Accomplished grappler PJ Barch recently opened up about his past struggles with weight-cutting and his use of Adderall during his high school wrestling career.
Barch explained that he was first introduced to the prescription stimulant by older wrestlers – who pitched it as a way to make dropping weight easier:
I guess it kind of started with hanging out with older wrestling kids my sophomore year…
We were going on these trips all over the place to wrestle, and I was hanging out with some wrestling kids.One of them told me: “Hey, there’s this stuff called Adderall, and Adderall makes you not eat, so you can cut a ton of weight.”
What started as a tactic to help manage his weight soon spiraled into something more serious:
I started carrying Adderall around during wrestling season, taking it sometimes.
Meanwhile, I didn’t know I was really getting high and stuff too.I mean, I took it for probably a good reason to start, but I ended up being a little bit of a fiend for the stuff.
Eventually, the consequences caught up with him:
I got caught with it in school my junior year, and this went pretty bad.
I ended up having to change high schools.It was a pretty turbulent couple of years, to be honest.
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