Ayahuasca, ADHD and Adderall
Insights on quitting ADHD meds and working hard without them
Ayahuasca is a tea brewed with a vine and a leaf. It is a powerful psychedelic that has been ritualized in ceremony for centuries in the Amazonian and Mestizo cultures. It can initiate life changing mental experiences and powerful personal perspective shifting spiritual insights.
ADHD is a disorder from the DSM-5 that represents behaviors of non-attention, lack of focus and difficulty completing tasks. The contemporary science-based solution for people struggling with attention, focus, and productivity is central nervous stimulants.
Ayahuasca has been becoming less and less fringe over the past few decades. People have heard of it, people have experienced it and it's occasionally referenced in our culture, maybe only in certain algorithms. I don't think the name of the medicine has ever been mentioned on any mainstream United States news broadcast.
I stand corrected. Here is a piece from Fox news.
In a Journal written in 2016 by a psychiatrist, a psychologist and someone from the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State, called:
The Therapeutic Potentials of Ayahuasca: Possible Effects against Various Diseases of Civilization,
(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4773875/)
researchers explore Ayahusca's potential role in modern western civilization.
(They did NOT include ADHD as a disease of civilization)
They identify chemically what causes psychological benefit and growth - its serotonergic effects. Dimythltryptamine(DMT) is the active ingredient in the response. They also found strong evidence to suggest Ayahuasca's power in healing substance disorder. They also observed its effects acted against chronic low grade inflammation and oxidative stress.
It operates on the whole organism, not just the brain. Raising blood pressure, pulse rate, inducing vomiting. Elevating prolactin, cortisone and growth hormone. They mention cases of death involving the inclusion of Tobacco or Datura in brews as well as the risk of serotonin syndrome - something that can happen if users take SSRIs because of the ways they manipulate serotonin.
Another interaction to be wary of is the predisposition of psychosis (family or personal history) or post ceremony depersonalization in some individuals. They conclude these cases are rare and are a result of the individual's unpreparedness, bad setting, lack of guiding principles or avoidance of thoughtful integration processes following their experiences.
They imply that to understand Ayahuasca, it must be looked from a bio-psycho-socio-spiritual perspective.
They discuss how psychedelics have been written off for the last half a century and the brain receptors at play are finally being looked at.
The DMT is activated in an area of the brain called Sig-1R. Sig - 1R populations in the brain are concentrated with the highest densities in the cerebellum, nucleus accumbens, and cerebral cortex.
Here is a portion of the journal:
“We provided converging evidence that while DMT is a substance which produces powerful psychedelic experiences, it is better understood not as a hallucinogenic drug of abuse, but rather an agent of significant adaptive mechanisms like neuroprotection, neuroregeneration, and immunity.”
I suggest reading the journal if interested. I'll put the link at the bottom
They conclude their study with this observation:
"We are not going to see major pharmaceutical companies address the need for evaluation of Ayahuasca or other plants as medicines. There are no financial incentives."
and that
"In summary, education, public policy development, and collective political action, rather than just more science, is necessary for changing opportunities for the use of Ayahuasca in treatment of some of the most ravaging social diseases of our times."
I started using amphetamines at seven. I had a walk with them that lasted near 16 years and I never wanted to stop. When the relationship with Adderall came to an abrupt stop, I tumbled into the depths of despair from the height of the enthusiasm that was stimulated by the Adderall.
I was surprised by the endeavor of becoming a recovering addict. I did not have any support in the form of other people. I was just going through it.
For months, I did not have amphetamines and I wanted them. I signed up to be in a cohort to test medication for adult ADHD research. I waited to hear from them.
I was invited to an Ayahuasca ceremony. Weeks to prepare. I then got a call from the clinic and they said I could come in to get the experimental ADHD meds.
I asked if they could wait a few weeks, till after the ceremony. They said no, but to call back and join another later if I wanted to. Ayahuasca saved me from being a guinea pig.
I went to the ceremony.
Drinking helped me close a chapter and start another. I had a better understanding of how I got to where I was. With understanding came forgiveness, acceptance and a path forward.
I felt myself working hard. Powerful insights about 'hard work' and whether or not I had ever really worked hard.
On Adderall it was easy work. That was the main feature of the medicine.
I walked away eager and prepared to engage in a type of hard work, I hadn’t experienced.
It didn't cure my ADHD at all. But I did have a new approach to work and getting things done, which helps.
I carried a commitment to healing my ADHD daily and forever without amphetamines.
That's hard.
Anyone who takes or has taken a psychotropic medication for years knows how much they can carry and when they're removed how it all drops. Reversal. Suddenly, energetic, focused and apt becomes ahedonic, rattle-brained and un-keen.
Henceforth devoted to replacing Adderall with hard work.
Adderall was covering something up and through this, it was revealed.
There is medicine all around us. We get sick sometimes. Some medicines are chemicals made in sophisticated production plants and some are vines that were created by whatever created us and people have been drinking them and singing songs for generations.
The tradition of amphetamine childhoods like mine is relatively new. Myself being in what seems the real 'first generation' of kids raised on amphetamines. It is not a tradition I want to hand down.
I similarly feel initiated into the first generation of modern westerners who have participated in some form of sacred indigenous ceremony involving plant medicines. These experiences feel old and new at the same time.
While taking Adderall, I rationalized my use by telling myself,
"This is an un-natural substance for an un-natural world."
But what happens when you take a natural substance? Does it naturalize? Was the deficit of withdrawal neutralized by the neurogenerative effects of the medicine?
A great treatment for ADHD (if you can get it) is to grow. Grow as often as you can. Not that you 'grow out of ADHD.' Grow into and with it. Worth a try.
You don't need to take anything to do that.
A day every day is a real dose. Take your time.
Everyday we have another story to tell.
Whether you take Adderall or drink Ayahuasca or drink coffee and read things on your phone, every day is another stone on the pile.
What you take, takes you. So take your time.
Check out my book, Hocus Focus: Coming of age with ADHD and its medicines.
Sources:
Check out the research journal about Ayahuasca
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4773875/
So you had ADHD because of mysterious reasons and took amphetamines for like 16 years and got addicted then drank sacred amazonian dream juice then you felt empowered to quit Adderall, but like.. why?
I don't know.
Are you telling people who take medication for ADHD to stop taking their meds cold turkey and to drink potent hallucinogens?
Absolutely not.
Why are you doing this?
I am a fish describing water. But the water is living and I am not a fish.
There is more to be explored here, but this is a start.
Led here prowling from Ian's writer's group, but this journey you've documented if of such relevance to me right now and I'm grateful you shared it, thank you.