I don't know about "beating" it...it's the way your brain is wired. There's good along with the bad.

Also, what do you mean by "on your own?" I'm assuming you mean without meds, but maybe you mean without meds or therapy or anything?

Sometimes there are pretty compelling reasons not to use meds. For instance you may want to serve in the armed forces, or you or someone you live with may have addiction issues.

Other than that, though, I disagree strongly that meds are as evil as many advocacy groups would like you to believe. When my son was diagnosed we puttered around with reward charts for several months. They made his behavior at home tolerable, but he still wasn't accomplishing squat at school. He was basically learning to hate school and no amount of health food and exercise was going to change that. After I read that not giving meds can actually *increase* an ADD kid's chance of turning to illegal drugs to self-medicate later on, we put him on Ritalin and haven't looked back. I now regret the amount of propaganda and guilt tripping that society puts on parents of ADD kids and adults with ADD. There are people shooting off about ADD who really have no idea, and our treatment choices are none of their business. I don't know if that was your concern, so forgive me, and thank you for indulging my vent.

I was diagnosed when my son was, and I take Adderal when I have to have my frontal lobes working on all cylinders, such as when I have bills, organizing to do, or work. I don't even feel the meds and I certainly don't feel high from them. I do feel like, for the 3 hours that the meds are working, I'm close to "normal." I've had problems with my self-esteem that sometimes escalate into depression because of going through most of my life for "screwing up" and not accomplishing what I feel like I should have, and not knowing why, and whereas knowing about ADD helps, knowledge alone doesn't help me function any better. Of course meds aren't the only form of assistance out there but as far as they go they're quite effective in my experience. Personally, I'll take all the help I can get from whatever quarter. Just my 2 cents.