bipolar alcoholic. lamictal abilify success story

[sammymaguire]

I have been a bipolar alcoholic for 20 years. These were my big 3 problems.

1 I had no off switch. One drink would trigger mega cravings for more.

2 I had mega blackouts.

3 I was a messy fighting drunk with zero control over my behaviour


One year ago my doc put me on Lamictal. It calmed me down and wiped out a layer of wired agitated pacing depression but it wasnt enough.Then she put me on Abilfy maintena too and my 3 problems disappeared in a puff of smoke.That was it.I have been a normie now for 6 months. My off switch is fine. i am starting to forget what blackouts feel like and I am a calm stable drinker...well as much as anyone is. I started one last drug called Sertraline for residual anxiety and I never looked back. Obviously this means some types of alcoholic brain chemistry can be completely cured like a throat infection. I am lucky to have that type even if it took me 20 horrendous life destroying years to find that out.

P.s I forgot to say that I have never been psychotic so I have no idea why an anti psychotic would cure me.I can not relate to any of the literature on psychosis. I was just a binge drinking alkie who went batshit crazy with a capital B when i drank. It doesnt make sense but it did cure me.. I was actually a bit sulky when my doc suggested Abilify maintena. Thank God I lost that argument or I would not be home and dry today.Anyway it is good to know that life can be full of pleasant shocks as well as unpleasant ones. I never saw this cure coming which is not surprising after 20 years. I never saw bipolar/alcoholism coming either when I was young so it ended like it started ....with me looking the other way while the big event happened. Anyway I am sure that the local police will be delighted at the change in me. That is one less that they have to worry about now.

[Samstone]

Re: bipolar alcoholic. lamictal abilify success story

glad all is working out for you

[sammymaguire]

Re: bipolar alcoholic. lamictal abilify success story

Thanks . I wanted to say one more thing. I have carried out more research and I now suspect that the abilify maintena wiped out a layer of dysphoric hypomania that has been there for 20 years.I believe that this same dysphoric hypomainia caused my witching hour. I think that the binge drinking alkies ie those with fluctuating levels of alcohol use should think about drugs that level your mood.


ps lamictal took a full 8 weeks to work and it caused hives for 2 weeks that i had to treat with antihistamine cream. It was worth it.
abilify maintena took about 4 weeks to work. no side effects.

[Otter]

Re: bipolar alcoholic. lamictal abilify success story

My wife was diagnosed as bipolar and given Depacote for a couple of years and was hospitalized under threat of being involuntarily admitted. The diagnosis was not supported by the hospital doctor and a later doctor took her off Depacote leaving her unmedicated, self harming and suicidally depressed on top of being 20 years an alcoholic. I was in and out of doctors offices, shrinks, hospitals etc etc with her for years.

It wasn't until she got onto baclofen and we did the research that we realized that "depression" is much the same as "anxiety". One leads to the other but the anti-depressants didn't work while baclofen lifted the anxiety and the depression, and the self harming, and the alcoholism. After several years on various combos of drugs, baclofen and Campral are finally working. She was relapsing on baclofen alone and was always irritable and angry in the mornings and it was a serious problem for us. I've noticed that since going on Campral, the anger and behaviour associated with it has disappeared.

Bipolar is, in my opinion, particularly when made in the cases of alcoholics a highly problematic diagnosis because alcohol works as a depressant and also relieves depression and anxiety and causes elation and if one is truly in an alcoholic lifestyle then it's impossible to tell whether one's moods are caused by serotonin deficiency alone or by alcohol consumption or by an anxiety disorder, as Ameisen says, or by some underlying neurological problem predating alcohol use or caused by it. In any event, baclofen cuts through this because it stops drinking and lifts mood and anxiety related depression.

[sammymaguire]

Re: bipolar alcoholic. lamictal abilify success story

This is what happened to me. 20 yrs ago i felt a blackness in my brain. My personality disintegrated immediately and I developed my 3 alcohol problems that night. They were not there the night before. The docs didnt want to know. They ordered brain scans and when they were negative they booted me out the door.
Last year a doc suggested that the blackness was the start of bipolar.She suggested that the bipolar activated a nasty alcoholic gene at the same time. She explained that the relationship between bipolar and alcohol problems was not clearly understood. She put me on lamictal and abilify maintena and hey presto we have a spectacular result. The 3 alcohol problems disappear in a puff of smoke.
This is why i hate literature about self medicating. I didnt self medicate. I became an alcoholic in a flash and it ended 20 years later in another flash when the meds rewired my brain.
This is why I like talking to people who are trying to rewire their brains. I devoured olivier amisons /rj jewellls books at one sitting. Their story is not my story but we are playing ball in the same arena. so are you.What is your wife doing now? Does she still have alcoholic brain chemistry or did the drugs rewire it along with the depression/ anxiety? Is she af or moderating?


pps This is also why I hate it when people say ...dont drink too much or you will become an alcoholic. I didnt drink too much but i became one in a flash anyway.Drinking lightly wont save you if you have the wrong brain chemistry and I am the proof of that. The scientists have not figured this out yet and meanwhile they try to fob us off with aa/rehab. This is why we need the internet because I am not the aa/rehab type. Those places give me the heebie jeebies.