alt Hacker News> Have you tried Adderall? It gives extreme competitive edge.
Before readers rush out to acquire Adderall, note that "trying" it does not give an accurate picture of what it's like to take it long-term. It has a high discontinuation rate because people read comments like this online or borrow a dose from their friend and think they're going to be running around like Bradley Cooper in Limitless for the rest of their career.
A new patient who tries Adderall will feel a sense of euphoria, energy, and motivation that is temporary. This effect does not last. This is why the Reddit ADHD forums are full of people posting "I just took my first dose and I'm so happy I could cry" followed a few weeks later by "Why did my Adderall stop working?". The focus part is still mostly working, but no drug is going to make you feel happy, energized, and euphoric for very long.
> Just to get legal and easy access to performance-enhancing drugs in elite educational (aka competitive) setting it makes sense to get "disability".
You're confusing two different things. Registering with the school's disability office is orthogonal to getting a prescription for anything.
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Abusing adderall can obviously go wrong, but if you do it right you take it once every month or so and have minimal long term effects. Stanford students arent using it for the euphoria, theyre using it so they can study all night without getting distracted. Its also not a miracle drug, you have to be in the right mindset for it to work and a lot of the people who use it dont understand that.
Everything can be abused or used incorrectly. If you drink too much water you remove salts from your body and get sick.
With Adderall (or Vyvanse) good protocol is to get small dose, like 5-10mg early morning once every one or two weeks. Then you’ll get boost when really needed and feel uplifting for few more days.
Taking it every day is insane, ADHD or not.