The Adderall Empire: A Life With ADHD and the Millennials' Drug of Choice

by Andrew K. Smith

Overview

Andrew K. Smith’s hooligan pranks and social impulsiveness paints a picture of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) before medication, and it would seem that the little orange pills could cure his mischief. But readers will furrow their brows as they enter The Adderall Empire, traveling with Andrew K. Smith through the chemically conflicting mind states. Is working-memory training a feasible alternative? Readers will beg for the answer, hoping Andrew stops getting into trouble before his parents disown him or he winds up in jail. Again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781614488927
Publisher:	Morgan James Publishing
Publication date:	07/01/2014
Pages:	180
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Andrew K. Smith is a Pacific Northwest native through and through. He grew up in Edmonds, Washington, but spent his undergrad years across the mountains at Washington State Universitystudying English and creative writing. The literary and arts journal LandEscapes published both his fiction and nonfiction works there, and in 2013 he received an honorable mention for the Sarah Weems Award in creative nonfiction for an essay-length version of The Adderall Empire. Andrew worked part-time as a writer for Camp Korey, a summer camp for children with life-altering medical conditions.

Read an Excerpt

We lived on Spruce Street at the top of the hill with all the mailboxes aligned in a row outside our house. Through the kitchen window you could see the long, tall evergreen trees shadowing our house.

I was the youngest of three brothers. Preston, the middle brother with hair as blonde as sand, was always wrestling me in the living room. Kevin was the oldest. The three of us were like peas in a pod, chasing and tripping through the trials of life.

It’s hard to remember back to my first years as a troublemaker, but I do remember the day my mother busted out the front door, down the driveway, and chucked my milk bottle into the garbage truck. I was about four years old and I suppose she concluded that I’d exceeded my allotted bottle period, if there was such a thing.

But she had to wait until the garbage man came. She attempted to throw it away in the evening, but I snuck out and stole it out of the garbage can late that rainy night. That created a dramatic situation in the morning: mom furiously yanking the bottle from my grip upon discovering she’d been defied and outsmarted by her four-year-old, waiting until she heard the garbage truck growl up the hill, running out the front door and down the front steps to the end of the driveway, and flinging the bottle at the back of the garbage truck as I howled in protest.

Table of Contents

Inside The Adderall Empire: Fragment One   

Part I: Pre-Diagnosis   
Chapter One: Streaking    
Chapter Two: Tossing Kittens    
Inside The Adderall Empire: Fragment Two    
Chapter Three: Off the Rocker    
Inside The Adderall Empire: Fragment Three    
Chapter Four: School Antics   

Part II: Diagnosis   
Chapter Five: Attention Deficient Hyperactivity Disorder Diagnosis   
Inside The Adderall Empire: Fragment Four   

Part III: Post Cogmed   
Chapter Six: Cogmed   
Inside The Adderall Empire: Fragment Five   
Chapter Seven: Two Girlfriends    
Chapter Eight: Unorganized    
Chapter Nine: Friday Night Fence Running   
Chapter Ten: Foursome   
Inside The Adderall Empire: Fragment Six   
Chapter Eleven: Graduation    
Chapter Fourteen: 260 Digits    
Chapter Thirteen: Jail    
Chapter Fourteen: Study Aboard, The Boys Go To Queenstown    
Chapter Fifteen: Study Aboard, The Privilege of Youth   

Part IV: Escaping  
Inside The Adderall Empire: Fragment Seven   
Chapter Sixteen: Observations after Adderall   
Part V: The Road Trip Relapse   

Chapter Seventeen: Adderall Dreamer    
Chapter Eighteen: Indian Wells    
Inside The Adderall Empire: Fragment Eight    
Chapter Nineteen: Lumosity   

Andrew K. Smith