Here is my latest blog for Bp Magazine for Bipolar Disorder….
by Julie A. Fast
If you care about someone with bipolar disorder, you may wonder why we choose so may behaviors that make us so much worse. The answer might surprise you. I can assure you from many years of boozing it up and smoking weed and hash myself, I was NOT doing it to get drunk or just to get high. Here is why I used substances heavily for many years:
- Unbelievable panic attacks from being around men. Who on earth gets sick from going on a date? I do. So I drank beer and then drank more beer. I later found out that the hops in beer are calming. I drank like a person with a drinking problem because I didn’t know I was having panic attacks. The only way I could make it thought the evening was to drink. Those poor guys. I am sorry for what I put them through.
- For many years, I drank because I was depressed. Drinking made me drunk which made me act happier and made it possible for me to be with my friends. It never really worked, though. I remember crying and throwing up in the bathroom and wondering why I felt so terrible when I was supposedly having fun while being drunk. It seemed that drinking made my friends happier and for myself, it made me cry even more.
- I used pot to “calm down.” I stopped this many moons ago and I will not touch the substance now due to the high THC content. I truly was trying to feel better when using pot. I now know it’s a stimulant and it exacerbates my symptoms. I was not just trying to get high. I was trying to feel better! Pot creates manic and psychotic episodes that I don’t want in my life. I stay away.
- Mania makes me crave being drunk and out of control. Mania turns off my frontal lobes and I literally want to drink very early in the day “just for fun.” Our capacity for substance abuse when manic is mind-boggling. I can drink triple the amount when manic. My energy simply burns it up.
When I was finally diagnosed with bipolar at age 31, my depressed drinking stopped completely. It took me many more years to get my manic drinking under control. I did this by managing the bipolar disorder. I don’t have a problem with drinking and drugs. I have a bipolar disorder problem. When I manage my illness, I don’t need to zone out with drugs and alcohol. I still struggle in this area with food, especially sugar, but managing my bipolar has been the ticket to staying away from getting drunk and high.
What needs to be done to change our current culture?
Treat bipolar disorder first. In my experience, it’s rare for someone with bipolar disorder to have a substance abuse problem that is more intense than the illness itself. For the majority of people, we are self-medicating. Take care of the bipolar and you take care of the substance abuse issue.
If we want to help people with bipolar disorder stop using substances that make life worse for everyone, we need to change how we view and talk about the problem.
I can tell you from firsthand experience that all of us with bipolar who use a substance in an addictive way are fully aware of what we are doing. What society simply doesn’t understand is that untreated bipolar disorder is far, far more painful than what happens with us due to substance abuse. We choose being drunk over being suicidal. Think about that.
There is another way to say this: Bipolar disorder is an incredibly dangerous and woefully under-treated mental illness that creates symptoms far worse than drinking too much and doing drugs.
We will get a handle on our substance abuse problem in the bipolar disorder world when we have better treatment for bipolar disorder. Period.
If you want help for substance abuse, get help for bipolar. It takes time and it is a long road, but it works.
People with bipolar drink and use drugs at a higher rate than the general population because we are in pain from our symptoms.
You are not alone if you use substances to feel better if your mood swings are raging. I have done it as well. I found a way out of drinking and drug use by learning to manage my symptoms. My book Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder shows exactly how I changed. I’m working on this with eating and plan to learn how to manage my symptoms without pushing them down with food or any substance that takes me away from who I am inside.
I want that for you as well.
Julie
My blog The Bipolar ‘Not So Great’ Coping List further explores the topic of why people with bipolar disorder have a tendency to dive deep into dangerous and destructive behaviors.
