"In college, I once started a term paper at 3:00 in the morning. It was due at 8:00 AM. “Just take some of my Adderall,” my roommate suggested. “It’s the only way you have a prayer of finishing that thing.” My roommate was diagnosed with ADHD, but she frequently used her medication to perform all-nighters so she could cram for exams and finals. Realizing the pill was my only hope, I took it. I finished the paper with time to spare and I ended up getting an A. In The Adderall Diaries, which has been released in paperback this month, author Stephen Elliott uses Adderall to clear his writer’s block while he documents a murder trial and unearths new revelations about his own upbringing.
In the opening lines, Elliott breaks open his prescribed Adderall capsules and pours them into his orange juice. Adderall is an amphetamine medication that provides the patient with a steady, sharp attention span when taken in small doses. “Without the Adderall I have a hard time following through on a thought,” the author writes. “My mind is like a man pacing between the kitchen and the living room, always planning something in one room then leaving as soon as he arrives in the other.” Although Elliott’s dosage fluctuates throughout the book, there is no doubt that by snorting or dissolving the pills to get a stronger amphetamine boost, he is not taking the medication the way his doctor has prescribed. (more)
