I had childhood-onset bp 1 and self-medicated from an early age with alcohol, opiates, amphetamines, benzos, marijuana, and a few other classes of drugs. Been sober for 11 years now and I clearly do much better in terms of the bipolar thing without any extraneous substances of any kind in my system. Much better. I just feel better. If there is anything I maybe self-medicate with now it is probably ice cream. My decisions to go get a bunch of ice cream at all hours and eat it all reminds me a lot of my former decisions to go get Oxycodone. It seems impulsive to me. And weird. It just happens, and then I am sitting on my chair downing Ben & Jerry's. Then, when I'm done, I feel guilty (as I do writing this). It is something I probably need to work on, as it cannot be very healthy.