[QUOTE=Anise]
I’m a better living through chemistry experiment these days, but I’m very happy with it so far. The biggest difference I am noticing (from the information, and also from what people here have said) is that I do have the increased concentration abilities, which is all very nice, but I am also CALM and free of anxiety. That’s a HUGE difference from before, and it doesn’t sound like that’s what happens to “normal” people who take these drugs.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
[/QUOTE]
I’m failry sure most “normal” people who routinely take these drugs do so with the desire to stop being irritable, anxious, uncomfortable and lethargic and simply feel better. Are you implying that off-label use of stimulants is done with the hopes of being jumpy, overexcited and anxious? Also note that anxiety, loss of focus and irritability are secondary symptoms of almost all types of general discomfort - and the difference with you is that you perceive your discomfort as being a consequence, and not the cause of those symptoms which is more than likely entirely true, but that’s your decision in the end to think that, be it influenced by a doctor or not. My opinion is that “normal” people who use and abuse these drugs do so to typically get the same effects, just like “normal” people who abuse pain medications when they are not in pain are doing it to get the same biological effects that people in actual physical pain want. Who are we to call their reasons, desires and problems somehow fundamentally different without any particular reason to do so (not reason they are different, mind you, but a reason to point it out even if it so)?
Don’t get me wrong, I am not against stimulant medications in any way, nor do I deny existence of specific disorders that they treat, I just don’t think it is correct to keep drawing thick lines between medicinal use, social use and patient and non-patient abuse. They are all, typically voluntary, chemical adjustments of internal state that is perceived as being uncomfortable, detrimental or incorrect. While the drug is available it’s a godsend, and typically important, in lives of any user - being medicated or being self-medicated. The key problem with self-medication or abuse is not that the goals are necessarily different, nor is it that the desired effects are necessarily different, but that it is not supervised and controlled by a third-party and often there is nobody monitoring you and making sure you’re not hurting yourself until the damage is done. The high-and-mighty approach I often hear from people about their ‘medical’ uses being vastly different and somehow better than abuse because they ‘actually’ need it grates me to no end. Why is it that I ‘need’ air and water just like everybody else, but my ‘need’ for my morning cup of coffee is somehow less ‘actual’ than somebody elses 80mg of caffeine prescribed as a dieuretic? Neither one of us is likely die immediately from not getting it, and I’d guess that in most cases the discomfort of doing so would be comparable. 
And I feel like reiterating that for adults, it is typically you who decides what psychoactive chemicals go in you. We are not being cured by the majority of these meds, and at best they allow one to develop good mental habits that will perhaps allow one to transition off of the drug. I just really do not see the need to consistently denigrate people who engage in similar activities to oneself but in a different manner that is presented as more frivolous, less important and less justified. It’s true of almost everything in our lives - we love to come up with justifications why our after dinner sherry is so much better and more refined than the malt liquor for the alcoholic next door, why that cuban is somehow a divine concept in comparison to teenagers sucking down GPCs, why you actually need your percocets because you are in chronic pain unlike the junkie downtown who’s only looking to get high, why your sonata in E minor is somehow a work of a bigger mind and is automatically more intellectual than any rap song, why your use of language is more refined than somebody else’s and even such things as why your love for your wife of fifty years is so much more pure and important than any middle-school puppy romance. If you like being on a high horse, that’s up to you of course, just like ranting about it is up to me 
Also, I didn’t at any point claim that benzodiazepines were related to stimulants in any way, but it is a regular practice to blur the lines between types of addiction because of the prevalent evidence showing very similar behaviors and effects accross a whole range of things people become dependent on - from cocaine to se x to gambling.
Cheers,
I got a flight to catch,
Groman
The ADD came from a head injury several years ago. Anyone can LOOK at pix of my brain and see that it isn’t normal. That being said, this isn’t true for most people with ADD. I don’t know why people have it whose brains look normal on a scan, or how many people could benefit from the same medications. If everybody wants to drink a gallon of coffee a day, be my guest! But personally, I can’t pretend that I don’t need these medications anymore, and that is all I am saying.