Why Does the Shortage of ADHD Medication Matter?

The shortage of drugs for ADHD (like Adderall, Ritalin, and other amphetamine stimulants) has been going on for over a year now. In some areas, people are unable to get their prescriptions filled.  Parents are calling pharmacies checking for availability. Some are going to other states to get the medication if there is no availability in their area.

You can read more about the shortage here.

You may be thinking that shortages of cancer drugs are more serious. That may be so, but don't make the mistake of assuming that ADHD drugs don't save lives, because they do. Teens with untreated ADHD are in four times as many car accidents as teens with treated ADHD and teens without ADHD. Children with untreated ADHD have more injuries and more trips to the emergency room.

While I don't have any stats on it, I would also bet that rate of child abuse is higher in families with a child with untreated ADHD. I can certainly attest to the fact that a child with properly treated ADHD has a saner mom than one who hasn't taken his meds. It was a completely unscientific study, but I think my entire family would swear to its accuracy.

Schools have begun noticing the effect of the shortage, too. They are seeing more classroom disruptions, more fights on the playground, and more impulsive behavior in general.

Adults with ADHD have more car accidents and lose their jobs at a higher rate when they can't take their medication.  The article I linked above includes the story of a college student whose GPA went from 3.2 to 1.9, largely due to his inability to focus without medication.

Not everyone who has ADHD controls it with medication. Some use a behavioral approach alone.  Sometimes it works.  Sometimes it doesn't (as you have probably gathered from previous posts you have read here). But those who need the medication because a behavioral approach alone simply doesn't work really need it to function effectively every day in the world. There are real consequences for them and those around them.

There is some disagreement about what the shortage is all about.  Some say that it is the result of more adults being diagnosed with ADHD and being treated with medication. Others say that the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has tightened up its control of the active ingredients. The FDA controls them as a strategy to prevent abuse. Still others argue that the FDA is releasing enough, but with the increase in demand, the drug companies are using their portions to make more of the costlier name brands than the generics that most insurance companies will approve - indicating that there may not really be a shortage of the medication, just a shortage of the medication accessible to most people.

Whatever the cause, it's a serious issue that needs to be addressed and resolved.

Creativity on Demand

I write grants and evaluation reports.  I also write for 6 blogs. It's a lot of writing, and that isn't even counting email, twitter, Facebook, and other social media posts. There are times when I just can't write one more word. There are also times when I can write, but I couldn't come up with a creative thought to save my life.

Contrary to what most people think, creativity is not always available on demand. In fact, there is an inverse relationship between creativity and pressure.  The higher the pressure, the harder it is to be creative.  I think pressure and stress are the hairball clogs of our mental plumbing.

I sit at my computer with a task in front of me and all I can really do is hope that the creativity is going to be flowing.  Sure, I can prepare.  I can do research and develop outlines, and those things actually help, but the difference between something that is technically correct and dry and something that is inspired and original is made my that magic that I can't make happen.

So, I prepare and hope. And I write.

Sometimes there's magic.  Sometimes there's not.

But the feeling created by that magic is like alcohol to an alcoholic or Vegas to a gambler.

That's why I keep writing.

What's in a Name?

Have you seen Apple's new iPad? Yes, that's its name - the new iPad.


The release of the new iPad was Tim Cook's first big product release since the death of Steve Jobs. My expectations were not very high.  I was not expecting the new iPad to knock our socks off, but I also didn't expect the new Apple CEO to draw such a stark and definitive line between himself and one of the world's most creative minds by picking such an uncreative name for the product. I think it's actually a non-name, but that's another post entirely.

Not only did the name of the new iPad leave us all cold, but it left Apple with no real place to go for the next version of the iPad.

Will it be the Newer iPad? The Newest?

No, either of those names would lead to sheer confusion when an even newer version came out. Come to think of it, the name of the new iPad does the same thing.

"Hey, did you get the new iPad?"

"Yeah, I got the new iPad two years ago.  Is there a newer one?"

"I'm talking about the real 'new iPad,' not the old new one."

"Wait, I have the newest iPad. Is that the new one?"

Get the point?

No matter how you slice it, the name was a bad choice that would have been very easy to avoid simply by assigning it a number or a letter.  It could easily have been the iPad 3 or they could have gone with the iPad 2S, but after the widespread disappointment over the iPhone 4S when everyone was expecting the iPhone 5, I wouldn't have made that choice, either.

The only thing that makes sense is that Apple is planning to make this the last of the iPad line, and that the next version will be so completely different that it won't bear the name iPad at all. If that is not the case, I fear for Apple's future because hundreds of supposedly creative minds failed to come up with a viable name.

In fact, I don't think I'll refer to Tim Cook by his given name anymore.  I'll apply his same level of creativity and just call him the new CEO - not CEO v4 or anything else even remotely descriptive or original.

Come on now, new CEO. Steve would not be proud.

How Writing is Like The Godfather

I love the Godfather movies.  I really do.  Well, I like the first one the best, of course.  Who doesn't? But all three are great.  I can't tell you how many times I've watched them, but it's a lot.

I still get a lump in my throat when Appolonia dies, and I want to slap Kay myself when she tells Michael that she aborted his child.  When Sonny charges out of the house in anger, I want to scream, "Don't go, Santino!  You'll die!" And watching the calm, cool, and collected Michael sit in that hotel room in Vegas confronting Moe Green about how he treated Fredo....he was the perfect image of power and control. I could go on, but we'd be here all day, and it has already been established that folks don't like to read very much.

I've had the opportunity to watch the films again in the last couple of weeks because it is the 40th anniversary of the release of the original, The Godfather, so several channels have had Godfather marathons and I just can't resist a Godfather marathon.  That is truly an offer I can't refuse.

As I watched Sonny die for the third time in one day recently, it occurred to me that writing has a lot in common with The Godfather. Bear with me while I connect some of the dots.

Santino is the archetype of the hot headed, "act now, think later" person.  He's the sloppy writer. He's the writer who doesn't think through his work and just writes as it comes into his head.  Sure, there's a time when this is ok (brainstorming for the writer; getting revenge for the shooting of his father for Santino), but it's usually not.

Sometimes, the piece that you're writing is more difficult than you expected.  I experience this a lot with grant writing when I am given incomplete information or the client changes their mind (again and again and again) about the program design. In these cases, I have to use all my powers and all my skills to get to a good product.  It reminds me of when Don Corleone brought his dead son to the funeral director and said, "I want you to use all your powers and all your skills" in reference to cleaning up Santino so his mother wouldn't have to see him like that.

The editing process can be brutal.  I've had pieces come back from editing so butchered that I wanted to yell, just like Don Corleone did in that same scene at the mortuary, "Look how they massacred my boy!"

Just as some writers are like Sonny, others are like Fredo - timid, not very skilled, holding on to someone else's coattails and then becoming resentful later because they thought they were responsible for all the success.  They just can't accept that they don't have the talent they want to have, and that eats them up on the inside. Some people just aren't made for the "family business."

The evolution of Michael is one of the most interesting comparisons to grant writing there is. As a young man, he was naive and he wanted to save the world.  He honestly believed that the family business would go legit.  New grant writers are naive and starry-eyed, too.  They think they can change the world with their writing and, to be fair, they really can change a lot, but soon they become the Godfather Michael - slick, skilled, knowledgeable, and a bit jaded. Finally, if they stick with it long enough, they become the Michael in Godfather III - back to believing in the power of good again, using his skill and power for good, but weary of the evil in the world.  In spite of that weariness, experienced grant writers keep going, still believing that they can make a real difference in the world.

And they do.