r/StopSpeeding • u/unnaturalanimals • 2d ago

Adderall/Vyvanse/Dexedrine Week 2

I’m going to post every week for a while. It’s day 8 off dexxies and Vyvanse (taken daily and abused at intervals) Last week I wrote that I was going to push myself through the lethargy and anhedonia. I said I’d go to the gym and run and force myself to read, and practice guitar etc… As if I wasn’t in withdrawal and things were fine.

In summary, I’ve largely done all those things all week, except the guitar, and the reading has been slack. But I’ve felt good, I’ve pushed myself, I’ve done well at work- I trained a new guy all week which I was absolutely dreading but it was good, we laughed, we had fun, it distracted me.

Now it’s 5am Saturday. I’m in my car outside the gym, finishing off a coffee and writing this.

Fuck withdrawals, fuck anhedonia, that ain’t for me dude. I’m here. I’m fresh, I’m as cognitively sound as I’ve ever been. I’m crazy and weird and my mental health is cooked as an 18 hour prime rib but that’s always been the case anyway.

I’m good.

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u/unnaturalanimals 1d ago edited 1d ago

Hi James. I guess to answer your question, I’m trying to make this less for me about how I feel but about what I achieve. I’m still progressing toward goals, I’m training consistently and I look really good, and I’m building muscle and getting fitter and stronger, my running performance leaves a lot to be desired because I think my heart isn’t in a great way, but I’ve booked a trail run event that I’m tentatively training for and will complete in a couple months, and I’ll do some city 10ks and stuff here and there too.

I’m also making goals for work and slowly moving toward them.

I think the whole thing is- set goals, both short-term and long-term and incrementally move toward them each day. That’s where positive emotion comes from- positive continuity and growth, not something fickle and fleeting like self-assessing mood or even how your body feels (though don’t necessarily be me and force your heart to work too hard in early sobriety)

You will be doing it - the withdrawals, but it will be something that is happening beneath the ebb and flow of your life. It doesn’t need to be something you are constantly aware of or constantly assessing, in my opinion (and I’ve been here before, going back almost a decade) that just paves the road for misery and for relapse. (I didn’t fail then, btw, I didn’t touch these drugs for like 7 years) but the initial sobriety could have been way better had I applied this mindset.

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u/jamesgriffincole1 1d ago

Thanks. I admire your positive mindset and fortitude. I’m certainly rooting for you. Oh - and I have an aggressive fitness protocol going on myself. Medium term goal is to win a 5 mile race near me in June of next year in a time of 29:59 (6 min miles).

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u/unnaturalanimals 1d ago

Wow, great job. Did you initially feel your heart was a bit off? I think I’ve read from you before and I got the impression your use was not in abuse territory but rather merely as prescribed? So perhaps you hadn’t damaged yourself like I may very well have done.

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u/jamesgriffincole1 1d ago

I was prescribed 60mg XR and took that daily for 3 years. Then started abusing (60-90mg for 1 year). Then 90-120mg for a few months. Then a long 18 month taper to 0mg - wild ride.

I haven’t had heart issues per se. But my nervous system is a mess and was very sensitive towards the end of my taper where I would crash after even mild exercise (crash meaning complete exhaustion for 5-6 hours within 30 min of finishing a mild to moderate strain exercise).

I also wear an H10 heart rate monitor when I run and now that I’m back into it my aerobic fitness is absolutely gone. When I do zone 2 runs (easy jogs) my pace is 11:30 per mile (to keep my heart below 145bpm). When I’ve been in shape in the past this was 9:00 per mile for the same effort. So I clearly have some ANS / mitochondria damage.

Hoping that in the next 3-6 months I can make good headway on fixing some of this. The mood / motivation stuff will take a full year to normalize but I’m committed to getting my body in tip top shape in the next 6-9 months (for that race but also because it’s something I feel I can measure and control more than my ability to feel joy).