[nandm]

I too have fought with depression nearly all my life although I did not recieve any official diagnosis' until I was in early adulthood. By then I was well started on my drinking career. My experience with anti-depressants is that while drinking they did not do much but keep me from being too suicidal. But they did not relieve my depression. I was not on any anti-depressants when I first got sober but did seek treatment at about 8 months sober. I have been on several different SSRI's since then and the diagnosis changed from depression to bi-polar type II. Today my depression/bi-polar are controlled well with the medications I take. I also work with a psychologist as well who feels that part of my drinking was subconciously self medicating my mental health issues (depression/bi-polar/PTSD).

I guess all that is to say that although my depression got worse at a point in my sobriety I do not credit sobriety with it getting worse I think that once sober I needed a more effective way to medicate my illness'. AA did help with my situational depression that my drinking had created but it did not help with the chemical depression.