Rehab Yourself

Hello my name is Glenn, I decided to start blogging about my adventure in recovery from addiction and depression. As I go along I will be updating and writing about tools I use and changes that occur in my life, which I hope in turn helps the reader as well as families dealing with a person who struggles with some or all of these issues. I will also offer my opionion on ideas I have regarding Rehabs, Self Help tools, Cognative Behaivoral Therapy, Rational Recovery, and Music Therapy tools, all of which helped me.

HISTORY:
I am a 44 year old Husband, Father, Son, Brother and I have made a life committment to change. I grew up in a upper/middle class family with both parents married, private christian school education, addiction/depression were completely unkowns to me during the first 14 years of my life. I knew at age 14 things were just not coming together for me, I felt bummed out most of the time, got plenty of constant negative attention in the classroom (couldnt keep focused) I loved to chat with my friends and look out the window at the mountains, which was not condusive to a self paced education program :). My parents retired when I was 17, by then my 2 sisters and brother were off and running in life, jobs, kids, life... My father was a decorated policeman, my mother a nurse. My parents bought a sailboat in Long Beach, California and decided that I could take correspondance courses and finish my last year of school. I decided that idea was not going to work for me, at which point I emplored my parents to let me go back by myself and finish my last year of school. This I believe was the turning point for me into using some bad coping tools to deal with emotions and feelings/thoughts i couldnt figure out what to do with, namely alchohol/smoking, which is weird because I was on the swimming/diving team, and indulged only on weekends (like thats a good thing?) I did graduate and headed off to college.

This is where the depression/anxiety/substance abuse really took hold, or rather, I used substances to cope with the depression/anxiety...jeeezzzz Glenn nice tools....:) I made it to my Junior year and finally gave up fighting with myself and went into a deep/hopeless depression. I just had absolutely no idea how to deal with these goofy emotions/feelings and everyother thing that ran through my head. I ended up back at home at 21 with my parents who were back from there 2 year sailing trip. I decided to look for work and gave up school completely, found a job, got married, had a daughter and stepped into adulthood full bore. But as time progressed my use of alchohol increased, once again im using the only coping tool that I know that has an immediate effect on how I feel. So for the next 13 years I function as a person on the surface but completely dulled and empty, always looking for the next thing to make me feel better. I finally took a job out of the state we lived in, which turned out to be a nightmare, i had moved my Wife who was pregnant with our son and 2 daughters down to where I was. My anxiety now was through the roof and depression was my only friend,,Isnt it strange that I had a beautiful wife and kids and I was still alone in my mind.?? we'll talk about that one later :) so here we are new job that I hated, responsibility of a growing family and depression/anxiety thrown into it all.. After a brief discussion we decided that I should see a Doctor and discuss the depression/anxiety issue, good thinking right? Not! the first thing most physicians do is try and alleviate the symptoms, which were anxiety, depression, fear and a general feeling of unrest with Benzodiazapines (xanax,valium,ect) Bad news for a budding substance abuser and depressive. So fast foreward a few years of using these to numb myself, great stuff if taken as directed and the only other alternative is a lobotomy, although my wife would tell u now that i must have been lobotomized without her knowledge!

I think rather than continue with the rest of the addiction/depression/anxiety story I'll suffice to say that 2 surgeries for a broken arm and doctors for depression/anxiety, I had a nice perscripion drug habit, painkillers, painmanagement, benzodiazapines all at the same time, all though I functioned, I had completely stopped progressing emotionally, found myself unable to cope without these substances and had literally gotten off the train of life. In 1995 I attended my first Rehab, it was an AA model, where the first thing you admitt is that you are powerless, hmmm I'll discuss that later, the problem here was that i was there to taper off Benzodiazipines but was still on a huge dose of prescribed pain meds..great...2 weeks later the counselors called my wife and said, "Glenns doing great!, He's gonna succede" (the real story is that insurance figured out that to detoxify it only took 5-7 days) So off I headed full of the AA gospel, the magic of the 12 steps, and the idea that I was powerless against the raging beast of addiction, and with a group of other addicts/alcholics I would be able to keep it together! nice in theroy huh? All fine and dandy, got home and headed to meeting after meeting, admitting each time I was powerless and insane ..nice reinforcement...Mettings were depressing listening to people tell how horrible things were and how great it is now, but im a people watcher by nature and I would see these speakers shuffle off after speaking, heads hung low, knuckles white, just trying to make it through the day. Frankly this didnt look to appealing but I thought Id throw myself into it by doing commitments, speaking, making coffee, setting up chairs and pounding lots of coffee..this worked for about a year. Then I started hiding bottles in the house and sneaking a drink here and there, I found another doctor to put me on Benzo's again and within 6 months I came home after a couple hours on errands to find the Police on my front porch with a nice fat restraining order for yours truly..Hmm. My wife had finally had enough! According to the restraining order she felt that i was a danger to her and the kids... There i was in the month of February with no where to go, no family in the state i lived, no funds, no vehicle, just a RX bottle of pills and a plastic bottle of cheap Vodka under the hedge..nice coping tools huh?...This part of the story happened 7 years ago,,gonna fast foreward again on my next post later today...Please know that there is a point to this story, my story is about saving my ass through self help, healthy coping tools, music, openmindedness and self empowerment, If it worked and is working for me it can and will for you..Overcome, Choice, Freedom, Breathe,Simplicity power words for us all.