Your way with drugs and alcohol?

I know I am spamming the board a little, sorry about that. I am slightly hypo and tend to have a million questions and to need input and contact in this state of mind.

I am sure we had this topic before but I didn't want to search.

How do you handle drugs and alcohol and how does it differ in your episodes?

I tend to do drugs almost only when getting a little hypo. Sometimes when normal, but only when planned and it never goes wrong, I never exaggerate. When hypo it can go really bad like last Friday. In general I am not too much about drugs for my age and the city I live in.

Alcohol is a different topic. I use it to calm myself down when hypo and to bring myself up when depressed. Not every day, luckily, not getting drunk a lot but sometimes getting a little tipsy to take the edge off whatever I fe. Has me worrying.

I still crave opiates when I get low, if we're being honest. I don't actually have access, but I do have legit pain also...
I hate alcohol at this point for a couple of reasons... #1 is the fact that it killed my mom.
The other is that my tolerance is so high that when I was drinking, it was taking large quantities of 151 to even get a buzz and that's ridiculous and obviously part of how my mom died (she choked on her own saliva - BAC was 0.05). Alcohol is deadly.
Weed just makes me psychotic, so I avoid it. So did pretty much everything else.
I often crave opiates, but it's worst when I'm at work watching someone detox (oddly), or when I'm getting depressed. That's usually how I know I am getting there.

When I was drinking and drugging the benzos I would take when I was hypomanic because at the time I didn't know I had bipolar. I would sometimes take some with alcohol not a good idea at all! Then I went away got on lithium off the benzos and started drinking legally because I was 21 toward the end of my drinking I was usually in depressed states. Not sure if this helps just some insight into my mind

I used to use alcohol and drugs along with my psych meds, and it ended up in psychosis multiple times. These days I don't use either. I've found that it's impossible for me to know and regulate my mood cycles with meds when there are other things interfering with my emotional state.

Thank you so much for pointing this out. I think not everyone realizes how dangerous it is. Even my mom did it *all the time*. I kept begging her to stop. Her pdoc knew she drank and still gave her klonopin (clonazepam). I think it was the middle ground they reached. Most days, she'd wait a day to drink after taking it, but toward the end, not so much, and it may have contributed to her death. Klonopin, in particular, has a VERY long half life.

Thank you, too, for pointing this out. Again, I don't think everyone realizes the severity of this. Most street drugs DO cause psychosis, at least in those already prone. Even weed (although if you're gonna do a drug...).

I drink on weekends and I enjoy it. I won't take my p.m. pills and I will not take a klonopin at all that day. It only took once for me to find out it was a bad mix. I do smoke cannabis at times but I only take one hit and I'm good. I know honestly I shouldn't drink and I really shouldn't be skipping meds but there is not a whole in life I enjoy. I look forward to catching a buzz and chilling out for a bit. Anything can be taken too far, so I believe in moderation.

I drink every day, but I don't really get drunk. I'm afraid of being drunk because I worry it could lead to feeling sick (I have a pretty bad case of emetophobia). Same with drugs - I avoid them for fear of feeling dizzy/weird/sick etc. (though I take ativan prn). I used to do a lot of experimenting with drugs and smoked tons of weed as a teenager, but now I'm afraid of it. However, whenever I'm hypo I get a massive craving for drugs and would probably do them if I had easy access. If I drink when depressed it ALWAYS makes things worse, but I generally do it anyways :/

I did cut both at the same time. I'm a saint now. A very bored saint.

pirlin kinda said it all for my answer. Emphasis on the 'boring' adjective.