Pete55

I have been hearing a lot about depression, and I am not sure what it is, what the symptoms are, but I have had much of what I read and heard. "voices", "stare at the wall all day", "pacing", "thinking" etc etc etc.

One of my fears was shrinks from a very early age. My dad wanted to have me "analized" because my behavior did not seem normal at fuctions as a child.
"Not normal" would mean, getting into fights, bored, stealing and hanging out with those who had cigarettes, then that spilled out to joy riding in stolen cars and thinking nothing of it.
I tried music lessons, but was to impatient to learn anything, yet I really wanted to learn. Due to my toy breaking history, my dad did not buy me drums.
Toys as a child did not ever last long. I know of cousins who have their childhood toys as collections, some now sold off to e-bay.
I had boxes and boxes of Made in Japan battery operated 60's robot toys, now worth heaps on e-bay. I would take them apart and smash the toys with a hammer when the battery went flat, then steal my neighbors toys and bury them.
So I learnt to lie and done a very darn good job of it.
All this type of behavior ended at 14.
Alcohol and street drugs was the "new game in town" and the rock sounds of the 70's.
I never seem to grow out of it, even in marriage my ex wife, would often say, "one minute you look ok, next it's as if a train had you"...I would say, " I'm thinking", and we would get into a argument because I will never come to the end of what I want to think about if she keeps butting in.
Cos she asked, "what are you thinking about", and if I thought about what I was thinking about, it was nothing to talk about, it never made any sense.
Gambling with number crunching computers seemed to help, not the gambling, but the number crunching. I was able "think" in numbers as the escape.
I became very good at it, learnt skills with excel etc etc. But made no money from it, just the silent joy of numbers, and obsession, my silent escape!

I could write, I knew by then I had some sort of problem, so I would write in poetic form and actually looked forward into depression, and spured it on by smoking more green. It was like, "bring it on". I was never afraid.

The voices, I simply listened to them, and trained my mind, a set of "rules" to not go there. I knew some of the thoughts were not of my making, I understood the mind can be programmed by external media and people all around us. But I never seemed to have my own point of view.
If I did have an idea, it seemed the "normals" made money from it.

This went on and on, and on..., I knew by then I don't have a normal thinking process and I was adult enough to not trust medication, I just let it go.

Today, I have recovered from alcohol and other substances.
I have been to NA to sort out non alcohol issues during the Step 4 process and am very grateful for NA, for just being there when I needed a short stint.
Thank you NA.

However, when I try to do AA 12 Step work, majority of people mention they are on medication for depression, and I simply cannot relate to that.
I do not know what to say to them.

I still get these depressing moments, voices and "committees", but have learnt to simply push it aside and focus on something constructive, and they go away sooner or later.

I now have musical instruments instead of a pen, or a hammer.

Yet the ideal sobriety is no alcohol, no street drugs or medication,
is it or is it not?

LoftyIdeals

Pete...congrats on your sobriety. I think all types of recovery start with that. My demons, aside from substance abuse, are depression and ADD. I was diagnosed as a child, and started at age 9 on Ritalin, some 39 years ago. I believe that is how I learned to abuse drugs; it took awhile for my dosage to be adjusted, so I became accustomed to the speed/coke affect of the drug when dosages were too high. Later, in jr high school, I discovered pot and recognized a similar buzz, and there begins the love story.

I was taken off Ritalin at age 11 due to a move and a doctor that didn't believe in ADD. I quickly went south in my social life, making friends with the other unstables around me.

The reason I bring this up is because I identify with much of your post in my own ADD behavior. ADD/ADHD is often accompanied with a dual diagnosis, or a multiple diagnosis. I would seek mental health counseling to get to the bottom of it, if I were you.

Today, I am on an antidepressant and ADD meds.. Ritalin again. This after over two decades without treatment, although I always knew I was "different". I have read a book called "Driven to Distraction" that I recommend. It's written by a doctor, some believe the best in the ADD field, named Edward Hallowell. I was affirmed in my own condition when reading it, just as I am in my addictions reading here.

PLEASE...don't think I'm saying you have ADD. I am just recognizing myself in much of what you say.

Good luck. Thanks for your post!

Zencat

My ideal sobriety includes treatment for my depression along with my other mental illness and of course abstinence from harmful substances. I take psych med's because they help me get to the point where I can be able to do the other work, like working a treatment plan to stay mentally stable.

Before I was diagnosed with mental illness, I was recovering from drug addiction. Living sober with only an addiction recovery plan, I became increasingly mentally ill. Eventually I became non-functioning. I was sober but all I wanted to do was kill myself. That's not living, its more like being dead and waiting for my body to catch-up.

As helpful as self-help groups are, as they help millions of people recover from alcohol/drugs, they are no replacement for medical conditions. I know from experience. To be partial recovered may be fine for some, but I need full recovery and that includes medical treatment for mental illness. I see that like having a drug problem and diabetes. Sure life is good without active drug addiction, but living with untreated diabetes is way no fun.

Pete55

Thanks,
I ID with many other's symptoms that are on medication and I am not, nor ever have been because I never asked to be.


What I'm trying to ask, when doing 12 Step work, how does one go about communicating with those who are medicated, does it go on forever or do they get off the meds. sooner or later?
Is this a chronic condition?

Pete55

Yes, I had those passing thoughts, maybe it's the books I have read, before I knew about AA, the Steps, recovery programs and people around me as friends back in the 70's, their work was medicine students. I was doing a trade, but we partied out of work. It was there I asked all sorts of questions, we touched upon suicide, I wanted to know what they were learning about it. Not that I wanted to suicide at the time, but knew of others, ( we were in our late teens )
and I knew earlier on in life, some would socilize and would seemingly brag and show, " I tried to cut my wrists and rah rah rah", to me that was ludicrous, when I aksed some of these people why, their reasons did not fit the "weight" of taking your own life over it.
Before I met these people with these ideas, I never had such thoughts. Yes, I get depressed, when my mind looks for "solutions" and my memory goes to "suicide", I disregard that, I look for my own original idea, and then place a "rule" in my thinking, some of those rules go along the lines of not wanting to shame my family", "not wanting to give some others the satisfaction that I am not around anymore", and ultimately, my children, I could not possibly leave that as an example.
In other words, I think my way out of depression, knowing for me it came in waves, so I would simply ride the wave. Admittedly it is not easy, takes a lot of time, and wasted days in isolation. Eventually I come out on top.
Ok, what did I do when I worked? I had a self supporting job where I was able to work alone...suited me fine till injuries caught up. Even then I refuse to this day pain killers and surgery.
Paradoxialy, street drugs were "acceptable", somehow I survived all this, past 50, when it was time to "let go" of old thinking and try to now drink moderately. That I discovered, was never going to be possible, and never has been and never will be.
That is when the depression took me to a journey in my mind, to a place, we term as "rock bottom", the end of the line. Suicide made sense all of a sudden, but from my own circumstances. "The party was over", booze/drugs etc etc were no longer desirable, even though I had much of it, I stared at it, and became defiant, and strangely enough, admitted that "I was wrong".
I don't know how or why that thought came. Then I remembered a "pact" I made one time, "I want to live". This "pact" was significant, I knew I was different. It also coincided with a historical movie I watched and I then had to make a choice. In the movie, the ancient person was given a choice, "either become famous and have a short life, or live in obscurity and enjoy a long life".
I chose the latter. In my rock bottom, I went back to that "pact" and said, "you promised me a long life, is this living? is this what the "long life" means, to lose everything?"
Then there was silence and thoughts kept on this journey, deep in the mind, ( no drugs, no grog, 2 weeks after the last black-out drunk day)
I had choice to make, either continue where I was going, to the bottle, or find out why I black-out when I drink"
My mind searched and searched, pacing and pacing for another 2 days.
Cursing "God", not believing there is a God, then believing again there is, to ask what then is the purpose of all this, question questions and more qustions.
Not answering fone if anyone would care to ring, realizing no one cared anyway, if I died of natural causes, the only way they would know is if the rent would not be paid, and that was 2 weeks away, then another month to send in a search party!
So, I was screwed. A full bottle of Grappa stared at me, I stared back at it, and visulalized a "jeanie", the clear alcohol was of no use anymore. I could drink it, but for what reason?
Some how, AA came to mind. This thought came in absolute silence, was not thinking of anything anymore. Only the thought of me and that "jeanie" in the bottle of Grappa. It was like, "I'll will beat you to the punch one day and will control you" Then I rang AA...
True story...
That is why I cannot relate to those who are on meds. and tell me all that I have have endured yet survived with out meds.

Today, do I get these depressing moments ?
No, The last time I had a bout of real depression was during Step 4 and had to let go of old drinking envirionments, 150%. We would try watching movies, she would drink booze, I would drink coffee, impossible to live that way.
That was the first time I felt real pain, and from that came humility, and then recovered.

Dee74

I have physical conditions for which I need to take meds...I have also taken anti-depressants from time to time, although I'm not on them now.

I take them to be the best person I can be and to have the greatest quality of life I can (I have cerebral palsy amongst other things)

I know the difference between things I need to take, and things that I used to take for a buzz. My conscience is clear and my recovery maintenance is rigourous

I'm not in AA...perhaps I missed something....but I don't recall anything in any thing I've read about sponsors be required or encouraged to give medical or medication advice....in fact I've read the opposite....

I'm really glad you were able to overcome whatever problems you had Pete, but it's not fair or right to say everyone else can do that because you did.

Noone's experience is totally universal.

I really think this is a personal issue between people and their doctors Pete

D

Zencat

I can only speak for myself so...when I was in the depths of untreated major depression (MD) I didn't care to communicate with people or care about anything for that matter. So if someone with untreated major depression (UMD) is communicative, that there is a big milestone IMO. But still with the MD symptoms I had, being able to concentrate and organize my thoughts was impossible.

See I was trying to work a 12 step program with UMD, but I was unable to focus, care, understand, communicate, think and have the any real desire to give a f*ck. So I don't see how effective it is to work with people that are in the condition I was in with UMD.

I think its a blessing that people like myself have medical treatment available so we can actually function well enough to do step work. As for:
All is possible. I know people that have a mental illness and go off there meds because the med side-effects became more of a hindrance to there functioning than the meds helped to manage the symptoms. Some stay on the meds indefinitely. I know someone that goes on and off the meds frequently.

My condition is chronic, it has persisted for a long, long time.

Pete55

Thanks,
This is a sensitive area...If someone was to ask me to be their sponsor, and the sponsee asks me about their medicals, I have one thing to say, "why did you ask me to be your sponsor" ?
And if they persist and say, "but you don't take meds", then my reply would be, "well, that is the ideal, not the rule and need to work with your doctor, not me, all I can do is take you through the steps"....Hypotheticaly speaking.


Thanks, that puts it in perspective.


Thanks Zencat
It brings back to mind what we spoke about in those late 70's days.
Those friends are no longer around, so can't ask anyone.
Similar to what you are saying, so I understand a bit better now.



Thanks

IO Storm

I am in AA, am bipolar, take my meds...and see my pdoc regularly..every month. it works for me...

NYCDoglvr

I have two diseases: alcoholism and major depression, and they are treated separately. A shrink has saved my life and AA is where I connect to people who think like I do.

In AA's own literature it says "no one should play doctor". To me that means finding a sponsor who doesn't try to give me advice on medication or has also dealt with it in sobriety.

Once in a while I can get very low, go into what I call "depression think" ("the only option is suicide, I'm a piece of garbage, bla bla bla) and the quickest way to get rid of it is get to a meeting. After an hour I'm "restored to sanity"; don't know why it works this way, but it does.

What I've found