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I'm sure my opinion may ruffle some feathers, but this is what I experienced: Being hypomanic for 45+yrs I drank enough alcohol to float the Queen Mary...and snorted enough white powder to sink it. When I first started getting successful treatment in the late 90's I found that honesty wasn't necessarily the best policy in therapy. Once you talk about substance abuse with professionals, the course of action takes a hard left and gets off track, as energy and focus is expended on the substance abuse issue...and the possible underlying cause of hypomania/mania goes undiscovered...with disastrous results in my case.
When I was finally correctly diagnosed (after 'professionals' missed my diagnosis for 30yrs), had proper therapy and the right med combo...my substance abuse issues just kind of dissolved along with my terrible spending symptom. Of course this may not happen with you.
I will never know how many jobs I could have saved...marriages that might have been successful...idiotic decisions stopped...money spent...DUI's...or opportunities I could have capitalized on if I were diagnosed sooner, but that's in the past and I've learned to deal with it. I know for a fact there was a lot of energy, focus and precious time wasted looking at the outward issue of using instead of the inward issue of a mental disorder.
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