ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity

disorder, has become one of the most

widely talked about mental conditions

[music] in our culture today.

And it's gotten to the point where it

feels like almost everyone thinks that

they have it. And science might actually

agree because according to this study,

from the year 2000 to 2018, we've seen a

20-fold increase [music]

in ADHD diagnoses among young men. And a

50-fold

50 increase in ADHD prescriptions like

Adderall. Which has made this whole ADHD

condition a very controversial issue. We

have one side of people who legitimately

don't think it's a real thing. They

think it's maybe a problem with our

culture. And they also, I think somewhat

fairly, are concerned about the fact

that we prescribe [music] this Adderall

Ritalin, this prescription meth that

they say, to children. Plus, we have the

other side of

uh

TikTok armchair psychologists telling

everyone that they have ADHD, and that

ADHD is essentially just a problem with

focusing. Which is like saying Japanese

culture is big-titted anime girls.

That's a part of Japanese culture, but

it's a very diverse culture. That's the

same thing with ADHD. Focus is a part of

it, but it also affects emotional

regulation, creativity, mental health,

addiction. It's a very complicated

condition that is very real. And it's a

condition that I was diagnosed with.

Alongside that, over the years I've

tried almost every ADHD medication that

you could try. So, this episode, I

thought it would be fun to not only go

very deep into what exactly ADHD is,

what is it caused by, what [music] are

the genetic or or environmental factors

that give someone ADHD, but I'm also

going to show you guys all these ADHD

medications and try them on camera with

you. I'm going to show you the

differences between them, how they

affect our bodies differently, and how

they affect me differently. We can look

at how safe these medications really are

and if we should be giving them to our

children. And for extra credit, we're

also going to look at some natural

alternatives to these medications to see

if any of them really work.

So,

let's get started.

A good place for us to start is to get

on the same page of what ADHD is, our

current understanding of it, and how is

it diagnosed. But, I also want to

introduce a fun idea for the rest of

this video. Right here, you are going to

see what is currently in my body. That's

because when I film these videos, I

often use my ADHD medications to get

through it. And so, I thought it would

be fun for me to tell you exactly each

[music] scene what's in my body,

exactly. And so, maybe you can try to

suss out how each of them kind of make

me [music] feel or if I talk faster or

slower, if I'm more angrier or not. So,

right now, I am on 2 mg of Ritalin or

methylphenidate and around 60 mg of

caffeine. Nothing else. Now, what is

ADHD and how do we diagnose it today? To

answer that, we're going to go to the

DSM, which is essentially a big old book

that is the Bible for psychiatrists. It

[music] has every mental illness,

disorder, whatever that you can possibly

imagine

>> [music]

>> and all the criteria for what diagnosis

that thing. And when we go to ADHD,

there are two major ingredients that we

look at to see if a kid has ADHD. And

the first one is the H or hyperactivity.

Hyperactivity in layman's terms is

a kid with methy energy, if you will.

It's the kid that like will grab your

phone and then go, "I'm going to throw

this at the television." And you go,

"Don't do that." And they go, "Okay."

And then they just run and bite you. And

you go, "What Why did you do that?" And

they're just going to start running

around and around. If you tell them to

sit down, they'll sit down for 2 seconds

and then their legs starts fidgeting and

they go, "I can't do this." They're

overly talkative. When they're supposed

to be quiet, they are often really loud

and it seems like they just can't read

the room. They're They're

They're kind of demon children, you

know? Another thing that goes

hand-in-hand with hyperactivity is

impulsivity. [music]

It seems like these kids just don't

think before they do. I I'm actually

thinking of like a specific person uh

that like that's happened where the kid

like came and then [music] bites me or

bites, you know, his sister or

something. And then you go, "What the

That hurt. You're in trouble now."

And the kid goes,

"Uh" and then just starts crying. And

then you ask him like, "Well, why did

you do that?" And he just goes, "I don't

know. I don't know." A while ago I asked

a kid who had ADHD um why he did a thing

that he wasn't supposed to and why he

tends to do that a lot. And he actually

responded to me. He was like probably

seven, six [music] at the time. And he

very earnestly said, "Sometimes my brain

just tells me to do something and I do

it and I don't even know why." Sometimes

you kind of see these kids as like

sadistic. Like they might see a bug and

then they squash it and you go like,

"Why did you just kill that bug?" And he

goes, "I don't know. I don't know." But

the confusing thing is a lot of these

kids are actually quite sweet. A lot of

their parents will be very confused

because they see that their kid loves

them, loves their brothers and sisters,

but then [music] simultaneously does the

stuff that's really mean. And it can

really confuse them because the kid's

not bad, but they do bad things. That's

hyperactivity. And as we'll explore

later, it looks very different in

different people based on background,

based on a million things, even gender

as we'll see. But the next ingredient is

the AD part of ADHD, which is attention

deficit. To explain the inattention

aspect of it, I want to show you this

clip, which is a fantastic example.

>> Look at him. Hold on. Just just look.

Listen to what I'm saying. If you was on

the boat right now, look at me. Look at

me. Look at me.

>> I I was on the boat.

>> Look, you just

>> I was

>> ask you the question.

>> I wasn't on the boat.

>> Listen. Let me ask you a question.

If you was on the boat, look look at me.

If you was on the boat,

full of chocolate and bananas.

>> Wait. Wait.

>> Listen. Hold on. Listen. Just listen.

>> No. No. No.

>> Just listen.

>> The boat

>> Devon. Devon.

>> When I When I was on When I When I was

on the boat, it was it was a shark

under the water, so I had to swim away.

>> Okay, but Devon, listen what I said.

If you was on the boat

and it was covered in chocolate and

bananas.

>> Wait, what is that?

>> What would you eat first?

>> Uh, wait, I I eat donuts.

>> Oh my gosh, Divine.

>> Donuts and uh

>> Divine.

>> Uh

>> Divine.

>> Huh?

>> The kid was asked a very simple

question.

If you were on a boat with chocolate and

bananas, which one would you eat first?

It's a question that a kid of that age

should be able to answer quite quickly.

But, as you can see, the kid couldn't

even fathom listening for more than five

words. They are bad listeners. They have

zero attention span. [music] They cannot

sit down to do any activity like their

homework or even maintain certain things

like learning to brush their teeth or

clean their room. And this attention

deficit is really where you start to see

ADHD as more of a learning disability

because these kids will often lag in

school quite substantially by a few

years. And [music] so, kids with this

attention deficit really start to be

seen as

not as smart. These kids often do very

badly on standardized tests. A lot of

them can be held back in school. And

according to this paper, even when

accommodations are given to these kids

like extra time on a test or an extra

quiet room, they still don't perform as

good as you would want. And to show you

how this manifests in me personally,

let's go downstairs and let's talk to

Mama Metta. See what she thought of me

as a child. But first, let's talk about

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>> [music]

>> Back to the video.

Mom! [snorts]

>> Yeah?

>> Are you decent?

>> Yeah.

>> You're on a YouTube video.

I need you for a scene.

>> [snorts]

>> I was eating my 150 lb dinner.

>> 150 lb dinner?

>> Three bucks.

>> Three bucks.

Three bucks. [snorts]

>> Stop making fun of me.

>> Okay.

Uh how was my learning as a kid?

>> So, I remember you were slow to read.

>> How slow?

>> Well, I don't think you really learned

in first grade. You really struggled in

first grade to read, which is why we

took him to the summer. We did tutoring

for a while.

>> Mhm.

>> Cuz we were worried that you couldn't

read. You just didn't seem interested in

it. Looking back, you just weren't

interested in it. You You Because when

you you interested in something, it was

pretty obvious. You know, you would sit

at the table and you would take apart a

gun.

>> Uh-huh.

>> Clean it and put it back together, but

then I couldn't get you to do homework

or yeah, you had to you had to really be

into it.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Cuz then when you were into it, you were

into it.

>> Yeah, totally. So, as far as the

hyperactivity, was I a hyperactive kid?

>> No.

>> No, not at all. Was a pretty

well-behaved kid, right?

>> Yeah, I mean, you were after you were,

you know, really sick and stuff and you

went to Montessori school, you're very

shy and you're very reserved and didn't

want to go, but you kind of came out of

your shell.

>> Mhm.

>> Um but I would not call you a

hyperactive. You were more annoying in

high school when you want to argue with

me in the kitchen.

>> Yes. Yeah.

>> And I would just agree to it to get you

to shut up.

>> Yes.

Okay.

What I saw more of hyperactivity is

Dylan.

Dylan was a hyperactive kid.

>> Yes.

>> Yeah. He was just kind of like

>> He well, he had the impulsivity. You

know, I just thought you were unique. I

think the biggest thing, you know, this

is where as a mother you feel guilty for

everything. And I'm like, how did I

catch the part because I remember I'd

look back at picture and I'll go, oh

yeah, they were really mean to me when I

thought you were having fun that day at

the pool party where I think you

struggled with a lot of things socially

that I was unaware or you weren't

capable of how to share

>> [clears throat]

>> or you didn't feel comfortable sharing.

I think it's more you didn't know how,

but

>> Did I talk a lot about my feelings as a

kid? No, really. This is where ADHD can

kind of get complicated because a lot of

people that have ADHD don't necessarily

fit the rubric of ADHD perfectly and I'm

a good example of this. As my mom

showed, I was not hyperactive and I can

attest to that. I was not hyperactive or

filled with energy at all as a kid. I

was actually very well-behaved, but that

doesn't necessarily mean that I didn't

have ADHD or didn't have that

hyperactive impulsivity. What happened

and I can recall this was that as a kid,

I had a major problem socially. It was a

common trope throughout my childhood

that I never felt like I had any

friends. It felt like all the friends

that I did have were always

simultaneously my bullies as well.

Similar to how a hyperactive kid kind of

doesn't know how to play, they either

play too rough or too soft or just they

don't know how to interact, I had that

exact same thing. I would try to play

with my friends, but I just didn't

always understand the concept of

playing. I would always feel like they

played too hard with me or that they had

bad intentions for me and I just didn't

get it and so I felt very alone

throughout much of my childhood. And

this is a little bit more aligned with

female ADHD. You might have noticed that

when I was describing hyperactivity

earlier, I subconsciously used the

pronoun he because that idea of

hyperactivity and the demon child is a

very masculine way ADHD shows up. But

women also have ADHD, but it can

sometimes look different. A lot of the

time women or myself, you will actually

internalize a lot of that impulsivity

[music] or that ADHD and it turns into a

lot of self-esteem or shame. And I had a

major issue with this as a kid. I just

felt

bad. It was this feeling of almost I'm

not supposed to have friends because I'm

just [music] a bad kid. I guess I'm just

weird type of thing. And as I aged out

of early childhood, how this manifested

in myself was it was a lot of intrusive

thoughts that really would just cause me

a lot of turmoil. I would have the

random urge to say I love you or I hate

you or I would think about really dark

thoughts of

>> [music]

>> r-wording someone or or murder, like

really really dark stuff. And it would

actually manifest in my Tourette's,

which I also have. A- And I would

actually have like these dark thoughts,

intrusive thoughts, that would trigger

my Tourette's syndrome. I would have

certain tics associated with certain

activities.

Uh it was a

But even though I might have not had the

typical hyperactive aspects of ADHD, I

definitely had the inattention aspect of

it. My mom kind of downplays it. Uh

school was really hard for for at times.

The story in my family that my grandma

tells is that from like first to third

grade, they were legitimately concerned

that I could not read. I think they

thought that like he knows like the

letters and can, you know, kind of read,

but like he just doesn't read. I I I

remember I

hated reading. I didn't do it. I

was part of the group that when it was

time to read in class, I was taken out

of class and put into like the the

closet with all the dumb kids and we had

to like figure out how to read together

and it was

good lord. But how my grandma tells the

story is that in third grade what

happened is they bought me an

encyclopedia of mushrooms and mushroom

identification.

>> [music]

>> And as a third grader, even though I

couldn't read Cat in the Hat to save my

life, I was reading this

encyclopedia like it was like like the

new Twilight. I I loved it. I was

obsessed with it. And then they

realized, "Oh, he can read. He just only

reads on his own terms." But this is

where I want to throw a wrench in this

whole story because

honestly, we've all heard this before.

And there's a huge issue with it, which

is

literally everyone on planet Earth can

relate to this in some way. What I mean

is what child didn't have a problem

reading sometimes or having problems

with certain subjects? What child wanted

to actually brush their teeth or go to

bed or clean their room? What kid didn't

feel like their friends were sometimes

bullying them? I think the problem in

the modern day that so much of us are

having is that you hear testimonies like

what I just did and I would bet

money that a lot of you watching went,

"Hmm, I relate to this a lot. Maybe I

have ADHD." That's a fair response.

That's a very reasonable thing to think.

And I think this is not just an ADHD

thing. I think [music] this is happening

in autism. I think we're seeing this in

sexuality, in gender fluidity, and all

this type of stuff [music] because all

of us are learning more about these

things. We all learn more about what it

means to actually have these syndromes

or illnesses or whatever you want to

call them. And I think naturally as we

empathize more, as we learn more, we all

see ourselves more in these syndromes.

And this is my personal opinion, I think

that's a bit of a problem now. Empathy's

all fine and dandy, but what happens is

that because everyone starts to relate

with this and feels like everyone's kind

of on the spectrum, you delegitimize the

fact that this shit's real. But if it's

so real, where does it come from?

>> [music]

>> So, arguably, the scientific starting

point for where ADHD comes from, or

concept of it, is late 1800s, early

1900s with a guy called Still. Now, he

didn't identify it like we do today. He

actually diagnosed it as defect of moral

control, which is kind of a weird way to

look at ADHD. The symptoms, according to

Still, of a defect of moral control were

passionateness, spitefulness, cruelty,

jealousy, lawlessness, dishonesty,

wanton mischievousness,

destructiveness, shamelessness,

immodesty, sexual immorality, and

viciousness. The keynote of these

qualities is self-gratification,

the immediate gratification of self

without regard either to the good of

others or to the larger and more remote

good of self.

This doesn't overlap perfectly with our

modern idea of ADHD, but the commonality

is that these kids have a problem with

delay of gratification and impulsivity

regarding some immediate goal. And this

is a problem that we identify with ADHD

as well. ADHD in the general population

is around in adults 2.5% according to

study. But if we look at people who have

SUD or substance use disorder, problem

with drugs and alcohol, guess what

percentage of them have ADHD?

21%.

Still focused on children, but this

moral defect is also what we see in

adults with ADHD as well. People with

ADHD are at higher risks of substance

use or criminality or addictions to

things like sex or gambling. But an

interesting thing about Still's

observations is that these kids didn't

only do things very impulsively, like

hurt other children when they just

couldn't resist it, but he also found

them to be emotionally impulsive as

well. The kids had a quickness to

display all emotion and especially those

of frustration, anger, hostility, and

aggression. Still didn't argue that

these kids felt more emotions

necessarily, but it was the fact that

they couldn't resist the urge to express

them. And to put it in a modern context

of ADHD, you can kind of see that very

clearly with the idea of love bombing.

If you don't know what love bombing is,

it's often when a guy Girls do this,

too. falls in love with a girl after a

week of knowing her and then promises

her the world, right? [music] Just Oh my

gosh, you're perfect. Oh my gosh, I want

to commit to you. I don't want anyone

else. But they shower them with gifts,

they say everything they're supposed to,

and then after a month, the guy goes,

"I'm kind of not interested anymore."

and they leave. And I think a lot of

people look at that and they go, "Toxic

guy." you that's malicious, which it is,

but in the ADHD context, that's a very

common phenomenon because these guys

that do this are just being authentic

and feeling the emotions, but they don't

do it the right way. To use Still's

words, they have a moral defect. Instead

of actually getting to know the person

slowly, they feel that emotion of love

and excitement in the beginning

>> [music]

>> and then just feed into it. They

prioritize their own feelings over what

is the healthy thing to do. They

prioritize it over other people's

feelings that they might hurt. And

sadly, I'm speaking from experience, I

took me a long time to notice this in

myself. I've done that a million times

where I get excited about someone that

I'm seeing and I go, "Oh my god, she's

just amazing. She's so smart. She's so

pretty. Blah blah blah." And then I

realize after a month or two, "Oh,

that chick's a stranger. What What the

I don't know you. What the fuck?"

And then I end up hurting people's

feelings cuz I promised them the world

in the beginning because I felt that.

And then afterwards, I was like, "What?

What's your name again?" Like, "What the

did I do that for? That's a

terrible thing to do to someone. Now, I

know you guys are probably antsy. You

want to get to the medication, and it's

almost there, but it's still is time if

this moral defect, they didn't have

medication to deal with this. And also,

just generally, late 1800s, early 1900s,

the whole medication game was very, very

primitive. Like, a lot of the stuff that

we had back then was like a lot of

plant-based stuff. But, how ADHD evolved

and where we really see the first what

we would now call version of ADHD

diagnosis [music]

was with a thing called hyperkinetic

disease in infancy. This was around the

1930s. There's a few key differences

between the hyperkinetic disease. The

first thing is that there was a major

focus on the hyperactive or hyperkinetic

aspect of it. These children cannot stay

still for a second, run up and down the

room, climb about, preferring high

furniture in particular, [music] and are

displeased when deterred from acting out

their motor impulses. At this time, they

weren't as focused on these [music] kids

being, you know, morally bad, but it was

more about these children really just

there's something going on in their

brain that they cannot calm down. These

children would also have the urge to

play with things [music] in a way that

was not meant to be played with. In a

way that we would now probably call

fidgeting. [music] A kid would pick

something up, play with it in a way

that's just like makes no sense to

anyone watching. They often do not use

objects according to their function, but

regard them as stimuli inducing

activity. Fidgeting. These children also

had a major problem with attention and

doing tasks in a very similar way we see

ADHD today. But, there's two more

criteria in hyperkinetic disease that is

very [music] important to know. The

first one is age. This hyperkinetic

disease was said to be noticeable around

the age of three, maybe four, and by the

age of seven, a lot of the symptoms had

subdued and got better. Why this is

important for modern ADHD is that this

is still kind of a thing. Not

specifically that age necessarily, but

to this day, a lot of adults who want to

get diagnosed with ADHD might have a

problem getting a diagnosis because in

order for someone to actually be

diagnosed with it, these symptoms have

to show up in childhood. When I got

diagnosed, I was like 21 or 22 or

something, and [music] the doctor

actually had my mom come to the office,

and they had to interview my mom to

verify that I had these symptoms [music]

as a kid. And there's very obvious

problems with this, but it also does

make sense because if someone doesn't

have these symptoms as a kid, but they

do later in life, maybe they're very

fidgety, have an attention, can't get

their work done, emotionally

unregulated, that could be ADHD, but it

also could be quite literally a million

other different diagnoses. It could be

autism, it could be BPD, it could be

anxiety disorder, it could be

depression. Could be all of them, could

be none of them. But the last criteria

is that these kids struggled. They were

disobedient. They struggled in education

settings. They struggled socially. And

again, this is the same as today

because, like I said, a lot of us, if

not all of us, can relate to the

symptoms of ADHD quite easily. But by

definition, if someone is to be

diagnosed with ADHD, {quote} symptoms

must cause significant impairment in

social, academic, or occupational

functioning. Meaning, if you have all of

these symptoms, literally every last one

of them, but you can function fine in

society,

then you don't have ADHD. Which is where

this gets really philosophical and

pretty frustrating. What it literally

means is that you can have all of the

problems of ADHD. [music] You can have

the exact brain wiring problems of

someone with severe ADHD. You can have

the same gene problems as someone with

severe ADHD. But if you live in an

environment where those things don't

become a major problem, then by

definition, you don't have ADHD. Let me

spin it to you this way. You guys have

seen that I've visited lots of

indigenous communities, and I've met a

lot of kids that I would probably be

like, "Yeah, you probably have some

ADHD." But a lot of them would never

ever be diagnosed with it because they

live in areas where school is quite

easy. They're outside in the jungle, in

the forest, in the desert, and they get

to play however they want to play. And

so, there's literally no reason to ever

diagnose them with ADHD because it's not

an issue. But if you put that same kid

in an American or British or European

schooling system [music]

and made them go to class for literally

all day and then put them in a job that

they probably hate and worked at a desk

for 8 hours, that kid would not be able

to function and he now has ADHD.

>> [music]

>> The question is not, do some children

have this innate problem? That is

obviously evident in [music] these

children. They have it before they ever

go to school. It is a very evident thing

that they have. But because we're in a

culture that mandates people to work so

hard in a way that we were never evolved

to do, then it becomes a problem. Think

about it like dyslexia. There are

certain people that just have an issue

with numbers and letters getting mixed

up, right? And it's a thing that is a

real thing. It is a genetic thing. It

has a lot of things that go into it. We

all acknowledge that dyslexia is real.

But in a culture that doesn't have

written language, does dyslexia exist?

[music]

Well, the kids that have that brain

wiring still exist, but the issue of

reading isn't a thing. So, therefore

dyslexia doesn't exist. You can make the

same argument for ADHD. But uh

it's late. My ADHD medication wore off a

while ago and I'm getting hella ranty.

Uh so, tomorrow we are going to try our

first ADHD historical medication, the

first one that they tried back in the

day, and I'm going to

you know, do what do what we do. God.

I get so insecure and like in my head

when my medication wears off and I'm on

camera or in life.

We'll explore that later.

Tomorrow.

It's the next day and yes, I'm wearing

the same shirt. It is clean. I wore it

just for a little bit to film last

night, but it's a clean shirt. Don't

judge me. And our first medication is

Adderall. I'm pretty excited because I

will be taking the dose that I was

initially prescribed when I was

diagnosed with ADHD like

6 years ago, 7 years ago.

15 mg. Compared to what I actually take

with Ritalin, this is actually quite a

big dose. So, I will be feeling pretty

similar to what I first felt when I

first took it all those years ago. I'm

actually a little bit nervous cuz again,

this is a bit of a bigger dose. I'm

Ooh, I don't know. I almost kind of like

forgot what it feels like.

And as a reminder, I am prescribed all

of these medications. I'm prescribed

this medication. Um this is I'm doing it

as prescribed, but I'm still not going

to show it on camera because YouTube's

kind of sensy sometimes, so hold on.

It's a pink pill. It's really cute.

Okay, let's go outside and I get some

food.

So, I'm currently

at my family's place in Egypt. Showing

this is the home base now.

And the reason why we're going to get

food first is because the first major

side effect that sucks about Adderall is

it's really hard to eat. So, before this

uh 50 millis starts hitting

I need to get some food in my body

because uh otherwise, it's going to be

really hard to eat. So, let's find some

food.

Look at this uh flamboyant tree. It's a

Delonix genus.

Ah.

We're on like the Red Sea, but it

actually that exact same tree is all

over uh Brazil as well. So many Delonix.

Um it's in the the Fabaceae family, the

pea family. It has these big old pods.

You can kind of tell.

Well, let's try some Egyptian sushi.

This

for sure won't disappoint me.

Okay, we're around the 35-minute mark.

Uh I'm starting to feel the first

effects. And it's very subtle right now.

It'll get much stronger, but

what I feel is

um

a confidence right now. So, a lot of the

second-guessing that I usually do, like

I'm like, you know, in my head about

whatever, you know, should I film this,

should I film that, should I mention

this, should I mention that, should I go

to this place or this place, right? Um

right now I can like it's it's it's

weird to describe, but it really does

feel like I am those thoughts kind of

dissolve away and I'm a little bit more

one-minded where I can concentrate on

something, I can make a decision and not

really second-guess it. I'm like, "Okay,

we're going to do that. Got it." And I

don't really

bother thinking about all the different

angles that I need to usually think

about.

Oh, there we go.

>> Wasabi

on my food.

>> I'm like uh wasabi.

>> You want wasabi?

>> That

Mhm.

It looks questionable.

It's edible.

Kind of.

I've had worse.

Salmon's not bad.

The salmon's actually kind of good.

What I try to do, especially back in the

day when I did Adderall, is what I would

do is

I would try to eat as much as possible

before I took my dose

because I knew that for the rest of the

day it was going to be difficult to

even remind myself to eat.

So, I do try to eat like a ton.

And generally I eat like twice a day, so

yeah.

Chug some water.

I also forget to drink water when I'm on

Adderall as well.

It's not that I'm not necessarily

thirsty, but

as you guys will see

what happens is that I'll just get

hyper-focused on something and forget to

do everything.

I'm not responding to anyone's texts.

I'm not doing nothing. I just do

whatever I want to do.

Hey Dad, how you doing?

I'm on for a video.

Say hi.

>> Hi. Who's that?

>> It's YouTube.

>> [laughter]

>> Uh having some tea.

All the uncles are hanging out. Don't

want to interrupt them.

Look at this right here. Last [music]

plant. Promise this last plant.

This

is an agave, but

agave usually looks like this. Like a

lot of the agave you see,

right?

He's trimming them, but uh agaves are

what we call monocots. So, they flower

one time in their entire life, and this

is what it looks like.

So,

literally they live for like, you know,

let's say 30 years, and then [music] 1

year they put all of their energy in

building this like tree structure,

and then they flower,

and then they die. They die right after

that. So,

it's a monocot. [music]

Wait, sorry, not monocot. Uh

monocarpal, Jesus. Monocarpal, not

monocot. Monocot's a completely

different thing.

>> But like, something is moving.

>> I got distracted. Okay, I'm back, uh and

I'm feeling the full effects of the

Adderall. And and you might be wondering

what the was that ADHD sequence of

events?

And I actually cut out a ton of stuff.

There was multiple other plants that I

found. Uh went on a side quest to a

smoke shop. A lot of you might think,

"Well, Adderall's supposed to make you

focus, so why are you all over the place

like this?" And that's a misconception

about Adderall. You see, Adderall makes

quite literally everything enjoyable.

Talking with friends and family is fun.

Watching YouTube videos is fun. Reading

papers or working out is fun. Literally,

everything is just more enjoyable. And

so, something that I had to learn, and a

lot of people have to learn when you

first start this medication, is that

yeah, you have the superpower to do all

the things that you say you want to do,

like clean your room or maybe do your

work or whatever, but you actually have

to concentrate and be very direct on

what you want to put that energy into

because if you're not disciplined, you

will waste the day away doing random

Sometimes I actually actively

delete my Instagram or delete social

media to keep myself from getting

distracted because another thing is that

earthly delights, sins, become very,

very appealing. Doom scrolling, playing

video games. Oh my god, so fun to play

video games when you're on Adderall. Sex

or jerking it or smoking nicotine. I

mean like you go down such a hedonistic

thing because everything just feels so

much better. In the Ayahuasca video

where I make that whole song in the

indigenous language Shipibo, that was

all fueled by I think either a large

dose of Adderall or Ritalin and then I

chain smoked an entire pack of

cigarettes while I had them instruct me

exactly how to pronounce every word and

then I made the beat and the song and

the lyrics all in this one sitting. Uh

it was

ooh, very fun, super unhealthy. But

pharmacologically, what is happening to

me right now? Like why do I feel like

this?

This is going to be a quick pharmacology

lesson cuz Adderall pharmacology is ooh,

actually surprisingly kind of

complicated. It's kind of hard for my

brain to wrap around. But the simple

overarching thing is that it [music]

increases extracellular dopamine. So,

right here, this is cellular dopamine.

Dopamine that's in the cell, [music]

okay?

All this empty space, that's

extracellular dopamine. And that

dopamine [music] is the stuff that will

bind to the dopamine receptor and make

you feel good. We all know dopamine, you

know, it's the stuff that makes you feel

happy, makes you feel motivated, it's

the reward system, blah, blah, blah, you

know that.

>> [music]

>> Now, ordinarily without Adderall, you

have these things called dopamine

transporters, which take the dopamine

that's outside of the cell when there's

too much [music] and brings it back in.

And then it gets broken down by MAO's,

monoamine oxidases, blah, blah, blah,

blah, blah, right? What Adderall does is

it tricks your cells into thinking

>> [music]

>> it's dopamine. And so instead of just

taking the dopamine back, it actually

takes the amphetamines in the Adderall.

[music]

And because your cells thinking, "Oh,

we have all this blah, blah, blah,

blah, shut the up." That That

version of Meta didn't understand the

pharmacology, but this version of Meta

still doesn't understand it. But I think

I understand it a little bit better now.

So yes, your cell does take in the

amphetamines into the cell, and that

alone, it going through the dopamine

transporters and competing with dopamine

already increases dopamine in itself.

But then, once the Adderall is actually

in the cell, it does a few things that

I'm not going to explain. That it makes

your cell leaky, basically. Like it

literally makes that cell to start

leaking dopamine. The dopamine

transporters start to like work in

reverse somehow. I don't even know if we

know how exactly, but it's it's a weird

thing. It makes them leaky. This is the

scientific paper I like got that

information from. Correct me if you know

better, but this is what it says.

Traditionally, amphetamines have been

characterized as a dopamine releaser

that alleviates dopamine by three major

mechanisms. First, it is a substrate for

the dopamine transporter DAT [music]

that competitively inhibits dopamine

uptake. Second, it facilitates the

movement of dopamine out of the vesicle

and into the cytoplasm. And third,

[music] it promotes DAT-mediated reverse

transport of dopamine into the synaptic

cleft independently of action

potential-induced vesicular release.

Duh.

Of course, it's

the vesicular release. idiots.

Of course. Oh.

Simple. Okay, I took my second dose like

an hour ago, and I really want to go

punch some stuff. So, I'll be right

back.

Yeah, I worked out for like 2 hours

straight.

Think about Adderall is that it

motivates you to do stuff, and I was

like, you know, having a blast working

out and punching stuff.

But, in my opinion, it's kind of

for sports because even though you're

amped up and like, "Yeah, let's do

this." It's a vasoconstrictor. So, it

literally constricts your blood vessels,

raises your blood pressure and your

heart rate. And so, you're pumped, but

you actually get tired super, super

quick. So, if you're like into like

jujitsu or fighting or any sport, uh you

just get gassed instantly.

Hey.

That day was crazy.

Okay, what's my review? Good lord. The

first thing, great day. I had a blast

that day. I got a ton done. Went to

the gym for 2 hours. Talked to my

friends and family. I got a lot of work

done. Made a new friend. Studied Arabic.

Great day. Now, what I will say,

when I was younger, that dose worked for

me because I was a lot more unhinged and

a lot more all over the place, just

unregulated generally. And so, that dose

actually helped me get a lot done when I

was younger.

I'm older now. That's just too much. I

think I just have a little bit better

control over my ADHD at this point in my

life. And so, that type of assistance or

just rush, it's just over stimulating.

And I'm like, this is not sustainable.

Like, this feels very uh irresponsible.

But, the funny thing is that it reminded

me of a very specific feeling that so

many adults with ADHD who get medication

feel.

Which is the first time you try

Adderall, especially,

you go through the day and go, "Holy

This is what normal people

feel. This is amazing. All of my

problems are fixed." I I cannot tell you

how many times I've heard that statement

from people with ADHD and they try

Adderall. They're like, "Oh my god, like

I I know what it's like to be a regular

person now. I can get done, da da

da da da." And there's like this huge

honeymoon phase when you first start

Adderall for a few [music] weeks, where

people with ADHD go, "Oh my god, this

was the answer to all my problems.

Everything is solved in life." But,

inevitably, what happens after those

first few weeks is you start to realize

that there's downsides to it. A lot of

people start to lose weight. A lot of

people become a little bit more

irritable in life. Uh they lose a lot of

sleep. They start to get a little bit

more anxiety in life. And that's because

you're not feeling normal.

This comes from a major misconception in

the ADHD world that even some doctors

and psychiatrists spread, [music]

which is that Adderall makes a regular

person high, but it makes someone with

ADHD feel normal.

Wrong. Like, super duper wrong. First

thing I need to point out, this trope of

I feel normal, that's not just an

Adderall thing. That's like a lot of

just drug addicts generally will say

that. Like, Matthew Perry, a huge

addict, said that when he first got

drunk on alcohol when he was like 15 or

16, he said,

>> And I thought to myself, this must be

the way that normal people feel all the

time.

>> The low-hanging fruit that I need to

point out, there's no such thing as

normal. That's not a thing. There's no

such thing as feeling normal. But the

more complicated pharmacology response

to that is that Adderall is not the same

as taking a vitamin D uh supplement.

It's not like if you're vitamin D

deficient and you take some vitamin D

and now you're not deficient anymore.

That's not how Adderall works in the

body. It's not like it just fixes a

dopamine deficiency in the brain, even

though that's what a lot of people think

ADHD is. ADHD is not just a deficiency

of dopamine. That is uh

that's not true. In my opinion, Adderall

is more comparable to if someone is

missing a leg and you give them a

prosthetic. The person that has a

prosthetic is not going to say, "Oh, I

finally feel normal." They're just going

to say, "Oh, this just helps me operate

in a world that wasn't made for me."

Adderall doesn't cure ADHD. It just

helps someone who has ADHD function in a

world that's not made for them. To

better make my point, I want to explain

how we started using Adderall for ADHD

in the first place, especially for

children, cuz it's a weird story. So,

1930s, remember this is the hyperkinetic

era of ADHD.

Uh this was also a very weird time in

amphetamine history. I have a few videos

that go in depth of this part of

history, but essentially things like

meth, like amphetamine, like uh like

dextroamphetamine, like a lot of the

amphetamines, [music] they were newly

invented in the 1900s. And in 1930s, we

started to use them for quite literally

everything. Forgot, for those of you who

don't know, Adderall is

dextroamphetamine. It's a class of

amphetamines, in the same class [music]

as meth, as amphetamines, like speed.

That It's in the same class.

>> For the nitpicky nerds, it's 75%

dextroamphetamine. There's another 25%

that is levoamphetamine, but

for the regular people, it's it's the

same thing.

>> But we used this for congestion. We

used it for head colds. We used it for

alcoholism. We used it for depression.

We used it in the military. Uh the the

Nazis used it, the American government

used it, the Japanese used it. But in

the 1930s, there was this hospital. And

this hospital had a whole bunch of kids

with different problems, and they had a

population of kids that were

hospitalized for emotional issues.

>> [music]

>> These emotional issues could be caused

by a lot of stuff. Some of them might

have had PTSD, some of them might have

had histrionic disorder, BPD, bipolar,

ADHD. [music]

We don't really know. But at this

hospital, there was a doctor called

Charles Bradley. And to understand why

these kids had these emotional issues,

he [music] performed

What was it called? A

pneumoencephalography.

He drained the cerebral spinal fluid

from these children's brains, [music]

so he could scan them better to

understand what was going on in their

head. Side effect of draining the brain

fluid, these kids had headaches. So,

Charles Bradley, hearing about this new

exciting medication, decided to give

them Benzedrine. Benzedrine is

amphetamine sulfate. Uh it is not the

same as Adderall technically, but for

our purposes, they are very, very, very

similar. Bummer, the amphetamines didn't

help the kids' headaches uh because, you

know, missing brain fluid and whatnot.

But, what Charles Bradley observed is

that these problem kids kind of just

improved in the world. They were better

involved in the world generally. They

were better socialized. They were better

behaved. They were better concentrated

and interested and motivated. A lot of

these kids that were bouncing off the

wall doing insane [music] stuff were

subdued and just were better citizens in

the society. The amphetamines helped

these kids. And though medicating ADHD

or hyperkinetic kids back in the day

didn't really catch on immediately, it

took some time, this early work really

set the foundation for maybe we should

give stimulants to these hyperactive

kids. And this is well, philosophically

really confusing.

Why I say that is because in medicine,

sometimes medicines are given to

patients because we actually understand

what's happening specifically in this

disorder.

Good example is diabetes. We know that

diabetes is caused by the lack of the

hormone insulin. And so, what do we

[music] do? We give diabetics insulin.

We are giving the medication

specifically knowing what it is doing

and what it's fixing, right? Or if

someone has a bacterial infection, we

have a ton of different antibiotics that

we can use to treat that bacteria

infection. And we use them because we

know pretty in depth, I mean, more or

less, what the antibiotic is doing to

that specific bacteria, you know, if

it's if it's breaking down the walls of

the bacteria in this way or that way,

blah, blah, blah. But, notice that's not

why we use stimulants for ADHD.

We didn't see these kids and then go,

"Oh, we understand what's happening in

their brain, so let's give them

something that fixes that." What really

happened was by kind of random chance,

we gave a bunch of problematic kids with

a bunch of problems this medication and

generally found it kind of helps. We

don't really know why though. And

arguably that's kind of been

grandfathered into the modern medicine

era. We have a lot of medications like

this that [music] we still use today

that is kind of questionable if we

should use them, why we should use them.

Like like codeine is a great example.

Codeine is an opiate.

It's from the poppy flower. It gives

that opiate feeling, right? It's not

nearly as good as like morphine or

heroin [music] or anything like that.

But it's often commonly given for cough

suppressant if someone has like a really

bad cough. It should not be prescribed

in my opinion. Like codeine, there's not

a lot of current evidence to shows that

it's actually that good [music] at

suppressing a cough. But the reason why

we still use it is because it's

literally like an ancient medicine that

goes back like generations. Like that it

was like 1800s, 1700s, you would give

opium for cough suppressant [music] and

heroin for cough suppressant. So

I

feel the need to clarify that I'm not an

expert and I'm oversimplifying it like

by a lot. So, you know, remember that.

Just my opinion, okay? Super not

qualified.

To clarify, I'm definitely not saying we

shouldn't use ADHD medication because,

you know, it's just grandfathered.

That's not the point I'm saying. We'll

we'll look into the science of whether

we should use [music] it a little bit

later. But I know some of you right now

are for sure screaming

ADHD is a problem with dopamine. Or some

of you might be saying, "Well, what the

does cause ADHD? Like we have

modern science, so what does it say is

causing it?" To address the ADHD

dopamine hypothesis is what it's

scientifically called.

So there's this paper that is called the

dopamine hypothesis for ADHD an

evaluation of evidence accumulated from

human studies and animal models. And it

is like such an amazing paper. It

basically goes over the last 40 years of

evidence for the dopamine hypothesis in

ADHD and goes into arguments for its

genetic basis, for its

neurophysiological basis, for like

everything. And what it essentially

finds is that yeah, dopamine is like a

factor in it, right? But to simplify

ADHD is it's a deficiency in dopamine is

like just way, way, way wrong. The

simplest and most hilarious counterpoint

is that you know what's also a

deficiency in dopamine? Parkinson's

disease. That's a deficiency in

dopamine.

Looks very different than ADHD, no? And

I don't want to bog down with the

nerdiness, but the paper goes into a lot

of arguments of like genetics. Like

yeah, there are some genes linked to

ADHD, they're also linked to dopamine,

but also there's a lot of genes that are

linked to dopamine that are not linked

to ADHD. It's just

And actually this paper, which the

researcher was kind enough to send it to

me cuz I'm not paying for that it

kind of makes the argument that the

dopamine hypothesis is actually kind of

caused by the use of stimulants. It's

kind of backwards. Like we notice that

stimulants help and so we're like, "Oh,

so it might be a dopamine thing." But

it's it's like it's kind of a backwards

way to look at it. So the question on

everyone's mind is what causes ADHD? And

after reading tons and tons and tons and

tons and tons of studies, and by mean

reading I mean reading the last couple

sentences of a ton of abstracts,

not [snorts] reading like methods and

Here's my super, super

dumbified way to explain it to you.

Asking what causes ADHD

is kind of like asking what causes being

gay.

What I mean is that any reasonable

person knows that being gay is a

thing. It's always been to be gay. Wait,

the Big Bang Theory guy is gay?

Not that not that not that it's a

problem.

Really? Huh.

But to ask the question of what causes

being gay, Wait, Gandalf is gay?

Is that a problem?

No, no, I suppose that's not a problem.

Huh? Is such a hard question to answer

because there's just too many variables.

What if you're gay, but you only like to

sleep with uh Thai lady boys?

Yeah, that's a version of gay, but I

don't know. It's I mean, sometimes I

think it it feels like more straight

than gay, but

okay. What if you're gay, but you only

like to kiss boys? What if you used to

like to sleep with men, but now you only

like to sleep with women? There's so

many factors of someone's sexuality.

It's so expansive that there's no

gauging. We know that there's no

gauging. There's stuff that is like,

yeah, we understand that this might

cause homosexuality and this and blah

blah blah, but generally speaking, it's

just a hard question. Same thing with

ADHD. You can look at neuroimaging of

the brain. You can look at genetic

factors. You can look at so many

different things, and we find that ADHD,

just like being gay, is a thing. But no

one method that I could find could

actually purely say, "This person, based

on this, we can know has ADHD." Like, we

can neuroimage and kind of get a [music]

good prediction of, "Yeah, they might or

probably have ADHD." But no test is 100%

right or even close to that. And yeah,

this whole funny gay explanation is a

creative way of me avoiding talking

about the complex neuroscience data that

we have of what causes ADHD, cuz we have

it, but

>> [laughter]

neuroscience. It's so boring. God

damn, I'm too dumb to get that

Woah.

But to harp on this, ADHD is a real

thing. We find, depending on the study,

it's around 80 to 90% genetic, which for

context is really genetic. Bipolar

disorder, around 80%. Height is around

80 to 90%. Like, ADHD is super genetic.

So, in a lot of cases, when a kid has

ADHD, often the parent will also have a

little flavor of it. My mom, I don't

think has much of it at all, but my

father is a

guy.

He's got it bad, brother. Oh my god,

he's got it bad. But tomorrow, we're

going to try our next historical

medication, Ritalin, and I want to

examine a little bit more in depth if we

should be using this medication and what

what studies show if it helps or not.

Okay, it's the next day. Just had

breakfast with papa.

Let's take some Ritalin.

>> [laughter]

>> Okay.

Been around an hour and a half since I

took that dose, and I'm on a bit of a

higher dose than I usually like to take.

5 mg, which comparably is still quite a

small dose compared to what a lot of

people take. Ritalin historically came

out of that whole boom of amphetamines,

but just a little bit later. So, it was

invented I think in the '40s, but by the

'50s it was advertised for a lot of the

similar things that amphetamines were.

So, lethargy, weight loss, depressive

episodes, just general anything they

could find. And then by the '60s it was

found that Ritalin was best used for

children with hyperkinetic disorder. And

to this day, Ritalin is one of the most

widely prescribed medications for ADHD.

Now, to address what I'm feeling, it is

very similar to Adderall,

but also different. So, Ritalin is

substantially weaker than Adderall. I I

believe it's about half the strength, so

I'm on the equivalent of only, [music]

I think, 2.5 mg of Adderall, which you

think like that's like nothing, right?

Uh right now it's a little bit too much.

So, totally my opinion, completely my

opinion. For me, a high dose of Ritalin

or, chemically, methylphenidate, is not

as enjoyable as like a high dose of

Adderall. This, right now, it feels more

anxious. Like, obviously I can control

myself and I'm not

>> [music]

>> freaking out on camera, but like I can

feel that I'm just kind of a bit up, and

weirdly enough I feel quite antisocial.

Like, if someone were to come in, I

would be quite irritated, versus if I

was on a higher dose of Adderall,

I would be very social, wanting to

[music] talk to people. I want to

clarify, these are my opinions. People

might agree with me, might disagree, but

this is what I feel. Now, the reason why

it feels so similar is because Adderall

and methylphenidate do kind of the same

thing in the body, but in a different

way. Remember that Adderall works by

essentially tricking the cells to think

that it is dopamine. So, the cells

accept the Adderall, and it makes the

cell basically leaky of dopamine. It

starts leaking out dopamine, meaning

that in the synaptic cleft, there's more

dopamine, and that makes you feel

better. Now, methylphenidate also

increases dopamine in this area, but it

does it in a different way.

Methylphenidate is what we call an NDRI,

or a norepinephrine dopamine reuptake

inhibitor. It inhibits the reuptake of

dopamine into the cell. What that

literally means is that when there's too

much dopamine out in the synaptic cleft,

what your cell will do is reuptake it.

They'll literally take the dopamine and

pull it back into the cell. But,

methylphenidate inhibits this.

>> [music]

>> It binds to those things that take it

back, the dopamine transporters, and

says you're not allowed to take any more

dopamine in. So, you get a build-up of

dopamine outside of the cell in that

synaptic cleft. And so, you get the same

results as Adderall, more dopamine in

that same area. By the way, now you also

understand how Prozac works, which is

called an SSRI, or a selective serotonin

reuptake inhibitor. Doing the same

thing, but with serotonin. There's also

SNRIs, serotonin-norepinephrine

reuptake inhibitors. There's NRIs,

norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors.

Now, you know a little bit more about

pharmacology.

Good lord, I am feeling I don't know if

you guys can tell, but I'm I do not like

this feeling. It's too much. While this

is going through my veins,

I want to ask the very, very big

question, which [music] is do these

stimulants work for ADHD? And therefore,

should we still be prescribing them? So,

yes.

But, they don't work in the way that a

lot of people think they work. And you

have to be very specific on what

question you're asking. So, if you ask

the question,

does stimulants help with ADHD symptoms?

[music]

Generally, the answer is yes. And there

are plenty of studies that show this.

For example, this study from Sweden

found that after 3 months of giving ADHD

medication to ADHD kids, on average

their GPAs improved. They also had a

better chance of going on to the next

level of school. If we quote this study,

there's strong evidence that stimulants

reduce parent and teacher reported ADHD

symptoms and improve classroom behavior.

So, not only do on average the kids

[music] get better grades, but they also

just have better behavior in their

schooling. [music] And these

improvements are seen in very young

kids. Like this Taiwanese study was from

the ages of

>> [music]

>> 6 to 12 and found that even at this very

young age, the kids just did better when

they had ADHD and they got medicated

with Ritalin. Quote, "After 1 year of

methylphenidate treatment, significant

decrements in all scores of ADHD rating

scale and CGIS and increments in several

Okay, okay, I'm Basically, the symptoms

of ADHD got less and their overall just

scoring in general testing of

intelligences just got better. And

actually, they found that the best

improvement was between the age of 6 to

8. Those really young kids who got

medicated saw the best improvement. And

to speak from my personal perspective,

which I feel like a lot of people can

relate to,

uh they help with a lot of the emotional

problems of ADHD as well. The big one

that I can think of right now is the

problem of rumination. Rumination is

this like weird double-edged sword of

ADHD where when you're young especially,

it kind of comes off as a good thing

>> [music]

>> cuz it comes off as very self-aware. It

comes off as, "Oh, you've thought about

this problem from so many different

perspectives. Wow, that's so cool,

right? But as you age, you kind of learn

that it's something that's very

unhealthy as well because it means

[music] that you think about things too

much. My mom mentioned earlier that I'd

argue in the kitchen and I would like

nonstop argue. I could not shut up

because I was ruminating about this one

thing, either, you know,

uh God or or why I'm in trouble for

this. And I was a really good

[clears throat] arguer because I thought

about stuff so much. But it's just super

unhealthy because eventually it turns

into let's hyper-analyze why this person

didn't respond to me immediately and how

I could have changed the grammar of my

last text to get them to respond faster.

It's just weird. It just gets way too

much and you get really worked up about

small little things that you should not

care about, but nature of ADHD, you

ruminate on it. And stimulants have

helped a lot with that. Like right now,

I filmed this section maybe three times,

but if I wasn't on anything right now, I

would have been on my sixth time filming

this sentence because I would have

thought about like, "Oh I

stuttered here. Oh, I shouldn't have

said it like that." But

>> [music]

>> with this now, I'm just like, "Fuck it.

Let's just keep moving." Okay,

We're running out of time. There's still

so many medications we have to address

at So, we're going to have to race

through a lot of this cuz Oh god. Poor

time management. That is my fault. Oh,

also, I'm on a new medication you

haven't seen before.

Lisdexamfetamine or Vyvanse.

We'll address all the weird variations

of of Adderall and all that kind of

stuff. Okay. At this point, you guys

have a decent understanding of ADHD and

how stimulants can help that, but

there's still a major moral question of

should we give children stimulant

medication? And to help answer that

question, I actually called one of my

childhood friends, Derek, [music] who

when we were kids had very, very severe

ADHD. Still does.

To see his take [music] on the whole

thing. I'd like to introduce you to

Derek.

>> Uh it's going to be interesting cuz I

took

took Adderall about

15 minutes ago.

>> Oh, so you're we're going to see like

how the Adderall starts to hit.

>> Yeah.

>> What was your dosing of Adderall when we

[music] were in middle school?

>> When we were in middle school, the

majority of time I was on 30 mg of

Ritalin

a day. So, through high school, that was

that was what it was. And then I think

my either my senior year

or just after high school is that I

switched to Adderall.

And then

I was on 40 mg a day to start out, and

then it went up to 60 mg a day.

>> That's so much.

>> It was a lot.

>> It was um

>> When you talk to adults like me who are

diagnosed later in life and got

prescribed medication later in life, you

often hear a lot of very positive things

about stimulants. Oh my god, I'm finally

productive. Oh my god, I have so many

more answers about myself, blah blah

blah, right? But when you talk to people

who had ADHD so severely that they were

diagnosed as kids and medicated as kids,

like my friend Derek, we also have

Goblin the Gob Cast where I was on, he

was also prescribed as a kid. You also

have Juice WRLD, he was also prescribed

as a kid. [music] You get a very

different perspective. You can watch the

full interview on my Patreon, but Derek

talks about how he really disliked

Ritalin as a kid because he constantly

felt less funny. He wasn't [music]

as fast or had that same sense of humor

that he usually naturally would have.

People like Juice WRLD or Goblin often

kind of quote this idea of the

zombification of them. felt like they

just were not emotionally there. They

were just zombie kids that just didn't

get to feel [music] how they naturally

were. And the really funny thing is that

these stimulants are literally often

classed as schedule two, [music] meaning

they are literally addictive drugs, but

yet these kids who take them don't even

like them often. A lot of people who are

medicated as kids end up actually stop

taking the medication cuz they just

don't like it. And I think a lot of

parents see that in their children that

start to get medicated and they start to

feel guilty cuz it [music] feels like

they're almost robbing a part of their

child, their personality. And Derek, who

was medicated as a kid and is still

medicated, I asked him a very specific

question about this.

>> So,

uh when and if you have kids, if they

have ADHD,

do you give them medication?

>> I don't think I would as a kid, at least

a young young kid. I think when when

we're young, there's that's a good time

to

to kind of learn a lot of those

the skills.

You know,

the medication can help, but when you're

that young, you I don't [music] think

you should depend on that medication to

learn those skills. I think that things

like uh therapy could help more.

Things like sitting down with someone

and kind of talking through

uh and getting that atten- a little bit

of extra attention can help.

Um that's something I didn't really get

was to work on those skills

before I was put on medication.

>> That is something that even I, who I

don't think I have nearly as bad of ADHD

as Derek or a lot of people. Uh I think

I have more like odd ADHD, like more

autistic odd ADHD. It

We don't even have time to like address

that whole world. When you're on

medication for a long time and you start

to actually achieve up to your

potential, like me doing the YouTube

[music] thing, living my dream, you

start to question who you are without

it. Often times I will wonder,

could I achieve what I do without

medication? Where's my confidence coming

from without it? Do I need it to feel

like myself? And the thing is, unlike

Derek, I spent most of my life off the

medication, and I know how I was before.

And I wasn't even a fraction as

productive or emotionally regulated or

confident or so many things. And I think

simultaneously, that is exactly the

reason why some kids should be

medicated. For one, you don't have to

agree with me. There's literally just

tons of scientific evidence showing why

there's benefits to medicating kids with

ADHD. So, there's that. But, for a more

interesting argument, look at those

three people that I brought up. Juice

WRLD, Goblin, [music] and Derek. Juice

WRLD had ADHD as a kid, was medicated,

hated it, and soon after stopping his

medication, became addicted to drugs,

eventually dying from an overdose.

Goblin also has ADHD and was medicated

as a kid, hated it, stopped the

medication, and again, also became

addicted to many drugs. Now, he turned

out great, has a great business, very

good YouTuber in general, he's a legend,

but he had a rough bit at it. All while

Derek was also medicated, but he never

stopped his medication. He went the

straight route, went to a trade school,

got a good job, has a good relationship.

Kind of straight as an arrow, really. My

point is not medicate all the ADHD kids

cuz they're all going to be drug addicts

if you don't. That's not what I'm

saying. What I am saying is that some

kids have very severe ADHD, like very

severe. And if you don't medicate them,

sometimes [music] it's hard for them to

have a fighting chance. They can be

smart and emotionally sweet and

everything, but if they can't focus in

class, if they always get into trouble,

they're going to often lead down a path

of hanging out, let's say, with the

wrong crowd, maybe self-medicating

because of their chronic anxiety, their

depression, or their feeling of not

fitting in. I'm not saying stimulants

are a perfect solution, but it's a

trade-off. And as you age, you learn how

to use the medication like the tool that

it is. I don't use my medication every

day. I'm very against that. I only use

it when I feel like I need to. If I need

a little help that day. But, this video

is over an hour, so we're going to have

to speed through. We're just going to go

straight chemistry. We're going to run

through all just the remaining drugs.

And there are two plants that we have to

talk about, which are caffeine

and the coca leaf. So, first, what I'm

on right now is called lisdexamfetamine,

or the common name is Vyvanse.

Lisdexamfetamine sounds very similar to

the main ingredient in Adderall or

dextroamphetamine because they are very

related. Lisdexamfetamine or Vyvanse is

actually a prodrug that is completely

inactive. So, when you put it in your

body, it doesn't do anything. But, when

it enters your bloodstream, there are

these cells called erythrocytes that

actually break down the lisdexamfetamine

and turns it into Adderall or

dextroamphetamine, the active drug.

That's what a prodrug is. It's the

inactive version that gets converted

into an active drug. Now, the natural

question you might have is, what the

is the point of the Vyvanse? Why

don't you just take Adderall if it turns

into the same thing? It's because the

problem with Adderall is that it doesn't

last long enough. Often, when people

take Adderall, you have to take multiple

doses throughout the day. With the

Vyvanse, because of this whole trick

with the blood and the conversion, it

makes Vyvanse last twice as long. So,

you only need a dose one time in the

morning and you're medicated the whole

day. So, the very obvious benefit of

this is that lasts longer, you don't

have to redose. It also helps with some

substance abuse because it's harder to

abuse because you don't really get much

of a rush. You kind of just get this

gradual medication feeling throughout

the day. And I'm on it right now,

hate it. I used to be on

Vyvanse, do cannot stand it. It's I

don't like the way I am right now. I

feel super annoying YouTuber. I'm very

irritable. I'm just like

I'm productive, I guess, but I just I

really dislike it. Weirdly enough, it it

feels nothing like Adderall to me. It

feels like more. It's just oof,

puts me on edge. The next medication is

what we call dexmethylphenidate or

Focalin. So, I've done Focalin only a

couple times. I've tried it and I hated

it so much. I just couldn't bring myself

to do it again. And you notice the name

dexmethylphenidate sounds very similar

to Ritalin or methylphenidate. And

that's because they are very very

related. In fact, they're actually

technically the same drug. But Focalin

is actually twice as strong as Ritalin.

So, why? Pharmacologically, it's doing

the same thing in your body. They're

both NDRIs, right? So, they both do the

same type of thing. But the chemistry

lesson from Focalin is that with

Ritalin, methylphenidate, it's actually

technically a what we call a racemic

mixture. So, it has one chemical in

there, but they're mirror images. So, it

has this version of methylphenidate and

this version of methylphenidate. And you

might think

that's the same thing, right?

They are, but they're mirror images of

each other. They're like right-handed

and left-handed versions of the

chemical. And that small differences of

that handedness actually makes the drugs

act very different often in our body.

Often times, one of the versions is

substantially stronger than the other.

And that's the case with Ritalin.

Levo-methylphenidate, let's just say the

left-handed version, is not very strong.

But dexmethylphenidate is very strong.

And that's what Focalin is. Instead of

being that racemic mixture, mixture of

both of them, it's just pure

dexmethylphenidate. And so, it smacks. A

really fun fact to remember this

right-handedness is that

methamphetamine, a lot of people will be

like, "Oh, you know, meth is, you know,

crazy." Yeah, a lot of you have done

meth in Vicks Vapor Inhaler. Yeah, that

actually literally technically contains

methamphetamine. But, it's

levo-methamphetamine. It's the version

of the methamphetamine that's

non-psychoactive. Because

dex-methamphetamine is the one that gets

you all high and but levo is not.

Now, the last type of stimulants that I

actually have not tried is a really,

really cool class of stimulants. And

they're the extended-release versions of

medications. So, there's Adderall

extended-release. There's Ritalin

long-acting. There's things like

Concerta that act up to like 12 hours.

And these actually get into medication

technologies.

Uh, this is so cool. So, you can figure

by the name, these medications solve the

problem of Ritalin or Adderall not

lasting long enough. So, these

medications often last twice as long.

And so, if you're smarty-pants, you

might have thought, "Mhm, so they're

probably all pro-drugs, right? Kind of

like a Vyvanse situation where it's a

pro-drug, gets converted into the real

drug in the blood, and then it starts to

act, and that's how it works, right?"

No, not how they work. So, there are

tons of different medications, and they

all kind of work in very similar, but

different ways. You know, there's

Concerta, there's Relexxi, Focalin XR,

Ritalin LA, Mydayis, Adhansia, Daytrana.

I've never heard any of these. What the

There's a lot. So,

pharmacologically, they're actually not

doing anything interesting. If you take

Concerta, it's literally just

methylphenidate or Ritalin. But, the

reason why Concerta lasts so long is

that

the pill is basically like a uh

like a machine. So, the first layer of

the pill dissolves really quickly, and

it releases 25% of the methylphenidate

into your stomach instantly, okay? But

then, there's this smaller pill inside

that has the rest of the

methylphenidate, and it is literally

called a two-layer push stick osmotic

pump. So, it's this pill that is

semipermeable, so it allows water to go

in there, and it fills up, and as it

fills up, it literally starts to pump

out through a tiny little laser hole

methylphenidate gradually throughout the

day. Some of the medications use

multi-layered beads, where some of the

beads literally have coatings that are

timed specifically to dissolve at a

certain time and release the drug in

your stomach. It's really cool and also

very beneficial, especially for kids,

because sometimes when you take, let's

say, two doses of Ritalin in a day, the

problem is that in your blood you have

these two peaks. You'll have like a part

of your day where you're like really up,

and then the rest of it you're kind of

down, right? And so, the cool thing

about these medications is that they can

design them to gradually release the

drug throughout the day, so you don't

have as much of the spike, and so it's

just a more consistent feeling

throughout the day. This scientific

paper actually goes like one by one by

one through all the crazy

delivery methods of all the medications.

Really cool read. And finally, let's

talk about some natural alternatives to

these stimulant medications. And there's

two really interesting ones. The first

one is coffee. Coffee, just like these

medications, is also a stimulant, but as

a lot of you know, stimulant is a very

broad thing, it doesn't really mean

much, it just means it makes you

stimulated. So, caffeine works

completely differently than these other

medications, but it is a stimulant. And

there are some preliminary studies to

show that caffeine could be used to help

some people with ADHD. I personally love

to do this. If I take a little bit of my

medication and a little bit of coffee,

not too much, but a little bit, I really

like the way that feels for me. You do

have to be very, very careful with this,

because if you take too much of any one

of them, the anxiety is horrendous, and

it also gets kind of dangerous with your

uh

cardiovascular system. But yeah,

caffeine can help. It it's not doing the

same dopamine thing, It's a completely

different thing, but it can help. And

the other natural remedy, and this is so

crazy, is um

>> [snorts]

>> snow, if you will. Now, pause. Do not

ever ever ever ever ever do snow to help

with ADHD. It is horrendous. A lot of

people with ADHD get into that addiction

because they self-medicate, and it's

horrendous. It is a terrible terrible

remedy. So, what the am I talking

about? What I mean is literally coca

leaf from South America, which is where

we get snow from and also contains quite

a bit of snow in the leaves. Now, the

problem with snorting blow for ADHD is

it's such a bad idea, but it also you

have these spikes of of dopamine and and

high throughout your day, and you just

kind of go up and down, and it's it's

it's horrendous. You're just going to

feed into an addiction with that. But,

when I was studying the indigenous use

of coca with the Quechua in South

America, what I found is that literally

all day every day, the moment people

wake up, they chew on coca leaves.

They put it in their mouth and have

throughout the day big old balls of coca

in their mouth. And when I was there

with them studying every day, so did I.

How this delivery system worked is that

throughout the day, instead of getting

this spike of blow in my bloodstream

like if I were to snort something, it

actually had a gradual release of it in

my bloodstream throughout the day. So, I

felt no peak. It was just this gradual

feeling of I'm stimulated, and I felt

amazing with it. Like, I didn't take my

medication a lot of the time because

throughout the day I just like used

that, and that was enough for me to get

work done. I also ate fine. It was like

it was amazing. And the reason that it's

amazing is that blow actually uh is so

insane.

It's literally works the same way as

Ritalin, methylphenidate. It's a

reuptake inhibitor of dopamine. It's

actually technically an SNDRI, so it's

serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine all

in one. It's reuptake inhibitor of all

of those. And so, it literally works

similar to Ritalin. Uh and it's

really cool. You could actually make a

pretty good argument that one of the

first ADHD medications was not any of

these amphetamines, but it was actually

coca in South America. Because coca

ancestrally for literally hundreds, if

not easily thousands of years, was used

throughout the day by the people. It

helped them work. It helped them get

through anything throughout the day. It

just helped them through everything. And

there's a legitimately not a lot of

downsides to coca chewing. Of course

that's a nuanced take. There's different

ways that can be more problematic or

less problematic, like with the addition

of yipta. It's like plant ash that they

mix in in their mouth that can kind of

hurt certain things. But it's a

legitimately quite safe alternative and

has been done for so long. That actually

be a legitimately cool study going to

one of these indigenous communities and

seeing the relationship between who uses

coca and benefits from it and who has

ADHD.

Yeah, really cool one. You obviously

don't have access to this natural remedy

because can't buy coca in America. Or

really any of the world unless you're

from one of these South American

countries that legalizes it. But it's a

fun mental exercise. I loved it. There

are definitely side effects like you

know, you have a ball of nasty leaves

that don't taste great in your mouth all

day. And there's a little bit of nausea.

Yeah, not a great remedy. But it is a

cool one just you know, ethnobotanically

speaking. And that finishes the

stimulants. So tomorrow we are going to

try our last class of ADHD medications

real quick. And I'm just going to show

you that not all ADHD medications are

stimulants. You know what? that.

This video is already too long. We're

done. Okay? It was a great video. So

glad you came to watch. Just so you

know, there are medications that are not

stimulants like Strattera, like

guanfacine. Okay? These stuff are not

stimulants but also help with ADHD. If

you want, I have a second channel called

Very Niche Meta. We can make a quick

little video. Just leave a comment below

and subscribe and I can make a video.

Okay?

This video is an hour and 15 minutes. No

no. No, too long. Too long. But remember

to buy my merch at metabechay.com.

It's amazing stuff.

It's not out yet. So, it's a pre-order,

but we've done made the game. It's

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and amazing. We're just waiting for the

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