Toots, this time of year can be very challenging dealing with SAD. It has affected me for decades. It used to just hit me near the shortest days of December, but it got to the point that it began hitting me in September and lasted through April. I dealt with it by sitting under a Day Light every morning and taking SJW supplements. I also really ramped up my drinking, which of course, only made things worse. Only now can I see the bitter irony in that drinking mass quantities of a depressant because I was depressed only made my depression darker and deeper.
I am feeling so much better now that I have a little sobriety under my belt. I have not yet felt the need to use the lamp or take supplements. I am happy beyond belief that I am not waking up every morning with a black cloud hanging over me.
Of all the gifts that not drinking has brought me, not having to slog through every day excruciating minute to minute until I could begin drinking is the greatest.
I feel the relationship between alcohol and depression is not given the attention it should. The two viciously feed off of each other, no matter which one came first. I feel so many people, myself included, wasted months and years of our lives not living a full life being saddled with these issues and not being able to confront either one until hitting a personal rock bottom. It's hard to get support for either one from others. You can't tell someone who is depressed to "Just snap out of it", just as you can't tell an alcoholic to "Just have one or two." The mindset is incredibly hard to imagine if one has not gone down either one of these awful paths.
Thanks Toots for reminding me how grateful I am of the many benefits that not drinking has brought to me. Sometimes, I lose the remembrance of how terrible things were in the everyday bustle of our lives.
Life is wonderful and full of possibilities. Just never lose sight of from where we came.
Have a great day all!