At issue back then was that he got bored easily with 3rd grade work and just wouldn’t fill out the stupid worksheets. So we used adrenaline instead of ritilin.
He got a BS in geology but is now a professional musician. Go figure.
The rush you get from playing music is a whole other animal compared to other things. I have friends that will attest to that, and I get plenty of pride myself when I nail a solo pretty good while playing guitar.