Hey Terry,

This study brings back for me so many stories of ADD adults first "recreational" or "medical" use of stimulants. 

My ADD friend Scott, when given a stimulant at age 16, took it and kept working on his car engine. He didn't get why his friends thought stimulants were so great.

Another ADD friend, Janet, again around the age of 16, was at a party. While there, a young man arrived and shared his stimulant medication with everyone at the party. Janet took one, but instead of feeling high, she found herself immersed in a conversation with the young man. After a while, the young man commented that she should get an evaluation for ADD because the medication wasn't affecting her the way it was affecting everyone else.

Another woman told me of how during the 1950's she was prescribed a stimulant medication for weight loss. She got all A's that year, first time ever. It wasn't until her ADD diagnosis 40 years later that she finally had an explanation.

I personally began taking stimulant medication following my ADD diagnosis in 1990. For weeks, I did every tedious household chore I could think of just to see how much easier it was while taking medication. Within six weeks, I'd cleaned and organized the whole house.

Throughout the years, I've met ADD adults who have abused alcohol or drugs and many who have not. Drug of choice is rarely stimulants. Though as I write this, I am reminded of a study that Dr. Edward Hallowell shared during a lecture.

A study was conducted in which newly recoverying cocaine addicts were given prescribed stimulant medication. They treated both ADD and non-ADD cocaine addicts. The non-ADD cocaine addicts relapsed almost immediately, but the ADD cocaine addicts, not surprisingly, responded better than expected to treatment.

Another favorite story is of a hyperactive-implusive, ADD adult who, following a sudden separation with his wife, went to live temporarily in a house with nine other men, primarily alcoholics and drug addicts in recovery. When they found out he took a prescribed stimulant medication for his ADD, they told him that there is no such thing as ADD, that stimulants are bad, and that he should get off them. This went on for a week or so. One night, after a particularly frustrating day, he chucked his bottle of prescribed stimulant medication into the river. His roommates, after a few days of living with their unmedicated, ADD roommate, supported him in going back on his medication.

Whenever I hear stories of the evils of properly prescribed and monitored stimulant medication for ADD, I just want to say, oh please...get the facts.  

Grandma Lise