Comment by JohnBooty

I was on Adderall for ~6-7 years. The following is just my personal experience but it seems to match well with the vast majority of anecdotal experiences I have read about in many many years of being immersed in this stuff... although these won't be true for 100% of people.

    Almost everyone I know ends up on a significantly 
    higher dose than they started with.

One: At least in the US, for whatever reason, doctors tend to initially prescribe you a very low dose. I think this is a big part of why everybody ups the dosage.

Two: Many/most people seem to avoid dosage creep by reducing or limiting their dose on weekends or on other days when it is feasible. If you take e.g. 20mg every day, 365 days a year, it's pretty much guaranteed to lose effectiveness. But if you can take that down to ~5-10mg on weekends that helps. Also weaning yourself off of it entirely from time to time seems to provide a reset. Doctors seem to never tell anybody this.

    And the stories of feeling like a zombie when off 
    meds are very real and pretty freaky. 

Well, let's call it what it is... it's withdrawal. However to put it in perspective, most people find it milder than or similar to caffeine withdrawal.

If you do significant amounts of stimulants every day and then go cold turkey you're gonna have a real bad time for a day or three.

On the other hand if you steadily taper your dosage down to 0mg over ~3-7 days it's not bad at all.

Again, doctors seem to never tell anybody this.

BTW, while I am kind of "rebutting" your points I am not pushing Adderall. There are downsides to it. It made me more high-strung and prone to arguments and stress. The frequent shortages are a nightmare. And so on. I eventually moved on.