Sobriety and Medication
My daughter and I.
I’m loving the peace and quiet in my head since I’ve been taking my anti-anxiety medicine. For the first time in a very long time I’ve not got a constant chatter in my head… but… I worry that I’ve lost my inspiration. It seems harder to write. Well it did at least for the first couple of weeks. Maybe that has something to do with lockdown too, there isn’t so much to write about if I can’t go out is there? In the last couple of weeks things are slowly coming back to normal which is a relief. I wondered whether my ability to write was just down to my crazy mind, and now I’m getting a handle on the crazy, I wondered if I’d lost the creative side. It worried me.
I was concerned about taking medication. I thought it might change me. I spent so long drinking wine, and changing my character in that way, that now I am as keen as possible to not do anything that affects my mood or feelings. It’s nice to just be me without worrying if something is making me different, but I can’t deny, this time it makes a welcome change. I still feel like me, just calmer, quieter, and considering how I was, that is only a good thing.
I was supposed to be seeing the doctor a few weeks ago for a review. The medication I’m on is ‘acute’ so they need to check it’s okay and agreeing with me. Luckily it seems to be, because I haven’t got a hope of getting in there at the moment! I phoned before the lockdown and asked if they would like to give my appointment to someone else that needs it and just give me a repeat prescription, under the circumstances. To my surprise, I was told that they had already cancelled my appointment, although no-one had told me! This was right back before the lockdown, but when things were beginning to get worse. I managed, eventually to get a repeat prescription, and then tried to get into our pharmacy, which I hadn’t appreciated had reduced it’s hours to 10-12 and then 2-4pm. So I couldn’t get in, as I was on my way to work and began to stress out that I would run out. It isn’t ideal when your anti-anxiety medication begins to make you anxious! My daughter offered to go for me and was there with plenty of time before the 12pm closure, but obviously ended up in a queue outside. She waited and told me at 12pm they closed the doors and turned the three people in the queue away. Bless her, would you believe she stood there and waited for two hours for them to open again rather than leave and come back later? She didn’t want the queue to get too big again and she didn’t complain once, but did tell me she wished she had taken her earphones!
I was reading on one of my online groups recently about a comment from another member who was devastated by the comments of someone from her AA group. In a similar situation to my own, she had attended the group and told the others that she was feeling better, now that her medication was working, she went on to tell them that she had been sober for the longest time, and was expecting support and encouragement from the group. Instead someone stood up, and retorted that she wasn’t sober if she was relying on medication. It hit her in a weak spot and she said that she almost immediately relapsed, wondering what the point was. Although from the outside I don’t agree that she can blame this other person for her relapse, I do know how it feels to be judged or criticised, and to feel like you aren’t understood. I felt so sorry for this person, that she had got so far, and was unable to ignore the comments of this person, who really shouldn’t have felt the need to comment on her progress in such a way. It made me feel terrible for her, but I’m not sure that I agree that, he made her drink again, like she claimed. Ultimately the only person that has the responsibility for our drinking is ourselves.
I guess for anyone with a bit of an addictive personality, there is always going to be a worry that one dependence will turn into another. No-one wants to rely on anything really, and I know from experience that having relied on alcohol, and overcome it, I don’t want to ever be back in that place again.
In hindsight I don’t think medication affects my sobriety, but I also think it is a slippery slope for anyone, especially those who have had a dependency. I think, I, like anyone else, need to be aware, but ultimately, I think we need to do whatever it is that we need to help us overcome our individual problems. Those looking in from the outside will never quite understand, because they don’t experience things as we do. We are all different and so, we all need different things to help us through, but we need to do it without the judgement of others, like the man from the AA group. His opinions weren’t helpful or needed, and it makes me wonder what his insecurities are for him to speak to someone else that way.
I hope you are staying safe. Take care.
Claire x
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