This episode is the audio version of an important blog post, where I break down urgent issues affecting many ADHD medication users:

• What’s going on with the Concerta authorized-generic (the brand-name product sold as a generic by Patriot, a Janssen subsidiary)?
• What’s the status of the ADHD stimulant shortage that began in late 2022?
• Most importantly: What can you do now to protect your treatment and advocate for yourself or your loved one?

Read the full post here:
 Janssen Quietly Ends Concerta Authorized-Generic
https://adhdrollercoaster.org/adhd-medications/janssen-quietly-ends-concerta-authorized-generic/

The post includes important clarifications, links, and reader comments.

Quick clarification mentioned in the podcast:
Many readers have asked: Will Janssen continue manufacturing Concerta?
Janssen is still producing Concerta at its Puerto Rico facility—but questions remain about its continued use of the OROS technology (Alza’s patented delivery system). Janssen began phasing out its California production site in 2019, but details are scarce. Consumers are often the last to know. Janssen does not return my phone calls or answer emails.

Is Medication Working for You or Your Loved One?
If you suspect your prescriber is missing key factors—especially around medication options beyond Concerta, Adderall, or Vyvanse—you’re likely right.

Tips, tricks, and therapy are often not enough. Sometimes, real progress starts with understanding how physical health affects ADHD symptoms and medication response.

🎓 Take a deep dive into ADHD as a physical condition in Course 2 of my online training program:
 Solve Your Adult ADHD Puzzle – Course 2: Physical Strategies
Learn more: https://ginapera.adhdsuccesstraining.com/course-2-physical-strategies

This course focuses on:

• Sleep
• Medication
• Nutrition
• Exercise
• And more

Sophisticated science—made practical.
 Step-by-step. Life-changing. Even life-saving.

Perfect for individuals, couples, and professionals.

🆓 Preview free lessons at the course page above!

Send Gina a text!

READY TO GO DEEPER — AND ACTUALLY MAKE PROGRESS?

💬 I love helping you better understand the complexity of ADHD as it applies to you, not a stereotype!

My online training program walks you through everything step-by-step:

Solving Your Adult ADHD Puzzle
For adults with ADHD and their partners. Includes expert video lessons and optional peer Q&A Zooms.

Learn more: https://ginapera.adhdsuccesstraining.com/

Podcast listener discount: Use code POD15 at checkout for 15% off any course.

Thanks for listening!
—Gina Pera

🔗 About My Work: https://adhdrollercoaster.org/about-gina-pera/

What can a published study — and an excerpt from my first book —  explain about ADHD, empathy, and the neurotransmitter dopamine? That’s what this post is all about.

I started noticing a remarkable phenomenon 20 years ago. That is, stimulant medication, which targets dopamine, enhances empathy (or at least the ability to act on empathy) for many adults with ADHD. How is this possible?

You can read this popular blogpost (and the comments!) here:  ADHD, Empathy, & Dopamine: A Book Excerpt, Study, and Definition

Send Gina a text!

READY TO GO DEEPER — AND ACTUALLY MAKE PROGRESS?

💬 I love helping you better understand the complexity of ADHD as it applies to you, not a stereotype!

My online training program walks you through everything step-by-step:

Solving Your Adult ADHD Puzzle
For adults with ADHD and their partners. Includes expert video lessons and optional peer Q&A Zooms.

Learn more: https://ginapera.adhdsuccesstraining.com/

Podcast listener discount: Use code POD15 at checkout for 15% off any course.

Thanks for listening!
—Gina Pera

🔗 About My Work: https://adhdrollercoaster.org/about-gina-pera/

For many obvious reasons, ADHD-challenged relationships tend to teem with arguments and conflicts.  Especially when neither partner knows ADHD is in the mix! 

Apart from that, why do some people with ADHD self-medicate with argument?  What does that phrase even mean?  I wrote about this in my first book, in 2008. Since then, we hear about it more online—but seldom in a useful context.

Simply, self-medicating with argument refers to the stimulation some folks get by provoking a conflict—consciously or not. It can spell disaster for your life and relationships.

Why does this happen?  Case by case, we can only speculate. For one thing, getting angry and arguing can release adrenaline—and thus calming focus. 

But we don’t have to know why it happens to know that it happens.  Even when you do recognize the phenomenon, it’s no way to live. Rather, understanding paves the path to solutions.

In this podcast sharing one of my most popular blog posts, I delve into the complexities:  Why Some Adults with ADHD with ADHD Self-Medicate with Argument

Send Gina a text!

READY TO GO DEEPER — AND ACTUALLY MAKE PROGRESS?

💬 I love helping you better understand the complexity of ADHD as it applies to you, not a stereotype!

My online training program walks you through everything step-by-step:

Solving Your Adult ADHD Puzzle
For adults with ADHD and their partners. Includes expert video lessons and optional peer Q&A Zooms.

Learn more: https://ginapera.adhdsuccesstraining.com/

Podcast listener discount: Use code POD15 at checkout for 15% off any course.

Thanks for listening!
—Gina Pera

🔗 About My Work: https://adhdrollercoaster.org/about-gina-pera/

This podcast draws from a blog post at ADHD Roller Coaster. You can read the full post (and comments) here:   

Why A Support Group for the Partners of Adults with ADHD?

excerpt:

A support group for the partners of adults with ADHD?  That struck many people as a strange concept in 2003, when I advanced it in the essay below. 

A decade later, the need still remains puzzling to some—angering to others. That includes some mental-health professionals—even those with high-level adult ADHD expertise. That must change.

Whatever happens to the adults with ADHD also affects loved ones—spouses, parents, siblings, and so forth. They need validation and education on elevating their lives, too.

By the way, ADHD Partner Group is still going strong, internationally. After 20 years, I've moved it to a modestly price group with a lot more features, including access to Zoom meetings with your peers.

Send Gina a text!

READY TO GO DEEPER — AND ACTUALLY MAKE PROGRESS?

💬 I love helping you better understand the complexity of ADHD as it applies to you, not a stereotype!

My online training program walks you through everything step-by-step:

Solving Your Adult ADHD Puzzle
For adults with ADHD and their partners. Includes expert video lessons and optional peer Q&A Zooms.

Learn more: https://ginapera.adhdsuccesstraining.com/

Podcast listener discount: Use code POD15 at checkout for 15% off any course.

Thanks for listening!
—Gina Pera

🔗 About My Work: https://adhdrollercoaster.org/about-gina-pera/

Adult ADHD-Focused Couple Therapy  TM.  Why create a special model for Adult ADHD-challenged couples?   Why not just use standard couple therapy? 

Great questions. I’ll answer them, at least in part, in this podcast.  

·     I first explained in 2008 why standard couple therapy is typically unhelpful in my book, Is It You, Me, or Adult ADHD, including a chapter called “Why the Wrong Therapy is Worse Than No Therapy.”    This book is as relevant today as it was then.

·     My second book  is Adult ADHD-Focused Couple Therapy: Clinical Interventions, published in 2016.  

·     It is the first and only clinical guide presenting a couple-therapy model based on the evidence—that is, a careful and flexible merging of what works for Adult ADHD and what works for couple therapy.

About my co-author: Arthur L. Robin, PhD, has long helped individuals and couples affected by ADHD. His strategies are battle-tested. In his primary occupation, from which he is now retired, he trained psychologists working at a children’s hospital. Both his ADHD expertise and skill as an educator shine through our model’s interventions..

·      To be notified of new posts, subscribe: ADHD Roller Coaster

·      Read the original blog post of this podcast here:  Q&A with the Experts: Adult ADHD-Focused Couple Therapy - TM

Send Gina a text!

READY TO GO DEEPER — AND ACTUALLY MAKE PROGRESS?

💬 I love helping you better understand the complexity of ADHD as it applies to you, not a stereotype!

My online training program walks you through everything step-by-step:

Solving Your Adult ADHD Puzzle
For adults with ADHD and their partners. Includes expert video lessons and optional peer Q&A Zooms.

Learn more: https://ginapera.adhdsuccesstraining.com/

Podcast listener discount: Use code POD15 at checkout for 15% off any course.

Thanks for listening!
—Gina Pera

🔗 About My Work: https://adhdrollercoaster.org/about-gina-pera/

Author and Adult ADHD Educator Gina Pera explores the complex relationship between ADHD and empathy.

She shares a compelling story from Taylor J., a mother with late-diagnosis ADHD who feared her daughter's apparent lack of empathy signaled narcissism.

Yet an ADHD diagnosis and subsequent treatment revealed a different narrative. 

Gina delves into how ADHD-related challenges can mimic narcissistic traits and discusses the transformative impact of appropriate interventions. 

This episode offers valuable insights for parents, caregivers, individuals, and professionals seeking to understand the nuanced behaviors associated with ADHD

• ADHD symptoms can interfere with innate empathy—not to mention empathic actions. 
• When Taylor J had children, she vowed not to be like her parents: narcissistic.  
• She and her husband—both late-diagnosed—had tried to "teach empathy" to their oldest child, but the lessons never took. Or did they?  Listen and find out! 
• In the discussion around "drugging children", what gets lost?  Science and compassion.      
• You can read the post here: ADHD and Lacking Empathy: Was I Raising A Narcissist?  https://adhdrollercoaster.org/adhd-and-relationships/adhd-and-lacking-empathy-was-i-raising-a-narcissist/

In addition to elevating lives, my goal is elevating the standard of care, with therapy and prescribing.   We just cannot accept the standard slap-dash approach one day longer. 

Send Gina a text!

READY TO GO DEEPER — AND ACTUALLY MAKE PROGRESS?

💬 I love helping you better understand the complexity of ADHD as it applies to you, not a stereotype!

My online training program walks you through everything step-by-step:

Solving Your Adult ADHD Puzzle
For adults with ADHD and their partners. Includes expert video lessons and optional peer Q&A Zooms.

Learn more: https://ginapera.adhdsuccesstraining.com/

Podcast listener discount: Use code POD15 at checkout for 15% off any course.

Thanks for listening!
—Gina Pera

🔗 About My Work: https://adhdrollercoaster.org/about-gina-pera/

·      How can you be blindsided by an ADHD diagnosis?  It’s easy. 

·      Our culture has alternate explanations for virtually all ADHD-related challenges—e.g. depression, anxiety, and trauma.  Even in this 21st Century, the mental health profession has not caught up to the science. 

·      When we finally learn, we are shocked: Why did we not know this before?

·      How many relationships are imperiled by unrecognized ADHD?  Maybe in the millions, just in North America. 

·      No matter how many “and then my spouse was finally diagnosed” stories I hear, each one moves me—and motivates me to keep beating the drum.

·      This guest post comes from a woman named Claudia. I met her via a friend who is an Evangelical Christian—and who beats the Adult ADHD drum loudly in her community.  Follow Christian Janeway on Twitter:  @XianJaneway

·      My friend tells me that many church friends have found themselves and their marriages in dire straits because 1) ADHD has gone undiagnosed, and 2) their church teachings call for wives to submit to and support their husbands. 

·      Cultural situations of all kinds can add another layer of invisibility to the presence of ADHD.

·      You can read the post here: Blindsided by ADHD Diagnosis: One Wife’s Story

Send Gina a text!

READY TO GO DEEPER — AND ACTUALLY MAKE PROGRESS?

💬 I love helping you better understand the complexity of ADHD as it applies to you, not a stereotype!

My online training program walks you through everything step-by-step:

Solving Your Adult ADHD Puzzle
For adults with ADHD and their partners. Includes expert video lessons and optional peer Q&A Zooms.

Learn more: https://ginapera.adhdsuccesstraining.com/

Podcast listener discount: Use code POD15 at checkout for 15% off any course.

Thanks for listening!
—Gina Pera

🔗 About My Work: https://adhdrollercoaster.org/about-gina-pera/

What was your “light bulb” moment—when you discovered the possibility of Adult ADHD for yourself or your partner?

 In this podcast, I share results from the ADHD Partner Survey—the most comprehensive study of Adult ADHD lifestyle issues, particularly as regards relationships. 

The survey question was:  “How Did You Learn Your Partner Might Have ADHD?” (read the original post at that link)

ADHD Roller Coaster podcasts share the audio version of the most popular posts at my blog: ADHD Roller Coaster,  the longest-running website of any kind on Adult ADHD (since 2008). 

Send Gina a text!

READY TO GO DEEPER — AND ACTUALLY MAKE PROGRESS?

💬 I love helping you better understand the complexity of ADHD as it applies to you, not a stereotype!

My online training program walks you through everything step-by-step:

Solving Your Adult ADHD Puzzle
For adults with ADHD and their partners. Includes expert video lessons and optional peer Q&A Zooms.

Learn more: https://ginapera.adhdsuccesstraining.com/

Podcast listener discount: Use code POD15 at checkout for 15% off any course.

Thanks for listening!
—Gina Pera

🔗 About My Work: https://adhdrollercoaster.org/about-gina-pera/

Welcome to an historical—and musical—perspective on the early stimulant  Benzedrine and how its legendary misuse might have created lasting stigma around ADHD and  neurostimulants.    

Harry “The Hipster” Gibson wrote and performed Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy’s Ovaltine in 1944.     

Some medical historians  would place 1944 smack in the middle of the “amphetamine epidemic” in the U.S.. (It happened elsewhere, too. In the UK, a 1960 study of retail prescriptions showed 3% were for amphetamines.).   

Click on this ADHD Roller Coaster blog post to watch the vintage video gem (classic animation by Max Flesicher, song written and performed by Gibson).     

My online training is here—and providing Adults with ADHD and their loved ones the education and support they need—but is almost impossible to find.   

Thanks for listening!  Gina Pera, Adult ADHD Author and Educator
About Gina.   
 

Send Gina a text!

READY TO GO DEEPER — AND ACTUALLY MAKE PROGRESS?

💬 I love helping you better understand the complexity of ADHD as it applies to you, not a stereotype!

My online training program walks you through everything step-by-step:

Solving Your Adult ADHD Puzzle
For adults with ADHD and their partners. Includes expert video lessons and optional peer Q&A Zooms.

Learn more: https://ginapera.adhdsuccesstraining.com/

Podcast listener discount: Use code POD15 at checkout for 15% off any course.

Thanks for listening!
—Gina Pera

🔗 About My Work: https://adhdrollercoaster.org/about-gina-pera/

 Why learn about potential ADHD-related physical manifestations?   

   Because, I believe, it helps us to move beyond seeing ADHD as simply about "focus" and "distractibility." 

   When my  husband, whose ADHD late-diagnosis inspired my work 20 years ago, seemed unable to detect a powerful scent, I started sleuthing.  

   Could this, too, be related to ADHD—or something else entirely?

   You can read the original post here: Can ADHD Affect Your Sense of Smell?  

 Thanks for listening!

Gina

Send Gina a text!

READY TO GO DEEPER — AND ACTUALLY MAKE PROGRESS?

💬 I love helping you better understand the complexity of ADHD as it applies to you, not a stereotype!

My online training program walks you through everything step-by-step:

Solving Your Adult ADHD Puzzle
For adults with ADHD and their partners. Includes expert video lessons and optional peer Q&A Zooms.

Learn more: https://ginapera.adhdsuccesstraining.com/

Podcast listener discount: Use code POD15 at checkout for 15% off any course.

Thanks for listening!
—Gina Pera

🔗 About My Work: https://adhdrollercoaster.org/about-gina-pera/