DOSE:			Pharms - Methylphenidate	(daily)
			Amphetamines

BODY WEIGHT:

195 lb

It took only bad judgement that turned life into one painful roller coaster ride. I was twenty five years old in 2001 when I was diagnosed with ADD and given a prescription for Ritalin at 10mg. twice a day. My concentration was never too great and I did had problems focusing in school so my psychiatrist was all too eager to label me with Attention Defecit Disorder. He just wrote a script and sent me on my way.

I was familiar with ADD because my wife's brother suffers with it. He was on Ritalin and every time I saw him he was calm almost to the point of being lethargic. When he wasn't taking Ritalin he was bouncing off the walls and couldnt sit down form more than a few seconds. That day I went home and took the pill. Within an hour I knew I did not have ADD because I was juiced up like never before. I was feeling good and confident with a huge chemical smile on my face. For the first time in my life I felt I could take on the world and do anything. As time went on I got hooked into the routine of taking more and more pills when that buzz started wearing off. Soon enough I took all the pills that were supposed to last a month in just over two weeks. So for the rest of that month I struggled with depression and an intense desire to get some more Ritalin because I just wanted to have that feeling back and be that happy, confident and social person again.

The day came for my next appointment and I told my doctor that I needed a larger perscription. He upped the milligrams to 20 and gave me three times as much. I went through them like candy. I became tolerant and took all my pills in two weeks and figured out that I could get a faster kick by snorting it. The first two weeks of every month I was SuperMan, perfect husband and model employee. It didn't take long for that to slowly slip away as the meds ran low. I just crashed, sunk into depression was irritabile and became paranoid. The moment first felt that Ritalin high, living without it terrible, depressing and unhappy. I forgot who I really was and just wanted to be the fearless 'Ritalin Guy'. This cycle continued for two years. Every day counting the days until I could get my hands on those pills. As time passed I sunk more into depression even when I was loading up on the Ritalin. I was getting the hallucinations and was wired, paranoid and jumped up at any noise. Everyone irritated me. I turned into a completely differnet person.

When I ran out of pills I would drink alcohol and started chain smoking to satisify that chemical need. I lost a great job and didn't even care. I never left the house and slept all day. Sleep became a sort of refuge where I could hide from the world. My only purpose in life was to satisfy this new addictive personality I created. My wife and I now slept in seperate beds and every day became darker and more painful. I started having pains in my abdomen and constant diarrea and bleeding. Because I hardly slept when I was loading up on the Ritalin my mouth was always dry and I was getting sores so painful on my tongue I could not eat.

I finally went to the doctor and they ran some tests. Three days later she told me I had acute pancreatitis and my eyes and skin were yellow because my liver was failing and slowly poisoning myself. My kidneys are also severely diseased. My constant amphetamine abuse along with the alcohol and pack a day smoking habit had caught with me in no time at all and now that 'miracle' drug was killing me bacause I was taking so much my liver was not able to keep up filtering my blood. A few weeks later I also got the news that I have high blood pressure and my heart was enlarged which I knew was because of the Ritalin abuse. I did this all to myself. I kept putting off turning my life around and thought, I'm only 27 and I have a lot of years to live so I can have a little fun, one more pill. I got addicted and I chose to let this synthetic chemical happiness control my life knowing it was not the way to live. My biggest regret is not realizing that my true happiness and love was in front of me all along, my wife. We just got a house and we were married for only two years. I just pushed her and everything away because all I cared about was that Ritalin high.

I choose the path of addiction to a chemical that made me feel good for a while but alway left me empty inside. I believed confidence, motivation and happiness came from a pill bottle when only truly comes from inside ourselves. The world is what me make it and hopefully we dont take it for granted and make poor choices. I will not be here too much longer and I'm not ready to go so soon. In the remaing days my only wish I could go back to the start and make it right.

It's sad to see so many people get diagnosed with something they don't have and then doctor places a medication in a teenager's hand that is so powerful that it can either truly help someone or give them a false sense of identity, confidence and possibly destroy lives.

Exp Year: 2003	ExpID: 25981
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jan 2, 2004	Views: 30,234
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Pharms - Methylphenidate (114) : Not Applicable (38), Addiction & Habituation (10), Health Problems (27)