I have suffered from severe depression my whole life. Now anxiety has been added to the mix. The depression started before I started using. I have the double whammy because both mental illness and alcoholism run rampant on both sides of my family. I have both genetically I believe. I self medicated and I used because I have an addictive personality.

My drug of choice was more of anything I could get my hands on. Primarily alcohol because I liked that high the most. My tolerance to alcohol dropped at an early age, in my twenties. I could drink a six pack and be **** faced. I started getting really tired of all the stupid things I did in black outs that I would have to hear about the next day. So I started trying to quit the alcohol. Best I did was six months but I was smoking pot more and more and more. Pretty soon the pot didn't pack the punch and I went back to alcohol. Then I discovered cocaine. I could drink a ton and not get drunk on cocaine. Then the trend in CA went from cocaine to meth. I never did like the high from cocaine that much. It just made you want to keep doing it. I loved the high from meth. I loved the motivation the euphoria everything about it. I had discovered the perfect anti depressant. Then there was the come downs. Sleeping three days straight on the weekends and eating tons of sugar to recover. Then Monday morning snort a line, go to work, and start the whole thing all over again. The come downs started getting so bad and I was getting psychosis while on it that I lost a job I had had for eleven years. Right away I got a new job. I had always been a plumbing foreman and was very good at it. The new job lasted three weeks and I got fired for missing to much work. I went into a major depression at this point. I was so ashamed I got up and pretended I was going to work for a week. I would go sleep in my truck for awhile and wait until my wife went to work and then go back home. She didn't know I lost my job until no paycheck showed up and I had to come clean. That was my bottom.

As long as I could maintain my job and do good I was ok. Getting fired from two jobs shattered me. My wife talked me into going to see a psychiatrist for the depression and I started taking Effexor. Of course they all told me I needed to get clean. The scariest thought I have ever had was imagining going the rest of my life without alcohol. My wife an family kept telling me I needed to go to rehab.

One day laying in bed deeply depressed I decided they were right and I called a rehab center and told them I wanted to check in. I believe in fact I know that it was at that moment the obsession to drink and use left me. Two weeks into rehab I went into what is called amphetamine post acute withdrawal syndrome. They took me 5150 to a mental hospital. I spent three weeks there. I didn't want to be there and didn't think there was anything wrong with me. It was like a full blown manic episode. This episode lasted over a year with alot of psychosis.

I went to three AA meetings a day as soon as they let me drive again. I stayed on Effexor the whole time plus the halidol they gave me for that first year. I believe the Effexor helped me a great deal in making the decision to go to treatment. I got heavily involved in AA and eventually Alanon. I kept seeing my pdoc. I went to therapy and group therapy. The best group I have ever been to was a dual diagnosis group. I was full bore into recovery for many years. This all happened in 1995 and I have been clean and sober ever since. I have slacked off on meetings and recovery stuff in recent years.

What sucks is I still have depression big time. I have very treatment resistant cyclical severe depression and anxiety. That is the battle I am fighting today. It has gotten much worse in recent years. After I got sober I went back to work in plumbing and did very very well up until a year and a half ago. My depression has gotten so much worse I have not been able to work. The saga continues......it is a very difficult battle the whole thing. I have to say though that once I committed to getting clean and committed to AA staying clean and sober has not been hard at all. I have had tough moments where I wanted to use but not that often. I can honestly say the obsession was removed. It can still come back however I have no doubt.