I'm a recovering alcoholic who binge-drank, but even though I sometimes went as long as a year between binges, every time I did drink it was for the express purpose of getting plowed! There are entire six-month periods of my life that I don't even remember.....funny, the same thing happens with mania, I get blackouts like I did when I was drinking heavily.

Anyway, I quit drinking on January 1, 1992 and with the exception of OD'ing on Ativan once a few months ago, I've stayed sober. Now that I'm on so many different kinds of meds (my psych meds are only about half of them), I couldn't drink now if I wanted to......there's too many ways to mess up my liver, and I already have issues with it as it is.

Bottom line is, you don't have to drink daily or be falling-down-drunk all the time to have an alcohol problem. We're certainly in good company; the experts say as many as 60% of bipolar people have substance-abuse issues. I think we often do it to cope with mania and depression; as I look back, I can see a lot of those ups and downs, and my drinking behaviors reflected that, even though I didn't know at the time that I was bipolar.

Just a few thoughts....