When he was seven years old, R.L. Kramer was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. The treatment was stimulant medication. When he was twenty-three and his prescription ran out, he couldn’t secure another one. He was blindsided by a brutal withdrawal that struck him with the reality of what years of amphetamine use had done to his life and what he had to do to move on from taking them. As he liberated from the grip the medications had on him, he chronicled his experience in Hocus Focus . How it felt as a seven year old to be evaluated, diagnosed, and medicated. How the medications changed him. How much he loved them. He and the amphetamines walked together intermittently through elementary school, middle school, high school, college, and early adulthood. They encouraged him to plan a cross country bicycle documentary, helped him skateboard with all his heart, and create art in a manic fervor. He went deep enough to reveal the dark side of the medication’s effect on his body, mind, and governing spirit and eventually heal his addiction and learn to manage his ADD. Hocus Focus is both a reflection from a member of a generation of kids who experienced childhood and adolescence on drugs for ADD ADHD, and one person’s unique story of growing up on amphetamines.

Hocus Focus: Coming of Age With ADD and Its Medicines PDF

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