Woman says 300mg daily Adderall habit almost killed her

Ten years sober, Shannon Anderson says she was taking up to 300mg of Adderall a day and believes the addiction should have killed her.

The 37-year-old, from Kansas City, Missouri, said her drug use left her paranoid, sleep-deprived and physically deteriorating. She said her body was under such strain at her lowest point that her jugular vein could be seen pulsing through her neck, and even her mum noticed.

Anderson said she first got hold of Adderall about 15 years ago and found it “extremely easy to get.” She described a process in which a doctor sent her for testing after she said she had trouble focusing and thought she had ADHD.

“You basically just sit in a room with a camera and a computer and have to press a space bar at certain times on the screen,” she said. “Miss it a few times and voila, you have ADHD and get prescribed controlled substances.”

She said the first pill left her hooked. “The second that pill kicked in, a euphoria washed over me I had never felt before,” she told Need To Know. “Eventually, the addiction really took over and my tolerance had grown so much that I ultimately needed Adderall to function in my life.”

Her addiction also affected her body in other ways. Anderson said she developed chronic dry eye because she would take so many stimulants that she would forget to blink and not sleep, and she began getting chronic hives that would not go away without steroids.

She said she would “move my jaw from side-to-side like a crack addict,” a symptom she still experiences today when concentrating on something. She also said her pupils would become as big as her iris, and that people commented on it.

“I could take at least 300mg in a day,” she said. “I vividly remember the first time popping five 30mg XR pills in my mouth at once and doing that again later that day.”

She said the paranoia and lack of sleep became severe, adding: “Adderall or stimulants make you extremely anxious. With lack of sleep added into the mix, you start to hallucinate.”

Shannon, now married to husband Mark, 44, and mum to Greyson, six, Harrison, four and Sutton, two, said the turning point came when she was talking to intravenous drug addicts. “My experience was similar to theirs – I got the drug and could no longer say no,” she said. “I kept seeing myself as different and not an addict, but that moment made me realise I was an addict.”

She said the moment made her realise it was “life or death,” and she began attending 12-step meetings. “It was there where I could really be honest,” she said. “It was imperative I had sober support around me.”

After starting her Sober is Chic business and taking it to social media, Anderson said she had met many people with similar experiences. “This is definitely an epidemic,” she said.

She also said clients and family members had told her about virtual appointments that allowed them to get multiple doctors to prescribe the drug, something she said was not a thing when she was using. On social media, she has also seen comments blaming her for pharmacy shortages and doctors being hesitant to prescribe, but she said neither was ever her experience.

“I think it is probably just a result of the overprescribing of this medication,” she said. Recovery brought its own difficulties, including panic attacks that became frequent after she got sober. “I remembered learning that I could breathe through and walk through any panic attack,” she said. “This was new territory for me.”

Anderson said she had randomly had panic attacks during her active addiction, but they came on more often after she stopped using. She said she had been used to taking something when those feelings came on before.

She now says there is hope. “You can do this,” she said. “Stop telling yourself you can’t. Your addiction will kill you. And if it doesn’t, you will live a miserable existence until something else does. My course or coaching will help show you the way. It’s life or death and it’s time to choose life.”