Caffeine either doesn’t help me at all or gives me terrible anxiety. And no matter what, it makes it impossible to sleep. The long duration of caffeine is just brutal. Adderall/amphetamine salts are in and out in about 3 hours time, which is great because if I’m supposed to go out with friends or something, and I’m completely exhausted, I can pop one at 7 pm and be in bed by 12:30 or so if I didn’t take my p.m. dose (as I often don’t).
Whether I’m taking Adderall or not (you shouldn’t mix caffeine with stimulants), I drink decaf. I really think caffeine is a terrible substance, along with alcohol. I mostly don’t touch the stuff.
The small dose in the very rare twelve-ounce soda I drink isn’t enough to bother me. But anything above that is usually misery. Then you get stuck in the cycle of caffeine > crash > caffeine > crash.
Despite what you hear online, Adderall has no crash, at least when used in medicinal doses. It just stops working after 3–4 hours and your symptoms return. I’m very, very skeptical of a snake-oil salesman like Andrew Huberman, but he says that if you take your caffeine after 30 minutes (after waking up in the a.m.), you can avoid caffeine crash as the body has enough time for the adenosine to recede naturally, so there isn’t a huge amount of it waiting for the caffeine to wear off.
But I don’t trust a damn thing the guy says since he’s constantly lying, so take that with a grain of amphetamine salt.
Adderall makes me focus. Caffeine does not. As it blocks adenosine receptors and only marginally affects norepinephrine/dopamine, the two aren’t really comparable. One gives you focus and energy, the other keeps the chemical that makes you tired (adenosine) from working.
The leading theory behind ADHD is that the brain’s dopamine system isn’t functioning properly. Think of it like two cups sitting next to one another, one filled halfway with water and the other totally empty. Then you continue to fill the half-full cup until it’s full. Eventually it will overflow into the empty cup. When that happens, a thought occurs. It’s an analogy for your neurons. But people with ADHD have a hard time filling up their cups. So they begin a thought, but the neuron doesn’t completely fire, so the process of starting a thought starts all over again without completing the original thought. Caffeine can’t help this, as adenosine isn’t involved.
In terms of holidays, only take two mind-altering substances, and one is so seldom I can hardly say I take it: Temazepam and Adderall. I haven’t taken Temazepam since February or early March. So, my drug holidays are legitimate holidays. I don’t even take supplements that might boost dopamine during these holidays (L-Dopa, etc.), as the point is to go back to baseline. I highly recommend them, if you have such a medication and your doctor thinks they’d be a good idea for you.
Personally, I like being in my senses and I don’t like distorting them. Ironically, that’s why Adderall is so beautiful. On some days, I’m just drained. So tired, so unfocused, so spaced out that I might as well be on a drug. Adderall helps me get back to normal.
