"Change occurs when you become what you are, not when you try to become what you are not..Change seems to happen when you have abandoned the chase after what you want to be (or think you should be) and have accepted--and fully experienced--who you are.
Janette Rainwater
Alcoholics Anonymous was started by two men and began the self-help experience. The anonymous meant not only providing refuge from condemnation but is also a spiritual practice of doing good anonymously. The medical community then had to develop a medical explanation for addiction.
In the 1960s, Dr. James Milam, a researcher, suggested that addiction is a treatable disease. The medical model changed the idea that addiction was a moral disease. This shift helped many people to give up the self-loathing that addiction brings.
The main problem with the medical model is that helping with issues involved means that someone is "sick" and someone is "well".
From the years that I spent working in nonprofit addiction centers and in a for profit psychiatric hospital, I saw that the addiction world discounted the frequency of mental health issues and the mental health field had almost a void of identifying addiction issues.
The two fields are learning to include the other, but the model that would help most--dual diagnosis--is still under utilized. Dual diagnosis refers to those persons (like myself) who have mental illness as well as addictions. For me, addictions were the bandage over my wound of depression. Alcohol made me feel better because it removed all feelings. It was an instant eraser. The unfortunate aspect of alcohol is that it also removes reasoning and judgment, etc.
The danger of clinging to an either addiction or mental health model is that the individual is not getting all the help they need. After 10 years of being completely clean and sober, I suffered clinical depression for over two years. I am lucky to be alive. I was attending AA daily and sponsoring 10 people. My problem wasn't spiritual--it was physical. I needed an antidepressant to regulate my body chemistry.
When I finally sought medical guidance, I was fortunate to be helped by the simplest drug available. Antidepressants generally take 4-6 weeks to begin working. After a month with the drug, the oppression of the giant cloud of depression totally lifted.
Antidepressant's don't keep me well. Listening to the God of my understanding and having a program of recovery keep me well. I don't believe anyone is always mentally healthy. My periods of mental health have gotten longer. The crazy moments take too much energy now--I don't have the time for them. My definition of mental health now is sanity gives me the ability to tell when I'm crazy--I didn't used to know that there is a difference.
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