Is your adhd better with completely quitting alcohol?

[u/annamonapia]

I’m 40 days alcohol free. I feel a ton ton ton better. My adhd is better. I am still starting vyvanse today to try to help myself through the daily adhd struggles. Anyone having similar time? Thoughts ? Any tips on vyvanse ? Any thoughts on alcohol free?

[u/Pixie-elf]

I rarely drink because I don't like how it makes me feel, and there's a 50/50 chance the next day I'm gonna feel icky.

I found out it's because alcohol screws up your dopamine and the levels of it. As in, one drink fucks the chemicals up in your brain for a week.

A whole ass WEEK. So when folks are drinking regularly, it means that their neurotransmitters are a good bit scrambled and it takes a good bit of time even after you quit for all of that to get back to baseline.

A good way to think of it, is it takes the brain a while to fully recover from that level of fuckery, so give yourself plenty of grace, and remember that as you abstain your brain is going to work better, and better. The Vyvanse will definitely help with the cravings and the Vyvanse will help you recover quicker.

You're doing great at 40 days, I'm proud of you!! You have this!! Remember, addiction is a disease NOT a moral failing. Any time you get down on yourself for self medicating, remember that. We use whatever we can to get through the day, and now you're in a place where you don't need it any more.

With Vyvanse make sure that you eat a good protein heavy meal. If you have a hard time with that, which, I myself do, make either a peanut butter + banana smoothie or something similar, make sure you have snacks around, so that you can eat throughout the day in case it kills your hunger.

Don't drink OJ in the morning (vitamin C screws with how it's metabolized ). Vyvanse takes 1-2 hours to kick in for me so I sometimes set an earlier alarm from when I need to get up so that when I do, it'll have kicked in.

[u/anangelnora → u/Pixie-elf]

Alcohol is a cns (central nervous system) depressor. That’s why it feels so nice for anxiety/certain adhd issues.

So, when you drink alcohol for a long time, your cns is depressed, and your brain gets used to that baseline. If you stop, there is this terrible rebound effect, and your brain starts to go haywire and short circuit.

This is why alcohol withdrawal can be so dangerous. One thing that can happen with the increase in brain activity is that you can have seizures. It’s the same with benzos, another GABA interactive med. When you are trying to detox off alcohol they actually will give you benzos to help mitigate the damage.

This is also why people start drinking earlier and earlier in the day when they become very dependent on alcohol—to stop the brain from “overreacting.” That’s what happened to me before I finally came to my senses.

This is also what happens when you get “hangxiety” after drinking.

Yeah alcohol is the fucking worst. Sadly, though, at times not having its effects seems almost even more damaging. That’s why I personally dealt with the sickness and pain.