Sane

Just picked up a book by one of my favorite authors. Marya Hornbacher. She has written three books: Madness, Wasted, and Sane.

In Madness, she talks about her fight with bipolar disorder. She's an incredible wreck most of the time, in and out of institutions, ruining marriages, etc. The rest of the time she's an incredible business woman, writing tons of articles and teaching. She's quite an incredible force. Her descriptions of her manic episodes were so right on, that she made me feel manic just reading it. Her depression was so low that I never thought she'd get out of it.

And then I saw this book: Sane - Mental Illness, Addiction, and the 12 Steps. She made it! And look, now she's where I am! Amazing. I've heard that in AA a lot of people think taking medication for mental disorders is weak, or just like taking other drugs. What they don't understand is that mental illness is a disorder of the brain chemistry, often running in families and exacerbated by dysfunctional family situations. It seems the majority of people with mental illness turn to addiction to deal with their problems. That's why they call it self-medicating.

Taking medication you need, just like if you were a diabetic, has no shame in it. As a mentally ill person, you need those meds to keep you as close to sanity as you can get. They serve their purpose, and should not be demonized.

So Marya created another book to help the mentally ill person through the steps, applying it to our addiction, but helping us understand our own concepts of sanity. When it came to step two, believing a higher power could restore us to sanity, "Many of us balked." I sure did. What was sanity? Had I ever been there? How would I be able to tell?

I'm hoping this book will be as great as her others, and give me a little more insight into the program and sanity itself.