Originally posted by The Motorcycle Boy
Feldman has had his addiction issues also... Some have an easier time than others in sobriety. It works for the first time for some and never for
others and everything inbetween.
Yeah, I'm one of the ones mentioned in the AA creed, where it says
"We acknowledge there are a very small number of people who can be
helped by medical treatment..."
I started drinking and popping pills when I was 17, the day my dad died. I also had (and still have) the constitution of a horse, so I was still
drinking up until I turned 40. Whereupon my wife-to-be told me to make a choice:
Booze or
her.
I gave up booze immediately, cold turkey, haven't touched it for 10 years; and, frankly, I haven't missed it. At first, she insisted that I go to
AA for "support," which it turns out I didn't need. AA was one of the
worst things
for me... My local AA meeting was all about
alcoholic war stories, everybody telling their horrible stories of addiction.
It was
incredibly depressing, made me
want to drink, although I held firm and stayed sober.
After a year of AA (and hating every minute of it), I told my wife that I needed to get out of it. Whereupon she insisted that I see a doctor for
medical help, if I needed it. I didn't think I needed help, but I went anyway. The doc suggested that I had been "self-medicating" for
undiagnosed depression, right? So he put me on a
serotonin reuptake inhibitor (depression meds), which I took faithfully for about 5 years.
Back to
pills, right? I hated it. I hated
having to take pills to "feel normal"... So, after about 5 years, I just
quit
taking the meds. Was
woozy for about a week, but then I realized that I
felt better than I had for almost 30 years.
I actually
felt better after giving up the depression meds, right. Never had the urge to start drinking nor anything else. In other words, I
just felt
normal.
Originally posted by The Motorcycle Boy
A culture of drug abuse in Hollywood? It's a culture of drug abuse everywhere you look.
No, it's not the same "everywhere else"... In Hollywood, your
"best friends" will frequently
look the other way while you poison
yourself to death, because they
want your money and they dare not
offend you by staging an intervention.
I mean, there are high-dollar parties in Hollywood where the
hors d'œuvres are trays and bowls full of
drugs, right, not to mention
the four or five free wetbars stationed around the house. Go on any big television show and notice the
free wetbar in the green room, so
celebs can get hammered before they go on the air.
Helps settle the nerves, right.
That's a
culture of substance abuse.
— Doc Velocity
[edit on 3/10/2010 by Doc Velocity]
