Holistic-Personal-Development.com

I have ADD. And that’s OK with me. I’m glad I have it. I have lived successfully with ADD without drugs. And the reason I don’t take the drugs is because I don’t want to be fit into the mold of normalcy.

Because I am someone with the traits or characteristics of what is often called ADD, and because I do a lot of reading on the subject, I have developed my own perspective about it. I like to contrast the ADD brain to the non-ADD brain. Metaphorically, I describe the ADD brain as a personal computer and the non-ADD brain as a typewriter. The people who have typewriters are able to produce pages of letters and articles and whatever needs to be typed, methodically, one page at a time. But the person with the computer sometimes isn’t able to get anything accomplished. And the reason is because no one gave them an operating manual on how to work the computer.

The person with this type brain doesn’t know about the software and all the different programs it can run at the same time. And so there is a lot of frustration and anger. And because the person with the ADD brain cannot get any letters or articles typed up like the people with the typewriters, he or she becomes distracted very easily. It’s a distraction brought about by frustration.

But when the ADD brain figures it all out–that is, how to turn on the computer, how to install the right software, and how to connect it to a printer and to the Internet–great things become possible. Multi-tasking reigns supreme, creativity flourishes as if he or she were Thomas Edison or Benjamin Franklin. Maybe even Leonard da Vinci. Someone comes along and asks, “Would you like to take a pill that will make you like all the other people with their typewriters?” and the ADD computer brain person says, “I think I like myself the way I am, thank you very much.” ADD without drugs is possible if you have the right tools

The world would be a lot different if Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, and Leonardo da Vinci were given ADD medication to make them normal. But if they were growing up in this day and age, in America, there is a good chance that is what would have happened to them.

Or consider what newspaper columnist Rod Allee once wrote: “There was a boy who in his early teens was a bad student, failing in many classes. Thought to be bright and encouraged by his parents and uncles, the boy could not bring himself to pay attention. He dropped out of school and took long walks.

“Meetings were held. No psychiatric medicine was available. The boy’s personality changed not a whit. Nevertheless the boy became a legend.

“Yes, that boy was Albert Einstein. It is possible-in my mind, probably-that had psychiatric medicine been prescribed for the young Albert, the world would never have learned about relativity.”

Obviously it is possible to succeed with ADD without drugs.

Why is it that the United States and Canada account for 96% of the ADD medication used in the world? Elsewhere in the world ADD without drugs is much more common. And why is it that children in the US and Canada are so much more likely to be diagnosed with ADD? Is it our television, our water, our schools? Or is it the lobbying efforts of drug companies? In the United States, 10 percent of all children in grades K through 12 have been give the ADD or ADHD label. In Europe, by contrast, there is only a fraction of one percent labeled as such. What’s up with that?

As I alluded to in my metaphor of ADD as a computer without operating instructions, I don’t see it as a disorder at all. I see it as a brain with a different way of doing things. Their brains are not wrong. They are different. And in many ways, they are better.

To have success with ADD without drugs requires operating instructions. For example, this weekend I received a new notebook computer. When I opened the box that it was shipped in there was no manual. No operating instructions. I didn’t even know where the “On” button was. I finally found it. I turned it on and eventually found a computer file with all of the instructions. But it took patience. If I hadn’t found the instructions, I never would have known how to adjust the brightness of the monitor, or change the battery power settings, or even eject the DVD drive. The computer is great — now that I have figured out how it works. But at the beginning, it was slow going. That’s how it is with ADD.

It’s a tragedy that our prison population consists almost exclusively of people with ADD. These are people who never learned how to fit into society. People didn’t have the patience for them. They never learned the multi-tasking and creative possibilities that their brains offered. They were just labeled as bad kids. And being bad became their identity and their way of life.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. People can succeed with ADD without drugs and have careers as artists, musicians, inventors, writers, mountain climbers, firefighters, stock brokers, race car drivers, pilots, police detectives. They seem to do best in careers that involve creativity, risk taking, and excitement. The challenge for our schools is how to groom these children for these types of careers if the inner spark that makes these careers possible is destroyed by the use of drugs.

In Korea, schools address the issue of ADD without drugs. They have the kids run around the school five times. Then their brain settles down. It’s worked for me too. When I can’t focus, I get some aerobic exercise.

I find it interesting that there is no valid test for diagnosing ADD or ADHD. That’s what the 1998 Consensus Development Panel of the NIH said: “There is no valid independent test for ADHD. There are no data to indicate that ADHD is due to brain malfunction. And finally, after years of clinical research and experience with ADHD, our knowledge about its causes remains speculative.”

If you have a child diagnosed with ADD or ADHD then you have most likely been strongly encouraged or required to have your child medicated with a Class II substance called Ritalin. Does that raise a red flag? It should. Consider what Dr. Gary Null has to say on this topic:

Those who do express concern are reassured that the experts know best, and then often sent to CHADD, or Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorders, a nationwide advocacy group for ADHD/ADD adults and parents of children diagnosed with the disorders. The group is ostensibly an objective agency guided by the latest scientific findings. Its message: that ADHD and ADD are legitimate diseases necessitating medical treatment, that prescribed treatments are safe, and that parents refusing to medicate their children are negligent. But there’s something that CHADD doesn’t tell its audience, and that is that the group was created and funded by the manufacturer of Ritalin-originally Ciba-Geigy, now Novartis-for the purpose of increasing sales.

Dr. David Stein, author of Ritalin is Not the Answer: A Drug-Free Practical Program for Children Diagnosed with ADD or ADHD, starts his book off challenging its readers to examine why they would view a drug dealer passing out speed in the school playground any differently than a nurse at the school passing out Ritalin in the school hallways. Regarding parents who have been sent to CHADD to allay their concerns about ADD drugs, he says: “They’re given very biased information all along, and they become believers that they have children with diseases and that drugs are absolutely necessary, which is sad.”

It is so typical of mainstream American society to fix problems with drugs–quick, easy, and no fuss. But the ADD brain doesn’t need to be fixed – it needs to be guided. It needs to be encouraged. It needs to be challenged. If you have an ADD child who is easily bored, find something for him or her that’s not boring. As ADD author and highly successful ADD person Thom Hartmann will tell you, ADD can be a curse if not guided properly. But it can be a great characteristic if allowed to thrive.

The energy needs to be focused, challenged, and allowed to be creative. Hartmann has a chapter in his bestselling book, Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perception, about people with ADD who have changed the world. He has another book called ADD Success Stories, filled with first hand accounts of people who overcame the challenges of ADD to find their place in the world successfully.

ADD without drugs is not only possible, but if directed properly, can lead to a life that thrives with happiness and fulfillment.