Treating ADHD Inattentive With Nicotine
I was diagnosed with adult ADHD-inattentive five years ago and it changed my life. I finally understood why my mind was always floating off into outer space, and why I had to “squint my brain” to get anything done. If you or someone you love has ADHD, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Treating ADHD can be a challenge, and coping mechanisms, diet, and exercise only go so far. That’s why, at some point, almost everyone tries medication.
I was prescribed Adderall and it was amazing. It woke me up and kept me calm and relaxed. I was able to effortlessly switch between tasks and control how and where I focused my attention, something that required enormous effort before. It became clear to me what a “normal” person without ADHD must feel like; It was awesome.
Until it wasn’t.
Adderall comes with a raft of unpleasant side effects. High blood pressure, end of day crash, messed up sleep. But by far the worst was that it’s a controlled substance and highly regulated. Each month was another doctor’s appointment to get a new paper prescription that needed to be hand delivered to the pharmacy. I was constantly battling the insurance company to cover the costs, which was $415 a month for brand-name Adderall (the generic version is NOT the same and made me edgy, especially the XR generic capsules).
On top of that, a lot of people still believe ADHD is an imaginary condition invented by lazy people (even some in the medical field). I was constantly being judged. I felt like a criminal, begging for drugs, begging for permission just to feel like a normal human.
Not to mention the stress of traveling, especially out of the country. Ugh.
The whole thing was ridiculous. So I started looking for alternatives.
I tried natural supplements (no effect whatsoever), caffeine (any dose high enough to be effective made me edgy), meditation (Zzzzz), and more exercise (look, Ma, I’m healthy!). But nothing worked like Adderall.
I was about to give up when I stumbled on a National Institute of Health article linking higher rates of smoking in teens with ADHD. It basically says that teens and young adults use cigarettes to self medicate their ADHD.
I quit smoking many years ago and haven’t touched a cigarette since, but I remember those were some of the most productive years of my life. Turns out I was self medicating with cigarettes, using nicotine to treat my undiagnosed ADHD. Hmmmm….
I researched everything I could find about nicotine and turns out nicotine is not the problem, it’s the tobacco. Nicotine by itself is almost completely harmless, and might even be beneficial. Like caffeine, nicotine has a slight risk of addiction, but for someone with ADHD that risk is much lower. The real addiction to cigarettes comes from the thousands of added chemicals in tobacco and the social and physical habit of smoking.
So I bought a box of low dose nicotine patches (7mg) and gave it a shot.
Within five minutes of putting on that first patch, my mind cleared. The effects weren’t exactly the same as Adderall, but they were close. I was calm, clear, and in complete control. It also worked much faster than Adderall, which usually took at least an hour to take effect. And the patch also lasted for 24 hours, which meant waking up completely clear for the first time in my life.
It’s been four months since I made the switch, and I couldn’t be happier. I’m at the same nicotine dosage as day one (with Adderall, my dosage needed to be increased regularly to achieve the same effectiveness), my blood pressure dropped fifteen points (Adderall increased it by fifteen points), and I don’t crash at the end of the day or have any sleep issues (other than vivid dreams, which I happen to like). Plus, I’m not addicted to nicotine. I can skip entire days with no ill effects- I just space out and relax like the good old days before I knew I had ADHD. A stark contrast to the Adderall crash.
The best part? No more begging for medicine, no more stress when traveling, and the cost is much lower.
So, if you’re looking for a way to quit Adderall, nicotine might be the answer. It sure worked for me.
