Telehealth Psychiatry geared towards Recovery?

[ehrai]

I’ve got a moderate adderall addiction. I do want to consult and whatnot with a psychiatric professional instead of relying on only my own research, but I’d prefer it not be my current psychiatrist, who prescribes me 30mg a day, about a fourth of what I take.

Does anything like this exist?

 

[Jerry Atrick]

I’ve got a moderate adderall addiction. I do want to consult and whatnot with a psychiatric professional instead of relying on only my own research, but I’d prefer it not be my current psychiatrist, who prescribes me 30mg a day, about a fourth of what I take.

Does anything like this exist?

Hey there, welcome to Bluelight.

Honestly since the pandemic started, about the only psychiatric appts I've been able to get are telehealth. I even got a new psychiatrist in February that is in another city 200 miles away and I've never met him in person. Do you want to replace your current psychiatrist or just get a second opinion?

If you want a replacement, the new psychiatrist may want to review your chart with the current psych, so you may not be able to keep them secret from each other.

If you just want a second opinion, then all you would need to do is just find one willing to see you as a new patient and ask what you want to ask. If they ask for your chart, then you have to decide what you want to do from there.

Since adderall has the potential to be abused, you may just want to fess up to your current doc and be honest about what you've been doing and hope he doesn't take you off it. Maybe someone else has more experience than me since I have never been prescribed this medication.

 

[arrall]

As @Jerry Atrick said, most psychiatry is telehealth these days. Though waiting lists can be quite long due to the massive increase in demand for psychiatric services caused by the pandemic and subsequent recession.

But I honestly don’t know how much faith I’d have in a psychiatrist being able to treat medication addiction without taking you off of it. Many psychiatrists have little to no training in harm reduction, trauma, and properly treating substance abuse.

The best way to treat an addiction is to address the issues that are causing you to abuse your drug of choice in the first place.
Trying to get clean without treating the issues that pushed you to use in the first place is like treating all of the symptoms of a disease while doing absolutely nothing to address or cure the disease. It is bound to fail.

The vast majority of substance abuse is due to trauma of some sort, and therefore the solution almost always involves therapy. I would encourage you to find a good therapist as a first step here.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t find a doctor to help you deal with the Adderall abuse as well. 120mg per day is quite a bit to be taking and not at all sustainable. But treating whatever is pushing you to put large amounts of amphetamine in your body on a daily basis is the first step here.