Month: November 2013

A bit about booze

As the title of the blog suggests booze has played a part in my life, although it does’t now on a physical basis it definitely still does on a mental basis!! I still miss booze a lot, but I know I cant handle it. We will speak about booze a lot as we move forward, if you have read the “About Me” page you will know I was fortunate enough to be in BUPA through a company I worked for for many years.

I spent a month in The Woodbourne Priory, so basically for an excess of about £250 I received £15000 worth of residential treatment, mainly group therapy. A lot of the therapy was based around “The 12 Steps”, I struggled a lot with these steps for reasons that don’t really matter at the moment but eventually I got Step 1: –

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable

Step 1 for me is very important, I miss alcohol, I love alcohol but I cannot go back there.

I don’t know if my abuse of booze is why I am now labelled with “Clinical Depression” don’t get me wrong I am happy to be labelled as it makes sense of so much. I think this is an important point, I have been soba for 10 years and I feel if I went back to booze it would destroy me, one phrase I got from AA is “I have another drink in me but I don’t have another recovery in me”. With this in mind a few months ago when I was changing my medication from Cipralex to Sertraline I was a complete mess and wanted to die and this thought came into my head “Start drinking it will ease the pain and it will give you the strength to kill yourself”.

I’m going to leave it there, but please you HAVE to know if you want to give up booze IT IS POSSIBLE, it’s painful but it is possible.

Intro Post

Hi, check out the “About Me” page for a little about me. I thought I would start with some sort of disclaimers: –

1. I will contradict myself, if you suffer with mental illness I assume your thoughts and feelings change on a regular basis as well?

2. Everything I post will be honest, some things you may find disagreeable, that’s cool we can’t agree on everything, sometimes I don’t agree with myself!!

3. I am currently coming out (slowly) of a horrendous episode of depression, I think for the first time (I could be wrong?) the phrase Clinical Depression is being used, so obviously everything I do is crap, I am a waste of space, and I have had lots of suicidal thoughts.

I may have to add to these disclaimers later on because I can’t remember the others I had thought of (memory and concentration do not exist at the moment and every time I try to write thoughts down they make no sense, again if you suffer with a mental illness I assume you know exactly what I am saying?)

I think the last paragraph sums up why I decided to do a blog, to help me and hopefully to help others. For me “is what I am experiencing the same as others?” and For others “that guy thinks the same as me” (I hope so anyway).

I’ve just remembered another disclaimer: –

4. I will be using “politically incorrect” words like “Bonkers”, “Mad”, “Loony”, I mean no offence this is how I deal with it (right or wrong!!). For years I have called my antidepressants “Loony pills” have considered myself “Bonkers” and refer to myself as “As mad as a box of frogs”. I know people will disagree but I personally think we should use words that others use, to take back the words that are used to hurt us. Stigma is a big discussion point and so it should be, there shouldn’t be a Stigma about Mental Illness, it’s just an illness. Personally I have a Stigma against myself for my Mental Illness (not sure that sentence makes sense??) I fight daily with the turmoil in my head “am I ill or am I just lazy and pathetic?”

I think that will do for now, I hope you managed not to get bored I do tend to talk a lot of bollox, soz.