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129 points surprisetalk | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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alterom ◴[] No.45958585[source]
This article (and the title alone) is harmful. Adderall is not about increasing mental efficiency.

What Adderall is about is:

- helping with executive dysfunction for people who suffer from it.

- allowing people with ADHD like me to function. To do the things that everyone else does, things that we want to do and need to do, but can't do because of the way our brains are wired.

- increasing the lifespan of ADHD people who don't get help. Women with ADHD die about 9 years younger than those without ADHD [1].

- making our lives less painful, since every small task incurs pain, resulting in 3x depression rates [2] and alarmingly high suicidal ideation rates (50% of ADHD adults [3]).

Please, please, educate yourself about ADHD and medication for it before writing something like this title.

No, Aldous Huxley didn't. "predict" Adderall.

To understand more, I've put together a resource which, I hope, will be easy enough to digest. Here's my experience of getting prescribed Adderall for my ADHD:

https://romankogan.net/adhd/#Medication

If I have attention deficit and I could write it, I hope you (and the author of the text we're discussing) could spare some attention to it before talking about Adderall, amphetamines, and other stimulants prescribed for ADHD.

Thank you in advance.

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/01/23/nx...

[2] https://add.org/adhd-and-depression/

[3] https://crownviewpsych.com/blog/adhd-increased-risk-suicide-...

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itishappy ◴[] No.45960113[source]
The title is perhaps a bit unfortunate. I don't believe this is specifically about ADHD. Adderall is a stimulant with the effects Huxley predicted. It also happens to treat ADHD. I believe it's being used here in the former capacity.
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latentsea ◴[] No.45961138[source]
The thing is, when you have ADHD and you take stimulants you don't feel any sort of high or however it makes people with normally functioning dopamine receptors feel, you just feel normal.
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unparagoned ◴[] No.45973570{3}[source]
That’s just a myth. Studies show that the drugs increase focus in everyone regardless of disease state. Surveys show that people with adhd take higher doses to get high as well.
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1. latentsea ◴[] No.45975700{4}[source]
I'm referring to the prescribed doses. I never intentionally tried to take a higher dose to "get high" , so I wouldn't know about that. But my point is non-adhd people who take normal doses prescribed for ADHD people likely feel something that ADHD people do not. The prescribed doses don't get us high.