Jezebel: adderall

10 Things You May Have Missed On TV This Week

Tracie — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:00:00 EDT

This week's multimedia compilation of pop culture crap features Adderall, Levi Johnston, and Fox News "liberalism."

1.) Adderall!

4.) Big Brother's Impeccable Montage Editing

5.) NYC Prep Schadenfreude

6.) Fox News' "Liberal" Views On Pole Dancing
(It doesn't count as "pole dancing" if you're using the pole for balance. Fair and balanced.)

7.) Good News for Gays
They have your kind in Wasilla, and Levi doesn't mind 'em.

8.) Gay Bitch

9.) La Toya: "There's Not Enough Aid For AIDS."
She is manic!

10.) A Hooker/Pimp Relationship Gone Awry?

Who's Sabotaging Your Relationships? It Could Be Darwin, But You're Probably Too Distracted To Care

Moe — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:30:00 EDT

It's been awhile since I talked about my attention deficit disorder, maybe because the topic overwhelms me and the meds don't work like they used to, and I have a side of me — the side that thinks I could be "bipolar" too — that thinks ADHD is a scam cooked up by Big Pharma to sell decongestants that had been ruled unsafe as weight loss drugs, because it totally was, and yet on the really bad days it's kind of nice to think, no, I spent nine hours a night on my fifth-grade homework and dropped out of school and I lose everything — seriously, the other day on the way to getting reamed out by the Passport agency for having lost nine still-valid passports I managed to lose my three-week-old phone — because I am sick. I have a disease, a disease so hysterically crippling to my efforts to survive in society it's a wonder I made it past natural selection…Well, guess what?

I'm no longer wondering! Because today I learned, along with the fact that "natural" cures are totally worthless that ADHD is linked to some protein blah blah allele something that also cause alcoholism and eating disorders and shit but turns out to be somehow useful to nomadic tribesmen in Africa.

One hypothesis is that the behaviour associated with ADHD helps people, such as hunter-gatherers and pastoral nomads, who lead a peripatetic life. Since today's sedentary city dwellers are recently descended from such people, natural selection may not have had time to purge the genes that cause it.

Dan Eisenberg, of Northwestern University in Illinois, and his colleagues decided to test this by studying the Ariaal, a group of pastoral nomads who live in Kenya. The receptor Mr Eisenberg looked at was the 7R variant of a protein called DRD4. Previous work has shown that this variant is associated with novelty-seeking, food- and drug-cravings, and ADHD.

The team looked for 7R in two groups of Ariaal. One was still pastoral and nomadic. The other had recently settled down. As they report in this week's BMC Evolutionary Biology, they found that about a fifth of the population of both groups had the 7R version of DRD4. However, the consequences of this were very different. Among the nomads, who wander around northern Kenya herding cattle, camels, sheep and goats, those with 7R were better nourished than those without. The opposite was true of their settled relations: those with 7R were worse nourished than those without it.

So now we know why Amazonian shamans don't have some magical natural cure for us in the rainforests? Because they'd be too busy competing with us for food? Well… How nice for modern civilization that I am in no danger of passing on these alleles!

The Misfits [Economist]
Weighing Nondrug Options For ADHD [NY Times]

Patient Voices: ADHD [NY Times]

Right Now Is About When I Shoot People Who Tell Me They're Worried About Their "Caffeine Addictions"

Moe — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:00:00 EDT

You know what I fucking hate? (And yeah this is tangentially related to a substantive news report regarding the topic that you can read if you like to, you know, learn facts.) Moving on I hate people who tell me they're trying to cut back on caffeine. People who will stand around being all drowsy and shit because they're trying to detox from coffee. Seriously, fuck those people. They always make a big deal out of it because, duh, people who haven't had their coffee have a lot to make excuses about, but like, you seriously expect my empathy? You expect my empathy and caffeine is your addiction? Sure, Starbucks with its 400 milligram Ventis has hooked unprecedented numbers of Americans on unprecedented quantities of caffeine. And LOOK AT THE SOCIETAL CONSEQUENCES! Like how America suddenly has a burgeoning employment sector that doesn't consist of "taking care of sick people"!! Because, guess what, coffee doesn't do anything especially bad! It actually turns out to prevent skin cancer and certain autoimmune disorders and shooting yourself in the temple just to put an end to the misery of having to get out of bed every 24 hours!

Anyway, needless to say, there was some interesting information in the story, like about how smokers and Asians and women on the Pill all metabolize caffeine at different rates and will thus have differing reactions to the same sized cup of coffee, and other sort of shit you could probably figure out by drinking it, and then a battery of studies about how caffeine is kind of good for you and then the requisite caveat about how caffeine, even if it keeps you alert, will tire out your brain so that it can't really function by the end of the day and its only use will be "clicking through infomercials" while "feeling mentally exhausted." Yup.

The Coffee Junkie's Guide To Caffeine Addiction [NY Mag]

You Thought Your Life Was Purgatory...

Moe — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:30:00 EDT

Sure, a hangover will put a damper on blogging, but I shut my eyes real hard right now and thought about how thankful I was for a few things, namely, that I am not an American Airlines customer sales representative. [Wash Post]
And my hangover isn't as bad as Randi Rhodes' will be tomorrow. [Mediabistro]
I'd rather do this job with tongue sweat and migraines every day than have the job of this guy's speechwriter. [WSJ]
I would also rather be hungover than have the song "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues" in my head. [Reuters]
And I am less incapacitated than famed Arizona congressman Mo Udall on his deathbed when no one came to visit him anymore besides John McCain. [Slate]

And speaking of McCain, I wouldn't really want to be on the receiving end of whatever he's saying about David Brock right now in this state. [Politico]
Same goes for Colin Powell. [ABC News]
I'm pretty lucky today that, like most scientists, I have ADD. [Breitbart]
And that the French aren't prosecuting websites accused of promoting drunkorexia. [Times of London]

The way a five-year-old acts, at five, does...

Moe — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:45:00 EST

The way a five-year-old acts, at five, does not turn out to dictate the way he acts in adulthood! That's according to the latest shocking new study, the results of which are actually so intuitive and "duh"-inspiring that everyone is feeling compelled to frantically email it to their friends and neighbors. The study mostly covers kindergarteners diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, I think, though I was too distracted to read it all the way through, and the upshot is that they are apparently no more likely to perform poorly in reading comprehension tests than normal, balanced kids later on in school. As someone who pretty much got lost every single time I went to the bathroom in kindergarten on account of (undiagnosed, but very very real) ADHD, the world gets a lot less aaah-overwhelming when you can sit in a corner and devote your full attention to r-e-a-d-i-n-g the text on a six-by-eight inch page. So yes, that part makes sense. But here's the scary part: Of the kids with ADHD they study, 80% of them are on stimulant drugs. Guys, really, save the amphetamines for later on in life, when your livelihood is at stake, maybe? [NY Times]

Women Less Happy Than Men About Performing Every Single One Of Those Multi Tasks

Moe — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 11:30:05 EDT

Guess what? At any given time, during any given moment, you're probably not as happy as most dudes you know. And you're less happy than girls in the seventies!
Think it's society's sharpening emphasis on your superficialest qualities? Or your dumb minimum wage job's? Could it be PMS and the related phenomenon that is bleeding smelly coagulated blood from the same vaginas you are now supposed to wax bald once a month, or your relative difficulty getting off? Or is it the fact you make less money, or the fact that even when you make more money your tits are the whole reason, status handbags and the related fact that we meet so many fucking women who confirm all our deepest fears about women by paying stupid money for them, crap emails, the rising cost of health care, the rising cost of toilet paper, our undiagnosed cases of ADD, and getting our college gray rapist completely outdouched by our preposterously chauvinist bosses, and above and beyond all this, the absurd imperative that is multitasking all these factors at once? We were so busy doing that last part we forgot to read the article, so we did..

And yeah, it turns out we were right about everything, especially that last part. Essentially we find pretty much every activity we engage in more unpleasant than men, mainly because we are expected to engage in so many goddamn activities, and specifically spending time with those parents who want to know when we'll finally grow up and find a real job and get married and give them grandchildren so we can get on with taking care of them in old age already.

He's Happier, She's Less So [NY Times]

Prozac Advertisement Vintage by Adbusters

Women: Fuck. Multitasking. Already.

Moe — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:56:13 EDT

Hey! What are you doing right now? Nothing? Everything? Writing an email? Running your tongue over your teeth and wondering if your gums are receding? You should probably call a dentist! But remember the last time you were at the dentist? When they just said you'd have to return to the dentist? Shit! Maybe you should call your mother! She certainly thinks that should be more of a priority! And she's right! But maybe you should finish that post you were just writing first! Maybe you should finish writing that email you were writing on your Blackberry, only on your laptop this time? Maybe you should call your bank and see about getting those overdraft fees waived, and call a doctor about the weird patch of burst blood vessels on your thigh — did the laptop do that? Should you buy your dad a Father's Day present, or oh shit that wedding present, but WHY does your little IM icon keep bouncing I WONDER WHO IT IS (NOT)... And you volunteered to see about movie times, even though movies are just an excuse to aimlessly click through old emails in a cool, quiet place.. but wait a second here's another article on multitasking, and how women are sooooo good at it, and how they think it's SUCH an asset in their ability to handle the demanding modern workplace, and to that we would just like to say, excuse me but NO IT IS NOT!!! "Multitasking" is actually more like being called "curvy."

Sometimes it's a statement of fact, but more often these days it's a euphemism for "what you do when you possess the attention span of a five-year-old." The patina of tech-savvy well-roundedness only makes it seem more like another way The Man is trying to force you into mindless fembotry.

Here's a quote from the story. Did we read it? Let's just say we skimmed it thoughtfully, because that's how the author meant for us to read it when he was writing it while checking his email and bidding on those Bose speakers and listening to Stern. It's about a survey of women as to what they feel their competitive advantages over men in the workplace might be.

The first query was: What intrinsic qualities do women have that give them a competitive edge over men?
By an overwhelming margin, the trait they touted most was their multitasking expertise."I challenge any man to talk on the phone, send a fax, reply to an e-mail, change a diaper, get a toddler a snack, monitor what your school-age children are watching on TV and add to the grocery list — all at the same time," wrote Heather Lawrence.

Yeah, and we challenge Heather to perform two of any but the most thoughtless and repetitive of those tasks at the same time with any sort of proficiency. Multi-tasking should be a point of pride for computer operating systems, but for women, it's a necessary evil that should be minimized at all costs, precisely because men don't have to do nearly as much of it and are thus better-equipped to focus on individual complex problems long enough to occasionally solve them. (Or let greed and testosterone fuck them up royally while we're making the trains run on time and handling the damage control.)
Study after study has proven what you should know intuitively anyway about this, about how doing "everything at once," as Bonnie Fuller advocates in that book we're not going to do her the service of linking here, actually accomplishes nothing at all, except maybe to send people clicking on paparazzi photos, so yeah thanks for the traffic, but go read a book when you're done and tell us what's in it. We don't have the attention span to do it for ourselves.

Wome Take Off The Gloves And Come Out Multitasking [NY Times]

Taking Adderall Makes Me Hump Like A Guy

Moe — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 15:08:50 EDT

The pharmaceutical industry is sort of like women's magazines: Staffed by blandly attractive people determined to make you feel bad about yourself, and brimming with new ways to kill your libido. But wait! Pillhead may have found the elusive pink Viagra! In her second installment, Jezebel's resident pharmaceutical expert takes a break from the body obsession to have sex like RIGHT NOW. The crucial ingredient? Amphetamine salts... better known as Adderall. There are all sorts of reasons to take Adderall, from its appetite curbage (its original marketed use, when it was called Obetrol and Andy Warhol used to pop them like, well like we pop Adderall today!) to the whole "serenity" thing, to the fact that it turns some people into geniuses (though not so much others). But enough already, let's get down to business! And you know what we mean by business.

Okay, I know I'm supposed to be taking Alli and reporting all the TMI details here, but a funny thing happened after my embarrassing trip to Target for Alli and Depends (yes, the Jezebel editors made me buy Depends): Every morning I wake up with a unique and compelling reason for not wanting to shit my pants that day! So more on that, uh, later. Today: Adderall and sex! A recipe for awesomeness!

I've been taking "Adds" occasionally ever since I got hooked up with my bad doctor two years ago, but usually I just sell them to my friends. About a month ago, though, I started taking 5mg quarters more often and later in the day, and noticed a dramatic change in my libido and, uh, "performance".

A little background: I'm one of those chicks who comes from regular sex. Before you hate me, though, I can't stand receiving oral sex and it's been an "issue" in every relationship I've ever been in, so there are trade-offs. I usually have an orgasm during intercourse about 60% of the time, mainly because sometimes I'm lazy and don't feel like "going for it." Also, that cliche about women making their grocery lists during sex is a cliche for a reason, but we can't help it! It's hard to focus sometimes! Anyway, ever since a Ritalin-induced month of no libido a few years ago, I have assumed that, even though it's an amphetamine, Adderall would be bad for sex. After all, "decreased libido" and "impotence" are listed as possible sexual side effects.

Not listed as possible sexual side effects, however? The fact that it can turn some people into sex machines!* Below, an addendum to the side effects I'll call the "sex effects".

Wanting sex all the time. Like now. At work. Especially after seeing the Lachey/Minnillo sex photos which would normally have the opposite effect.
Foreplay? What foreplay? Just stick it in already!
As soon as it is, uh, stuck in, I realize that I can come immediately if I want to and that I'm actually going to have to find a way to hold off. I'm going to have to get ESPN so I'll know enough about baseball to think about it.
Coming twice: By myself, and then about a minute later when my partner comes. The first time this happened I actually shrugged and mouthed "I don't know either!" (I'm sure that was really flattering.) Now it happens, like, every other time.
There's something different about sex on Adderall that I couldn't put my finger on until the other night: It's way more physical than mental. Needless to say, my guy loves my rebirth as an easy-to-please Adderall sex fiend, but there's only one drawback: I don't feel like giving another blow job ever again. Oh well. Tradeoffs!

Do these effects sound like anyone you know? Like, maybe an entire gender? Yeah, Adderall is turning me into a man! I would close by saying that I have a deeper understanding of men and blah blah blah, but it's time to call the bad doctor before he goes on vacation and keeps me from my precious sex drug.

*And it's not just me! I did some Googling and found more cases like mine:
"I can literally have an orgasm just sitting in a chair."
"Orgasm is like a thousand times more intense."
"It's almost starting to bother me because I orgasm very quickly." (Heh. If only everyone had that as a problem.)