Damn Adderall

I'm cygx. A bit about me: I'm a 29 year old stay at home father who has been diagnosed with clinical depression, ADHD, and Asperger's. I'm currently in a relationship of 7 years, the condition of which being pretty stable I would say, setting aside the hills and valleys one must expect.

About two hours ago, I found this website via reddit's /nofap board. Not getting into too much detail, I had just "finished" a marathon that started up yesterday afternoon after I took my Adderall. When I was done, I was left with an all-too-familiar feeling of regret for the ~24 hours I wasted essentially accomplishing nothing. So I went to google to see what others who take amphetamine do to keep this from happening and stay on task. While reading, I found a mention of this place, so here I am.

I am iffy about whether or not I actually belong here, seeing that my compulsions are primarily medication induced. However, to say that because of this my problem is superficial (as I have been) is to ignore the problem and inevitably have to keep running into it another time. Therefore I'm trying my luck here because some support certainly wouldn't hurt.

Briefly explained, I have been on Adderall for just over a year and a half and am now on 60mg a day. Its benefits have outweighed its drawbacks so reducing or tapering off is not an option. The problem is that I now have a relatively new demon in the form of sexual compulsion every time I take it, and since I never had to steel my willpower for such a thing it kinda just crept up on me.

With that said, however, I don't believe I am incapable of equipping myself with the right tools; I just need to learn how. To that end, here I am.

 

That was a question I had to think about for a bit, because I never asked it myself. Now that I did, to say I have a definitive answer would be lying, but at the same time I don't think that's quite it...not completely, at least. As I mentioned, the "problem" just kinda crept up on me. That's not to say I never recognized significant change in my compulsions while on my medication, but rather I just lived with it. I enjoyed it, like a 1/2/sometimes 3 day cigarette. This, coupled with the straight and narrow linear focus my medication causes, must have lead me to not pay the issue the mind I should have because I simply wasn't thinking about applying my willpower to do something about it. However, like a smoking habit, this obviously could have some negative repercussions (if not already) on my and my family's well-being if I don't put a conscious stop to it.

With this in mind, I think it's safe to say the aspect of my willpower is now in play where it was not before. However I could be wrong about all of this on a subconscious level, so I suppose I could best answer you by saying "we'll see if that's what it was".

 

Hey Joe, thanks for that video. It's funny how being told what you already (thought you) knew can act as a good wake-up call. I guess it depends on the approach and the timing. I'll never understand how, but there's more to language than just the words themselves.

As far as an underlying problem beyond the medication itself is concerned...well that one was obvious too for me. I am far from connecting all the dots, but after reading your message and some more self-reflection, I am forced to admit for the sake of bettering myself that I live with a perpetual state of boredom/disinterest/disconnection (in one word). There's more to it than that but for the sake of verbalizing my thoughts both as quickly and accurately as possible, that pretty much sums up what I believe to be at least one key driving factor in my dilemma.

As far as there being an underlying cause for that? I think it's safe to put that on my inherited depression.

Solutions? Well the first one that comes to mind is to get on more meds. I can't help but think that won't be the best solution though. I had the willpower to quit smoking 4 years ago from a pack and a half a day, cold turkey. To be fair, I've always seen nicotine withdrawal as something to experience, something to feel, and in retrospect that in itself served as its own temporary relief from what I described, so there probably wasn't all too much willpower necessary. Regardless of this, it's been foolish to just let whatever ability I have or do not have just collect dust.

So putting that solution aside, I'm left to stick it out as I have been. I don't think that's so bad though. This is my first time trying a support group with anything and from what I've been seeing on the forum, I think sticking around here is the right choice.

Thanks again for the video, and for taking the time.

 

Quick update because I think it's important to get this out in the open. I'm currently in the process of wiping all fapworthy data from my hard drive. As I was doing it, I noticed resistance, and uneasiness (and obviously arousal). This is still going through my head, and the feeling can loosely be worded like this...

At least with the porn I had something to pacify my boredom. What will I replace the time with? Thinking about how bored I am? (I'm using the term "bored" for lack of a better word, the feeling is more of an all-encompassing emptiness)

Well I guess I'd turn to one of my lifetime hobbies: playing video games. Sounds great on paper.

Then I have to face the realization that video games have, for a long time, no longer filled the hole for me. That same familiar feeling of boredom/disinterest/disconnection (in one word) looms even as I play and affects my hobby the same way it affects everything else in my life.

Video games don't give me that intense "alive" feeling that pacifies that constant cloud of boredom always looming over me.

They did at one point when I was a kid, but somewhere along the way it just stopped doing the trick.

Now I have to ask: at what point in my life did my passions slip away and lose their effect?

It then follows: did I not notice? I did notice, but it was such a gradual, inconsequential thing, not worth putting my energy into fixing. Better to have put that energy into stabilizing my (sometimes drastic) life situations as I grew older.

That's exactly what I did. In the interest of survival/success, I made the subconscious decision to pick what I believed to be the better of two evils and I never turned back.

I feel better now. I'll resume my deletions. It's annoying though, no matter how much one can lay the obvious out on the table in black and white, no matter how chiseled in stone the logic is, feelings/desire can always hop right back in and the moment it does, we "reason" that because we feel this way, anything that gets in the way of feeling that desire out is BS.

"what are you doing!? that's such a waste, look how hot she is!"

When my computer is clear I'll officially set up my markers in my sig. Long road ahead for me too.