Just when you were getting comfortable with the thought that you or a loved one might have ADD, here’s something that’s likely to catch you off guard: there is such a thing known as pseudo-ADD, or an Add type illness born out of the society in which we live!

Think about symptoms of ADD and then think about what characteristics seem to be prevalent in our culture?

§ Moving fast as a definition of a “go getter” – a.k.a., the “fast track”

§ The need for high stimulation

§ Speed and creativity

§ Taking chances

§ Ignoring the status quo

§ Bucking authority

§ Doing it your way

If you look at it this way, you could say almost everyone you know has ADD to some extent. Don’t you often juggle several things at once? Do you get overwhelmed at times by all of the stimulation around you? Do you often have trouble paying attention? Can you become “addicted” to a computer game so much so that you can’t tear yourself away? Do you have real ADD or a pseudo-ADD?

Did you know that ADD more frequently occurs in the American population than it is in other countries? Some say we over-diagnose ADD. Other experts seem to think we may lump similar looking syndromes into this one category of ADD. Yet, no matter how you look at it, ADD is more prevalent here.

One hypothesis for the number of diagnoses made in the USA is born out of our genes as well as societal factors. Our founding fathers had to somewhat adventurous and dismissive of authority. Who else would want to strike out and see if they could discover another land? It was a risky venture wasn’t it? Hmmm – did they have ADD?

Think about those who created all of those inventions that we rely upon so heavily today? Think about Albert Einstein or Benjamin Franklin. Both were highly intelligent, curious, and creative. They both craved stimulation and they were willing to take risks. In addition, neither wanted to do things like everyone else. We’ll never know if they had ADD, but it makes you wonder.

So does America have ADD more often than other countries? Or are we over-using the label? It is fair to say that it is easy to use the ADD label when one is trying to describe and categorize another’s behavior.

Before you go and diagnose yourself, or you determine that you’re just another American who is too busy, look at the differences between true ADD and pseudo-ADD.

Pseudo-ADD

1. Everyone gets overwhelmed, impatient, and anxious sometimes.
2. It is normal to become focused on an activity that causes you to ignore what you should be doing sometimes.
3. Likewise, it is normal to experience moodiness from time to time sometimes.
4. After being busy for a long period, it is difficult to relax sometimes.
5. You will fail to finish obligations/projects when you have too many in front of you sometimes.

You are probably getting what I’m trying to say here. The difference between someone with pseudo-ADD and real ADD has to do with the duration, intensity, and interference capability of the symptoms.

Real ADD

1. Real ADDers have a long history of symptoms and complaints.
2. Real ADDers experience symptoms more often than not – in other words, they are rarely symptom free.
3. Real ADDers experience the symptoms at a much higher intensity than those with pseudo-ADD.
4. Real ADDers find that their untreated symptoms interfere significantly with their day-to-day lives.

It’s important to refrain from looking at everyone and saying, “You are so _____ – you must have ADD.” While all of us will probably “look” ADD from time to time, it’s not possible that all of us actually have it! When you attempt to diagnose yourself, you are your own worst critic. It’s easy to become overly critical and believe that you must have a problem. This is why a professional opinion is so critical.

If you truly believe that you or your loved one may have ADD, seek help immediately. Be honest and forthcoming about your concerns. If you have ADD, then you can start treating it the minute you get home. And if you are merely a pseudo-ADD, then you can earn how to make the most out of your symptoms so that they help rather than cause you trouble!

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here Pseudo versus Real ADD

Why ADD People Fail in Life

Chances are…   if you have been “diagnosed” with ADD-ADHD
you are doomed to failure.

That’s right, you have a serious handicap that is very difficult
or impossible to overcome.

Have fallen for this Lie?

I know that most people who have struggled with ADD-ADHD
fall for this lie…. at least for a little while until they cast off
the “stigma” of ADD-ADHD in their own minds.

Let me explain.

Self image is the single most important factor in determining
your success in life.

Poor  self image = failure in life

Positive self image = success in life

Don’t allow Doctors or teachers to form a negative self-image!

Fact: ADD-ADHD people are often the MOST gifted people on
the planet.

We often have “superman-like” abilities that the average person
will never understand.

——————————————————-
Michael Phelps
——————————————————-

Michael Phelps did not allow his ADD-ADHD to bring him down.

He did not wallow in his own self pitty.

He did not believe the lie…. that he is somehow handicapped by
this so-called “disorder”

——————————————————-
Guard Your Self-Image!
——————————————————-

Parents!  Please hear me on this!

Do not let your child think that they have a disorder!

The act of going to the Doctor and getting a diagnosis
can set your child’s self image into the gutter.

1st of all.  Your Doctor only have one option for your
ADD…

you guessed it.

Drugs.

Taking drugs on a daily basis for ADD….

Is that good or bad for the self-image (or your health)???

Think about it.

When you get a declaration from someone in a position
of authority saying…

“Yep-  you got it!  You got it bad!”  (normally after a 5 minute
conversation)

That will stick with you or your child for a very long time
unless you are very careful to guard the self-image like
it is a fragile egg.

——————————————————-
What can You do?
——————————————————-

1.  Don’t go to the Doctor for this until you have exhausted all the
“natural” remedies out there.

2.  Make a conscious effort to not refer to your so-called ADD as
a handicap

3.  Recognize that you have tendencies to not-be-able to focus in
certain situations (usually boring people talking about boring stuff)

4.  Implement proven techniques and tactics that can turn your
“ADD” into your very own special superpowers.

5.  Read my favorite book on this subject it Psycho Cybernetics by
Maxwell Maltz

I highly recommend that you pick up a copy TODAY!

Jon Bennett

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here Why ADD People Fail in Life

Hi guys, Jon Bennett here.

I found this video on the web that I thought you might find it interesting.

Please leave your comments below!

Transcript:
Dr. Lyon: I believe that attention deficit disorder should be treated like a lot of other conditions that the doctors treat. For instance if you have high cholesterol, what are doctors supposed to do. We are admonished in every textbook, every authority, we are told that if you diagnosed high cholesterol for a patient, you should work with that patient through nutritional counseling and dietary advice and lifestyle counseling for several months or say six months before you even consider medication.

Karen Friedman: I didn’t have Brian diagnosed with ADHD until he was in the fifth grade and that led of course to prescriptions. And when those prescriptions didn’t work, that led to more prescriptions and the more prescriptions he got, the more frustrated that we all got. He couldn’t get better, he couldn’t help himself, he got angry and the angrier he got, the more violent he got.

Dr. Gary Null: Each morning in the United States between six and seven million children are given a prescription medication before they can go to school. Many of them are taking Ritalin or other amphetamines.

Doctor: More and more aspects of human behavior, human distress, just general unhappiness is becoming medicalized, is being made into diseases. This culture has grown in parallel with the growth of the pharmaceuticals industry and its investment in psychotropic drugs; that is drugs that affect the psyche, the mind, the brain.

Dr. Gary Null: By far, the majority of psychiatry prescriptions for children are given for attention deficit disorder (ADD) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Dr. Robert Erickson: One of the alarming concerns I have both as a parent and as a physician is that there is much misdiagnosis and over prescription of medication and inappropriate prescription of medication changing these children’s lives forever for the worse.

Doctor: Every drug is a foreign chemical, every drug is a potential poison. I have been consulted in no less than 10 cases of cardiac deaths due to psychotropic medications. The psychostimulants, methylphenidate and the amphetamines are known to cause high blood pressure, known to cause cardiac arrhythmias including cardiac arrest and cardiac death. Matthew Smith from just outside of Detroit had been on Ritalin for approximately five years. His parents had wanted to take him off of medication because of recurrent chest pain and shortness of breath, but they were coerced to keep him on the medication.

Lawrence Smith: We were told that if we did not follow up with their evaluation of ADHD and take him to the pediatrician and get him on Ritalin, that Child Protective Services could charge us for educational and emotional neglect.

Doctor: At age 13, while riding his skateboard, he suddenly keeled over and was dead. The county medical examiner said there was no doubt in that case that the chronic administration of Ritalin was the cause of death.

Lawrence Smith: On the death certificate, it says that he died from the use of methylphenidate, Ritalin.

Doctor: Ritalin, for the purposes of classification by the Drug Enforcement Administration, is a Schedule II drug, on the same list as cocaine.

Dr. Peter Breggin: The Drug Enforcement Administration puts special regulations over how many prescriptions a doctor can write and how a doctor is to write the prescriptions and keep track of the drug. It even means the DEA can come raid your office if they get the impression that you are giving out too much of this drug. This is not an ordinary drug.

Dr. Lyon: It is really not that revolutionary an idea. If you look at the scientific [inaudible 03:47] considered normal. But, with attention deficit disorder, the focus is make the diagnosis carefully and then prescribe the treatment. And most of the time, the treatment needs just a prescription. It isn’t any combination of treatments. It is a medication. And that’s really what I am trying to change and try to raise awareness about is that in fact there are other things that we can find, underlying this that are causes of this. We could deal with this from more of a cause-oriented approach without having to jump quickly into using medication.

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here ADHD Shocking Truths

One of the first mistakes people make with ADD-ADHD is to assume that it is a disease or a condition like diabetes.

This leads you down a very scary path.

Before you make this assumption consider this.There at least 50 other conditions that mimic ADD-ADHD symptoms.

You may be displaying ADD-ADHD symptoms because of something you lack in your diet.

OR

More likely you may be displaying ADD-ADHD symptoms because you are not getting enough of a certain vitamin or mineral.

What if you tend to burn off more of the needed vitamin/mineral than the average person?

Think of yourself as a Sport Utility Vehicle…. a Yellow Hummer

Now imagine that most other people are blue ford sedans.

Do you require more gas to go the same distance as the ford sedan?

Of course you do!!!

Does this make you inferior?

Absolutely NOT!

Imagine now that you require high grade gas to run optimally.

What if you put the cheaper 87 grade gas in your tank?

That’s right you will sputter and jerk around, but you will still run.

With “3 Steps To Conquering ADD-ADHD” you can at least rest easy knowing that you are giving your body the right building blocks to function optimally.

If you give your brain and body the right “stuff” your ADD-ADHD symptoms will likely just “go away”

This has worked for thousands of people all over the world.

I am sure it can work for you too.

Jon Bennett

Author, “3 Steps To Conquering ADD-ADHD”

http://3StepsADD.com

ps- ADD drugs only mask the true problem. they are a destructive band-aid that should be avoided at all costs and used
ONLY after all other techniques have been exhausted.

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here Avoid Bad Gas For Your Tank [ADD Brain]

I have know the story of Matthew Smith for over 5 years
now, and every time I hear the story I am motivated
to continue to do my best to help ADD ADHD families.

There are too many people blindly following the advice
their well-intentioned Doctors and taking these
dangerous medications.

If you are taking medication for ADD ADHD like Adderall,
Ritalin, Concerta, Strattera, or the new Vyvanse, please
reconsider and explore your options.

It has been scientifically proven that natural methods not
only work, they are more effective and actually treat the
cause of the ADD-ADHD.

Drugs only act as a band-aid to the true problem.

Visit http://3stepsadd.com to learn more about how
to eliminate your ADD ADHD naturally.

Have a Blessed Day!
Jon Bennett
ps – Mr. Smith metioned the product neu-be-calm.  More
information can be found @ http://neu-be-calm.com

http://3stepsadd.com

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here The Matthew Smith Story

Shocking New Research

We are all familiar with the so-called ‘placebo effect’. This is where someone begins to feel significantly better after receiving ‘fake’ medication (usually a sugar pill or a tablet with no active pharmacological ingredients). The existence of the placebo effect amply demonstrates that the belief that a condition is being treated can sometimes be as powerful as the treatment itself.

Significant new research (published in the Journal of Development & Behavioral Pediatrics) points to the widespread occurrence of the placebo effect when it comes to ADD/ADHD medication.

This should perhaps be expected as the effect has been shown to occur with just about any kind of medication imaginable. What makes the findings surprising however is that the placebo effect did not occur in the ADD/ADHD patients themselves but in their caregivers!

In other words, the belief that a child is being medicated was sometimes enough for parents or teachers to significantly modify their attitudes to, and expectations of, that child.

The study was conducted by pediatric psychologists from the University of Buffalo and found that, when caregivers believed that children were receiving ADD/ADHD medication (e.g. Ritalin and Adderall) they would view them more favorably and treat them more positively – whether medication was actually involved or not!

The lead author of the review Dr. Daniel A Waschbusch summarized their rather alarming findings as follows: “”The act of administering medication, or thinking a child has received medication, may induce positive expectancies in parents and teachers about the effects of that medication, which may, in turn, influence how parents and teachers evaluate and behave toward children with ADHD.

We speculate that the perception that a child is receiving ADHD medication may bring about a shift in attitude in a teacher or caregiver.

They may have a more positive view of the child, which could create a better relationship. They may praise the child more, which may induce better behavior.”

The findings of this research project is a damning indictment of the well documented ‘rush to medicate’ whenever there is the slightest suspicion that ADD/ADHD might be involved.

The pressure to do so often comes from teachers who explicitly and implicitly signal that little Johnny will have a much tougher time in class if Ritalin is not added to the mix as soon as possible. Parents are often so intimidated by this stance that they meekly accept the ‘recommendation’ to go and see a medical professional that can be relied on to supply the ‘correct’ diagnosis and treatment. This is the exact path that thousands of young people take every year: A path that leads to unnecessary exposure to very dangerous chemicals and an accompanying label classifying the child as ‘difficult’.

The suggestion, implicit in the research quoted above, that positive outcomes can be achieved by some focused attention and high expectations is a rare and welcome nod in the direction of plain old fashioned common sense.

As a society we need to be reminded that it is a fallacy to believe that every problem can be solved by medicating it away.

It is my belief that parents should educate and equip themselves to deal with the pressure to ‘diagnose and medicate’ that they will perhaps have to deal with. This preparation should focus at being ready with answers and arguments on both the side effects and the effectiveness of ADD/ADHD medication.

Side Effects: The evidence that ADD/ADHD medication can have some pretty nasty unintended consequences is mounting by the day. Medicines like Ritalin, Strattera and Adderall have been implicated in everything from suicidal thoughts to increased susceptibility to addiction.

The fact is that you are dealing with powerful mind-altering chemicals: A fact that should not be obscured by comforting advertising copy and the glib reassurances of those who benefit financially (or otherwise) from their distribution.

Effectiveness: The research quoted above is another nail in the coffin of the ‘defense’ that the perceived dangers of the products are obscured by the fact that they are so effective in improving attention. This is a very difficult assertion to prove when it comes to long term use of products like Ritalin.

Could it, further, be the case that all that is really needed are some lifestyle modifications (as suggested in the ‘3 Steps ADD’ Program) and a more positive engagement with the child?

If the answer to this question is ‘yes’ (as I believe it is) it would perhaps leave pharmaceutical companies with radically reduced profit margins.

This is, however, a negligible price to pay for giving our kids back the privilege of living their lives without unnecessary ‘chemical crutches’!

• The full article, entitled, Are There Placebo Effects in the Medication Treatment of Children With Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder? Can be found on the website of the Journal of Development & Behavioral Pediatrics
• A shorter discussion of be accessed on Science Daily.

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here ADD ADHD Drugs and the Placebo Effect

Fraudulent Over-promotion of the diagnosis of ADD-ADHD… in Collusion to boost drug sales

This is a very interesting article that pretty much sums up many of the problems with ADD-ADHD in the USA.

It seems that big drug companies will go to any length to score big profits.
Creating “ADD Support Groups” like CHADD to shamelessly promote their deadly drugs in the form of “education”.

Interesting… huh?

Ritalin is old news now… now the drug of choice is Adderall, and it is even worse than ritalin!

Nestor Sosa spent three years and $40,000 fighting to get his son off Ritalin.
Ritalin, an amphetamine-like drug used to treat ADD, or attention deficit disorder, is prescribed to an estimated 4 million American schoolchildren each year.

But Sosa thought his son shouldn’t be among them. The boys mother and school both felt Ritalin, which helps some kids to concentrate, would assist the youngster in overcoming some of his learning difficulties.

Sosa, of Chatsworth, Calif., believes his son, now 14, never had ADD. He thinks the boy was a victim of a trend in this country to diagnose normal juvenile behavior as a disease.

ADD is like a catchall, says Sosa, who took his ex-wife to court over their sons Ritalin use.

Nobody could give me a straight answer and nobody could define ADD. Sosas conflict with well-meaning doctors and educators reflects a growing controversy about whether ADD and its variant, attention deficit (hyperactivity) disorder, are being over-diagnosed causing children to be drugged for no reason.

Conspiracy to Over-Diagnose?

In fact, a class-action lawsuit against Ritalin manufacturer Novartis, the American Psychiatric Association and the parents group Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder alleges the company fraudulently overpromoted the diagnosis of ADD/ADHD in collusion with the two organizations to boost drug sales.

The action, filed in a state court in Brownsville, Texas, in May, seeks unspecified damages against Novartis, charging, among other things, that the Basel, Switzerland-based company failed to adequately warn the public of Ritalins impact on childrens cardio-vascular and nervous systems.

Several hundred Texas parents have signed on as plaintiffs, but are not discussing the case with the press.

Sosa is not involved in the lawsuit.

The suit alleges that the American Psychiatric Association has expanded the definition of ADD/ADHD in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV, the handbook of psychiatric diseases, over time so that more and more children would fall into this category.

Additionally, it claims the drug company encourages the diagnosis of ADD/ADHD and its treatment with Ritalin by economically supporting both CHADD and the psychiatric association…..

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here Fraudulent Over-promotion of ADD ADHD

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here I am Just a Child

Transcript: [spoiler]back at 7:43. this morning on “today investigates” the potentially dangerous drug being abused by college students. “today” correspondent amy robach is here with a hidden camera investigation.

we warn our children about the dangers of drugs and drinking, especially as they go to college but a different kind of drug is an epidemic on campuses and we found students were taking it not to get high but to get better grades. we are inside the library at one of america’s top universities where right here in the stacks –
how much?

a drug deal is about to go down.

i can sell four today.

the drug for sale, one of the most popular with college kids nationwide. the attention deficit pill adderall .

it’s highly addictive. when you play with addictive substances you get burned.
for years it’s been prescribed as the go-to drug for kids with adhd, increasing attention span and focus by boosting dopamine levels in the brain. our investigation found many college students are abusinging adderall buying and taking it illegally without a prescription.

when i’m an adderall and i’m looking at the textbook. i forget everything else around me.

it’s given me the boost to work nonstop for ten hours a day.
jenny and mike, not their real names, are college students at the top of their class, thanks, they say, to adderall , better known as campus as the smart drug or study buddies. one university found over half of the seniors took it to increase their grades.

baseball players take steroids to be the best. students take adderall .
it’s an academic steroid?

steroids for school.

and students say it is a necessity to handle the load of papers, exams and cram sessions.

if everyone else is doing it, why shouldn’t i get the advantage?

of all your friends, no one has expressed feared like, yikes, this isn’t my prescription, maybe i shouldn’t take it?

no. they want to do well in school.

getting it without a prescription is a felony. we found scoring a stash is as easy as a trip to the school library . we sent a “today” show intern to the library.
do you know anyone that’s here that has adderall ?

it took her less than 30 seconds to find a student selling it.
how much?

$5.

watch as he takes us to show her the pills. we said we were out of cash so she gave us a free tutorial on how to get our own prescription.

i guarantee you with half the symptoms you can google. it’s in their interest to prescribe it to you because you have to go back once a month, check in and give them money.

i went to a doctor and told them i couldn’t focus. by the end i walked out with a prescription.

it was that easy?

incredibly easy, yeah.

experts say getting good grades with adderall may not be as easy as they think.
does it make kids smarter?

no.

dr. walcott is from the national institute on drug abuse . she said it stimulates areas of the brain to help focus and stay awake.

in some instances this type of drug can hurt you. for example, when people want to do creative or i imaginative thinking.

creative writing , essays, painting could be negatively impacted by taking it?
this is correct.

in some kids adderall can have a dark side . it’s a schedule ii narcotic as dangerous as cocaine or meth.

for all intents and purposes it’s speed. you are putting something in your brain to make you think you’re okay when you’re not. next thing you know you’ll be spinning out of control.

that’s what happened to ali , a college freshman , an honor student struggling to keep up with school. a friend gave her am adderall .

you become dependent. you use it one night to study for a test like i did. next thing you know you’re using it every night to study.

within weeks ali was addicted, buying and taking several pills a day with devastating side effects . mood swings, insomnia, panic attacks and depression. soon her grades began to slip.

it snuck up on me. i went from being on an academic scholarship to being on academic probation within six months to being asked to withdraw from the university after a year because of adderall .

now in recovery, ali said her family had no idea. experts worry parents may look the other way, as long as their kids do well in school.

it’s like a don’t ask, don’t tell thing. they don’t want to know. they’re paying for the report card.

if they get the desired results, don’t tell me how you did it.

don’t tell me how you did it.

experts say 1 in 10 kid wills become addicted and side effects include psychosis, stroke and even death. never take it unless it is prescribed by a doctor. the risks aren’t worth it.

and kids that learned how to fake the symptoms and get the prescription is a wake-up call for doctors as well. at least reputable ones.

drug experts say the drug has been overprescribed and that’s contributing to the epidemic and the fact that students feel they are taking a vitamin. they think it’s safe. parents need to get involved and say this is dangerous, don’t do it.
amy, thank you so much.

At colleges across America, students are becoming addicted to a popular prescription drug — not because they’re trying to get high, but because they hope to get smarter. The drug, Adderall, is normally prescribed for kids with attention deficit disorder. But some college kids are taking the medication because it helps them focus and pull all-nighters.
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One ‘A’ student at one of the nation’s top tier colleges explained the appeal of the pills kids call “study buddies.”
“When I’m on Adderall and I’m looking at the textbook I can forget about everything else around me,” she told NBC News’ Amy Robach, in a report aired on TODAY. “I figured if everyone else is doing it, why shouldn’t I get the advantage?”
Another student, “Mike,” who asked that his real name be withheld, elaborated. “It’s given me the boost to work non-stop for 10 hours a day,” he explained. “Baseball players take steroids to be the best and students take Adderall to be the best. It’s steroids for school.”
Related: Statement from Shire regarding Adderall abuse
Parents accustomed to warning their kids about the dangers of alcohol and stimulants like cocaine may have been caught off guard by the growing prevalence of prescription medication use among college students trying score good grades. While Adderall is considered safe when taken as prescribed by a doctor, experts say it can be very addictive.
“It’s a highly addictive substance and when you play with addictive substances, you ultimately get burned,” Stephen Odom, a drug abuse counselor at Sober Living by the Sea, told Robach. “For all intents and purposes, Adderall is speed. You’re putting something in your body that’s gonna make you think you’re OK when you’re not. And the next thing you know, you’re gonna be spinning out of control.”
That’s what happened to a freshman honor student named Aly. Struggling to keep up with her schoolwork, she gratefully took the “smart pill” offered by a friend. Within weeks she became addicted, buying several pills a day.
“You become dependent on it, because you’ll use it one night to study for a test like I did and the next thing you know, you’re using it every night to study for a test,” she told Robach.
Soon Aly was suffering all sorts of unexpected effects: mood swings, insomnia, panic attacks, depression. Her grades spiraled down. It all took a toll on her.
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“It snuck up on me,” she told Robach. “I went from being on an academic scholarship at a great university to being on academic probation within six months, to being asked to withdraw from that university after a year. All because of Adderall.”
Addiction isn’t the only possible fallout from “smart pills.” While they can help students focus for hours on end, they can get in the way of other cognitive skills.
“In some instances these types of drugs can hurt you,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “For example, when people want to do creative or imaginative things.”
The same drugs that can improve focus can inhibit flights of imagination, which may make it more difficult to write creatively, Volkow explained to Robach.
So, just how big of a problem is this?
As part of a hidden camera investigation, a TODAY intern visited the library at one of the nation’s top colleges, and it didn’t take long to score some pills.
Just 30 seconds after walking into the library, the intern hit pay dirt with one of the students.
“Do you know anyone here that I could get Adderall from?” the intern asked.
“Yeah, me,” the student replied.
“How much for a pill?” the intern asked.

The intern said she didn’t have that much cash on hand and the student suggested an alternative method for scoring Adderall: feign symptoms and get a legitimate – and legal – prescription.
“I guarantee you have half the symptoms,” the student said. “Google ADD specialists. It’s in their interest to prescribe it to you because you have to go back to them once a month and check in and give them some money.”
That’s exactly what “Mike” did.
“I went to a doctor and told them I couldn’t focus,” he told Robach. “And by the end, I walked out with a prescription. It was incredibly easy.”
Robach wondered how his parents felt about his getting a prescription to boost his grades.
“It’s like a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ kind of thing,” he said. “They don’t wanna know. They’re paying for that report card.” [/spoiler]

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here ADD ADHD Smart Drug Epidemic

This video explains the potency and addictive nature of ADD ADHD drugs like Adderall, Vyvanse, and Ritalin.

This video is an excerpt from “The Marketing of Madness” from CCHR.org

Transcript…

Man 1: Psychiatrists, drug companies, and even government agencies are entrusted with the safety of the drugs they put on the marketplace. And while they will reluctantly admit to most side effects of psychotropics, there is one more that they almost never mention.

Woman 1: Every single one of these drugs are addictive–psychologically and/or physically addictive.

Woman 2: They change your body’s makeup. They change your body, how it reacts to things. And so, even though people, their psychological state, they may be over their depression, they physically will need that drug still, and so that becomes the complication of getting them off.

Man 2: I have people come to me on a weekend, they run out of refills, and they say to me, “If I don’t take this drug, I’m going to get sick.” “If I don’t take this drug, I’m going to get sick.” We don’t talk about psychologically. We don’t talk about depression. We don’t talk about anxiety. “I am going to get sick if I don’t take this drug this weekend.” It has nothing to do with psychology.

Man 1: But listen to what some psychiatrists, questions at a recent APA conference, had to say about addiction.

Woman 3: How addictive are psychiatric drugs?

Woman 4: They aren’t. Only benzodiazepines.

Man 3: They’re not addictive at all.

Man 4: Antidepressants are not generally considered addictive.

Man 5: SSRIs are not addictive.

Man 6: Anti-psychotics, they don’t cause addiction.

Man 7: Major tranquilizers are all safe as far as addiction.

Man 8: The drugs that most of us are using in neuropsychiatry are not addictive at all.

Man 1: So who’s right? To find out, we need look no further than former patients with firsthand experience.

Man 9: The psychologists and psychiatrists, I went to both. They never told me that they would be addictive, they would cause me to have these thoughts.

Man 10: For sure, the psychiatric drugs I was on was addicting.

Man 11: Within six months to nine months, I was hooked.

Woman 5: Boy, Xanax, it had a hold of me. I was going through a bottle of pills every three or four days.

Man 12: I lost my job over it, over a prescription drug that’s not supposed to be addictive? Lost my job.

Man 13: The reality is that it is addicting. It will wreck a person’s life.

Man 1: This conflict on addiction all comes down to a definition of words. Most people think of addiction as an uncontrollable psychological or physical need for a certain substance. But not psychiatrists. They define addiction as the craving of a higher and higher dose of the same drug, while the uncontrollable need to keep taking the drug is categorized only as dependence. This is why psychiatrists will not admit that their drugs are addictive.

Man 14: In their definition, a very small percentage of people become addicted. The reality is a large percentage of people can’t get off these drugs. And they call that dependence. It’s all a matter of how they term it.

Man 15: When you look at addiction, it could be that their tolerance increases and their needs and wants to use the medications increase, or it could be simply, once they start on the medication, they’re not able to come off of it without help. They try to, and as soon as they try to come off the medications, they start to have symptoms that are unwanted and, obviously, keep them wanting to take the medications again.

Woman 6: When you explain to them how addictive it is, they are surprised, because they’re like, “Well, it’s a prescription.” So I do believe that a lot of people don’t really know harmful these meds are. They don’t view them as as dangerous as some of the street drugs.

Man 1: But many psychotropics have become street drugs, especially the class of drugs given to children diagnosed as having inattention or hyperactivity. Stimulants such as Ritalin, Adderall, and Concerta are so habit-forming that they are listed by the US Drug Enforcement Administration as Schedule II drugs, highly addictive substances, on the same list as morphine and cocaine.

Man 16: Biochemistry and pharmacology of Ritalin is exactly the same as that of cocaine, except for the speed of onset.

Man 1: The similarity between Ritalin and Cocaine becomes obvious when considering the major problem of stimulant abuse in our schools, where tablets and Ritalin and its chemical cousin, Adderall, are taken recreationally by kids in schoolyards.

Child: Some of my friends took Ritalin and Adderall just to get high, that I’ve known throughout the years. Kids will chop that stuff up with a razor blade. It’s pure, man, pure drug. That’s why kids like it. They’d chop it up with a razor blade and snort it.

Man 17: My cousin Sammy had this Ritalin and we’d eat it, and we’d be able to stay up all night [laughs] and play video games. Pupils would dilate. It was just outrageous.

Man 18: Matter of fact, in eighth grade I got kicked out of school three days before we let out, for selling Ritalin and actually snorting lines in the back of the classroom. So yes, sir, it definitely caused me some problems there, and I definitely had people buying them from me, yes.

Man 1: This is no small problem. In 2006, researchers discovered that more than seven million Americans had misused stimulants, with 75, 000 American teenagers and young adults becoming addicted every year. Beyond just addicting its users, stimulants are also well-known as gateway drugs that lead to further addiction, to such street drugs as cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine.

Woman 7: When you provide drugs in a manner which most of our children are being provided drugs, at an early age in life, only prepares that child to be on more drugs as they get older.

Man 1: And yet, in several recent publications, psychiatrists actually encourage children, labeled ADHD, to take stimulants to reduce future dependencies on cocaine and other street drugs. But evidence shows that not only is this theory unfounded, but the reverse is true.

Man 19: When I’ve spoken to people who are methamphetamine addicts, they said that the drug that they started taking, almost consistently, was Ritalin.

Man 20: The longer a child is on Ritalin, the more the likelihood that they may become addicted, whether it’s Ritalin or Concerta or Adderall, OK, or a number of other drugs.

Man 1: Stimulants aren’t the only psychotropic drugs carrying a high potential for addiction. Benzodiazepines, for example, are tranquilizers that can become addictive within 14 days. Take, for example, the benzodiazepine Xanax, which, after only five years on the market, was producing 1.5 million addicts every year. And getting off can be very difficult. Symptoms of Xanax withdrawal include shakiness, loss of appetite, muscle cramps, memory and concentration problems, insomnia, agitation, panic, and anxiety.

Man 21: Some of the psych medicines, particularly the benzodiazepines, are some of the most addictive drugs there are in terms of the persistent withdrawal anxiety that these drugs cause.

Woman 8: I have been in the position of having to withdraw a number of people from benzodiazepines, that I didn’t put on them, obviously. And it’s difficult. It’s really difficult.

Woman 9: Prescription benzodiazepines, I think, are much more dangerous and much harder to come off of for the patients than the street drugs are.

Man 1: But survivors will tell you that benzodiazepines are not the only class of psychotropic drug that is extremely hard to with draw from.

Woman 10: I had about a 10 year time-frame in my life where I abused both street drugs and prescription drugs. The drugs that were the hardest to come off of, in my opinion, were the psychiatric medications. I mean worst to come off than a drug like heroin.

Man 22: Withdrawal symptoms from the psychiatric drugs just made my mind go crazy. I couldn’t think I couldn’t form coherent thoughts whatsoever.

Woman 10: Was racing, I had highs and lows, ups and downs, and hot and cold sweats.

Man 23: I went through seizures. I was sweating with night sweats so bad I was wetting my bed just from sweat.

Woman 11: I had tremors really bad. I joked but I looked like I had the end-stages of Parkinson’s Disease. But, you couldn’t even hold me still when I was going through withdrawals. My legs would shake, I couldn’t sleep.

Woman 12: No one in the world should have to go through what I went through in my opinion and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

Man 1: Even newborns born to women taking psychotropic’s while pregnant can undergo withdrawal. These infants could experience irritability, hyperactivity, abnormal sleep patterns, vomiting, diarrhea, and failure to gain weight.

But, it is the amplification of certain side effects caused by withdrawal from psychotropic’s that can have a disastrous affect on the individual.

Woman 13: Now, the person stops taking the drug and the affects of the withdrawal or the affects of stop taking the drug are increased and amplified symptoms like the depression or suicide ideas or et cetera.

Man 24: They have tremendous mood swings. They invariably get violent and they cannot control their emotions.

Man 25: You’re very depressed, you’re suicidal, you’re hallucinating, you’re psychotic, and you’re crazy, any/or. You’re manic when you stop taking your medication.

Man 1: This is why improper withdrawal from SSRI antidepressants, in particular, has been shown to trigger mood swings and uncontrollable anger which have been implicated in many recent killing sprees.

In May 1998, for example, 15 year-old Kip Kinkel had just stopped taking Prozac when he shot and killed both his parents. Then, went on a shooting rampage at his Oregon High School where he murdered two more and wounded 25.

In November 2007, Peka-Eric Auvinen shot and killed eight at his school north of Helsinki, Finland. Earlier that fall, he had either reduced or stopped using the antidepressant he was prescribed for social anxiety.

Valentines Day 2008, Northern Illinois University, Steven Kazmierczak walked into a crowded lecture hall and opened fire; killing five and wounding 18. A few weeks earlier, he too had abruptly stopped taking his antidepressant.

But, rather than acknowledging that tragedies such as these are the result of withdrawal of highly psychotropic drugs, the customary response of psychiatrists is to blame the lack of the drug for what they claim is the return of the mental illness.

Woman 14: When a psychiatrist says that well, the reason way they’re feeling that way when they get off the drugs is because, “See, that shows you how bad they really need the drug.” Here’s the deal, there’s no way that that’s true.

Man 26: The reality is when they stop the drug they get depressed or they have withdrawal effects of various types. The reason they’re having those affects is because it’s a withdrawal effect from the drug.

Man 27: All you need to do is you need to sit down and listen to anyone who’s been on these medications and wants to come off them. You listen to their story, and you listen to what they’re going through, why they want to come off them and that’s it. The conversation stops, the debate ends.

Robin: My name is Robin and currently I am withdrawing from lorazepam and I am at the 0.4 mg dose. Today I was totally exhausted. I’ve had four nights, two and that two nights of insomnia and then a good nights sleep and then two nights of insomnia.

I was just hoping I can sleep better tonight, didn’t sleep good last night. As you can see, today I don’t care. I did not get ready and my wave went down. I’m down in the valley today.

One of the side affects are withdrawal symptoms for lorazepam can be night sweats or hot flashes, a little light-headed, kind of dizzy, anxiety, sore throat, weepy, very, very tired, grouchy, just overwhelmed, distraught, and distressed.

I began to experience suicidal thoughts. I think I’ve said a little bit to my husband but he was already worried enough. This is really the first time I’m saying something about it. I feel like I could have a nervous break-down.

There’s just times I hit a brick wall and I just can’t do it any more. It’s going to take another, what, maybe 18, 19, or 20 weeks to get off of it. That is very overwhelming to me. I’m weary today and this is how I used to be for many weeks with lorazepam.

That’s the hardest thing; you are trapped into living it out the way you have to live it out in order to be safe. So, that’s frustrating, I just want my life back. That’s where I am today.

Man 1: It took months for Robin to wean herself off just one of her psychiatric drugs and addiction specialists agree that slowly withdrawing is the only safe way.

Woman 15: You just can’t just cut people off from these drugs. Sometimes it can take up to a year or more depending on the person and how long they’ve been on the drug and how we wean them off.

Woman 16: You can’t stop these drugs cold turkey. No, I would never advise anybody to just stop them. They need to be under the care of a medical practitioner.

Man 28: When some of my patients come in and they talk to me about getting off psychiatric medications, I really caution them not to just stop their drugs cold turkey because that can really send them into a tail-spin.

Woman 17: The data is right there. It’s going to cause the symptoms that it causes, it’s going to have withdrawal effects and they know it. There’s not a psychiatrist that doesn’t know it.

Man 1: Yet, psychiatrists tell us that psychotropic drugs are the only way to keep people from insanity and alleviate mental distress. But, is this really the case or are there other choices effective, inexpensive, and drug-free that could accomplish all the empty promises left broken and unfulfilled by psychiatry?

Transcript END.

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By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here ADD ADHD Drugs Dangerous and Addicting

Understanding the Shifts in Human Nutrition – The Role of Chemicals (Part 1)

With last week’s article I began to touch on the subject of how our perceptions of food changed over the past few decades. I did this by pointing out how food was viewed in the past.

When asked to describe food as a category past generations would very likely have used the following words:

Scarce

Seasonal

Natural

Fresh

Hard work

It does not take a genius to work out that the words used above are a world away from how most of us would describe food today.

Our relationship with what we put in our mouths has been so radically altered that our forebears would probably have shaken their heads in amazement at our strange beliefs and habits.

The problem is that the changes in our perception had some pretty spectacular negative fallouts, the magnitude of which we are only now beginning to understand.

Yet understand them we must, because I firmly believe that many of our modern ailments, including many ADD/ADHD cases, can be traced back to poor food choices.

Over the next few weeks we will examine the impact of some of these choices by focussing on our modern ‘answers’ to perceptions about food listed above. This week we take a look at the wholesale abandoning of the belief that food should be natural.

It is very difficult to put something in your mouth these days without also taking in quite a few chemicals that were certainly not part of the original composition of your food source. There are several drivers behind this phenomenon. They include:

*‘Protection’ of food sources: Humankind has always tried to protect our food sources, this is evidenced in the fact that scarecrows date back millennia!

Modern man has taken this quest for protection much further by developing a vast array of powerful pesticides to protect food sources. Good crops resulted but at what price?

*The quest for ‘perfection’: Our forebears knew that the shape of a tomato makes no difference to its taste or nutritional value. Apparently we are not that smart! The quest towards ‘perfect’ products not only lead to massive wastage as tons of ‘less than perfect’ food are thrown away every year, it also lead to the application of many chemically based methods to produce uniform food products.

• The hunt for profit: One of the easiest ways that a farmer can increaseprofits is through increased yield i.e. the more grain that you can harvest

  from a field, or the more meat you can cut from an animal, the more

  money you make. It is only a short step from this basic principle of

  economics to the use of tools like chemicals and/or growth hormones to

  make increased yield possible.

The result of all of this is that most of the food that we eat could hardly be described as ‘natural’ by any stretch of the imagination. Most people are not too fazed by this fact since they realize that they are only taking in a tiny amount of a given chemical or pesticide.

The problem is, however, that they are not taking into account the cumulative effect of such products. Most of the chemicals in our diet are completely unnatural and our bodies are therefore very ill equipped to deal with them. This could result in a build up of those chemicals in our system. Bottom line: A few bites of food with minute amounts of harmful chemicals will probably not do too much harm. Thousands of bites over an extended period is another matter however!

The damage that the chemicals in our food wreak does not stop at the plate. We might be getting infinitesimal amounts but the environment isn’t. Many scientists believe that the true extent of the pollution to soil and water sources caused by pesticides will affect human health for generations to come.

It is a sad irony that our society’s blind rush to an endless supply of perfect looking foods have yielded such, if you will pardon the pun, bitter fruits!

Our obsessions with wholesome looking food may have created visually appealing shop aisles but at what price?

Our grandparents used to say: “You are what you eat!” If this is the case then most modern people need to take a long hard look at the chemical composition of what is on their plates. This is especially relevant in the case of people dealing with the effects of ADD/ADHD.

When you consider that many cases of ADD/ADHD can be traced back to defective neurotransmitter activity and that neurotransmitters are extraordinarily sensitive to the influence of ‘foreign’ chemicals it just makes sense to carefully monitor the possible sources of such chemicals. With next week article I will try to help you to step up that monitoring as we take a look at some specific examples of harmful chemicals that enter our systems through mass produced food.

I will also make some suggestions on taking back control over the chemical content of your meals.

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here ADHD and Chemicals in Our Food

This video is an except from the video created by CCHR.org entitled, “The Marketing of Madness”

Although “3 Steps To Conquering ADD” takes a natural approach, we do not condemn those who decide that medication is the best choice for their family.

It is our goal to simply give you the facts and equip you to make the best choice for your family.

My parents were led to believe that my brother had a medical disease called Attention Deficit Disorder that requires a medication called Ritalin.

We have come to learn that this can be a false assumption that led to great heartache.

Over the past 10 years we have been showing people how to eliminate their ADD naturally.

“The Marketing of Madness” is created by the CCHR.org and takes a very harsh stance against psychology and medications.

“3 Steps To Conquering ADD” does not necessarily agree with all of the content of these videos.

There are some eye-opening facts that anyone considering taking medication for ADD ADHD should STRONGLY consider.

Transcript: [spoiler]

Man 1: Psychiatrists, drug companies, and even government agencies are entrusted with the safety of the drugs they put on the marketplace. And while they will reluctantly admit to most side effects of psychotropics, there is one more that they almost never mention.

Woman 1: Every single one of these drugs are addictive–psychologically and/or physically addictive.

Woman 2: They change your body’s makeup. They change your body, how it reacts to things. And so, even though people, their psychological state, they may be over their depression, they physically will need that drug still, and so that becomes the complication of getting them off.

Man 2: I have people come to me on a weekend, they run out of refills, and they say to me, “If I don’t take this drug, I’m going to get sick.” “If I don’t take this drug, I’m going to get sick.” We don’t talk about psychologically. We don’t talk about depression. We don’t talk about anxiety. “I am going to get sick if I don’t take this drug this weekend.” It has nothing to do with psychology.

Man 1: But listen to what some psychiatrists, questions at a recent APA conference, had to say about addiction.

Woman 3: How addictive are psychiatric drugs?

Woman 4: They aren’t. Only benzodiazepines.

Man 3: They’re not addictive at all.

Man 4: Antidepressants are not generally considered addictive.

Man 5: SSRIs are not addictive.

Man 6: Anti-psychotics, they don’t cause addiction.

Man 7: Major tranquilizers are all safe as far as addiction.

Man 8: The drugs that most of us are using in neuropsychiatry are not addictive at all.

Man 1: So who’s right? To find out, we need look no further than former patients with firsthand experience.

Man 9: The psychologists and psychiatrists, I went to both. They never told me that they would be addictive, they would cause me to have these thoughts.

Man 10: For sure, the psychiatric drugs I was on was addicting.

Man 11: Within six months to nine months, I was hooked.

Woman 5: Boy, Xanax, it had a hold of me. I was going through a bottle of pills every three or four days.

Man 12: I lost my job over it, over a prescription drug that’s not supposed to be addictive? Lost my job.

Man 13: The reality is that it is addicting. It will wreck a person’s life.

Man 1: This conflict on addiction all comes down to a definition of words. Most people think of addiction as an uncontrollable psychological or physical need for a certain substance. But not psychiatrists. They define addiction as the craving of a higher and higher dose of the same drug, while the uncontrollable need to keep taking the drug is categorized only as dependence. This is why psychiatrists will not admit that their drugs are addictive.

Man 14: In their definition, a very small percentage of people become addicted. The reality is a large percentage of people can’t get off these drugs. And they call that dependence. It’s all a matter of how they term it.

Man 15: When you look at addiction, it could be that their tolerance increases and their needs and wants to use the medications increase, or it could be simply, once they start on the medication, they’re not able to come off of it without help. They try to, and as soon as they try to come off the medications, they start to have symptoms that are unwanted and, obviously, keep them wanting to take the medications again.

Woman 6: When you explain to them how addictive it is, they are surprised, because they’re like, “Well, it’s a prescription.” So I do believe that a lot of people don’t really know harmful these meds are. They don’t view them as as dangerous as some of the street drugs.

Man 1: But many psychotropics have become street drugs, especially the class of drugs given to children diagnosed as having inattention or hyperactivity. Stimulants such as Ritalin, Adderall, and Concerta are so habit-forming that they are listed by the US Drug Enforcement Administration as Schedule II drugs, highly addictive substances, on the same list as morphine and cocaine.

Man 16: Biochemistry and pharmacology of Ritalin is exactly the same as that of cocaine, except for the speed of onset.

Man 1: The similarity between Ritalin and Cocaine becomes obvious when considering the major problem of stimulant abuse in our schools, where tablets and Ritalin and its chemical cousin, Adderall, are taken recreationally by kids in schoolyards.

Child: Some of my friends took Ritalin and Adderall just to get high, that I’ve known throughout the years. Kids will chop that stuff up with a razor blade. It’s pure, man, pure drug. That’s why kids like it. They’d chop it up with a razor blade and snort it.

Man 17: My cousin Sammy had this Ritalin and we’d eat it, and we’d be able to stay up all night [laughs] and play video games. Pupils would dilate. It was just outrageous.

Man 18: Matter of fact, in eighth grade I got kicked out of school three days before we let out, for selling Ritalin and actually snorting lines in the back of the classroom. So yes, sir, it definitely caused me some problems there, and I definitely had people buying them from me, yes.

Man 1: This is no small problem. In 2006, researchers discovered that more than seven million Americans had misused stimulants, with 75, 000 American teenagers and young adults becoming addicted every year. Beyond just addicting its users, stimulants are also well-known as gateway drugs that lead to further addiction, to such street drugs as cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine.

Woman 7: When you provide drugs in a manner which most of our children are being provided drugs, at an early age in life, only prepares that child to be on more drugs as they get older.

Man 1: And yet, in several recent publications, psychiatrists actually encourage children, labeled ADHD, to take stimulants to reduce future dependencies on cocaine and other street drugs. But evidence shows that not only is this theory unfounded, but the reverse is true.

Man 19: When I’ve spoken to people who are methamphetamine addicts, they said that the drug that they started taking, almost consistently, was Ritalin.

Man 20: The longer a child is on Ritalin, the more the likelihood that they may become addicted, whether it’s Ritalin or Concerta or Adderall, OK, or a number of other drugs.

Man 1: Stimulants aren’t the only psychotropic drugs carrying a high potential for addiction. Benzodiazepines, for example, are tranquilizers that can become addictive within 14 days. Take, for example, the benzodiazepine Xanax, which, after only five years on the market, was producing 1.5 million addicts every year. And getting off can be very difficult. Symptoms of Xanax withdrawal include shakiness, loss of appetite, muscle cramps, memory and concentration problems, insomnia, agitation, panic, and anxiety.

Man 21: Some of the psych medicines, particularly the benzodiazepines, are some of the most addictive drugs there are in terms of the persistent withdrawal anxiety that these drugs cause.

Woman 8: I have been in the position of having to withdraw a number of people from benzodiazepines, that I didn’t put on them, obviously. And it’s difficult. It’s really difficult.

Woman 9: Prescription benzodiazepines, I think, are much more dangerous and much harder to come off of for the patients than the street drugs are.

Man 1: But survivors will tell you that benzodiazepines are not the only class of psychotropic drug that is extremely hard to with draw from.

Woman 10: I had about a 10 year time-frame in my life where I abused both street drugs and prescription drugs. The drugs that were the hardest to come off of, in my opinion, were the psychiatric medications. I mean worst to come off than a drug like heroin.

Man 22: Withdrawal symptoms from the psychiatric drugs just made my mind go crazy. I couldn’t think I couldn’t form coherent thoughts whatsoever.

Woman 10: Was racing, I had highs and lows, ups and downs, and hot and cold sweats.

Man 23: I went through seizures. I was sweating with night sweats so bad I was wetting my bed just from sweat.

Woman 11: I had tremors really bad. I joked but I looked like I had the end-stages of Parkinson’s Disease. But, you couldn’t even hold me still when I was going through withdrawals. My legs would shake, I couldn’t sleep.

Woman 12: No one in the world should have to go through what I went through in my opinion and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

Man 1: Even newborns born to women taking psychotropic’s while pregnant can undergo withdrawal. These infants could experience irritability, hyperactivity, abnormal sleep patterns, vomiting, diarrhea, and failure to gain weight.

But, it is the amplification of certain side effects caused by withdrawal from psychotropic’s that can have a disastrous affect on the individual.

Woman 13: Now, the person stops taking the drug and the affects of the withdrawal or the affects of stop taking the drug are increased and amplified symptoms like the depression or suicide ideas or et cetera.

Man 24: They have tremendous mood swings. They invariably get violent and they cannot control their emotions.

Man 25: You’re very depressed, you’re suicidal, you’re hallucinating, you’re psychotic, and you’re crazy, any/or. You’re manic when you stop taking your medication.

Man 1: This is why improper withdrawal from SSRI antidepressants, in particular, has been shown to trigger mood swings and uncontrollable anger which have been implicated in many recent killing sprees.

In May 1998, for example, 15 year-old Kip Kinkel had just stopped taking Prozac when he shot and killed both his parents. Then, went on a shooting rampage at his Oregon High School where he murdered two more and wounded 25.

In November 2007, Peka-Eric Auvinen shot and killed eight at his school north of Helsinki, Finland. Earlier that fall, he had either reduced or stopped using the antidepressant he was prescribed for social anxiety.

Valentines Day 2008, Northern Illinois University, Steven Kazmierczak walked into a crowded lecture hall and opened fire; killing five and wounding 18. A few weeks earlier, he too had abruptly stopped taking his antidepressant.

But, rather than acknowledging that tragedies such as these are the result of withdrawal of highly psychotropic drugs, the customary response of psychiatrists is to blame the lack of the drug for what they claim is the return of the mental illness.

Woman 14: When a psychiatrist says that well, the reason way they’re feeling that way when they get off the drugs is because, “See, that shows you how bad they really need the drug.” Here’s the deal, there’s no way that that’s true.

Man 26: The reality is when they stop the drug they get depressed or they have withdrawal effects of various types. The reason they’re having those affects is because it’s a withdrawal effect from the drug.

Man 27: All you need to do is you need to sit down and listen to anyone who’s been on these medications and wants to come off them. You listen to their story, and you listen to what they’re going through, why they want to come off them and that’s it. The conversation stops, the debate ends.

Robin: My name is Robin and currently I am withdrawing from lorazepam and I am at the 0.4 mg dose. Today I was totally exhausted. I’ve had four nights, two and that two nights of insomnia and then a good nights sleep and then two nights of insomnia.

I was just hoping I can sleep better tonight, didn’t sleep good last night. As you can see, today I don’t care. I did not get ready and my wave went down. I’m down in the valley today.

One of the side affects are withdrawal symptoms for lorazepam can be night sweats or hot flashes, a little light-headed, kind of dizzy, anxiety, sore throat, weepy, very, very tired, grouchy, just overwhelmed, distraught, and distressed.

I began to experience suicidal thoughts. I think I’ve said a little bit to my husband but he was already worried enough. This is really the first time I’m saying something about it. I feel like I could have a nervous break-down.

There’s just times I hit a brick wall and I just can’t do it any more. It’s going to take another, what, maybe 18, 19, or 20 weeks to get off of it. That is very overwhelming to me. I’m weary today and this is how I used to be for many weeks with lorazepam.

That’s the hardest thing; you are trapped into living it out the way you have to live it out in order to be safe. So, that’s frustrating, I just want my life back. That’s where I am today.

Man 1: It took months for Robin to wean herself off just one of her psychiatric drugs and addiction specialists agree that slowly withdrawing is the only safe way.

Woman 15: You just can’t just cut people off from these drugs. Sometimes it can take up to a year or more depending on the person and how long they’ve been on the drug and how we wean them off.

Woman 16: You can’t stop these drugs cold turkey. No, I would never advise anybody to just stop them. They need to be under the care of a medical practitioner.

Man 28: When some of my patients come in and they talk to me about getting off psychiatric medications, I really caution them not to just stop their drugs cold turkey because that can really send them into a tail-spin.

Woman 17: The data is right there. It’s going to cause the symptoms that it causes, it’s going to have withdrawal effects and they know it. There’s not a psychiatrist that doesn’t know it.

Man 1: Yet, psychiatrists tell us that psychotropic drugs are the only way to keep people from insanity and alleviate mental distress. But, is this really the case or are there other choices effective, inexpensive, and drug-free that could accomplish all the empty promises left broken and unfulfilled by psychiatry?

[/spoiler]

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here The Marketing of Madness: Intro- No Basis for ADD ADHD Drugs – Part 1

It’s time for us to start rejecting the labels that
our medical industry has invented for the sole
purpose of profit.

When someone labels you, they are trying to
put you in a box that they can understand and
“treat”

I am quite certain our creator has made each of us
wonderful and unique…

Each with a profound capacity for greatness.

please share this video

Have a great day!

Jon Bennett

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here Let Them Choose their own Labels!

Problems with American Education System for ADD ADHD Children

The education system is not designed to allow for ADD ADHD children to flourish. They are often mislabeled and pressured into taking ADD ADHD drugs.

Dr. Mate explains why standardized testing penalizes the best teachers.

Transcript

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Gabor Maté, there’s a whole debate about education in the United States right now. How does this fit in?

DR. GABOR MATÈ: Well, you have to ask, “How do children learn?” And learning is an attachment dynamic as well. You learn when you want to be like somebody. So you copy them, you learn from them. You learn when you’re curious, and you learn when you’re willing to try something. And if it doesn’t work, you try something else.

Now, here’s what happens: caring about something, and being curious about something, and recognizing that something doesn’t work, you have to have a certain degree of emotional security. You have to be able to be open and vulnerable. Children who become peer-oriented —because the peer world is so dangerous and so fraught with bullying and ostracization, and “dissing,” and exclusion and negative talk- how does a child protect himself or herself from all of that negativity in the peer world? Because children are not committed to each others’ unconditional, loving acceptance. Even adults have a hard time giving that. Children can’t do it. Those children become very insecure, and emotionally, to protect themselves, they shut down. They become hardened, so they become “cool.” Nothing matters, “cool” is the ethic.

You see that in the rock videos: it’s all about cool. It’s all about aggression and cool and no real emotion. Now, when that happens, curiosity goes because curiosity is vulnerable. Because you care about something and you’re admitting that you don’t know. You won’t try anything because if you fail, again, your vulnerability is exposed. So, you’re not willing to have trial and error. And, in terms of who you’re learning from, as long as kids are attaching to adults, they are looking to the adults to be modeling themselves on, to learn from, and to get their cues from.

Now, kids are still learning from the people they’re attached to, but now it’s other kids. So you have whole generations of kids who are looking to other kids now to be their main cue-givers. So teachers have an almost impossible problem on their hands. And unfortunately, in North America again, education is seen as a question of academic pedagogy. Hence these terrible standardized tests. And the very teachers who work with the most difficult kids are the most penalized.

AMY GOODMAN: Because if they don’t have good standardized test scores in their class, they could be fired. They are seen as bad teachers, which means that they’re going to want to kick out any the difficult kids.

GABOR MATÉ: Yes. That’s exactly it. The difficult kids are kicked out and teachers will be afraid to go into neighborhoods because of troubled family relationships- that kids are having difficulties, that kids are peer oriented, that kids are not looking to the teachers. And this is seen as a reflection. So actually, teachers are being slammed right now because of the failure of the American society to produce the right environment for child development.

AMY GOODMAN: Because of the destruction of American childhood.

Original Article – http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2010/11/24/dr_gabor_mat_on_adhd_bullying

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here Problems with American Education System for ADD ADHD Children

Interview Audio Here –

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By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here Interviewed by Diana Vogel

Since the late 1970’s the suspected connection between ADD/ADHD and nutrition has been explored by researchers. To date, there are so many reputable studies that indicate that there is a connection, that the influence of nutrition on ADD/ADHD can no longer be ignored. Yet, even with all of the information that is available, the connection continues to be misunderstood by nutritionists, medical professionals, and individuals who have been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD.

The Studies

There have been literally thousands of studies that have investigated the connection between nutrition and ADD/ADHD. A majority of these studies have been conducted by reputable learning institutions and medical facilities. Many of these experts have found a definitive connection between nutrition and ADD/ADHD and this connection has been documented in numerous published studies. Information on only a few of these studies follows.

The remarkable role of nutrition in learning and behavior. This study, authored by Jennifer Dani, Courtney Burrill, and Barbara Demmig-Adams found that:

“The result of this analysis is that nutrition has potent effects on brain function. It is concluded that protein, iron, iodine, and the consumption of breakfast all impact on a child’s learning capability and behaviour. Moreover, recent research has identified additional, potent roles of micronutrients, such as essential fatty acids, minerals, and vitamins, in the prevention of learning and behavioural disorders. Among the latter, this review focuses particularly on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.”

Mental Health: Not All in the Mind—Really a Matter of Cellular Biochemistry, by Chris D. Meletis and Jason Barker.

Artificial Food Coloring Promotes Hyperactivity, by D.W. Schab. Schab and his colleagues found that “children’s behaviour did improve significantly when AFCs (artificial food colorings) were eliminated from their diet. This study was published in The Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics.

Effects of a few food diet in attention deficit disorder, by C M Carter, M Urbanowicz, R Hemsley, L Mantilla, S Strobel, P J Graham, and E Taylor. Carter’s research discovered that “diet can contribute to behavior disorders in children” and that 76% of the children who participated in the study showed improvement after implementing an elimination diet.

Foods and additives are common causes of the attention deficit hyperactive disorder in children. During the course of this study, M. Boris and F.S. Mandel found that there was “a beneficial effect of eliminating reactive foods and artificial colors in children with ADHD. Dietary factors may play a significant role in the etiology of the majority of children with ADHD.”

The Results

Although the above studies are a mere fraction of the available documented research into nutrition and ADD/ADHD, each has found a connection between such nutritional factors as food additives, fatty acids, vitamin and mineral deficiencies and ADD/ADHD. Each study has studied subjects as they participate in elimination diets, nutritional supplementation, and behavioral observations and self-reporting. The studies were conducted using a variety of subjects. Although, because of funding requirements, the majority studies were conducted using young children (young children are the most sought-after focus of ADD/ADHD studies since the majority of new ADD/ADHD diagnoses are children), many studies were conducted using adolescents and adults.

These studies took place at a variety of reputable institutions such as Harvard University, Cornell University, Cornell Medical Center, Oxford University, etc., and are therefore backed by the reputations of these facilities.

Each study found significant improvement in the behavior of the participants once the nutritional deficiency or removal of the food or food additive causing the sensitivity, allergy, or toxic reaction had taken place. In addition to improved behavior and a reduction in what had been previously witnessed as poor attention ability and concentration, many participants were found to have increased in reading ability, motor coordination, and IQ. These improvements were probably due to the ability of the individuals to focus and stay on task.

So, what does all this mean?

It’s impossible to ignore the extensive studies, clinical trials, and personal stories that attest to the fact that, once dietary deficiencies were corrected, the symptoms of ADD/ADHD either improved or disappeared altogether. Even if more research is needed to convince the medical community that, without a doubt, it’s worthwhile to insist that non-medicinal interventions be used to treat ADD/ADHD, the evidence is overwhelming enough to indicate that individuals themselves should take the steps necessary to educate themselves and explore the possibilities of a life without medication.

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here ADD/ADHD: The Nutrition Connection

Dr. Mate discusses the role of dopamine and how ADD drugs work to increase dopamine levels.

“3 Steps To Conquering ADD” promotes natural methods for increasing low dopamine levels.

AMY GOODMAN: As we return to our conversation with Canadian physician and author Dr. Gabor Maté. His four books include Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You can Do About It and Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers. Talk about how the drugs affect the development of the brain. When kids are saturated with these drugs to sit still in school so they’re not fidgeting at their desk, they can’t focus on reading or on the teacher or just plain old disruptive. What happens?

DR. GABOR MATÈ: There is a number of issues here. How the stimulant drugs work is that in ADD, there is an essential brain chemical necessary for incentive and motivation that seems to be lacking. That is called dopamine. Dopamine is simply an essential life chemical; without it, there is no life. Mice in a laboratory that have no dopamine will starve themselves to death because they have no incentive to eat. Even though they are hungry, even though their life is in danger they will not eat because there is no motivation or incentive. So partly, one way to look at ADD is as a massive problem of motivation because the dopamine is lacking in the brain. Now the stimulant medications elevate dopamine levels, and these kids are now more motivated. They can focus and pay attention.

However, the assumption underneath giving these kids medications is that what we’re dealing with is a genetic disorder, and the only way to deal with it is pharmacologically. And if you actually look at how the dopamine levels in the brain develop- if you look at infant monkeys and measure their dopamine levels, and they are normal when they are with their mothers, and you separate them from their mothers, the dopamine levels go down within two or three days.

In other words, what we’re doing is we’re correcting a massive social problem that has to do it disconnection in society and the loss of nurturing, non-stressed parenting and we are replacing that chemically. Now, the stimulant drugs do seem to work and a lot of kids are helped by it. The problem is not so much whether they should be used for not, the problem is that 80% of the time the kid is prescribed medication, that is all that happens. Nobody talks to the family about the family environment. The school makes no attempt to change the school environment. Nobody connects with these kids emotionally. In other words, it is seen simply as a medical or behavior problem but not a problem of development.

Original Article – http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2010/11/24/drgabormatonadhd_bullying

Please Comment Below

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here Dr Mate on Dopamine and ADD Drugs

In this Video, Dr. Mate explains the importance of healthy brain development and debunks the idea that ADD ADHD is a genetic disorder.

DR. GABOR MATÈ: The fundamental thing that I want to get across here is that- and I made the point in my book about addiction, as well- the human brain does not develop on its own. It does not develop according to the genetic program. It depends very much on the environment. The essential condition for the physiological development of these brain circuits that regulate human behavior, that give is empathy, that give us a social sense, that give as connection with other people, that gives a connection with ourselves, that allows us to mature- the essential condition for those circuits, for those physiological development is the presence of emotionally available, consistently available, non-stressed, attuned, parenting, caregivers. Now, what do you have in a country where the average maternity leave is six weeks? These kids don’t have emotional caregivers available to them. What do you have in a country where poor women- nearly 50% of them- suffer from postpartum depression? When a woman has postpartum depression, she can’t be attuned to the child.

AMY GOODMAN: What about fathers?

DR. GABOR MATÈ: The situation with fathers is that increasingly now, there was study recently that showed increasing numbers of men are having postpartum depression as well. And the main role of the father, of course, would be to support the mother. But when people are stressed emotionally… The cause of postpartum depression in the mother it is not intrinsic to the mother. Not intrinsic to the mother. What we have to understand here is that human beings are not discrete, individual entities, contrary to the ‘free enterprise’ myth- that people are competitive, individualistic, private entities. What people actually are are social creatures very much dependent on one another, and very much programed to cooperate with one another when the circumstances are right. If that’s not available- if the support is not available for women- that’s when they get depressed. When the fathers are stressed they’re not supporting women in that really important, crucial bonding role in the beginning. In fact, they get stressed and depressed themselves. The child’s brain development depends on the presence of non-stress, emotionally available parents. In this country, that’s less and less available. Hence, you’ve got burgeoning rates of autism in this country. It’s gone up like twenty or thirty fold in the last thirty or forty years.

AMY GOODMAN: Say what you mean by autism.

DR. GABOR MATÈ: Autism is a whole spectrum of disorders, but the essential quality of it is emotional disconnect. These children are living in a mind of their own. They don’t respond appropriately to emotional ques. They withdraw, they act out in aggressive, and sometimes just unpredictable fashion. They don’t know how to, um, there’s no sense of emotional connection and just peace inside them.

And there are many, many more kids in this country- a several fold increase, twenty-fold increase in the last 30 years- the rates of anxiety amongst children is increasing. The number of kids on the anti-depressant medications has increased tremendously. The number of kids being diagnosed with bipolar disorder has gone up. And then, not to mention all the behavioral issues- the bullying that we mentioned, the precocious sexuality, the teenage pregnancies. There is now a program- a so-called ‘reality show’–that just focuses on teenage mothers. In other words…

See, it never used to be that children grew up and stressed, nuclear family- that wasn’t a normal basis for child development. The normal basis for child development has always been the clan, the tribe, the community, the neighborhood, the extended family. Essentially, post-industrial capitalism has completely destroyed those conditions. People no longer live in the communities which are still connected to one another. People don’t work where they live, they don’t shop where they live. The kids don’t go to school, necessarily, where they live. The parents are away most of the day. For the first time in history, children are not spending most of their time around the nurturing adults in their lives. They’re spending their lives away from the nurturing adults, which is what they need for healthy brain development.

Original Article Here – http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2010/11/24/drgabormatonadhd_bullying

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here ADD ADHD NOT a Genetic Disorder

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here The History of Psychotropic Drugs 2a of 13

Many of the ideas expressed in “3 Steps To Conquering ADD” fly in the face of our current medical solution for ADD ADHD.

While many countries have become more progressive (like Australia) the USA is still very entrenched in the “drug only” approach to ADD ADHD.

Dr. Mary Ann Block is surely an Ally in the War against ADD ADHD misdiagnosis and mistreatment.

She sums up the situation nicely.

Enjoy  :-)

Jon

ps – please leave your comments below

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here Dr. Mary Ann Block – Whatever it Takes!

With consumers becoming more aware of the dangers of prescription ADD/ADHD medications, and with researchers devoting more resources toward uncovering treatments that will help sufferers conquer ADD/ADHD, there’s no doubt that there really are other, more intelligent, choices available to those who have received an ADD/ADHD diagnosis.

Most sources admit that the exact cause of ADD/ADHD is unknown. In fact, there may be several factors that combine to produce a state in which the brain’s wiring misfires and causes the effected individual to display signs of hyperactivity, distractibility, and impulsivity. Interestingly, many of the factors that might cause ADD/ADHD are suspected to be environmental. This means that the cure for ADD/ADHD might just be to remove whatever exists within the environment that has caused the problem.

But, is it really that simple?

There’s no arguing that once ADD/ADHD has taken hold, conquering the disorder is difficult. Yet all signs point to the fact that it can be overcome! Real people have spent years doing what doctors and research scientists have failed to do, until recently; that is, to devote time, energy, and financial recourses to investigating non-prescription treatments for ADD/ADHD.

Remember saccharin? That harmless sweetener touted as a panacea for diabetics who could finally enjoy sweet treats? Saccharin was eventually discovered to be a factor in developing cancer and removed from the market only to be returned to the market because… well, not everyone who used it got cancer.

In much the same way, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) determines what is safe for consumers. But people have to place a lot of intelligent thought into what is best for them personally. The only way to make intelligent decisions is to educate oneself. For that reason, it’s important to understand that the FDA makes decisions in much the same way. When determining what is safe, the FDA considers how a product may be beneficial for the greatest number of people. A drug is considered safe if it helps more people than it harms. A new food additive is safe if its benefits outweigh the risks.

Humans were not designed to ingest chemical additives, sweeteners, or preservatives.

Nature made sure that everything that mankind needed to thrive was available to him. And, there’s nothing in nature’s pharmacy that even comes close to the chemicals that people pump into their bodies every day. Even the studies that are being performed on a daily basis indicate that processed sugar, food additives, chemical preservatives, natural light deficiency, and heavy metal toxicity (lead, mercury, and cadmium) may all be at least partially responsible for causing ADD/ADHD.

So, if the studies back up the statement, what is the answer?

Below we will discuss some time-tested proven solutions.

It stands to reason that, if ADD/ADHD is even partially caused by an imbalance between what nature intended and how people really live, the best course of action would be to consider natural alternatives to medication when treating the disorder.

What this means is, if it is chemical additives, nutritional deficiencies, and toxicity that is causing the problem, eliminating those factors should provide relief, if not a cure!

People with ADD/ADHD are lacking certain nutrients such as calcium, B vitamins, tryptophan, tyrosine, and magnesium; and their bodies contain too much of toxic substances such as lead, cadmium, mercury, processed sugar, food additives, and artificial chemicals. Understanding that the causes of ADD/ADHD are more than likely manmade makes the answer obvious.

Using more chemicals, i.e., drugs, in the treatment of a disorder that is caused by too many chemicals and too few nutrients now sounds like the least intelligent decision… doesn’t it?

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here Making Intelligent Decisions in the Treatment of ADD/ADHD

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here ADHD: The Tonsillectomy of the 21st Century?

In these interesting video we discover…

• How Big Drug Companies push their drugs
• Why you Doctor prescribes certain drugs
• Why you MUST do your homework and NOT blindly trust every medication

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here How Drug Companies Profit from ADD-ADHD

I came across this today… and thought that it was interesting.  It illustrates why we need to understand our ADD-ADHD and take steps to conquer it…

I put this article in the “Step #1 – Avoid The Bad” because we must avoid ignorance about the reality of ADD-ADHD.

It is a real problem that must be understood.

ADD ADHD affected my relationships and finding love

It sure did, I don’t doubt it one bit. I remember a very beautiful brunette young lady I was dating back in, oh 1989. She was intelligent, funny and absolutely gorgeous. She liked me. I didn’t know it and I blew it.

The worst part of this story, the devastating reality, will be the fact I was oblivious to the fondness this girl had for me. Thinking about it right now, I still feel like an imbecile. I know I shouldn’t, but no matter how much I learn about Attention Deficit Disorder I still feel like I should have recognized the signs. I mean really—it’s just so obvious looking back on those days. It’s no wonder that many people with ADD or ADHD complain of and seem to have post traumatic stress syndrome! We remember and rehash mistakes constantly—it’s painful, it hurts, it is absolutely agonizing, especially those memories which are the most emotional and closest to our hearts.

It was at a café, the first time I noticed her. She was sitting across the room at a table by the window. It was a glorious day and the sun was making her hair shine with tiny sparks of reflection. She was laughing with friends. It was a nice laugh, a real laugh, an honest laugh of someone just being herself. She captured my attention by bedazzling me with her natural charm. She was infectious. Alas, the dilemma started before I met her, the negative belief, the reality I felt that this person would not be interested in someone like me, she could be with anyone.

Sitting there, at the café, so beautiful, she had many friends around her, she was a socializer and I wasn’t. It would be too much effort to get to know her, to be a part of her world, I was only looking at her and I already felt overwhelmed. I left the money for my breakfast on the table and walked for the door. As I went to the door I walked by her table and I could not help but look at her one final time and as I did she looked up at me and stared me directly into my eyes. Before I knew it I walked into the door. Hard. The embarrassment overshadowed the pain in my shoulder. Perfect.

I cursed myself for a long time! The humiliation would never subside. 18 years later and I can still feel it.

But that’s not the end of this story. I met her. Indeed, although I rarely frequented that café previous to first seeing her, I soon became a regular, having breakfast there almost daily. You guessed right—I hoped to see her again and I did. Her and her friends had breakfast there regularly and over time I guess we got to know each other just because we became familiar sites to each other. As it happened, a friend of mine joined me for breakfast one morning and I pointed her out. He knew her! Against my will – sort of, he introduced me to her. She was so nice and really seemed to be happy to meet me. She laughed and smiled and was very interested in who I was. She asked so many questions and before I knew it we were saying hello each morning and sharing small talk in passing. Then one morning, as fate would have it, she was having breakfast alone, her friends were not there. And then we started having breakfast together regularly—her friends seemed to have somehow disappeared.

We did that for months, just meeting in the mornings at the café and talking about trivial things. We were becoming friends. Then she invited me over to her house and I met her family. They were so nice and treated me as if I was some kind of prince. More time passed and we seemed to share everything together, we met every day and took very long walks together. It seemed as though time had stopped and the world was ours and then our time did stop, the dream was over and we would never spend time together again.

Why?

The reality is I have Attention Deficit Disorder and I attribute ADD and not knowing I had ADD to many of the failures and mistakes I have made in my life. It is not an excuse. It is a reality. One of the reasons ADD and ADHD is a problem is because it can distort actuality by ‘hiding’ the cues people use to communicate. I am not talking about speech – the spoken word. I am talking about recognizing what is going on without being told, without someone spelling it out. Another important thing to understand and realize about either ADD or ADHD, over time, the criticism, the mistakes, the failures, take their toll which can, and most often does, produce low self-esteem.

~Bryan

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here ADD ADHD affected my relationships and finding love

I am willing to bet your Doctor did not bring this up when he suggested that your child go on Adderall or Concerta….

If he did, he probably dismissed it saying that he has never had any problems!?

By Jon Bennett Original post can be found here The Black Box Warning… Hello?