Hi all,

I'm in my late 20s and have been taking an ADHD medication for 1.5 years now. My psychiatrist brought up the idea to me rather than the other way around after a few meetings and discussions. The meds were quite effective at improving my life for the first half year or so but slowly lost their effectiveness despite upping the dose to the current max dose. Tomorrow, I am going to be switching to a different brand/form (Ritalin) in the hopes that it will be as effective as when I first started the initial med.

But I've just realized, I've never questioned whether I actually DO have ADHD or whether I was prescribed it just to help w/ a few ADHD type symptoms though I don't actually have ADHD. In other words, I've never asked myself "did I find a rare, 1 in a hundred doc, that willingly prescribed it to me? Or would any doc bring up the idea given my background?"

True facts about myself that I've shared w/ the doc before starting on the meds 1.5 years ago:

1. I did terrible at the start of college and not that good during high school. My siblings always studied harder than me, got better grades, and got into better colleges...not sure if they're smarter or not, but I do know for a fact they spent around 1000x more time studying than me (I basically never studied). I did develop a fear of failure though and during the 2nd half of college, changed my ways and ended up doing very well (top 15% of class) without the help of meds.

2. I'm addiction-prone...not to drugs but activities, in particular poker and certain videogames.

3. I neglect things often in my life and procrastinate and am messy. Again, I managed to somehow overcome this during around a 4 year period of late college/early post-college, but found that I was starting to return to old ways. I often arrive to appointments a few minutes late or exactly on time and often pay bank fees due to a dumb mistake like making a payment a day late.

4. I'm not very motivated to improve things in my life, such as social life, job status, better relationships, ect. I'm more of an observer of life rather than initiator. The ONLY thing I've ever found I'm very motivated to do is improve at poker, perhaps because the reward from effort is so obvious/clear.

What did your therapist say when you asked him?

tldr

There's no free lunch. You can take stimulants to improve things for a while, but eventually it doesn't do much.

As for prescribing speed, doctors in America do it all the time, doctors in Europe rarely do. They're both high qualified doctors. That tells you all you need to know.

Have you tried diet, exercise, upping your magnesium intake? These tend to be more effective and longer lasting. Apart from that you probably just need to start setting goals. Think about what you care about enough to get up off your ass and do something about it. Everyone has something, it's just matter of finding it. Your brain/habits/motivation system is broken in some way, but not irreparably given that you've succeeded before. Everyone has their drawbacks. You can usually figure out a way around them if you want to.
Poker and video games could easily be your problem. You never get bored enough to actually get off your ass when you can always escape into a different world. As discipline training, try setting certain days or even weeks when you don't turn on the computer. Allow yourself to become mad with boredom without your electronics. Boredom is a great motivator, a powerful creative and organizing force, and modern electronics have largely robbed us of it. Poker is the worst as it ties into real world success ("making money"), so you can delude yourself into thinking you're doing something sane/for your future when in reality you're just being unhealthy.

Just meditate, it will strengthen you attention muscle. Putting people on amphetamines isn't how you fix a mental health problem.

Ben,

How did things go with the engaged girl?

These are the questions we need answers to.

Some of what you have said in this thread doesn't seem to correlate to what you were saying in the Engaged thread.

Ah, that seems like a distant dream now lol. I never did anything. She's getting married in 2 months. When I made that thread, it was probably too late to make a move (like many posters correctly pointed out) and at this point, it's certainly too late.

What doesn't correlate? And wow, surprised you guys remember a thread from half a year ago.

another troll thread how nice

It's not too late.

I think you mean

Start lifting and get more sun. Basicslly all anyone needs to do.

I don't know why more people don't come to Dr. OOT for their medical advice.

This ended up being an even worse thread than I thought it would be

Keep taking them if you feel a need to have excuses ready to make.

why do you want to make poker $ if you only want to sit back and observe life?

weed is tight