Hi, I just commented on one of your other posts and will reiterate what I said here about exercise and diet. I was an alcoholic/drug addict from age 15-35. Wow that's 20 years. I just realized that. I have almost 3 years sober. It was my crutch. I couldn't be social without it. I made it my mission at the end of last summer to become comfortable in my own skin. Whatever that meant. I started looking at all of my issues and decided to tackle each one separately. I started by seeing medical Doctors/Specialists. I tackled everything. I soon realized that all these "Medical" Doctors wanted to do was prescribe "Medicine" Then it hit me, "DUH, they are MEDICAL Doctors, that is what they do. The last thing I wanted to do was get hooked on some legal drug. So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I went to physical therapy, massage therapy, psychotherapy, read books, and watched videos from the library. As a result I stared exercising and eating a whole foods, mostly raw, vegan diet. I was shocked, but within the first week I started feeling better. Soon I was loosing weight and feeling good about myself. After all this time and effort all it took was getting healthy to feel comfortable in my own skin. No doctors, no medicine, no ********. Just healthy clean living. It has changed my life and I will never go back. I urge you to try it. Get some books from the library or do research online. There's lots of info out there. Again, good luck. You will be just fine. Take control of your destiny now, you won't regret it.

Drugs of choice in order of preference:
Alcohol
Vicodin
Cocaine
Xanax

I have suffered from severe anxiety and intense emotions for long before I had my diagnoses, during this time I turned to alcohol and drugs to try and get my emotions under check. I thought I'd be more normal that way, but I'd only end up exasperating my symptoms. To be honest I still do this. It just hurts so much sometimes I can't imagine a life completely sober, it's too scary. My emotions are too intense. I am a child of addicts and I don't know where if I'd be in the same place if I didn't have mental illness.
I guess I'll never know. But I am proud of where I am. I have kicked my vicodin addiction and haven't touched the stuff in years. I haven't done coke since before I lost my best friend, we always did it together. It wouldn't seem right now, her drug addiction is what led to her murder.

My main drug of choice is alcohol. I didn't get into other drugs so much, but I do struggle with food addiction--ANd other things, like compulsive spending, etc., and I used to smoke alot, too; I used to smoke 5 packs a day before I quit. It was my mental illness that opened the door for those addictive behaviors. I heard that those of us with MI have a higher rate of alcoholism and/or addiction. It does suck.