Hi all,

I'm a longtime alcoholic of the binge-drinking type who often goes several months without, and was also recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a condition for which I would guess I have actually qualified for at least a decade.

Recently my housemate -- with whom I had lived for two months and knew nothing of my history as I remained sober throughout this time -- was forced to tolerate my isolative drunkenness (she knew I was in my room drinking) and was understandably approaching her wit's end, as she is the homeowner and is trying to sell the place and thus wants to avert disasters. Beyond that, she was simply concerned.

She eventually called one of my friends, a physician, who told her about the Baker Act. He said to call the cops and to tell them I was suicidal, with a plan, and that there was a gun in the house (she has one hidden somewhere), etc. So, this is what she did, and six cop cars arrived to haul me off. I remember this, but not well.

When, after two days in a small room in the hospital, I was finally visited by a doctor (at this point I thought I'd been Baker Acted for mouthing off to an ER doc while drunk or something, although this seemed unlikely as I am rarely so much as confrontational), she asked me if I was still suicidal. I told her with a figurative head-scratch that I didn't recall saying I was suicidal, and that for all of my manifest problems, lately I had been anything but. She said that my chart included mention of a recent job loss and a recent break-up, neither of which had occurred (I've been single for over a year).

While people do say things under the influence that they otherwise wouldn't, making up something against one's own self-interest out of whole cloth is not typically one of them. Moreover, I knew I would not have said anything like that about a break-up because if anything I recently became acquainted with someone I will call a very strong prospect. Filling in my memory gaps, I began to realize that my housemate had lied.

Ultimately I spent six days in lockdown before being released. I'm back at the same place and have made some significant changes, and things between my housemate and me are fine. I don't begrudge her in the least for getting me into better hands no matter what it took and am sorry she had to be there for it (but grateful someone kept me from another three-week-long bender).

However, I do have concerns about this being part of my official file. I did not, in fact, express suicidal ideation, and my housemate has openly admitted as much (with a grin), to me and perhaps to others if not to the authorities. I'm wondering if there is anything I could do to have this scarlet letter of sorts excised, because it's pretty serious business. Forget the inconvenience of effectively being jailed for about a week -- my psychiatric history is florid enough without fictitious stuff in the mix.

Thanks for reading.