I feel bad that you think amphetamines are some class of "lifestyle" drug. They are one of the most simple drugs around..pretty much the definition of a stimulant other than even more primitive ones like adrenaline or noradrenaline. You are welcome to keep thinking you are doing yourself a therepeutic solid by taking amphetamines - but ultimately you are just popping stimulants like a spice jawa from Star Wars. Just be honest with yourself - its easier to change when you admit that amphetamines arent complex drugs...that they are just simple stims...that they dont give a person anything they didnt already have. That they basically just overclock the brain and the body. If you dont believe it, pop 100mg and try not to have a heart attack or seizure. Good luck bug

> You are welcome to keep thinking...

I get it. You don't believe the problems are real. Or you don't believe that the drugs are effective at treating them. So I'm lying. And other people are lying. We're all lying to you, part of the vast conspiracy of children who never actually went through something that you didn't go through. Congratulations, you found us out! Or maybe you don't actually know everything.

> You are welcome to keep thinking you are doing yourself a therepeutic solid

I'll do you one better. My mother's strong advocacy for my mental wellbeing saved my life and ultimately made me an understanding and compassionate person who listens when someone tells them about real childhood trauma from being literally unable to read until the medicine magically fixed what was wrong.

> I feel bad that you think amphetamines are some class of "lifestyle" drug

I feel bad that you don't understand that different people have different needs to be able to function, and that sometimes things go wrong in ways that are fixable. I feel bad that you don't understand that people are very often willing to accept harmful side effects because those are less bad than the alternative.

> one of the most simple drugs around

Simple, eh? Let me tell you a story about a little drug called Lithium Carbonate. We can compare.

The specific biochemical mechanism of lithium action in stabilizing mood is unknown. So no, Lithium is not a simple drug other than its small chemical formula. Amphetamines on the other hand are understood quite well. I have taken amphetamines myself, and still do occasionally. Ive actually done almost every drug under the sun. So I know exactly how amphetamines feel and function. And there is nothing to amphetamines, slighty more to phenyldates, and slightly more to racetams. There is a reason amphetamines are called speed on the street. Your psyche has locked itself into binary habits, where you are unable to perform without amphetamines. Ultimately, speed is not a real changer in anything other than...well..speed of function and stamina. So everything done on speed can be done normally. But I totally understand if you have grown accustomed to becoming a shy shell of a potato sack depending on whether you are sped or not. It is easy to forget that not even alcoholics drink every day, all day. But "Durr adhd" means lets speed all day. Shape up and face the music. Your cardiovascular sysyem will thank you. Just pray you don't have a myocardial infarction before then..

> I have taken amphetamines myself, and still do occasionally. Ive actually done almost every drug under the sun. So I know

Ah. I understand now that you think that taking drugs is a similar professional qualification to, say, decades of medical accomplishment and meta-analysis in Neuropsychology. What a joke.

> The specific biochemical mechanism of lithium action in stabilizing mood is unknown.

Fun fact: Nobody knows why _any_ mood or cognition altering drug works the way it does, because nobody knows how the brain produces awareness. Nobody can predict which if any mood or cognition altering drug will treat known problems, because nobody knows yet what fundamentally causes the problems. It's why psychiatric treatments always require experimentation to discover which of multiple medications might work and at what dosage. Or are you saying you know that too? Because if you are, then I eagerly await the publication of your well-founded study.

Every time you assert that your experiences are universal, that's a crazy thing. It's even crazier that your basis for asserting it is that you did some drugs.

All we can do is use studies along with our own experiences, experiences of family and friends, to gauge how a drug works. I went to a large university and Adderall was commonly used to study. Lacking a deep focus is only a problem if you decide it is. Brain damage is a problem, regardless of ones' opinion on it. And narcolepsy is too. Any serious physiological condition, is pretty much a problem regardless of what the patient thinks. However, the problem that ADHD is prescribed for, is mainly a lack of focus, a lack of "inner thinking." Which is really just a slight intonation in the brains' reward system. These kind of behavioral issues are mostly well-solved using CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy. Which can be done at home via standard pavlovian style reward/no-reward trials.

The reason psychiatric treatments require experimentation is because most psychiatric drugs are poorly understood in their mechanisms. We use them mainly because of pragmatic effects - not because we actually know their precise mechanisms.

I never said my experiences are universal, just that amphetamines have a markedly simple mechanism in humans and other animals -- that is, increasing dopaminergic activity, along with noradrenal activity. It is common knowledge that by increasing levels of dopamine, harder tasks can be performed without as much exhaustion. But mind you, the body's energy supply isn't unlimited - and though the mind might be more resilient, the body still pays for the extra activity done under guise of ease.

It is clear that you find the tradeoff worth it. Like you said, everyone has different experiences and finds different tradeoffs worth it. For me, the tradeoff isn't worth it - I find that taking amphetamines daily extracts most of the beneficial effects into tolerance, and what follows is pretty much just maintanence. If you find the tradeoff worth it, then clearly you should be using it. Only you can decide whether you are getting an overall positive effect from a narcotic that provides both positive and negative effects.

My main point is that we cannot deny that amphetamines are hard drugs - narcotics. And thus, it seems wrong to give them to kids with such ease.