A very long but very important story about Adderall.

Let me write a story about Ritalin/Adderall. This is all my personal experience and opinions.

I have always been a pretty crazy kid. I just have a lot of energy and love doing things, talking to people, exploring, seeing what I can, etc. I wake up every day with an energy, an intensity, that I just can’t wait to see and do more. 

That all sounds good but, when you’re a kid, they’re really trying to calm you down. That’s fair - You’re in a classroom setting most times and kids can’t be running around, not listening to the rules. But I think I was a pretty normal, rambunctious kid with a lot of energy. I was smart so I was inquisitive and many times, that came off like me questioning the rules and being insubordinate. Finally, this created some issues in the school and my parents took me to a doctor who prescribed me Ritalin. 

Let me say that again. In 5th grade, I was given amphetamines to help me sit still and pay attention.

I didn’t have a clue what I was taking. And I don’t want any of this to come off like my parents were bad parents. They were in a bad spot - Knowing they had a rebellious kid and wanting me to just sit there and get through school. At the time also, ADHD medication was somewhat new and people really thought it was the be all end all drug for solving these situations. 

And it did work. I sat there and I did what I was supposed to do. I don’t remember many of these times - In fact, I don’t remember a lot of my childhood - But this was probably just one of the contributing factors with it. 

Remember though, I was really, really young. And my brain was still developing, as it was also trying to adjust to putting amphetamines into it’s normal biology. The amphetamines took over everything though - Emotions, joys, worries, etc. It just made me a lump. A kid that was on drugs so I was too dumb to ask questions or think outside of the box. 

As I grew, I went through other ADHD medications, culminating in me taking Adderall as the last drug I took. I started on Adderall when I was in high school, still not really knowing that anything was wrong with it. After all, it was prescribed. By a doctor. And I had other friends who took it also… So there’s no way it could be that bad. 

Fast forward into college. Still taking Adderall. And it still worked. I would sit there in classrooms and stare at a desk, my mind numb from the dopamine it fueled me with. If I was tired, take an Adderall. If I couldn’t muster up motivation, take an Adderall. If I was depressed, take an Adderall. Need to read 30 pages of a book? Better take an Adderall to care enough to do so. I had formed this whole identity of rewards with it. Now, I couldn’t imagine living without it because everything was so boring if you didn’t take it. Who really would want to sit there in a library and study without these drugs? Who really could read for 12 hours, sleep for 4 and then take a test the very next morning?

I couldn’t tell you how many days were wasted because of these drugs. How many days and nights my soul just died, begging me to find something that naturally stimulated me but always being quieted by this pill. If there was anything I wasn’t excited about, I just assumed it was because I needed to take the pill to care about it. 

But then, one very important relationship happened. One that would end up changing my entire life and impacting deeply the person I am today. I met Stewart Yancik.

I was bouncing around college at that time, still a rebellious and crazy kid. I had no direction other than the basic plans that I’d get a business degree and move back to St. Louis to get a career, buy a house, build a white picket fence and weigh myself down until I wasn’t able to move again. I was in a relationship at this time and with a girl I loved very, very deeply. But I was a mess and she was a bit of a mess but for no other reason than being young, college kids at their first attempt at freedom. The Adderall was still a constant addiction in my life but now I was drinking and partying with it so less sleep. More foggy. But, when I woke up hungover, I always knew I could take that pill to feel okay. But there were other issues I was too dumb to notice. In between taking this pill and normal life was quite a disconnect. I was rebellious but my emotions were also very unpredictable. I was scared but not able to communicate it. I had a LOT of ego but no self awareness to even see it. It negatively impacted all the relationships around me but, worst of all, it negatively affected the relationship I cared about the most.

When I met Stu, on a treadmill in a college gym, he had seen I was watching poker on TV and asked if I played. He told me he did too and we became friends right off the bat. This is when online poker was at the height of it’s popularity so we made a plan to get together and play these long tournaments together. Many, many days were filled with 10-14 hour poker days playing these long tournaments. 

Since the poker tournaments were very monotonous, I definitely had to take Adderall to get through them. Stu watched me do this a few times before he asked about them and I told him it’s something I had done since I was a kid. He asked if I ever noticed how it made me different and I scoffed and laughed it off, being far too scared to even think who I was outside of this identity. 

But, as we continued to play, Stu kept calling me out on it. I love how blunt and honest he was and he would routinely say how dumb he could tell it made me. 

DUMB! How could I be dumb? Look - I am focused and sitting still. I read books all day long (even though I couldn’t really remember what I was reading).

‘It’s making you really dumb’ he would routinely say. ‘You have to quit that shit if you want to keep hanging out.’ 

And then he said the thing that woke me up immediately. The one phrase that made me quit, right then and there. He said ‘Do you know what we all call Adderall? The killer of creativity.’ 

I wasn’t even sure if I was able to. I had zero clue what it would be like to not have a pill to take to solve all of these ‘problems’. That would mean I would have to embrace my rebellion and energy and I had long been told that those things were negative traits. But what if I wasn’t able to sit still? What if I wasn’t able to sit in a library for 12 hours, staring at one page of a book? Then, I would surely be dumb.

Stu never relented. He called me out on what he saw, which was always the truth, until I agreed to take a break. It was pretty brutal - Withdrawals, sleepless nights, zero motivation at all. At the bottom of a pit of energy and no clue how to claw myself out. But Stu stayed close to me during this and kept reminding me that the goal was to actually be intelligent. To actually be able to think. Creatively.

I had never even though about creativity up to this point. Everything was binary, black and white. There was no world outside of the 12 inches in front of my face and I didn’t even want to think about it if there was. I had books to read. I had desks to sit in. I had rules to abide by.

But I kept weening off of this drug and I will forever be grateful for Stu for making me do so. Forever.

Because, the more I got off of it, the more I was able to think again. This was definitely an uncomfortable process in the beginning - I had years of squashed thoughts and emotions that were hidden under the surface of dopamine. They came up and now, I didn’t just have a black and white answer to them - They were full of color that I needed to understand. My creativity came back. I hadn’t felt it in so many years that I felt like a veil was being lifted off of my eyes. When my creativity came back, my inquisitiveness came back and that was surely met with some dismay but, now in a college setting, I was treated with maturity in this inquisitiveness. Instead of a teacher telling me to just sit still and not talk - Professors would have a real conversation with me and I was able to answer the questions I had. In fact, they welcomed it. They treated it as a sign of intelligence and fostered it as it continued to grow. They didn’t see it as a danger but as the foundation for critical thinking. 

And suddenly, for the first time ever, I didn’t feel bad for being the person I naturally was. I knew that I was never trying to hurt, annoy or pick on anyone with my questions - They were just genuine questions that arose as I was listening to them talk. And I was just trying to understand more.

Then, everything started to shift. I realized I didn’t really want to be in business at all. I had no desire to sit in an office, crunch numbers and talk around a water cooler. With my rejuvenated creativity, I became intrigued to learn so much more than ever before about more topics. I wanted to understand people better. I wanted to understand communication better. For the first time in my life, I truly wanted to learn about everything - But only the things that truly excited me.

It was during this time that I was told a quote I still live by and tell people today. I met an old man in the basement of a bar called the Crossroads in St. Louis. I told him that I wasn’t really able to pinpoint what I wanted my major to be because I wanted to learn everything. But I kept saying ‘I know you’re supposed to decide. But I don’t know what to do.’ 

And he told me ‘Son. Go to school for the education. Not for the piece of paper.’

Boom. That’s what I truly wanted to do. I wanted to learn about sociology and psychology. But I also wanted to combine that with a better understanding of communication to know how to implement that knowledge. I also knew that I would really struggle in a corporate or office setting because of my curiosity so I started to think about entrepreneurship. So I studied business again but from this new perspective. 

I still struggled with sitting through classrooms all day and studying in the library. But thankfully, my inquisitive personality opened up relationships with almost all of my professors. The more we talked, the better I was able to understand and the better I did in their classes. But it also gave me a HUGE advantage over the rest of the class because, as I learned how to develop these relationships, I grew real connections with my professors. We looked forward to sitting and debating after the class about things we differed on. I would stop by their office when a question popped in my mind and we would have a real dialogue. These conversations were very creative because they were inquisitive so I got to really understand what they were teaching from a very real and applicable viewpoint. 

This is how I learned conversation. Especially how to have balanced conversations with people that were smarter than me. Older than me. Knew more than me. This is when I learned how insanely valuable it is to be able to learn from people that know more than you because they WILL TELL YOU. They will tell you everything they know, if you just ask and genuinely listen. You can get 10 books of knowledge in one long conversation and it was actually digestible because it was personal.

Everything changed during these times and they would have never in a million years been possible if I hadn’t found my creativity again by getting clean off of Adderall. I would’ve kept punching the clocks. Leaving the stones unturned. Waiting in line for whatever was left for me at the end. I would have taken my paychecks. Bought what I could with them. Followed the rules. Paid my taxes. 

And never ever be disruptive enough to think I might be able to change the world.

See, when I was on Adderall, I wasn’t a writer. I wasn’t a photographer. I wasn’t a dreamer. It wasn’t possible. There was monotonous tasks to do and more dusting and vacuuming that had to take place.

But when my creativity came back, the world was drenched in color again. I was truly alive again. I wanted to rebel against my own rules I had set for myself in this conformity and was destined to see everything I could. It was only in that curiosity that I started taking pictures. And only by taking pictures did I find a way to make a difference in peoples lives. And, by making that difference, I was shown the true power of purpose and the fire it burns within you. 

I have never done any drugs in my entire life except for Adderall, weed and mushrooms. Because of my experience with Adderall, I am utterly terrified of things that make you ‘dumb’. I have no desire to try these things (Even though I don’t judge those that are curious enough to). I only have a desire to do things that open my eyes up even more. That cause my soul to burn brighter. And my heart to bleed more for the world around me.

From this perspective alone, so many of my dreams have come true. I don’t go for dopamine anymore - I got for serotonin. And I don’t go for any cheap highs. I go for the ones that are the most difficult to find. The most challenging to get. 

Now I get purpose from giving my heart to the world. And using the talents I found in my creativity, in my rebellion, to leave the world better for the love I give it. 

And if I didn’t rebel, I would’ve never believed that was possible to do.