Lately, I've been feeling like Judy Garland. A pretty pink pill to get me up in the mornings, a no less pretty pink pill to knock me out in the evenings. In between, I'm Mr Yo-yo the Mad Scientist, prowling life's laboratory, seeing if a little bit of this would go well with a little bit of that. Although prescription antidepressants always manage to get me at least on to the Yellow Brick Road, I'm still trying to find that elusive something that gets me over the rainbow.
In the past, I tried everything: drinking myself stupid, drugs, self-harm. These days, it's more likely to be a wheatgrass shot, a new kind of yoga, a week of no carbs, self-hypnosis, or a spell taking Omega-3 supplements. Even though I recently celebrated 10 years' sobriety, the need to self-medicate rages on. As long as my brain refuses to do what it's meant to do, I'm going to keep trying to fix it.
It's estimated that 50-60% of the mentally ill population is suffering from or in recovery from a substance abuse problem. For instance, the bipolar disorder research programme in Los Angeles found that women with bipolar disorder have rates of alcoholism seven times higher than that of the general population. A study by Tara (Treatment and Research Advancements National Association for Personality Disorder) showed that as many as 67% of those suffering borderline personality disorder meet the criteria for a substance abuse problem. The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse revealed in 2003 that 50-60% of schizophrenics have a substance abuse problem. And the National Mental Health Association in the US believes that one in three Americans treated for clinical depression also has a problem. All these statistics point to one thing: people in psychological distress always have and always will self-medicate.
To someone blissfully untouched by any of the above illnesses, the idea of medicating depression with alcohol - a depressant - must sound stupid. It is. But it offers unbeatable, if temporary, relief. A few hours later, though, that euphoria wears off and the alcohol brings you down, takes your mood even lower than when you picked up that first drink. That's when mixing alcohol and depression get scary. Depressed, a person doesn't think clearly. Depressed and drunk, that thinking is guaranteed to be dangerously skewed. Alcohol Concern estimates that 65% of suicide attempts involve alcohol. Of all my episodes of self-harm, I would say 95% happened when I was drunk. And I can say without a doubt that the drunker I was, the more likely I was to have suicidal idealisations.
Today, I know several people who are self-medicating depression and anxiety with alcohol and it's frustrating to watch them go round and round. They're like washing machines, only less interesting. There's not much you can do except wait for something terrible to happen because usually it takes something terrible for a person to come to their senses.
Then there are the ones who prefer drugs. One of my closest friends used cocaine to self-medicate depression. She talks today about how she used to need a constant "upper" to counter the constant "down" going on inside. But then the cocaine made her anxious and jittery, so she drank to take the edge off that. Eventually, she had a breakdown and checked into a drug and alcohol treatment centre. Today, she's clean, sober, but still self-medicating, still looking for that magic all-purpose patch-up quick-fix cure.
The lure of alcohol or drugs is hideously strong when you're being fried alive by a mental illness. Most substance abusers in recovery, also prone to a mental illness, tend to relapse during particularly difficult periods of psychiatric illness. Ten years into my sobriety, I'm still vigilant for those irrational, dizzy, camera-flash moments when it would be so easy to go back to old ways of coping, all in a matter of seconds, blinded.
So let me tell you what I've learned from 10 years of sobriety and 20-odd dealing with anxiety and depression. There's no problem a stiff drink won't make worse. The bill for escapism always arrives the following morning. To manage depression, anxiety, self-harm, panic attacks, it's best to avoid alcohol and drugs. Things get chaotic enough as it is. In the end, there are only three things that offer relief from mental illness: professional help, prescription medication - and you.
