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Side-Effects of Prozac

A friend asked if I’ve ever experienced any side-effects from the Prozac I take to help manage OCD.

An excellent question. Fear of side-effects kept me from trying the medication for years. Unfortunately, I did a lot of suffering in those years that could have been avoided.

I had heard all kinds of horror stories about side-effects: Weight gain, violent mood swings, acne. That stuff does happen, but it didn’t happen to me.

I have experienced bad mood swings right after dosage adjustments, but it doesn’t last long.

I’ve also learned that if the capsules leak and the medicine gets into your throat in the raw, the result is brutal heartburn.

Other than that, no lasting trouble.

That’s just my experience, of course, and the key to making this work is a multi-pronged attack on the mental illness with therapy, developing coping skills, etc.

The medication works wonders, but it doesn’t keep the mood swings and sometimes depressed feelings from developing. But in my opinion, it’s not supposed to do that.

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We Need Routines, Part 2

Here’s one reason February has been such a bitch: My routine has been so far off the rails that it has been hard to keep my perspective. It hurts the whole family-work dynamic. For a person in recovery, routines are beyond huge.

Mood music:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YzKLRM-pr4&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

Being the restless, boredom-shunning soul that I am, I always look forward to the next trip. I always miss my wife and children during these outings, but it’s also good to get out of the normal environment from time to time. It tests you and can even rejuvenate. I’ve also learned that recovery is portable. You can take your program just about anywhere. I’ve also learned that God is with me wherever I go, and that makes it much easier to approach life in a fearless way.

Here’s the problem: Do too much of this sort of thing and you hurt yourself and those around you. That’s exactly what I did in late January and the first half of February. I went to Washington and San Francisco within a two week period and came home violently ill. Served me right, but my family didn’t deserve having to carry on while I was passed out on the couch.

I thought I had the groove of a traveling man down pat, but I was being stupid.

Last week was a lost week of sorts. I was home a lot with my family, but mentally I was pretty vacant.

But it’s a new week. I’m in the office doing routine things. This afternoon I’ll go home and do more routine things. And I’ll be happy doing it.

I started on the path back to sanity yesterday by going to Mass. Driving there in a snowstorm wasn’t sane, mind you. But by the time Mass was over I felt so happy to be back. When you travel and focus on work too much, God gets the shaft, too.

That point was driven home to me when I did another routine thing last night and went to a 12-Step study meeting.

The main topic was fear and the things addicts do because of it. People discussed how their fears — over being accepted, over an abusive, drunken spouse, over work — made them drink, drug and binge eat. I sat there silent because I’m still too early in the Big Book-study process to share at these meetings, but I had a different, stranger take on fear than the rest of the room. I’ve lived in their brand of fear, to be sure.

My problem of late has more to do with the collateral damage caused when you lose the fear that held you back. You get a big lust for life, which may sound all well and good until you realize it’s just another extreme way of living.

Extremes are like absolutes: Both have caution signs plastered all over them. You go too far in one direction and neglect other, important parts of your existence.

I’ve always been a man of extremes. I’m either badly depressed like I was last week, shut off from the rest of the world, seeing only the calamities, or I’m ON — working, playing and grabbing on to every activity I only think I can handle at the time.

The middle speed in my engine rarely works right. It’s either all or nothing, and that’s a problem that may well plague me for the rest of my life.

But I’m not giving up without a fight.

This much I know: I’m always closest to the middle gear when I follow a rigid routine. That includes three weighed-out meals sans flour and sugar, an early bedtime because I rise early, at least two 12-Step meetings a week, regular check-ins with my sponsor, regular visits to the therapist, and daily prayer. It should also include time set aside after work to catch up with my wife and kids.

This is the stuff I need to work on, and I don’t tell you all this in a search for sympathy. We all have issues to work on every day. We all have our good days and bad days. I’m nothing special. I just happen to have a blog where I can process this stuff aloud. 

The blog has become another important part of my routine.

But my use of it can become unbalanced, too.

This is just one of the crosses I carry.

But 10 of my crosses are absolutely nothing compared the Cross Jesus carried. I just forget from time to time.

Some of you think that kind of talk is nonsense.

Nobody’s perfect.

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Well, That Was Stupid

Almost every time I visit the therapist, right after he asks if I’m taking the same Prozac dosage as I was at the last visit, he glares at me through his glasses and says: “Remember, never put yourself in a position where you run out.”

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRat644_o_k&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

Those words ring through my head every time I travel. I’m always paranoid about it and the first thing I do when packing is put the pills in the bag.

This time, I failed.

I got through airport security and sat down at the gate, and opened the bag to grab my evening dose.

Nothing.

Clearly, I left them in the hotel room.

My first instinct was to panic. But panicking never works out for me so I’m doing the only thing I can do: nothing.

It’s three hours ahead of me back home and the pharmacy is closed until 8 a.m. So when I get home, instead of crashing like I need to because I have a fever and sweats coming on, I have to deal with that first thing when I get through the door.

This really pisses me off. But it’s my fault.

There have been rare occasions when my doses would be disrupted because of one reason or another. One example is that when I get a bug and need antibiotics or other cold and flu medications, the Prozac doesn’t work nearly as well. Once or twice in the four-plus years I’ve been taking it, I simply forgot.

Sometimes you get bone tired and it happens. 

I’ve been fried this entire trip, so clearly my attention span wasn’t firing on all thrusters.

The other times the dosage was disrupted, the damage was minimal. I’d have a moody day or two (Sometimes I have those even when I’m on top of things). I’m hoping this instance will be the same.

This was a successful trip in terms of work productivity and networking. I did a lot of writing and met up with a lot of professionals in my industry. But emotionally this outing has been less than stellar.

A dark mood has been hounding me. I explained why in the last post.

God has been with me, though. He has graced me with some wonderful friends in this business, and they look out for me. That can be a rare thing on the business side of life.

I’ve also been through enough hard therapy over the years that I have other coping tools to get me through that I didn’t have a decade ago.

For all that, I’m thankful.

I can no longer boil over the things I can’t control. When I passed to the other side of airport security, with my flight time ever closer, I effectively lost the ability to control things.

Now I have to do what addicts in recovery are trained to do: Let go and let God.

I’ll be on the plane soon, and chances are better than average that I’ll sleep the whole ride, thanks to the bug that’s coming on.

I’ll just have to wait until I’m home to fix this one, and that is that.

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Coffee With My Therapist

I had my monthly appointment with the therapist this morning. Sadly, I ran out of time to hit the Starbucks drive-thru on the way. He’s one of those stress-reduction specialists who thinks I should quit coffee, avoid cigars and do yoga every morning.

I do keep the cigars to a minimum, but coffee is about all I have left. And I will never do yoga. It’s just not my style.

I always make it a point to walk into his office with a large cup of the boldest coffee brew I can find. He looks at the cup and says, “Oh, I see you’ve brought drugs with you.” 

I like my therapist.

I guess that’s why I do these things.

When I like someone, I needle them.

While I’m on here, I’d like to remind you that a benefit show for Joe “Zippo” Kelley is tomorrow night in Salem, Mass. Details HERE.

Did I mention The Neighborhoods are headlining?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz2CYcmJQS4&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999]

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Midwest Center for Fraud & Bullshit

Cleaning out the trunk of my car yesterday, I came across a stack of cassette tapes from a period in my life when I was so desperate I’d spend stupid sums of money on anything to remove my fear and anxiety.

These tapes were part of a program that cost me some $450. Each tape, sold by the Midwest Center for Stress & Anxiety, is designed to help people learn the skills to defeat anxiety and depression without medication.

images

I ordered the so-called free trial in 2006 after seeing all the late-night TV infomercials with Lucinda Bassett, mastermind of the program. I worked the program diligently. But overall, the program wasn’t even close to what I needed.

I called the Midwest Center before the free trial period was up to tell them I’d be sending the tapes and DVDs back. No go, an impatient phone rep told me. They had already charged the card number I gave them. No refund.

Meanwhile, I received a package of vitamins in the mail with ingredients designed to reduce stress and balance the brain chemistry. At first it struck me as odd, since the concept on paper was a lot like other pills the center typically railed against. They weren’t anti-depressant-caliber pills like Prozac. They were just vitamins. I saw them for what they were: an expensive placebo.

I never asked for the vitamins. Yet there they were, and they were charging me extra for something I didn’t order or want.

The phone reps basically told me too bad, they had already charged my card and there were no refunds. I should have read the fine print.

So, the program to attack anxiety and depression simply made those things rage within me even worse than before.

At some point, I dumped the tapes in a box in my trunk, forgot about them and moved on. I found more lasting tools to manage my OCD and the resulting fear, anxiety and depression, and that was the end of it.

When I found the tapes, I chucked them in the trash along with the rest of the rubbish I was clearing out of the car.

When I came back inside, I found myself looking up articles about the Midwest Center and found some surprising items.

First, I found obituaries for Lucinda Bassett’s husband, David Bassett, co-principal of the self-help empire. The various reports were that he committed suicide in June 2008. Having lived through the horror of loved ones committing suicide, I’m reluctant to say anything bad here. I feel badly for Lucinda Bassett. To lose someone you love that way is one of the worst things you could ever go through.

Still, I couldn’t help but find it sadly, painfully ironic that THIS GUY would end his own life.

Here’s something I found that was written shortly after Bassett’s death. The author is STEVE SALERNO, author/essayist, musician, teacher, and blogger. (Check out his SHAMblog) He wrote:

This past June 7 (2008), 53-year-old David Bassett walked onto a California beach and ended his life with a shotgun. This took place not far from the home he shared with his wife, Lucinda. If the names sound vaguely familiar, it’s because David and Lucinda Bassett were principals in the Midwest Center for Stress & Anxiety.Not a few of those who left their thoughts were refugees from the Center’s in-house discussion forum, where their critical remarks had been expunged or edited; a few claimed to have been banned altogether. Collectively, they seemed to feel they’d been abused, if not conned. The gist was that the Center had used misleading claims and credentials to charge them a lot of money for programs that didn’t work (or at least hadn’t worked for them). To be fair, a number of Center apologists also weighed in, and for a while we had a spirited, thought-provoking give-and-take going.A prospective customer might reasonably ask: If the Center’s programs can’t even prevent one of the Center’s owners from killing himself…?

I also found a site known as the Complaint Board, where a fellow by the name of Alfred logged his complaints about the Bassett empire:

Lucinda and David Bassett flood late night infomercial TV with their overpriced Attacking Anxiety and Depression schlock program. They advertise a ’30-day risk free trial’ for just $9.95, the so called ‘shipping/Handling charge’ (inflated as any typical infomercial ripoff), the hook being that the S/H charge is all you pay for the 30 day ‘trial period’.Then when you aren’t magically cured by this collection of cassette tape in 30 days, send it back with no obligation to pay the $75.00 a month that they bill your credit card for the next 6-7 months. Do not believe this CRAP for a minute. They start ripping you off immediately with the inflated shipping charge and then start removing your money 30 days from the ORDER DATE which typically is 10-14 days BEFORE the 30 day trial period STARTS. By the time the ’30 day trial’ is over they have already taken the first FULL payment of $75.00 (+ tax) by 2 WEEKS, even when you decide you don’t want to buy this craprogram. One of Lucy’s top-secret cures is to ‘Drink 8 glasses of water everyday’ and ‘quit smoking and drinking’ DUH!! Gee for such wisdom it only costs 450 bucks! If these amateur Pyschobees had a grain of credibility would they operate so Don Lapre-like? It will take weeks to get your refund (if ever) A wiser approach would be to work for the Bassett’s. Then you can buy the ‘program’ for $20 and save yourself $425 just 90% off the ripoff price they charge everyone else.

That sounded a lot like my experiences with the program.

To be fair, this program probably has worked for people. I’ve seen plenty of positive reviews over the years. It’s just that there is no one size fits all. What works for one won’t work for another. It’s the same with medication. What worked for me won’t necessarily work for the next guy or gal.

There’s always that roll of the dice.

I just don’t think it should cost someone $450 to handle the dice.

Here’s the real problem, though:

You can tell a person to read the fine print, but a depressed, anxious person isn’t thinking about the fine print when they’re up at 3 a.m. watching those infomercials.

A person like that is desperate, and when they see a TV program telling them how easily the program will work in their lives, they’re not thinking about the fine print. They hear the words “free trial” and dash for the phone with credit card in hand. They figure the credit card number is just a placeholder. They don’t expect to actually be charged. Sure, they’re engaged in stupid thinking. But when you’re mentally and emotionally sick, stupid thinking is a way of life.

That’s what this program is: A money-sucker that preys on desperate people.

The lesson here is that you can’t go for anything packaged as a quick fix.

Nothing — and I mean NOTHING — will cure you in 15 weeks or even 30.

Getting truly well is a process that takes years. And you are never cured.

That’s my personal experience, anyway.

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WTF Is That Shrink Doing?

A friend of mine recently started going to a therapist, and he’s puzzled as to why the therapist keeps making him rehash the week. Here’s my theory.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34wASuHRuRo&fs=1&hl=en_US]

He’s asking a lot of redundant questions to dig up patterns. They seem like stupid, recycled questions. But when you have to answer the same, stupid questions over and over again, no matter how infuriating that is, something important happens. The stuff that’s really haunting you comes out.

You don’t even realize it’s happening. But it does.

One of my favorite TV series, The West Wing, captured this quite nicely in the episode where Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman undergoes a long, brutal therapy session:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23dBqzo2aYY&fs=1&hl=en_US]

Josh didn’t want to answer Dr. Keyworth’s  question about how he cut his hand, but the doctor kept dragging him through it until the truth came out.

That’s a dramatic example. But it makes an important point:

When we’re troubled, we keep things buried deep within ourselves.

And it takes what seem like the dumbest, most repetitive questions over and over again to get the real pain to the surface.

Those stupid questions will last for years. Get used to it.

And be patient, my friend.

You can’t see it now, but it gets better.

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Thinking in Absolutes: A Bad Idea

One of the problems with a mind laden with OCD is that you think a lot in absolutes. It’s one of the first things you need to stop doing when you finally decide to get help. But six years in, I still haven’t conquered that beast.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CpRCc4Jre8&fs=1&hl=en_US]

Thinking in absolutes when your in a good mood is dangerous because you tend to think you’re so much better than you really are. Example:

Someone tells me I’m a good writer.

Translation in absolute: I’m the best writer in the business.

That’s rubbish, of course. But it’s the way someone like me thinks when I’m wearing my stupid hat. Another example:

Someone tells me they really admire how I am with my children.

Translation in absolute: I’m such an awesome dad.

I try to be. But trust me: I’m not.

Someone tells me I’m a great husband.

Translation in absolute: I’m the PERFECT husband.

Sadly, I am far from it.

Most of the time, when I’m thinking in absolutes, it’s on the negative side. Examples:

You missed the mark a bit with that headline you wrote.

Translation in absolute: 16 years into this career, I still suck at writing.

You shouldn’t have let the kids watch so much TV.

Translation in absolute: I’m a horrible father.

That’s what thinking in absolutes is to me. I either think about something in the best possible terms or the worst. The truth is always somewhere in the middle.

When I think in absolutes, I’m thinking outside the box of reality. It makes for some manic mood swings. Lately, I’m realizing that I’m as far away from getting a handle on this as I was the day I realized something was seriously wrong inside my head and that I needed to get help. 

With that in mind, I go thinking in absolutes again: I’m no better a person than I was all those years ago.

That’s not true, of course. I’ve made tons and tons of progress.

But I have a long way to go.

That’s not something that’s absolutely terrible or absolutely wonderful.

It’s just the way it is.

Fortunately for me, my wife, kids and friends are able to see me as I am, and that — for better or worse — they accept me anyway.

I’m thankful for that.

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Debunking the Shrink Stigma

A friend was telling me yesterday that he can relate to this blog. In a whisper, he said, “I see a therapist.” When people tell me that, it’s usually in the same hushed tone. Clearly, we have another stigma to shred.

I’m not sure why people are so hush-hush about this sort of thing. Maybe it’s because I outed myself so long ago. But I just don’t think people should be embarrassed about seeing a therapist. And yet people are embarrassed, like they’re being treated for the clap after a reckless night in a whorehouse. It’s the kind of shame that does you no good. Take it from a guy who has been there.

It’s a funny thing when I talk to people suffering from depression, addiction and other troubles of the mind. Folks seem more comfortable about the idea of pills than in seeing a therapist. After all, they’re just crazy “shrinks” in white coats  obsessed with how your childhood nightmares compromised your adult sex life, right?

I’ve been to many therapists in my life. I was sent to one at Children’s Hospital in Boston as a kid to talk through the emotions of being sick with Chron’s Disease all the time. That same therapist also tried to help me and my siblings process the bitter aftermath of our parents’ divorce in 1980.

As a teenager, I went to another therapist to discuss my brother’s death and my difficulty in getting along with my stepmother (a wonderful, wonderful woman who I love dearly, by the way. But as a kid I didn’t get along with her).

That guy was a piece of work. He had a thick French accent and wanted to know if I found my stepmother attractive. From the moment he asked that question, I was done with him, and spent the rest of the appointment being belligerent.

That put me off going to a therapist for a long time. I started going to one again in 2004, when I found I could no longer function in society without untangling the barbed wire in my head. But I hesitated for a couple years before pressing on.

The therapist I started going to specialized in dealing with disturbed children and teenagers. That was perfect, because in a lot of ways I was still a troubled kid.

She never told me what to do, never told me how I’m supposed to interpret my disorder against my past. She asked a lot of questions and had me do the work of sorting it out. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what a good therapist does. They ask questions to get your brain churning, dredging up experiences that sat at the back of the mind like mud on the ocean floor. That’s how you begin to deal with how you got to the point of dysfunction.

She moved to Florida a year in and I started going to a fellow who worked from his house. I would explain my binge eating habits to him, specifically how I would down $30 worth of McDonald’s between work and home.

“You should stock your car with healthy foods like fruit, so if you’re hungry you can eat those things instead,” he told me.

That was the end of that. He didn’t get it. When an addict craves the junk, the healthy food around you doesn’t stand a chance. The compulsion is specifically toward eating the junk. He should have understood. He didn’t. Game over, dumb ass.

The therapist I see now is a God-send. He was the first therapist to help me understand the science behind mental illness and the way an inbalance in brain chemistry can mess with your thought traffic. He also provided me with quite an education on how anti-depressants work. Yes, friends, there’s a science to it. Certain drugs are designed to shore up the brain chemicals that, when depleted, lead to bi-polar behavior. Other meds are specifically geared toward anxiety control. In my case, I needed the drug that best addressed obsessive-compulsive behavior. For me, that meant Prozac.

That’s not to say I blindly obey his every suggestion. He specializes in stress reduction and is big on yoga and eliminating coffee from the daily diet. Those are two deal breakers for me. Yoga bores the dickens out of me. If you’ve been following this blog all along, I need not explain the coffee part.

I also find it fun to push his buttons once in awhile. I’ll show up at his office with a huge cup of Starbucks. “Oh, I see you’ve brought drugs with you,” he’ll say.

Thing is, he’s probably right about the coffee. But I’ve given up a lot of other things for the sake of mental health. I’m simply not putting the coffee down right now.

I think part of this is about testing him, too. I can’t help but push the buttons sometimes just to see what I can get away with.

But on balance, it’s a productive relationship that has helped me to find a lot of peace and order in my life.

There are good therapists and not-so-good therapists, just like there are good and not-so-good primary care doctors; just like there are good cops and bad cops.

But if you feel like you need to talk to someone objective and you hold back for fear of being in the same room as a quack, well, then you’ll never know what you could have accomplished.

I chose to talk to a professional despite my deepest reservations. I’m grateful that I did.

Why the hell should anyone be ashamed for doing the right thing?

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Happily Ever After Is Bullshit & That’s OK

Often, when depression slaps me upside the head, it’s on the heels of a prolonged period of good feelings and positive energy. Especially this time of year, when the daylight recedes early and returns late. These setbacks can be discouraging, but you can survive them with the right perspective.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/NqTuN-35580

It’s easy for people who fight mental illness and addictive behavior to go on an endless, futile search for the happily ever after, where you somehow find the magic bullet to murder your demons, thus beginning years of bliss and carefree existence.

I’m sorry to tell you this, folks: That line of thinking is bullshit.

There’s no such thing as happily ever after. If you want it that badly, go watch a Disney film.

I used to grope around for eternal happiness in religious conversion. But some of my hardest days came AFTER I was Baptized a Catholic. I eventually found my way to abstinence and sobriety and got a pretty good handle on the OCD. But there have been plenty of sucky days since then.

The slide back into depression this past weekend was an example.

I like to think of these setbacks as growing pains. We’re supposed to have bad days to test the better angels of our nature. We’re supposed to learn how to move forward despite the obstacles that used to make us hide and get junked up. When you can stay sober and keep your mental disorders in check despite a bad day, that’s REAL recovery.

This is where I consider myself lucky for having had Crohn’s Disease. That’s a chronic condition. It comes and goes. But you can reach a point where the flare ups are minimal.

It’s the same with mental illness and addiction. You can’t rid yourself of it completely. But you can reach a point — through a lot of hard work and leaps of Faith — where the episodes are minimal.

The depression flared up this weekend, just like the Crohn’s Disease used to. But I’m better now. And I didn’t have to take a drug like Prednisone to get there. I just needed a little extra sleep.

Prozac, therapy and the 12 Steps have helped me immensely. But they don’t take the deeper pain at your core away. These things just help you deal with the rough days without getting sucked back into the abyss.

The depression I experienced this weekend felt more like a flare up of arthritis than that desperate, mournful feeling I used to get. It was a nag, but it didn’t break me. It used to break me all the time.

That’s progress.

Maybe I’m not happy forever after, but that’s OK. My ability to separate the blessings from the bullshit has improved considerably in the last five years.

That’s good enough for me.

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More Bullshit About Mental Illness

Every once in awhile I read something on mental illness that sends my blood boiling. Please indulge me while I rant about one such item.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPfkK7bcyfE&fs=1&hl=en_US]

I recently tripped across a website called HeretoHelp, a project of the BC Partners for Mental Health and Addictions Information. It’s a great resource for people like me who are recovering from mental illness and addictive behavior. It’s chock full of articles from medical professionals and people who suffer with various mental disorders. There’s also a news feed that includes upcoming events like mental illness screenings. I like the no-bullshit approach to the writing and layout.

The item that set me off was a fact sheet on discrimination and stigmas around mental illness. Specifically, it documented instances where employers view mental illness as a weakness; a reason not to hire someone. I’m not suggesting this form of prejudice is limited to something like depression. How many job candidates admit freely to having a heart problem or cancer? Employers discriminate against that, too, especially when they worry about health care costs and potential disability leave. I’m not even going to suggest that those are evil concerns.

But there’s something that strikes me as more insidious about the perception society has of people with mental illness. If you’re depressed, that somehow makes you a weakling who can’t cope with the normal challenges we’re all supposed to know how to deal with.

It’s true that someone in the grip of depression can’t cope with those challenges. I’ve greeted many “normal” situations like a crisis that threatened to bring everything crashing down. When I worked at The Eagle-Tribune, I was so paralyzed with depression and worry that I missed a lot of work. I also spent many a shift so mentally weak that I could barely edit properly. By the end of my time there, I was as close to a nervous breakdown as I’d ever come. I’d come much closer in the two years after I left that job, but I was in a pretty low place.

I still feel badly about leaving half-baked edits for the morning editors.

But here’s where I was lucky: Though I might have been looked at as weak by some of my colleagues, I wasn’t tossed out on my ass. I worried that I would be, but I had a lot of support from bosses like Gretchen Putnam, who I consider a dear friend today. At SearchSecurity.com, I had another nurturing boss in Anne Saita. I was in her employ when the mental illness, depression and addiction really started coming to a head. By some freak of nature, I was able to do some quality work for her during that time, but trust me on this: Had she not been the type of person I could open up to about what I was working through, I almost certainly would have failed at that job. I was that close to the edge.

In my current job, I’ve been Blessed enough to work around open-minded people that I was able to start up this blog without fear of getting blackballed.

So yes, I’ve been lucky. Others have not been as fortunate, however, and their livelihoods have suffered.

The article makes the following point: “Even clinical depression, which has arguably received the most media attention this past decade, is still stigmatized. A 2005 Australian study noted that around one quarter of people felt depression was a sign of personal weakness and would not employ someone with depression. Nearly one third felt depressed people “could snap out of it,” and 42 percent said they would not vote for a politician with depression.”

Considering that one of our greatest presidents suffered from crushing depression, that last sentence is particularly unfortunate.

The article also noted how addiction is also viewed as a weakness of character, something that a “strong” person could stop simply because it’s wrong.

“Addiction, which is a chronic and disabling disorder, is also often thought of as a moral deficiency or lack of willpower, and there is the attitude that people can just decide to stop drinking or using drugs if they want to. The study of the effects of stigma on substance use disorders is still a fairly undeveloped area, but research is revealing that social stigma and attitudes towards addiction are preventing people from seeking help.”

I love the description of addiction being a lack of willpower, because in the bigger picture a lack of willpower never held a person back in society. It suggests that someone who can’t help but eat junk food all day is somehow better than someone who can’t stop shooting heroin or drinking. Hell, smoking cigarettes with a few beers or a few glasses of wine is more accepted than the illegal addictions.

True, something like heroin can take you to a place where you no longer function in society. But my addiction was binge eating. It was perfectly legal. But the state it brought me to was about as bad as a heroin addiction. When all you can do is lay on the couch and isolate yourself from the rest of the world, it doesn’t matter what you’re addicted to, does it? The result is the same.

Maybe expecting society to  stop thinking of the depressed and addicted as weak outcasts is asking too much. It probably is.

All I know is that nothing will change unless more people in recovery work to break the stigma. I know many drug counselors, therapists and 12-Steppers who are doing just that. But we clearly have a long, long way to go before an environment exists where most sufferers can get the help they need and return to the world as productive members of society.

I’ll do my part by continuing to write this blog and sponsoring others who want to turn their lives around.

That’s all I can do, I suppose.