"I wasn't high. I wasn't wired. Just clear. I knew what I needed to do and how to do it," Bradley Cooper explains in the movie Limitless. At college, many times I wish I could induce myself into some sort of lucid hyper drive. Instead, I end up drinking three too many iced coffees from Hillside, a Red Bull from City Convenience, and a Mountain Dew from my fridge. This last-ditch effort ends with me conveniently crashing like a bad X-Games clip before the test that I stayed up all night studying for.
My friends tell me that I have an addiction to caffeine, but I classify it as an addiction to getting stuff done. I don't even like the taste of coffee. I'd rather chew sawdust. But I'll exchange the terrible taste for half an hour more of jittery awareness. As students in today's fast-paced world, we're taught that there aren't enough hours in the day, so you'd better move faster. Even if the tank is on empty, we keep our foot on the gas. Yet to my knowledge, there isn't an engine out there with the power and speed of a Ferrari and also the road trip gas mileage of a Prius.
"It's not a real drug," my friend explained. "Don't think of it as cocaine, think of it as drinking Diet Coke with a little extra kick." That's when I realized that there is perhaps more illicit drug use in the library than in dorms. In many respects, it's easy to see why so many students can convince themselves that other people's prescription drugs, such as Adderall, aren't bad. After all, it is a medicine prescribed by doctors, doctors who seemingly fill Express Scripts like the crates of Easy Mac piling up in dorm room pantries. Why should I think twice about taking a stupid pill if my friends, who are so similar to me, have the permission to tackle efficiency with Ray Lewis-like voracity just because some guy scribbled his name with the legibility of a Richter scale? It seems a lot more productive to throw a roommate a five-dollar bill for an Adderall and bang out a paper, than to walk to Reservoir Liquor Store and get buzzed after legally buying a pack of beer, which is also a drug, with the same money.
At a competitive school, we all strive to be invincible, both inside and outside of the classroom. And to feel on top we look for any edge we can get. It's apparent that we live in an environment where we are constantly measured up against our peers. These comparisons don't stop when we leave the halls of Gasson.
Most people can point to a friend who thinks he can drink beer like water, does six keg stands, screams while jumping on a table, and then passes out by 10. Since he's only human, his body can't keep up with what his mind urges him to do. I once knew that guy, until he became a combination of a machine from IRobot and an overzealous Howard Stern, looking to discuss any and everything. But the next night, he was back down to earth.
"Dude, if I had taken Aderall or Vivance, I would be talking to so many girls right now," my friend reasoned. The benchmark he had set for himself for a good time, or a successful night, was now much higher. He wanted to be back on his game, even if he had to take some sort of party steroid to do it. To reference Limitless again, Cooper says, "All my fear? All my shyness? Gone!" That's probably why Adderall and other prescription drugs appear on Spring Break packing lists next to sunglasses and shorts. What started out as a pill that looked like an Advil is on the table in a million pieces and in a straight line. It doesn't look like the same Diet Coke my friend told me about.
Perhaps the use of non-prescribed prescription drugs is downplayed because the results seem so overwhelmingly positive. We convince ourselves that sometimes to do a lot of good we have to do a little bad. Who doesn't want to boost their GPA? Who doesn't want to be alert, lively, and engaging at a party? Those attributes are hard to turn down. Plus, it's easy to blend into society while using these drugs. Taking Adderall is not like your typical recreational drug, such as Ecstasy, where no matter who you are it's illegal. If it's readily available, it's extremely difficult to get caught, and there are tangible results proving success, no wonder why the negative side effects are negated. Bradley Cooper sums it up best by saying, "I don't have delusions of grandeur, I have an actual recipe for grandeur."
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