After 20 years on Adderall I am going off my medication. More today on Authentic On Air. Welcome back to Authentic On Air. I am your host, Bruce Alexander. And today we're talking about why I'm going off of Adderall after 20 years of very consistent medication for my ADHD. Welcome back to everyone who has decided to come back to this silly little show of mine. Today I'm talking about something that is really kind of freaking me the fuck out. I have been on Adderall since 2000 well, I'm sorry.
I've been on ADHD medication since 2005 or 2006 in that whole time there has never been more than a year that I was off of it and First off, let me let me preface this by saying I am NOT a doctor the views that I will express in this Episode are my own. I'm not suggesting that anybody else do this. This is purely My own personal growth and it's part of my journey and I think it's for a good reason.
So My goal is for the next 30 days to be off of Adderall for at least 20 days and The reason I'm doing it that way is because I know that it is really hard for me to be extremely productive without having ADHD in my system and I'm I've grown a lot there the person who I was, even the last time I went off of medication for any, extended period at all, I'm a totally different person than I was then.
So I have to reset a lot of the story and consider the possibility that maybe I am capable of doing this without just destroying my life. So I wanna give myself a little bit of a buffer. to allow myself room for success. Like I want to win at this. I want this to be a successful project. And I think that just going cold turkey for a month could very easily set myself up for failure. Whenever there are some things coming up that I know that I want to be able to be fully focused and attentive for.
So I'm not saying that I'm going to use it. I'm not saying that I'm not going to use it, but for at least 20 of those days, I will not be on my medication. And I think that it's important to understand why I'm doing this. My relationship with Adderall has, it's long and storied. I've been, I've abused it. I've used it consistently. It has been a blessing to me and it has been a curse. It has been everything in between.
And the reason why I really feel like I need to go on this journey is because, I've realized recently as I've been doing like all this self work. I've over the past couple of years, I've grown a ton. I've been able to identify all these feelings and all these triggers and things that that were holding me back and I've released all these limiting self beliefs.
But in that as I was doing something called stacking today and yesterday between these two stacks, I was able to this revelation that as much as I can identify the feelings, I don't feel them. Unless I am just deep in the throes of something that is extremely, extremely passionate, just really just triggers the fuck out of me, I am not really feeling those feelings. I am feeling the idea of those feelings. As my daughter said earlier today, I get like the LaCroix sensation of those feelings.
It's like, here's a whisper of joy. Here's a faint hint of gratitude. And that's a big reason why is that I've been trying to do these exercises. I was listening to a Tony Robbins like exercise this morning and he was saying like, think of a moment where you felt intense gratitude and I struggled to think of one. Then I was finally able to think of one and I thought about one of my children being born. It's like I was very thankful that I was super happy about that.
But then, you know, then he said, feel that feeling, let that feeling wash over you. And I was like, what does gratitude feel like? What is like, what is the body sensation of gratitude? And I couldn't access it. I could not actually try to make myself in my body feel what it felt like to have gratitude. And that was a red flag for me.
as I'm doing all this self work and trying to institute a code for my life, every like all the different people I'm reading from David Goggins to Tony Robbins to Garrett J. White, all these different books that I'm drawing great inspiration from all start with being able to identify your pain and then do something with it. And. I've been hitting the stumbling block of being able to utilize this pain as fuel because I'm naming my pain. I'm calling it out. I'm sharing it.
I'm telling the truth, but I'm not feeling it. Whenever I access that pain, there's, there's no new pain for me. It doesn't hurt. It's, I want to say it's embarrassing, but it's not even embarrassing. It's the, it's like the idea of embarrassing at times. It's like I'm. you know, as I'm uncovering these truths about myself, like sometimes I'm like, oh gosh, I don't want people to know. But that is like, that's like a learned fear. It's not like actually being afraid.
Now that is something that has persisted throughout all this time is that the pressure that sits on my chest, like that, I still feel that anxiety, that fear of, of being. human and not knowing what the fuck you're doing that still sits here. That's pretty intense so I can still feel that all the time. But as I'm feeling it, I wonder what it would be like if I didn't have this armor of Adderall around me all the time. And that takes me back to what I remember about myself from high school.
That's the you know, I got diagnosed pretty early, I guess my sophomore year of college. So in those, the first year, freshman year of college and high school, those were the times in which I can remember what it felt like to really feel, to really, you know, and I thought, this is a new revelation for me is that this intensity of emotion that I had was childish. That I had this wild anger, which I did, it was fucking crazy.
This wild anger and this, you know, this, Intense love and passion for my high school girlfriends, you know willing to fight and die and Break rules and do all this crazy stuff just because I was a teenager and There might like I'm sure there's some truth to that. I'm sure there's some truth to the fact that Having these emotions and no life experience Allows you to feel those things unfettered and not want to not want to rein them in at all. And I'm like, I don't want to feel that.
I don't want to feel out of control of these emotions, but I want to feel them. I want to actually tell the story of. For example, whenever I think back to whenever I was in one of my lowest moments, whenever I was drinking way too much, like, I mean, it was on the level with being called an alcoholic that I was hung over and I threw up in front of my oldest daughter.
when she was about two years old maybe at my mother -in -law's house because I had just been so drunk the night before that I literally could not get off the couch and get to the toilet or a trash can. I just threw up in the middle of the floor. I don't think that she remembers that, but I do. I remember it and I talk about it and like, once again, I've got that like, oh gosh, people are gonna judge me that learned fear response, but it doesn't hurt. But I know it does.
I know that that that being that big of a piece of shit in front of my kid, I know it bothers me. I know it hurts, but I can't access that hurt. And those like accessing those types of experiences is what encourages you to be better. Being able to draw from those kinds of deep, what we call the pit, being able to draw from the pit. is what is able to fuel your purpose.
And I've been drawing off like, you drawing from like the, the way I, the way I'm thinking of it is like, I've been drawing from like empty pill capsules of what is supposed to be the medicine that I'm getting from the pit. It's like, it's the right size. It's the right shape. It's every, it looks like what it's supposed to be, but it's empty inside that feeling that is. in there that's supposed to really help heal my soul and deal with, I'm just getting emptiness.
And I was okay with this for so long because that person in high school, the rage was so deep whenever I got triggered that I literally had a name for it. Like I don't remember if it was an actual name, but it was, it was another person to me. It was that intense to where I spoke of it in third person with my, the girls I was dating at the time with my friends is like, you know, Oh, that wasn't. That wasn't really me. That was like, let's just call them angry Bruce.
Like it was, you know, 25 years ago or whatever, but that person was so intense and so uncontrollable that I had to first isolate it for myself and the next throw it in a, in a cellar somewhere, shut the door, lock it, and then throw a house down on it and then bring down a fricking. airplane on top of it to make sure that it never got out.
And that is what I went into college with is already having locked that person away and then getting on medication and further suppressing that connection to that range. I've been missing an entire piece of myself for 20 years and I didn't realize it. I don't know that I'm going to like having that piece of myself, but I want to make a decision. Like I am trying to live the most honest real life that I possibly can. And I can't do that if I am relying on. false information.
I don't actually know who I am if I if I don't deal with that person that I've been ignoring for so long. And in order to do that, I have to I have to connect with those emotions again. And, you know, to really put it into perspective, I have to also look at the fact of who have I been on medication? What have I done that has been so great on medication that justifies me burying?
my ability to feel gratitude, bearing my ability to get excited, bearing my ability to feel joy for the small things in life. It has to be huge. Having kids, that was huge. Getting married, that was huge. But the day -to -day smiles I see in my kids' faces, like, oh, that's nice. But it doesn't actually melt my heart like I know it should. Like that thought has got me kind of fucked up. How much of the connection that I've been searching for have I been responsible for blocking from myself?
How long have I been getting in my own way? This is some serious stuff. So the last time I went off, was after, like I was in the, I was in the fire department. I'd been on for about three or four years. I'd gotten through the, the big milestones. I'd made it through my recruit year. I made it through my first year on, and which is a time that you don't get to sit down. You have to stay going. And like, I knew that I was not going to be able to keep that up if I was not medicated.
And then for the second year, you're, you're training to learn how to drive and how to, how to be. and a firefighter. So like this was important shit. Like this was not a good time to go off medication. And then once I did that, I went into hazmat school and then there was all these new reasons to like just keep staying on. And then finally I hit like I made corporal and I hit a place where it was, there was no reason not to, not to just try it out.
My wife had been just nagging me for years to just try. And I did. I went off my medication, but I went off. feeling like I was being forced. Like I was being cornered. I was doing something I didn't want to do. So I never had a chance to succeed at this. It was her choice, not mine. And it wasn't actually her choice. That was my excuse. That's who I was then. I was the person who said, my wife can tell me what to do. And I have no choice. It's never true. You always have a choice.
The choice might maybe to sleep outside tonight. But I defer to that. I have no choice excuse. Every single time. And that was the same person who had no direction. He had no he had no standard for what he wanted life to be. He just went from day to day trying to avoid the next disaster. And that person was not depressed because that would be a feeling like and once again, if I was in major depression, I would feel that but in just being okay, I was fine with it. I was totally content.
I was sedated and this is something that I did not realize. If you have been living a life of sedation for 20 plus years and you finally wake up to it, let me tell you, it does not feel good. But if you are not buried by the life that you've created, it is actually a huge opportunity. And that's what I'm seeing here. I'm seeing this huge opportunity to.
take this life that I built that's actually pretty great and actually turn it into amazing to actually feel the beauty that is having a family to actually connect on the small things. And like I often have this conversation with my wife, but she is ADHD as well. And she's never been, I mean, she's never been medicated for ADHD and She goes through these phases where she tells me like you haven't connected with me and I don't know how long and I'm like, what are you talking about?
Like we just talked the other day. I don't like we just connected. And once again, I'm realizing as I'm uncovering this stuff is I'm not operating on the same human level she is. I've basically taken on a certain degree of automaton. I have been chemically castrated to a degree. I chose it as me. I chose it multiple times in which I said, I don't want to feel this. And I know now it's because I was scared to feel it.
I was scared to have these big emotions and have no idea what the fuck to do with them in a life that I had no fucking clue what to do and had no clue what I wanted to do. I didn't have any purpose, any direction, any vision. There was nothing. I didn't have anything. So then to dump all these huge emotions on it, I felt like an insane person. So I just. didn't. I just turned it off. Initially, I just shut those, you know, feelings deep down in a bunker and, you know, bury them.
And then I handled it chemically. So now I'm gonna unbury this shit. And the reason why now is I've been doing this work. I've been just thinking about this code that I've been reading about and how to institute this code. And the main tenant of it is to tell the fucking truth. It's to just tell the truth and to then with that truth, be with it. Like as you're telling the truth, you're feeling the truth.
I've been writing, you know many days been stacking doing all this stuff and realizing that I'm not feeling the truth I'm Making these huge revelations and it's just like okay. Cool. Take note of that. Okay, cool. Take note of that. All right But unless it's something absolutely massive, it doesn't actually move anything inside me and That's not normal. I don't think so. I mean I'll find out but I have to find out I have to, I can't, now that I've seen this gap, I can't unsee it.
Like I know my brain is different than other people anyways, but now my brain is different than the other people that I'm supposed to be the same as. Which recently I learned that neurodiversity means that all of our brains are totally mapped differently and neurotypicals, all their brains are mapped pretty much exactly the same. So, but we're the same in our differentness. I don't know, it's a big, big decision, but I've already made it.
The decision I made last week was to stop living in the land of maybe. The power lies in the decisions. The ability to say yes or no is where you find the power. And so, and I found that as I've been making decisions, I felt much more powerful, or at least the idea of power. Maybe I'll feel completely different whenever I actually can feel fully. But I've had to take several preparations to make sure that I don't just completely destroy my life whenever I go off this medication.
Because I know that there are certain things that are facts. There are facts that have to do with me being unmedicated. I made this mind map today. And in this mind map, I just listed some of the obstacles that I know that I'm going to have to deal with. The mental chaos, lack of motivation, fatigue, emotional roller coasters, time blindness, disorganization, distraction, and impulsivity. Those are all the obstacles that I will face.
These are things that I know that I do feel whenever I'm medicated, but. I've never had a plan before in how to deal with any of those obstacles except for to take the medication. That was always the answer. There was never anything else to drive me to get around these obstacles. And now like here's a list of the solutions that I will be taking to mitigate those obstacles. Daily meditation, stacking, daily exercise.
I always, whenever I'm unmedicated, Maybe this is not true, but I like, I didn't have my medication last weekend. And in that two to four o 'clock time, I always have this pretty extraordinary dip of energy. And so in order to avoid that, because I don't want to have, I don't want to be a nap dad. I don't want to be that guy. Like I already fall asleep on the couch at the end of the day. I don't want to be fall asleep in the middle of the day at the end of the day, wake up late.
Like I don't want to be that lack of productivity debt. So I'm going to, I'm going to start taking walks in the afternoon. right at that time that I usually dip to try to get my energy back up. I'm going to put every responsibility that I have and commitment into my calendar. Most of those already in there. These are things that's something I've been doing and been handling pretty well because just to kind of go back to me on Adderall, I'm not really without these systems.
I'm not that great at being a cognizant of time. I'm not that super productive. I'm not that great at being focused. Like all these promises that Adderall has given me, I realize that I'm not doing that great of a job at. So maybe if I just had a plan, I could do at least as good unmedicated. Anyways, so I have to use timers actively. Something I've always done is like, yeah, I'll time myself. And I'm like, I don't really need to. That's fine. It's not a big deal.
I need to actively use timers because. Want I want to be productive. I don't want to Be a slave to getting lost in time that sounds really frustrating and really It sounds stupid. I don't want to do that I need to create checklists and formulas and times of focus for when I'm not focused so I'm going to create checklists and formulas in my times of focus, because there are gonna be times where I'm hyper -focused. I'm gonna have higher levels of focus at certain times than others.
And when I do, I'm going to make sure I spend that time creating devices to help me when I'm not that focused. So another thing is to live by the code. I have never in my life had a, a guiding methodology. Like even when I was a Christian, like a Christian, like there are things that it describes about how you live and how you act towards people, but it was never specific enough to me to like give me that daily motivation of how to act myself.
Like if there was nobody else around, what do I need to do? And the code States tell the fucking truth. Tell the truth. Period. Just be honest and then get real. Be raw. And that's really just be in those feelings. As you're telling the truth and being real, you're gonna just feel those feelings to a real degree and be honest about them. Stay relevant, share with people who need to know it, and stay focused on the things that are important to you, and then be dedicated to big results.
Those are things that can always guide me whenever I start to get lost as to, well, what do need to do next? Like, there's so much stuff. Like, I know that it's overwhelming. Just being a human, being ADHD can make it Very worse, very worse, a lot worse. Then next is just trusting the checklist processes and commitments over my feelings. I am going to feel bad sometimes. I am going to have bad days. I'm going to wake up and I'm going to feel that pressure on my chest.
Like, what the fuck am I doing? I have no idea, but I have to trust the process. I had to trust the fact that me on this medication with all of my analytical thought, has put a plan into place to take care of me whenever I am not able to do that kind of processing initially. And something that is going to be important to me is staying focused on my life priority list. Like as I'm living by the code, there are things that are also important to me and that is to, sorry, hold on.
All this stuff is written down by the way, because I know once again, I know I'm ADHD. I know that I will forget whenever I get stressed. So I need to be able to refer back to this stuff. So I don't do that. So my, the three guiding things that are going to be just put, I'm going to tattoo everywhere around me is to provide for my family. And that is a multiple of three. It is not just financial. It is to emotionally provide for my family.
to spiritually provide for my family and to emotionally, I'm sorry, and to financially provide for my family. Those are the three things I need to be working on every single day. Sorry, those are the three things for that part of my priority list. The second is live by the code. So just continue to be absolutely raw and honest and really just live in my pain for a while so I can like, while I'm really, able to feel it, I can learn from it and I can.
I don't know, I can optimize that to I'm sorry, not optimize, I can leverage that to build my kingdom and that is my last ten is build my kingdom. I want to I want to have my own business like I mean I do, but I want it to be. I don't want it to be an empire, but I want it to be big. I wanted to like, I want to be the leader of a movement of ADHD parents who are living life on purpose. They're no longer being, they're no longer being NPCs.
For those of you who don't know, that means non -player characters in the game of life. I want to be a movement leader for people who are taking the fucking controller and they are taking control of their life and they are playing the game to the realest and rawest. like extent of the word. That's what I like. I want that to be my kingdom. I want that to be what I wake up every day and do. Like I've got a couple of clients that I'm currently helping do that.
And as I'm expanding myself, I'm expanding my ability to help them. I'm learning all kinds of new tools and processes to help them work through the types of issues I'm working through myself. Just like, I don't know. what everybody listening thinks about the idea that those who can't do coach, but for me as a life coach, that's not anywhere close to true. I have taken this game of developing myself and I have just dove head first into it. And I am, I am real about this shit.
So whenever I come to somebody and I say, I can help you, it's because I know I can't. It's because I know I've been through the worst shit. possible And so I know that I can help guide people to the other side can I help somebody who is been through exactly what I've been through and Has handled it unmedicated.
Yes, I still can I still have the way that my brain works I have learned lessons and been able to apply the critical thinking skills I've gained to just extract things from it that other people just don't see and That's my God given talent. That's why I was put on this earth is to be able to help people see what they need to see to take themselves to the next level. That's it, that's what I'm here to do.
Anyways, so the habits I've built over this time of being medicated, I've got lots of habits. They help me keep from losing stuff, they help to keep me from getting too distracted. And because once again, being on medication has not protected me from a lot of the pitfalls of being ADHD, which kind of calls myself to the court, it's like, saying, why did I stay on it this long if I was still struggling from all those things?
And that goes back again to being afraid, being terrified of the real feeling, being terrified of that guy who had all the anger, who, who scared people, who, you know, bordered on laying his hands on women who broke many things because of his anger. And once again, on medication, I still broke stuff. I never hit anybody. I never shook anybody. I never did that. But I broke doors, I broke a chair, I broke phones, I threw stuff. I've been dangerous on medication and off.
The difference is, there's no difference. What I've learned is how to control me. How to stop hiding me. Because hiding, keeping me, locked up and in prison is what causes those outbursts of anger. Trying to lie and hide is what causes that pressure that bubbles up to the surface and explodes.
I know that very well from personal experience is you cannot control anger when you are constantly hiding yourself from the world or from yourself even you have to be able to connect with your truth or You are going to hurt people and you are going to hurt yourself So the last thing the last precaution I'm taking is I will not make any life -altering decisions during this 30 days I will not decide any career changes or which
I mean, I'm not going to a physical job right now, but I am actively lurking, looking. So if I get a job, I won't quit during this time. Um, I will keep coaching during this time. And yeah, that's, that's how I'm going to, those are the guard rails. I've also got some things to find that, you know, are important. Like what is a win? It's for me, a win is to survive this time.
Like. survive, not die, but explore this pain, like explore all these things that I've listed in my journals and my stacks without being able to feel, but explore those feelings without creating any more unnecessary pain. So without hurting my wife, without hurting my kids, without doing that, and then especially without taking accountability.
So if I, of course there are going to be times if I'm unmedicated and I'm in touch with these emotions, I'm likely to have the occasional slip up where I like my emotions get, you know, get away from me a little bit. I hope that it's going to be much less than it would have been in the past, but I really, I don't know. I don't know what kind of Russian emotion is going to come, but I know now that I have to take accountability.
I know now that I can't be embarrassed and shameful for having emotions. I have to own it. I have to show my kids it's okay to feel anger, but you have to be able to handle it in a responsible way. I can't, I cannot hurt anybody. I hope not to hurt anybody emotionally, but I definitely will not hurt anybody physically. And I know how to leverage my stacking and journaling to make sure I don't do that.
And that's, you know, it's exciting to have things in place already that are going to help me mitigate this journey. And so a loss would be hurting myself, either hurting my business or hurting my body somehow, or. hurting my emotional state to some degree of severity or anybody else and not taking accountability. And how do I measure that? How am I going to measure those types of almost ethereal goals in relationships and connection and clarity? My wife will be able to tell me.
If I if this has improved our relationship to her or not I will be able to feel if I feel closer to my wife or not Something I'm doing all of this for is searching a deeper connection with my children. I will be able to feel hopefully I'll be able to actually feel that connection on a deeper level and What I want to gain from it is information connection data connection to myself connection to others connection to the voice of God, connection to the audience I'm supposed to serve.
I've been struggling for a time because I've been out here just being raw and I've been, I thought being raw, but being real and telling the truth and not getting any sort of feedback from the audience who is listening to me. And I think that as I start to devolve more into an emotional state, I will start to see more connection. The glass. face that I've had like the I don't know the cold stare the I don't know.
I don't feel like I look that unemotional, but I don't I know I don't look that emotional.
So I feel like people maybe think I'm hiding something and I'm not trying to but I feel like that medication does make me feel like I'm not emoting and I hope that that level of honesty plus the emotions that are behind it are going to reach people in a deep way and I'm going to start to engage with people and feel like I'm actually finding the people who are really trying to serve and they're going to tell me that they're here for it.
So overall, being able to feel my truth and not just talk about it. That's the goal to be able to like fully access my pain so I can. Well, so like I talked about the pit early, the pit is like the the darkness inside of you. It's the like all your bad shit, either unresolved or resolved. It's going back to those bad moments and getting inside of how you felt in those.
And for those who hide from it, it is a place of Fear and it takes all your strength away from you and makes you feel helpless For those who have resolved those issues they still go back there and you use it as a place of power you check back in with those deep dark moments and you continue to go back in and remaster those emotions and re retell the story Rewrite the story of who you were in that moment rewrite the story of you know
being helpless in that moment, taking accountability for the things you've done, taking ability or accountability for the things that happen to you. And then as you take that accountability, you're able to turn that into power to fuel your dreams. And right now I feel like I'm fucking, I'm trying to run on unleaded whenever I need premium fuel. That I feel like that's the perfect example. So I'm, I'm unlocking the premium baby.
Hopefully it doesn't turn out to be jet fuel because I don't know how that's going to go down. But I want to be able to access that so I can be seen by those who are at the deepest, darkest bottom of their pit because they can only be reached by absolute raw and real truth. Those people who are at the very lowest, at the very fucking deep bottom of the pit, they think that nobody else has ever been there. They think that they're totally on their fucking own and I can't. Can't in this state.
I don't think I can get to them. I'm like I'm trying to let them know that I've seen it I'm trying to like really just expose myself, but Not being able to feel it. I feel like they did they can't believe it like I don't know about this guy I don't know if he's really on the level.
I Don't know what we'll find out so I encourage you to tune back in next week to see if the fucking wheels fall off as I go on this journey like We'll see I don't think that they are I think that this is I feel like I'm being called, even if it's just for a brief journey to try this. I feel like I've been hearing, I've been talking about this a lot, like I feel like I've been being pulled, compelled, moved, urged, called to certain things, but the call hasn't been specific. It has been unclear.
There has been a lot of guiding hands and then signs that have like literally happened in front of me. It's like, oh, okay, you're telling me through this thing, this is what I need to do. But I want to... I want to take the silencer off of this calling. I want it to be fucked. I want it to be as loud as possible. I want to put my ear to the speaker and have it freaking blow my eardrum out. I want the call to be clear.
And I feel like in order to do that, I have to get deep in the pit and I got to get familiar with this pain. And if you're looking to push yourself and grow out of your comfort zone, if you are numb, like I was even long before this realization, if you're just sleepwalking through your life, I strongly suggest you go take the ADHD aimless life assessment linked in the description and get the next steps that I provide to taking back control of your life. Stop being a bystander in your own life.
This is a game, but only if you take control and play. That is it for me this week on Authentic On Air. I will see you next week. Thank you so very much. Good night.