Poorly.. stimulants in general make me feel very overwhelmed, kind of like im having a nightmare while awake, same sense of inescapable mild panic. and especially when i havent eaten, they make me feel like im going to die soon (maybe because they make your body is literally dying). there are very rarely stimulants that dont do this. its awful because i have been diagnosed with inattentive adhd and autism and since i don't like stimulants i basically am screwed for life.
>>21224meth and adderall are not the same molecule, both are awful, adderall is formulated to produce less euphoria and have more concentration, it also has less visceral affects on the peripheral nervous system after it has left your body. however it is also claimed that some amphetamine formulations like vyvanse were specifically designed to promote dependence in the children they were prescribed to.
the concept of dopamine in this way is actually scientifically fraught and its interesting how it has persisted when the things that its based on - pharmacological determinism or the pleasure principle have long been critiqued in popular consciousness. people will often associate dopamine with pleasure and a particularly shallow kind of pleasure, this is because its widely believed that dopamine is produced by attention, phone notifications, sugar, etc. things are however much more complex than that for instance the sugar claim is made in conjunction with carbohydrates, fat, and salt, however carbohydrates are also associated with lowering dopamine when a large amount are consumed, and there are types of dopamine receptors that aren't affected at all, some are reduced, etc.
the reason why people talk about dopamine this way has nothing to do with neuroscience and everything to do with cultural attitudes about joy and pleasure. for instance, this article
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-leading-edge/202403/the-neurochemistry-of-food-cravings makes some of the claims I mentioned earlier, however, it is poorly authored and cites a rat study without clarifying, it also mis-cites and claims the study talks about carbohydrates where it talks about fat. another study it mis-cites to claim that people derive dopamine from sugary food but the article in question actually just says dopamine is associated with food that is subjectively reported as tasty to the person eating it. but to get back to my point about cultural attitudes, it suggests doing completely metabolically different things and getting sugar through different means (like fresh fruit) as the alternative to reach a "healthy amount" of dopamine.
That's not just to fixate on food however. The idea that dopamine represents immediate gratification in any way is scientifically false, in fact, it is stated in Molecular Neuropharmacology: A Foundation for Clinical Neuroscience (a standard textbook) that dopamine's closest verbal analogue is motivational salience, rather than pleasure, meaning the importance of set goals. more specifically adderall is seen as affecting incentive salience particularly with regards to the mesolimbic pathway primarily and less so other pathways or roles of dopamine in the brain. this is probably a lot to take in so I'll leave it at that, especially as other nona already explained it well. I just want to give you an idea of how much more complex the nervous system is than popular psych articles and influencers claim and also how misleading they can be.
Instead, i want to focus on the attitude mentioned earlier about supposedly healthy amounts of 'dopamine' (pleasure). This is nothing more than repackaged philosophical / religious attitudes about pleasure and enjoyment, at this point it has nothing to do with neuroscience it is simply taking the cultural attitude of moderation, purity, protestant work ethic (no pain no gain), epicureanism, and expressing it in a secular, reserved, rational tone as one might culturally expect a doctor to sound like. rather than argue that it is christian propaganda however i want to say that most are persuaded of some of these ideas in some way or another, and once you see this as true the structure of the argument becomes much more readily available to present as an argument but in other language and tonality.
