I'm the same way with ADD, getting on medicine changed my life. Unfortunately, i waited until my 30s to actually go to a doctor (at my poor wife's demand, i mean suggestion). All my life I had been told i wasn't smart enough nor studious enough to do the things i wanted and so struggled through it all. Getting on a medication changed everything for me. I use the analogy of imagining your day as a good, solid, sprint. You finish tired but you did it and feel good about it. For an unmedicated person with ADD it's a good, solid, sprint but up hill. Everything is just that much harder and exhausting than for a normal person.

ADD drugs obviously get abused and so I think they get a bad reputation and, for sure, can be dangerous and have side effects.

Same goes for pain medication. For real, genuine, chronic pain sufferers Oxycontin and the others are life changing. However, the drugs also get abused and are addicting so the real benefits can get masked.

The last thing i'll say is it takes a disciplined prescriber when dealing with these kinds of drugs. As software engineers, I'm sure we're all guilty of just throwing code at a problem. Many prescribers are guilty of just throwing Adderall at a problem or throwing Oxycontin at a problem without really understanding the root issue.