Help?

[louisvillemusicman]

I need someone to help me give a definition to my problem. I feel like I have an addiction to Focalin but I can't figure out it out. From everything I've read online, someone with an amphetamine addiction will stay up for days and keep dosing and I never do this. Is this only the point where it is very severe? I snort the damn stuff everyday but I know what time of the day I can take it without losing sleep. So like, if I have the change to dose before 4 then I will but after that point I won't touch the stuff because I know I'll be up all night and I have no problem not touching it. But if I know I can do it without losing any sleep then I will instantly do it. And if I ingest it early in the day and I start to come down then I will take it again but if I take it later on in the day and start coming down I won't take it again.
To sum this all up, I abuse it daily unless that means having my sleep schedule interrupted. Can anyone give me some external input on my situation? Just anything at all really. I am getting pretty sick of how things are going.
I feel like what I just wrote doesn't make sense and if doesn't I apologize but if it does, knowing there is someone out there to give me some advice or commentary would really help out a lot.
Thanks
Love & Peace,
Ben

 

[herbavore]

What you wrote makes perfect sense. It sounds like yo are wondering whether or not this is addiction. You feel controlled by using every day and in your words you are "sick of how things are going". To me that means that you are dependent on the drug even though you can still manage to stay away from it when you know it will affect your sleep. So, why not cut it out of your life before it does become a full blown addiction?

It seems to me that you are in a very good place to stop abusing daily. You are aware of the problem, you are still at a point where you can say no to it occasionally and you are sick of your own dependence. I think the fact that you wrote this shows you that you would rather be free of this drug now. Hopefully you will get some responses from people that have experience quitting.

 

[Dave]

Technically, one is not addicted unless one tries and fails to quit. Or at least according to an intro-level 'drugs of abuse' pharmacology course I took seven years ago :/

Herbavore's right though: you're still able to quit, but you're a bit bothered by the amount that you're taking it, so why not take a break? Years after my troubles with GHB, I came across some randomly. I dove right in, and within a week I was dosing twice a day. Thankfully, from what I had learned over the years (here, elsewhere and experientially) I knew that I could still stop with minimal troubles, so I did. Nothing for a week, and then rationed the last of the bottle out.

The central issue that people outside the community appear to have regarding Harm Reduction is that they claim that it glorifies drug use, which in their minds is the same as addiction. Those of us who either have or do indulge know otherwise, but the line between the two can be blurry, especially when one starts off enjoying the materials somewhat responsibly. Here in TDS our scope covers (non-exclusively, of course) those who have already crossed the line to addiction, but you have the opportunity to decide where you can go with this. Keep treading the same path-- having your dependence entrenched to the point of addiction-- or start taking breaks and taking a closer look as to why you're taking that drug in the first place.

So, the quick answer (minus the convoluted foreward ) to your implied question of 'Am I Addicted?' is this: your call.