My intro I think is in the general section. I've nosed around some of the recent posts and I guess rather than try for hours to find a similar scenario to my own, I will just post and see what happens...I've been diagnosed as Type 2 bi-polar (moderate) for maybe 5 yrs now. I've had very limited success with geodone and abilify, maybe 2-3 wks of feeling like King Kong followed by plateau-ing. Father keeps saying, "Lithium, lithium, lithium" like a mantra. I'm scared to death of it , namely because of it's potential effect on libido. Sex is a major need of mine and i can't stomach any impediment to this. His one good suggestion has been to try baclofen for the attendant alcoholism which I think I'm going to try real soon.
The bi-polarism has truly accelerated since my breakup with a fiancee in 2007. What had been bouts of drinking are now bonafide alcoholism. Still, with my work, where drinking is impossible, I seem to do fine; I'm actually happy much of the time, very highly functioning, high self-esteem, low anxiety most of that time. We're talking several months at a time here.
When I get home, I nosedive into booze, depression; I'm bipolar but it has really just been one low pressure system after another for a few yrs now, with fewer and fewer periods of mania.

Most recently I got home and after one initial bottle of wine (my drink of choice), I cleaned up, started running and working out and got back to the work of finishing the house I've been working on since 2005. Less than three weeks on, I've relapsed...in that time, I had a few drinks with the neighbor but never brought any back to my house. The next day was always fine. Until now. When i start bringing the drink home, I know I'm in for a long low. And I'm aware of it now. Spent a sober night at the folks who live 40 min away and I'm going back home later today to resume work on the house. Trying to work through the paralysis. It's not really despair because i'm not so befunked as to not realize that there's hope out there but it is a kind of inertia from hell. I'm literally stuck watching hrs of Netflix. When previously, I'd been drywalling and doing lots of good hard work on my house, studying languages, running (as I mentioned), making good progress, now it's all at a standstill; I'm in molasses.
I'm still determined to see this through without meds, to work "through" it so i guess I'd like to hear from people who have gone this route, after exhausting the meds route. Are you meditating, how are you able to cope with the tides of depression which wash over you even when you are trying to do everything you can to stave them off? Thanks for your ear(s).