Should You Take Drugs To Manage Your ADHD
The Amplified Impact Podcast
August 3rd, 2023
Today I wanted to talk about a DM I got about using prescription meds for ADHD, so let’s dive in.
I was on Ritalin for a decade since age six.
Summers were my escape from it, but during school days…Ritalin’s lethargy and hyper focus trapped me.
At 16, I chose to ditch Ritalin and embark on a med-free journey. It wasn’t easy, but I explored ways to manage my ADHD symptoms naturally.
Now, here’s the interesting part.
Whether you’re dealing with ADHD or just want mental clarity, diet matters. Cutting out gluten and sugar was a revelation for me.
So, whether you’re considering prescription meds…managing ADHD, or just seeking mental clarity, remember that it’s a holistic approach.
Meds might be a part of it, but it’s not the sole solution.
Combine it with creating a supportive environment and building structures to harness your strengths.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“I think the medication is only ever a supplement. I don’t think it’s the solution, it’s not going to fix everything.”- Anthony Vicino
LEAVE A REVIEW if you liked this episode!!
Let’s Connect On Social Media!
instagram.com/theanthonyvicino
Join an exclusive community of peak performers at Beyond the Apex University learning how to build a business, invest in real estate, and develop hyperfocus.
Learn More About Investing With Anthony
Invictus Capital: www.invictusmultifamily.com
Multifamily Investing Made Simple Podcast
Passive Investing Made Simple Book: www.thepassiveinvestingbook.com
Episode Transcript:
Anthony Vicino:
Yo, what’s up, guys? So this morning I got a DM on Instagram from a follower and they were asking a question about drugs and prescription medications and if I’ve ever used them to help manage my ADHD. And this is a question I get quite frequently, and I’ve talked about it very briefly, I think, in previous episodes of this podcast. I think I’ve I allude to it at times in pieces of my content, but I haven’t I haven’t ever really gone, like, deep into the weeds about my my experience with prescription medications for treating the symptoms of ADHD. So if you’re listening to this and you have ADHD and you’ve been on medication before, you might resonate with pieces of this. If you are just coming to the realization that you have ADHD and now you’re wondering, okay, maybe should I pursue prescription medication? Would this help me? Will it make a difference? Then maybe my experience can shed a little bit of light on at least my side of it and maybe just give you another data point. And then if you don’t have ADHD but you’re listening to this and you’re like, well, I don’t have that, so why do I care about prescription drugs? Stick around. Because what I’m going to share with you at the end of this podcast is actually what I’ve discovered to be more effective for me personally in my life for developing clear thinking and mental clarity. Is what we’ll call that getting rid of that mental fog.
Anthony Vicino:
And this is not just for people with ADHD, but I think we all experience this in a large part because we’re doing something in our life on a day to day basis which is causing that mental fog. I’m going to unpack what exactly that is, and I’m going to share with you what I eliminated from my life that actually has had a profound impact on the quality of thoughts and the clarity of mind that I have, the energy levels that I have, and my ability to manage my ADHD symptoms. Which you might not have ADHD, but everybody has ADHD like symptoms, which is distractibility, overwhelm, impulsivity, all those things. And so stick around. This is going to be an interesting episode, I think, for everybody. Now to the question, have I ever done prescription drugs to treat my ADHD? The answer is yes. When I was diagnosed at six years old, the conclusion that they came to or the Prognosis, was they put me on ridland, and for the next ten years I would take two pills a day. I don’t remember what the dosage was, but I would take it every morning and then every afternoon I’d have to go to the nurse’s office in school and get my afternoon pill.
Anthony Vicino:
The only times I was allowed to go off of my medication was during the summers when I would go visit my grandparents. They had a ranch out in Idaho and my grandparents didn’t really buy into the ADHD hullabaloo. And they were like, you don’t need the medication. You just go run, get all your energy out here. And it was awesome. I loved my summers because I got to just go romp around the wilderness up in the mountains and ride horses and chase ducks and do all these fun things. In that environment, ADHD wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Now, when I was in school and I was back home and on the Ritalin, life really sucked.
Anthony Vicino:
I’m going to be honest with you. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. And for the longest time, I thought that was a result of just the medication, like what it was supposed to do, the reason why it was sucking so much for me. But it was only, I think, in recent years, actually, and looking back at the literature around prescription drugs, around Ritalin in specific, that I think I pieced together pretty clearly that I was not simply under the influence of the drug, but I was also experiencing some side effects associated with Ritalin. And just to give a little bit of context to that, for me, Ritalin had a very, very powerful effect of making me feel lethargic, like, physically exhausted all the time and made me feel kind of trapped inside my body. What it would do is it would put me into a state of prolonged hyper focus. And I’ve talked about how hyper focus is one of my superpowers now because I can use it when I want and how I want. But on Ritalin, it was actually kind of horrifying because I couldn’t snap out of it.
Anthony Vicino:
And so I would find myself hyper focusing really easily on really mundane things, just like staring at a wall. I could just hyper focus on the wall for hours. And I felt like a zombie. I felt really trapped inside my body, and I didn’t like how that felt. So when I was 16 years old, I was given the choice. My parents got divorced. I moved in with my dad a couple of years later. He gave me the choice of going off of Ridland, and I did that.
Anthony Vicino:
I said, I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I feel trapped. I felt like a prisoner. So I went off of ridland. And there was now a new problem, which is that I still had ADHD. I had no way of managing those symptoms. I didn’t have any of the systems that I do now that would allow me to get out of my own way. And so I’ve shared that story of how my 20s were really an exploration of how do I figure out my biology and make it so it’s not just this weakness, but it’s also I can turn it into a superpower.
Anthony Vicino:
And it took me a really long time to figure out how to do that, but that was the last time I ever experimented with any kind of prescription medication for my ADHD. And so in the years since, I’ve thought about trying Adderall or trying one of the other substances, and I always come back to this deep rooted fear that I have of feeling like I did when I was on Ritalin. And I’m not saying that that’s a good reason to not experiment and try those things, but for me it’s been a strong enough deterrent that I’ve never gone back. And so over the last 24 years since I’ve been off that drug, I’ve just had to figure out other ways of managing my ADHD symptoms. Now, for you, if you’re really struggling in life, I think medication can be very powerful. I think for a lot of people it can have an advantageous effect and so maybe experiment with it, play with that. But I think you also need to build out the other things in your life. The environment controls, the system controls that will allow you to function even in the absence of the medication.
Anthony Vicino:
I think the medication is only ever a supplement. I don’t think it’s the solution, it’s not going to fix everything. I think you still need those other things, a lot of which we talk about on this podcast in The Hyperfocus Masterclass. If you’re interested in learning about that, go to beyond theapex.com Hyperfocus. That’s literally all the systems and frameworks that I personally use to manage my ADHD. And again, this isn’t just for people who have ADHD. We all struggle with ADHD like symptoms at times. So I think you need to build out those frameworks.
Anthony Vicino:
Now, what I alluded to at the beginning of this episode is that there’s something that we all are doing on a day to day basis. I think that’s kind of poisoning our ability to focus and have mental clarity and it exacerbates what they call ADHD like symptoms. Now, if you have ADHD, this in particular has been linked very strongly to exacerbating the symptoms, and that is your diet, your nutrition in specific. There are two things that we’re consuming that are making it very, very likely that we’re experiencing brain fog. One is sugar. Probably don’t need to go too deep into that one. I don’t think there’s a lot of people out there who are going to disagree anymore that sugar is just generally not a thing that we need to be consuming as much of. But the second one is gluten.
Anthony Vicino:
And what’s interesting about gluten is for many, many years I’d heard about people in the last decade, people becoming gluten intolerant, and it became this big buzzword and I just blew it off and completely ignored it because I was like, that just sounds like nonsense. Like people just making up things to justify why they suck. That’s kind of what I assumed. People are always looking for a thing to point to. Now, about a year ago I came across a study that was linking ADHD symptoms and the magnification of those symptoms and gluten. And I was like, wow, that’s really interesting actually. And so I did an experiment about a year ago where we cut gluten entirely out of my diet and I shit you not, it was like unlocking this other part of my body, other part of my brain. I felt like a different human entirely.
Anthony Vicino:
And so we went deep into this rabbit hole, not of just eliminating gluten, but eliminating all sorts of food substances that would cause inflammation. Inflammation was my big buzzword of last year. Like, how do I reduce this unseen thing inside of my body? What I came to was like, dairy and soy and gluten and sugar. Getting rid of all of these things had a magnificent effect on my ability to focus and my energy levels and just like my clarity of mind throughout the day. And so if you’re struggling right now with ADHD or ADHD like symptoms and you’re like, how do I get focused? How do I get out of my own way? Start with your nutrition. Start with eliminating those substances that are linked to potentially if you’re intolerant to them that they are going to be leading to inflammation and to just grogginess in general. Right? Try that before the medication. But if you do that and you’re still struggling, try the medication.
Anthony Vicino:
But again, this is a both. And do that in addition to creating the structures in your life that will allow you to be successful. So that’s my experience with prescription medications. Hopefully that’s something that brings you a little bit of value. Maybe you took a nugget away from this that you can apply into your own life. And that’s my hope, that’s my dream. That’s the reason why we do this podcast is just to share some of the learnings and the lessons that we’ve collected over the years of attending the school of hard knocks. And hopefully you don’t get knocked around quite as hard.
Anthony Vicino:
As always, guys and gals, I appreciate you being here. We’ll catch you back around these parts tomorrow, but until then, stay hyper focused, my friend.
This Week On YouTube
These 3 Daily Habits Made Me A Millionaire in 3 Years
Whenever you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:
1. Unleash your hyperfocused mind to dominate life, business, and everything in between? Here’s how:
→ The Hyperfocused Masterclass: the exact system I used to overcome ADHD, write 12 books, build 4 businesses, and acquire $70M of real estate.
There are a handful of spaces left in The Hyperfocus Masterclass for those who want to snag the early bird preorder special discount of $49.
Email anthony@anthonyvicino.com to let me know you want on the waitlist.
2. Learn to passively invest in commercial real estate with better returns, less risk, and zeo hassle.
→ Invictus Capital: my real estate private equity firm.
→ Multifamily Investing Made Simple: Top Apple Podcast.
→ Passive Investing Made Simple: Amazon Best Selling Book with 100 5 star reviews.
3. Want more like this? Check out these 3 popular articles from the vault:
