This is a story about counterintuitive results…
Conventional wisdom tells us that sobriety is the route to salvation. If you’re being treated for substance dependency, most approaches are abstinence-based. But what if these approaches are totally wrong?
I had ‘too much‘ to drink last night, but yet this morning I was on time to work for the first time in ages. I was also on top form during a 2 hour meeting that was highly pressured and intense. Clearly my work performance, my productivity, was improved by alcohol, rather than hindered.
Alcohol works for me as a substance that I can titrate the dose of to control my mood fluctuations. When I quit drinking last year, my anxiety levels became unbearable after 30 days sober, and I had to go into hospital and be on suicide watch. I then went hypomanic and quit a well paid job, and did a bunch of other mad shit, before finally relapsing onto hard drugs and slashing my forearms with a razor blade, after 101 days sober. Hardly an encouraging result.
The fact of the matter is: my job is boring and shit. My life is empty, unfulfilling and stressful. Of course I need something to help me cope with an intolerable daily existence. How the hell am I supposed to get through the crap I’m going through without a chemical crutch.
Just about everybody you know has some kind of substance that they depend upon to cope with modern life. Maybe it’s antidepressants, sleeping pills, tranquillisers, opiates. Maybe it’s cigarettes, tea, coffee, coca-cola, Red Bull, beer, wine, spirits. Maybe it’s cannabis, cocaine, amphetamines, heroin, MDMA, GHB, M-CAT or any one of the myriad other legal and illegal drugs. Humans love drugs.
Clearly, I know what my ‘drug of choice‘ is, and I know that there’s no way that I can use it in moderation. Thankfully, alcohol is not something that I’ve struggled to live without, except where life choices that are forced upon me – such as having to work a shitty job – demand that I find some kind of coping mechanism.
I don’t have any kids or pets, so I get no natural endorphins. I don’t have any time or money to pursue sports or go to the gym, so I get no natural endorphins and adrenalin boosts. My job is dull as ditch water, so I don’t even get any kind of thrill from my work.
But, good news! I’ve found a formula that worked for me for years & years & years & years: self-medication with alcohol.
Yes! Hurrah for alcohol. It kept the lid on my hypomanic episodes for years.
Basically, the reality that we must all face up to, is that modern life is so fucking shit that we’ve all got to be drugged up and drunk to get through it.
I could get my cat back from my parents, and get some plants to water and care for. I can soon get a car and some new kites, and go and get my adrenalin and endorphin fix at the beach. However, without those things, I’m forced into puting chemicals into my body, to allow me to keep my shitty job and keep functioning in this crazy society that values corporate profits more than mental health.
My life really sucks, but I’d rather drink a few bottles of wine and keep my highly lucrative contract, so I can escape the rat race at some point, rather than have another repeat of last year’s failed experiment.
Tags: #alcohol #addiction #drugs #mentalhealth #bipolar #depression #suicide #hospital
Comments
5 responses to “Alcohol as a Mood Regulator”
I was a full blown alcoholic up to Dec 10th 2006, a litre of vodka a day and 4 cans of special brew. It was hell on earth. I stopped drinking without help and went through more grief for a few months, I then did AA and switched to weed, my consumption of that went mental and paranoia kicked in, I switched to legal highs, methedrone, 6apb, flubromazapam then 1plsd. I am still alcohol sober and celebrate 10 years this year, I to switch my addictions. I’m now relatively happy, I trip once every couple of weeks, eat well, sleep well and don’t suffer from too much anxiety etc. Self medicating is the key.
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Congrats, Swimmy. Nice to hear a success story. You don’t hear too many success stories from people who are just expected to white knuckle it through life with nothing to help them cope.
I concur; life (modern or otherwise) is simultaneously too much and too little, to get through without some sort of chemical crutch.
I know a guy, he thinks he doesn’t use anything (although he drinks probably every fortnight, and sometimes 2 or 3 nights in a week, AND gets borderline violent when he’s angry, says things he doesn’t mean, and then pretends he didn’t get a kick out of losing his temper like that) and he’s called me an opiate addict for using (legally-prescribed, mild opiates) for chronic back pain. For clarity: this is not something that’s getting me high–this is a dose of medication that I have been on intermittently for years, which I have never exceeded the maximum dose of, and which I ordinarily take about half the maximum dose of (this is the max. dose as prescribed to me–I believe it can be prescribed in higher doses, as well).
However, because the pills have a regulatory effect on my mood (including allowing me to come off my long-term antidepressants, at least some of the year) he reckons I’m an addict. I mean, maybe I am–I’m pretty damn happy to not have pain shooting down the backs of my legs every day. Maybe I’m “addicted” to the cessation of continual moderate-to-severe pain….
I don’t think there’s any difference between me medicating for sciatica, and seeing a slight mood lift and distinct calming of my moods, and someone else having a drink (or 10) for whatever reason, and spending the next day on an even keel. It’s something I can’t always get other people to understand; but sometimes, all you need to lift your mood is a break from the pain. Doesn’t matter what type of pain it actually is.
Keep on keeping on, and thanks for this post.
Thanks, Amanda. I think we need to break the stigma of self-medication. I really don’t see any difference from somebody who lives their whole life and is ‘successful’ in their career, but has some wine to unwind in the evenings, and has coffee to perk themselves up in the mornings, versus somebody who’s on antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs. Whether their drugs of choice are prescribed, obtained legally or whether they’re street drugs even, we’re all just trying to find what works for us, to get through this thing called “life”, and nobody is getting out alive anyway!