My journey

I read on LinkedIn this morning that there’s still shortages of ADHD medication in the UK. This is absolutely disgusting if you ask me. And it’s not just the ‘shortage’ itself I’m disgusted by, it’s the knowledge (and I know this from my own experience) that those affected by these shortages are not being given the support they need.

It was due to the shortages, when they first happened back in October ‘23, that led me on my path to becoming medication free and eventually led me to becoming an ADHD coach. So I thought I would share my story, in case you haven’t seen it before. So here it is…

My story

In September 2021 I was formally diagnosed with ADHD.

By November 2021 I had started Elvanse, a type of stimulant medication used in the treatment of ADHD.

My official diagnosis was done privately, I refused to wait 7-10 years for an assessment on the NHS. It was expensive, but I felt desperate and like I had no other choice.

I went through a titration process, starting at 30mg. This went up to 50mg, before finally settling on 70mg (50mg first thing in the morning and then 20mg as a top-up early afternoon) around the end of January.

I muddled through life for about two years, some days were better than others, I was still struggling a lot with depression and anxiety and boy did I feel it if I forgot to take my Elvanse. Then suddenly in October 2023 it was announced that there was a worldwide shortage of ADHD medication. Fortunately (although at the time it was more of an ‘unfortunately’), as I have ADHD, I used to forget a lot about my afternoon booster and had built up a little stock pile of 20mg tablets. So when my first prescription wasn’t able to be filled, I had a little back up which meant I could take 60mg on a workday, and 40mg on the weekend. The shortage was only due to last a month or so, so I figured I’d manage just fine.

At the end of November 2023 there was a further announcement that “intermittent disruption” to supplies of ADHD medication were now expected to continue until April 2024. I hit rock bottom, by this point my little stock pile had run out and I was completely out of meds. I was struggling with work, with life, with everything.

When I was first diagnosed I did a lot of research into ADHD, I followed loads of different people across all social media outlets, including LinkedIn. One of those people was Joseph Pack, the founder of Drug Free ADHD, who “provide[s] coaching, training, and speaking for people who want to manage their ADHD with skills (not pills).”. Honestly, I thought he was a bit of a d!ck. I found his posts condescending and patronising, and I just presumed that he was one of those people who thought they knew better than everyone else, and that he was probably just against medication as a thing.

On the 5th of December 2023 I received the latest ‘Drug Free ADHD’ newsletter, which I had signed up to months previously and honestly hardly ever read, but something stood out. The first few lines read:

“This is your last chance to apply for 1:1 coaching with me until 2024

I’ll be closing the application form tomorrow.

So, if you’d like to learn The Drug Free ADHD Toolkit and find a way to work with your ADHD, rather than against it, please apply now.”

Although I still thought he was a d!ck, I was at rock bottom, and with no meds I was ready to try anything. So, I applied.

I was able to book an intro call for the next day. As soon and Joseph and I started talking, I warmed to him immediately, he was nothing like I had expected. Social media makes it really easy to judge people. You see only what you want to see, you hear only what you want to hear, and you make quick judgements without the facts. This is exactly what I did with Joseph. It was clear he was just a normal guy, who had figured out the secret to managing ADHD without meds and just wanted to share this with others.

I explained my situation and made it super clear I wasn’t looking to come off my meds, I just needed support to get the tools to manage during the shortage. When Joseph just said “Sure, let’s work together” I was shocked. I wasn’t expecting him to be open to working with me if I still wanted to take medication. I booked and paid for my first 4 sessions straight after our chat.

Our first official session was on 13th December 2023. It went really well and Joseph went through the ‘tools’ he would be teaching me. Coaching with Joseph can include many things, but our focus was going to be on cold water therapy, meditation and breathwork.

After a little blip over Christmas, the real work with Joseph began at the start of January 2024. I started with a 10 second cold shower, at the end of my normal shower. Which I increased about 10 secs a week for the first few weeks, but this soon went up to about three minutes within about a month.

In my weekly sessions with Joseph, we did some breathwork and meditation. Then towards the end of January, I joined Joseph’s Daily Meditation Accountability Group. Every morning from 7:30-7:50am Joseph runs a meditation. We do two minutes of breathwork which is then followed by a 15 minute semi-guided meditation. In the four (ish) months I have been attending, I think I could count on one hand the amount of sessions I have missed.

Late February I attended a retreat in the Lake District. The retreat had stood out to me as it included wild swimming. We swam in Ullswater and even in a plunge pool up the side of a mountain! It was SO different to the cold showers but I instantly fell in love. We now aim to go for a wild swim at least once a week. So far we have swam in lakes, rivers, reservoirs and the sea!

I also ordered my Lumi Ice Bath as soon as I got home from the retreat. We were managing ten minutes a day, but as the weather started to get warmer the temperature had been fluctuating between 10-16o. So last weekend we installed our brand new chiller and we have it currently set around 10 degrees, but aim to reduce that down to around 6-7degrees over the next few weeks.

As I spent more time with Joseph, working with him to improve my ‘toolkit’, and seeing more and more positive results I started thinking more about whether I actually wanted to continue with my medication. I was one of the ‘luckier’ ones throughout the shortage and I only actually spent around 2-3 weeks in total without any medication (around November 2023), as I was able to get bits here and there. I was taking 20 or 40mg, depending on what was available from the chemist. Towards the end of January I was ‘lucky’ enough to get a bottle of 50mg, which I used for a week away with work to get me through being in an office every day with other people and run a training course! But I was just doing so well, I really started to believe I could do it without.

I’d like to just take a quick moment to share some of the side effects I experienced from my ADHD medication:

I also had extreme withdrawal symptoms if I forgot or chose not to take my meds. Which included:

 With all the new tools I had learnt and the success I was having, I began to weigh up my ADHD ‘symptoms’ against what the meds did to me. It no longer seemed like a good ‘swap’! Joseph and I decided my retreat would be a great opportunity to not have my meds for a few days and just see how I felt. The plan was to not take anything whilst away (five days) and then start 40mg when I got back. We would then look to decrease this over time.

As of today (20/08/2024) I am 181 days medication free. When I got back from the retreat, I just didn’t take my medication. I genuinely didn’t feel like I needed it. The withdrawal symptoms I’d previously had when I had missed a dose were gone (I think being away in the Lakes, the swimming, the meditation, the refresh that the retreat gave me, allowed me to flush the withdrawal away). Don’t ever think that I don’t still have bad days, because I do. But I mostly have good days now, and when I do have bad days, they’re a lot less ‘bad’ than they were previously. Life is also still hard, my ADHD makes my life hard, there’s no doubt about that. However, for the first time (probably in my life) I feel in control. I take every day as it comes, and I manage.

I still meditate daily, I get in the ice bath for 10 mins every day without fail (unless we’re away, and physically unable to get in!) and I use all the other tools that Joseph provided me with. I still have sessions with Joseph too, although not weekly, and now we talk a lot more about the next chapter of my life (becoming an ADHD coach so I can pass this amazing message and toolkit along to others who are in the exact same position I was in around 6 months ago) but he still supports me when I’m struggling.

Having coaching with Joseph has absolutely changed my life for the better. I’m still me, I still have ADHD… But I am a much better, happier version of me.

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I hope you find what I write interesting, helpful and sometimes funny! And if you do, I'd love it if you shared what I am saying with others.

Applications are now open for coaching with me, if you would like to apply please follow this link: https://tally.so/r/3NV5bO

Carly x