Under Pressure

When John Smith, senior, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, first started taking Adderall in preparation for his first semester finals junior year, he only meant to use it to aid in his study habits.

“It was pretty great,” Smith said. “My hair felt like it was standing on end. I had goosebumps. I felt incredible. It was the best feeling in the entire world.”

For two hours, Smith felt on top of the world, faster, smarter than anybody. But only for two hours.

“Then I crashed,” Smith said. “I felt like the world was coming down around me. So I didn’t try it for a while.”

That was supposed to be it. Smith had been around drugs long enough to know the dangers of a bad experience. He now knows he should have stopped forever. But he didn’t. He started using it in parties and during AP exams, one or twice a month.But he didn’t call himself an addict until the beginning of that summer

“I tried snorting it for the first time,” Smith said. “That’s like nothing else. It’s all going straight to the brain. I was probably doing 90 milligrams a day and I couldn’t wake up without it. Your blood vessels constrict, your fingers get cold, you can’t perform sexually.”

Smith said he hasn’t touched Adderall in two months, having quit cold-turkey immediately after Thanksgiving Break.

“I don’t need anything or anyone to be there to help my performance,” Smith said. “It took me a long time to come to grips with that. I hope for the day that I don’t wake up and crave something to snort.”

Smith said the abuse of the drug is in large part due to the cutthroat environment amongst high-achieving students at MHS.

“But there’s a reason that this affects some of the smartest people,” Smith said. “When you have a rat race that is as violent and competitive as ours is, you get people that will win at all cost, no matter the price to their body or mental stability.”

While it took Smith time to realize the impact Adderall was having on his life, those around him noticed sooner.

Adrianna Arnold, senior, said she knew Smith was on Adderall, and she tried to get him to quit numerous times before succeeding in November.

“I was the one who told him, ‘You can’t use it anymore. You’re going to hurt yourself. You’re going to hurt your heart. I don’t want you dying,” Arnold said. “I really didn’t like him using it.”

Arnold said she saw a decrease in her friend’s confidence immediately after he quit, but it’s since rebounded significantly.

“I think he’s getting back to normal,” Arnold said. “He felt down. He didn’t think he could accomplish as much. But he’s a lot better than he was in the beginning.”

Matt Stuart, whose name also has been changed to protect his identity, was introduced to Adderall at about the same time as Smith. Stuart, whose brother is prescribed Adderall for ADHD, said part of the reason Adderall is so easy to access is because of its reputation.

“I wouldn’t say I was like an addict, but no one says that they’re an addict,” Stuart said. “It’s being prescribed to anyone. Kids who don’t need it anymore just sell it.”

Alluding to its reputation as a study drug, Stuart said he first started using Adderall to focus.

“I can’t stay on one train of thought very long,” Stuart said. “But with Adderall I just stuck to it, and I would for hours on end.”

But it quickly started to unravel as Stuart noticed the negative side effects outweighed his newfound focus.

“I lost a lot of sleep. I lost a lot of weight,” Stuart said. “It just makes you feel like crap. You just want to keep working. I don’t want to have to depend on a drug to be able to pass a class.”

Susie Saxon, junior, was prescribed Adderall just after being diagnosed with ADHD, Predominantly Inattentive Type (ADHD-PI/ADHD-I), the fall of her sophomore year.

“Leading up to high school, I’d always been a high achiever, but freshman year turned school upside-down for me,” Saxon said. “I couldn’t study, couldn’t stay organized, couldn’t keep track of things no matter how hard I tried to commit them to memory.”

Saxon wasn’t written a prescription until she underwent a series of tests confirming she had ADHD, and not other underlying causes or a disorder causing the symptoms she was experiencing. These tests included IQ testing, an evaluation based on the DSM-V, ADHD Rating Scales, and Continuous Performance Tests (CPT).

For Saxon, the impacts Adderall had on her weren’t clear from the start, much of her early experience with the drug being trial and error to see what medication types and dosages suited her best. Saxon said a lot of people with ADHD experience fairly instantaneous results, comparing it to a fog being lifted. But she experienced a much more gradual transition into feeling the full effects of Adderall.

“It helps me to sustain my attention for longer periods of time, stay focused on one task at a time, and improves executive functioning,” Saxon said.

Saxon, unlike the aforementioned students, takes Adderall to combat and help manage her ADHD, and said for individuals abusing the drug, the effects of Adderall wouldn’t work.

“The way that ADHD medication works is that it stimulates the neurotransmitters of the brain to create dopamine, a substance that people with ADHD naturally have much lower amounts of,” Saxon said.

“For a person without ADHD, neurotransmitters already produce sufficient dopamine and taking a stimulant medication causes these neurotransmitters to become overactive, making you less able to focus, study and get work done.”

Saxon said it’s counterproductive to buy Adderall with the intent of using it to help you pull an effective all-nighter or to study for a test.

“You’d be better off drinking a few cups of coffee. Caffeine has similar energy effects, isn’t illegal and doesn’t have the high potential of addiction that Adderall does,” Saxon said.

The rise of Adderall abuse has directly corresponded to its growing reputation as a study drug. But this association has impacted those who take the drug out of necessity, in other words, by prescription.

“Adderall’s reputation as a “study drug” is incredibly frustrating as it creates a stigma surrounding those who actually need the medication,” Saxon said. “ADHD has gained a reputation for being a quoteon-quote mild disability and the abuse of Adderall by non-diagnosed individuals has contributed significantly to this.”

While Saxon is frustrated by individuals abusing the drug, she understands why people — especially her peers — turn to Adderall. Much of the prevalence of Adderall abuse she attributes to the multiple hours of studying on top of busy-work assignments students are weighted down with, amassing to more than five hours worth of homework some nights.

“[Adderall abuse] is illustrative of the stress and demands placed upon students by today’s school system,” Saxon said.

As far as lessening Adderall abuse, Saxon said it is vital to understand the factors leading people to buy illegal substances and investigate what can be done to ease those circumstances.

Rockwood has been taking measures to help combat prescription drug abuse.

Anna Greenwood, director of the Rockwood Drug-Free Coalition (RDFC), said the RDFC has been working to educate the community on prescription drug abuse through educational campaigns and by hosting medication take backs throughout the school year. RDFC also partnered with the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse to educate students on the dangers of Adderall through a social media program targeting high school and middle school students. These ads were distributed through Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, Pandora and Facebook.

“The goal of the campaign was to increase the perception of harm of misusing ‘study drugs,’ promote alternatives to misusing ‘study drugs’ and increase the intent to avoid misusing ‘study drugs’,” Greenwood said.

SADD sponsor Vicki Kemp, gifted resource teacher, said Adderall’s reputation only goes as far as its perceived necessity. She said to reduce its use, there needs to be a refocusing on the way school works.

“It’s going to need a systemic change,” Kemp said. “As test scores and grades have become more important, the pressure is starting in kindergarten. We’re putting all our eggs in the basket of test scores and GPAs and we’re totally missing the boat on these more important things.”

Kemp cautioned the easy way out, a simple confiscation and suspension won’t adequately solve the issue, especially when dealing with a section of the student body that is often so competitive and successful.

“It’s going to need to come from much deeper than confiscating the kids’ Adderall in the high schools,” Kemp said.