Stimulants What’s an Adderall Addiction Really Like?

[Jabberwocky]

I’m not one to think of drugs in any kind of hierarchy (except one that has smack and weed at the very bottom) but I’m curious about how people develop an addiction to Adderall or other ADHD stimulants so serious that they need to go to rehab or join NA and go abstinent. Although I am wildly addicted to meth at the moment and was addicted to amphetamine sulphate as a teenager, I find my ADHD meds so benign that I could not imagine ever being addicted to them. My psychiatrist insists that people who genuinely have ADHD will not develop tolerance to their stim meds and will not get addicted.

Anyone got a story about how their ADHD meds really got out of control?

 

[negrogesic]

Your psychiatrist is full of shit. Its funny, though necessary, psychiatrists are at the bottom of the rung in terms of physicians. Some are bright enough but many are on the dimmest side of the physician spectrum. Most can't even take your blood pressure and are almost best left seated when the flight attendent asks over the intercom, "is there a doctor on the plane?".

The general limitation with addiction to ones ADHD medication is the amount one is prescribed (which is almost invariably insufficient in quantity to produce the sort of addiction one sees in street stimulant users). I was able to negotiate a prescription of 160mg of methylphenidate a day, which i never took orally. This was enough to produce a decent amount of stimulant psychosis.

 

[4meSM]

Well you mentioned amphetamine sulphate, adderall is way stronger than the vast majority of euro speed. Most euro speed is basically caffeine, random cuts and like 5-10% amphetamine sulphate, and people still end up in rehab because of it.
In your case I guess the issue could come down to the route of administration? Both meth and amphetamine sulphate are easy to inject and that will of course lead to a better and more addictive high. Also the fact that meth and amp sulphate are both illegal so that makes them tabu and you're no longer limited by the dose, as opposed to prescribed adderall/dexedrine.

To me meth is only better than amphetamine when smoked (and IVd I guess), but they're really not that different intranasally and orally (in equipotent doses). I never had access to prescribed amphetamines though, only had purified amp sulphate and meth.

 

[opiatekrzy]

Adderall has a unique combination of salts that have a very addictive quality to it. (Notice that dexedrine lacks physical boost energy?