[shutterbug]

i agree with the meditation and with letting go. Both have often worked well for me.

I also agree with what HistoryTeach wrote about the dual-diagnosis stuff.

You said the alcoholism initially developed rather quickly over just a few months. With everything i've researched about both mental illness and addictions....i'd bet that period of time was when your first major bipolar episode was hitting you. I'm a bipolar II and mine first dropped a bomb on my life with my first major depressive episode in college around 1996 or 97 (i'm in my 3rd right now).

There are often debates about which comes first...the addiction or the mental illness. I believe they both hit together basically because the addiction grows along side the mental illness as an attempt to escape how bad we feel (whether we realize it or not).

Roughly 80 % of bipolars also have addiction issues. (Personally, I think it's more)

I've been working my tail off over the past 4.5 years to find meds that will help keep me out of the depression and help keep me from hitting this current episode #3. Pills help a little if you finally find the right kind, dose or combination, but they don't help near enough with those of us that are so depressed that we start thinking "what's the use."

I'd suggest googling "major depression" and read about it a little. Sometimes it hits a person only once or twice in their lives, but it tends to come back every several years. I'm guessing that your last major episode is what helped you initially get sober 8 years ago....and that what you've been struggling with this past year is another episode.

I don't know what state you are in or if you have any kind of health insurance coverage or anything right now, but after me realizing i was in my 3rd major episode and trying day treatment for a month and still being worse....I demanded my pdoc recommend an ECT doctor.

I will have my 21st shock treatment on Friday (the 13th). Many people only need the initial series of 5-8 treatments for them to find themselves back to normal happiness. It's like flipping a switch! It really works great and the only painful part is getting the I.V. put in before each treatment (and then you're just a little groggy and sore after).

i was doing wonderful when I was going through my initial series and then we slowed to 1 treatment a week. Then I was back at my job and when we went down to only 1 maintenance treatment a month is when my depression has started hitting my hard again now.

My point is this: ECT is safe, virtually pain-free, and the ONLY treatment proven truely successful at treating severe depression (and other things). It is so safe that it is most often prescribed to the elderly and pregnant women, who it wouldn't be good to try med therapy - as meds could affect the baby or may not interact well with meds many elderly are already taking.

It's even been recently discovered that about 50 % of those diagnosed with Alzhiemer's are actually suffering a mental illness that is easily and quickly treated with often just 1 series of ECT treatments. But instead, most suffer for years and years by being given a type of meds for Alzhiemer's that has been found to often permanently damage the person's brain.

Anyway, I'll shut up now. lol

Sorry So Long,
Jenna