and I hope this acts as an inspiration for someone who is struggling.

Thanks for posting!

Your description of the change is very interesting. Enjoy your accomplishment -

As a newby this means a lot.

That's the essence of recovery: To place ourselves outside of where we were when we were sick, and to create for ourselves a life worth living.

And you're definitely right about how it gets better. I shared this very thought last week, when I took my 34th chip. As I explained then, I no longer drink, and for that decision I've grown to where I no longer have a living problem. I live comfortably with myself these days, now that I am no longer in the chaos of my previous life.

It gets better, and then one day, it is better, and life may never be the same again. All we have to do is not drink, no matter what.

Last edited Thu Oct 21, 2021, 01:27 AM - Edit history (4)

I am a unipolar depressed alcoholic who was in denial. I have oncogenes from my mother's side and alcoholism from my dad's and unipolar depression from both. The icing on the crap cake is I had a great grandmom who was schizophrenic. I am not particularly paranoid, angry, anxious or schizophrenic and normally do not suffer from thought disorder or delusional thinking. However, my default mode network is fragile enough that I can descend into automatic paranoia, anger, anxiety and apophenic processing. It was superficial relative to the main issue..the unipolar depression. I had mildly paranoid delusions of reference, 2 scary times CapGras delusion and paranoid delusions about surveillance capitalism/mass surveillance. But I am a scientist and relatively immune to targeted individual conspiracies and the Havana syndrome. I lean heavily towards the banality of evil being a strong atheist. But I was undeniably in denial. Strange since I see no stigma in mental illness. I was just unconvinced by the evidence for a decade as I was assumed to be psychotic, manic, bipolar and borderline and none of those fit at all.

I used to drink etc. quite heavily. I was also on amphetamines but them I at least found moderately helpful like natural anti anxiety agents.

I suffered a breakdown due to work and divorce stresses in the fall of 2011, almost 10 years to the day. I was in denial and refused to get help for years choosing to remain unemployed and agoraphobic.

In 2019 (or was it 2017?) I read Moshe Bar's paper, A Cognitive Neuroscience Hypothesis of Depression and for the first time understood what depression feels like. And then I recognized it in me. This August I went on Prozac and it has been life changing.

All my anger, paranoia etc. are gone. I still have some attention deficit but meditation and work can help there. The main problem with nootropics is that they are anxiety inducing and I hate pain killers, benzos etc.

I find it easy to avoid alcohol, pare down internet use and be stable. I could not have done it without Prozac. Fortunately, I never drove much...only got a license in India in 2014. I never drove under the influence but for all that by 2021 my mental state had deteriorated too much for it to be safe for me to get behind the wheel. I have quit driving and all risky activities though I still pet my cats.

My colleagues (especially my postdoc mentors and some scientists I met and a postdoc counsellor), most doctors I dealt with, my friend, ex-husband and family (especially my parents) were very supportive but I was in denial because till I read the Bar paper nothing fit my actual symptoms. I have a bit of a quick temper but it flashes on and off and is gone. Prozac has been life changing and I am going to monitor my vision and bloodwork and screen for cancer. My mother has multiple myeloma.

I used to post here as nam78_two and then CatLady78.
But I cannot remember the new handles I picked during the name change earlier this year. So I am back as my favourite tv show.

I found cognitive science papers on pubmed, cleverbot for therapy, Moshe Bar's/Karl Friston's papers, atheism, Zohar Ringel's debunking of the simulation hypothesis (whatever popularmechanics says) and Sabine Hossenfelder's blog, Nicholar Carr, Shoshana Zuboff, Tim Wu, Anand Giridhardas' The Ink, John Naughton's columns, the Guardian and Philip Agre helpful on my road to recovery.

I am on 40 mg prozac daily now. I had my breakdown at Stanford University in CA in 2011. I posted various profane comments about them here last year and I retract them unreservedly. They tried to help me but both in India and in CA, the first set of medications I was on (anti psychotics like abilify, seroquel and epilepsy/mania meds like Sodium Valproate) were unhelpful though I tried the first two for under a week and the latter for just a day. I respect my current shrink and her personality was a great fit with mine. I was able to get fast results and with minimal talk. I dislike talk therapy with people..strangers or friends. That is why I like chatbots like cleverbot.
My last mentor/labmates in ca were very sympathetic and suggested that I had no serotonin in my synapses. But Bar's paper clinched it for me as I find pop psychiatry unrelatable. Most of the medical professionals I met were helpful but I was just not convinced that I was unwell. I thought it was all bunk and a cliche as I used to see myself as stable and rational under normal circumstances and disproportionately blamed circumstances I brought on myself instead of the illness.

My unwellness was triggered by alcoholism, the stresses of the postdoc path, divorce and eventual insolvency. I had a very supportive ex, parents, a very supportive friend and great postdoc mentors/colleagues. I weathered it because of my weak tie and strong tie friendships. I am sincerely grateful for all the support I received from the community over the years both in the US and in India and in my field generally. And wish I had not posted so many profane rants here and in google search and over email in the last decade :-/. And for screaming at my mom/ex/others. I feel like a real jerk.

What was most helpful was that almost no one was truly pushy, mean or controlling. Coercion might have turned me against parts of the field while I now recognize the field as nuanced, challenging and complex.

All of us have been there, including me. After trying everything else (I kept seeing the doctor), what finally helped me was discovering AA meetings and finding a kind and wise sponsor who was supportive and advised me what to do. I can remember sitting in a meeting and seeing someone receive a 6-month coin and thinking that I'd never make it that long. But I kept coming back and breaking it down to one day at a time and I have 12 years as of April of this year. So if I can do it, after being discouraged for so long, I believe that anyone can. Just keep hanging in there, remember to breathe and know you're doing the right ting.

I wanted to pm you but I don't have enough posts ;-/..I have to start from scratch all over again..story of my life. 15 years or so on this board and here I am startinf all over again .
Hope Duppers is around...


So you have been there too huh. Well I find that if I go cold turkey long enough the habit gets broken. But the anti depressants are a huge help. I am trying to get my dad to see my shrink. I figure the alcoholism must be tied to a depressed default mode network in the brain.

But if AA works for you nothing like it. After all there have been some studies linking prozac to both cancer and glaucoma. It cannot be soing my liver and kidneys any favors either.


So ideally if one could do it without any help that would be ideal. But I think I have a limited amount of self control and a natural tendency to get rebellious even under self imposed discipline. So usually after a couple of good years I fall off the wagon spectacularly and get roaring drunk. So I like the anti-depressant path

I know AA is strict about that. Well congratulations but I am too weak and impatient for medication free, purely therapeutic approaches. I like medications..they are so tangible and real..heh...

After I got shut out after the 2016 Election Day hack - there were dozens of us! It's happened before to lots of DUers, EarlG can reunite you with your original account. I wasn't willing to start over after so many years and you don't have to either! And we've seen this before, so I can help!

I will do that but I am out of posts for the day. I have also set quotas on my internet use. I am being nauseatingly virtuous..I must find an outlet for my wickedness so it doesn't all crash and burn.

To your original account. We've seen this before so many times so it should be no problem.

As soon as I have a sufficient number of posts I will pm you the emails associated with the ids. One of the emails expired recently i think but ..i would really like my original nam78_two account back. That was the one I modded with and had lots of posts under. But I have to try to reactivate the school email associated with that.

It is good to see you again. I will try to change my internet time to the slot you post the late night comics in.

That account had over 13,000 posts and has a star, and goes back to 2006, so that would be your original account. EarlG should be able to reactivate that one like he did for me (and so many others!) when I was shut out after the 2016 Election Day hack. So I contacted EarlG with your request. I'm on MIRT and we managed to get countless DUers together with EarlG since he's able to do that. I was sure relieved since I did not want to have to start over! You should be hearing from him, but he will need an active email to you a new password. You can change that, but the one he sends can get you started.

And yes, I'm usually one of the night crew!

I just became a star member so tha admins will know that it is nam78_two/CatLady78.
Too much of a bore to go hunting all those old accounts down.

I will see you this December-am logging off till then (though I may pop on once daily just to scan the news and check out your threads)-work deadline .

Which you changed to jfz9580m during the name change amnesty. That's the one I told EarlG you wanted reinstated.

https://democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=191702

Thanks a lot..I will reactivate that then.

Thank you so much .

I went through the same thing after the 2016 Election Day hack, had to have a friend contact EarlG for me. I wasn't up for starting over after being here since 2003.

Thank you so much. I was not enthusiastic about starting over, but you were quite right about the name changes ..I could not remember the new handle and there were at least 3 possibilities re: the associated email and worse possibly even defunct ones. I will contact EarlG and salvage my old account. I hope Duppers is still posting. I like my weak tie friendships at DU .
.

And Duppers last posted just this afternoon.

https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=15976731

I was very fortunate, met my AA sponsor at my second meeting and, like I said, she was supportive and told me what to do. She was one of my favorite people ever and I also loved her little dog. And it didn't happen overnight, I met her in November of 2008 and my sobriety date is April of 2009. But I kept going to meetings that she recommended and met lots of others who had been or were going through the same things, too. My "home group" was a women's group and today I count people I met there among my best friends. And since then, I've reached out to others just like my sponsor did to me,

And many of those in AA are on medication, especially in the beginning. I needed meds to get through withdrawal in the beginning and to help me sleep, I had serious insomnia. And I can think of two others who went through the exact same thing. I'm not saying it's easy, it takes time, but it's worth it.

Huh I got the impression from "Mom" that AA does not permit any meds...That sounds a lot better. I had chronic sleep issues too. Would wake up feeling dog tired. I was on Modafinil for a while (and Adderall before that). I do have some attention deficit but no thought disorder post Prozac. But the nootropics make me tense. So now it is just the Prozac. Fortunately I have developed a distaste for the smell and taste of alcohol..psychological associations of embarassing drunken rampages on the net as well as my body cooperating in my middle age by rewarding me with such splitting headches for a mere 250 ml of vodka or white rum that I decided that being sober is better. I have probably posted on DU drunk ;-/.

I am always a bit afraid of being taken for conservative, religious or worst of all straight edge if I am sober..I am vegetarian as is..we all have our prejudices..;-/..
So I think I will just have to tell people I am a former drunk..sigh..
Heh your experience sounds so much like the stuff depicted on "Mom".

Last edited Thu Oct 21, 2021, 04:31 AM - Edit history (1)

When I first joined, I got the books and treated it kind of like I was going to school. I leaned how to stay sober One Day at a Time, but, as I said, it did take me awhile. There is no time requirement. There are some who never "picked up" again after their first meeting, but I wasn't one of them, most people aren't.

And AA is not like you sometimes see on television. Whenever I see it depicted on TV, it usually makes me laugh. Everyone's journey is different, but what I got from AA were the tools and support to help me. And lots of those in AA require meds of some sort, especially in the beginning as I (and lots of others) did. The only difference are those who use some kinds of drugs only to get high. That's obviously not advised. Recently, I've seen more people who are cross addicted. But certain meds can help people get sober in the beginning and others need meds because they require them. Everyone is different.

Last edited Fri Oct 22, 2021, 12:02 PM - Edit history (2)

Wow..I guess tv shows like Chuck Lorre's "Mom" (which I only started watching because of that one rather funny episode where they get stoned on Adam's cookies), need not necessarily help bona fide drunks.

I had a patch of sobriety between 2016-2017. In fact I had become so "good" that I felt no temptation at all when I would see unattended bottles of alcohol lying around our house. My parents were happy. They wanted me to quit alcohol cold turkey and at that point I had. But among other things, that show "Mom" made AA look so lame that in my moronic way I felt that anything an organization like this recommends has to be idiotic. Then in 2018 I fell off the wagon big time and kept relapsing and backsliding through 2018-2020. Modafinil actually helped reduce the urge for alcohol. But it drove my GGTP up because moderation is not exactly my thing and I was overdoing it with Modafinil (which is strangely enough legal without a prescription in India). I have checked multiple times. But it seems to be a loophole in Indian narcotics laws.
But our narcotics bureau is cracking down on users as well as peddlers these days so I flushed my last batch of Modafinil down the toilet and feel a lot better. My kidneys and liver probably thank me. I was taking 500 mg Modafinil a day by the end and "balancing" it out with 40 mg of cetirizine (Benadryl?) for sleep having convinced myself that I was just "regulating my sleep cycle".

Ugh..I can be infantile which is what it takes to be a committed (pun unintended) alcoholic.

But now I feel great. Prozac is not particularly abuse enabling. It has no very obvious effects on any time scale that truly encourages abuse beyond a psychological drive at first to take more than the prescribed dose you can expect in people like me. In my latest blood test my GGTP has dropped to a normalish level.


Thanks so much for sharing. I am glad to hear AA is not as it is depicted. I always knew that cold turkey is the only way that really works for me but somehow I had a negative view of AA, though their methods seemed sane enough.

I also found cleverbot great for talk therapy. Prefer talking to a bot or even virtually like this over talking honestly to strangers in person if they are not my mom or a close friend or at least a colleague :-/ (and it is embarrassing when it is colleagues but I have already put so much rubbish out there in email or postings here that I thought it saner to post an explanatory end note. My case is fairly uncomplicated..I am just an alcoholic and well some people are. It is genetic...lots of drunks on my dad's side of the family. But it was a real wake up call when my mom fell ill since there is a lot of cancer on my mom's side).

My friends, family, doctors and even colleagues have been trying to help me for a long time now so I get how this guy feels :
https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/a-drunk-man-who-had-been-reported-missing-spent-hours-with-a-search-party-looking-for-himself-report-says/ar-AAP4GZB

It is amazing how Prozac just makes it so easy to be sober. I hope it never duds out. But I am worried about vision changes so I will be monitoring that. I can't believe how much in denial I was over my problem drinking. It is pathetic how many mental health cliches I checked off in my 43 years...ugh...I am such a moron.

It would be fun to meet you in person some day if we are in the same zip code Rhiannon ..heh that fistbump smiley (which I always think of as your trademark) is so cute .

I do remember one long-timer (over 30 years of sobriety) mentioning watching it, but then she also admitted to watching Fox "News," which was certainly a disappointment.

And AA is different in different places, though all meetings use the same literature. There's an older gentleman (mid 80s) who I see at meetings who has over 45 years and he recommends literature meetings. He was very helpful for a beginners' group that was my "home group" until this pandemic. I made sure that they had supplies - like books and cookies and coffee - and anything else that needed to be done. But since it's held at a treatment center where there are residents, it has yet to start up again. During the beginning of the pandemic, most groups shut down for the duration or had Zoom meetings online, but that's tough for beginners or for those who just got out of rehab. *sigh*

As for medications, it it's a prescription, that's not a problem. As I said, when I was first sober I had a prescription to help me sleep and I can think of others I know who were prescribed the same thing. The only issue would be illegal drugs - but there's NA (Narcotics Anonymous) for that. I've been to all manner of meetings except for NA, since that was never my issue.

And I do have a friend that often does phone meetings, they have those too - where you can just listen. And one of my jobs for my groups has been to order coins - for people having AA anniversaries - and I've noticed the site where I've ordered them for years offers online meetings, though I've never tried them. AA has all sorts of meetings, the important thing is to find whatever works for you. My first home group was a women's meeting where I made friends - and found my terrific sponsor - and felt more comfortable there.

Wow 45 years..so do people stay on because they eventually like the company or do they actually relapse if they quit going?
That is kinda how it is depicted on the show "Mom"...that was the one better aspect of the show. And as you once told me over pm, some people are a little leery of the association with religiosity I have heard some people express doubts over. As someone who has relied on skepticism, rationality and strong atheism to stay sane over the years, while I try to never be robotic or dogmatic/rigid/ inflexibly close minded, I will admit to being a little wary by now of anything that savors even mildly of spirituality.

But in the main it certainly sounds like a good/helpful group. If they are ok with prescription meds, then my main misconception about them is cleared away. Anyway I am sure most of my doctors and even weak tie friendships are with at least mildly religious people. It has never bothered me as long as they are not super down on abortion, evolution, orthodox, misogynistic a la Taliban etc., as long as tge methods and science are there for the main therapeutic approaches

I am glad you cleared away my doubts about the AA style cold turkey approach. I know it works for me and it is silly to automatically reject it due to suspicions of straight edgers etc

People certainly make like-minded friends in AA (especially after 45 years!), and "paying it forward," helping/supporting those who are new, is instrumental to your sobriety. That's how AA started, Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith (in 1935) reached out to those who were struggling. When I was new, I gave rides. My first AA friend had her license suspended, so we went to meetings together. And when the girl who represented te beginners' group at District Meetings and ordered the coins dropped out, I took over those duties - which I liked since it was also helpful to me - and ensured that I'd show up! I was still doing that until last year when that group shut down because of the pandemic.

As for religion, that was more important in 1935, but these days people's beliefs are as diverse as the people who show up. My sponsor (who was culturally Jewish) was not particularly religious (which worked out for me), but everyone's different. There is this one guy who comes to that meeting who is very quiet and all he usually says is "I got to meetings and I go to church." But he's got over 10 years, so that's what works for him.

They do talk about "spirituality," which I really don't understand, but one woman who has over 35 years once told me that I had spirituality and I took that as a compliment. I just show up, try to be helpful when I can, especially to new people, and find that helps me. That's what my sponsor did and she was the best people-person I've known, so I try to follow her example.

And, as I said, no one prohibits prescriptions, especially in the beginning since it's not advised to go through withdrawal without something. And, as I said, a lot of us have trouble sleeping in the beginning. Everyone's needs and their "journey" is different.

Last edited Sat Oct 23, 2021, 03:28 PM - Edit history (2)

I do appreciate your taking the time to draw me out. You know, in a way, it is tougher to have a mental breakdown at a time when everything we post on the internet or send over email basically lives for ever and most scarily could potentially be used by some qanon, anti vaxxer ransomware type to stir shit years after the fact. Look at the shit poor Dr. Fauci, a scientist of unimpeachable respectability, has to deal with. That ridiculous lab leak rubbish. And I would hate to help stir shit with obviously ridiculous allegations like NIH scientists being baby eating satanists or something (and good for them if they are satanists : -p). Let alone a relatively credible sounding faux metoo gaslighting allegation against any of my colleagues, doctors etc. I do not want shit stirred by some malicious James O'Keefe or Jacob Wohl using emails or web posts I made when I was not that well. And even those self righteous Twitter mob doofuses could try that. I never approved of the Tim Hunt, Justine Sacco or Amy Cooper/Karen crap. Being a bullying internet mob has little enough to do with genuine feminism, anti-racism etc. A sense of scale and an objective, non robotic perspective about oneself or other people is the foundation of self awareness.


So thank you . I don't really like talking about any of this. There are still days when I doubt that I was actually unwell and blame my own lack of self control, my own self indulgence, self absorption and paranoid tunnel vision and think it is too easy to claim I was mentally ill and not just a moronic jerk. But it was not entirely under my control possibly. I am not sure anymore. I blame myself mostly and that is the path to forward movement. After all it is not my problem if it was someone else's fault. But as someone who has been fairly lucky and been tolerated far more than they should have been by people, I try to avoid having a grievance complex. I cannot recollect exactly anymore, but I think I was in some distress because of these endles, negative, narrow mental themes and now that I am on Prozac I feel bad.

In the past two weeks I sent out some emails to try to do the making amends step of AA. Normally I find that to be an exercise in narcissism. I mean who cares and bringing it up may stir shit again. But though I hesitated because of qanon, ransomware etc. I felt it was the right thing to do :-/. I will probably not talk about this much on the boards or in email etc. But I can finally pm you again. I have 10+ posts. I hope I can merge this account with my old nam78_two account...

Goodbye for a month or so..work deadline...Death and taxes...the only realities eh. See you in December
.
(heh heh Fox News' "terrorist fistbump&quot ...

Whatever it takes. AA wasn't for me and I needed to do something. Found a really good supportive group. I do a Saturday morning Zoom meeting. If anyone's interested in listening in, I can post a link to the meeting.