Anne's Story ...
My name is Anne and I'm an alcoholic. I'm also a recovering co-dependant, addicted to prescribed drugs, and have bipolar disorder. (That's the socially genteel name for manic depression). As someone said at a meeting yesterday "Boy! You really hit the jackpot!" For me these disorders have become blessings in my life but it was not always so.
I believe I was born genetically programmed to be vulnerable to depression and substance abuse. Events during my childhood pretty well guaranteed that major depressive illness would occur, especially since my kind, well-meaning parents were from the "stiff upper lip" school. You know - big girls don't cry, nice girls don't get angry. Of course for stiff upper lippers, it's desirable and fine to be happy, and to be a high achiever, but not okay to express negative emotions. To allow a child to express only a limited range of positive emotions while stuffing the rest is like expecting a wheel to work with only a few spokes in position. That wheel will surely buckle.
As a child, I felt different, somehow not good enough, neither pretty nor sporty nor popular. So childhood events and their attendant stuffed feelings guaranteed the onset of full blown depression at age 45. Many AAs know only too well the bleakness of this illness. Psychotherapy and medication were of limited help for me, though I persevered with both. I kept myself employed and rather doggedly pursued numerous personal development courses around Brisbane. Within a few years I was definitely the most improved person in Queensland. Attendance at ACOA meetings (Adult Children of Alcoholics) for a year was a real eye opener. No wonder my first Step 4 had been so infested with people pleasing, control freaking and caretaking. And honestly, my Step 8 list had hardly anybody on it because I'd spent my whole life people pleasing. If I harmed anybody they mightn't like me!
Early in my depressive illness I found the anaesthetic properties of alcohol numbed my depression more reliably than pills or a therapist. It certainly seemed like more fun. But what started out as a jolly servant became a tyrannical and untrustworthy master. I joined AA on 28-12-88 after most of Christmas went missing. But it was several years before I found permanent sobriety. In Singapore in 1993 a beaming Chinese Psychiatrist, Dr Y.C. Lim who specialised in drugs and alcohol and who preached nothing but AA/NA, diagnosed me as Bipolar and started me on Lithium. During meetings I would squirm while "How it Works" was being read. "...men and women who are constiututionally incapable of being honest with themselves..." What was my dishonesty? Well for a start, the idea of having to live sober freaked me out and I wanted none of it. I didn't want AA telling me "don't pick up the first drink." I wanted the first twelve or so plus a couple of nifty instructions for not picking up the thirteenth. You know, something useful like how to mitigate hangovers, which were my major problem.
I believe that some part of me knew that drug addiction was still on my agenda. Not addiction to street drugs, mind you, hanging out and shooting up in back alleys. Oh no! I got hooked on legitimate stuff, prescribed by a kindly Psychiatrist who believed my cunning yarns of insomnia when what I was angling for was some new way of getting spaced out. My most dazzling job of deception was on myself and I believed it all. Our Big Book warns us off sedatives and tranquillisers but I thought I was different. For me drugs proved more cunning, baffling and powerful than alcohol. Most of my "yets" happened from drugs. I lost my job, my husband and my children. I repeatedly dinged up my car. I ended up medically detoxing which was, for me, far more horrific than coming off alcohol. Then busting, then going cold turkey. Doing these alternately for six months.
Slowly it dawned on my narcotised brain that the only way to avoid the horrors of cold turkey was not to use in the first place! Friends in NA were generous in their love and support. For my first birthday there they treated me to a Barbie doll card and a peppermint mud cake (I'm a grandmother!) A few months into my clean time the worst of the clinicall depression simply went away as suddenly as it came, after 15 years. Those years of blind perseverance with psychotherapy, AA, personal development, NA and Buddist study and practice, paid off. I kind of identify myself with Bert on Sesame Street - that little guy is friends with the whole world like nobody else.
My husband and chilren returned and in my role of Nanna I have a great relationship with my grandchildren. (Children are uncannily accurate at spotting whether their Nanna is okay, or a bit weird.) I'm in the process of launching myself into two new part time careers. I believe my substance abuse is the tip of the iceberg. Putting down the drink or drug cures about 3% of the problem for me, addressing the various forms of dysfunctionality is the other 97%. I believe the 12 Steps do this brilliantly. As a Buddhist I've made my personal adaptations of "God" and "Higher Power" and they work. Being Bipolar is a blessing because of the wonderful creative highs, provided I check them out. Alcoholism and addiction, even codependency, are blessings because of our beautiful 12 Step programme which challenges us so greatly, and because we have the love and friendship of each other. Various types of dysfunctionality as well as actual or potential substance abuse are evident throught my family and their partners. Dysfunctional people have the knack of choosing one another. Does this mean we'rea bunch of fruit loops? Probably yes. But we're LOVABLE fruit loops.
My message to anyone who has ongoing life problems is "Hang in there! Each of us must discover our own truth. But it's there to be found if you keep looking." With love to all, in the hope that something in my story will be what someone needs to hear.
Sunshine Anne.