Will the bipolar calm down?

"Alcohol exposure during adolescence alters the body's ability to respond to stress in adulthood....problems regulating stress are associated with behavioral and mood disorders, the findings may indicate that binge drinking in adolescence leads to increased risk of anxiety or depression in adulthood."

I began drinking and doing drugs when I was 15. I had depression issues before that, but wasn't diagnosed bipolar until a little bit after I started doing drugs. I dealt with the stress in my life by doing drugs, and believe me, there was a lot of stress in my life. I hear people say all the time that they used to think, "If you had my problems you'd drink too!" I suppose that's what I was saying, without saying that.

I don't know when I started having panic attacks, but I don't think it was until college. I know I was a mess, then, but I also wasn't on medication except drinking. I did the occasional drug, but not really. I smoked, too. I kept dealing with the stress by drinking. Every time something went wrong, I got drunk.

So in my adulthood, I have trouble dealing with stress. Is it because of that early drug use? Is it because I've gotten into the habit of dealing with stress with substances? I've been under a lot of stress lately, and haven't dealt with stress with substances. I've been able to just deal with it (with the help of cigarettes and diet Coke). I wonder if just breaking that habit will help me deal with stress. I wonder when I break the cigarette habit, if that will help me deal with stress?

I wonder a lot whether the drugs I took made me bipolar instead of just depressed. I did take an anti-depressant and went manic, which is a good indicator of being bipolar, but could it have been exacerbated by my drug and alcohol use? I'm hoping that the longer I'm sober the less drugs I need to be on. I'm hoping it will calm down the bipolar.

Marya Hornbacher talks about still being on meds, and talks about how you'll still be bipolar without the drugs. I think that's true: It will still be there. She had a severe case of bipolar, which I don't have, but I know it will still be something I'll have to deal with, just maybe lesser.

Bacon makes me happy

"Picture step one as the moment when you open your hands and let all the deceptions, denial, and shame, and fear drop to the ground. And then walk away." Sane, Marya Hornbacher.

I really like this. Admitting complete defeat and powerlessness over our lives doesn't mean we are out of control, like our mental illness has taken over again. It just means accepting that the way we're doing it isn't working. It's taking all those things and letting them go, and then walking away.

Another thing she mentions is that we have to be free of the denial that no one noticed our sadness, fear, and complete dependence. I always, and still do, think that no one notices me. Again, I'm invisible Anne. No one can tell just how horribly depressed I've been. No one knows when I'm so out of my mind manic that I can't think straight. No one sees my addiction.

And I know I'm wrong. My dad calls me on it a lot. "You sound down." he'll say. He says he can always hear it in my voice. And yesterday, Adam called me on my mania. "Are you manic? Are you taking this new toy of sobriety and letting it make you crazy?" Again, my mom thinks it's all the caffeine I've been ingesting, and the lack of downers in booze.

People do notice. One time, I was up at 2am, drunk, and had this incredible urge to cook bacon. I made my boyfriend go get a pound of bacon, and then I proceeded to burn most of it because I just wanted to watch it curl. That's my mania. I cook bacon. I get obsessed with something and ride it to the very end.

I might be a bit manic right now: I'm talking a little quickly, I can't focus, and I'm doing a million things at once. But I'm not taking sobriety to the edge. I'm trying to move slowly, to develop patience with it. That's why I'm going back to step one for a moment. I want to get back to the point of admitting that I'm powerless, and also applying it to my illness. I have no control over the fact that I'm ill - I always will be no matter what I do about it. The thing is, I do have control over how I react to my addiction and my illness. I can do the next right thing, which is going to a meeting and following the steps.

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.