Over the past week I have been handing out copies of my new booklet, The Twelve-Step Prayers Rosary, to anyone who is interested in trying it out. I had also purchased a hundred glow in the dark rosaries to give out with each booklet. I am floored and awed by the response so far.
It is so humbling to have people actually interest and blessed by my writing. It has always been my goal with this book to help other addicts. What I didn’t expect was how I have been blessed myself.
Tonight after a NA meeting I was approached by a young lady who accepted my booklet and rosary. She heard me share about my dual-diagnosis of Bipolar and addiction. She too suffers from Bipolar and related to what I had said.
If our addiction does not kill us, we very likely would by our illness, usually in the form of suicide. While everyone has their own struggles when they are trying to get and stay clean we have both addiction and mental illness to contend with. Staying clean and staying on meds is what keeps us from death’s door. If we relapse, it isn’t necessarily just the drugs that can kill us. Most often when we start to use we stop taking our meds. And when we stop taking our meds we are more likely to use.
It is a recipe for disaster.
Taking your meds is not enough. Staying clean is not enough. We must stay on meds and stay clean while others have only staying clean to worry about. I am not saying that it is harder for us with a mental illness than every other addict to recover, but let’s be honest, we have twice as much to worry about in our recovery.
Just because you have a dual-diagnosis does not mean that you are doomed to either die from drugs or by your own hand. It is possible to recover. There is hope when you feel hopeless in your addiction. Never give up. Don’t let a relapse be an excuse not to keep trying to stay clean. Keep moving forward. If you are not moving forward you are sliding backwards.
The Bipolar DM 