[miguelangel]

To focus on meetings ritalin works great to me. I have the feeling that  ADD effects  get worse with age (I have 50), the brain loses the ability to compensate his deficiencies. I try to compensate it by increasing the medication, more in situations where it is needed the skills that ADD like me have not

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[miguelangel]

I am also ADHD and I spent several years as a child and as a teenager in a taekwondo school so I highly recommend taekwondo as a martial art.  It was worth it, it has a lot to do with respect, tradition and effort. They taught me some valuable things, more than how to kick they also taught me that respect is gained with knowledge and effort, and a degree that depends just on it should be respected by everybody.

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[miguelangel]

The increment of nicotinic receptors of acetylcholine is a good example of homeostasis and physiological changes that can hook anybody, this process can work in the brain of any person, however also people addicted to nicotine had a brain similar to ADHD brain

I do not belong to any college community, my interest is because drugs have done much damage to my family and friends. Seeking the cause, searching how drugs work I found a fact that is hide and disguise on purpose: Drugs affect and cause serious damage just to people who have a dopamine deficit.

It is hide and disguise (which is a crime) because this fact is difficult to reconcile with the position that criminalize addicts.

It is enough to think and talk about Junkies, people who did not want to hear a message repeated a thousand times about the risk of drugs and addictions so irresponsibily they cause themselves the adiction searching the pleasures that bring drugs. It is fake, it is not true, that  young  did anything different than  did other young people who afterwards became presidents of the US (Clinton, Bush, Obama) the only difference was that they had a dopamine deficit, that was the real cause that makes them get hooked.

My children, like me, have ADHD and for them is very important to know that  they cannot play with drugs, drugs are extremely dangerous to them and they cannot get confident because other friends can play, to them will be different, to them will be true the absurd and exaggerated advertising on drugs

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[miguelangel]

The increment of nicotinic receptors of acetylcholine is a good example of homeostasis and physiological changes that can hook anybody, this process can work in the brain of any person, however also people addicted to nicotine had a brain similar to ADHD brain

I do not belong to any college community, my interest is because drugs have done much damage to my family and friends. Seeking the cause, searching how drugs work I found a fact that is hide and disguise on purpose: Drugs affect and cause serious damage just to people who have a dopamine deficit.

It is hide and disguise (which is a crime) because this fact is difficult to reconcile with the position that criminalize addicts.

It is enough to think and talk about Junkies, people who did not want to hear a message repeated a thousand times about the risk of drugs and addictions so irresponsibily they cause themselves the adiction searching the pleasures that bring drugs. It is fake, it is not true, that  young  did anything different than  did other young people who afterwards became presidents of the US (Clinton, Bush, Obama) the only difference was that they had a dopamine deficit, that was the real cause that makes them get hooked.

My children like me have ADHD and for them is very important to know that  they cannot play with drugs, drugs are extremely dangerous to them and they cannot get confident because other friends can play, to them will be different, to them will be true the absurd and exaggerated advertising on drugs

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[miguelangel]

A striking fact of drugs, is the incongruence in behavior that have on people who use them, it is a culture-dependent behavior . If we think about the consumer  behavior of a drug such alcohol,  we will think that a person who drinks will have a tendency to a violent and unpleasant behavior, also under the influence of alcohol he will be prone to an irresponsible sexual promiscuity. However, this behavior is not universally true, the British among others, when they drink they will behave like that. Anthropologists refer to these societies as “dissociated cultures versus alcohol.” A Spanish like myself or my friends we never behave like, my generation did not know that alcohol has those effects, I would say that even we are less violent and less promiscuous under the influence of alcohol. We belong to a “culture associated to alcohol”.

It is funny spanish  advertising on sherries wines from 60’s in which recommend comsumption to children. (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJIxo9q2hMY)

On certain situations our behavior is conditioned by instincts. Our community  can predetermine  and define behaviors based on the agreement and the belief of the community. This is the mechanism that explains that the same drug has different behaviors in different societies. This is the fundamental reason for conductual changes associated with addictions. The consequence over behaviour have little or nothing to do with biochemistry of the drug. Usually and wrongly we blame the drug chemistry and its impact on our brains of changes in the behavior that have addicts.

This process has been studied by the SIRC (Social Issues Research Centre), in its study of the behavior consequences of alcohol in British society. The studies make a comparative analysis of the effects of alcohol in different societies and blame  the damage caused by alcohol in British society to the existence of an unjustified belief about its effects, a belief that has no scientific basis. Its demonstrations of the falsity of the legend associated with alcohol consumption, it is based both on experiments designed to that purpose, and also with behavioral differences that have alcohol in British society compared to those observed in Mediterranean societies as Spanish society.

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[miguelangel]

Of course a person has to have contact with drugs to become addicted, what I advocate is that a casual and party contact that many people have with drugs without  getting addicted, in the case of a person who has a dopamine deficit, that person will be in a serious risk of developing a compulsive addiction

To me it is not very clear that  education and environment around you has much to do with addiction to drugs abuse. I will try to make me understand

I never believed that education given to  children had much to do with the results you get from them, I have never met a better parents than my own parents and uncles of Madrid, good people, intelligent and devoted to the education and care of their children, each couple had four children and from eight we were three have died as a result of drugs and someone more had serious problems. It made no sense, the only explanation I found was that basically everything is random. The believe that through education we can influence the future of our children should be little more than illusion.

When I found out that I have ADHD, I realized that my brothers and my cousins also had it. Everything got sense: ADHD was the cause that drugs had played such a crime in our family.

The relation of ADHD with drugs was one of the first things I understood, I think that even it was inside one of the first tests I did: is there any member of your family who has had problems with alcohol or drugs?

It is true that most addicts are related with marginal areas of aur society but it is also true that the old belief that ADHD was a disease just in children which disappear with adulthood was because the vast majority of adult people with ADHD would disappear from our world, end up in jail, dead, addicted to drugs or at other marginal areas of our society. Marginality and ADHD have always been related although we are not so much aware. On this site will be difficult to find the ADHD in jail, the ADHD drug addict or any marginal ADHD ,  we will talk and discuss only the ADHD that have been able to combine our disorder with living inside this society, and apparently we are  minority within the ADHD adult population.

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[miguelangel]

Good point. It is true that the percentage of smokers is higher (I think 20-30%) than that of ADHD.

I remember in Spain in my generation more than 60%  people consumed alcohol daily at each meal, lunch, dinner and even breakfast (I started at 4 years old), and almost did not exist alcoholics. In orther to generate a compulsive addiction  it is needed two conditions: genetic susceptibility and be afraid to get addicted, try to control intake.

What percentage of smokers have developed a compulsive addiction? I do not know.
Neither do I know what percentage of the population has a dopamine deficit. ADHD people comes to be those which the deficit is important enough to be clearly symptomatic.

In Europe it is been made the tests PET (Positron Emissions Tomographies) on nicotine addicts, the same carried out by the NIDA on addicted to methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine and alcohol, and the result was similar, also nicotine addicts have a brain with the same characteristics as ADHD people. However I personally believe that nicotine and heroin can hook  people without dopamine deficit. Both drugs have a great homeostasis (fast physiological changes in order to keep initial balance)

Although it does not have to mean anything, epidemiological figures are curious. Around the 6-16% of children and teenagers in the U.S. are diagnosed with ADHD and only between 10 and 15% of drug users generate a compulsive addiction.

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[miguelangel]

Yes I stand that it is true for any dopaminergic drug including heroin and metamphetamin. We also have to understand that advertising about certain drugs are very misleading: cocaine is similar to methylphenidate (Ritalin, Concerta) and methamphetamine to amphetamine (Adderall) and I quote:
“The brain cannot distinguish between amphetamine and methamphetamine” (Carl Hart Pofesor Columbia University)
“In our studies with cocaine abusers we substitute cocaine by methylphenidate because the brain cannot tell the difference between these two drugs” (Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of National Institute of Drug Abuse)

I understand that when you take a stimulant medication, it reduces the need or attraction to other dopamine sources, it is natural. The knowledge about the relation between dopamine deficiency and addictions is important not only on prevention purposes. To treat and cure addictions we should keep in mind that patients are persons with a dopamine deficit, a deficit that has been worsened by drug abuse. That fact, today medicine usually does not take in account.

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[miguelangel]

It is known since decades the high comorbidity between Drug Abuse and ADHD, there are many studies that correlate diferents addictions and ADHD but remains “just another ADHD co-morbidity”. The thesis I stand for is that having a dopamine déficit is necessary to become addicted to any dopaminergic drug, it is a prerequisite. People without this deficit can play with drugs, but those who have a dopamine deficit we cannot . Drugs are extremely dangerous to us and although we realize that anti-drug advertising is fake, that there are many people who use drugs without geting addicted, we cannot do it, we have to know that to us, will be true  that exaggerated propaganda

Two dais ago I post in “Marijuana and ADHD”( I was trying to attract attention over that dangerous comorbility)

I propose a new research to find the prevalence between addiction to drugs and ADHD:
1-Search on goole celebrities with any drug addiction: alcohol, cocaine, heroin …

2-Choose the drug you want, also the criteria to introduce the person in your study population (alphabetical, included in more than one list …)..

3- Then search again in google if these celebrities have been diagnosed with ADHD,

4- You will notice that the prevalence is much higher than researchers  define and also you will realize that all those celebrities with drugs abuse but without diagnosis of ADHD are from an age at which this disorder was not considered among adults, , If not, the prevalence would be around 100%  ”

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[miguelangel]

Great, I like it, the acronym DDD is funny and sounds funny in any language. We should create a forum proposing the change: no more ADHD or ADD, just DDD

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[miguelangel]

Yes, I am saying that you have to have a dopamine deficit in order to become addicted to any dopaminergic drug (alcohol, cocaine, heroine, metamphetamine) and that deficit has in the brain the same physiological expression that has ADHD:  reduction of dopaminergic receptors D2 and affected areas in the frontal cortex. In other words only ADHD brains or similar brains generate compulsive addiction to drugs

I prefer to talk about dopamine deficit instead of ADHD because whether it is true that all ADHD people have that condition, not all dopamine deficit imply a symptomatic ADHD, also such a deficits may be associated with other disorders, not necessarily defined as ADHD

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[miguelangel]

I try to summarize: I meant that we have the bad habit to measure and evaluate ourselves using the same scale used by people without ADHD which lead us to overestimate our flows. So focus in our faults we are not able to perceive some of the qualities associated with be ADHD: realizing abnormalities or singularities in any situation given, the ability to manage conflict with risk, to fit in any environment or be able to adapt yourself to a changing life and a changing work. Also ADHD people I meet, usually have a good heart, generosity and a tolerant and comprehensive open mind, great qualities, much more important than punctuality, ability to plan ahead or not procrastinate and finish your projects

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[miguelangel]

I had an ADHD girlfriend from Louisiana  who liked to talk with a friend  of mine also ADHD from Spain. My Luisiana girlfriend spoke  english and did not understand spanish and the one from Spain  spoke spanish and did not understand english. Both enjoyed  conversations, each spoke about what she wanted without having to connect with the other reply (she did not undertand it), also they could change subject when they wanted because they knew  that  the other would not realize it,  they really enjoyed  talking  each other and I could hear wonderful conversations

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[miguelangel]

I belive that we all should think on ourselves as a different shape of human being, we cannot judge ourselves or let others to judge us with the criteria used to normal people.
I can do things that most people cannot, among others this one:  Into tough situations, the kind of , that normal people runs away ( I am thinking about something like a business bankruptcy ), however I can control and manage that situations, I had to confess that even I have fun, I feel great. Risk and stress have to me the same paradoxical effect than amphetamines: Makes me feel calm and perfect, I am done for a different way of life and work I have different qualities that are also helpfull to my community, but to me, it is extremely difficult to do things easy to others like to be on time, fulfill a schedule or  be able to finish properly what I started.
Some weeks ago I wrote to the mother of my daughter Belquís, how I understand ADHD:

“I believe that treatment is not necessary, except in extreme cases at that age, I do not think it is convenient until you get older and your body begins to lose its ability to compensate your low dopamine levels. The fundamental problem on children with ADHD  is that they get bored in a normal educational model, they are unable to keep attention, they  need more interactive models , with more challenges. Aside from school there are centers that seek to educate preventing damages in the future because of their impulsiveness and their tendency to create chaotic environments.

I do not think that ADHD is a disorder, it is just a different way of being human , the ADHD are hunters and warriors rather than peasants , their lack of attention is due to a continuous checking on  their environments , their impulsiveness is needed to take quick decisions and low dopamine levels makes them perfect and calm facing danger, the adrenaline does not make them shake neither generates panic, so danger situations have the same paradoxical effect that is seen in hyperactive children when given an amphetamine : they calm down

We have to understand that an ADHD will not be motivated in an environment of farmers, they need environments that can generate interest: changes, challenges. Look at our daughter, changing school does not makes her any problem, new people and a new world, she likes it!

This world is essentially a world of  farmers (it is not pejorative) and we will have to introduce some changes in her world to better suits her, later on we will have to be careful with the sources of dopamine to avoid these sources to hook or to damage her: videogames, risk taking, alcohol, chocolate, drugs, sex …

I do not know why, perhaps by the continuing criticisms in which we are typically submitted during our childhood, perhaps because the lack of empathy we have with normal people distorts our perception of ourselves (I always thought that I had the empathy of a squid but is not true, I have great empathy and understanding for people with ADHD) but we all, ADHD people, we have a distorted and undervalued picture of ourselves.

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[miguelangel]

I propose a new research to find the prevalence between addiction to drugs and ADHD:
1-Search on google celebrities with any drug addiction: alcohol, cocaine, heroin …

2-Choose the drug you want, also the criteria to introduce the person in your study population (alphabetical, included in more than one list …)..

3- Then search again in google if these celebrities have been diagnosed with ADHD,

$-you will notice that the prevalence is much higher than researchers  define and also you will realize that all those celebrities with drugs abuse but without diagnosis of ADHD are from an age at which this disorder was not considered among adults, , If not, the prevalence would be around 100%  ”

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