I really used to like a sympathetic doctor or nurse. One that would listen to my side of the story, one that understood I had many problems that caused my strange behaviour.
Like many others I have met in AA, there was a certain attraction in having a more interesting diagnosis than alcoholism. people seemed to be quite judgemental about drunks, but very understanding towards people with mental illnesses. The other bonus about mental illness was the interesting sounding medication that sometimes went with it.
The courts had placed me in a mental asylum for my drinking.A kind nurse oneday told me about a "frontal lobe condition" which was a thing that caused mood swings. I grabbed that one with both hands. Here was the chance I had been waiting for to prove I didnt have alcoholism at all, I was just insane, and they could medicate that.
I couldn't find a symathetic doctor though. I repeatedly asked for a brain scan to prove my point, but they just smiled. They didn't understand. In actual fact they saved me from developing another addiction.
At a meeting the other day I was talking to a retired doctor who knew all about that asylum, and he reminded me of what that place was really all about. It was isolated for a reason. The alcoholic ward was the only one that wasn't locked. The rest of the place was for those permanently and/or criminally insane, and they were all locked up.
The reality of my temporal lobe argument was that I was trying to convince the doctors that I was criminally insane, and had I succeeded, I would have been locked up.
How's that for denial? I'm so glad I didnt get what I wished for.