This. 100 percent this.
I stopped drinking altogether once I started taking a low dose of opiates and it literally saved my life. Now granted I have a pain condition so perhaps drinking was also a form of self-medicating. The direction I was headed on booze was frightening, I was a train wreck. I was able to get an advanced degree, hold jobs, be a wife, a wonderful and present mother, daughter, and so much more. Do I hate that I have to rely on a drug to help me feel ok? Yes, yes I hate that part. But the alternative feels worse. And truthfully, people rely on all sorts of drugs all of the time (heart pills, cholesterol, antidepressants, caffeine, even sex).
My biggest regret is how society doesn’t set people up for success to begin with. There’s all this talk about help lines and treatment for mental health crisis, but I called one of those lines at one of the darkest times in my life and was told I’d essentially be called out on my medical chart for the rest of my life. I’d have a notation for anyone to see that would follow me. I certainly wasn’t going to fall for a life of stigmatization and judgment by every doctor’s office I set foot into for infinitude.
Excuse my French, but the US is so fucked when it comes to helping people psychologically and emotionally. Not to go on a complete tangent, but our obsession with consumerism and frivolity and social media and pretentiousness and work-obsessed and our fixation on gluttony and capitalism.. yada yada, has resulted in a generation of anxious and unhappy people. Sucks.
