Hi, Zita,
I too have a confession to make...I self medicated for a long time, before I was a Christian, and several times after becoming a child of God. The times during my Christian life were short-lived, and usually had a couple of years between episodes...I didn't consider myself an alcoholic, but looking at the way I drank and partied from my teens on up, before Christ, I can see it, definitely. After Christ, I really didn't think of myself as one...but now I see I was still self-medicating. See, several years ago, I was diagnosed as clinically depressed. My family dr. never went into a thorough family medical history, never asked about family and their mental health history...she then prescribed me anti-depressants. I went through two different ones, same results: mania. Sure, the depression lifted, but I was so wacked out from the AD's, I was drinking to tone down the manic feeling, and doing really stupid stuff. It was awful.
Add to that the fear of being caught, the embarassment of knowing what I was doing was wrong as a Christian, and the knowledge and sadness of watching my own mother slowly killing herself with booze, after a lifetime of self-medicvating (she was bipolar too, but never got help, even when the doc told her she was.) I was making a mess of things.
I finally quit taking the ADs, and got back on track with our last church, where we used to live. I really began to live for Him, and it was showing in our marriage and in our kids. Life was really good, in spite of the troubles. (I now think this was a remission period from the mental disorder.) The drinking stopped, and life went on.
Last year, when we moved, my mom had died, we were in a new state, I knew nobody, I had to give up homeschooling our kids, and I had a nervous breakdown, pretty much. I spent the whole winter depressed. DEEP depression, hopeless state. Even though we found ourselves in a really great church, I felt godless, unhappy. even though things were improved by our move here, I felt just horrid. I began drinking again. "Just" beer, but drinking it more and more. I finally could take no more of the depression, and found a wonderful psychiatrist who is helping me, counseling me, and working to help me learn to live with this disorder. I have the right meds, we think, and things should be looking up.
But the habit of beer drinking has been terribly hard to shake. The meds do good, when I don't drink beer; but when I do, everything is screwed up again. moodwise. I have been to my pastor, and he has been so understanding and positive about my wanting to recover and live with this illness; but I really want to talk to him, and to my p-doc about the beer thing. I still don't really think I'm an alcoholic...but I probably am.
I DO know that God loves me immensely, and I KNOW I am secure in Him. But I just want to shake this stupid habit. After all, I AM getting treatment for the bipolar disorder, so I don't need to "self-medicate" anymore. I know this. I guess I oughtta talk to my p-doc, let him know this is an issue for me, and see what he thinks I need to do. I'm tempted to talk to my pastor as well, I feel I can trust him; but this is such a small town, and I am so embarrassed to think that anyone might find out that I'm a Christian, and yet have been drinking. Heck, I'm not even really worried about anyone knowing about the bipolar! But when it comes to the urge to have that "beer buzz", I am embarrassed.
Well, gotta go, dinner to make. But I want to thank you for sharing, and thank you for listening to my stupid ramblings. I do feel better having confessed this to SOMEONE...my hubby also is worried about me, and has been trying to be patient and encouraging with me...but he is scared I am becoming like my mom. And alcohol killed her. she always drank hard liquor, and did it for at least forty years. I have only drank beer, off and on for the last several years. but he does have a valid concern, and I'm thankful he loves me enough to say something.
Gotta go!