Changes I've Had To Make

Hello everyone! I apologize for not posting for several weeks now, but I have been dealing with symptoms. I have been attending a 12 Step Program geared especially for us Dually-Diagnosed and have been called upon to increase the amount of meetings per week. Prior to these now more frequent meetings I had been putting most of my efforts to writing my unique memoirs. As I am on Social Security Disability it is either I write or put on more meetings...one or the other, not both. When I weigh the importance of multiple meetings versus writing, the choice was easy. Meetings! As when I first got into Recovery from alcoholism I was taught to be of, "...maximum benefit to God and my fellow man!" Here I set....awaiting those who need my help!

So Your Boss Says To Hurry It Up?

As I have been on Social Security Disability for nearly 30 years I could earn at least $30/hour tutoring math if I was healthy enough. My ailments include schizophrenia/bipolar disorder/panic attack and Seasonal Affective Disorder. Traditionally, I can only relax during my afternoons and if I have activities I can go out and do them at night. I have been making an attempt to write novel(s) which cover my schizophrenia caused hallucinations and I write mostly at night and continue through into the early morning hours. I am pleased with the quality of my writing. What I have began to notice is that I can now write some, (about an hour), during my mid afternoon hours. I find that not just productive, but encouraging as well! Maybe someday I can write more in the afternoons and at night so to get potentially published even sooner that I had predicted!
My point to the Dually-Diagnosed like me? Just keep trying! Keep at it! You'll find much of paradise here on earth, if you stay in Recovery!
My Recovery birthdate...my first day clean/sober/working on my mental illnesses? That would be April 28, 1984!

No Reason To Drink/Drug/Go Off My Meds!

Hello everyone! I hope each of you are doing great! I'm struggling today! For the longest time I tried to figure out why I am struggling!  I got good sleep last night, ate today, took my meds as prescribed!
This is why I am receiving Social Security Disability Entitlements! Folks, I don't do anything my psychiatrist tells me to not do!
Now, my point: us in Dual Recovery when we have symptoms that is NO REASON to go back out and drink alcohol/do street drugs/abuse or go off my meds! Any of those will only increase your symptoms and they have the potential to kill you!!
What to do when having symptoms? If have a Sponsor- call him/her. Call the hotline for your psychiatric caregiver! Talk to an understanding friend or family member! Call the local Crisis Center! You need to have someone bring you down to earth. What I do know to do for me at 30+ years in Dual-Recovery is to sit, hold on, don't do anything "stupid"  which will get you in deep trouble! And understand yourself that if you have a mental illness then you will have "off" days...excuse yourself and understand that you didn't "make" yourself have symptoms!
Peace and love to all of you!

America, this is huge! Society vs. Dual Recovery

In 1984 three months into Recovery from addiction PLUS mental illness (that is called Dual-Recovery) I was out trying to find work and was asked why I hadn't worked in over a year. I told them of my Dual-Recovery and that I had about three months in Recovery and was denied work for another six months due to stigma!
If the balance of America holds it against other people like it was back then with me then today other addicts will look at clean, sober me...unemployed and when I found work the pay was so poor that I just didn't eat many days. These, then, potentially Recovering addicts see me struggling financially then what will they say and do? I'll tell you: "To hell with Recovery! I'll just sell dope!" That has happened many times more than those who got into Recovery and one that I know of is in Prison for good!
America? Is that what we want for our addicts who consider Recovery? We NEED to reward those addicts/alcoholics in Recovery, not to mention the stigma I still experience about my mental illnesses. What's my Dual-Recovery birthday? Being my first day clean/sober/working on my mental illnesses with a psychiatrist/therapist: that day is: April 28, 1984. Yes! After 30 years of being in Dual-Recovery I run across many who show stigma to me! I know better than to act-out with violence... there are those like me drunk, stoned and crazy who can and do act out!
Please, America! Let's help those like me get into Recovery and offer them forgiveness and acceptance if they do respond with Recovery! Otherwise, I fear violence and lessening amounts of those who are Dually-Diagnosed who get in Recovery!!
Please help by eliminating your own stigma against people like me! If these people like me are stoned/crazy, call the police! Really! The pain they experience will push them toward Recovery! Once in Recovery, let's reward them!! Please!!

Dependence Versus Addiction

Often, certain places addicts go to get into Recovery other than treatment centers can describe the addict as being dependent upon drugs. I have a roommate who is diabetic and is "dependent" upon pills to treat his diabetes. He is NOT addicted, but dependent to where if he would quit taking his diabetes pills he would die!
I am an alcoholic/drug addict as in heroin/cocaine/etc and have schizophrenia/bipolar disorder (also called Dually-Diagnosed). As I am no longer using the illegal drugs which were going to kill me I do take Zyprexa/Remeron for my mental illnesses. And they are superior in their effectiveness. I am "dependent" upon the medications I take not addicted. For, too, if I quit taking my meds I could no longer handle my state of mind and could not take the hell of depression/psychosis and I probably would start to drink/drug and would destroy myself! Very few people realize how it is to drink alcoholically/abuse drugs/have schizophrenia/bipolar disorder!
Please support Dually-Diagnosed to stay in Recovery, take their meds and stay clean and sober by not showing stigma toward them and in fact encourage them in their Recovery by telling them how proud you are of them and how you read this blog as the author's Recovery date is April 28, 1984 and he is so happy that he can barely stand it!

Allow Me To Be Candid

I wish to, first draw attention to the fact that I am in Recovery from my Dual-Disorder since April 28, 1984. Yee-haw!  Next, I will tell you of my escapades prior to continuous recovery.
I had been attempting to get into Recovery from alcoholism/drug addiction/schizophrenia which I had not been diagnosed with at the time/bipolar disorder/panic attacks. This is a mess to deal with!! My untreated illnesses started to kick me in the behind and I mean not able to sleep for weeks/anxiety beyond words/and plain old acting crazy making me, even upon initial Recovery, isolated from the world and reality for a total of 7 years. Alone and lonely. I even went to church...the same church I was custodian at for years at the age of 13 because my mom and dad were poor so I worked and basically put food on the table for the family. Anyway, these people at church I had known would not look at me, talk to me, shake my hand...it was as if there was no forgiveness in going to church. So, I remained alone and lonely for years after that.

My point is here: My hallucinations developed into a science fiction/horror genre and the hallucinations were so real/so vivid and convincing that I believed them. They were action-packed, supposedly rewarding if I was able to perform as a "character" in a story I would get millions of dollars and Power over anything/anybody!

Crazy? Yes! Not my fault! I was clean and sober and broke no laws. Just was nuts. I actually acquired a "fun" story of which I lived while hallucinating. To me, that part of my hallucinations was "fun" to me! A reward from my God. And at the time they were fun hallucinations!

Now, haven gotten help for this set of illnesses called Dually-Diagnosed I am REALly enjoying life and am in the process of writing novels about my fun hallucinations!
I hope the best to ya'll!

To Panic Or Not To Panic

I suffer from panic attacks/anxiety disorder and the solution to it was to "Breathe Deeply and Think of A Positive Place or Evident" advice given by therapists. When I have a panic attack and I begin to breathe deeply my head feels as if will explode. Besides, it doesn't help until I am already coming down from the panic attack.
Then, to "Think of a positive place..."? I come from an abusive house, was born depressed and showed signs of schizophrenia @ age 8. I have not experienced a " happy place/positive place" to think of...except when I was stoned out of my mind on drugs/booze...not the type of place a recovering alcoholic/drug addict like me wants to think positive about when trying to stay off intoxicating chemicals!! To relapse on drugs/ alcohol will kill me...to have panic attacks "only" debilitate me.
I feel lucky to be able to blog here and to have started to write a series of novels which cover my 7+ year long single storyline hallucination caused by untreated schizophrenia.
Does such a series of novels spark any type of interest within you? Please feel free to leave your comments here at the end of this post! Thank you so very much!

Mentally "Kill"?

A major point with me even with my own recovery is that after I sobered up and got clean I had untreated schizophrenia. I was not breaking any laws. Because no one tried to help me even tho I showed signs of, well, strange behaviour I suffered long and hard alone..for years due to untreated mental illnesses. I was/am docile. There are thousands of those with untreated mental illnesses who are going through what I have, but are capable of violent behavior. Might we...all of us concerned about safety...find a way to get mental health treatment to EVERYONE who shows the obvious signs of mental illness. I sure could have used proper care much earlier. We could lower crime folks! I am not a lawmaker, but lawmakers need to arrange a way to get ahold of people like me before dangerous actions occur.

What The Dangerous "Only Pot" Can Do To You

As I was born depressed and had few friends cause I was "no fun" and my older sister came home from college one summer and asked me if I "...wanted some of..." I immediately said yes and I smoked pot for the first time. I didn't know it was marijuana, but it made me feel "different"! Plus, as I got drawn into the partying crowd I finally had who I thought were friends. I had thought that I had found the answer to all of my life's problems.
Years later, still smoking pot I made the Dean's List in Engineering and it quickly grew into a run-away freight train of heroin/cocaine/pcp addiction and even in the act I hated it and couldn't quit. Not until a " friend" put a lot of LSD in my fruit punch drink and I was gone for three months...I think.
Soon after I went inpatient for drug rehabilitation and years later I figured out that I was also an alcoholic and had schizophrenia/bipolar disorder/panic attacks.
What I have not mentioned is that before my drug habit increased from three times a year to three times a day I had Miss Right/was able to work day and night to achieve what I wanted and was a quite honest man which drugs/booze/drugs/mental and emotional disorders made me into what became the small town character. I lost everything near and dear to me and have not...even with a Recovery birthday April 28, 1984...I have not been able to get a job (I am now on Disability Entitlements due to schizophrenia and panic attacks) not been able to attract another Miss Right and am a mere shadow of the achiever that I had once been.
I will say that I  am mostly happy today in Recovery, but everyday I understand that I lost all of the things a man wants out of life! One thing for sure, Recovery beats having to go to jail/paranoid about cops and the fact that I have gotten to age 56 whereas those I've known who do not stay in Recovery die near the time they relapse!
What I am doing these days is that I'm writing the true story of my 7+ years of schizophrenia - caused hallucinations that were actually kind of "fun" to live through. I am not/do not beg for sympathy, but write my novels to entertain and inform my audience. Also, I am trying to help knock down the wall of stigma which often isolates us who have mental illesses from the rest of the world. Not to mention alcoholism and drug addiction.
Though I have a lot to complain about I do have a life that's actually fun and as free as a man could ask for!

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!

Opposites Attract?

Hello everyone! I have been reading/commenting on the readings online so to express how the world of psychology is missing the whole boat on the nature of depression/psychosis/drug addiction/alcoholism and the onset of symptoms of such.

One researcher claims that research shows that only physical childhood abuse causes schizophrenia and that the mental illness has nothing to do with biological causes.

I couldn't believe my mentally ill mind! I asked this researcher about how, yes, I come from an abusive childhood and smoked pot/other drugs like pcp/cocaine/heroin/amphetamines. The point I make is that I remember having symptoms @ age 3 like anxiety and by age 8 or so I would be vacuuming mom's carpet and be carring on a conversation with a floor lamp by way of thought from my mind to and then back from the lamp.

Now, this researcher claims there is no biological side to psychosis, but is caused only by an abusive childhood. I asked, then, that if I neglect to take my antipsychotic meds why do I have horrific psychotic symptoms plus, why is it if I miss my night time anti-depressives then the entire next day I am depressed?

Now, if all of these mental illnesses are caused by childhood abuse why is my older sister, who
grew up in the same household as I, how is it she had what she called a "mystical, magically" wonderful childhood? She, 6 years older than me, has no mental illnesses/no drug addiction/no alcoholism?

It is my modest opinion that I was born with mental illnesses which voided any coping skills and my sister was born with no mental illnesses such that my hell bound life was because I am powerless over my mental illnesses and couldn't cope! Yet my sister is healthy because she has coping skills that "average" people are born with.

Much Better, Thank You!

When first suggested, Recovery from alcoholism was said to be the only disease where upon Recovery it made the individual a better person.
Now with the addition of similar processes for achieving recovery including drug addiction a similar program sprouted for Recovery from a Dual-Diagnosis. (Not to be confused with "dual-addiction"). Recovery from a Dual-Diagnosis means having a desire to stay clean and stay sober PLUS have a mental and /or emotional disorder of which you have the desire to stay in Recovery from.
Much like Recovery from alcoholism  Recovery from Dual-Diagnosis makes a better person of the person who has achieved Dual-Recovery.
     As I now have 29+ years Recovery I am a model citizen and absolutely love it! I can actually smile and wave at the Police as they drive by and mean every bit of my smile!
     Folks!? I used to belong to a gang some thirty years ago and have sat behind bars! NO MORE! I figured out that as a Law Abiding American Citizen I can go anywhere and do anything I want! I'm loving life and am doing/living as I wished when I was first upon Recovery! I have arrived!
Thank you!

Hello Everyone!

Hello everyone! My name is Chuck and I'm greatful to be in Dual-Recovery! You may ask what is Dual-Recovery? In order to be in Dual-Recovery you must be an alcoholic and/or drug addict and be:
- clean from intoxicating drugs and sober PLUS have a mental or emotional disorder which you must be in Recovery from.
Please understand "just" staying sober and "just" staying clean is extremely difficult in themselves, but when you add one or more mental illnesses this makes it all that much more difficult. Thus, I hope my blog may help my readers stay in Dual-Recovery or for loved ones of those like me or those who study Dual-Diagnosis bring understanding to you so to illustrate what it can be like for people like myself. I will include what I recall from my past to describe what it has been like for me and how I now behave and what wisdom I have to share to inform and encourage people like me to get into and stay in Dual-Recovery and continue to grow in Recovery. I would also love to knock down the wall of stigma between us who have mental illnesses and alcoholism and/or drug addiction and those "average" people who think odd of me or thinks I am dangerous or wierd because of my mental illnesses.
     My first day in continuous Recovery is April 28, 1984. And now I'm so happy I can barely stand it! Ha-ha!
Thank you,
Charles R Smith II