Posted by MB on October 21, 2001, at 11:39:15
In reply to Re: addiction and recovery » MB, posted by Krazy Kat on October 20, 2001, at 22:38:01
< snip >
> Re: self-medication - there are both - there are people who want to be high all the time. There are people who want to alleviate the pain they feel due to these illnesses. Do you see the difference?
< snip >I hear what you're saying, and, when you put it that way, I do see that there would be a difference between someone who just wanted to be high all the time and someone who just wanted to alleviate the pain they feel do to illness. And I think in some cases, the difference might be that cut and dry. My case doesn't seem to fit nicely into either category, though. When I drank and did drugs, people used to ask me why I wanted to be so "f***ed up all the time," and the truth was that I didn't. I would tell them that if there was a drug that alleviated depression as well as booze or heroin (in the short term, at least) but that didn't alter my senses, I would definitely choose the one that didn't alter my senses. People couldn't understand. I didn't drink and do drugs so I could stumble around and pass out. Those effects were just unfortunate side effects. I drank and did drugs because they gave me temporary relief from the horrible depression and anxiety I suffered/suffer from. The only problem was that drugs (especially alcohol) would send me into a really bad mood cycle. I'd drink a beer, feel totally on top of the world like God was flowing right trough my heart, and fifteen minutes later, I'd crash into the worst, suicidal depression ever. Of course another beer would take that depression away again, the second time for only ten minutes, etc, etc, until I was TRASHED!! So I did want to be drunk all the time. But *not* because I liked slurring my words and stumbling and passing out...and *not* because I enjoyed distortion of the senses...but because I thought I was getting somewhere in the illusory process of chasing depression away by consuming larger and larger amounts of alcohol. I have a friend who smokes enormous amounts of pot...not because he has mental illnes, but because he likes getting wasted. He can't quit. I think he is an addict. Then there's my dad. He has anxiety problems. He used to drink too much. Then he was given Xanax, he quit drinking, he got counsiling, and he's doing better. He no longer drinks or takes Xanax. When he was drinking, I would say it was purly self-medication, not addiction. I don't think I fit into either category. I wouldn't have used drugs if I hadn't been suffering with mental illness, but I wasn't simply a self-medicater like my dad. He'd drink until the anxiety went away and then quit. I, on the other hand, because of the mood cycle alcohol would set into motion, drank until I passed out. So in that sense, I was very much an alcoholic. Maybe I'm just both. Maybe I need to quit trying so much to put myself in a nicly defined and labeled box and just concentrate on what makes me feel better. It's been two years since I've had a drink, and I don't feel better. I'm not on medication because that didn't seem to help either. I'm going to get a SPECT scan to see if they can find something that the other doctors missed. I hope the SPECT *scan* doesn't turn out to be a SPECT *scam*. BLAH BLAH BLAH thinks for letting me ramble. I can't shut up.
poster:MB
thread:12188
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20011015/msgs/12787.html