The results of amphetamine abuse are pretty well known: addiction, paranoia, brain damage. You'd have to go pretty far to have that happen on Ritalin, but still watch out. But there's another problem with snorting Ritalin. Because the pill is designed to be swallowed, they put a lot of filler in it. There's very little active ingredient, but one has to snort the entire pill to get the effects. However, all that filler really isn't good for your sinuses. Snorting anything isn't good for them, but the particulate matter that makes up the filler basically lodges in your nose if you snort it. This is a Bad Thing. So don't snort it, please?
snorting ritalin will allow you to study better
This idea is especially popular in the New England Bording School Circuit, probably 'cause on any given dorm you're sure to find at least three kids with a prescription.
Aside: It is actually kinda ironic to watch someone who you know (and who you know has been having a good time of it) start doing drugs to get back to a proverbial level playing field.
I actually have done this once in college... for strictly legitimate research purposes... er... you understand...
anyway, I was able to pump out a 17 page paper on Hiedegger in about six hours one night, so maybe it isn't such a myth.
Yesterday my doctor gave me a prescription for Ritalin - 20 mg sustained release tablets. I filled the prescription, and was informed by the pharmacist that Ritalin is a heavily controlled substance and as such, that it is difficult to obtain. Only one month's worth can be prescribed, and the prescription must be handled physically - the doctor can't 'phone it in' to the pharmacy.
This says something about the quality of the drug. Let me tell you, this is good shit.
I have difficulty concentrating on anything for a sustained period. Even watching television is difficult. As is reading, watching movies, or studying. It's only through an enormous effort, and the fact that things come a little easier to me than to many of my fellow students, that I maintain decent grades.
Ritalin is wonderful stuff. Taking it enables me to do twice what I can do otherwise. It has a major effect on my ablity to work on things for sustained periods. How odd - the use of a stimulant, a relative of amphetamines, to improve one's ability to concentrate. But it works.
The first impact I noticed upon my mental state was a mild rush, similar to the feeling of any stimulant, except that Ritalin didn't make me feel jittery. It made me feel, for the most part, cheerful, talkative, and confident - indeed, it gave me the conviction that I could accomplish anything. I could see why this drug is abused - if a single time-released dose made me feel this way, imagine what would happen if one were to crush several pills.
When I sat down to work, I began to understand how exactly it worked. It didn't change the way my mind worked, precisely. My thoughts were still the same. But it dampened the impulse attached to my thoughts. The idea to get up and get a drink of water, or to check my email, or to look out the window, still occured to me, but I no longer felt the need to satisfy each every urge immediately.
In addition, it seemed to intensify slightly the reward associated with completing each minor task - the effect was minor, but it makes sense: ADD, falling under the rather broad umbrella of impulse control disorders, is related to addiction, and one of the characteristics of both is the extreme response to the brain's reward mechanisms. Thus, a minor thrill to a normal person - drugs, sex, shopping, gambling - becomes the driving force in the addict's life. Ritalin helps harness this pattern, helping direct that drive to accomplishing whatever task is at hand, or at least that's the sensation it gave me.
The first day I was on it, I was pretty alarmed by how much I enjoyed the drug. It might not be worth the benefits - hell, I didn't want to end up strung out on this stuff. But today, having taken another dose, and having gotten some sleep for the first time in quite awhile, I feel much calmer. Its effects are still there, but they're a little more subtle. I imagine it's normal to require a period to get used to the drug in order to be able to harness its effects in a useful way.
Ritalin has a bad reputation nowadays - with such a huge proportion of the nation prescribed this drug, some questioning is inevitable, and necessary. People begin to wonder if it's appropriate to drug children just to make them more cooperative in school. A drug to make you more productive - do the accomplishments it makes possible come at the expense of creativity? Personality? Are we creating a generation of automata?
I don't think so. I don't know if it's over-prescribed; certainly, its heavy application merits examination. I don't know how appropriate it is to give medications to regulate eight-year-olds' mental health. But: to a nineteen year old, who has struggled a great deal with the effects of an inability to focus in class, on my homework, on my own interests, this medication is extremely helpful.
I don't know how long I'll need to use it; I like its effects enough that I may keep using it for a long time. It not only makes me more efficient with my schoolwork, but it gives me the ability to watch movies and read books without becoming fidgety, and to listen to lectures in class without being distracted. Meanwhile, though, I can use it, or not use it, as I wish, and I expect it to be an enormous asset to my education.
Still, the amphetamine-like affects are certainly there, and a reasonably good reason to avoid the drug if possible.
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