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Back in the real olden days, the 1940s, yours truly had constant problems concentrating and was a real pain-in-the-ass to my mother and other family members. My school grades from kindergarten through my first year of college were poor. Except for the two years I spent attending a private boarding prep-school in Beirut, Lebanon. While there, I was forced to sit at a desk 2-3 hours a night and, at least, pretend to be studying. While my ability to concentrate remained a problem, I did learn how to study. My performance on the College Entrance Boards was, at best, mediocre. I was accepted at a very small college in New Mexico. While there, I barely passed my classes and, with the help of my advisor, was able to transfer to Oregon State.
Shortly after my arrival in Corvallis I met a fellow student whose father was a pharmacist and who himself was a pharmacy student. He suggested that taking amphetamines would make it easier for me to memorize all those thousands of things that a student in the biological sciences was expected to know. Back in 1954 all students entering Oregon State took a standardized A.C.E. test which purportedly measured one�s probability of success in college. My test results put me into the fourth percentile. After taking my first set of exams a totally surprised advisor told me that he did not understand how I could done so well. He had expected me to fail. To make along story short my grades improved so much that I was often was on the honor roll and upon graduation was accepted at the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to my arrival to Berkeley I had traveled to the Middle East and, while there, had purchased hundreds of Dexedrine tables for use in graduate school. Had it not been for these drugs I am sure I would not have made it through my first year of graduate school. During this period of time I discovered espresso coffee and, through most of the subsequent years I used caffeine and related alkaloids to sharpen my mind. I recently took one of those on-line tests to determine if I am an ADD individual and, low and behold, I test positive.
I am now 70 years of age and unable to ingest large amounts of any stimulant due to a medical condition. Did my arrhythmia come from my years of taking stimulants? Who knows? Is my increasing inability to concentrate due to A.D.D., aging or something else? Who knows? What I do know is that I am more alert and my mind is sharper when I drink a double espresso
