Why Battle Bipolar Symptoms with Alcohol and Other Drugs?
My father was a drunk. My father was a fall-down, blackout, greet-people-at-the-door-in-your-underwear kind of drunk. He was not a man who wanted kids. He was a man that had little to do with me. And he was a man with bipolar disorder.
I Get Being a Drunk When You Have Bipolar
People drink for many reasons but I have to tell you, I get why you would drink if you had uncontrolled bipolar disorder. The pain is unreal. The amount of suffering is indescribable. The agony that one lives with is something that only people with mental illnesses can understand. And I totally get why drinking would seem like the way of dealing with your bipolar disorder. If you didn’t know a better way, if you weren’t medicated, if you weren’t treated, I totally get why being drunk makes sense.
Substance Abuse and Bipolar Disorder
According to Cassidy et al, nearly 60% of people with bipolar (bipolar I, I believe) sampled had a history of some lifetime substance abuse. Substance abuse simply runs rampant in the bipolar community. And there’s a reason for that. We’re an undertreated, or at least, a suboptimally treated bunch, and we turn to drugs and alcohol to fill the gaps that healthcare treatment and psychiatric medications just don’t fill. And I suspect, like my father, most of these people are “treating” their bipolar depressions as, in a recent article I published with Dr. Prakash Masand, we found that a third of patients report that treatment of depression was the greatest unmet need in the treatment of bipolar disorder (the greatest unmet need of the lot).
Untreated Bipolar and Substance Abuse
And while some people getting treatment for bipolar disorder continue with their substance abuse, many are like my father and abusing substances instead of seeking treatment. This is likely reflected by the numbers we found in the above survey in which almost 20% of people responded that the greatest unmet need in the treatment of bipolar disorder was treatment access while just over 20% responded treatment affordability. These 40% are likely not able to get adequate treatment.
In my father’s case, of course, he was considerably older than I was and the one time that I know of in which he sought treatment, the only treatment that would have been available at that time would have been lithium, and, of course, not everyone can tolerate that treatment. And, after all, what is easier, getting drunk every day or staying on a regimented routine of lithium and other treatments for bipolar disorder (particularly if, indeed, you are already an alcoholic).
Using Alcohol to Tame Bipolar Disorder Symptoms
Look, I admit it, when I’m in extreme pain and have no other way of coping, I have been known to use alcohol to escape. I don’t recommend it. Doctors would not recommend it. But it has happened.
But I think what’s important to think about when heading out to the bar is this: alcohol won’t help your bipolar disorder tomorrow and it very likely will hurt it overall. If you want to see how someone with bipolar disorder who is a drunk for decades turns out, feel free to visit my father. He’s in a care home in full-on dementia after getting (I suspect) Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome due to long-term, extreme alcoholism in addition to several strokes.
When You’re Bipolar, Don’t Do Drugs, Just Don’t
I never give a “don’t do drugs” speech to anyone as I feel that’s the wrong message. But what I say is this: if you choose drugs and alcohol and you have a mental illness, your mental illness will get worse, I promise you.
And I mean it. I have seen it. Over and over. The drugs and alcohol will not help you. Therapy, psychiatric care and lifestyle changes, they will help you. They won’t be nearly as fast as picking up a bottle, pipe or syringe but they will, over time, help you get better. That pain can be dealt with without ruining your life with substance abuse, I promise.
Because if I had one wish this Christmas it would be that no other person ever end up like my father. I get how it happened. I get his pain. I get how he dealt with it. And I feel empathy for the man behind that pain.
But there are better ways. And this Christmas, if you want to give me something, if you’re in that 60%, promise me you’ll get help for your substance abuse/use. That would make me happy and would make you happier, in the end, too.
You can find Natasha Tracy on Facebook or Google+ or @Natasha_Tracy on Twitter or at Bipolar Burble, her blog.
APA Reference
Tracy, N.
(2014, December 21). Why Battle Bipolar Symptoms with Alcohol and Other Drugs?, HealthyPlace. Retrieved
on 2024, November 5 from https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/breakingbipolar/2014/12/why-battle-bipolar-symptoms-with-alcohol-and-other-drugs
Author: Natasha Tracy
I am newly diagnosed bipolar 1. I have had it my whole life although not diag. until almost 50. I used marijuana most of my life to try to turn off some chanels. Recently had an event that scared me and my family. The last 7 years I quit smoking pot and began to follow Christ. I plugged into Celebrate Recovery with marijuana as my drug of choice. Moved through CR and was the ministry leader for the past 3+ years. Got burned out. ( was also leading small group, bible studies, volunteered as fire fighter, EMT, manage and run a successful business and other stuff too. (Someone should have asked if I was bipolar becaus the bipolar poster has my picture on it haha)This stop of pot actually allowed me to be unleashed and run at speeds impossible. I just thought every one else was slow and incompetent.
I decided to smoke again and ultimately had a full blown event followed by rapid cycling.
Thank GOD I had a great Suport team in place and was able to seek help get help and diagnosis quickly. Sycologist,syciatrist. I reacted atypically to anticonvulsant ( triliptal) excellerated my mania. Second med Seroquel xr 150. Miracle drug for me.
All of my doctors are willing to work with marijuana use after stabilized. My experience so far is that when not stable the marijuana is volatile to my mood. (I track my moods on a chart daily and give it to docs weekly.) If I'm down a sativa will force mood change immediately. However if I'm hypermanic it will push me to full mania. I have been obstaining from daily use. Only occasionally and on weekends. As the Meds stabilize me more I'm finding only makes sleep better. The Seroquell has the effect that I had hoped the pot would do for 30 years. I live in a state that has strict anti marijuana laws. ( BTW I had resurched and planned a medical marijuana career but did not act on that Granocios plan)I think that marijuana may have a place in some of the treatment but with extremely caution due to strain selection and not having dispensaries in my state. Also sines on Seroquel the pot is not as compelling. Take or leave. I'm new to this disorder but also exiting that I finally understand the way I have felt my whole life. A lot of aha moments. My disorder doesn't excuse my past behaviors but it sure explains everything. Notation: I do not recommend or condone illegall drug use. But I think it may be a variable tool opposed to a lot of different drugs with a lot of side effects that require more drugs.
All glory to GOD as my prognosis is not typical and I have gone from manic, depressed, mixed mood rapid cycle to fairy happy stable in 5 weeks. Not years as some.
I got diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was 14. I have always drank and smoked. I quit drinking about a year ago I still smoke marijuana, I smoked about an ounce a week. I can't get in to see a psychiatrist the waiting list is too long and as I've never been Admitted into a hospital I'm not high on the priority list. we are broke from my marijuana use but I have 2 kids and without the marijuana I feel like I can't be a Good parent. I get so angry & have no patience, i tend to say really mean things to the people i love the most. I would love to quit smocking weed, but the medicine that i am on does not help out that much.
I asked a social worker in the psych ward about the 60% figure. He also works at the state hospital and said he thought it was more like 80%. He's on the front line.
I don't drink but have used pot, off and on, for 40 years. With bipolar and the meds, it gives me another perspective and chills me out when anxiety breaks through. Better weed than upping the benzo.
My mother was a falling down pathetic drunk. I was often in charge and there was always another fall. That began when I was 7.
Being without pot these days doesn't bother me but it can be useful.
Has anyone else every had a bad reaction to cold medication while taking their bipolar medication? I got a bad cold around Christmas that lasted for about 3 weeks. I had taken Cold FX and or Otrivin in the past prior to being on bipolar medication with excellent results. But since being on BP meds this last cold and the usual cold medications I take have left me with severe vertigo. I felt drunk 23/7 while taking the Cold FX this time which I had previously thought was pretty safe since it's supposed to be 80% ginseng. I read later that it can adversely affect both your blood sugar and blood pressure and the same goes if you are taking antidepressants. Forewarned is forearmed...
I was put in an addicts therapy program by my psych this summer just because in the paperwork I checked the 'yes' box that I'd smoked marijuana, even though I was no longer using. They still treated me like a user and she refuses to give me Klonopin and asks EVERY TIME I see her if I'm using.
I've been seeing her for 5 years and it pisses me off to be treated like I'm a junkie just because I smoke pot every now and then and I've completely quit now because I'm trying to get into a good career and I won't be going back to weed at all.
I've personally found that using pot and/or alcohol doesn't make me 'forget' anything, it makes me feel even sadder or angrier and it's the absolute worst thing I can do. I'm on meds for my bipolar but they're not keeping me from being manic and when things get really bad, it's like I just go down a hole and no med will help, so I don't know what to do.
And my psych just says 'well, you've tried pretty much all the meds there are....'. And then wonders why I turned to alcohol and drugs to see if they'd help.
So what do I do now?
Natasha I feel so sorry for you and I have a similar story.
My father was an alcoholic who I believe was by all accounts highly intelligent and charming. I believe he had undiagnosed bipolar? I can never varrify that he left my mother when I was six months old and I have two memories of him one when I was about two years and my Mum had to get the cops to make him leave (it was the 1980's and the cops let him drive when he was too drunk to walk to his car inaided), the other as he lay dying in his early fifties. My Mum and Dad(step) stayed in the room because he was in a part comma and could only feel pain. This put me off alcohol for life-I have never been drunk. since I turned thirty I might have around six alcoholic drinks per year. I wonder what my father's life would have been like if he hadn't started drinking at twelve.
However since working in mental health (I have bipolar type 1) I completely understand why people with a mental illness drink, sometimes the help you need is denied to you for a variety hog reasons like live in the wrong government district for that program, sometimes standard drugs and therapy are useless at that time, sometimes the pain is so bad we don't know that we need. Of picking up a bottle of grog stops you killing yourself do it, but don't stop looking for a better solution,
My doctor told me that if you drink alcohol that it negates all of the good that comes from taking your medication. He said that over a very long period of time the alcohol will start to erode higher brain function. He also said that bipolars get drunk at a faster rate than someone without bipolar. I don't know if he was trying to scare me. But I don't drink anyway, but I do have bipolar friends that do drink. Does anyone know if that is true?
I just don't react well to alcohol...I don't even like the taste......
Haven't had it in yrs same as street drugs.....
At the time I wasn't concious that I was self medicating......drugs were more of an issue ever than alcohol ...
I gave street drugs up 30 yrs past,due to illness.
Then once diagnosed BP....absolutely didn't break that rule...plus I don't smoke.
I have a relative who's been in finn's position, and I agree, it's just not simple at all.
really sorry you had to deal with this stuff - UGH.
Being I am nerdy, I have to mention that the 60% figure probably isn't referring to current abusers, but rather people who have ever abused a substance (not sure, the information doesn't just pop out there when I google). Like here is an example of what I found "Weiss et al. [16] examined the clinical characteristics of the first 1000 patients to enter STEP-BP, of which 105 had a current SUD, 332 had a past SUD, and 480 had no history of a SUD. " from http://www.substanceabusepolicy.com/content/2/1/29
Well, I'm not sure those numbers are astronomically higher than the general population - somewhat higher, for sure, maybe 2x the risk? Guessing here.
I kinda get touchy on the subject, because I was called an addict to my face twice, when I do not have a history of drug abuse and in fact, have been a tea totaller most of my life. I am pretty sure it was assumed I was a drug abuser because of the bp label. I wish I had my act together at the time to report those disrespectful doctors. Now that I'm middle aged and "respectable," I never get that sort of BS anymore. Oh wait, social services acts like a person is an addict if they have a glass of wine once a month. The folks I currently know with addiction problems do not have bp.
Glad for your more nuanced message than most of us with bp usually get. Good blog post!
It`s very easy to say don`t use but if that`s the only thing that keeps you from blowing your brains out it`s not so simple.