You wake up with the mother of all headaches and take your customary Xanax and Sereupin, duly prescribed by your doc, thus unable to take anything for the flu. You tinker with Midway for a couple of hours and feel the anxiety rising. You want to finish at least a part of it before lunch, but you're scared witless that your boss will descend on you like a Mitsubishi Zero, and you're the USS Yorktown. This panic usually prevents you from doing any work and send you scrambling for Internet games or the JFK assassination to relax (yes, that's my level of anxiety - compared to it, the JFK assassination is relaxing. Back and to the left.) You can't afford this, because you had to deliver Midway yesterday and you'd really need to deliver today, for your physical and mental health. It would be the time for a quick beer, but there's none in the house, so you forge on, put up some Christian music (of all things) and take another Xanax. It's far enough from the other one, can't hurt. BZZZZ! It's a friend who usually brings me my supply of water, and this time he brings also a supply of Moretti Double Malt beer. You stash the enourmous box of happiness in the balcony. You've been craving a beer for days, but right after a Xanax it will knock you out worse than at Yavincon the day of the SW theatre play. What do you do? What I did was bite the bullet, stick with the music to relax myself and vent on the blog, to the cost of more wasted time. For now it's working. I'll have the beer with my lunch, when it's safe. I don't want to look all virtuous and holier-than-thou and better than those who ruin their life with drugs and alcohol. As I often say, I don't even dare to judge them, because probably worse stuff went on inside their mind than inside mine. I also don't want to worry friends - as you see, my (pounding) head is still square on my shoulders. I just want to say that substance abuse is a fact to be accepted, a risk to be faced, one more enemy for us nutcases. I don't think enough people are aware of this fact, and they are ready to judge as though one goes out of his mind because he does drugs and alcohol. No sir, it's the other way around. And no, it's not right, but I wish more people tried to study the connection and talk about it. People are afraid to admit a mental disease, they are ashamed to ask for antidepressants, so try to cure it as they can and go horribly wrong. WHY THIS SHAME??? There had been days a while ago when, if I had a pusher friend and could get cocaine without having to go to Viale Abruzzi, I'd have done it. I didn't. I've never done coke in my life - hell, not even a reefer. I don't think I ever will. So don't worry about ME. But next time someone says she's unhappy and stuff happens inside her mind that she can't control, try to wonder WHY and what YOU can do for her. Maybe one fewer hard word, a smaller dose of cynicism about life, an effort at more positivity? NOTE: all this is not for my closest friends... they've all been wonderful lately, and if I'm pulling through, it's also thanks to them. |