this is why when your grandparents/parents who smoked two packs a day and drank black coffee from 7am through till 10pm tell you that adhd isnt real and your meds are a crutch you should them to fuck off.
Reposted from Worm Girl
As someone who smoked for a year or two (not very much and long ago), I think the uptick in ADHD diagnoses over the last 25 years is largely because when cigarettes were in vogue, chainsmoking was a decent way to self-med for it. Sure it kills you, but raw ADHD feels like your skeleton wants out.

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Interesting idea, I hadn’t thought of that
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Ha. The only person in my family who smoked was my paternal grandfather, & he was also the most ADHD creep about his relationships & hobbies....
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Oh, yeah!
Mom was a college prof like me, and only chain smoked when final grading. I wish I could.
Diagnosed at 45 in '05, and self-medicate with caffeine . . . (my choice, not recommending it particularly).
Grading for me means titrating sleep and caffeine *just* right.
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FWIW, nicotine patches are cheap, innocuous, and probably help as much as cigarettes.
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this describes my now-deceased grandmother who would try to tell me there wasn't anything wrong with my brain while driving me to my psychiatrist lmao
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i feel like the content of this post justifies the typos
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I know guys who still do this today. It's...less of an option if you've got asthma, and some have switched to chewing tobacco - but the intent is there!
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Sugar is my self-med. Sadly, the side effects are visible.
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since you said that, my binge eating suddenly makes more sense!
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It’s seeking stimulation.
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exactly
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They literally use Vyvanse for BED. It wouldn't surprise me for there to be a link
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now that's interesting
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Can’t speak to nicotine or caffeine in ADHD, but the reason folks who smoke can drink coffee in the evening & get any sleep at all is that nicotine interferes with caffeine uptake.
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oh! interesting. hmmm.
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Asked my psych friend abt this, they think that between a plethora of alternative ways to 'self medicate' and changing diagnostic conditions, reduced smoking is likely a weak explanation for the adhd uptick at best
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Which is not to say that people arent/werent self medicating, but that its an overreach to jump from that to sweeping guesses abt diagnostic trends
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I think that, like autism, it's diagnosed more because it's recognised more. The stereotype of a small boy bouncing off the walls is just one possible presentation. When I told Mum I have ADHD you could just about see the lightbulb, as a bunch of my childhood antics suddenly made more sense.
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Yeah, the mental health meds of the past were cigarettes, booze, benzadrine, and valium.
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Years ago someone said to me "the Apollo moon program ran on black coffee and cigarettes," and I was enlightened.
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i told a friend back in november "i dont think we've ever defeated fascism before without freely available cigarettes and amphetamines" and i think i accidentally broke him in half
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*pops a Vyvanse, heads for the front*
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Figures, as the Nazis were out of their gourds on PanzerChocolat.

THE SECRET INGREDIENT WAS NOT CHOCOLATE!
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Don’t forget alcohol. Lots of alcohol. Had to shut that brain down to sleep.
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I have to fight the urge to take lorazepam too often, to try and shut my brain up enough so I can sleep.
I resist it, in part, because I know the more often I do it the less effective it will be! I try and save it for when the fuckery of humans really has me spinning out.
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I knew there was a reason why I started smoking when I was 10!
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But when younger generations use scientifically backed medication for ADHD, it’s suddenly seen as weakness? The double standard is real.
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you're absolutely right. Im jumping thru hoops rn trying to get medicated for my adhd because, in my mid thirties, I realized that coffee, cigarettes, and gas station amphetamines weren't sustainable ways to manage my time-blindness and lack of executive function
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Ex-smoker here and my clinician went over this with me as it’s apparently VERY common in the late-diagnosed community
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My dad smoke FIVE packs a day and lived off Mountain Dew and candy bars. Def ADHD
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Same for the complaints about antidepressants from the alcoholic generations.
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📌
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Hadn’t thought about that, makes a lot of sense.
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You’re lucky if it’s black coffee and not gin tbh
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I have not been able to read for pleasure since I quit smoking. 10 years.
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If my ADD meds are working, my coffee consumption goes from "yes" to maybe two 8oz servings a day.

Also, until about 50 years ago, amphetamines were freely available to middle class professionals and housewives.
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The psych who diagnosed me said cigarettes are a great adhd treatment other than the killing you in the meantime part
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does vaping work?
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nicotine is the psychoactive substance so in theory even those patches could work
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My husband consumes a full gram of caffeine a day now, as we try to sort out getting him ADHD medications.

The process of getting the meds seems specifically designed to thwart people with ADHD.
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First starting out, I’d have to play hours long phone tag or in person beg my doctor’s office and the pharmacy so they could sort out whose turn it was to inch my renewal along against my insurance every couple months. All while my supply of Being a Person pills dwindled by the day
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I have a spreadsheet of all the pharmacies my insurance will cover within a half-hour’s drive, with notes on the fastest way through their phone systems. During shortages, if my usual pharmacy doesn’t have it, I clear the “last checked” column and start going down the list.
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I switched doctors partly b/c it was a nightmare to get them to send a prescription. A pharmacy’d say “we have 30 pills; send your scrip NOW” & I’d have to call my doctor’s office 2x a day for 3-4 days before they’d send it, by which time the pharmacy was out, so I’d start the dance all over again.
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Also, depending on which pharmacy employee I get on the phone, sometimes they say they can’t tell you whether they have any in stock (because it’s a controlled substance, you degenerate criminal!) — you just have to send a scrip and see if they can fill it 🙄
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And then you get flagged in the system because you move pharmacies too often. Good times.
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Not just the smokers either, this also goes for the newage almond moms trying every caustic essential oil under the sun not knowing they’ve been conned into relying on the placebo effect
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... oh wait, so I should drink more coffee? I should try this!
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welp, that explains why I constantly want a cigarette even though I haven't smoked since college.
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yeah have you considered vyvanse
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Tried it, didn't do much, but I can definitely recommend Adderall

Also a pack of Virginia Slims a week
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Oh, and enough caffeine from energy drinks and Cirkul to make a whale jittery
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See: my mom and caffeine.
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My dad INHALES Diet Coke.
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