Making Sacrifices For Recovery?

When one ponders whether to get/stay in Dual Recovery one weighs all of the sacrifices one will have to make in order to live a healthier, happier life! Tough choices, folks!
I had to give up puking after drinking/court costs/jail time/wrecking my car/a guilty conscience/ I had to give up being sick and tired all of the time/spending all of the food money on drugs/depression/paranoid cause of the cops/paranoia caused by smoking pot/I had to give up slowly killing myself!
     Hell! I hate being happy in Dual Recovery...I am so damn happy all of the time! And the police leave me alone and I can pay rent and I have no fear of being knifed by my roommate! And the worst part? Having a good reputation!
     Defense rests! Ha-ha!

S.A.D. I call "March Madness" For Me

I am on Disability for I have Dual-Disorder (mental disorder PLUS chemical addiction). My
Recovery birthdate is 4/28/84...soon I plan on having 30 years in Recovery.
I woke up today depressed/hallucinating and feeling like tearing up everything in my house. I am not violent, but just feel like it. My super roommate and I are watching our favorite sport
baseball and when they swing the bat I feel it hit me...thru the tv. Yeah! Also, I am depressed and since I was born with symptoms I have very few good memories to think on to help me lift my spirits, in fact I was abused as a child.  I am not just here to complain, but instead to tell anyone willing to read whom also have schizophrenia/bipolar disorder/Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)/panic attacks/addictions all of which I have that medical science has no answers to cure us, but when we have symptoms we needn't act out and hurt anybody including ourselves nor drink nor drug...DO continue to take our meds and eventually our symptoms will pass!
I know, tough order! You're damn right! If you do act out when stricken ill then life will get damner-tougher real quick! If you stay in Recovery your life/health will improve...if you continue to work away at it! My "bad days"  are/have been becoming fewer and further between! Most days I absolutely love my life! Today I just look up at the God I understand (mostly I don't understand! Ha-ha!) and say "Damn! Do you not like me or something?"  What the hell am I suppossed to do? All I can do is sit here and type...trying to felate with amd try to say "Hey!  Just PLEASE don't act out
on your symptoms for better days are coming...IF you stay in Recovery. If you don't stay in Recovery tben you've got more Hell on Earth coming your way!
Stay in Recovery and you will love life like I do on most days!

Do You "Get It"?

Before I begin my ranting and raving, let me first qualify myself: I have been a Dean's List Engineering Student @ Purdue University; I have a Recovery birthdate of 4/28/1984 from alcoholism/drugs including heroin, cocaine, pcp (remember pcp?) /schizophrenia/bipolar disorder/panic attacks/Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Might I add, I'm happy today!
     In the past 30 years I have heard a lot about Recovery from all kinds of sources including "meetings", group therapy, multiple mental hospital visits and a whole lot of just plain old false statements from those heralded to be those who know what they are doing/talking about!
The latest "craze" (ha-ha!) is that if the mentally ill were to just "think differently" then this will change the construction of their brains. First off, this advise is being fed to us Dually-Disgnosed (drugs/alcohol PLUS mental/emotional disorder) and I know as a life-time sufferrer this to be horse-shi_! If I neglect to take my night time anti-depressant then I'm depressed all the next day. Overall, I have been depressed my entire life (I am now 55 years old) until this wondeful drug Remeron) . Someone with depression can't, CAN'T just "think happy thoughts"! Thus, the constant need for medication.
Plus, it has been the policy for any recovering alcoholic that to just "think" sober does not help the alcoholic get nor stay sober! A true alcoholic to stay sober MUST work a Program that is most unnatural to him/her. I don't mean,sit back and chant "Sober! Sober! Sober!"
I mean go out and "practice" this most unnatural Program in order to get/stay Sober.
What happened to "thinking yourself" into Recovery from depression/schizophtenia/alcoholism/drug addiction? It, along with them just died! Folks? Unless you know and can prove for 10 to 20 years of successful Recovery that your little "pet theory" is valid please shut up and "think it to yourself"!

Pissed? What does one do when upset?

Hello everyone! I just had an experience with a person on an online group with an extremely tactful antagonistic person. I got angry due to the repeated "jabs" this individual takes at others. These others are placed in a spot of appearing as an idiot by this antagonistic individual. Now, I spoke up to this antagonist and, just as tactful as this person, I asked probing questions.
My point? I could just choke this individual! If this person were in the same room as me no matter HOW angry I get I DO NOT have the right to actually "choke this person"!
I am a recovering alcoholic/addict/schizophrenic/bipolar. Those like me are often afraid of and talked negatively about in a prejudiced manner!
Even at my worst I have never struck a person and at many points in time I have been picked on/threatened. Folks? I am a green belt in karate and can really hurt someone! One man who worked at a restaurant was just lettin me have it because I was having symptoms of hallucinations. I was not breaking the law, but acting strange! I admit it! I had yet to be diagnosed but if the man who was giving me hell knew what I could do to him he would have shut the Chuck up. Today, as I know my name is Chuck and 4/28/1984 I will celebrate 30 years in Recovery from the illnesses I list above I am, too, a free man and a model citizen...BECAUSE even tho I know how to fight I let the police take care of violent people. If people like me "act out" especially with violence we suffer greatly! Please! Everyone! Be peaceable unless someone does try to harm you or another, but please self-defense is the ONLY type of violence allowed in this Great Country of Ours! Peace, EVERYONE!

Having a dual-diagnosis and handling life's problems

Hello everyone! I have been in the general state
of writing novel(s) which describe how it was when I had untreated schizophrenia and am describing what it is like to go through years of psychosis believing these very convincing hallucunatuons. Now, I'm in Dual-Recovery and on Disability because handling my symptoms
are a full time job! My efforts to write is like working a second job...don't worry I enjoy my jobs! I have been involved in legal entanglements recently, nothing bad about me, but I had to go through the stressful legalities. My point? I had to go on hiatis from writing because I can only handle just so much stress! Now, the horribly stressful portion of me and the law are settled. People like me with a dual-diagnosis must "budget" our threshold of stress (much like budgeting money) because we can only deal with so much! Now, sitting here, my stress is minimal and I have the fortitude to perform my second "job" of writing! People like me must know our limits and arrange our daily activities to help us stay outta the mental hospital!

Suicide Thoughts Always Caused By Thought Mismanagement

Just yesterday I discovered a man online who was begging for help due to thoughts of suicide. As myself years ago I had experienced the same and was talked out of destroying myself. Since then I have talked over 15 people out of suicide. I attempted to make friends with and talk the lonely man into better trains of thought. He was wondering why people abandoned him and he had no love from a Miss Right! I got to get him to open up to discover why all of his lonliness and what's causing the result of suicide thoughts! The man promoted violence/overthrowing the US Government/fighting police...need I elaborate further! I tried to kindly point out these anti-social behavior/talk was probably the cause of his problems! He got hostile @ me and actually rejected my suggestion of seeking therapy! I don't know what else to do with a man like this except to point out he's heading to prison if isn't mindful of his behavior and I just left him alone!  What are we to do with such people? Maybe merely "plant the seed" in his/her mind that there are severe punishments from acts of violence and that on the other side there is loving help from therapists. He made no specific threats nor did I know his address, otherwise I was going to inform police of a potentially dangerous, derranged man! With my conversation with him was all I could do! Lord help him!

How Do You Stay Clean/Sober For Good?

I have worked with health care professionals who think that once an alcoholic/addict gets straight then that's it! No more problem! Far from the truth! As it takes a Spiritual Awakening for a drinking alcoholic that wants Sobriety to attain initial Sobriety. The Spiritual Experience could be thought to be of the "burning bush"/"parting of the sea" variety. If that occurred everytime an alcoholic/addict had such of an experience then there would be such a clamour that no one would ever be able to get anything done! Most Spiritual Experiences are of the educational variety. To where the alcoholic/addict hears from fellow recovering alcoholics whom represent a form of a higher power. Higher of a power than drugs/alcohol! The addict/alcoholic even though in Recovery is either heading toward or away from a drink/fix/pill. We do not just sit still. It is much easier to hear about Sobriety and have a Spiritual Experience when working with another Sober alcoholic than sitting at a pub drinking a glass of water. There is nothing conducive to Sobriety in a bar. Even with all of this "education" on how to stay clean/sober fear of what a relapse will do to them, fear will not keep an alcoholic/addict Clean and Sober for ever. Only reliance upon a Power Greater than himself/herself will help an alcoholic/addict in Recovery for life! Thus, a Spiritual Experience. As a now Sober Alcoholic/Clean Drug Addict since 4/28/84 I found out that there comes a day in every Recovering Alcoholic's life where nothing upon the face of the earth will keep him Sober! It takes that reliance upon his/her Higher Power. I have had that day and someway/somehow I stayed Clean and Sober!