This doesn't match my experience at all.<p>For starters, as others have said: If you're taking it as a "smart drug" rather than for narcolepsy or to deal with shifts <i>why in the world</i> would you take the full 200mg on an ongoing basis? I've seen nobody recommend that.<p>Blaming Modafinil for weight gain and problems sleeping also seems very odd to me, though it may have <i>some</i> truth to it:<p>If you take these drugs <i>and sleep less</i> as a result, chances are you'll face weight gain, because in my experience at least, like caffeine, modafinil does not remove your tiredness over the long term - it just lets you power through it. Even more so for modafinil than caffeine, as caffeine at least makes you feel awake for a while, while my experience with modafinil is that it just lets you stay awake while still feeling the effects.<p>And for met at least, if I stay awake for protracted period of time , I do tend to eat more, and <i>especially</i> when tired.<p>But as for problems sleeping, it's a bit of a combination of "well duh" and "really?" On one hand modafinil certainly lets you stay awake. On the other hand one of the things that sets modafinil strongly apart from caffeine is that you can generally go to sleep on modafinil a lot easier (though some people report it affects their dreams and I believe I've experienced some of that).<p>Making you happy? I've never seen anyone claim modafinil makes you happy. It's not that kind of drug. Maybe some people feel happy as a side effect. I've never experienced anything like it. To me a lot of his description makes it sound as if he's used another drug entirely.<p>The withdrawal description as well seems odd to me. But then again I take modafinil on and off, so maybe you need to be on higher doses for a protracted amount of time to experience them. Overall, though, withdrawal from modafinil is overall <i>far weaker</i> than from equivalent use of caffeine (which can get truly nasty on high doses; including cold sweats, diarrhea, headaches, fevers etc. that can persist for a week or more).<p>The description of "blunting" you etc. is fair enough. This isn't a drug you take to be creative. It's a drug you take to maintain focus. And hence it's not a drug to take the way the article writer took it: persistent and over time.<p>But I guess the article writer will think this is "stealth advertising" (how I wish people were <i>paying me</i> for the time I spend on HN; I spend way too much time here). To me throwing in that kind of thing makes me think it was included only to get attention.