Real Drug Recovery

My Personal Story and Life Experiences -

A valuable case study of mental disorder diagnosis, medicine and drugs,

and the coming of age of modern day psychology.

1/3/2013

This is an important issue for me for many reasons. As a sociologist, I recognize drug abuse as a real social problem that hurts millions of good people and their innocent families and friends. I have seen people close to me spiral out of control with drug and alcohol addiction. And I have had close friends and family members be destroyed by the state 'justice' correctional system as a result of zero tolerance drug laws. All this in addition to the fact that I come from a family that has a history alcoholism. I have struggled myself with drinking and addiction issues, and I have been down the long road to recovery. I spent 16 days in county jail for my third DWI, I have lost countless friends and job opportunities as a result of drinking, and I even spent 30 days in SARRPT (Substance Abuse Residential Rehabilitation Transition Program) at a VA Medical Center (Hospital). Even though this was completely the wrong kind of program for me, as I was the only one there who hadn't done heroin. Still as a sociologist I learned so much about the VA, government drug treatment ideologies and just about the very worst of what unregulated street drugs can do to people. Being there did make me realize what I could become if I 'm not careful. I humbly admit that I am an alcoholic, and I will always have this dangerous demon inside of me.

Fortunately, as a result of my will to recover, and lucky for me I eventually realized that I didn't actually have it that bad. I confess, I half willingly wanted to go to the government sponsored rehab for the same reasons I wanted to join the US Marine Corp; to learn about my government from the inside. Not only did I major in sociology, but I have the selfless compassion to serve and help others in social work, I also took a huge interest in abnormal psychology and treating those suffering in need of help. Maybe also to understand myself better, or maybe because I have always be tremendously in Psychiatry as a potential career, mainly because I had so many friends that clearly needed professional help that was no where to be found. Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are also authorized to prescribe medicine (drugs), and conduct mental health evaluations. I have always wanted to prescribe medicine and provide quality comprehensive mental health counseling, as these were always things that I needed, that I felt I never got adequate care for. Primary because of the huge cost and puny amount of time and effort psychiatrist and doctors provide me when I was growing up.

The faulty healthcare system is partly to blame, while individual greedy doctors not caring enough also carries part of the blame too. But the main reason being was the pathetic archaic state that modern psychology was in prior to the 1990s. Drug addiction was considered a moral defect in one's character, alcoholism was a widely considered a personal choice of weak-minded individuals and homosexuals were classified as mentally ill. Thank God that modern science and technology finally debunked those horrible widespread ignorant medical beliefs. Modern neuroscience (science of the brain), enabled scientists to see and study the brain like never before with technology like MRIs (Magnetic resonance imaging). This launched psychology into a entirely new direction. No longer would the bogus, often prejudices diagnostics for the 20th century plague society. Now real diagnosis could be made, and the correct treatment could be given. Drug addiction and alcoholism finally started to be viewed and treated as a disease, no longer being the sole guilty fault of the unfortunate suffering patients, most of whom are poor minorities, victims themselves of their environment. And persecution of homosexual finally stopped, because as it turned out, there really wasn't anything wrong with them in the first place. The days of "conversation therapy" provided by untrained clergy and religious bigots as a cure for homosexuality were finally over for good.

As for me, growing up in the 1990s, I benefited greatly from new scientific understandings of mental health, and I was fortunate enough to get better and more accurate diagnosis of my own mental condition then any generation before me. When I was a young child, I was terribly hyper-active and impulsive. My wonderful caring mother, not being a medical doctor or a psychiatrist herself, and only wanting the best for me, took me to many different professionals hoping to find answers. As it turned out, I did have a neurological disorder, causing me to be hyper-active, making it difficulty for me to pay attention, seemingly short to non-existent attention span, delayed learning in reading and writing, and sometimes wild impulsive behavior. (This is of course completely normal behavior for some young boys). So finally with a diagnosis of Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD/ADHD) from multiple sources, after much deliberation about the controversial (relatively new) treatment option of stimulate medication, my mother started giving me a 5 mg Ritalin pill before school each day. And miraculously I started doing better in school. I being only in seventh grade at the time, had no idea what this medicine was or what it was doing to me, but I noticed a dramatic difference from the days I took the Ritalin and days that I did not. Days I took it, I was alert during math class, participated actively asked and answered questions and took good notes. Days that I did not take it, I pretty much feel asleep in class and woke up at the end when all the other students were leaving the classroom.

As time when on and I continued into high-school, this medicine became a subtle yet intricate part of my life. I never drank or did drugs of any kind, not even once all throughout high-school. I was a good straight-edge happy student. I got good grades, above average, but not straight As or anything. I had a few close friends, I was on the track & field team in the spring and ran cross-country on the high school JV team in the fall. Is it all because of this medicine? We can never know for sure, but one thing I am absolutely positive about is that this stimulate medication has helped me tremendously, and continues to help me to this very day. I plan to continue to take it for the foreseeable future, but probably not for the rest of my life and certainly not everyday.

Shortly before graduating from high school, I briefly seriously entertained the idea of joining the US Navy, instead of going to college first. My recruiter told me that the Navy would send me to school and take care of everything. All I had to do was deny and lie about everything involving ADD and ADHD, and pretend like there was nothing wrong with me what-so-ever. Oh, and I was told that I had to stop taking Ritalin... Now, there is some value in not accepting a medical doctor's diagnosis as truth, same as the harm it can bring to believe you have some ailment that doesn't really exist. Kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Believing in a diagnosis as truth can directly or indirectly causes it to become true, by the very terms of the defined so-called ailment that you are told that you have. Thus the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior, becomes reality. The same goes for denying the diagnosis in the first place.

The problem with this 'self-denial' is that some disorders and ailments are indeed real, and belief as to if it is real or not is totally irrelevant. And in my case, I have stacks of school notebooks that testify as proof that my disorder is in fact real. The proof is in the outcome, either I took the medicine and took good notes and learned or I didn't. It was not hard for me to see the results after years of trial and error. I ultimately told the Navy recruiter that it didn't make sense for me to go to school and not take my medicine, because I knew that I wouldn't do as well as I could, and that was a sacrifice I wasn't willing to make at that time in my life. I had far to much learning about the world to do. So off to college my Ritalin and I went.

I did not know what I wanted to major in the first few years at SUNY Albany, so I took most of my electives and general education required classes the first few years. The same exact situation occurred in college that happened in high-school. Days I took the stimulate medication, I was diligent and studious, and days I didn't I caught up on sleep during the hour and twenty minute class lectures. I almost never missed or skipped class, but there sure was a huge difference with and without the medicine. Looking back now, I do distinctly remember that class subject that I found particularly stimulating and interesting, I had no problem staying focused on and awake in. The subjects that excited me the most were writing & linguistics, classical & moral philosophy and critical thinking, abnormal psychology and treatment for such disorders, and social statistics. These subjects I would study and learn about for hours on end, no medicine needed. I really grew so much during these enlightening college years.

And so life went on. I remember drinking my first beer and smoking my first cigarette those first years at SUNY A. And slowly over a few years drinking became a common habit and pastime of mine. And then I discovered marijuana, I admit I love it right from the start. (much more about this later) However, I always felt bad about buying and smoking marijuana, because it was illegal, lumped in with all other illegal drugs like heroin and cocaine. Surely I thought that was for some good logical reason for this. (as it turned out, there wasn't, and fallacies like this seriously destroys the creditably of all laws! If these laws are a total farce, then what other laws also have no ground to stand on? John Stuart Mill and my rigorous study of moral philosophy would soon give me answers) Of course smoking weed was only an occasional treat for me, mainly because it wasn't all the readily accessible to me like alcohol was. And then came the real problem. I had trouble getting my Ritalin prescription filled on a regular basis. This was because in the United States, methylphenidate, the active ingredient in Ritalin, was classified as a Schedule II controlled substance, with high potential for abuse. This meant that my doctor back home, the general practitioner-medical doctor, not a psychiatrist mind you, the gent who has been writing my scripts since seventh grade, could not under New York State Controlled Substance Law, phone in my prescription to the local pharmacy. It could only be filled with the hand-written "doctor's note" I used to call it. And so I would be forced to travel all the way home each month just to get this little piece of paper.

This irritated me so much. Because I wasn't able to go home every month to get the prescription, I often had to just go without. Needless to say, I began to substitute my wonderful medicine, that made me happy and productive, for the only legal, culturally accepted alternative available, drinking alcohol... Drinking was always terrible unproductive, and often left me unhappy, miserable and hungover. Growing up I had always assumed the age old wisdom of the state and federal government to be true and correct, even though it didn't intrinsically make sense to me, I further assumed they must have reasons that I just didn't understand. I mean who was I to question the legitimacy of the law. I was only in my twenties, my government was 10 times older then me, they must have wisdom and knowledge beyond my young impressionable mind. The state allowed alcohol to be perfectly legal and readily available at every corner store, meanwhile my valuable medicine was right there at the pharmacy, but because I didn't have a doctor's note, I couldn't have it. No way, I thought, they must think that this guy (me) can't be trusted, even though he (I) has been taking this medicine for almost 10 years as of this time, still a official NYS prescription was required, each and every time, 12 months a year. And not to mention that marijuana must be really awful to be completely illegal. Weed must be just as bad as crystal meth and acid, seeing that they are all classified as 'illegal drugs'. They, the law makers and decision makers in the government really must know something that I didn't, because this doesn't make sense. So as I continued to drink in substitute of my medicine, I kept learning science, focusing on philosophy and psychology. It was around this time that I first learned about the real concept of "Liberty" from John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873) the British philosopher and statesman years ahead of his time. I learned that the state's only just authority to limit a law abiding citizen's liberty should be based on the "harm principle". And that all drug laws are paternal in nature, being laws for your own good, because you are not smart enough to make decisions for your self. Drug laws violate the concept of liberty. And as a US Marine, having fought in war to defend such liberties, I am thoroughly disgusted and appalled that such laws are still on the books and enforced. Mill was a major influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy. He has been called "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century". He advocated for woman's equal rights more than 75 years before the suffrage movement began in America. His paper "On Liberty" forever change me and greatly influenced my thinking and feelings about my laws, my government's authority and my drug/medicine situation. Here I am, an intelligent, responsible adult, never been in any trouble in my life, and I cannot have access to my vital medicine. WTF!?

Here I would like to mention a few more details about my neurological disorder, "ADD", my family history of alcoholism and the so-called wisdom of the state. First I strongly believe that my father and mother's brothers both suffer from the same 'disorder' that I do, but them being born decades before me, they didn't have the privilege and advantage of the early '90s psychological analysis and medical diagnosis that I had. They too would have benefited tremendously from Ritalin, and their lives would have been much much different to say the least. My father might not have drank so much and would still have been married to my mother for example. And my uncle probably wouldn't have spent 3 years in prison for repeated DWIs. My father and uncle, both highly intelligent men, both succumbed to heavy drinking in an attempt to self-medicate themselves and I totally understand why. I have the same feeling. Something is 'wrong' in my head, and I just do not feel comfortable being sober all the time. This is not that same thing as depression or other similar problems, it is simply that my brain is stuck in over-drive all the time, and sometimes I need to take a break from myself. What other legal options are there? None! And this is out-right not fair, it is a clear violation of liberty. No one else in the world has the right to keep stimulate away from people who need or want them. And who really cares if people are smoking pot? To be frank, it is no one else's damn business. The government's role is to regulate and govern society, not to play parent or boss. If the drug laws were actually based on some higher morality for people's own good, because apparently all people must be to stupid to make decisions for themselves, (which this is not the case, drug laws were originally created to discriminate against certain groups of less fortunate people) then all the drug laws would still be wrong.

Should it be against the law for someone to eat 10 McDonald's cheeseburgers everyday because they will become that would be unhealthy and will cause that person to become obese? Of course not! It is not the government's job to tell anyone how to live their lives. Laws are meant to protect your liberty, not restrict it! All laws essentially limit your liberty and freedoms in some way, by restricting certain behaviors that directly hurts other people. For example you do not have the right to kill anyone, or steal or rape or any other malicious devious actions. These are laws based on the harm principle, and it is the government's job to legislate and enforce such laws, this is essential for any functioning society. But not all situations are as clear-cut as murder and robbery, for example speed limits. You do not have the right to drive 100 mph on public roads, because it is likely that you will hit another car and hurt someone. Now DWI laws complicate things even more, because drinking and driving has killed so many innocent bystanders, that it is statistically likely that you COULD hurt someone else drinking and drinking. It is a bit of a gray area, because there is nothing intrinsically wrong with drinking and driving, and lots of people do it anyways and never end up hurting anyone. But because it could hurt others, and it has killed before, the only fair and safe thing to do is ban it all together. Now the question is how do you punish violators? I will be discussing the justice system, the industrial for-profit prison complex system, and the real world effects of criminalizing and incarcerating non-violent crimes in great detail later. One last example of a paternal laws that do work (laws that do not violate the harm principle but are still good for you whether you like it or not) are seat-belt laws. Click it or ticket is the police moto in NY. It really only takes 1 second to put the seatbelt on, and in the rare chance of an accident, your survival rate go up dramaticly. And wearing a seatbelt is not that intrusive into your life. So in the example of seat belt laws, the good greatly out-weights the negative, and these laws do actually save lives. This is exactly what government lawmakers are supposed to do. It only took 50 plus years after the invention of cars before seat belt laws came into effect, but it is better late then never. So finally, if drug laws really were created for your own good, which they're not, who the fuck are you to tell me what I can and can't do to myself? But that is not the real problem with drug laws. The real problem is the ecomonics of black markets. If there is a demand, someone will fill it, illegally and under the table. It understand how and why prohibiting doesn't work, take a good long look at Prohibition in the 1920s and the mob. Worst, underground drugs are not regualted, making street drugs all kinds of various unknown dangers. If you ask me, I think it is GOD-DAMN irresponsible of the Federal Government not to allow the FDA regulate all consumable commodities. In economics, a commodity is the generic term for any marketable item produced to satisfy wants or needs. And legal or not, people do drugs for all kinds of reasons, some are good, some aren't, and as the failure of the war on drugs has proven, prohibiting and outlawing doesn't make the problem go away, it just makes it worse. There are lots of people who use drugs responsibly and for those who get addicted, and there will always be some, they need compassionate treatment, not to be made into a criminal!

Anyways, moving on. Over the past 10 years, I learned more and more about ADD. I discovered that it's isn't so much a disorder per se, but ADD could be viewed as a wonderful gift instead a burden. I have a hyper-active brain. I have an ultra high capacity for learning vast amounts of material. This actually makes my father, uncle and myself highly intelligent people. The only problem with this hyperactive brain is that is very difficult to learn to control and focus, and to slow down or to shut off at the end of the day. Hence the tremendous, perhaps overwhelming appeal and temporary relief that alcohol and marijuana bring. And without the healthy, productive stimulate medication (un-accessible because of ridiculously strict NYS Drug Laws), meanwhile all the beer and liquor you can drink is right around the corner. The the final outcome for folks like me almost seems inevitable. For me, it was an awful lot of unnecessarily suffering, but overall it was bearable, because at least I would still get my Ritalin eventually, and for all of my fuck-ups, I do ultimately take responsibility for myself. I had to make those mistakes to learn all that I know now. But for the poor unfortunate souls who will be forever damned in history as weak, moral-less drunks and criminals, who's fault is all their own... they never knew any better. Unless of course they discover cocaine or god-forbid crack, in which case they might as well be damned forever. Ritalin is to diet coke as cocaine is to regular coke-a-cola.

And so it was around this time that I began to really understand the world, the truth about the arbitrary legality of drugs and the nature of our government. If I happen to have grown up in the 1920s, alcohol would have been illegal, then what? Perhaps the world would be a better place without drugs and acohol, but that just isn't reality. Or had I grown up 20 years from now, when DWI laws are made obsolete because Google Cars, uses Google Maps to drive your car for you, then I never would have gone to jail. Anyways, it was also around this time that I finally settled on sociology as my major, because it really encompassed everything that excited me and that I wanted to learn about. I began writing about my ideas of liberty and drug laws. I wrote a really great paper call "My Concerta with the Law" (Concerta is the name-brand for long acting time-released Ritalin) where I argued that I should be entitled to a lifetime prescription of Ritalin, pointing out the difficult nature of my life without it. My blissful ignorance of the world was shattered by my learning of the world's social inequality and injustices committed by selfish power hogs. My own's government's stupid bureaucratic ignorant resistance to change and progress. Hell it was only less than a century ago that black people and women were given the same rights as white men. Yeah, the state's supreme wisdom that I assumed it must have turned out to be completely non-existent. And to make matters worse, the truth behind all the drug laws are racist in their very nature. Marijuana laws for example were first created to discriminate and deport Mexicans and to dominate and oppress black people. There was no underlining moral reasons that I had just assumed I didn't know. The truth as it turned out, didn't even make sense! And to top all this off, I began to realize the truth behind September 11. I had whole-heartily believe the official government story as truth, only to find it out is was so completely faluse, this shattered my understanding of the concept of truth and my blind faith in my government. I love President Obama, I think he is an intelligent genuine politatian. I wondered why he hasn't done anything about marijuana laws. I recently found out why he hasn't done for to help, and the reason is so incredibly fucking stupid, but it makes perfect sense. The reason is because then policially, he would be "the black guy who legalized dope". I can't even begin to fathom how fucking stupid this is. I don't see him and think of him as a black guy, because that not how I see and judge people. But I understand how a lot of other people would see it as that way. So what is Obama's official stance of pot? "We have bigger fish to fry then cannabis users". At least that makes some sense. Hopefully before he leaves office, he will help fix the bogus federal marijuana laws...

Most intelligent people who discover they have some disorder, ailment or disease usually end up becoming somewhat of an expert on that one problem. In an effort to defeat whatever ails them, most people try to learn as much as they can about their problem. For me, I eagerly sough all knowledge and information I could find about ADD, Ritalin, addiction, and recovery, among many other scientific topics. And I am always learning more everyday. I recently learned about why I didn't have nearly as much trouble concentrating and focusing on subjects that greatly interested me was because excited and aroused, the body naturally produces adrenaline, nature's natural stimulant. Now, as a sociologist, I can honestly say that I have the wisdom and experience to know right from wrong, and courage and compassion to adamantly do something about it. This is what real sociologist do with their career, not just some small time social work or social study, but real understand of the truth, and then applying that to the real world. They derive strength from knowing the truth, and they actively strive to contribution to positive change. Real sociologist rock governments and cause revolutions (Marx). I love my country dearly, and it is because I care that I am willing to work as hard as I can do be part of the progress in the right direction.

And so after graduating from an enlightening five years of college, I set into the world to see if I could make a difference. I ended up joining the United States Marine Corp for any reasons, primarily to learn about the Federal Government from the inside. But also because it fit with what I wanted at the time. Not people don't realize that the military is actually an excellient example of pure modern day socialism. Individual enlist and complete their given government job, in exchange for food, clothing, shelter, full healthcare and a decent bi-monthly paycheck. Now is that isn't socialism, then I don't know what is. I found that to be very appealing about the military, that and the Marines sounds like the hardest and most challenging. Plus I wanted to go to war, I wanted to truly challenge myself in life or death. I wanted to see the middle eastern world first hand, and I wanted to be part of the ending of the awful Iraq and Afghanistan wars. And I thought that a military history would look good and benefit my political career someday. In the end, joining the Marine Corps turned out the be one of the very best decisions I ever made. I learn and experienced so much, and I am tremendously lucky to have made it home alive, un-traumatized and with all my fingers and toes. I was also ready to finally give Ritalin a break. I was going to see if I grew out of my neurological disorder and hopefully didn't need to take medicine anymore. I am sad so say that I struggled needlessly though 13 weeks of boot-camp 4 weeks of Marine Combat Training, 10 weeks at my MOS school and 9 long months in Afghanistan. If only I was allowed to take me medicine, oh how I much more I would have excelled. It was still an tremendous experience none-the-less. I forsee the day when the military forces soldiers to use performing enhancing drugs.

Now I joined the military after getting a college degree, and a degree being the only requirement to be an Officer instead of enlisting. Sadly, for me and my country, the other requirement was to either never have done any kind of drugs in your life, or to completely lie about it. I took the honest approach saying yeah I smoked weed in college. Little did I know, this barred me completely of ever becoming an Officer. All my fellow marines agree, I would have made a great officer. Shame on you Marine Corps and federal government, again your outdated ass-backwards laws doing more harm than good.

• admitting that one cannot control one's addiction or compulsion;

  • recognizing a higher power that can give strength;

  • examining past errors with the help of a sponsor (experienced member);

  • making amends for these errors;

  • learning to live a new life with a new code of behavior;

  • helping others who suffer from the same addictions or compulsions.