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Using Adderall In the Office To Get Ahead
HughPickens.com writes: The NY Times reports on the changing usage of psychostimulants like Adderall. They were once only prescribed to help children with attention deficit disorders focus on their school work, but then college students found those drugs could increase their ability to study. Now a growing number of workers use them to help compete. What will happen as these drugs are more widely used in the workplace? According to Anjan Chatterjee, the use of neurotechnologies to enhance healthy people's brain function could easily become widespread. "If anything, we worship workplace productivity by any means. Americans work longer hours and take fewer vacations than most others in the developed world. Why not add drugs to energize, focus and limit that annoying waste of time — sleep?" Julian Savulescu says that what defines human beings is their extraordinary cognitive power and their ability to enhance that power through reading, writing, computing and now smart drugs. "Eighty-five percent of Americans use caffeine. Nicotine and sugar are also cognitive enhancers," says Savulescu.
But cognitive neurologist Martha Farah says regular use on the job is an invitation to dependence. "I also worry about the effect of drug-fueled productivity on people other than the users," says Farah. "It is not hard to imagine a supervisor telling employees that this is the standard they should aspire to in their work, however they manage to do it (hint, hint). The eventual result will be a ratcheting up of "normal" productivity, where everyone uses (and the early adopters' advantage is only fleeting)."
But cognitive neurologist Martha Farah says regular use on the job is an invitation to dependence. "I also worry about the effect of drug-fueled productivity on people other than the users," says Farah. "It is not hard to imagine a supervisor telling employees that this is the standard they should aspire to in their work, however they manage to do it (hint, hint). The eventual result will be a ratcheting up of "normal" productivity, where everyone uses (and the early adopters' advantage is only fleeting)."
the stains become a warning
If there are few to no negative side effects, what does it matter if people lean on these drugs to work?
I've not used them myself, but I don't care if others do.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Obviously we need to be focusing on people that smoke weed.
I thought this was going to be a guide.
The great paul ErdÅ's died at 83 and published over 1000 papers. He was an avid amphetamine user.
Americans work longer hours and take fewer vacations than most others in the developed world.
We shoot each other more often as well.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
The only people I've met who take adderall are all screwed up. They might take it and 'think' they're being production but in reality they're completely scatterbrained running around the office looking super busy and talking non stop. They're more the butt of all the office jokes than anyone you could consider an actual productive member of the office.
I am completely and totally for letting people have the freedom to do whatever drugs they want to. The war on drugs has been a blight on our civilation long enough
That being said, a world where taking things like adderall to compete in the employment world is not only accepted but possibly even expected scares the shit out of me.
The future of supervisors recommending their subordinates take medication such as adderall is already here. I've witnessed it myself at an ad and marketing agency in the northeast. A marketing director was pulled aside by a VP and president of the agency to say they've noticed a slight slowdown in her performance over the past year. They said it's okay, it "happens as we get older" and recommended she speak with one of several friendly doctors they recommend her for medication to give her a more youthful edge.
After that I understood the insanity behind the eyes of that VP, and how they could go from 7am to 2am for a week without crashing like others.
When this came up a number of years ago on another forum, someone wrote:
[...] if the scientist working on a cure for cancer is doing this um what's the problem? Even if it were to have some negative side effects, and he knowingly chooses to risk it b/c he feels it will help him.
And I wrote this (slightly edited here):
Let's walk a few years down this road. It's 2025, and ehancers are legal, or at least their use is tolerated.
Your son has just joined a law firm. The other new arrivals are using Modafinil, or its successor, to let them work 100+ billable hours per week. While his employment agreement explicitly states that he's not required to use any enhancers, it's also clear that he'll never make partner without them. Is there an element of compulsion here?
Your daughter is getting ready to take her SATs; she's smart and ambitious, and wants to get into a top-tier school, eventually going into med school. Recent anonymous surveys indicate that 20% or more of students taking the test are using enhancers. Nobody's been able to do a formal study, but there are indications that these students are seeing boosts of 200-300 points in their scores. What advice do you give your daughter?
Fast-forward another ten years. Your kids have been using enhancers for the entire time. Originally, they were just a way to get a little extra "edge" -- but, having established a performance baseline while using them, who wants to become "dumber", slower, or sleepier by giving them up?
The problem is, the drugs aren't working quite as well as they used to. It's not surprising, really, at least not to a cognitively-enhanced neurochemist; enhancers, particularly the primitive second- and third-generation varieties, lead to short-term habituation and long-term neurological adaptation. New drugs are better, and with their help, new researchers are smarter. But they still can't do much to help those who scarred their brains with the older drugs.
Your son is fairly secure in his position as a full partner, but the firm's newest hires are scary. Most of them simply don't sleep, ever; they're at the office for days at a time without rest, and when they do take "time off", they're out skydiving, or rock-climbing, or just partying. Partners have always had the power in law firms -- but how long can they maintain power when their underlings are so much smarter and more ambitious?
Your daughter... your daughter isn't doing so well. She's landed a great residency, but the early-21st-century movement to limit the length of residents' shifts faltered and died in the face of enhancement drugs. She doesn't really need sleep, but she misses it, and she misses the companionship that was once associated with it. (Who wants to be involved with a surgical resident, who's almost never home?) When she does try to sleep, her dreams are invaded by the brain-burn victims she sees at work, and she wakes up screaming.
And sometimes the dreams intrude while she's nominally "awake". It's an increasingly common syndrome in long-term gen-3 enhancement users. The neurochemists are hoping that the new gen-5 products will help reduce this symptom.
I think we will go down this road. There's a very good chance I'll go down this road -- I've never felt like there was any such thing as being "smart enough". I think people in general, and researchers in particular, will be able to become "more intelligent", and once they do, they'll be able to figure out ways to accelerate the process.
But I think it's going to hurt. A lot.
America, a nation of Stakhanovites.
Here's the response I gave when coworkers at the office ask if I drink coffee:
> They don't pay me enough to take performance enhancing drugs.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
It's not just pot or meth. It's true for alcohol as well. The general phenomenon is called state-dependent memory, and it's been established science for many decades -- the Wikipedia article cites a text from 1835.
It's all just the placebo effect. They think this helps them work better. Just like pot they think people work better. But it's really just the person being happy they get to smoke pot that puts them in a good mood. Happy people are not productive
This drug is two amphetamine salts mixed together. The amphetamine users I knew had very adverse side effects (especially the dead one); how could this possibly become legal?
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135908.The_Tomorrow_File
I worked at a company that knew I was snorting meth. And on adderall. I wasn't the only one. The company kept encouraging us to go as fast and focused as possible, taking full advantage.
Is it biology and psychopharmacology that are the limits on our drug development or is it some kind of bullshit puritanism that's opposed to success/wins/gains without the concomitant misery and suffering?
The drugs we have for feeling good, being productive, or increasing our sociability are just OK at best and kind of shitty at worst. The "productive" drugs (amphetamines, anti-narcoleptics, cocaine) tend to be somewhat-to-a-lot addictive and can produce psychosis and/or overdose death at the shitty end of the spectrum. The feel-good drugs (tranquilizers, barbiturates, opiates) also tend to be addictive, potentially deadly or induce depression. Sociability drugs are a mess, too -- alcohol, MDMA, cocaine all have serious drawbacks.
Of all the common drugs, only marijuana seems to escape most of the problems, although it has a habit-forming potential which will keep you stuck in mom's basement being a slug and watching Netflix or playing Xbox.
Why aren't we developing improved drugs that solve these problems -- reduce the risk of dependence, prevent overdose, basically provide as much of the desired effect with as little drawbacks as possible so that we don't have to have a ridiculous control regime, prisons, health problems, etc and people can take them as desired for their benefits without any significant downsides?
Provide a limited marginal utility of amount -- ie, the first N units provide most of the effect, taking more is just a waste because the effect tops out. I think Butalbital sort of does this by including low doses of naloxone, so that if its injected the naloxone inhibits the opioid effect. Couple this with a limited useful frequency -- the longer it has been since you last used the drug, the greater the effect, and the more often you take it decreases the effect.
Why aren't we creating better, safer drugs?
Looks like someone rediscovered Dan Hurley's book. I see they put nicotine on their wishlist, which is pretty stupid
Adderall is a phenethylamine class psychostimulant. It's 75% dextroamphetamine and 25% levoamphetamine.
Otherwise known as "speed". And yes, it's a short term cognitive enhancer, with some pretty negative long term effects. They used to give it to fighter pilots, and now the pilots tend to traffic in it themselves. They call them "go pills".
You are generally much better off taking things like caffeine, ocetam, piracetam, donepezil (aricept) or ergoloid (hydergine). if you absolutely feel the need to boost your IQ score for the duration of the drug, but they tend to have decreasing effects over time, and there's a ramp-down effect when you quit taking them, as your own neurotransmitters recover (if they do). Similar to long term pot use, they can reduce the overall available neurotransmitters naturally present, permanently altering your overall brain chemistry. Usually for the worse, if you aren't taking them as a means of treating an underlying condition.
Obviously, there no accounting for people who are going to try to tweak their brain chemistry anyway.
Then let's all agree not to take it. As we really only care about the relative performance when compared against your peers. If all your peers did it, you'd be in the same place you are now.
Might be better is if we all worked less, got paid less and hired a few more people. I realize some people want to work 50 hours a week (or more), but I don't and it's been hard to not do that and stay in my industry.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
If you get immunized, you also get ahead in live and work by unnaturally avoiding diseases. Lately there has been noise about forcing people to get shots no matter what they think. Personally I think you should have a choice. But if there are drugs for which beneficial effects dramatically outweigh side effects, I am all for their use becoming widespread. Adderall is definitely not it - current drugs are too blunt and uniformly carried thoughout the body, causing side effects to organs. The future is gene therapy or nano capsules that deliver active ingredients to only a targeted group of cells. On the other hand, people taking it now are volunteer guinea pigs who will help us one day come up with better and safer drugs.
What a load of shit. Luckily there are other MD's posting in the comments on just how biased this writer is. He's basically claiming ADHD is a kid's only issue, and all adults are just abusers. People like him must HATE people like myself...a doctor-monitored adderall prescription for several years now. With it, I'm able to more fully use my capabilities. Without it, people would always comment "your really smart, but..." due to all the random and chaotic things I would do and say. Honestly, without my prescription I'd probably either be dead or in jail. Even so, being unmedicated has already lead to the accidental death of someone VERY close to me...if I had been on it then I probably would have thought the situation through further. So this guy can go fuck himself, and I'd tell that to his face is ever given the chance.
If there is a drug that will make you more productive to your employer, it will be embraced and encouraged.
If there's a drug that gives you pleasure, but doesn't bring a similar boost to a company's bottom line, it will get you sent to jail.
Let's not pretend that adderall in the workplace isn't just more capitalist social engineering. They'll exploit you any way they can.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Here's a class of drugs you've never heard of before, called amphetamines. Here's a photo of what you look like if you take them a lot: those awful before-and-after photos
Now go take some Adderal. It's the same, just weaker. You'll be fine. Go make a little more money. Fuck sleep and living well.
"Your son is fairly secure in his position as a full partner, but the firm's newest hires are scary. Most of them simply don't sleep, ever; they're at the office for days at a time without rest, and when they do take "time off", they're out skydiving, or rock-climbing, or just partying. Partners have always had the power in law firms -- but how long can they maintain power when their underlings are so much smarter and more ambitious?"
Senior technical person here, >20 years experience. Top performer, creative, award winner, generating new work,etc.
Annual performance review time... Supervisor says. "You're doing great. Your raise is at the top of the range we're allowed to give. You got a bonus. But, there's a bunch of scary smart fresh-outs coming in. They don't sleep, they're incredibly productive, they're cheap (50% of my pay), they aren't married, they don't have kids. What are you going to do to differentiate yourself?"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Actually, modern black tar heroin is a well controlled product distributed by a bunch of entreprenurial folks, etc. Very much not the "french connection" with Mafia involved, and 37 dilution steps of unknown purity.
But the general comment you make is valid.
I do take something similar to Adderal in the workplace, and yes, it gives me an edge over some others. I started taking this because I had a real problem with concentration, by today's standard. That last part, "by today's standard", is the important distinction to make. Let's not kid ourselves here, this ADD/ADHD problem did not appear among humans just recently... What chaged is that we're (man and woman in the house) required to work more and be more officient with everything in all aspects of our lives. It really is no surprise that these medications really do help.
Strangely, I have no moral dilemma about taking this medication. Yes, it does give me an upper hand in the workplace, but that's just a happy coincidence that I happen to enjoy. And you know what? That's not even the best side effect that this medication did for me.... I saw a huge boost to my self confidence since I started taking the meds, and THAT's the best part.
Not to mention that I don't have any side effects.
I know of other colleagues that take these meds and I have to doubts that this is the future of performing drugs in the workplace (and everywhere else).
i can definitely use a boost at my job, as the documention requirements keep on ratcheting up. It will also help me in engaging with my clientele, who are mentally ill drug addicts... we can be peer counselors!
How does one get Adderall anyway? You need a prescription, right?
just have them brake the law and let the state take up the cost of housing / food / doctors.
Get a job in consulting already. I spend many hours trying to stretch a few hours of work int a week.
A few years back, there was a similar story about student taking these chemicals to have "an edge".
Seems they have grown up.
I'll be watching the long term effect from afar.
Good luck to them.
People won't be able to cope with being smarter from a drug because they can't cope with naturally smart people enough in the first place, how will they cope actually *being* smarter?
They think they will be taking a drug to make them smarter (actually: "Not distracted by their *phone long enough to actually get some fucking work done") and trade off their ability to socialize for a perceived benefit that they already have were they to take responsibility for their own education, exercise, sleep and state of mind.
Coupled with the increased ability to recognize what people are thinking through an unwanted enhanced understanding of body language, they will quickly understand that additional I.Q is as much a burden as it is a blessing. Worse still they may become voracious readers for a while and start to know a few things they don't want to know once they become dis-satisfied with the droll drivel that is supposed to be 'entertainment' on TV. For a while they may even get shocked out of their ignorance and question everything while they ruminate on solutions. They will push harder and then need more drug.
They won't exercise or sleep any more than they used to, if they use to, even though their enhanced 'brain' screams at them to do so and they will continue to abuse whatever else it is they abuse that held their intelligence back in the first place.
What is the withdrawal symptom? You become so stupid you can't tie your shoelaces and so apathetic that you become a cognitive burden on society (as if there wasn't enough of that already).
Why? Because they need a drug to make them smarter - that's why.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
"I'm not a robot" -- Marina and the Diamonds
But imagine that most of your co-workers always wanted to be robots, and this Adderall thing helps them achieve their childhood dreams. After all, robots are taking jobs, so why not become one?
Finally, a mature slashdot user with the intelligence to recognize this is simply a non-issue or a self-correcting problem. Please mod the parent up. It needs to stand out from the noise.
aside from the fact that the 'eighty-five percent' figure is a gross exaggeration (that would amount to 100% of the population over the age of 12-13 or so)... the correct phrasing would be 'eighty-five percent of americans *consume* caffeine. "use" implies intent to benefit from its stimulant effects, or are addicted, and that large of a group is not "using"... they're just eating chocolate, drinking soda pop, or taking anacin.... the ones that drink a half-gallon of mountain dew or coffee daily and can't live without that first 'hit' in the morning, or those who down red bulls like jell-o shots at a frat party are the ones that are "using", and that's a much, much smaller percentage..
We should just all find the nearest buffer fish, play mouth soccer with until it blows and releases it's deadly neurotoxin payload to the surrounding water, let it dilute a bit and dive right in to get high. Become a dolphin, get high like a dolphin.
First of all, I take dexamphetamine for work - and for a reason. I've been diagnosed with ADHD and I really couldn't handle any job without the prescription drug; even with it my productivity is highly spastic in nature.
I don't like the drug. I very rarely take it on my free time, it clamps down spontaneous creativity and makes life altogether more about performing it, less about enjoying it. Never mind that I often enough walk around the flat forgetting halfway where I was going, at least by taking the drug at work I can afford a flat to do it in.
Now I'm afraid that a bunch of morons who value money more than life are going to get hooked on amphetamines, get bad press and inadvertently make it either more difficult or impossible it to obtain legally, even with a perfectly valid reason and over a decade's history of using it responsibly.
Western society, after a century of propaganda, is a far cry from being ready to understand and treat drugs responsibly. This is not helping.
It's likely you can have the almost the same effect as these drugs by not eating for 24 hours. This is known to boost mental performance, and makes evolutionary sense. Humans are at peak mental and physical performance when they're literally a bit hungry.
First I would like to tell WHY I have given up on doctors and the story about how I started doing Adderal:
I had cronic inzomnia when I was younger.
My entire life evolved around sleeping, imagine that your biggest wish all the time, every day is to sleep.
It is horrible and not something I would wish on my greatest enemy.
I had always had trouble falling asleep, but when I aged to around 19 it got totally out of control.
The thing was, I COULD sleep- every day from around 07:00 to 17:00 I was always incredibly tired, so tired I felt asleep standing up, and would go straight into dreaming- then wake up as I was falling.
I often felt asleep during lectures, but I just couldnt do anything about it- if there was anything I could have done I would have done it.
I was always very very tired, but then when the clock got to 17:00 I would get fresh- always, no matter how little sleep ive had for the last week.
Normal people when sleep derived can just go to bed eairly and catch up- that did not work for me.
If I went to bed before 01:00, I would ALWAYS wake up at 01:00-02:00 unable to fall asleep again- so that was not really an option.
I had to wait untill 01:00 then if I was lucky I could get 6 hours of sleep before I had to go to the university.
But often I would wake up anyway, then lay in bed for hours after hours- often I would not fall asleep at all
I would use the weekends to catch up sleep- it sounded so stupid:" I am sorry, I cannot do that- I have to use this weekend to sleep, so I have a chance to get some sleep before the university starts."
It was such a fantastic feeling when I had the chance to sleep until I did not need more sleep- my memory was functioning much better, my mood was better- I did not feel like crap.
So I had to take every chance I had to be able to sleep longer- so I would avoid planning stuff in the weekends. I could always sleep longer in the morning, like I would fall asleep around 06:00 then I could sleep till 17:00.
But if i did that I had NO chance of getting any sleep the next night, so I had to not overdo it.
I tried many times to reverse my sleeping schedule by saying "Allright, I get no sleep this night and then I can go to sleep earlier the next night"
Then I would be so damn tired the entire day, but at 17:00 BAM I was not tired in any way- and had no chance of falling asleep.
I tried everything: Melatonine, Alchohol, sleeping pills, Antihistamines, Exercise, not using a computer after 19:00, running in the evening- even anti psychotic drugs, ANYTHING that would give me just some sleep.
Some things helped me a little but only in combinations- and I would build up a tolerance super fast.
So I would skip sleeping one night, then before I went to bed I would drink one bottle of wine, take antihistamines and some sleeping pills.
Then if I was lucky I would actually sleep for 6 hours, but often I would wake up after 3 hours.
Do you know how frustating it is to just lay in the bed, hour after hour- knowing how important it is that you get some sleep- laying there borred and worried about how sleepy you will be the next day?
I started to download audio books or videos so I had something to listen to, to take my mind off how incredible frustated and sad I was because the inzomnia was ruining my life- and to avoid getting bored, you get bored after laying in a bed with your eyes closed for 6 hours.
When I got a girlfriend she found it irritating that I needed the audio- she couldnt understand why I needed it so much- "cant we just set some music on?"
No- that would not help, that would just piss me off- having to listen to music for 6 hours, if I had to just lay there an entire night at least I needed something to avoid getting bored and frustrated- as when I got frustrated I had ZERO chance of falling asleep.
In the mornings, the sound of my alarm clocks was the worst thing in the world- I would trade my leg just to get a bit more sleep.
I could wake up- fall asleep during the
I had a student talk with me about Adderall abuse on campus.
He said it worked great, he could study all night but retention long-term was limited.
He also said he stopped taking Adderall off-script because it made him suicidal.
Whatever happened to coffee?
It is nothing new:
"Paul Erdös (1913-1996), "the man who loved only numbers", was one of the most brilliant and prolific mathematicians of the twentieth century. Erdös spent much of his restless life on psychostimulants. As he once remarked, "A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems."
But Erdös liked stronger medicine too. After his mother's death in 1971, Erdös became quite depressed. His physician prescribed amphetamines. Erdös took Benzedrine or Ritalin almost every day for the last twenty five years of his life. Sometimes he took both. ...
Colleagues worried that Erdös might have become addicted. In 1979, he accepted a $500 bet from his friend Ronald Graham. Graham challenged Erdös to abstain from speed for 30 days. Erdös met the challenge, but his output sank dramatically. Erdös felt the progress of mathematics had been held up by a stupid wager."
http://www.amphetamines.org/paul-erdos.html
Try a low dose of LSD at work instead. It won't make you work 12 hours but is certain to give you new perspectives.
Caution: may lead to questioning authority and/or quitting your job.
Stupid coworkers are still stupid on speed.
None of that matters in corporate America. It's all about short term gains. Workers are nothing but a resource to use up, wear out, and throw away. If they can get a 10% productivity boost at the expense of your health and well being, that is a no brainer! If you get burned out, they can just as easily get rid of you and replace you with someone for half your salary.
The only thing that matters is stock price.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
Kinda stinks for people who take it for ADD, or ADD and mild narcolepsy like me. Folks'll think I'm cheating!
"Speed" typically refers to methamphetamine. The n-methyl isomer dramatically increases uptake, making it a very different beast.
What a load of shit. Luckily there are other MD's posting in the comments on just how biased this writer is. He's basically claiming ADHD is a kid's only issue, and all adults are just abusers. People like him must HATE people like myself...a doctor-monitored adderall prescription for several years now. With it, I'm able to more fully use my capabilities. Without it, people would always comment "your really smart, but..." due to all the random and chaotic things I would do and say. Honestly, without my prescription I'd probably either be dead or in jail. Even so, being unmedicated has already lead to the accidental death of someone VERY close to me...if I had been on it then I probably would have thought the situation through further. So this guy can go fuck himself, and I'd tell that to his face is ever given the chance.
My uncle tells me ADHD runs in our family. However, I consider the frictions in our family to be normal or based on psychological heritage brought down from a grandmother incapable of handling 4 children and having an immoral stance on her responsiblities. Plus living in an ending WW2 in Germany, including carpet bombings, fleeing Koenigsberg and Stetin to the Rhine area and being fugitives and 3rd class citizens as a result. Such things are passed down, no doubt.
I also think of my uncles ADHD fixation as an excuse for his alcoholism - he like to rag on how ADHD people work better with drugs. I would allot his problems to the regular beatings his generation received.
However, I do have character traits that some people would consider "ADHD".
I wouldn't. Or at least I would consider them to be a disability. I would appreciate the theory that my brain works differently due to me moving around roughly once a year during most of my childhood and said psychological heritage.
I'm basically a hunter-gatherer in a farmer-settlers world, or should I say: I'm adapted to hunter-gatherer mode in a world that is currently mostly adapted to farmer-settler mode. Yes, I'm one of those pretty much down with that theory.
While others have spent their entire childhood at one place, I had to move around a lot. I intimately and intuitively know things about this world and the people in them that others have to learn in hard lessons. I smell a con from 10 miles away, I can handle myself in a fight and I spot financial risks or flaws in complex systems (such as software architecture) in an instant. I find the usual vanity that comes with societies living in abundance strange, bizar, pointless, silly and sometimes flat-out repulsive. I recently re-read Paul Grahams Why Nerds are unpopular and I have to say the man once again pretty much hits home - read it if you can relate to what I am saying. That essay pretty much sums up my youth and the way I feel about the world and the people around me a lot of times. If I'm having ADHD it is not a disease, but a natural reaction to the at times bizar and backwords world around me.
However, there are things I struggle with that others have no problem dealing with. Regular chores or maintaining a home with more that two rooms. And who wouldn't? I'm just this week picking up Scala and starting a new company internal software project. A the side I'm keeping my mood by going out or doing some sort of contrast programm. I don't have *time* to do the laundry regularly.
I run up to speed when shit hits the fan. Basically I consider any other situation boring. Which, let's face it, it usually is.
I also see absolutely no point what so ever in performing in a job that is basically 90% pointless. I'm the lead developer in an agency and 90% of my work is politics and explaining to customers the difference between a client and a server and what the internet is and how it works. And the difference between Google and the Web - which very many people do not know or are aware of. And setting up WordPress and repairing the junkpile the last plugin-testing frenzy my project people left behind.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
But in that case, it was Polydichloric Euthimal.
"There are no controlled studies that show any productivity benefit to a normal person taking Adderall."
Sorry to hurt your Insightful rating, but looks like some new info just came in.
Link-Chain starting from Wikipedia:
(Best use of Wiki - start there, then follow the sources)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
Performance-enhancing section
"A 2015 meta-analysis of high quality clinical trials confirmed that therapeutic doses of amphetamine and methylphenidate result in modest improvements in performance on working memory, episodic memory, and inhibitory control tests in normal healthy adults.[32] Therapeutic doses of amphetamine also enhance cortical network efficiency, an effect which mediates improvements in working memory in all individuals.[21][33] Amphetamine and other ADHD stimulants also improve task saliency (motivation to perform a task) and increase arousal (wakefulness), in turn promoting goal-directed behavior.[21][34][35] Stimulants such as amphetamine can improve performance on difficult and boring tasks and are used by some students as a study and test-taking aid." [21][34][36]
Sources 21,32,33,34, 35 are:
21
Higher Cognitive Function and Behavioral Control". In Sydor A, Brown RY. Molecular Neuropharmacology: A Foundation for Clinical Neuroscience (2nd ed.). New York, USA: McGraw-Hill Medical. p. 318. ISBN 9780071481274.
32
Ilieva IP, Hook CJ, Farah MJ (January 2015). "Prescription Stimulants' Effects on Healthy Inhibitory Control, Working Memory, and Episodic Memory: A Meta-analysis". J. Cogn. Neurosci.: 1â"21. doi:10.1162/jocn_a_00776. PMID 25591060.
33
Devous MD, Trivedi MH, Rush AJ (April 2001). "Regional cerebral blood flow response to oral amphetamine challenge in healthy volunteers". J. Nucl. Med. 42 (4): 535â"542. PMID 11337538.
34
Wood S, Sage JR, Shuman T, Anagnostaras SG (January 2014). "Psychostimulants and cognition: a continuum of behavioral and cognitive activation". Pharmacol. Rev. 66 (1): 193â"221. doi:10.1124/pr.112.007054. PMID 24344115.
35
Malenka RC, Nestler EJ, Hyman SE (2009). "Chapter 10: Neural and Neuroendocrine Control of the Internal Milieu". In Sydor A, Brown RY. Molecular Neuropharmacology: A Foundation for Clinical Neuroscience (2nd ed.). New York, USA: McGraw-Hill Medical. p. 266. ISBN 9780071481274. "Dopamine acts in the nucleus accumbens to attach motivational significance to stimuli associated with reward."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Adderrall is speed. It works for a brief period, but the cost even for brief use is high. And, whether they call it "meth" or prescription drugs it's addictive as hell. I did a gig in an area and industry where this sort of prescription drug abuse is rampant. It was so bad we had a hard time finding people that could even pass a dope test. But the dope tests apparently can be beaten because half the folks that made it to the job were on adderrall. Probably they had a prescription.
One guy just did it a couple of times--he got the job done by working about 30 hours straight. I didn't know he was high, but figured it out later. After his 30 hour work binge he was out "with the flu" for a day. When he got back after his day off, he still looked like he'd had the crap beaten out of him. This guy was a project leader and took it on himself to 'get it done no matter what'. Last I heard, he figured out that 'no matter what' was way too high a price and wasn't using. Boss agreed wholeheartedly--he'd rather explain failure to deliver than abuse his people. Good boss. When the abuse got too bad he walked us all off the job--you don't treat human beings that way and we were very lucky to have a boss that stood up for us.
Another guy was a more experienced user, and looked like he could maintain. Unfortunately he had the attention span of a gnat. I was ordered by the boss to finish up some of the guys work and as I went through the job I could see where he'd started on one task, then just abandoned it before it was done and jumped into the next task. The whole job was like that. It was easier to scrap it and do it myself than to try to figure out what was done and not.
A third guy just had no focus left at all. Also an experienced user. I'd give him a job to do, come back in a couple hours and he's gotten nothing done. I'd demonstrate the job again and return again; the only part that was completed was what I'd shown him. This guy was so burnt as to be inert. I suspect he was on a little more than just adderrall as he acted a little different.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
This comment is why this topic is so dangerous.
See my note elsewhere to get past the "there is no proof" type responses.
The meds *do* work, *both* normal and ADD people.
So then it's sometimes the tipping point between having a certain job or not. So then your salary is dependent on this choice. I do have ADD, and they DO help. When I don't take them, the results often show up in "irrational blunders", both technical and emotional. "No one cares" why you are "a substandard employee" - they're not going to get into high end ethics.
Science Fiction has been nervous about this for decades, (and a lot of other emerging topics!), so we'd better go back to the classics to see what other people thought before us.
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggars_in_Spain"
The real problem is not about skipping sleep - let's assume we all get sleep. But these meds for example let us perform more intricate work at a level that makes/breaks our job. So with all the forces of the 99%/etc making us need serious money to survive, even "the right to live" (aka food and rent!), then that's where the real sticking point comes, before it's all the Black Shakes.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
So basically bombing developing children's minds for a decade or more to make the more receptive to the state indoctrination is an important psychotherapy. But an adult voluntarily using the same drugs to further their personal goals shows once again how America is barbaric and discriminates against workers etc etc etc etc.
Got it. Thank you Comrade Marx
I am reminded of candels that burn very brightly.
says Farah. "It is not hard to imagine a supervisor telling employees that this is the standard they should aspire to in their work, however they manage to do it (hint, hint)..." How 'bout what happens when its the supervisor using the enhancing drugs and decides that everyone else needs to be just as productive as he/she is? So the underlings have to use more of the enhancements to be productive enough to get noticed and promoted while those who choose not to tweak their brain chemistry will never be able to compete and will be seen as failures or inefficient managers of their time.
the asshole in people.
In some ways the idea of sleep supplements is very enticing, as we could do a lot more if our bodies didn't need to rest for at least 1/3 of each day. Misusing Adderall is along a similar vein, where the purpose is to stay productive and keep your mind sharp for longer than is usually possible. If there were no negative effects this would become a common practice and acceptable, rather than an addiction that needs to be treated.
A recursive sig
Can impart wisdom and truth
Call proc signature()
I've been on and off SAM-e; but it triggers hypomania, and I've been stable for a while. Ridiculously stable. After over a year, it's still an alien feeling. I spent almost 30 years continuously depressed, and then triggered a hypomanic (and a manic!) episode, and realized I was bipolar (and in the lucky 7% that can drug-modify it with SAM-e). A year later, it just kind of leveled out, and I became... normal. Ish. It just feels weird to be dead-center.
The problem is I'm unmotivated dead-center. I noticed that when I started experimenting: I work well when I'm depressed, and I work great when I'm hypomanic; mania is horrible (feels too good, don't like it, hard to think), and being baseline is ... I don't do anything. I zone out watching twitch videos. I type nothing on a keyboard and listen to the keys click. There are things I want to do, but I just... feel fine.
I've been trying to rewrite habits, but that's not working well. I'll take up cardiovascular physical activity next--that's been delayed due to a vendor dispute which is ending in a chargeback this week.
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The widespread abuse of adderall has created conditions where those are are actually diagnosed witih ADHD and needing Adderall are frequently overdosed. Too many people are trying to pocket their extra and sell the rest on the black market. Those who are just sincerely trying to get treated who encounter doctors conditioned to these habits are in for some nasty shocks. Adderall overdose is not to kidded around with; your metabolism revs, your appetite goes away, your focus can just as easily adhere to something negative or unproductive as anything, and you soon become a shell of yourself. Not fun.
Neurotoxicity is a concern. You supposedly can dampen that by combining with Ritalin.
Low dose doesn't seem to have many adverse affect in my usage. However, I take 1/2 what I'm prescribed (the bare minimum to keep my ADD under control).
The funny thing is, I didn't start this med until I was in my 30s. It's amazing the coping mechanisms I had to use throughout my life to deal with having ADD. I suspect both my parents have it and self medicate by chain smoking.
My guess is the negative outcome of smoking for generations has been the uptick in ADD. If I have children I will certainly go clean for at least 6-12 months before trying. My wife and I have discussed this and we'll both be on a very strict regimen of diet, exercise and any stimulants, vitamins or medications we put in our bodies. I know it's still a crap shot, but I'd like my children to have a better shot at being healthy than I did growing up.
https://youtu.be/7SSvM9lzYV0
Reiterating the stupidity of including Nicotine here.
Trying out nicotine to improve cognition is insanely stupid. It does improve mental performance... the first two or three times you take it. Then, the addiction process starts to take over and you need nicotine just to function at pre-nicotine mental levels. That's why those who still smoke need to in order to think: until they kick the habit (which will take many months), they are almost always going through withdrawal, which leads to being overall LESS mentally productive.
Pretty much the worst nootropic ever: a week of enhancement, paid in future by half a year's downtime (if you quit), or constant reliance with no benefit.
+2 Int, +2 Per, +1 Cha!
sounds like a Paradise Lost to us in the USA. The concept that your supervisor would be held responsible if you have not taken your time off, or work more than 10 hours a day is mindblowing.
I could get a 200-300% productivity boost off adderall, that stuff has very strong pros and cons.
I think your response to his concerns is entirely inappropriate. Perhaps you should exercise a little more though before you reply.
the verge of being fired to good enough to not be. I hate that I have to use it but it's the drug equivalent of heavy, thick glasses that enable me to read if I'm 3 inches from the page.
This is why it's so fucking hard to get my kids medicine:
1) This class of drug is required to be locked in a safe; if it's "too big" (liquid), they don't stock it without an active prescription. Ordering it takes about a week.
2) You can't get refills on a prescription.
3) The prescription has to be a physical piece of paper.
So, thank you, losers, without an actual need making this hard for parents with children with clearly diagnosed ADHD and having to ultimately medicate so they can thrive in school.
(Posting as AC for obvious reasons)
So after living drug free (only rarely OTC cold remedies or pain relievers) for 40+ years I went through a bad period and came out the other end on various types of drugs, all of which have helped me immensely. One of those drugs is Vyvanse. I take only a small dose, but the difference it makes in my productivity is, for me, almost beyond comprehension. Where in the depths of my bad period I could barely stay in the office half a day and watch youtube videos, after the Vyvanse I can work 15 hours straight and have cleared years of accumulated backlog and projects in a matter of months, plus learned the entire web development stack (HTML, CSS, Javascript, jQuery and Flask) and have written several applications. The only problem now is turning off at the end of the day.
I don't take it every day, and can definitely tell the difference even though some good behaviors like organization and self-motivation which come naturally on the Vyvanse have become habitual and carry over to the non-Vyvanse days.
As a software developer in my late 40's, I have no trouble concentrating. I can go long stretches without any
holy shit! a Squirrel just hopped from one branch to another outside my office window! A grey squirrel... Let me look that up on wikipedia...
dammit, DNS is down... I wonder if there's a new bind exploit? I should look it up. I'll use my phone because DNS is down.
Oh look! A text message!
whoa! There goes the squirrel again!
For an eye-opening documentary on Methamphetamine (understanding Adderall is low dose amphetamine): "National Geographic: World's Most Dangerous Drug" (available on Netflix) In Asia it goes by "ya ba" and is used by workers to work longer hours and more shifts, to make more money. "Some say the pressure to compete has created a generation of Thai meth addicts"
Would mod you up if I could...
Performance enhancing drugs are a big problem in baseball and other sports. We shouldn't need to go much farther than why the Olympics ban their use to see why they should be banned in the workplace. It's all the same rat race whether you think you're making a product or "just" a victory.
I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
Is now becoming better work through chemistry I guess. In the long run I doubt this matters much because the giga-corps of the future won't be employing that many people. Robots and AIs don't need Adderall.
"I suppose I have a problem with the idea of competing with someone that is using a "performance enhancing" drug,"...A person should not have to take drugs to perform at a "normal" level
If the drug has negative side effects, you'll not be competing with them long. Steady and stable wins the race in employment.
If the drug does not have negative side effects, I don't mind it being essentially required. Because then what's the problem? Some jobs require steel-toe boots which can be uncomfortable but useful.
I do realize comparing a safety feature to something that just lets you work longer is a little but of a mismatch, but then some jobs like construction use safety measures like that as a fallback to push workers harder also because there will not be as much death and maiming as there might have been.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Not sure about first time smokers getting a cognitive enhancement effect... but I'm sure about this: nicotine has a negative effect on cognitive function on myself. I've been a smoker for 20 years now. I wake up in the morning feeling fine and clear-headed, and as soon as I take a couple of puffs my mind gets foggy, and the effect lasts for 10-20 minutes before I am clear-headed again. Definitely the opposite of a cognitive enhancer.
Now, if a smoker is going nuts about having to smoke and it's been hours since they should have dosed... maybe when they eventually light up, the nicotine does indeed improve the situation. That is because they can finally stop thinking about the cigarette and are able to concentrate on doing something useful. Still, that does not mean that nicotine is acting as a cognitive enhancer in those cases.
I suspect this cognitive enhancer bullcrap is a myth started by the tobacco industry and perhaps propagated due to the placebo effect, and also quite possibly due to the going-nuts-for-a-cigarette-can't-think-of-anything-else effect of nicotine withdrawal.
Amphetamines will help anyone out. They are like smart pills. They help you focus like a laser. The US Air Force give them to their pilots so they can loiter on station longer. I just read that the FDA approved vyvanse (Another type or Ritlin) to cut down on binge eating. I think I'll stop by my doctor's office and get me a fist full. Here is to increased productivity because sleep is way overrated. Besides I'll have an eternity to sleep when I'm dead !!!
Paul E. Bahre
Adderall and the like are the latest additions to drugs that have been around since the 1930s. There is little difference, except social class, between those who are abusing them and those who abused or are abusing, crank, meth or "black beauties." It's amazing how differently we look at this when it is cab drivers or long haul truckers or the military or factory workers, versus the "elite." These drugs will get you in the end. They will fry your brains and shorten your life. Skip them. It's not worth it. Don't buy into the corporate hypocrisy that says, "Just say no" to drugs, while out of the other side of their mouths they all but demand people use drugs to stay on the treadmill. Save your health. What profiteth a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his life...
Administrations who push to get their student diagnosed and "treated" for Attention Deficit will have up to 40% of their classrooms medicated (25% of all teen boys in the south have been diagnosed with ADD) and performing well. For this reason, they will look like good administrators. Across time, the "bad" administrators will all lose their jobs.
Adderall allows them to stuff 30 kids into a classroom without too much disruption, AD gets extra federal funds, and students who are better studiers. AD diagnoses gets you longer to take a timed test, etc.
Soon, most kids will be medicated, instead of just 25%.
The stuff does work too.
just like athletes who use performance enhancing drugs.. Trading your health for a leg up is making a deal with the devil! Stay away from this poison
I've always seen my highest productivity when I feel rested, relaxed, and creative. I love Saturday mornings. Knowledge work is not manual labor where you get things done faster just by putting your back into it longer and harder. Programming is the easiest part of the whole mess we call software development. If it's not, you're doing something wrong. Being able to stop and back up and reassess when you start to put in excessive effort is by far the best, and sometimes the hardest thing to do, and you're not going to do that on Adderall.