Recent quotes:

America’s Love Affair with Adderall | The Free Press

Each maintained their childhood prescriptions throughout high school and college, and into their professional lives. Each had a wake-up call that prompted them to get off the drug. For Sloan Tate, it was realizing she lacked the emotional capacity to mourn when her grandmother died. Alex Cosec, a 32-year-old guitar player, real estate photographer, and fitness coach from Minneapolis, told me he decided to join Narcotics Anonymous after his ex-girlfriend called the cops on him when he took too much Adderall, among other substances, and began throwing things in their apartment.  “I’m the Adderall addict,” Cat Marnell told me. She has a claim to the title. At one point she was taking 120 milligrams of Adderall a day (60 milligrams is a high prescription dose). She wrote a book about it. She’s been in rehab for Adderall five times. Marnell was prescribed Adderall at 19 after being on Ritalin for most of her life. Adderall was different for Marnell. “Adderall was much more of a narcotic experience, and so at age 19 that was very appealing to me to be flying high from it. And that very swiftly turned into sleepless nights, dependency, obsession, a celebration of it. I was absolutely in love with Adderall,” she told me.

America’s Love Affair with Adderall | The Free Press

He compares having ADHD to blurred vision. “You could spend your life with it, but think how much more you could get done with glasses. The medicine is the glasses.”

America’s Love Affair with Adderall | The Free Press

Many TikTok videos list ways to get an Adderall prescription online and how to self-diagnose ADHD (three symptoms cited by the CDC include being “easily distracted,” acting as if “driven by a motor,” and having “trouble organizing tasks and activities”). Studies have found that watching TikTok increases self-diagnosis for ADHD. The hashtag #ADHD has 14 billion views, and #ADHDdiagnosis has 46.1 million views.  Last year the company Cerebral, which provides online therapy and medication, was the third largest advertiser on TikTok after Amazon and HBO. After filling out a questionnaire, followed by a 30-minute video call with a “licensed prescriber,” Cerebral can provide an ADHD diagnosis and prescription for medication.

America’s Love Affair with Adderall | The Free Press

Over the past few months, however, things have changed. James has been waking up around 1:00 p.m. “I don’t really ever start my day,” he says. He has to make to-do lists to keep himself on track and to remember basic chores like laundry and homework. The cause is the nationwide shortage of Adderall, which the FDA declared about eight months ago. Without his daily pills, James is unraveling: “I no longer have the self-motivating chemicals to go outside,” he told me. “I’m definitely feeling really down.”

Adderall Risks: Much More Than You Wanted To Know | Slate Star Codex

I didn’t realize how much of a psychiatrist’s time was spent gatekeeping Adderall.