If we're talking Adderall/amphetamine salts, I personally don't understand why it's called "addictive." When my insurance has lapsed, and I can't get to a doctor to write the next month's prescription, I have stopped cold turkey to preserve what I have for days I might really need to be on the ball (think job interviews or similar) with no symptoms of any kind of withdrawal (outside of being more lethargic/unmotivated and easily distracted as is my natural state).

I can understand considering it a problem that the effect weakens - requiring more of it to have as strong an effect as when you first took it, but that's NOT the same as an "addiction" as far as I'm concerned - I have no overwhelming need for it, which is probably why people can forget to take them. I do find that being off of it for a while gives the first few times back on it a slightly stronger effect than it had been having when I stopped, although nothing is ever "as good as the first time."

[–] GaMEChld@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

I mean even ignoring the dosage argument someone else already made, we've got malfunctioning neurodivergent brains, we're already aware that these drugs have different effects on us than typical. What we may not find addictive, someone else may.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago

We’re missing a key component of the discussion: dose. Therapeutic doses and recreational doses are vastly different things. A drug that’s addictive at recreational doses isn’t necessarily an issue at therapeutic doses.

Therapeutic Adderall doses typically start at 5mg whereas recreational users may be using 30-60mg or more. That’s an order of magnitude difference! Now, a long term patient taking prescription Adderall may eventually have their dose up to 40mg but they will have developed significant tolerance to the drug so that it doesn’t affect them nearly as strongly as a recreational user would experience popping 40mg out of the blue at some club.