In this episode, Ash and Dusty delve into the complex relationship between ADHD and substance use. They discuss how individuals with ADHD may turn to substances like alcohol, nicotine, marijuana, and even more illicit drugs as a form of self-medication. These substances can provide temporary relief for symptoms such as impulsivity, under-stimulation, and social anxiety. The hosts emphasize the importance of understanding the underlying reasons behind substance use, distinguishing between actual addiction and behaviors driven by ADHD-related challenges. They also highlight the difficulty of moderation for those with ADHD, as impulsivity and inattention can lead to overconsumption without realizing it.
The conversation extends to strategies for managing substance use, including setting personal goals and understanding one’s own relationship with different substances. Ash and Dusty encourage listeners to get curious about their habits and explore whether their substance use is masking other ADHD-related issues. They stress the significance of finding a balance that works individually, acknowledging that sobriety isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. The episode concludes with a reminder that anyone dealing with serious substance use issues should seek professional help, and they mention the potential benefits of 12-step programs for those needing full sobriety.
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Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Ash: Hi, I’m Ash, [00:00:03] Dusty: and I’m Dusty. [00:00:04] Ash: and this is Translating ADHD. [00:00:07] Dusty: Hello, it’s me, Dusty, and I have another ADHD boot camp coming up. If you guys have never heard of the ADHD boot camp, it’s a thing I run every year. It is 40 hours of guided, structured body doubling to declutter and organize your home. A lot of it is physical organizing, so you’re working with me and a bunch of other ADHDers to go through doom boxes, get your space organized, get around to all those things you always mean to do and never get around to, and then we work on setting up ADHD friendly systems.So the idea here is ADHD hacks are great. And if you’re way too disorganized and the chaos is insurmountable, it’s really hard to implement them. So let’s do a hard reset so that you can actually use some of those awesome, cool ADHD hacks that you learn on TikTok. We have an early bird discount going on right now ‘til February 20th.
You can find me on any social media platform and you will find a link to it. It’s also on the website at www.vancouverADHDCoaching.com. As always, if you need sliding scale access, nobody gets turned away for lack of funds.
[00:01:15] Ash: And speaking of upcoming coaching opportunities, I have a Purpose session starting on April 1st that meets at 8:30 p.m. Eastern for eight weeks. This course is about defining what a life that fits is for you as a person with ADHD or starting to uncover some answers and some threads to pull on in that direction. So if you think about what you want, three months from now, six months from now, a year from now, and feel like you don’t have good answers to those questions that is perfectly normal with ADHD on board. And it’s also something that I love working with clients on. For more information on that class and to apply, you can visit www.translatingadhd.com and click on the group coaching tab. So Dusty, you want to tell our listeners what it is we’re going to talk about this week? [00:02:05] Dusty: Today we’re talking about ADHD and substance use. This is a very interesting topic because there are some correlations between ADHD and substance use or abuse. We often see that unmedicated, untreated ADHD is correlated with more substance use, especially illicit substance use. Wow! Shocking! This can even be stuff like alcohol, marijuana, and even using caffeine as a way of self-medicating.And so, even overuse of caffeine can be problematic sometimes, but I think where it gets a little dicier is when we are relying on things like alcohol, marijuana, or things like cocaine to, you know, manage the stress of life with ADHD.
[00:02:51] Ash: Throw nicotine into the mix. [00:02:52] Dusty: Yes, I forgot that nicotine existed. [00:02:55] Ash: Big one. And although these aren’t substances, certainly related are similar challenges to video game or gambling challenges. [00:03:04] Dusty: Oh, yeah. Yes, that’s right. So, I’m curious, Ash, do you have, as a coach, experience working with clients on this? What have you seen as far as the way that people make sense of substance use with ADHD? [00:03:19] Ash: That’s a really good question. And I’m actually going to start by talking about myself. There is a history of alcoholism on my dad’s side of the family. A history of addiction to other substances as well. And that is something that I have paid a lot of attention to in my own life. I’ve been very careful around some things and I am grateful for knowing that history for myself. I just always knew that I should never touch a highly addictive drug, right?As much as I love certain drugs, I do; I am a fan of marijuana, obviously. I do like psychedelics, but I have just always known that it is not a good idea for me to touch something that is prone to high addiction.
I just don’t need to know what it feels like. And so it’s not something that I’ve grappled with personally, but my relationship with alcohol is something that I’ve grappled with personally. I still drink. I am a social drinker and for me an important distinction, and this is something I work with my clients on a lot, whatever we’re talking about, and oftentimes this does come up in the context of something like video games, but sort of distinguishing between is this an actual addiction or is this dopamine seeking behavior or masking or making up for some ADHD stuff.
I am still a nicotine addict by the way, and I 100% recognize that that has everything to do with nicotine’s impact on ADHD brains, right? It’s really hard for me to fully give up nicotine because every time I try, I’m super brain fogged and feel like I can’t focus and I have yet to get through that gauntlet successfully this time around.
I have gone through periods where I’ve been off nicotine for several months, several years, but it’s already such a hard substance to quit, and it’s so much harder for people with ADHD because the stimulant effects do have some benefits.
[00:05:29] Dusty: Yeah, and I think maybe something to recognize here is, why substance use and abuse is more challenging with ADHD right? So, you kind of mentioned – is this dopamine seeking. So we’re starting with brains that are under-stimulated and a lot of these substances are creating stimulation for us. Right?But you mentioned something interesting – is this masking? And so there’s other purposes that these substances are serving for us as well. Especially when it comes to social anxiety or social challenges. And again, we acknowledge that very often being autistic comes with certain social challenges, but we don’t talk enough about the fact that like these social impairments are also present with ADHD.
They’re different, but they exist, right? Like impulsivity or forgetting to remember the rules. Carolyn McGuire calls it “reading the room”, like being impulsive, oversharing, blurting things out, being way too energetic or inappropriate and feeling like using a substance is going to kind of help you moderate or modulate yourself. But also, that impulsivity piece, right? I think it was Dr. Russell Barkley who said ADHD is a disorder of people who are lost in time. Like, we can’t connect to our past selves and be like, what happened last time? To project into the future and go, you know, based on what happened last time, what is likely to happen this time?
So we’re kind of stuck in this ever present moment where we’re disconnected from the ghost of our past selves and the specter of our future selves. And we can only make choices based on what we want here and now. And so if I used a bunch of drugs at a party last weekend, and it was really embarrassing, and I had a super bad hangover the next day, in the moment that maybe all my friends are doing it, or it’s in front of me, and I can tell myself, like, oh yeah, yeah, I’m not going to, right?
But if I really want to, I’m probably not projecting that future, where I’m like, okay, this is likely going to lead to a really horrible hangover, and I might miss my lunch date with my mom tomorrow. I’m not making those associations.
And so in the moment, the idea of not doing something, of abstaining from something, can often feel really arbitrary. It’s like, oh, I told myself I wasn’t going to do this, but like, why not, who cares? I really want to, right? We have trouble making that connection of getting back to that big “why” you don’t want to do something and that impulsivity takes over.
I don’t know that this is scientifically sound, but I saw some social media content which said that studies have shown that, willpower is kind of a farce, like, you can resist something that’s, right in front of your face, like, something like six times or something, and then, each time, it gets harder and harder, and then eventually, if you continue to be tempted by it, you’re just gonna give in, right?
So, if I’m hungry, and there’s donuts on the table, and I’m like, I don’t want to eat that donut, I can resist it a certain number of times. This TikTok was saying that researchers have shown that after so many attempts at saying no to yourself, eventually your willpower will just fail.
Part of this, as well, is around that inability to regulate attention. If I’m at a party, and I’m really in the mood to have a drink, and I’ve told myself I’m not going to have a drink I may have a hard time getting my attention off that desire to have a drink. I may be really fixated on it, and so there’s more bids in my brain, right?
Every three seconds, my brain is going, “hey, I want a drink”. And I have to go, “no, you’re not drinking”. You know, it’s like I have a seven year old now, but little kids are like, mom, mom, mom, I want a snack, mom, mom, mom, I want a snack. There’s only so many times you can drown that out.
But when the call is coming from inside the house, it’s really hard to resist. And I think we don’t give ourselves enough credit for how many times we do try to resist it. But eventually…impulsivity.
[00:09:04] Ash: In a similar vein, Dusty, I think that ADHD can make moderation really challenging, right? Because let’s say you go to a party and you do want to have a drink, but you just want to have a couple and you’re having a really good time and maybe you’re not paying attention to your consumption.And you’re getting increasingly more drunk, which makes it even harder to pay attention to your consumption. That is certainly something that I have noticed for myself in the past. I was really bad at paying attention to my consumption just because of ADHD. Going out with no intention to get hammered and ending up hammered and confused as to how that happened because I just wasn’t paying attention to how many freaking drinks I had.
[00:09:53] Dusty: Yes, I have this problem. In the past, it’s something I really had to work on because I didn’t realize it. Sidebar, I don’t have this problem just with drinking, I also have this problem with food. Like I don’t pay attention when I’m eating. And my mom always was like, “oh, you’re like a Hoover, you just eat”. People my whole life have been like, wow, you eat really fast.And it’s like this weird, embarrassing thing for me where I just shovel my food away because I’m not really tasting it. I’m not really thinking about it, I’m not trying to eat in a hurry, I’m just not paying attention, right? And that kind of led to a habit of overeating, and then body dysmorphia.
But, this happens to me with drinking for sure, especially with alcohol, where I’m distracted, I’m in a social setting, I’m talking and I’m chugging a glass of wine like it’s a soda because I’m not really tasting it. And that’s actually one of the things that I have come to really love about wine.
I managed a liquor store for a while and the owner was really invested in having us learn about wine. So I have my WSET Level 1, which is your wine and spirits education test. It’s one of the first steps to becoming a sommelier. And for a while I went down a rabbit hole of really hyper focusing on my interest in wine.
One of the things that was really helpful about that is it caused me to slow down and want to savor and enjoy all the flavors and nuances of wine and certain alcohol. I’ve never been a scotch person, but stuff like bourbon or even Japanese whiskey, there’s a different thing that happens for me when I’m having a glass of a really good quality alcohol.
Where I don’t want to just slam it, but yeah, as a kid you know, a teen, whatever, especially when you’re drinking the cheap crap that’s gross and you don’t want to taste it too much, but you’re also with your friends…that is 100% a thing that was really challenging for me that I had to figure out ways around.
The question is how do you have a healthy relationship with substances because more and more we’re seeing people going sober. Like sobriety culture is on the rise. I’ve heard it said that Gen Z is the lowest drinking generation ever and that alcohol companies are losing money. And there’s all these alcohol free types of cocktails that don’t necessarily address the other substances.
You would think that the fentanyl crisis would be up there. But I know a number of people my own age who are still engaging in illicit substances and that’s very scary for me because I worry about them. Although I do know some people are able to get their drugs tested. And stuff like marijuana and even mushrooms are in more of a gray area these days where, you know, people are microdosing. It’s more socially acceptable.
So, sobriety may be the right choice for some people. Personally, I’ve never been able to go all or nothing with anything, right? We talked about vegetarianism a while ago. Like, even that doesn’t work for me, right? So, I’ve had flirtations with sobriety where I will go sober for chunks of time, like two weeks, a month or like three months, right? And one of the things that’s nice about that is it lowers my tolerance so that when I come back to having alcohol, I’m used to not having it, and I don’t feel the need to have as much of it. And it becomes easier to enjoy situations where I normally would have had it, but now I don’t.
I just went out the other night to a show with my friend, and I was driving, so I was the “sober person”. My friend had a couple of beers and there was a moment where I had FOMA (fear of missing out). I thought, “awww, I want a beer”. And, you know what, it came and it passed and at the end of the night, I felt so good. I was like, “oh my god, it’s so nice to just be drinking “bubblies” or whatever”. But trying to say to myself, I’ll never have another drink for the rest of my life, then I’m just going to be thinking about nothing but that. And that’s all I’m going to, because I’m feeling deprived.
So, sobriety may not work for everyone. I know it doesn’t work for me. And the question becomes how do we modulate and moderate and have safe and healthy relationships with our favorite substances.
[00:14:02] Ash: And I think the answer to that question brings us kind of back to the three things that we’re talking about here. I think the answer to that question is to start to get curious about what is your relationship to any given substance. We’ve described a few different ways that that can show up with ADHD.Is it masking or unmasking, right? Is it using it to feel more comfortable in your own skin in certain situations? Is it just a habit or lack of attention where you’re not really cognizant of what you’re consuming or how much? Or do you have an actual problem with this substance? Meaning that you cannot engage with this substance without it being detrimental to you in some way? You are dependent on it in some way. Those three things can be really hard to distinguish, especially with ADHD on board.
And you’re right, Dusty, sobriety culture says just quit, just quit. It’s better for you. That’s the healthy thing to do. I know a lot of people who are going sober just for health reasons, right? They don’t necessarily have a problem with any given substance, but they’re making the choice because let’s be real, alcohol is not amazing for you.
Marijuana, when you smoke it, is not good for your lungs, right? So these things do have other health impacts, but that all or nothing thinking can be super, super detrimental, especially if the challenge isn’t I need to be sober from this substance 100%.
I actually really love the “jam band community” for this because since we really like drugs, we also have learned a lot as a community about how to approach substances in a healthy way or how to approach sobriety in a way that works for us.
And we have a term in that scene. We call it “California sober” and what that typically means is I smoke weed, but I don’t do anything else. In a broader sense, what it means is I’ve figured out what works for me. I know what things I cannot touch and I need to stay sober from, but that doesn’t mean that I need to be sober from every single substance.
[00:16:19] Dusty: As far as I’ve heard, I don’t think there’s any detrimental long term health outcomes from psilocybin, unless you have a pre-existing history of schizophrenia or something. But don’t quote me on that, I’m not a doctor. But apparently you can just safely trip balls and you won’t have any long-term health ramifications.I really wish that I enjoyed more of the mind altering substances like marijuana and psilocybin but they really don’t work for me, even weed. I don’t smoke weed. I smoke weed maybe once or twice a year and even then it’s like a tiny amount because I immediately feel different physically and it is very weird for me in a disconcerting way, like it just gets my anxiety going.
The last time I took mushrooms was in 2007. And I remember being like, I’m never doing this again – and I haven’t. Sometimes I think about it and then I’m like, “hmm, no”, which is interesting because I don’t have a problem being sober with any of those things even though I’ve done them.
I think the other question here is what is your goal? If you’re trying to do less, why? For me, one of the things that actually really helped me with alcohol was learning about and to appreciate alcohol that I liked and wanting to because at first it started out being about wanting to fit in in social situations. At a certain point, it actually became about the alcohol. I wanted to have certain drinks that I liked. And as a result of having more of those, I stopped having the things that I didn’t like. I don’t drink beer. Ever. I don’t drink vodka. I don’t drink gin. There are so many kinds of alcohol that I don’t like. That it’s actually kind of helpful because when I go to places where all they have is beer and like nudes, you know, like nude vodka sodas, I’m like, “you know what, no thanks, I’d rather not”. I’m not gonna drink just for the sake of drinking. I will drink if there’s something I want to drink.
In Canada, we recently changed some of our guidelines around alcohol and cancer. Now Health Canada says, there’s really almost no safe amount to drink, and having even more than a few drinks a week raises your risk of cancer.
On my dad’s side of the family, there’s a lot of breast cancer, which, the likelihood of that can be raised with alcohol, so one of my reasons for drastically reducing my alcohol intake is wanting to negate future risk of cancer. And so for me, it’s not “oh, I don’t want to embarrass myself in public” or “oh, I have a problem”. It’s I need to be thinking long term about my family and that kind of thing.
[00:18:43] Ash: So listeners, I want you to hear Dusty’s reason as her reason, not as what ought to be your reason, because let’s be real, being alive is a health risk. Getting in your car and driving every day, particularly if you live in the US, is a major health risk. Car accidents are such a major cause of injury and death in the States right now.Getting on a plane in the U.S. is, I would consider, a pretty significant health risk given the state of our world right now. So, I think that back to sobriety culture, I think that you can fall into that “I should”, right? Dusty’s doing it for these reasons because she has a history of cancer in her family.
But you hear that and it’s scary, right? So, oh, do I need to be worried about that? Should I get sober for those reasons too? So when Dusty says, find your own goals, figure out what you want – she means just that. We mean just that, right? Nothing is health neutral. Absolutely nothing is health neutral. Everything we do has an impact on our health. And as a person with ADHD, you can make yourself crazy trying to do everything “correctly” to maintain your health. So make sure what you’re looking for is something that is for you and connected to you. Right? What is my relationship to this substance? What am I curious about?
I like to take breaks from things. I am a pretty chronic weed user. I use it most evenings, but I do like to take breaks sometimes, and I do find that to be a great introspection tool. The tolerance drop is also really nice, but I do find it to be informative in terms of what is my relationship to this medication.
And by the way, I do the same thing with my ADHD medication. I always come back to it. It does work for me. It has very low side effects for me. But every once in a while, just as an exercise in curiosity, I find it helpful to go a week without taking my ADHD meds so that I can notice, so that I can appreciate, so that I can know something about what is really the difference between me when I’m medicated and me when I’m not?
[00:20:55] Dusty: Yeah, good point and thanks for saying that because I don’t want to freak anyone out here. Like my mom always had a smoke in one hand and a beer in the other until the day she died and she didn’t get cancer and she drank more beer than I’ve ever seen anyone drink in their entire life.And so she did die of lung disease from smoking, but she didn’t get lung cancer. Nobody on her side of the family died from cancer. They lived long lives and then they dropped dead from something else. So again, if you’re concerned, you can try and understand more about your personal health history.
It’s kind of like rolling the dice, right? You’re never going to get anything perfect so you have to kind of have to weigh the pros and cons of the choices that you make and where you think your risks are. So everybody don’t panic. Okay?
But I think one thing that I’m curious about, and I don’t know a lot about is how people are managing and mitigating harm when it comes to some of those harder and more illicit substances. And I’ll say, I have a few friends who, it is pretty clear that they have a raging case of undiagnosed ADHD. And so they are unmedicated and like, surprise, surprise, they’re the ones that have the most sort of troubling cocaine addictions. And something about this that has always really bothered me is that there’s people out there who are really against ADHD medication. To medicate or not medicate is a very personal choice. There’s lots of good reasons not to. There’s some people who are always going to be too sensitive for any kind of ADHD medication. If you’re just not comfortable with it personally, that’s fine, that’s you. But I’m talking about the people who don’t have ADHD who are like moralizing and on a soapbox and they’re like ADHD medication is legal meth especially those who are really dead against medicating children when they don’t know anything about it, okay?
I know a number of people were just like, oh, if kids are hyper, we just medicate them. Like, they’re just being children, and now, children just being children need to be medicated, right? There’s this sort of moral pearl clutching panic about medicating the children! And, again, I’m a parent with an ADHD child, so it is a very personal decision that you should make with your pediatrician.
There’s lots of reasons not to do it or to hold off on it. But none of those reasons are black and white. Because here’s the thing – longitudinal studies show that the earlier you medicate children, the longer they live, right?
We know, and it’s scary, but we do know that ADHD is associated with higher mortality rates, especially when you’re late diagnosed, especially when you’re late medicated or not medicated. And we also know that there is an association between earlier medication of children and decreased risks of substance abuse.
And for a while I was posting a lot about being an ADHD coach on my personal Facebook, where I had all the people from all the different aspects of my life, like high school friends, people I’d randomly met once here and there. And I had a couple of men, it was always men, that felt very entitled to DM me and say, “hey, I know you’re an ADHD coach, so, I’m divorced, or I’m not with my partner, and I have a kid, and she wants to put them on meds, and I’m really against it – how do I talk her out of it”?
I got three messages like this, and I was, like, you are barking up the wrong tree. You are talking to the wrong person here. Like, educate yourself, but one of the things that made me so upset about that is they were so concerned about, “oh, legal meth, putting my kid on drugs”. Your kid is way more likely to use way more dangerous drugs and so many study after study shows that proper medication with ADHD meds will actually help keep kids safe from substance use later in life.
It just makes me so mad, right? Again, personal choice. Lots of good reasons not to medicate your kids and lots of good reasons not to medicate yourself. But this whole moral panic about ADHD medication is so stupid when we think about the risks of illegal substance use!
[00:25:03] Ash: Dusty, I will add to that, because again being a fish head and spending a lot of time in that culture, I did have friends who do not have ADHD who like to use things like Adderall recreationally and being the curious person that I am, I’ve had a lot of conversations with those people about how those medications impact them, which is completely differently from how it impacts me, right? I take my Adderall and my brain gets quiet and I feel calm and centered. I feel a little more able to attend. I certainly do not feel hyped up or sped up in any way. I don’t feel an inordinate amount of energy. I personally don’t have sleeping problems on ADHD medications. I can take a nap with Adderall in my system if I am tired and need a nap.And so I think it’s really important to call out that the same people criticizing these substances, if they’ve ever experienced them themselves, likely did have a different experience taking ADHD meds as a person without ADHD, because it does impact you differently.
And actually, that brings up a nice bigger point that is true for any substance, right? Any given substance is going to hit you differently than anyone else for any number of reasons. I have personally never understood why people get addicted to opiates because the couple of times I’ve been prescribed them, they A, did not remove my pain at all, and B, just made me really groggy and it was a horrible feeling.
[00:26:40] Dusty: God, yes. [00:26:41] Ash: And I’m speaking as someone who has had a couple of friends who became heroin addicts by way of a legitimate prescription for opioid medication that formed an addiction and led them down that rabbit hole.And people who you would never think of – people living normal lives who find themselves out buying heroin because they are so addicted to that feeling, which means they have to be feeling something different than what I have ever felt. When I gave birth, they brought me Percocet and I was like, I’ll just take some like Tylenol or Ibuprofen. I didn’t even want to take that because it’s not going to take away my pain and I’m just going to be groggy and feel terrible for several hours. No, thank you. Everything is so individual when it comes to any given substance and that includes propensity to addiction to any given substance.
So we are not at all saying that if you have a challenge with a substance, it’s the ADHD and not addiction. What we’re inviting you to do is step back and distinguish between the two, right? Because ADHD behaviors relative to substances, relative to gambling, relative to video games can look like addiction.
And so the question in the room, and Dusty, you asked me earlier how I work with clients on stuff like this, and this is exactly what we do, we get curious about the question in the room. Is addiction at cause or is something else at cause, right? Is something else the cause when it comes to what you’re seeing a problematic relationship to this substance, to this thing, a problematic set of behaviors.
And that’s what we’re inviting listeners to do here is see that there is a distinction here. It’s not necessarily black and white. And so if you are struggling with something and full on sobriety does not feel accessible to you or like the right choice, it is possible that your challenges have more to do with ADHD and less to do with I am purely addicted to this in a way that I cannot stop.
[00:28:51] Dusty: Well said Ash. And so one of the things I would recommend to anybody who is struggling to modulate is you know if they are feeling like they’re overindulging. I personally have never been the kind of person to be able to change a behavior just because I decided to and I do think that that has to do with ADHD. I would say that I distinctly have a lack of willpower. I don’t believe in willpower, but that’s how I describe myself.And so any progress that I’ve made with changing a habit or a behavior has happened way slower than I thought it would. But the thing is, time is gonna pass anyways. Like many years ago, I played in a rock and roll band. I managed a liquor store. I was in very unhappy life circumstances. I drank a lot more. And over the years there’s been lots of times where I’ve been like, we should just be sober. But the thing is, as time has passed and I’ve slowly been able to work on it, I’m at a point now where I would say that I have very light alcohol use. Like, very light. But that didn’t happen because I just changed my mind one day and then I stuck to it. It was a process of, try fail, try fail, try fail, try fail. And the first step was all meaningful behavioral changes preceded by new awareness, right?
And so, if you’re just at the stage where you’re binge drinking, and then you regret it, and you think, “oh man, I don’t want to do that”, and then you’re like, “I’m gonna have the intention to not do that next time”, and you still do – it might be frustrating, and you might want to give up. But, that time is going to pass anyway, if it takes you a year, two years, or five years to get to where you want to be. You know, whether it’s, whether it’s substances, or really anything, right? Building an exercise habit, changing your diet, whatever, right?
That time is going to pass anyway, and it’s so frustrating not to see the results right away. But the important thing is not to give up, because every time you have a conversation with someone about your intentions, every time you recommit to your intentions, your big why, you think about it. And when it comes to ADHD, you add in strategies.
Oh, you don’t want to use substances? Maybe it’s about accountability, gamification creating some sort of speed bumps. I actually had a client who took his beer out of his fridge and he put it on a high shelf behind something because now when he wanted a beer, first of all, the beer wasn’t cold, so he didn’t want to drink it, and making it slightly inconvenient to get to. That’s an ADHD hack for substance use management. Making it more difficult to do the thing you want to do because we can use our own sort of ADHD against us.
So finding, not just giving up, but finding the ADHD ways to strategize and to keep trying and to recognize incremental progress, that’s really important. And I think on a side note, it’s very prudent for us to say that neither Ash nor I are experts in substance use management, and if you have a serious problem that is impacting you or someone else around you or you’re worried or scared about your own use, don’t just listen to this episode and go “oh, Dusty and Ash told me it would be fine and I could just like improve over five years.” We’re talking about recreational, everyday use here. If you suspect that you have a serious issue and you need support, please get that support. Make safe choices and get a friend to be your accountability partner and help you look up whatever kind of treatment programs, options or specialized supports are in your area.
Don’t just take our advice and think “well, Dusty and Ash said I could just keep doing what I’m doing”. That’s not what we’re saying. But do recognize incremental progress when you’re trying to change habits around everyday substance use. Because sometimes you just can’t be the kind of person that’s gonna change like that.
I know I’m not. But I’ve made a lot of progress and I’m really proud of the way I’ve had a relationship to my substance of choice through intentionality. And goal setting and accountability and using ADHD hacks to moderate my usage. And I feel really good about it, but it didn’t happen overnight. It took a long time.
[00:32:56] Ash: Well said, Dusty, and I will just chime in one more thing with the caveat that you’ve already said that I am not an expert here. I have had a number of clients over the years who are sober from one thing or another, like stone cold, I have to be sober. I have an addiction problem here. And more often than not, those clients have found a lot of help and support in 12-step communities.So I don’t know anything more about 12-Step and ADHD, other than for my clients who needed full sobriety from an addiction and that there seems to be a pattern of that being a good fit for an ADHD brain. So just as food for thought.
On that note, Dusty, we are out of time. So listeners until next week, I’m Ash,
[00:33:48] Dusty: and I’m Dusty. [00:33:49] Ash: and this was the Translating ADHD podcast. Thanks for listening.
