Treating ADHD without Stimulants?

I have what you would call pretty severe "ADHD". I'm also a stimulant addict and in the past couldn't responsibly handle my medication and also found that it didn't really do much for me anyway because I would just hyperfocus on the internet for hours on end. What are some good ways to work on ADHD and internet addiction without using medication? Should I limit the sites I go to and take a long break from the internet? I find that I can't focus on anything that isn't online and I want to fix myself. It's also quite possible that I just have internet addiction misdiagnosed as ADHD.

Use website blockers to block any website you spend to much time on, use this to find what website you spend the most time on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en/firefox/addon/history-master/ and this is what i use to block websites: https://addons.mozilla.org/en/firefox/addon/block-website/ for me my biggest waste of time was youtube, reddit and the sharty so ive completely blocked them out which has help me focus on other things. also try and find something you enjoy doing and try to make a challenge for yourself, for me, i used to play alot of vidya games so i made some mods for them which i then hyperfocus on for the next week, now i can code 10x better than before and can focus on doing longer tasks instead of just quick dopamine release. mabye if you like imageboards you can make your own vichan server, if you like anime you can try and start drawing or just try and learn something new like linux or another lanuage. going on long walks/meditate with no phone helps with adhd doing bodyweight exercise (plank, pushup, situps ect) also helped as they force you to focus on the task (5mins should be more than enough time to start with). a more extreme idea is to factory reset you phone+computer and try and reinstall as little as possiable, helped me completely stop playing vidya games as i dont have the patience to wait for them to reinstall. best advice ive told myself is that ahdh isnt real and im just being lazy :)

>>13553 From Ray Peat's book, Mind and Tissue: The famous Russian neuro-psychologist, A.R. Luria, has described the behavior of dogs when this tissue is damaged or removed: ...destruction of the frontal lobes leads, not so much to a disturbance of memory as to a disturbance of the ability to inhibit orienting reflexes to distracting stimuli: ...such an animal cannot perform tasks involving delayed responses under ordinary conditions, but can do so provided that irrelevant, distracting stimuli are removed (if the animal is kept in total darkness, if tranquilizers are administered, and so on). The role of the prefrontal cortex in the synthesis of systems of stimuli and the creation of a plan of action is manifested not only in relation to currently acting stimuli, but also in the formation of active behavior directed towards the future.2 Various theories of what causes hyperactivity, e.g., low blood sugar, weak radiation from fluorescent lights and TV, 3 or food additives,4 and the observation that drugs which stimulate the sympathetic or adrenergic nerves (ephedrine or caffeine, for example) will relieve the symptoms, are all consistent with the idea that not enough energy is being supplied to permit this tissue to function properly. Low blood sugar will starve the nerves; food additives or any low-level poison can serve as a stressor of nerve tissue, leading to increased energy requirements;

>>13553 There are no ways to treat ADHD, because it's not a disability but a hunter-gatherer neurodivergence which is misaligned with the farmer-created over-complex civilization. As you know, us ADHD people prefer breadth over depth, but that isn't viable anymore. As such, the first course of action with ADHD should be to lament that you were (in many relevant aspects) born too late. But the next step is try to experiment with the stims more. Nothing beside them help fit in normal person society. And this further confirms how we are just a neurodivergence, because you just have to flip one little switch (dopamine) and we become indistinguishable from productive normal person worker bees -- if ADHD were a mental pathology, you'd expect it to be also linked to various other derangements, like bipolar/trannyism/etc. are inextricably linked to a histrionic personality. But instead, it's very isolated. Returning back to the topic, try to microdose the stims. Just experiment more with dosages. Don't be optimistic about ever finding anything else that helps.

have tried the 'spacegoods' mushroom blend. attempting to recreate w/ legal ingredients the experience of microdosing mushrooms (but actually it just has a bunch of caffeine in it, so it's a stimulant blend in itself). not terrible taste when stirred into something like an almond milk, but effect is like cold brew coffee

>>13564 Haven't read much about people's experience microdosing phsycs as a treatment for ADHD. How has it impacted your ability to do productive work? Do stimulants compliment it at all? Starting to cultivate again and curious. Will probably try it regardless, as I've always been curious about microdosing. Usually just take a heroic dose once a year. I encourage you to dig into it, it's not hard or particularly risky. Nor does it cost a lot of money to get started. >>13553 Could be mixing up causality too OP. ADHD could be causing an internet addiction. I am perpetually listening to podcasts, watching videos, or scrolling through fedi. Before I got east access to the 'net it was wandering around the neighborhood, reading a ton, and a million hobbies. ADHD is the cause of those things. >>13562 is correct in his summary. ADHD is only a disorder because it hinders your ability to function in the modern era. Similar to Autism in that sense.

>>13566 >>13564 Some maintain that microdosing dopaminergics is dangerous owing to a paradoxical sensitization and up-regulation of dopamine receptors that may produce only long-lasting beneficial effects of the drug, but with a large and unpredictable/uncontrollable likelihood of causing long-lasting parkinsonism, schizophreniform symptoms, sleep disturbance, etc. Some others hold that this is nothing more than a niche myth sparked by misinterpreted studies and fueled by the placebo effect. I can't really tell whether the studies cited support the claim or not, but it seems worth mentioning anyway in case it is an actual hazard that hasn't yet been acknowledged or filtered down to the laity. This is a good starting point: https://old.reddit.com/r/Stims/comments/3mbp3n/be_very_careful_with_low_doses_of_stimulants/ For reference, "microdose" means "sub-therapeutic" or "less than the minimal dosage needed to begin producing therapeutic effects", not "sub-recreational". If you're taking an amount that other people around your age and weight might be prescribed, you're not microdosing.

>>13562 >nothing works besides le stimulants >no mention of meditation I recommend experimenting w/ meditation techniques at least as diligently as you experiment with substances. it's free and doesn't have negative side effects

>>13966 Meditation does have a very negative side effect: it makes you comfortable in whatever your current situation is. If you're stuck in jail or something, meditation is great. But I've found meditation merely makes me more comfortable with being a loser. I didn't start genuinely improving myself until I quit meditation and started doing Adderall.

>>13969 > I didn't start genuinely improving myself until I quit meditation and started doing Adderall. that's beautiful

>>13969 This is real. I went unmedicated for 23 years, it was doable, but getting on adderall was a night and day difference. You're just sandbagging by avoiding stimulants, it doesn't make you a better, more moral, or interesting person. I almost jeopardized my college degrees and subsequent career just trying to prove to myself I could do it without any help. It was stubborn and my reward was crippling burnout, now I probably have more executive functioning issues simply because I was fueled by pure spite for so long. Literally just take your meds.

>>14118 Why would my brain be fried? Through what mechanism is adderall nuerotoxic?

>>14118 Years of ADHD symptoms reinforcing bad habits does infinitely more damage to your brain that anything else. Stimulates are also the only potential “cure” there is, besides just mitigating the immediate symptoms, because long-term proper use where you don’t just jerk off for hours but use that help to do what you were supposed to actually gives your brain a chance to build new neural connections, correct structural abnormalities to an extent and regulate your neurochemistry. Also there’s no evidence for any drug “frying your brain”, even if you use it recreationally, assuming you don’t take absurd amounts and don’t have other conditions that put you at risk. Interestingly enough, well-established “hard” drugs are the least physically unhealthy ones, almost the entirety of destructiveness comes from how drug addiction impacts your lifestyle.