Okay, is anyone here Bipolar and struggle with substance abuse?

Just want to know if I'm the only one here, and if a new forum should be started for people in my category.

[Xila31]

I don't, but I know it is common for people with bipolar.

I would say if you feel it is worth a whole board then to suggest it. Recently I made a suggestion of making a mood tracker, (or incorporate in the mood tracker,) more things for people with rapid cycling and mixed states and hypomania. For example, there is no racing thoughts or pressured speech options on the mood tracker. Also, I don't like the options of depressed, horrible, bad, fine, good, excellent, manic... they seem to vague. Maybe it is just me, but I feel I need to track as much as possible because it has been a real help to my doctor.

So I would request it.

[rBoulet]

I used to. I used to drink, smoke, smoke marijuana, snort cocaine, and take shrooms.
This is from when I was 14-16 and thankfully I've stopped since then. Although the urge to do it again is still there I know that more bad than good will ever come from going back into old habits like that.

[tweekie]

Yah, I have moods that I don't even understand, nor do the people around me. How bout  moods like, anxious, gloomy, nostalgic, paranoid, horny, obsessive, gloomy in a doomsday way, religious, haughty, rambunctious, bitchy, and industrious.

[ILADVOCATE]

Actually I have moodswings like that as well (although in my case some aspects of them might be neurological) and psychiatrist often classifies that as dysphoria. I found out some information about it here and I asked my psychopharmocologist and he said I definitely experienced dysphoria. As I've posted there are a variety of mixed states. An agitated mixed state is where a person has the speeded up quality of mania but the anger of depression. That is very common. Less common but not uncommon is dysphoric mania where a person is depressed but somehow obsessed with it in a manic quality. I didn't realize that I experienced this before recovery and certainly before I started medication very often. The photo I posted on my page of a photo taken at a cemetary when I was only 17 (a year before I started medication) was one of a series of photos. I was manic at the time but those particular photos were taken in a dysphoric phase. I always prefer when psychiatrists give full explanations as to what they are witnessing and specifically treating and if I asked if in a polite but appreciative manner I usually get specific answers and I find that helpful.

[opus88]

hi...my son is 38 and was dx'd with BP only 2 years ago........before that he was an alcohol and cocaine addict for 10 yrs...socially for abt half that time until it grabbed him hard.
His psych told him its common with BP people to self medicate and are very predisposed to addictions just for the reason that when in a low I guess you'll do almost anything to feel good, however the good feeling only lasts for a short time than the lows are even worse following a use....
thankfully he has kicked this habit hasn't used for 2 yrs now if only the BP would be as possible to control!!

[tweekie]

Thanks for your response.  My doctor believed I was bipolar before I even told him about the hypomanic episode. He said because of my family history, my history with substance abuse, and I suppose whatever was written in my chart that I fit more with bipolar disorder. I'm currently in an addiction mode, started about a year after my dx of bipolar disorder. I was clean for many years before that, but miserable, had many episodes of mood swings, suffered from repeated panic attacks and anxiety/depressive psychosis. Its a rocky road having to fight two battles daily, mental illness, and substance abuse and dependence.  I tried mood stabilizers, many times, and I always stop taking them. I have a history of non-compliance with meds and treatment.  Good luck to your son.  Atleast he is not putting harmful drugs into his body anymore. As a mother you must find that comforting.

[opus88]

oh yes I do find his sobriety very comforting!!! I sure sleep much better, but ur never really ever free not completely....its a fight everyday especially when stressed or very low...he does say the cravings do lessen...so hang in there tweekie and never stop trying.
He also had a history of stopping the mood stabilizers and antipsychotics when feeling better...than he had the notion he was 'cured' and no longer needed meds...I think he has learned his lesson there after a very 'bad' crash in June.
Same as an addict so to speak in that you are never really 'cured' it will be an uphill battle for the rest of ones life with many setbacks along the way.
What are you using tweetie? Are you getting help with your addiction?

[Xila31]

I hope you can find some help for your addictions. Being bipolar is hard enough as it is. With me, I don't "self medicate" because I think in some sick and twisted way I believe I deserve to be in pain. I know that sounds horrible, and it is, so it is very hard for me to ask for help. I'll just sit there and take it. So that is why I've gone so long without help.

Well, I hope you can get help because I hate to think of people out there hurting. I'll keep you in my thoughts and I hope you can get through it. Maybe there is a rehab or something you can do? I know rehab is expensive. Maybe a local church or something has a support group, though.

[paranoid_cataclysm]

I have a real drinking problem myself... I calculated my Blood Alcohol Content from one night and it was 0.336.  I stopped drinking ever since I started antipsychotics and I'm glad I did but it's still really hard.  I go to a co-occuring group sometimes now but I don't understand how it's supposed to help because all the guy who runs it does is sits there and nods the whole time while you're talking and doesn't even bother telling you reasons why not to drink.  I think anyone could run the group honestly if they know how to nod their head and say yeah and ok.

[Twelvesgirl]

I had substance abuse problems for most of my life, since I was very, very young. I didn't know why I was the way I was, I didn't know why my parents would brush me off when I asked for help and  told them I was depressed. I didn't know why I was a doormat sometimes and real spitfire b*tch at others. I tried alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, none of those worked. So along with those I added a whole slew of other drugs. It didn't matter nothing helped, something kept raging, I was either angry and/or full of partying fun, or depressed and full of self-hate and thoughts of suicide for both. I took things into my own hands when I met a girl when I was in my early 20s who was BP and I realized I had a lot in common, I went to see a psychiatrist, I was diagnosed BP. I was put on meds. It didn't stick. I had problems going on and off meds also for another 6 years. Getting on meds and quitting everything for me was important. It just kept getting worse, every time, something different gets added into the mix, paranoia this time, next time without meds and therapy and a docs care, who knows what will happen, I won't mess it up this time. I've lost so much, and hurt so many people.

Anyways, I don't use drugs or alcohol as a crutch or a means to get away anymore, sometimes I wish I could. But I do know that it was a bad place, very dark, very dangerous, and I wouldn't know how dangerous if not for being sober. Also, it really messed with my moods even more, up down up down up down up down up down up down up down, you get the picture, this was pretty much everyday. Also, now that I'm older, and have quit for so long, if I drink, even a glass or two of wine I have the worlds worst hangover...that helps with the not drinking thing :)

[ILoveMyDaughter85]

My daughter was diagnosed in January of 2006 when she was 21.

My daughter started off on prescription drugs and when they ran out she began using  heroin and crack cocaine for about 5 months when she was diagnosed as bipolar. But that didn't stop the doctor from prescribing her meds which only made her feel worse. Needless to say almost immediately she just stopped seeing him and stopped taking the meds. She ran the streets for a good 9 months until she ended up in jail for selling a couple E pills prior to her heroin/crack use. We used this opportunity to have the judge order her into a rehab in lieu of prison. She went into a 9 month rehab program.

It wasn't long after she got out that she was seeking out old friends (not the heroin/crack friends but the marijuana, ecstacy, drinking friends)...wanting to go out and hang out with them like old times. I told her that this was not a smart thing to do that it was inviting trouble and how when people drink they loose inhabitions and end up doing lots of things they later regret such as drugs that they would never touch sober. She hooked up with a guy that she had known and they began dating. I didn't know it at the time but he was an alcoholic and a heavy marijuana user in addition to dabbling now and then in ecstacy and other pills.  

She got pregnant and did so well. For the first time in a very, very long time she seemed normal...even more normal then when she was in and came home from rehab. I truly believe that bipolarism is a hormonal imbalance and if they could only inject the hormone which is created when a woman is pregnant into people suffering from bipolarism then this would greatly help these people. I believe its progesterone?

She was doing so well even after the baby was born but her bf continued with his bad habits. She began to occasionaly go out with him to the bar to spend time together and she would drink. She had never been much of a drinker. But he and his widowed mother were both daily big drinkers. At one point he bought some estacy pills from a colleague at work and brought them home for him and her to do together. He also would become very verbally and physically abusive when he drank and he didn't think anything of kicking her and the baby out on a regular basis. She would come home, fight with me or her sister or brother and call her bf up saying she could not live here with us. And, she would go back to live with this person who didn't treat her with any respect as far as I am concerned.

It has come to my attention that every time he would get drunk and mistreat her and kick her out, she would retaliate by leaving him home with the baby and go out and smoke crack. When she would return later or the next day he would tell her you can't stay here because my mom doesnt' like the fighting (from the night before when he came home drunk and beligerent). I told her she could come home and I will help her with the baby and take care of her finanically but she has to stay clean...no drugs....but she says she cannot live with me! So, instead she has left the baby with his father, the binger and his 24/7 vodka drinking mother. I told her she is only hurting herself and her baby who needs his mom to be well.

Now, my daughter is living on the streets doing God only knows what for food, cigarettes, drugs, a place to sleep.  I was ready to file a missing person's report but she showed up at my door. Unless you are a parent of a child suffering from addiction and bipolarism...there is no way to express the relief I felt when I saw her. She is living in a drug house less then a block from her ex and her baby on the same street. She is so thin and was crying because those people (other addicts living in the house she's at) she thought were her friends but they arent' acting like her friends. Try telling an addict that the people they walk the streets with and do drugs with are not their friends...she believes that some of them are actually her friends...that they actually take care of each other!

I tried talking to her and told her she needs to get clean....that she can not continue this road she is on....she has to stop the madness and let's get her the help she needs. I asked her if she is ready. She said if she is sober/clean then she gets depressed and just wants to kill herself. I asked her to go to the crisis center...at least there they could get her off drugs for a couple days and perhaps we could then get her to agree to get the help she needs. I want to help her get clean again so she can hopefully get well this time. Several months ago when I first noticed her extreme bouts of rage I had suggested counselling but she refused. I thought it was the bipolar and did not suspect drug use..now I am not sure what caused the rages. As one of the doc's on the forum said, you got to clean them up from any addictions before you can treat their bipolar problems.

I think the irrational traits of bipolar that she exhibits even when not on drugs are perhaps what makes it so hard to get her to agree to get counselling before she turns to drugs for comfort.

Because we have a dual problem here, getting her clean and keeping her clean also means finding some place safe and away from here for her to live. We live in town. Dealers live around the corner and walk past my home and her ex's home every day peddling their goods. Her living here in town is like putting an alcoholic in a bar and telling him not to drink! I wish I could just take her away from here to some place safe for awhile until she is strong enough to resist the temptations.

Anyway, I am feeling like I missed the boat and my child is suffering because of it...all i want to do is save her and help find away to make her feel okay...to make her feel normal...and behavor normal so she can meet someone to share her life with who will treat her the way she deserves to be treated...like a human being. She went to rehab and got clean...and I didn't push her to seek help for her bipolarism because a part of me thought that it was just all the drugs that made her behave so badly. I have learned that my daughter seeks the thrill of the high...says its the only time she feels normal and I know that she turns to drugs to solve ALL her problems BIG AND SMALL and to ease her pains. Ah yes, the doc said that people who are bipolar usually do try to self-medicate. Even though she was a heroin/crack addict at the time of her dx, maybe he wan't wrong after all. Just didn't make sense to me how he could diagnose her considering she was under the influence. This would lead me to think that all addicts are actually bipolar? Wow...there are a lot of bipolar people in the world these days.

[wineandroses]

Many of us have struggled with substance abuse.  Substance abuse is after all a way to self medicate and we all know how brutal the depression can be but it compounds the problem and causes more stress andmost of us don't handle stress well.  I found it helpful to attend a AA or NA meeting when I was having problems w/depression and wanted to use, it saved my life in more than one way.

[Bluetwo]

I'm fighting the urge right now.  I'm feeling very aggitated. But if I start again I will make my bp worst. Just got to count my blessings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yop62wQH498