Posted by gilbert on June 23, 2001, at 17:23:21
In reply to Re: 12 step group effectiveness, posted by JCB on June 23, 2001, at 7:40:35
JCB,
Thank you for the kind words. Your message felt like a little bit of a double message though. Even at higher doses in the middle of a panic xanax never gave me a buzz for the sake of a better word. As far as talk therapy goes....I have spent the better part of my sober life in talk therapy. I find if you do have a chronic condition that talk therapy to be very ineffective for certain disorders. I do not believe as AA and some others espouse that if I take xanax and don't go to therapy I may well be drinking again because of the xanax use. There are some very reputable studies on ex-alcoholics and panic patients in regards to benzo use..... abuse of the meds is very very low and there is no indication that they fall back off the wagon because of the benzo use. Most street druggies don't get high on benzos they combo it with coke or eight balls or heroin. It is very rare to just find a purely xanax junkie that isn't mixing the drug or trying to use it to bridge time between highs. Threre are sober benzo users epileptics, or people with MVP who are on maintenance klonopin to relieve their symptoms. Are they to believe that without proper therapy they will be destined to drink again. There has always been and will always be the typical AA stereotype messages about doom and gloom and how you will come to your demise. Something that has always bothered me about AA is some would warn you about drinking again so often and for so many reasons it's as if the threat of drinking will somehow keep you coming to meetings. I think maybe being gratefull for what I have will keep me sober much longer than fear or drinking. You mentioned that people don't come to clinics saying they have a prozac problem. Well ask some of these people on this board what it is like to go off some of these ssris after long term use. The withrawal symptoms get so bad they run screeming for their ssris to avert the rebound effects. They make junkies look calm. The detox periods and side effects from these so called non-buzz agents make my vodka withdrawl look like a trip to Disney World. The societal low brow view of benzos is parallel with the advent of ssris. I have to tell you in my entire 22 years of meetings I have never met a benzo addict in either program or in the prisons I went into to for 12 step work or in the hospitals or rehab centers. The closest I can even think of is qualude users in the late 70"s.
When you distinguish mood altering drugs in two categories like you did antidepressants and benzos you automatically make the judgement that the benzos aren't O >K >. I think that the same could be said for ssris. I am on both classes of drugs and if I miss my luvox dose you better get out of my way but half the time I don't even know whether or not I took the xanax. I appreciate your message and don't want to be too critical but I still feel that AA and many of the therpists and centers affiliated with the program are in the dark ages when it comes to meds. I would be drunk if I had not been availed the use of xanax. The only time in my life I was not panicking was drunk. I have seen 4 therapists, gone to Recovery Inc, gone to AIM(agoraphobics in Motion) I have gone to church every morning to pray it away, I have worked the steps over and over and over,I have bought all the tapes and books, I have been desensitised and CBT'd to death and still I get panics. I even had one therapist tell me I must need them because I am hanging on to them. That was the best he could say. I would love to give them to him for a day or two. I have spent most of my life unable to go and do things most people do spontanouesly. I have busted my butt. I would put myself in scary situations just to pratice harnessing the fears or feeling the fears or wahtever the therapy du jour was. So please make sure when you run into someone like me the differnce between life and death may not be about drinking.....it may be about having the chance to be functional. I know without the meds I would surely not be here. My life was that unbearable. I find myself being pushed out of AA and feeling quite inferior due to the "medical condition" and mental illness. This from a guy who has been a very active 15 years and I dare say has done more 12 step work than most drunks could shake a stick at.Thanks for the spirited conversation,
Gil
poster:gilbert
thread:1356
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010618/msgs/67603.html