The divide between mentally ill addicts and those without.
I’m a recovering addict. This is something that is well known about me. I attend NA meetings almost religiously; with some exceptions regarding personal life issues, I am at a meeting nearly every day or night, and sometimes multiple times within a day if I need it.
At the beginning of my NA attendance, I felt a fellowship that filled me with hope and determination. Many described it as “the pink cloud” that addicts float upon at the beginning of their recovery, and it was a wonderful experience at the time.
Then, my mental illnesses and disabilities came at me full force.
I have depression, anxiety, BPD coupled with psychosis, chronic pain, and of course, addiction. A single one of those illnesses alone is enough to drive anyone to use. Of course, the number of mental illnesses has no relation to the amount of pain or struggle involved with the illness; I merely want to provide a background with which my readers can understand the full extent of what I am dealing with when I talk about these things.
Over time, and with the inspiration and wisdom from my fiancé, I came to realize that there was sharp divide in the groups; there were those of us who do not suffer from mental illnesses and have their addiction to focus on. Then, there are the rest of us: those of us who have a brain that doesn’t function like a neurotypical.
My first reality check came after my first relapse. I had 65 days clean and the group congratulated me. The another relapse happened after 30 days clean as a direct result of my battle with PTSD, BPD, and depression. When I came back, everything was different.
The divide became extremely clear to me the second time I relapsed. I was dealing with the memories of the deaths of my last two partners, both of whom died in connection to their mental illnesses, and I found myself wondering why we did not discuss such an important matter in these groups.
When I began bringing up mental illness, disability, and disorders during meetings, I was met with the same dialogue: “Don’t single yourself out” was the most common one, alongside, “Keep coming back”.
It became clear to me that they did not want to hear what I wanted to say.
There was a silver lining here, however. The more I spoke about mental illness, disability, and disorders alongside addiction, the more I found myself pulled to the side after meetings by those who suffered from the same things as I did.
“Thank you for bringing that up,” they would say. “I can’t tell you how much I needed to hear that.”
So began my new campaign. I’ve made it my mission to bring attention and awareness to the unique experiences of addicts with mental illnesses, disabilities, and disorders. At each NA meeting, I will make a point to bring up our experiences and find those that need the support that we can bring to each other.
My end goal is to create an NA group that focuses on mental illness, disability, and disorders in relation to addiction so that we have a safe space we can meet with those that are like us. So far, I have created a Facebook group page for people like us.
Please feel free to add yourself, friends that you feel would benefit from the group, and introduce yourself as soon as you’re accepted. You can become a part of what I hope will become a worldwide movement to support addicts with our particular struggle. Here is a link to the group and if the link doesn’t work, the group is titled “Mentally Ill and Disabled Addicts Support Group” with the solidarity fist as our icon. While I created the group, my partner was my inspiration for it; we’re both non-binary addicts who suffer from various illnesses. Mine are listed above and theirs including depression, anxiety, social anxiety, and Tourettes Syndrome alongside some physical disability.
You are not alone. We can bond together and we can support each other, love each other, and bring together more and more addicts who suffer as we do. Together, we can form the strongest bonds that we were unable to truly establish at our regular NA meetings (or whatever means of recovery you utilized for yourself; each are valid).
If you have any unique experiences you would like to share, please feel free to share them on this Facebook group. It’s a safe space that has already provided hope and a measure of freedom and belonging that many have not found anywhere else. I believe this can grow into something bigger.
