<p>I was prescribed Adderall for ADHD last summer after a bad freshman year. As long as I can remember, I’ve been academically unmotivated in general, with spontaneous week-to-month bursts of extreme interest and concentration in particular areas. When I’m unmotivated, I’m highly error-prone: reading slowly because I don’t process information well without backtracking over paragraphs, feeling mentally paralyzed by writing-intensive math problems like a little kid facing a huge mess in his room to clean up, etc. I’m also a maladaptive perfectionist. I figured that I either lacked self-discipline or had some learning difficulty without knowing it, but that it couldn’t hurt to talk to a psychiatrist about it. I was honest about my lifestyle and he said I meet the criteria for inattentive ADHD. He prescribed me a very low dosage (15 mg daily of IR tablets) and told me to increase it gradually, under his supervision, if it was free of side-effects but insufficient.</p>
<p>When I took it at work (software development summer job), it was wonderful. It made me hyper-motivated and even helped with my perfectionism. Coming down in the afternoon was only slightly uncomfortable and lasted for a few minutes.</p>
<p>But on the first day of my sophomore year, still on 10 mg morning / 5 mg noon, I had a massive panic attack with >160 bpm palpitations. My body locked up, my limbs almost went numb, I could barely see, and I was convinced I would die. I didn’t know what to do but go to the emergency room. They told me that stimulants like amphetamine and cocaine often do that (though normally at several times my dosage), and that I was slightly hypokalemic, so after an EKG I went home with potassium supplements and I drank plenty of water. It took two days for my heart rate to return to normal and for the anxiety to subside. I knew stimulants can cause anxiety and even psychosis, but I had no idea it could happen at 10 mg.</p>
<p>Since then, I’ve tried it a couple times in doses as small as possible (<1 mg chips of tablets), at home in my mom’s presence, and each time I became jittery and anxious. Even writing about it is uncomfortable because I partially relive the panic attack. I’m now very cautious about every drug I might potentially take, regardless of its function or legality. That’s driven more by paranoia than by a rational belief that every drug out there would likely kill me.</p>
<p>My rational opinion of drugs is that they are a perfectly legitimate, if risky, way to improve life in any number of ways. Some people need them to function while others want them for recreation or performance enhancement; all of the above are personal, amoral decisions. I am deeply bothered by people who criticize otherwise-healthy drug users on the grounds of lazy shortcut-taking or “you’re not smart or motivated enough on your own so you cheated like a doped athlete.” That’s extremely hypocritical from anyone who drinks caffeine or smokes tobacco, and it demonstrates willful ignorance (don’t make wild judgments about something you refuse to try for yourself), arrogance (you’re not better than someone else just for doing something unaided), and a backward view of science and technology (artificial enhancements to the body aren’t inherently evil). Study drugs are just one of those high-risk, high-reward opportunities in life. I’m also a long-time critic of drug laws, as the government shouldn’t tell people what to do with their bodies and banning drugs or restricting them to prescriptions only pushes the trade underground.</p>
<p>However, I agree that taking study drugs without medical supervision is dangerous due to side effects and addictiveness, and demonstrates ignorance or a lack of care for the user’s own health and safety. Doctors should also be far more careful in determining how much patients would benefit from ADHD medication and they should thoroughly explain all risks. They should also take into account psychological risks like anxiety disorders (which I seem to have) and addictive behavior because those are just as important and consequential as physiological risks like heart disease and contraindications. The advisory role of a doctor is underrated. Likewise, someone who gives large quantities of a drug to a friend is a pretty bad friend, especially if the drug is sold for profit instead of given in the interest of the receiver’s well-being. I think the world would be a healthier place overall if doctors and patients knew more and cared more about what ADHD medication can do to someone. Parents are equally at fault for pressuring their kids early in school and assuming their kids have learning disabilites because of less-than-perfect performance. Again, it never hurts to talk to a psychiatrist, but that requires healthy skepticism and an understanding that kids are kids.</p>
<p>Furthermore, overuse of ADHD medication is bringing unnecessarily bad publicity to it. Many drugs are illegal even though they shouldn’t be (e.g. LSD) because so many people jumped on the bandwagon that a moral panic ensued. I hate to see the same kind of stigma attached to medication that can help people overcome severe problems.</p>
<p>I also think the use of study drugs to handle the pressure of grades is sometimes an unhealthy attitude. I can’t fault someone for trying different methods to improve studying. I applaud someone who uses study time efficiently, whether by finding the right time of day for mental activity or by using drugs within reason. But in reality, most people use drugs to cram before finals when they learn how unprepared they are. Procrastination/cramming is a weakness of mine and I’m sad to see how many people share it. (I just haven’t used substances to help me cram, not because I believe it’s evil, but because the side effects of caffeine and Adderall are miserable in different ways.) Alternatively, overachievers use it to cut into their sleep and leisure so they can handle huge workloads. I just don’t like that lifestyle; I prefer a more leisurely pace of life that lets me focus on extracurricular intellectual interests for enjoyment. I think many intelligent students would be happier if they didn’t cram so many difficult units into their schedules. It would certainly alleviate the pressure to use drugs to keep up with school.</p>