Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Saturday, July 17, 2010
alcohol drug detection times
Image via Wikipedia
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Go to FOLLOWING to pick up this blog, renamed Depression, Anxiety, and Addiction
THIS BLOG HAS MOVED TO WORDPRESS AND IS CALLED DEPRESSION, ANXIETY and ADDICTION
Friday, January 8, 2010
My continuation of this blog moved to Wordpress but is followed here...
If you read "Don't Die Crying" you are getting everything I promised in this blog. Just go to the blogs I follow area...
Saturday, November 14, 2009
"Honey, I just had a rough eight years".
Never mind that I don't have a honey right now, but I think people in recovery can relate to their own different language some of the time and for good reason. There was a day in treatment when I realized I had suddenly broken out of an eight year depression, and regained my sense of humor. I caught myself humming after being in the hospital for a month, and it struck me that I had not hummed a tune to myself in probably 8 or 10 years. Just as a "normal person" -- if there is such a person -- might have come home after work that day and said "Honey, I just had a rough day", or told a buddy that Friday "Man, I had a rough week", that day I was saying, albeit tongue in cheek, "Man, I've had a rough eight years". But I meant it.
For when I finally entered recovery and was in a suicidally depressed haze of life, I was diagnosed as a severely depressive bipolar with anxiety disorders and ADHD. Even worse for me, I was typified as a "smiling depressive', and was the type of person who in front of others could put on a terrific act to mask how I really felt inside. She (the evaluator) later said we were the worst kind, because no-one could see how badly we were hurting enough to ever ask if we needed or wanted help.
My bipolar episodes would express simultaneously where the depression would lock me into a very low point on my mood spectrum and instead of that supposedly wonderful "buzz" that a typical bipolar gets, I would just have non-stop borderline panic anxiety. So I was constantly locked into this little "zone" that seemed to grow worse and worse over the years-- like a tightening noose-- as I grew older. Talk about needing to self medicate!
It seems so unbelievably obvious now, but I did not realize then that I was drinking and seeking drugs of all sorts specifically to numb the mental pain I felt so acutely every day. I just thought I was a weak-minded alcoholic-turned-addict. I thought I was slowly losing my mind as in that 8 year period I went from a genuinely happy character who could sit and read through a three inch financial prospectus and develop investment strategies from it, to someone who could not sit and read three inches of a column on the front page of a newspaper and digest its contents.
I led AA groups for Dual Diagnosis at Las Encinas Hospital in Pasadena for over a year (technically they are listed as DA meetings if you are interested -- for dual diagnosis anonymous). Inevitably when new people came in they said the exact same thing -- they had NO IDEA their using was related to any mental condition, and usually the reason was it meant admitting that in addition to being an addict (which they were undoubtedly already aware of) they had to admit that something ELSE was wrong with them, eg that they were mentally ill, to put it bluntly. For some of us, our brains just would not let us see it. Once we were able to see it so plainly, we called it the "Duh" moment.
After managing sober livings for several years I am convinced that at least 2 out of 3 alcoholics or addicts have got some kind of chemical imbalance going on, and they are simply trying to dull the mental "pain" from same by using. I hope the dual diagnosis theory picks up, because I don't think certain alcoholics or addicts have a chance of staying sober unless their anxiety, or depression, or whatever it may be, is treated.
For me personally, now that I can relate the using to a specific physiological and mental problem that can be treated, I feel differently than many in dual diagnosis. I feel it is a BLESSING in a way, because with the mental distress component handled, my cravings are handled to an enormous degree. When I do start to have a craving, it is a clear sign that I need a "med" adjustment, and instead of running to my drug dealer I run down to my doc's.
So hopefully you don't have to have a rough eight years as I did, and you can recognize that perhaps certain neuro-chemicals are out of balance in your brain and a doctor's visit-- to the dreaded shrink -- might be in order. You may be pleasantly surprised at the net result.
For when I finally entered recovery and was in a suicidally depressed haze of life, I was diagnosed as a severely depressive bipolar with anxiety disorders and ADHD. Even worse for me, I was typified as a "smiling depressive', and was the type of person who in front of others could put on a terrific act to mask how I really felt inside. She (the evaluator) later said we were the worst kind, because no-one could see how badly we were hurting enough to ever ask if we needed or wanted help.
My bipolar episodes would express simultaneously where the depression would lock me into a very low point on my mood spectrum and instead of that supposedly wonderful "buzz" that a typical bipolar gets, I would just have non-stop borderline panic anxiety. So I was constantly locked into this little "zone" that seemed to grow worse and worse over the years-- like a tightening noose-- as I grew older. Talk about needing to self medicate!
It seems so unbelievably obvious now, but I did not realize then that I was drinking and seeking drugs of all sorts specifically to numb the mental pain I felt so acutely every day. I just thought I was a weak-minded alcoholic-turned-addict. I thought I was slowly losing my mind as in that 8 year period I went from a genuinely happy character who could sit and read through a three inch financial prospectus and develop investment strategies from it, to someone who could not sit and read three inches of a column on the front page of a newspaper and digest its contents.
I led AA groups for Dual Diagnosis at Las Encinas Hospital in Pasadena for over a year (technically they are listed as DA meetings if you are interested -- for dual diagnosis anonymous). Inevitably when new people came in they said the exact same thing -- they had NO IDEA their using was related to any mental condition, and usually the reason was it meant admitting that in addition to being an addict (which they were undoubtedly already aware of) they had to admit that something ELSE was wrong with them, eg that they were mentally ill, to put it bluntly. For some of us, our brains just would not let us see it. Once we were able to see it so plainly, we called it the "Duh" moment.
After managing sober livings for several years I am convinced that at least 2 out of 3 alcoholics or addicts have got some kind of chemical imbalance going on, and they are simply trying to dull the mental "pain" from same by using. I hope the dual diagnosis theory picks up, because I don't think certain alcoholics or addicts have a chance of staying sober unless their anxiety, or depression, or whatever it may be, is treated.
For me personally, now that I can relate the using to a specific physiological and mental problem that can be treated, I feel differently than many in dual diagnosis. I feel it is a BLESSING in a way, because with the mental distress component handled, my cravings are handled to an enormous degree. When I do start to have a craving, it is a clear sign that I need a "med" adjustment, and instead of running to my drug dealer I run down to my doc's.
So hopefully you don't have to have a rough eight years as I did, and you can recognize that perhaps certain neuro-chemicals are out of balance in your brain and a doctor's visit-- to the dreaded shrink -- might be in order. You may be pleasantly surprised at the net result.
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