COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO HHS

...MHSA PROP 63
...OVERCOMING THE BARRIERS IN MENTAL HEALTH
...THE IMPACT OF STRESS IN FAMILIES, CHILDREN AND YOUTH
..DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND ABUSE
....YOUR DOCTOR AND YOUR HEALTH
....STIGMA AND DISCRIMINATION
....RECOVERY IS REAL
....RECOVERY FROM MENTAL ILLNESS IS POSSIBLE
....MY RECOVERY
 
 

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.....For more information about the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) in San Diego, Community Services/ Supports, and Prevention & Early Intervention Services, please call to: (619) 584-5063 or visit: sandiego.networkofcare.org

 
 
 

 

.........County of San Diego Mental Health Services ................................. 3

 

 

MY RECOVERY CONTINUED....

 

...... In 2003, I saw a psychiatrist for the first time, having acknowledged to myself before meeting with her that I might need to be open to a medicinal solution to my mental quandary. My depression symptoms had become more severe, and I felt as if I was floundering. She wanted to prescribe Lexapro, trazodone, and Wellbutrin, but as a my recovery-pic-2precondition she insisted that I cease drinking. For two weeks, I did just that. When I began to feel better, I continued taking the medication, and returned to drinking, assured in my notion that a lack of depression would enable me to drink in moderation. In no time at all, I was drinking to great excess again. Within months I stopped seeing the psychiatrist, and self-tapered off the medications.

......The two years that followed comprised a dismal series of failed companies, botched consulting assignments, intermittent unemployment, numerous geographic moves and personal economic disaster. It was during this period that I became an Every Single Day drinker permanently, beyond recall. Somehow I managed to land another executive position at yet another startup here in San Diego. As soon as my health insurance was established, I began seeing another psychiatrist, determined to have yet another go at returning stability and mental health to my life. That became perhaps the worst cocktail of all - multiple anti-depressants, tried in various combinations, trazodone abuse mixed with excessive daily alcohol consumption. I even tried acamprasote, which was supposed to help me crave less alcohol and taper down entirely. When that didn't work, I went all the way to disulfiram -Antabuse- in an attempt to shed the drinking habit I could not seem to let go of my own free will. After a week of cautious abstinence, I began tapering off the Antabuse in the hopes that I was “all-better” now. That wasn't really why. Really I just figured I wouldn't be able to have "just a couple drinks" while taking it. Two days later I had a few drinks. Some of the Antabuse remained in my system, and I experienced one of the most horrific 3-hour periods of my life. Some people vomit when they combine alcohol with Antabuse. I became flushed, hallucinatory and paranoid. I felt as if I might physically explode. I could sense each person that walked past gaping and leering into my turgid soul, passing terminal judgment upon me, plotting my demise. It was the last time I made that mistake - I was done with Antabuse, and done with my psychiatrist.

......Six months later, in the haze of a bender, in the midst of a thunderous downpour, I passed out face down in a deep mud puddle beneath a dumpster, a mere 20 feet shy of the front door to my apartment building. Fortunately, someone saw my plight and called an ambulance. I remember none of this. My first memory is being jolted awake in the ambulance, a shot of adrenaline, choking up dumpster runoff. They told me I hadn’t been breathing. When we reached the hospital, I snarled at the doctor, asked him if I was legally bound to remain in the hospital. He said I was not, so I stumbled out into the dark of night, with no idea where I was. Miraculously, I found my way home. The next day I awoke to searing pain and agitation; I began drinking anew.

.....A week later, sitting woozy on a curb, lights flashing in my face, I heard paramedic from the same ambulance say to me: “Wait a second . . . . . . didn’t I just see you last week?” But I lacked the emergency status for a second hospitalization. Instead, I was handcuffed and dropped at detox. The next day, I drank again.

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