We would get dropped off at AA meetings. The van would drop us off and pick us up at the end. After ten minutes into the meeting, me and my friend Matt would leave the meeting and go up on the hill and stare at the stars and talk about our next times getting high. Then with ten minutes left in the meeting we would go back inside so the van never knew we left the meeting and it seemed we were there for the whole 60 minutes. Back in early November, Matt passed away. R.I.P. From chronic alcohol and drug use. 28 years old with a 3 year old son.
Should be a wake up call…although I doubt I would have died anytime soon…I wanna live as long as I could and feel as good as I can. Weeks up to his death I was texting him and he was telling me how depressed he was and how he was using drugs/alcohol to mask the depression.
Now i’m 10 days (going on 11 days) sober, I’ve gone to 7 meetings in 6 days. Gonna try to go to a MINIMUM of 90 meetings in 90 days. Feels so good to be sober, feels even better going to AA. I can’t speak enough about the program.
It was tough in the past when I wasn’t on the right medications…I went 8 months sober and it didn’t get better AT ALL. Only got worse, because I wasn’t on high enough dose of abilify, klonopin and I wasn’t on naltrexone either.
When I was a kid, the A&W root beer stand was a big place.
You’d pull in to a stall with a screen and a large metal flat top,
and you’d place your order,
then the teenage girls would bring it out to your car.
I remember being 5 years old and getting the baby mug of root beer.
This is when it was really good and frothy.
Been wondering lately, was it such a good thing to give kids root BEER?
Should have known I’d be a big beer drinker someday.
Anything to blame it on my parents,
oh yeah.
Sorry for your loss about your friend Matt, Chew.
Glad you are alive. Alcohol addiction and depression are tough. Possibly a trigger warning
My father was an alcoholic, like his mother, my grandmother who commited suicide. She was also a depressive alcoholic who self medicated with alcohol and morphine. I went to Alanon meetings when i was in the 3rd grade. I was the youngest person there and didn’t fit in with the older kids and my father was athiests so needless to say the Serenity prayer nor the 12 steps weren’t enough for my father. He died of alcohol related problems 13 years ago.
I started drinking after he died. (Don’t judge, please.). I’ve also been diagnosised with Severe &/or Atypical Depression.
One depressive episode, i was self medicating with with a bottle of absithe. I woke up the next day at 12:35 in the afternoon, checked my sink and the absinthe bottle was 1/2 empty. My head was pounding. I was curled up in the fetal postion. Little did i realize i had a stroke like episode, to make matters worse or just put life in perspective, my friend Mike who i had known since we were in Kindergarten died that day of a sudden heart attack. We were both 35 years old at the time.
I was in Japan at the time Mike died and i had my MELAS stroke like episode. Mike was in America when he died. My depression got worse. My mom told me to seek help via Skype. I went to a psychiatrist and was given Depas, an antidepressant which made my depression worse, no therapy was offered, so I went to an English speaking doctor. He prescribed me my next med a i tried Abilify. Same thing it made my Depression much worse. Then a week alter i found out i had diabetes. A1C was 13.1. I was hospitalized. My Meds drained my energy. I was put on Insulin right away. A month later, i told my doctor. The crap shoot method or hit-and-miss method of prescribing antidepressants can be very dangerous in my opnion. They may have terrible side effects like: suicidal ideation (most SSRIs), homocidal ideation (Just say NO to paroxitine/Paxil, bad medicine), most cause ED in men and decreased libido in both men and women (as if the depressed don’t have to feel insecure about. ). All in all i tried about 7 different medications from antidepressants, to mood stabilizers to antipsychotics over a period of 10 months. My doctor said “You’ve tried the whole spectrum of medications and nothing seems to suit you.” I stopped going to the doctor and refilling my prescriptions, I stopped laughing. I went through the Month of August 2014, renting comedies and not laughing, not on purpose, I wanted to laugh desperately. I need the release, but none came. the withdrawl, of Paroxitine was hell. Generic Paxil is paroxitine. I had an MRI at the end of August and Everything After was bad. A Visible T-2 Flair was in the MRI. i had had a MELAS syndrome stroke like episode. Somethings like my new found lack of balance and forgetting my Japanese were startng to make sense. My reaction to antidepressants wasn’t until my mother told me her prozac was mitochondria toxic. It throws a monkey wrench in treatment of mental illnesses. Schizophrenia is commonly co-morbid with MELAS.