My issue is that I used drugs in what I thought of as purely recreational and over did it. So I am branded as an abuser in the minds of some important people close to me and to some degree my own mind. Now pdoc and tdoc tell me I self medicated and it wasn't all bad. But being branded as an abuser, if I were to use weed (not legal in my state) or some other euphoric I would be judged as abusing again. A lot of the classic signs of abuse don't apply to me - it never interfered with my job, never got arrested, never had money trouble from spending too much (I "dosed" - taking what did the trick and stopping). It interfered in my relationship only because my wife asked me to stop drinking and so I snuck drinks when I was depressed; never getting falling down drunk, just taking my dose. It turns out that if you are depressed a lot, taking something for symptomatic relief sometimes helps.

Here is something interesting - I have likely been BP for 40+ years, based on incidents from way back. From about 45 years ago to about 25 years ago, I smoked pot. Heavily for the first 10 of those years and then less frequently for the last 10. After stopping about 25 years ago, my cycle of ups and downs got bad enough that I sought treatment and received my first official diagnosis of BP 23 years ago. I have had bouts of trouble with it since. Some of the time it was partly my fault for diagnosis denial. I would ask for help with moderate to severe depression and not reveal the BP diagnosis. Anyway, the point of this is it may not be just coincidence that I dealt with what was likely BP for 20 years without a diagnosis while I was a cannabis user. Once I quit, I had enough trouble to get diagnosed and have continued to have trouble with it off and on since.

Hmmm...