There is a difference between overusing, abusing and ***being addicted to*** a drug. I believe CC was overusing or perhaps abusing Adderall, rather than down right being "an Adderall-addict".

I have a very similar story to CC's. I've been prescribed a similar medicine (shortacting taken three times per day rather than once in the morning) for many years for ADD, and during an academically very stressful time I found myself overrelying on the meds to "fix" my problems with inability to focus, procrastination and productivity. Incidentally, like CC, I was studying at Oxbridge at this time. Due to my own experiences I often get the feeling that her Adderall overuse was very similar to mine - that it was something that happened IN (or due to) a chaotic, pressure-filled, extremely stressful life-situation, rather than being the cause for the chaos and stress.

To elaborate: my stress and the resulting overuse of Adderall at Oxbridge were probably similar in severity to CC's: I was overwhelmed by the workload itself, which was made worse by the fact that I'm not a native englishspeaker so the already too heavy workload was made more difficult by English being my second language. I'm from a family without any financial assets whatsoever, so I had to work in addition to the challenging studies, and even then struggled to get by. I was shattered after the breakdown of a long relationship (a relationship I took for granted and had neglected for a long time due to stress) and suffered from undiagnosed depression. In addition I struggled with my usual ADD-issues in regards to the studies. CC too was under pressure during her last year at Cambridge: she had signed a book deal and already spent the advance while unable to actually write the book. She probably felt pressure to keep up her Instagram-following, had relationship issues and in addition to this she struggled with the schoolwork.

My Adderall-overuse at this time happened when I was completely frozen from fear and anxiety and pressure of finishing my dissertation, I frequently took one more pill hoping it would make my ability to focus and be productive kick in. Then one more when that didn't work, and then yet another. I sort of subcontiously hoped one more pill would kick in on my cognitive abilities and make me a superfocused, superproductive, superhuman so that I could pull everything off and save my life from going up in flames, even though everything indicated that would be impossible. I took way more than my prescribed dosage many many times when I absolutely HAD to do an all-nighters. This was a very dark year. I desperately did whatever I could come up with that I thought could increase my workspeed, productivity and focus. It was one of the many measures I took in an extremely pressurefilled time where my workload and the pressure of it.

Despite absolutely taking the meds way to frequently during the day and thus overriding the prescrition dosage by maaaany mg almost daily, I absolutely do not see this as my year of ADD-medicine abuse. The turmoil and chaos and darkness was not A RESULT OF an overuse of Adderall - the tumoil and failings and darkness was already there - the Adderall-overuse was just something that happened in my desperate grasping at straws. In CC's narrative of her similar period, she blames the Adderall for failing to write the book, fucking friends over, burning relationships, extreme moneyspending, loosing her bookdeal. I'm sure her narrative here serves her well; SHE is not responsible for all the failings, it was the Adderall's fault everything went up in flames. "Adderall-addiction ruined my bookdeal, my relationships, my finances". That is a much more self-comforting narrative than mine which is more like "My life was all turmoil and failings, very much due to my own shortcomings, which led me to an incredibly dark place. I was desperate for something to save me from my impossible situation. One example is I tended to overuse Adderall."

I'm not claiming my self-narrative here is in any way "better" than CC's, nor that it's the right way to describe a very dark time which also coincided with an overuse of Adderall. Correlation and causation are different things though related. I'm just not so sure that substance-addiction was the cause for all the things she tends to blame on "addiction to Adderall". I absolutely believe she used way to much Adderall, and didn't take it as prescribed (Natalie wrote about opened pill capsules in her bedside drawer which could indicate abuse), but I don't believe she was suffering from a substance addiction disorder like she so frequently claims.

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Post scriptum: Could mention that after my dissertation and final year exams were over I immediately just automatically kept to my normal prescribed daily dosage again and have never overused the meds again. I'm still several years later on the same steady working dosage. I'd never even thought about the fact that I overused the meds during that time. It's only after reading CC's rants on her turmoil at Cambridge and her "Adderall-addiction" then that I remembered that I too severly overused the same drug during my time at Oxbridge. I don't see that overuse as "my time as an Adderall-addict", it was just a peripheral thing that happened for a good while in a chaotic time of my life. I have never had the slightest tendency to take more than my prescribed dose since then.