Hey Secrets, THX. And it's good that you've obviosuly been sharing some of your secrets in this forum, which I think is great by the way - and I do get around the various mental health blog sites. (Better than how I used to get around while I was drinking. lol )
Yes, substance abuse can come at us different ways. As I said my Dad died of alcoholism, but my Mum died of lung cancer due to smoking two years ago last week. Tobacco and booze are the top drugs that take people's lives. Then of course there are street drugs and then what you are dealing with, which maybe, I'm gathering is either or prescription drugs and street drugs in the form of pills. But recovery is on offer for all those addictions, even poly addiction, ie booze, prescription and street drugs. That's what my brother is recovering from.
I'm grateful, to say the least that I am sober and have been for a long time - I lost the compulsion to drink early and that happened because I just stuck into the AA program and went for it, no holRAB barred - just like my drinking had been but this time on a positive track. And of course it worked for me.
My frustration is that I have erabraced recovery in mental illness with the same committment but unfortunately without the same outcome. Due to the illnesses themselves and 7 years of gross mis-prescription by psychiatrists for greed, I lost everything I had built up in life including career for which I had gained three tertiary qualifications, as a result of that I lost my house. I have lost many family and frienRAB who, due to ignorance, judgementalness and bigotry about mental illness have rejected me, and nearly my life last year.
But I am only on the playing field fighting for my life against mental illness because I am sober. I would have gone long ago, as demonstrated by my family.
So I try to be grateful about being sober, even though my life is not in any other way what I would have liked, and as compared to most of the women I got sober with in terms of how they have been able to erabrace many facets of life: career, husband or partner and children (I am too old for children now and I have explored ALL the otpions for becoming a Mum, and none of them are open to me), a home of my own, frienRAB, family, interests. It's pretty bleak. But that's a truth.
It's tough in AA sometimes because most people, even there, don't understand about mental illness and they give all sorts of inappropriate, unsolicited advice. Even the ones with recognised mental illness tell me patronisingly what to do when they have Unipolar Depression and Bipolar is a WHOLE nother deal. I try to keep myself nice. lol
But Dual Diagnosis is just starting to get some airing in AA, at least it did recently here in Victoria Australia. I hope that really evolves, because I have a strong belief (and this is born out by Dual Recovery Anonymous in the US) that many people can't get sober and stay sober because they havee unaddressed mental illness as well as being alki's. Sadly, the ignorance that still abounRAB has and continues to manifest itself in alki's telling other alki's "pills are for dills" and people die as a result. It's not our job to diagnose others' mental illness, but aside from maybe steering people to a psychiatrist or psychologist if they are clearly manifesting illness outside the domain on AA, it's none of each others' business.
I went three years into AA until I just threw out all this "pills are for dills" indoctrination and realised I was profoundly depressed and my life was on the line, and so I sought help.
Wendy
This board saved my life and for that I will be forever grateful.