I Tricked 3 Doctors To Feed My Adderall Addiction
Nothing’s Off the Table with Louis Ruggiero
In this episode, Louis Ruggiero interviews Anthony Scamardella about his harrowing eight-year battle with Adderall addiction. The conversati
Key takeaways
- Anthony used three different doctors across New Jersey, Maryland, and New York to bypass insurance flags and obtain extra prescriptions.
- The escalation involved moving from a standard 60mg dose to much higher amounts, eventually including snorting the medication.
Main topics
- Adderall addiction and dependency
- ADHD medication abuse
Notable quotes
Personal excellence is the ultimate rebellion.
Conclusion
The episode serves as a raw testament to the difficulty of long-term r
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:05) Welcome back. Another episode. Nothing's off the table. We got a good one in store for us today. Anthony, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. Speaker 1 (0:16) Anthony is here because Anthony battled an eight-year addiction with Adderall. And this is something new to our channel, but it's definitely something that's very personal to me. I was prescribed Adderall, Concerta, Vyvanse at a very, very young age. Hated it. But there's a lot of people out there right now who are suffering from Adderall dependency, Vyvanse, Concerta, whatever dependency. And there's not a lot of people talking about it because it's legal. It's prescribed. It helps people be efficient or however you want to describe it. Superhuman. Yeah. There's a lot of negatives and there's a lot of downfalls to it. We like to jump right in over here. We don't hold back anything. Get right to it. You ready? Sure. Tell us about your last day. Speaker 2 (1:13) Last day was pretty non-eventful. It was like a slow conclusion that there was never going to be, because at this point my usage and abuse was so high and so off the charts that I had already concluded that there was never going to be enough. I would always want more no matter how much I took. And I wasn't even benefiting from it anymore. It was just... It was a dark road and I didn't really see any light. And I had a conversation. I remember this conversation vividly with my girlfriend. We're sitting on the couch and I just decided that I'm stopping. And I knew that life was going to get very, very difficult. I knew I had no idea how difficult, but I definitely knew it was going to be a challenge. Speaker 1 (2:07) Before we get into what it looked like after you stopped. Speaker 1 (2:13) How did this all begin? Like for me, I was in second grade, got diagnosed with ADHD, and they were like, here, give your kid 120 milligrams of Concerta. How did it start for you? I'm sure like in the classroom Speaker 2 (2:30) and whatever was detected on your end was very similar on my end. You know, I was always one of the smartest kids in the class, but I was always unable to sit still, bored instantly, instigating, provoking stuff, you know. Getting a lot of bad attention from teachers, but also getting some of the higher grades in the class. So it was always like I was always kind of received with frustration. Kind of like, why? Why can't you just do everything? Speaker 2 (3:06) everything you're doing so great academically, why can't you just do the same, you know, behaviorally? And a lot of it in the beginning, you know, was it also a lot of it in the beginning was just like frustration with myself, low confidence. Like I had to, looking back on it, like it was a lot of external validation. Like I needed to get an A on everything. I needed to. just be perfect because of how uneasy I felt on the inside, how uncomfortable I felt in my own skin, how different I kind of felt than everybody else. A lot of it was misunderstood for anger problems. I was very impulsive. I would overreact to a lot. And it was really just the whole package that is ADHD. I've come to realize now at a much older age, but then I was just in trouble a lot. And that's like, I didn't get a formal diagnosis then, but there were rumblings of it. I think my parents may have, you know, had conversations with teachers about it. But as far as medication goes, I wasn't prescribed until I was out of college and making decisions on my own. And then I thought, well, this is just a missing piece. And I got my first prescription for 60 milligrams of Adderall shortly after I graduated and entered the workforce in a public accounting firm. How'd you feel your first time taking it? Like it was a miracle. It was the solution to everything that was missing. In hindsight, it was way too good to be true. Should have been a major red flag, but I was no longer lacking confidence. I didn't, you know, again, in hindsight. I hadn't put in any work to be confident. Like now that's how I operate. I put in a lot of work on a daily basis and I feel really good about myself. But then it was like, just take a pill and everything's magically fixed. I was more social. I wasn't, you know, thinking about what I was going to say before I said it. I wasn't in my own head. I wasn't doing anything that kind of tormented me up until that point. Speaker 1 (5:36) I'd love to kind of hear about the progression. I know that you were taking a large amount of Adderall milligram wise at a certain point, but I kind of want to hear about how it went from that first day taking 60 milligrams and the progression all the way up to its worst. And it happened gradually Speaker 2 (6:01) at first. Well. By the end of it, I was filling prescriptions from three different doctors, paying for two of them out of pocket to not have the insurance flag it. And I was tripling at minimum the dose that I was prescribed. But at first it was 60 milligrams. I was, and it was like a light switch effect where I was struggling to do the basics. at work. Like I knew what I had to do, but I really just couldn't get myself to start. I would get up, started taking smoke breaks with people that smoke just to get outside. So I was smoking for no reason. And I was drinking like a hundred cups without exaggerating, probably like literally up to 10 cups of coffee a day, just doing anything to like not sit still or whatever. And then I got the prescription and I kind of Hit the ground running, you know, I was getting very positive feedback from the partners in the accounting firm. I was Very ambitious. I was asking for more work. I was getting it. I was Knocking it out of the park being put in charge of contracts I got promoted to manager level without the CPA which is kind of unheard of at that time I think I was the only one in the firm that got that promotion without a CPA and I was very proud of it as if it was a Speaker 2 (7:20) as if it meant more than it really did, but it just kept feeding itself. And then I would be on the road extensively and working my ass off to, you know, prior to that promotion, but working my ass off to get it. And I started, and at this time I was studying for the CPA exam. So I started taking a little bit more than I should have. And I went to the doctor very... transparently and told him that I have long work days, you know, up to 10 hours, and then I'm trying to study for four hours at night. And on some of these days, I'm taking an extra pill. And I fully expected him to, you know, yell in a sense, like, what are you doing? You're careless. You can't do this. But he encouraged it. He actually wrote a higher prescription to accommodate what I told him I was doing. And I guess there's... You know what I heard referred to as an invisible line in my case there was a few of them but this was the first one where it was like as soon as you start taking a little bit more than you should you want a little bit more than that and so another thing I remember vividly I um was on site and Obviously when a prescription is written for you, even if you're getting 320 milligram pills a day, it's take them It doesn't make sense because you should account for sleep, but it is written like take every eight hours, you know, to make up for the 24 hours in the day. So I never left the house with just three pills. I would always have the bottle with me and I would just take them literally like they were candy. Speaker 2 (8:57) I remember one time reaching into the bottle and it was like, I don't know, 10 days into the month and I'm hitting the bottom of the bottle already. And I was like, I cannot get through like the rest of the month, let alone tomorrow without the amount that I've been taking. And then I. I think I went on ZocDoc, the app at the time, found another doctor, made up some story about, like, show up to the doctor's office with my suit and tie on straight from on-site audit, make up some story about how I'm doing everything I'm supposed to. I'm successful. I just need this and whatever. But I can't put it through my insurance because, and I said what I had to, and I got a second prescription. And that only lasted so long before I was looking for a third prescription. Speaker 2 (9:44) in my head which is so naive and stupid I was thinking this is prescribed by a doctor I told the one doctor I was taking more than I should and he okayed it if not you know he wrote what I needed to to accommodate it and in my head it was like well it's from a doctor it's not off the street it's good for me it's just a little bit more than it should be and it was quickly justified like that and uh Speaker 2 (10:18) I got out of control very quick. And also, you know, I was taking it socially too to stay up later, you know, hang out at the bars with everybody. Speaker 2 (10:32) You know, it just started becoming something that worked its way into every single part