downers and UPPERS

from waj mahal

I’m not much for mood alterers.

There.  I said it.  (And apparently “alterers” is not a word, but I’m leaving it.  Artistic license, right?) 

I never have been and I’m pretty sure I never will be.  I’m no drug connoisseur.  I’m actually more of an ignoramus according to the thesaurus (which is claiming that to be connoisseur’s antonym, but I find that choice of word to be debatable).  To stay as vague as possible, my few run-ins during my dark alley days have always left me saying, “Now, what exactly is supposed to be pleasant about this?”  Prescription medications that I’ve been given for various ailments have always left me puking and much more keen on withstanding the pain of yet another pinched nerve than coming near pills that some people happily pop all day long.  What can I say?  I like to be high on life. (Man, that’s hard to even type as a joke.)

I came to that conclusion more than a few years ago.  I’ll have a cocktail or two to liven myself up for a social gathering, but that’s about the extent of any alterER that I find enjoyable.  That was until I tried Ritalin.

It was the typical story.  College kid needs to stay up all night to study.  My time during the day to study was always pretty limited – so my night hours were the best to hit the books.  But guess what?  I was TIRED when night came.  So I’d heard others talk about taking some Ritalin or Adderall in order to study because it kept you awake and you stayed extremely focused.  A friend of mine had some 5+ year old Ritalin from a prescription during highschool and he offered me some to pull an all nighter for an exam.  He said he had used them, but they weren’t very strong anymore so it might not have very much effect.  I took one and felt nothing so two hours later I took another.  Then I went to sleep 30 hours later.

I was living at home at the time and I clearly remember being extremely exhilarated when talking to my mom when she woke up that morning.  I couldn’t wait to tell her about my new found love.  Uppers.

The point of the Ritalin that night was in order to stay up and transfer all of my notes to notecards to prepare for an Art History exam I would be having later that week.  The process is extremely time consuming.  Thank god I wasn’t actually staying up to retain information for an exam the following morning because I don’t think that would have panned out so well.

Being a somewhat Type A personality (maybe more than somewhat…but who is keeping track…), I like to be in control.  Yes, I like to control others, but I also like to be completely in control of myself.  I don’t like the way mood altering takes away one’s authority over oneself.  I want to be able to function at the same speed and with the same mental capacity as I always have.  The beauty of Ritalin is that I can do everything I do on a normal day…except BETTER.

I am about to say the following without a shade of sarcasm.  Ritalin makes me high on life.

When on Ritalin, everything that you need to accomplish feels within your grasp.  Finish my 50 page paper in one night?  Of course I can!  Read this 700 page text book by my 9 am class?  Why not!  Learn how to do sign language?  Sure!  Alphabetize my nail polishes?  Let’s do it!  Unfortunately, it’s that enthusiasm and focus for everything that can also be a hindrance if you are intending to have an all night study session.

I’d heard tale of Ritalin’s power to focus you on even the dullest subjects.  Kids that are normally unable to read their text books for more than half a page before wandering off into no man’s land suddenly find themselves riveted and glued to the pages like it’s the last half of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  What I was not warned about, however, was your mind’s inability to realize what the Ritalin was intended for.  You walk accidentally by your computer on your way to studying and suddenly its 5am and you’ve just memorized the script to “White Men Can’t Jump” and painted a mural of Weird Al in your bedroom, but you haven’t started on those exam notes.

Sure, I was up all night.  I was sitting on a heater, wrapped in a quilt yet still shivering.  I hadn’t eaten in hours and my appetite was no where in sight.  And I was more optimistic than I’ve been in years while gluing pixely printouts of cave drawings and color coordinating my time periods, but that wasn’t the only thing I was interested in.  I found myself taking breaks quite often – 2 or 3 hour breaks – to do things like write poetry and watch Pee Wee Herman’s Big Adventure.

Maybe that’s not odd to you, but I don’t write a lot of poetry on a normal basis.  And I certainly don’t write pages and pages in a row for 2 hours.  But, for some reason, you couldn’t stop me that night.  Oh wait, I know what the reason was.  Prescription drugs.  Anyways, I felt like my mind was on fire with creativity.  And I wrote a 17 stanza poem about cabin fever that wasn’t half bad, but that’s really not the point.

It may seem as though I’m complaining about the unexpected directions my focus went throughout the night, but I’m not.  It’s more of warning to others that this will probably happen to you.  The good thing about it is – it doesn’t matter.  You have more than enough time to spare.  Why not rewrite your recipe book ransom note style?  You’ve been wondering what you were going to do with all those old magazines you have laying around and you’ve got more than enough hours because you are no longer wasting them on sleep!

Trust me, no matter what you choose (or just end up doing for no logical reason), you will do it with confidence and a lust for life that you have never had before.  It was the best idea you’ve ever come up with and the end product will be your best work because Ritalin doesn’t leave you with a whacked out version of yourself that thinks they are getting things done only to find the next day that you’ve watered your plants with Gatorade.  Ritalin helps you achieve your best while feeling your best.

This post was brought to you by the makers of Ritalin.

Afterthought:  It should probably be said that I have only taken Ritalin one time and Adderall one time during the same year in college.  I am not addicted.