scientific way of determining what exactly gave rise to the change, but about six months into my Adderall use I tried drinking. An idiotic move, I thought, because my entire using life had been the kind that means one drink leads to more drinks, which leads to full blown alcoholism compete with tonic clonic seizures, until I replaced the alcohol with another potent downer (usually opiates). Benzos factored in to the whole thing as well, which I took by the handful whenever I couldn't drink. However, that afternoon I drank a 24 oz. beer. Slowly. I didn't mean to drink it slowly,it just happened that way. I tried this again a week later with the same result. In short, I could take it or leave it, which had always been been impossible.
So I now have extensive experience with uppers of all sorts. I enjoyed high grade methamphetamine (ice) when I lived in Thailand for a couple of years. I haven't always been able to take Adderall (30 mg IR) depending on where I was living, so I compensated with similar drugs. Sometimes the only one available was methylphenidate, which never did much for me, but that's not the point. Since I was 5, I've been very anxiety prone, diagnosed with all its different types as well as depression, and it's the anxiety that, for me, was the worst part of any extended withdrawal I've ever known. Sure, the rest is all bad too, but anxiety is especially bad for me. Thing is, I haven't really been all that anxious since I started taking uppers. I use dexamphetamine now because I Iive in Belgium where the amphetamine salts (Adderall) isn't available. I use it for focus, interest, creativity, general performance enhancement and I augment its use with weed and the occasional tablet of prescribed clonazepam (which I can also take or leave alone).
Did uppers save my life, "cure" my alcoholism? I don't know. Maybe making it past 40 without dying played a hand in whatever change happened. I don't know. I do know I didn't make any kind of effort to change, however (embrace recovery and all that) in any way. Sometimes I use opiates and enjoy them a lot, but not for extended periods. I've learned that taking more and more of what causes me to feel what I want to feel more of is the worst thing I can do. After a point, the dexamphetamine's "useful" and pleasurable effects aren't increased by taking more of the drug. After that it's all the shit none of us wants to feel: irritability, tension, tachycardia, tweaking on fruitless tasks, etc. Anxiety. For this reason (again I could be wrong; I'm not a physician but I am a lifelong drug user with a lot of experience, and what I say here I do so because it helped me) I don't suggest trying to ease your Ritalin withdrawal with any substance of similar composition or stimulating effects. They will prolong your misery, and since they'd be alternatives to your preference, they'd likely frustrate more than soothe your system. You dont want altered versions of your DOC for the withdrawal period, because they'd be a constant inferior reminder of what you're missing. Sometimes this approach works (as in treating alcohol withdrawals with benzos) but the chemistry is different, as is the medical reality, since the benzos are "fooling" the brain through their very similar mechanism of action to alcohol in order to reduce the fatality rate of delirium tremens. Not the case here.
Therefore, in conclusion, I think your best bet is to use the surest means to limit as much as possible the anxiety that you're going to be contending with. I dont want to scare you, but the anxiety and all its concurrent symptoms are going to be a bitch. You'll feel tense, have trouble concentrating, angry, fearful, impatient, apathetic, all the while having the physical discomforts that always go along with the above. I think methylphenidate withdrawal symptoms usually begin within a few days of the last dose, but in your case, I wouldn't be surprised if you start noticing them within the first day. Try asking a doctor for a script of benzos, maybe the long acting clonazepam to limit the need to re-dose. I'm not going to advise you on how to go about that; you'll hopefully do what works on the first try regardless of how you go about it. If so, you'll be feeling better soon with a clear conscience and, ideally, ongoing medical help should it be necessary. Antipsychotics too, can help in cases like this. Maybe seroquel, for example. I think clonidine has been successful in withdrawal related panic attacks too. Be as honest with your doctor as possible in order to get the best results, but there shouldn't be a need to divulge all the gory details. The most simple but accurate approach is what I'd do. Then rest. The worst part will probably be over within 7-10 days, and after a month or a little more, you'll be over the withdrawal. Finally, dont give too much thought to the possibility of post acute withdrawal syndrome. Stressing that won't benefit you in any way, and anyway, PAWS is not a hard and fast part of the process. Its severity and duration varies from case to case. Just stay in the moment, eat, rest, drink lots of water, and so on. You'll be ok.
Good luck.
