I am recovering from a pretty bad relapse over a month ago (lasted over 2 months). Many of you have known me here for awhile. Some for many years. There are going to be dually diagnosed people here on the site, whether just reading as visitors, or some of my friends who would like a little more insight on what my "deal" has been for the past few months. I'd like to give you a better understanding (and perhaps help someone out there who is dually diagnosed as well.) This is a portion of an email I recently sent someone, to clarify what is going on now, what happened before, and what can happen to people who are not treating ALL their illnesses including alcoholism, in sync. We have to be responsible, no matter what ailments we have, and treat the whole person in order to successfully recover.
I am a bipolar person.I am also alcoholic. Talk about unmanageability.
DID I REALLY THINK I COULD RUN MY LIFE??? (chuckle...)
Sometimes I enjoy how I feel as a bipolar person and want to slack on my treatment for it. But I have a responsibility to myself and those around me to follow directions so that I can be sober and functional. People like me like to self-medicate (and many straight-up alcoholics or addicts tdo too.) But we in AA know that this is not the answer.
There is hope for ALL kinds of people.
Right now I am going through a divorce, going through some other legal issues, on probation, going to shitloads of meetings, spending time with Jamie (bf), spending time with sponsor and cosponsor, giving women rides to meetings, seeing my psychiatrist regularly, taking my medicine, working the steps and 4 absolutes, yada yada yada.... Plus I need to feed myself, take care of my home and pets, I paint, I play instruments, yada yada... this stuff all helps me with mental health and sobriety. BUT I am a little overwhelmed and still trying to find balance right now. My sleep issue has still not been resolved yet.
My doc wants me to apply for SSD (federal disability) temporarily until I am stabilized, have some sobriety under my belt again, and ready to "take on the world" in my profession (and this time, not as a workaholic, which is another roadblock I often have.) Right now my mood is stable, but my sleep has nowhere near stabilized. That's why my doc forbids me to go back to work yet (and I miss it!), because so far I can only sleep a couple of hours a night (3 or 4 and irratic- sometimes I get that 3-4 hours in the morning, sometimes late afternoon, occasionally at night), and if I try to start back at work and crash and burn and get fired or make a big mistake because I'm too tired, that would be horrible for my recovery and mental state right now. (I'm a surgical technician and if I f**k up it is all bad.) I want BADLY to oppose my doctor in all this, because in the past I haveused work as a way to say, "See? I'm FINE... I'm worthy... I'm CURED. But for ONCE I am going to follow his G.ood O.rderly D.irection to the letter.
On to being bipolar... and I am--- BIG time. People have beliefs about people with this illness that are often untrue. You would never know it if you saw me on a regular basis while I am doing the shit I should be doing (meds, counseling, AA). I am educated, talented, kind and outgoing. I don't freak out or have public meltdowns (at least not yet, by the Grace of God, and I feel very compassionately for the beautiful people who do, God bless them.) I'm a pretty well "behaved" bipolar, even in a mania. (My own family did not know I was in a mania the last time, and it was HUGE. I do live alone so they did not see me up all night.) My current doctors do not "dope me up" but use medicinal combinations in very low doses to make sure that I am highly functional and able to remain upbeat, but manageable. I used to be doped up long ago, when all they had was stuff like Depakote and Lithium, which had a reputation for that. Thank God for recent medical breakthroughs.... Key thing: I have to take my medication! Just like in AA, it works if you work it, and it won't if you don't. I made the mistake of going off last summer and the shit started to hit the fan. Go figure. I guess that's what we bipolars do on occasion, though. My psychiatrist is a godsend because he does not believe in doping people up. I am not a zombie like some unfortunate bipolars, and I am not a totally hyper fidgetty person, either. I tend toward being an overachiever to a fault rather than the depressive side (I am grateful for that, as depression is a horrible thing to endure.) My medications are for people who tend toward being more "manic" than depressed, which for me is not the ultra-fast chatter or whatever people think mania is, but that I stay up for days on end, and take on entirely too much. After I went off meds I went into what is called a very long mania (few months). I was BUSY all the time, andtook on far too much.
I was working full time and often overtime. Working on a second degree in college requiring 3,000 word research papers. Dealing with a divorce. Playing in a band. Going to a meeting every night. Giving women rides to those meetings. Staying up all night almost every night shopping online or painting. Excercising like an olympic athlete.... and conducting a casual relationship with a young man (he's still around now that I am past the relapse, it's still casual and occasional, and he's very supportive of my recoveries- plural.) This was far too much for an alcoholic/addict to take on. Let alone your average person! I could not, and did not sleep barely at ALL for months. I'm talking staying up for 3 days straight, sober, and functioning at a ridiculously high level. Then crash for 5 hours and do it all over again for 3 or 4 more days. I COULDN'T sleep. I lost 40 pounds (that I could definitely not AFFORD to lose, and I was eating all the time) in a few months (plus some of it was weight lost during relapse.) It was not physically or mentally possible for me to sleep in a mania.
I was told the reason I eventually picked up (first alcohol, then drugs) was to self-medicate. I probably started to "dip down" a little, toward a more depressive or at least "slower" side as far as energy (all that weight disappearing and not enough nourishment to sustain 3-day all-nighters will definitely deplete you of energy, and also that bipolar thing... "what goes up must come down.") I dipped mentally and emotionally, and bipolars like mania ("look at all the things I can do!"), and hate depression or "down swings" ("something's wrong with me! I can't function like I did last week/month!") So by picking up, we try to "stabilize" ourselves in a "happy" manic cycle, and alcohol and my drug of choice, cocaine, "stabilizes" a person artificially in a mania. Scary. And it definitely is not the right way to be "stabilized".
What could I have done instead?????
... I could have stayed on the medication I was on before, because it would mean that I was still seeing my doctor regularly, and he would have seen a shift and been able to help me at the early stages of the shift in illnesses.
...I could have recognized and told my sponsor or family that I was up all night again for days on end...
... could have told my sponsor to check in on Facebook (or even here) and see if I was posting at 4 and 5am, night after night.... (like I am tonight... sleep is still erratic)
... should DEFINITELY at least have gone to my doctor and told him that I was having trouble sleeping when the insomnia started...
... when I was diagnosed with a much milder mental illness in the past, and when diagnosed with this, I should have given my family a LIST of possible signs that I'm going up or down, because sometimes I am constitutionally incapable of "seeing" what is going on as a mania comes on, as the change is gradual.
... before I picked up that drink, I should have called someone regardless of my mental state.
Once I took a drink, and the drink took a drink, the drink took me... and then took me, drunk as hell, to the side of town where the coke is, and the alcohol and coke drove me until I was stopped by outside forces a couple of months later. Alcohol and coke laughed at me, abused me, and led me around for months with a ring in my nose, just like you lead a bull around. What was once strong had become helpless because of that ring. Cocaine then drove the vehicle with me in the trunk, and Alcohol sat on the trunk so I could not get out if Cocaine left us for awhile.
As I said, I was stopped by "outside forces"... The Police Force.I went to jail. I'm glad I got locked up for a few days, because I can't say whether I was close to death or not. I started to black out and pass out on Cocaine alone. I passed out and hit my head on the stove and then the floor at someone's house a day or so before. God let the police save my life.
If it had been any worse, I could have lost my certifications, and all that schooling and my ability to ever work again in my field would be down the tubes. But people live after losing careers. What I could have lost was my LIFE. At any moment I could have gotten bad coke, or done enough to make my heart say "I've had ENOUGH of this." Heart disease runs in my family. I am grateful today to just be walking and talking and listening to others talk about life. Jobs come and go. Life does not, once it's over, it's over.
Side note: My probation officer whom I first saw 2 weeks after my initial arrest, stated that she was not worried about me and meetings, that I knew very well how to do that and that I was already plugged in to AA with tremendous support. Her concern is that I continue to see my doctor and take my medication. She will be "checking in" with him frequently over the next year. Wise lady.
AA works if I work it. And if an illness prevents me from working AA's program and I can treat successfully treat that illness, it is my responsibility to treat that illness via the Steps.
This is how dually diagnosed people can SUCCESSFULLY work the first three steps.
Our Step One: Admitted we were powerless over alcohol, AND THAT I AM POWERLESS OVER BIPOLAR DISORDER, and that my life is unmanageable.
Our Step Two: Came to believe that a power greater than myself ALONG WITH THE POWER OF MY DOCTOR could restore me to sanity.
Our Step Three: Made a decision to turn my Will and my Life over to the care of God as I understand Him, AND TO THE CARE OF MY DOCTOR'S SUGGESTIONS.
It works if you work it. It won't if you don't.
(yup..... it is after 3:30am here.... I am still not "stabilized" and some nights are better than others as far as sleep. But I can't think of a more productive thing I could have done tonight after a fantastic meeting and reading some AA literature here at home, and prayer. I hope this post helps someone else out there.)
Good night! I think I will be able to sleep now....
__________________
~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
Just remember you aren't alone here Joni. You can and will remain very high functioning if you just follow simple suggestions and do what you have just outlined.
__________________
Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
I am a bipolar person.I am also alcoholic. Talk about unmanageability.
DID I REALLY THINK I COULD RUN MY LIFE??? (chuckle...)
Sometimes I enjoy how I feel as a bipolar person and want to slack on my treatment for it. But I have a responsibility to myself and those around me to follow directions so that I can be sober and functional. People like me like to self-medicate (and many straight-up alcoholics or addicts tdo too.) But we in AA know that this is not the answer.
There is hope for ALL kinds of people.
My stepdaughter was 10 years old when I met her. It wasn't long before I could see what an intelligent, thoughtful, and strong person was beneath that little girl who would fall to pieces any time she didn't get her way. I can't explain it... when I looked at her, I always saw the opposite of her behavior, and I prayed she would survive her teen years to become who she really was.
This happened at the age of 22, when she simply astounded me. I didn't see her for 6 months while she was in a rehab. The person who walked out of there was a different person. Someone who had a moment of clarity, and saw - from a jail cell - that it was her own choices in life, doing things her way, that had brought her to that moment.
My granddaughter the DramaGoddess is now 16. She is a lot like her mother, but very different as well. Some of her strengths are more obvious and manifested themselves at a young age... but she's bi-polar, and that's something that makes a little kid a dynamo and a lot of fun, but a teenager a walking disaster. I hope she has gotten through the worst of it. She has some amazing talent, but it's still unfocused. She gets interested in something and immerses herself in it for 3, 4 months, then just drops it for something else. I hope she will find something more lasting.
Both of them are my heroes. Anyone who does things I can't do, or I'm totally afraid to do, is a hero to me. They have both survived life crises at a young age that I never had to face... like being locked up, being mentally ill, and other things you can probably imagine. My life was sedate and trouble free in comparison. I used to think life wasn't fair to the ugly fat guys. But now I realize it's not fair to the beautiful girls either. The name of the game is survival... we're all standing on the other side now and we make an interesting photograph (especially since my hair is longer than both of theirs put together... LOL).
Yeah (me too), having multiple brain disorders is a super challenge---complicates each one separately and the whole "recovery" process is doubly-difficult. It is nearly impossible for me to function unless everything is in some degree of remission and reasonably under control...when one or the other falls out of balance my whole ship turns into a tilt-a-whirl! Very dangerous state to be in, and it is only due to the combination of the Twelve Steps AND decent health practicioners (and proper meds) that I am alive. And grateful! The biggest warning sign for me is when I begin to lose the sense of integration of hope and gratitude within my being and they start separating out into little turds of negativity and despair. As barisax sez, the name of the game is survival!
Thanks lee, I am coming to find that there are more dually diagnosed people than I thought! I always love your creative analogies :)
barisax, thank you for sharing those beautiful things. It is one of the most most heartfelt things I have read in a long time! Yes, we all suffer, it does not differentiate, that's for sure. "beautiful girls" can have some problems other people don't, as well. Such as they often have long histories of other people "befriending" them with insincerity, to get something out of them. That's why the phrase, "I don't get it, she has a ton of friends... how could she be sad and ddepressed?" Alone in a crowd of people.
long hair? that is super-cool!!!
__________________
~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
I agree with what has been posted by others here, that you seem to have a good handle on your nature, and you know what to do. Nothing like a nice long post to be able to get it all out when it's all pent-up like that, and at 3:30 in the morning to boot!
I applaud you and all of the others who deal with bipolar disorder and alcoholism simultaneously. Even though I'm not bipolar, I have to say that it's inspiring to me.
Much love to you, and everyone here. I'm very glad I found this community!
What could I have done instead?????
This is how dually diagnosed people can SUCCESSFULLY work the first three steps.