Dex: should I get off it or should I get a prescription?

[MrsGamp]

At the age of 46 I am spending hundreds every month on Dex from a dealer. I am wondering if anyone has ever "come back" from a Dex addiction.

I've had the habit for about four years, after getting involved with a guy who took Dex for ADD. I was on anxiety meds and painkillers for arthritis. We ended up living together, and got extremely co-dependent. I guess we really did believe in "better living through chemistry". It got very nasty indeed. If alcohol was in the mix, there was sometimes terrible violence.

Anyway, it all ended with me in hospital and him in court for assault.
I doubt this would've happened had there not been Dex involved.

I've been out of hospital since February, and have been taking Dex almost every day. Also I've been drinking way too much - to mitigate the "come down". I'm not into staying awake for days on end, but every few days I have an all-nighter. Since I have to buy them now, there's financial havoc as well as psychological dependence.

I've had depression and anxiety disorders most of my life, and have been on anti depressants since I was only 19. They haven't ever done much for me.

Formerly I was a "high achiever" with a PhD and a promising academic career. But to be honest, even years before I got into Dex, I frequently self-medicated with OTC stuff like pseudo ephedrine (Sudafed) or codeine in order to "help me focus".

Actually, If I'm honest with myself, the only time I wrote and studied without popping pills was when I was pregnant and breastfeeding.

This makes me wonder: did I really need something to help me concentrate? Could I have ADD? If can get a decent quantity, I'll be quite moderate, and keep regular hours. But usually I can only buy in small quantities- which makes me more binge-prone, for some reason.

The thing that scares me most, though, is that maybe I've permanently damaged my brain's ability to produce dopamine and serotonin - I've read that this can happen with amphetamine abuse.

Has anyone gotten over a Dex habit? Or, on the other hand, could I have ADD? How do you know if you've got ADD?

help would be very welcome. Rehab is out of the question. I'd go to NarcAnon but there's no way I'd make it to a meeting without Dex.

I can't do anything at all without Dex right now. That's how it feels.

 

[negrogesic]

You mean dextroamphetamine? What are the doses involved?

Amphetamines are mostly psychologically addictive. I've been addicted to prescription stimulants, it frankly isn't that difficult to discontinue. The tiredness, cravings and lethargy passes pretty quickly.

You would be better off getting a prescription (unless you are using non-prescription doses, meaning over 60mg/day). Generic amphetamines are inexpensive, even without insurance.

 

[MrsGamp]

Hmm thing is I am needing more. Used to be I was happy on 25 mgs a day, now I need twice that much ...I know it's not a big dose, and people with ADD often take more.
If a person really has ADD, aren't the stimulants means to have a Valium type affect, rather than a "hyped up" feeling?
To be honest, I miss Sudafed! Of course it's controlled now because of meth menace. But it's a better "performance enhancer" for writing. Dex is a time vampire. You spend 4 hours trying to perfect a single sentence. And in doing so, you forget what you're even trying to write about...

 

[Wilson Wilson]

I would guess that the booze probably contributed more to violence than dex. Although dex does potentiate alcohol, it's the booze that causes violence, not dex.

But if you know you have an addiction and it's interfering with your life it's definitely a better idea to get off the stuff than get more of it. Personally my experiences with dex are very positive, and it helps me function massively, but I've never abused it. If you're more inclined to abuse stimulants stay away from it.

Most of the addiction is psychological with stims, there's not much physical dependency as there is with benzos or opiates, so the battle is in your mind so to speak. You have to be ready to get off it.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I don't want to diminish the size of yuor problem but it sounds like your addiction is as much psychological as it is physical. You say you've been self-medicating for years on stim stype stuff like sudafed. It may well be that you are on the ADHD spectrum and the problems you are having are just from taking too much and then getting drunk on top of it. Alcohol is a bitch of a drug for moods and concentration.

I used to to take speed and cocaine a lot before being diagnosed with ADHD (I'm also a PhD so lots of years of study problems before being diagnosed). I found that once I was on a prescribed regime of dex my usage of speed and cocaine basically stopped. However, I had solid goals to achieve that helped me not want to abuse and to get the most out of my script in terms of productivity.

My prescribed dosage is 30 mg a day and doctor has been willing for me to take up to 50 mg on days I really need to crank out work - so your self-medicated dose is within therapeutic levels even though at the higher end.

Maybe, just maybe based on what you describe has happened in your life, you are not getting crashes from not having dex (I'd be surprised at that level) but the dex is blocking depression and anxiety that is your actual normal. Stopping the dex won't fix that.

My advice is to lay off the booze, reduce your dex to say 30 (6 x 5) then 15 mg a day (3 x 5 mg) over a period and have a good look at how you are feeling about life. Depending on your resulting mood and your level of concentration and focus at those lower doses you'll know wheter you need to be getting help for depression or getting a diagnosis for ADHD and a proper script.

Hope this helps.

 

[MrsGamp]

Thanks....

I don't want to diminish the size of yuor problem but it sounds like your addiction is as much psychological as it is physical. You say you've been self-medicating for years on stim stype stuff like sudafed. It may well be that you are on the ADHD spectrum and the problems you are having are just from taking too much and then getting drunk on top of it. Alcohol is a bitch of a drug for moods and concentration.

I used to to take speed and cocaine a lot before being diagnosed with ADHD (I'm also a PhD so lots of years of study problems before being diagnosed). I found that once I was on a prescribed regime of dex my usage of speed and cocaine basically stopped. However, I had solid goals to achieve that helped me not want to abuse and to get the most out of my script in terms of productivity.

My prescribed dosage is 30 mg a day and doctor has been willing for me to take up to 50 mg on days I really need to crank out work - so your self-medicated dose is within therapeutic levels even though at the higher end.

Maybe, just maybe based on what you describe has happened in your life, you are not getting crashes from not having dex (I'd be surprised at that level) but the dex is blocking depression and anxiety that is your actual normal. Stopping the dex won't fix that.

My advice is to lay off the booze, reduce your dex to say 30 (6 x 5) then 15 mg a day (3 x 5 mg) over a period and have a good look at how you are feeling about life. Depending on your resulting mood and your level of concentration and focus at those lower doses you'll know wheter you need to be getting help for depression or getting a diagnosis for ADHD and a proper script.

Hope this helps.

I don't want to diminish the size of yuor problem but it sounds like your addiction is as much psychological as it is physical. You say you've been self-medicating for years on stim stype stuff like sudafed. It may well be that you are on the ADHD spectrum and the problems you are having are just from taking too much and then getting drunk on top of it. Alcohol is a bitch of a drug for moods and concentration.

I used to to take speed and cocaine a lot before being diagnosed with ADHD (I'm also a PhD so lots of years of study problems before being diagnosed). I found that once I was on a prescribed regime of dex my usage of speed and cocaine basically stopped. However, I had solid goals to achieve that helped me not want to abuse and to get the most out of my script in terms of productivity.

My prescribed dosage is 30 mg a day and doctor has been willing for me to take up to 50 mg on days I really need to crank out work - so your self-medicated dose is within therapeutic levels even though at the higher end.

Maybe, just maybe based on what you describe has happened in your life, you are not getting crashes from not having dex (I'd be surprised at that level) but the dex is blocking depression and anxiety that is your actual normal. Stopping the dex won't fix that.

My advice is to lay off the booze, reduce your dex to say 30 (6 x 5) then 15 mg a day (3 x 5 mg) over a period and have a good look at how you are feeling about life. Depending on your resulting mood and your level of concentration and focus at those lower doses you'll know wheter you need to be getting help for depression or getting a diagnosis for ADHD and a proper script.

Hope this helps.

Maybe, just maybe based on what you describe has happened in your life, you are not getting crashes from not having dex (I'd be surprised at that level) but the dex is blocking depression and anxiety that is your actual normal. Stopping the dex won't fix that.


YES that is the thing. I've always been afflicted by sadness, worries, neurotic shit ... but even the most together person would be feel pretty poorly given some of the things that have happened to me over the last 7 years. Aside from the problems with my ex, my mother brutally committed suicide in 2013 ... still haven't "dealt" with that. I don't think it's possible to "deal" with that, or get "closure"....(why are marketing terms so popular in grief counselling?)

I haven't lived with my daughter since she was 13 (she's 17 now). I know it's hard to believe, but it wasn't drug/alcohol abuse that caused our rift ... a long story, but basically her Dad got a raise which meant he had to triple his child support payments. So he just stopped bringing her to stay with me, in defiance of court orders. I got a family court hearing after several months. Via a court-ordered psych evaluation, I discovered that my daughter "no longer respected me" because I wasn't well off and "had no life skills". The psych was of the opinion that her Dad had done a number on her, and recommended all sorts of non-enforceable things like counselling and mediation, which of course never happened. Argh. Tis a long tale. But the Dex thing started a year after all this had gone done, not before ...

Finally my daughter and I are friends again. But the other day there was an A-class fuck up though. I was juggling texts between my daughter and a friend who wanted me to bring some Dex round for him, since I was about to go see the good old reliable rip-off drug dealer again. I accidentally sent a text which was unmistakably all about lining shit up with a dealer to my DAUGHTER, who has no idea about any of this crap.

So FUCK FUCK FUCK. Tried to to bullshit my way out of it. She said, "Mum, I don't care." All the same I didn't hear from her for a couple of days. Because of COVID lockdown I couldn't see her on her birthday, so I ended up posting her birthday gifts to her. To my ENORMOUS relief, she texted with seemingly sincere gratitude and affectio when she received them. So right now, I am thinking: "less said, soonest mended"....

Unfortunately one of the presents I sent her was a copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I hope she doesn't think I'm trying to base my world on Hunter S Thompson ....

 

[JoEhJoEh]

I would rather say get diagnosed and get you prescription. Also for when you driving a car, you could get immensive problems!

JJ