Depression – Lighten the Fuck Up

I realized the other day that depression and anxiety were not exactly subjects that I could make “fun” in terms of my blog. In fact, being in a really good mood, I didn’t even want to sit down and write about depression, because it can be so “heavy”. Well that’s a bunch of crap.

When my depression started to affect me to the point where I began drinking alot, it wasn’t long before my drinking started to become troublesome. I had loved to drink my whole life, but when the depression hit me it changed the WAT I drank. I was drinking to get away from the lousy feelings, yet I never connected the two. Not for 10 years did I learn  that medically there was something called “Dual Diagnosis“! Dual diagnosis operates on a very basic premise, and that is simply that there is a complete and total connection between depression and alcohol or depression and drugs. It means that somebody who develops a mood disorder like depression, anxiety, PTSD — whatever –  will begin to increase the amount they drink. This happens to the degree that drinking, which may have been under control for years, suddenly (or slowly) becomes more of a problem.

Then, the mood disorder gets worse — and that’s the crazy part. Scientifically, they don’t know which part makes the other half worse, they just know that both the mood disorder AND the drinking co-exist, and both worsen. Well, ISN’T THAT A HAPPY THOUGHT? You are either a depressed person developing alcoholism, or you are an alcoholic developing major depression. If you think you may fall into this category or know someone who does, I have one thing to say to you: “Lighten the fuck up”. And that phrase, my friends, A) has a ton of wisdom behind it, and B) it works.

When I got a DUI I decided I had better try AA. It was completely beneath me at that point in time, and I was horrified to think I was going to ” A Meeting”, and I had to call a celebrity friend to take me. He went, and he was famous, so if I went with him maybe it would be OK. Long story short I went to AA for a while and when you are in that program you seek out what they call a “sponsor”. A sponsor is simply somebody who has been around the program for a while and knows how it all works. Of course I had to get one of the best known sponsors in the program — a guy who supposedly had all the answers. Well I grabbed a 12 step book and began to read it, and I went to these meetings,stressing out every time and trying to figure out if I even belonged there or not. “Milt” was the sponsor’s name and I’ll never forget him because every time I approached him or called him with questions he had just one answer”, Aww Tom”, he’d say “Just lighten the fuck up”. I don’t know how he detected how uptight I was, because looking back on it I never even realized at the time how anxious I was. The fact is, here this old wise man was telling me this — and it worked every time. I found myself saying, yeah, I just don’t need to spin my brain around that (whatever “that” was at the time).

So listen to me, especially if you have read this far. I have been there. I had to have my depression fixed in a hospital. But you can come out the other end and have a really amazing life. If I can do it, I promise you you can do it — so just lighten the fuck up, OK?  PS: Can anybody explain the chart above to me? Please try.

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