It compares; Adderall is a real drug with real addiction problems. I know; I had a problem with it and gave it up about 5 months ago.

I turned to caffeine as I weaned myself off of it. I drank a lot of coffee and took BC powder or Excedrin tablets for the inevitable headaches (both have caffeine). Sometimes I had an energy drink also. I stepped down the Adderall over a series of days until I was no longer taking it.

Then I had to (or at least chose to) turn my attention to all the caffeine and start stepping that down; reducing number of cups of coffee and switching to tea for the afternoons. I slowly moved up the time at which I switched to tea (40% the caffeine of coffee) until I drink only tea.

That's where I am now. I am not cutting out caffeine entirely and will continue to drink tea. This won't work if you don't like tea. English breakfast tea is probably the closest to coffee that I found and what I was using when I was first switching over to tea after having coffee earlier in the day.

For attention, I now use straterra. It is different than the stimulants. Instead of giving you a push, it helps you steer. It takes a couple of weeks to become effective and not everyone finds that it helps them.

My pdoc was the same way about stimulants. I have an attention deficit and stimulants are usually the most effective treatment. I had to be adamant about not being able to trust myself and requesting that I not be prescribed any stimulant, so she prescribed the straterra.

You can adapt to life without stimulants. Some of the days in the transition suck; you will have to drag yourself around sometimes. But it gets better. It won't get better while you continue using stimulants though; it will only get worse.