I don't have a ton of experience with substance abuse, but I do know how the way you feel can seem so awful that you'ld take just about anything that could change how you feel.

I was in that state last evening. So I took some stuff, and it did change how I felt.

When I was young, I tried alcohol. I got sick a lot from it, so that kept me from getting too deeply into it. Now I'm mildly dependent on hydrocodone at a pretty low level - like 10 to 15 mg 2 to 4 times a day. I take it for pain. so I can physically keep up with what I have to get done daily. But is helps depression somewhat.

Last evening I got so depressed that I wished I was out of this world. I'm not into self-harming, so I was racking my brain wishing for relief. I decided to give chemistry a chance. I took hydrocodone 15 mg and Ritalin 40 mg and Baclofen 20 mg and 2 Margaritas combined. What an improvement in my mental state when the combo kicked in! Of course, mixing stuff like that is supposed to be wrong. All I felt was grateful.

I'm not looking to get deeper into drug abuse, but I think I see how it happens to people. You can have an emotional storm go on that gets way out of control . . . and beyond what you can manage. Doctors don't always get how desperate for relief this can make a person.

I'ld rather have some more constructive way of handling the situation. "Use your coping skills," I've been told. I just don't believe that the persons who give out that advice realize what a full-blast emotional storm is like.

I wonder how much substance misuse
is generated by that kind of mental crisis. Sometimes, it's not a quest for euphoria, so much as a scramble to get out of Hades.

I feel glad something worked.