
Backfired: Attention Deficit
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $29.90
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Leon Neyfakh
-
Arielle Pardes
About this listen
ADHD may be the defining diagnosis of our time. According to the latest data, more than 10 percent of American children (that’s 7.1 million kids) have been diagnosed with ADHD. And the number of stimulant prescriptions for adults in their 30s has shot up nearly threefold since 2012, hitting 15.3 million in 2021. It’s increasingly common to hear people who haven’t been diagnosed at all say they’re “so ADHD,” as if it’s more of a personality trait—or a zodiac sign—than a medical condition. In recent years, this explosion in demand has combined with other factors—including federally mandated limits on production—to create a widespread stimulant shortage in the US.
In the second installment of Backfired, cohosts Leon Neyfakh and Arielle Pardes look at the unintended consequences of the ADHD industry and trace the surprising path that brought us here.
Backfired: Attention Deficit is the latest podcast from Prologue Projects, the award-winning team behind Slow Burn, Fiasco, and Think Twice: Michael Jackson, and the second season of the Backfired franchise, a show about what happens when solving one problem inadvertently leads to a host of new ones. Backfired: Attention Deficit follows the acclaimed first season Backfired: The Vaping Wars.
For a list of books, articles, and documentaries used to research Backfired: Attention Deficit, please visit bit.ly/backfiredbib.
Backfired: Attention Deficit was hosted and produced by Leon Neyfakh and Arielle Pardes. The executive producer was Andrew Parsons. The senior producer and story editor was Madeline Kaplan. Producers were Dustin Desoto and Danielle Hewitt. Fact-checking by Maggie Duffy. Research by Frank Zhou. Archival research by Francis Carr. Theme song and score composed by Emma Munger. Audio mix by Aman Sahota. Backfired was co-created for Prologue Projects by Kim Gittleson.
©2024 Prologue Projects (P)2024 Audible Originals, LLC.
Interview: ADHD—and its meds—are everywhere. Has that "Backfired" for sufferers?

About the Host

About the Host
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Pipeline to Power
- The 40-Year Plan to Capture the Supreme Court
- By: Vicky Ward
- Narrated by: Vicky Ward
- Length: 4 hrs
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Forty years ago, following the appointment of their professors to the federal bench, a tiny group of conservative law students at Yale Law School worried that their ideas might disappear from intellectual discourse in this bastion of liberal thought. They set out to fill that void. But they ended up achieving way more than that. Over the next few decades, the Federalist Society became an integral tool in the larger conservative movement, with political, judicial, and social repercussions ending in the conservative capture of the Supreme Court and the election of Donald Trump to the presidency.
-
-
Disturbingly Timely
- By pilatesgal on 09-24-23
By: Vicky Ward
-
Fiasco
- The Battle for Boston
- By: Leon Neyfakh
- Narrated by: Leon Neyfakh
- Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1974, a federal judge ruled that Boston’s public schools were unconstitutionally segregated. The solution? A controversial experiment in desegregation known as “busing,” which would take children from majority-white schools and bus them to predominantly Black schools, and vice versa. In this dramatic audiobook full of surprising twists and fascinating characters, journalist Leon Neyfakh unpacks the history of busing in Boston and brings to life the human stories behind the headlines by talking to the people who saw what happened with their own eyes.
-
-
Impeccably researched and narrated.
- By dom_a_j on 03-01-25
By: Leon Neyfakh
-
Inside Qatar
- Hidden Stories from the World's Richest Nation
- By: John McManus
- Narrated by: Frazer Blaxland
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just 70 years ago, the Gulf nation of Qatar was a backwater, reliant on pearl diving. Today it is a gas-laden parvenu with seemingly limitless wealth and ambition. Skyscrapers, museums and futuristic football stadiums rise out of the desert and Ferraris race through the streets. But in the shadows, migrant workers toil in the heat for risible amounts. Inside Qatar reveals how real people live in this surreal place, a land of both great opportunity and great iniquity.
-
-
The excellent prose
- By Dorothy on 08-18-24
By: John McManus
-
Neurodiversity and the Myth of Normal
- By: Kyler Shumway, Daniel Wendler, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Kyler Shumway, Daniel Wendler
- Length: 2 hrs and 39 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In six lectures, Dr. Shumway and Dr. Wendler will help you understand the nature of neurodiversity, a growing school of thought that seeks to embrace the range of differences in individual brain function and behaviors rather than “correct” them, with a focus on empathy, acceptance, and accommodation.
-
-
Soft
- By ZC on 03-23-24
By: Kyler Shumway, and others
-
How to Stop People-Pleasing
- By: The Great Courses, Wind Goodfriend
- Narrated by: Wind Goodfriend
- Length: 2 hrs and 40 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We all want to be liked and appreciated by the people around us, but some of us may let this desire dictate our choices and behaviors in a way that can become unhealthy. In How to Stop People-Pleasing, psychology professor Dr. Wind Goodfriend examines what drives many of us to sacrifice our well-being to please others and offers guidance on how you can set healthy boundaries and start prioritizing yourself.
-
-
Author's Disclaimer unecessary..Text obviates lack of experiential knowledge
- By dc customer on 11-12-24
By: The Great Courses, and others
-
The Perfect Weapon
- War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age
- By: David E. Sanger
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Perfect Weapon is the startling inside story of how the rise of cyberweapons transformed geopolitics like nothing since the invention of the atomic bomb. Cheap to acquire, easy to deny, and usable for a variety of malicious purposes, cyber is now the weapon of choice for democracies, dictators, and terrorists. Two presidents - Bush and Obama - drew first blood with Operation Olympic Games, which used malicious code to blow up Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, and yet America proved remarkably unprepared when its own weapons were stolen from its arsenal.
-
-
mix of information and propaganda
- By Inthego on 06-14-19
By: David E. Sanger
-
Pipeline to Power
- The 40-Year Plan to Capture the Supreme Court
- By: Vicky Ward
- Narrated by: Vicky Ward
- Length: 4 hrs
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Forty years ago, following the appointment of their professors to the federal bench, a tiny group of conservative law students at Yale Law School worried that their ideas might disappear from intellectual discourse in this bastion of liberal thought. They set out to fill that void. But they ended up achieving way more than that. Over the next few decades, the Federalist Society became an integral tool in the larger conservative movement, with political, judicial, and social repercussions ending in the conservative capture of the Supreme Court and the election of Donald Trump to the presidency.
-
-
Disturbingly Timely
- By pilatesgal on 09-24-23
By: Vicky Ward
-
Fiasco
- The Battle for Boston
- By: Leon Neyfakh
- Narrated by: Leon Neyfakh
- Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1974, a federal judge ruled that Boston’s public schools were unconstitutionally segregated. The solution? A controversial experiment in desegregation known as “busing,” which would take children from majority-white schools and bus them to predominantly Black schools, and vice versa. In this dramatic audiobook full of surprising twists and fascinating characters, journalist Leon Neyfakh unpacks the history of busing in Boston and brings to life the human stories behind the headlines by talking to the people who saw what happened with their own eyes.
-
-
Impeccably researched and narrated.
- By dom_a_j on 03-01-25
By: Leon Neyfakh
-
Inside Qatar
- Hidden Stories from the World's Richest Nation
- By: John McManus
- Narrated by: Frazer Blaxland
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just 70 years ago, the Gulf nation of Qatar was a backwater, reliant on pearl diving. Today it is a gas-laden parvenu with seemingly limitless wealth and ambition. Skyscrapers, museums and futuristic football stadiums rise out of the desert and Ferraris race through the streets. But in the shadows, migrant workers toil in the heat for risible amounts. Inside Qatar reveals how real people live in this surreal place, a land of both great opportunity and great iniquity.
-
-
The excellent prose
- By Dorothy on 08-18-24
By: John McManus
-
Neurodiversity and the Myth of Normal
- By: Kyler Shumway, Daniel Wendler, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Kyler Shumway, Daniel Wendler
- Length: 2 hrs and 39 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In six lectures, Dr. Shumway and Dr. Wendler will help you understand the nature of neurodiversity, a growing school of thought that seeks to embrace the range of differences in individual brain function and behaviors rather than “correct” them, with a focus on empathy, acceptance, and accommodation.
-
-
Soft
- By ZC on 03-23-24
By: Kyler Shumway, and others
-
How to Stop People-Pleasing
- By: The Great Courses, Wind Goodfriend
- Narrated by: Wind Goodfriend
- Length: 2 hrs and 40 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We all want to be liked and appreciated by the people around us, but some of us may let this desire dictate our choices and behaviors in a way that can become unhealthy. In How to Stop People-Pleasing, psychology professor Dr. Wind Goodfriend examines what drives many of us to sacrifice our well-being to please others and offers guidance on how you can set healthy boundaries and start prioritizing yourself.
-
-
Author's Disclaimer unecessary..Text obviates lack of experiential knowledge
- By dc customer on 11-12-24
By: The Great Courses, and others
-
The Perfect Weapon
- War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age
- By: David E. Sanger
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Perfect Weapon is the startling inside story of how the rise of cyberweapons transformed geopolitics like nothing since the invention of the atomic bomb. Cheap to acquire, easy to deny, and usable for a variety of malicious purposes, cyber is now the weapon of choice for democracies, dictators, and terrorists. Two presidents - Bush and Obama - drew first blood with Operation Olympic Games, which used malicious code to blow up Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, and yet America proved remarkably unprepared when its own weapons were stolen from its arsenal.
-
-
mix of information and propaganda
- By Inthego on 06-14-19
By: David E. Sanger
-
The Finnish Guide to Happiness
- By: Melanie Dower
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 2 hrs and 24 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you ask a Finn, they will likely be as baffled as you are. That’s why Melanie Dower, an expat who has been living in Finland for the past decade, has taken up the charge. Her vantage as an outsider entrenched in Finnish culture uniquely positions her to identify the keys to Finnish happiness that elude the rest of the world and that Finns take for granted. From sauna to strong social safety nets, Finnish life is made up of a constellation of habits and structures that leave its residents relaxed, healthy, and fulfilled.
-
-
INSPIRING BOOK. (Listening after Hurricane Helene)
- By Duchess on 10-21-24
By: Melanie Dower
-
Get Organized: Do More in Less Time
- By: Ciara Conlon, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Ciara Conlon
- Length: 4 hrs and 45 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Through this series of 10 lectures, you’ll learn how to effectively set goals and define your priorities; efficiently use technology to control your life instead of letting technology control you; make small and simple changes to your routine, which help increase your energy and your ability to get more accomplished; and avoid common pitfalls such as procrastination, distractions, and interruptions. Ms. Conlon will introduce you to dozens of little changes that can help you to feel more in control not only of your task list, but also of your life, overall.
-
-
Nope
- By Anonymous User on 02-10-20
By: Ciara Conlon, and others
-
The Thin Line
- Hope vs. Reality in the Era of Weight-Loss Drugs
- By: Scaachi Koul
- Narrated by: Scaachi Koul
- Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the next five years, millions of more Americans are expected to take Ozempic and other GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, which are rapidly being recognized as the miracle drugs of this century. If you’re not on them, you’ll probably know someone who is. What are the implications of the widespread use of these drugs, both on our bodies and our society? In this show, you’ll meet people across America who are either taking the jab or thinking about it, and the shocking intentional and unintentional results they are seeing.
-
-
More balanced than expected and very comprehensive
- By Summer Rodriguez on 01-03-25
By: Scaachi Koul
-
Dream Serenade
- All Night Sleep Soundscape
- By: Rich Lucano, Audible Sleep
- Narrated by: Rich Lucano
- Length: 2 hrs and 4 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dream Serenade is an all-night-long soundscape created by sound therapy composer Rich Lucano. Composed to cocoon you in ambient soundscapes and gentle orchestral waves, specially designed to help you relax, fall asleep and stay asleep. Press play to take a gentle sonic journey that will serenade you to sleep.
By: Rich Lucano, and others
-
Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer
- By: Leon Neyfakh
- Narrated by: Leon Neyfakh
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer tells the fascinating story of a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany who became the beloved mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio before morphing into a symbol of cultural decline. Through dozens of intimate and revealing interviews with those who knew Springer best—from his big sister to his early political aides to the producers who shaped his show—listeners will be transported into the world of this singular figure’s rise to notoriety, and his fascinating struggle to reconcile his status as “the king of trash TV” with his lifelong dream of returning to politics.
-
-
Unbelievably interesting
- By Mirza on 05-20-25
By: Leon Neyfakh
-
Do It Now: Overcoming Procrastination
- By: Fuschia Sirois, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Fuschia Sirois
- Length: 4 hrs and 11 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Procrastination is an almost universal human experience. While many people attribute procrastination to laziness or a lack of drive, our real motivations to push back and delay important activities and decisions are more complicated than personal weakness. The truth is that humans are well-adapted for basic survival, but they are not so great at managing the stresses and expectations of modern life without a little help.
-
-
This book taught me a lot about myself.
- By camille on 09-03-21
By: Fuschia Sirois, and others
-
The 5-Minute Procrastination Reset (for ADHD Brains)
- A 5-Step Reset Built for ADHD Brains to Beat Procrastination, Stop Overthinking, and Stack Small Wins—One Micro Task at a Time
- By: Scott Allan
- Narrated by: Virtual Voice
- Length: 4 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Break through procrastination in minutes with this ADHD-friendly reset method. Stuck on simple tasks? Overwhelmed before you even begin? This ADHD-friendly method will help you take action—in just 5 minutes. If you’ve ever stared at a to-do list while your brain screams “Not now!”, you’re not lazy—you’re stuck. And if you have ADHD, you know that traditional productivity advice doesn’t work. You don’t need more discipline. You need a way to start. The 5-Minute Procrastination Reset is a science-backed system designed specifically for ADHD brains. Built around five clear ...
-
-
Not bad, but narration is so monotonous
- By William M. on 04-16-25
By: Scott Allan
-
Order from Chaos
- The Everyday Grind of Staying Organized with Adult ADHD
- By: Jaclyn Paul
- Narrated by: Vanessa Daniels
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Late fees on forgotten bills. A home full of clutter and unfinished projects. Eroding respect with your friends, family, and colleagues. Health worries from doctor's appointments you keep meaning to schedule. Nonstop anxiety as you wait for the other shoe to drop. You deserve better. Order from Chaos will teach you how your brain works and how to stop getting in your own way.
-
-
Disorganized & boring
- By Reviewer 123 on 10-29-21
By: Jaclyn Paul
-
A Thousand Ways to Pay Attention
- A Memoir of Coming Home to My Neurodivergent Mind
- By: Rebecca Schiller
- Narrated by: Rebecca Schiller
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It should have been Rebecca Schiller's dream come true: moving her young family to the English countryside to raise goats and coax their own fruit and vegetables from the land. Instead, Rebecca's health begins to crumble, with bewildering symptoms: frequent falls, uncontrollable rages, and mysterious lapses in memory. Her diagnosis finally comes: severe ADHD. Written in unsparing, luminous prose, this is an all-absorbing memoir of one woman's newfound neurodivergence—and a clarion call to overturn the narrative that says minds are either normal and good or different and broken.
-
-
Understood beyond measure
- By AJ_M_MT on 11-26-23
By: Rebecca Schiller
-
Episodes
- The True Story of Two Friends & One Diagnosis
- By: Mara Altman, Kat Alexander
- Narrated by: Mara Altman, Kat Alexander
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Episodes, lifelong best friends Kat and Mara take listeners on an unfiltered journey through friendship, mental illness, and survival. Kat, a successful professional, is preparing for marriage and motherhood. On her fourth round of IVF, it happened—a frantic call to Mara. Mara comes over to find Kat, her friend of 25 years—the one who'd always been levelheaded, hilarious, and over-the-top thoughtful—trying to jump through a window.
-
-
Just listen!
- By AJ on 11-17-24
By: Mara Altman, and others
-
The Wonder of Stevie
- By: Wesley Morris
- Narrated by: Wesley Morris, Michelle Obama, Barack Obama, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year 1972 saw the beginning of a five-year span in which Stevie Wonder released five groundbreaking, critically acclaimed albums, garnering him more than half a dozen Grammys and more than 10 million albums sold, securing his place as one of the most important American musicians and songwriters in history. For the first time, uncover the untold story of an extraordinary artistic journey that shaped the greatest creative era in popular music history.
-
-
Good but not great
- By Anonymous User on 09-14-24
By: Wesley Morris
-
Push Back: Assert Yourself in Relationships
- By: Monica Johnson, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Monica Johnson
- Length: 2 hrs and 30 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Holding boundaries and asserting yourself are crucial skills for maintaining healthy relationships and a sense of self-respect. In Push Back: Assert Yourself in Relationships, professional clinical psychologist Dr. Monica Johnson teaches you how to clearly define your limits, communicate those limits to others, and foster mutual respect and understanding in your everyday interactions.
-
-
Fantastic Course
- By Happy Hiker on 07-10-24
By: Monica Johnson, and others
Good Historical View of ADHD
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Dilemma of ADHD
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Thurough & well rounded research
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
well researched, well presented.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Feels like listening to the most entertaining audio- docuseries with music and great sound bites from direct sources, but they leave some key sources and facts out and by the end it drags on like an indictment of the medical, social media & Pharma industries for like tricking anxious or depressed people into hoarding all the best psych meds for themselves, causing shortages “for people who really need them”.
I’d press them to interview old guard Stanford University professors and researchers who can define and explain ADHD so clearly and concisely according to medical definitions that even a monkey like me could understand.
They also leave out the new research on alternative treatments and how much diet and physical exercise, fresh air & sunlight, can impact ADHD, especially processed foods like red and blue dyes, sugar compounds…
Love the fact that this audiobook’s not just medical jargon and it goes deep into the social and historic waves of research and products, and urges us to ask the bigger questions about what ADHD means and will mean to society’s future.
I wish they’d add chapters about the possible link to autism…
I wanted to hear more.
Loved it! So comprehensive with the zoom ins on case studies and zoom outs of societal historic and socioeconomic changes!
But in the end I felt no better equipped for the decision of whether or not to medicate my 7 y/o who has such mysterious psych issues from a complicated birth that we’re on our way to Amen Clinics to get him scanned.
Did SPECT brain scans or EEGs or Cat scans or extensive 4 hour ADHD testing make it into your series? I might have missed those chapters.
Thanks. Please fill in the blanks with a follow up!!! Loved this! I felt pumped listening to it!
Feel pumped listening to this! Want rounded follow up!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Excellent!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Unbiased and Professional
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This program does a good job (but could do an even better job) at making clear that misuse and abuse is not use. It problematizes well many issues, for example the controversy that arose with respect to ADHD-- but not, say, blood pressure or cancer-- when a patient support and awareness group accepted some financial support from a pharmaceutical company, as groups and conferences focused many health issues do routinely.
On the other hand, at one point a speaker describes characteristics of writing done in a hypomanic state -- quite well, very classically -- but attributes those (undesirable, dysfunctional) features as typical of writing done on an ADHD medication, never mentioning the distinction (or hypomania). It is clear scientifically and clinically that prescribed doses of such medication do not as a rule lead to induced hypomania. The speaker was referring to writing done by someone abusing such medication, very likely at higher doses than would ever be prescribed. But that dosage distinction is not made either-- which is a large part of the problem in public discourse about this issue. Many medications and even household items can do terrible things when used completely incorrectly, but in this area the proper versus improper use discussion gets blurred.
What we know scientifically about the history of and nature of skepticism and rejection in mental health care could be covered a bit better, in my view. Still, this program is full of excellent details and no one interested in the topic of ADHD and it's treatment in the US should miss it. It simply could have gone further to prevent harm to legitimate patients and to counter stigma and misunderstanding (still prevalent in society at large) about what real ADHD and its treatment are like, told through more of the eyes of patients, parents, teachers and doctors.
Good details, but lacking some intellectual rigor
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Title a bit misleading
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
muy bueno
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.