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ITT: “No, that’s caffeine”
If we don’t have seven coffees and two energy drinks and then end the day with a bag of edibles, are we even really living?
Damn right but even then it’s situational. I love tea. I drink copious amounts of it to the point I tell everyone “if I’m not tea-ing I’m peeing”
I don’t take my caffeine any other way.
It’s a healthy medication.
… or cocaine! These days I prefer to get by with large amounts of caffeine instead of my Adderall tho
Why not both?
Dunno about the person you were talking to, but I’m getting tired of being treated like a criminal for something I need in order to be at all useful. Never mind I can’t afford the insurance to cover the bi-annual doctor checkup just so he’ll keep prescribing them. It’s all too much of a PITA. If the powers that be want me to just be a useless lump, they’re doing really well at their quest to make it a reality.
I hear ya. I had to get off ADHD meds because it required me to have a doctor visit to get a fresh paper prescription every single month.
EDIT: That, and I developed hypertension.
I worked my way up to 60mg of amphetamine a day in my 20s, now I take 5 when I do take It. My doctors aware of all that, but writes me a script for 60mg a day so I only have to refill 1-2 a year.
Guess I should count myself lucky, then - I needed the monthly script, but they didn’t require me to actually see the doctor that often. I’d guess the hypertension was a long-standing concern even before it was finally diagnosed. Sorry you had that happen, and I hope things get better for you.
Hypertension runs in the family, so it was just a matter of time
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11032069/
PSA from a cannabis user with ADHD, there is a reason I only use it on holidays and not for treating my mental health issues. It actively makes them worse. If you need to self-medicate for insurance reasons, coffee or caffeine pills and setting timers and alerts on your phone are far more effective.
While experimentation with psychoactive substances is relatively normative for adolescents and young adults, those with ADHD are more likely to experience negative consequences of use compared with neurotypical peers and despite comparable rates of use.21,22 A closer look at the worsening risk of cannabis use problems in ADHD populations is warranted, starting with cannabis use trends, effects on cognition, and motivators for use.
Chronic cannabis users with ADHD may worsen preexisting deficits in working memory and executive function in ways that may not become apparent until later in life, with long-lasting, persistent effects despite discontinuing use
I have what a doctor called autism presenting as ADHD, makes me prone to PTSD and a few other acronyms.
For me, caffeine is absolutely a help when I have to work on a complex task, even if I’m not groggy I can’t seem to focus without a few coffees. I have studied it, I know how it works. But it also can crash me hard, too much and I get groggy and it can take days to balance my sleep cycle again.
When it comes to cannabis/THC, it can be very hit-or-miss. When I was younger it was fine, now I have to be super careful and can only really tolerate edibles. I joked in a thread above about finishing the day with a “bag” of edibles, but honestly, that shit can make my feelings of despair and anxiety so bad that it leaves me incapacitated and traumatized. Overuse feels like it does lasting harm, so in my older, wiser years I reduce all mind-altering chemicals, including caffeine. Just because something is socially acceptable doesn’t mean it’s safe.
Self medication is a dangerous game, and stressful to talk about online because there’s always going to be some paradoxically defensive and angry, addicted stoner ready to chime in that HIS habit isn’t dangerous, and that saying anything negative about his drug of choice is going to cause congress to instantly reclassify it.
I’m self-medicated with ADHD as well, but my medication is coffee.
Two or three cups a day works splendidly and it’s a hell of a lot more cost effective than paying for the prescriptions.
Or having shortage issues and dealing with the way it screws with you
oh man and not having to deal with pharmacies… I see my family members fight hard enough with prescriptions. I don’t need that in my life.
I’ve found prescriptions to be life-changing, and speaking as someone that is not exactly caffeine-shy.
I used to be on Concerta for it, I stopped entering middle school, I just find caffeine easier and cheaper for almost the same effect as what Concerta did for me. I also did not like the side effects of the medication, I suffered with loss of appetite for years, and even after stopping the medication it took quite some time for my feeling of hunger to return again. It also made me feel disassociated at times. I don’t experience these side effects with Coffee so that’s what I stuck with.
Obviously, this is all your choice in the end, but I got rotated on like, 5 drugs until they found one that worked for me and didn’t have any significant side effects. Asking your doc, and specifically pointing out that you don’t want a specific drug or have tried it before and found it ineffective, is always an option. I fought with asking my doctors to try different drugs for the longest time, but when I worked up to it, it was super smooth and easy.
Yea I understand, I’m glad it worked for you. In my case we tried a handful of types in my childhood, Adderall and ridalin (I might be misremembering the names but I think those were it) would put me into a living coma where I just didn’t talk to anyone, Concerta was the one that we settled on, but the dosage was still quite high for it to actually do anything for me (I was on 54 mg for perspective which is apparently on the higher end, 72 mg is the max dose they can do and generally start at 18 mg). I probably could look into swapping around again but, for the most part caffeine works well enough for me, plus I don’t really want to have an ongoing prescription again after being off it this long
Same, I’ve found coffee is literally the only thing that tangibly improves my symptoms instead of making them worse.
Out of curiosity, what problems do you have when you’re not having coffee, and what does the coffee seem to help with? I’m curious about ADHD for myself and trying to learn more about others symptoms to see if its something I should get tested for.
When I miss my morning coffee I have attention issues where I struggle to be able to pay attention to a conversation(you know the squirrel memes? yea exactly like that where I will be listening at one point, then full 180 attention elsewhere with no indication). Don’t get me wrong this does still happen on extended conversations with caffeine but I have better control of it, and it’s extremely noticeable without. I also have hyperactive tendencies off and on and constantly fidget, the first of which weirdly I think may have actually improved some as I aged but I still have every once and awhile.
Also Sometimes if I enter a conversation, I just super hyperfocused on the topic, and I miss context cues that I really don’t have to go into as much detail as I did, I blame it on the inability to pay attention but I guess it could be something else in play as well. I just notice it happens less often when I have it.
That’s street talk for the £0.45 knockoff RedBulls from Lidl
Cheapest meds ever
Been sucking back lots of coffee since the 80’s. Only when reading up on my daughter’s ADHD diagnosis did I realize I have been self medicating for it myself for decades.
Out of curiosity, what problems do you have when you’re not having coffee, and what does the coffee seem to help with? I’m curious about ADHD for myself and trying to learn more about others symptoms to see if its something I should get tested for.
Without coffee I can’t focus on work (or previously, school). I get distracted by things, including random thoughts. I can’t focus on something because I keep finding I’m thinking about other things.
Marijuana is SO BAD for my ADHD. Microdose is great for sleeping, but otherwise I cannot keep a thought straight in my head on weed. Full short circuit. *feeback noise*
Same here but that’s why I like it. I just stick to using it when I know that it’s an acceptable state to be in.
Yeah, it turns the cacophony in my head down so I can actually not think for a bit. I’m no more productive with it than without it, but I’m much less internally chaotic. There’s a bliss in underclocking for a while.
omg, same. Between weed and tiktok, it absolutely ruined any semblance of functionality I had. Quitting both was the best thing I could do for myself. I’d love to quit caffeine, but given that it’s the only effective and accessible medication I have for my ADHD right now, I can’t risk it.
Don’t you need a stimulant for ADHD? I’d think THC would be a bad choice
When your brain won’t shut the fuck up, almost anything that changes your thought pattern is going to become an option.
Caffeine and stimulants are good for focusing and staying on-task, I don’t feel like it works nearly as good as prescription medications though and generally caffeine ends up causing too much anxiety and ironically, grogginess.
THC isn’t necessarily a downer and can make you super freaked out, but sometimes if you can dose it just right and keep your mental state focused it can help reframe your perspective, but it’s easy to get stuck in a cycle of having a dozen bad trips that make you feel awful chasing that one good one.
lol
For me it’s insane amounts of caffeine.
Why not both
Hippie speedballs make me a productive member of society
Sadly, I’m too straight-laced to even know what that is (outside the obvious “speed” implication).
Coffee and weed
TY, TIL.
