“Until we have seen someone’s darkness, we don’t really know who they are. Until we have forgiven someone’s darkness, we don’t really know what love is.”
It is hard to talk about addiction openly. It shouldn’t be your dirty little secret but it often is. I tried to hide mine for a very long time and I still haven’t openly spoken about it with many close to me. There is a lot of noise in my head, I care way too much about things, I feel deeply and sometimes I feel like a walking open wound. I did not know how to handle my stress and anxiety and so instead I attempted to block it out. My drug of choice is Xanax and it all started with a prescription. When my husband Brett caught on fire in an accident in 1999 it was very stressful. I was squeamish about blood and stuff but had to get over it very quickly because I had to tend to his wounds that he could not reach. This lead to me calling my doctor because I was experiencing panic attacks and he gave me my first prescription. The relief I felt from that pill was amazing! All my worries and cares were gone and I wanted more. It started out slowly and then accelerated. I would call the doctor for a new scrip every month or so and he always gave it to me. I was only taking it at night at first since I still had to function during the day.
Over a number of months and years my use increased until I began developing a tolerance to the medication. This lead to me combining it with alcohol in order to feel the same effect. This caused me to slur my words, lose memory and basically act like an idiot. Brett began noticing it was a problem so I started hiding it from everyone. I wouldn’t tell anyone I had a scrip and I would take it when no one was paying attention. My mother noticed it because I would get upset and call her slurring my words terribly.
Fast forward to 2006 and both DWI’s happened when I was taking Xanax and mixing it with alcohol. The Xanax really caused me to have a lot of judgement issues as I could not discern right or wrong. I was a mess, a big mess. I cut back my use after being incarcerated but it gradually got worse again. At this point Brett had had enough and I was sneaking around and lying to everyone about what I was doing. He would catch me with the pills, take them and flush them and I would calm down for a few days but, just like an addict, I would find another doctor or source and start taking them again.
I couldn’t hold down a job or even get out of bed in the morning, I just wanted to sleep nonstop. I was so depressed and I felt like I was in a black hole at the very bottom and that I might not ever get out. My best friend stopped talking to me, my husband and I were fighting continuously and the whole family knew something was very wrong but wasn’t sure what to do about it. It just became a continuing cycle of shit until finally Brett broke down and told my family what was going on. I would never admit to using pills, but he knew what was going on. Basically they had an intervention before anyone knew about interventions. My parents told me if I didn’t go to rehab they would no longer be in my life and Brett told me it was rehab or a divorce. They pretty much backed me into a corner I couldn’t get out of and I finally agreed to get help.
The first thing I did was search for a good psychiatrist. I had been seeing commercials on television about Bipolar II and I had every symptom they described. I had already been through a cycle of different anti-depressants with my primary care physician and none of them seemed to work. I had taken Prozac, Effexor, Zoloft, Celexa, Lexapro and a ton of other drugs. I found a psychiatrist who agreed I had Bipolar II and he started me on Seroquel and Prozac together. After a couple of weeks it felt like a fog was lifting from my brain, I felt better than I had in years! It took some time to get the dosage correct but this particular combination worked for me and I still take it today. Look, I wish I did not have to take medication every day but the way I understand it there is a chemical imbalance in my brain and this medication fixes it. I have no control over the chemicals in my brain, thus I have very little control of how my emotions swing, which is usually downward and my head is mostly quiet now. No more racing, depressive thoughts and inability to see the positive in anything. I am almost normal!
Next I had to find a decent rehab for someone with no money and no insurance, I knew it was going to be hard. My mother found the Recovery Resources Council. (recoverycouncil.org). This is a non-profit agency that finds help for people with mental and substance abuse issues that have no other alternative to get well. I went in for an evaluation with one of their counselors and they determined that I needed rehab. You were required to call in every day during a certain time period to see if a bed had opened up so if you wanted it bad enough, you will find a way to make that call. If you don’t then they won’t place you. They gave me 2 rehabs to choose from and I picked Pine Street. After about a week a bed was available and you had three hours to get your butt up there. I reluctantly packed my bags, kissed my husband and dog goodbye and walked into the unknown. Little did I know that it was going to completely change my life.
To Be Continued…
The night is calling... 