On medication

I am writing in response to Kenny M (“What is it About Opinions?” April 2005) and Bruce W (“What is it About Medication?” January 2005). It is true that Narcotics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; however, this does not imply that individual addicts/members of NA do not have opinions on outside issues. I agree that these opinions do not belong inside NA meetings, but this does not mean that I (or any other member) do not have them. I, too, came to NA and found working the steps and following the suggestions of the program (including, but not limited to, complete abstinence from all mood- and mind-altering chemicals) made life manageable and even enjoyable. It took me many years in the program to admit that I deal with a chemical imbalance within me that no part of NA can fix.

I am an NA purist. I believe NA is the only program I need to help me with the disease of addiction. I have even been accused of being an NA “Nazi” because I do not believe that anything other than NA needs to be addressed or even referred to in an NA meeting. I dealt with my problems strictly through NA for many years, even though my sponsor and several other members I have known sought outside counseling. I held strong to the opinion that NA could deal with anything that occurred in my life. It was not until after the birth of my child that I sought outside help. Even then, it took me almost a year to realize that I couldn’t do it only with NA. I then proceeded to spend over a year in individual counseling; my husband and I also went to marriage counseling. It was my husband (a fellow member of NA), my counselor (a member of AA), and our marriage counselor who finally, after two years of misery, convinced me to try an anti-depressant. I agreed to try, saying that if it made me feel high or in any way “not right,” I would stop taking it. Within two weeks, I felt like my old self again.
I had been telling my husband that I didn’t know what was wrong, but that I knew the way I was was not “me.”

I have been on this medication for four years now. It does still bother me that I am an addict living clean, and yet I have to take a pill every day to make me okay. I reconcile this with the knowledge that it does not make me high and it does not make my life unmanageable. I still have to deal with life’s ups and downs and even some mild depression on occasion. The depression I dealt with for over two years after my daughter’s birth was in itself unmanageable. It is thanks to my Higher Power and the people in the rooms of NA that I did not relapse during this time.

I have attempted to get off this medication several times, only to find myself falling into the bottomless pit of depression again. The depression I experience when not taking medication is so much stronger and deeper than “normal” depression that there is no comparison. I do not advocate the taking of medication on a whim. I exhausted every other available option before resorting to medication. I also believe that one must be clean from all drugs before a mental health diagnosis can be made. I have known several addicts who arrived in NA with a multitude of diagnoses. After staying clean for extended amounts of time, it became quite obvious that some of these were incorrect diagnoses.

I am not substituting for my drugs. This medication does not solve all of life’s problems, nor does it make me happy, joyous, or free. I find true happiness and joy, and I experience true freedom only by working the Twelve Steps of Narcotics Anonymous and applying them in my life. Today, I admit and acknowledge that mental illness is real and that there is help available. I am taking medication to deal with my illness of depression, just as I “take” the program of NA to deal with my disease of addiction.

Frankie H, North Carolina, USA

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