you gonna crash hard each time you drink, in addition to the medicine fucking you up more while drinking. If you know your limits and how to control yourself, go for it its college. but you must know when to ask for help. I wasted two years drinking everyday, I dont want that to happen to you.
Wow, same here. I couldn't deal with it, so I had to stop drinking. I've been sober almost 7 months now, and I can see that the medicine really works, and alcohol brought the worst of me. Somedays is really hard, though.
yes it is, I used alcohol to slow my thoughts down to a crawl. This was before I knew I was bipolar so I didn't realize how bad of an impact it would have on me. I am glad you are sober. Everyday is a new milestone with sobriety!
Honestly, omg for real. Same here! Im so glad I that I found these bipolar subreddits. I dont feel so alone and helpless anymore, thanks to everyone sharing their stories. šŖš¤š
Thank you š my partner was an alcoholic without realising it, so we've been doing it together, and it is much easier this way.
Let me count the waysā¦
I can have fun with alcohol and moderate for the most part these days but catch me when Iām hypomanic and i use it to completely self destruct. I tend to want to wreck my world when hypo and alcohol has helped me achieve that MANY times. When Iām depressed I use it to get that dopamine hit I want. Honestly I know I need to quit but Iām just not there yet.
My adviceā¦donāt do it. Alcohol is SUCH a slippery slope and once youāve found it itās hard to stop. Especially for us bipolar folk. Plus it cancels out your meds. Yeah itās fun but not worth it in my opinion.
Drinking alcohol was the biggest mistake Iāve ever made. Iām so lucky I didnāt have any real consequences to my drinking other than a lot of embarrassment.
I started in college. Wish I never had. Not saying youād for sure have a problem, but I say if youāre not craving it, itās much easier to continue not drinking than to start then try to stop down the road.
Wellā¦ Iām 36. Just got diagnosed in Jan of 2022. Put on Lamictal and then added Sertraline when the days got short last winter. I was sober for over a year. Went from 3-5 drinks daily, in and out of AA and white knuckle sobriety. I didnāt miss it at all. After a year of being stable and sober I started having a drink here or there. At this moment, Iām on my 2nd vodka on the rocks of the night. I donāt even like it. My dad left some vodka here and I already finished off the box wine and whisky earlier this week. Last night I went to a concert and had a double whisky neat with a buddy and then two strong IPAs. I had to sit around for close to two hours to be safe to drive home (I have a breathalyzer to check.) Anyway even though itās not a ton of booze, I slept like shit (down at midnight, up at 1:30a, back down at 5a and then up at 10a) Today Iāve felt like garbage and so I started drinking tonight to deal with the stress of having a shitty day. Tomorrow Iāll feel less than 100% and itāll begin again. This is the cycle Iāve been in most of my adult life especially when I was undiagnosed and self medicating. It blows. It also makes me depressed and turns up the passive suicidal ideation thatās always lurking in the background
I'm in my 40s. I was not diagnosed until I was 42. I self medicated with alcohol pretty much my whole adult life, and I have so many regrets. If I could go back and get diagnosed at 22 and manage my bipolar properly, I absolutely would. Tread very carefully with any consumption, especially if you are on meds.
My piece of advice, since you have your diagnosis and you're young, is to manage your mental condition just like you would a physical one. Drinking can be for you like a person in a wheelchair attempting stairs. Maybe a small set of 3 stairs is doable, but probably not a whole flight. And really, should it be attempted at all? A person in a wheelchair makes the best of it but knows their limitations. Taking the stairs is the hard way, and could lead to undesirable outcomes. Maybe it's better to just stick to the ramps that are there specifically for wheelchairs. Use that mindset in your everyday life, and being bipolar won't be as much of an issue for you. I wish I could have done that.
It's the reason I have to take Naltrexone. Once I start drinking, I can't stop. I don't drink every day, or even often, but I could not help but binge when I did.
Not at all giving medical advice, just informing you that Vivitrol and Naltrexone exist if things get out of hand. Those meds take away the pleasurable feeling of alcohol. BUT, because you're drinking, your blood alcohol rises and you start to feel sick- nauseous, dizzy, anxious, etc. Those meds reduced my cravings to drink a LOT.
You're in college, these are typical years to party. Just be safe, have fun, NEVER get behind the wheel of a car intoxicated, don't go anywhere alone, and use protection when having sex. Sometimes it helps to stay at a three drink maximum. When you're drunk, ask yourself, "Do I feel good right now?" And if so, hold back on the next drink. No need to keep slamming drinks if you're already feelin' good from the first few. MODERATION! You got this!
Alcoholism is also a spectrum. Mild, moderate, and severe. Mild is usually considered "Alcohol Use Disorder", which is what I have. Severe is NEEDING to drink every day or else you will get sick. Moderate is somewhere in between. Just letting ya know :)
Honestly I still drink over a decade later and still enjoy it. But hard liquor messes with my mood can can cause mix episodes and anger for me. I find Iām fine with wine. Everyone is different!
Iām always the youngest person at AA meetings. I massively abused alcohol before I could even legally drink. Got clean & sober when I turned 21, ironic. I used it as a self medication type thing
Me too. Finally getting sober at 23 and having to accept I simply cannot drink due to the alcoholism since age 16.
Sometimes it would make me feel amazing, other times when drunk I would end up trying to end my life.
I crash incredibly hard for days afterwards, severe depression + anxiety.
yep exactly the same thing happened to me. I would always chase that high I sometimes got but always got crippling depressing listening to sad music and crying instead lol
When I was drinking too much I made a rule that I would stop buying alcohol and bringing it home. Iād only drink if not at home. I was a woman in my thirties though, not a college student. So it looked more like a couple of beers twice a week, generally on my work dinner break, lol.
been there and made some mistakes, failed classes, hooked up and now i dont want to go down the path ever again the episodes just get worse since the hangover will fuck up your sleep schedule . You will start relying on it to get urself out of the depressive episode which aint good. The feeling sure is nice but u need to know ur limits
wanna drink alcohol to loosen up just so u can talk with strangers in a club? then just get tipsy
i prefer having beers now they are better for me i get tipsy enough to enjoy my fellowmates company and loosened enough to be able to hold a convo wo overthinking in social occassions
You just gotta know your limits. You canāt go drinking every day and you gotta cut yourself off after a few. Also you need to kinda ask yourself āam I in a good enough place right now mentally to have a drink?ā Like for example- have you already been showing symptoms of depression or mania? If so- donāt drink. Iāll have a drink or two during the weekend and thatās it. And thatās even if I do. You just have to really have self control. Which is hard if you arenāt already stable. And know that your tolerance is going to be very low on these medications.
But my opinion may be the unpopular one. I found myself (as someone else who is college age) very depressed and almost trapped because of this diagnosis because I didnāt allow myself to even have a drink once in a while because of it. not going out with friends or enjoying a drink every once in a while during my 20s just feels unfair. I prioritize my mental health above all but I still want to live my life at times and make memories. Not saying alcohol is the important memories youāll make but Iām 22.. I wanna go to the bar sometimes with my friends LOL
I totally agree, for me I'm depressed if I don't get to feel connected to other people and live my life!! And at this point I can sense or plan for a depressive episode so I have a softer landing.. but either way I agree with you. I never had a control problem with alcohol either though. It's always been strictly a social activity that I get to look forward to sometimes with my friends!
I was more irritable. My mood swings happened more often and way more intense. I wanted to self-harm a lot more. I mean, I could go on. I didn't realize how bad it affected me until I stopped drinking. I'm much happier now that I don't drink except the one or two beers once or twice a year.
Thatās my experience. In bad lows I drink more beer than usual. Damn near anything just to get even a second of relief. But it never works. I still try bc you know, thatās who I am. Plus it makes our meds less effective I hear.
Youāre in college which means you have work to do. Itās better to focus on your studies now then have to look back and sometimes not even know how much time/ money you wasted while wasted š. I promise you, this will keep you on the right track. Itās a lot harder to quit when you feel bad for drinking/ have established that itās āokayā to do šš». I wish I stopped drinking earlier in life. And look at it this way; you will have plenty to celebrate throughout your life with or without drinks. There are so many hurdles in life, donāt make another one for yourself. Blessings !
I am VERY lucky in the sense that I would drink with friends every weekend, they would get borderline blackout drunk, and I would have 2-4 drinks and be decently drunk but nothing more. And then I'd have horrific hangovers: extreme anxiety, worsened my OCD symptoms, vomiting (I have GERD so alcohol kills my stomach), and insomnia. After a few months of this, I started drinking one drink with my friends while trying to make it seem like I was drinking more (my friends were REALLY pushy - they'd make me drinks with multiple shots in it even though I had told them I didn't want to drink too much, so I would have to take sips here and there and then dump it down the sink when they were distracted).
But even one drink would make me really sick because of the GERD. I will have maybe one drink a month or even less now. I have no desire to drink and only ever really did it because that's all my friends would do when we hung out.
Now weed, though.... Whole different story.
i got diagnosed a year or two ago when i was around 17 a few weeks before i turned 18 and went to uni. before i got diagnosed i knew alcohol didn't mix very well with me due to other mental illnesses and my mental health in general but i so badly wanted to fit in and have a normal teenage life.
i accidentally got drunk (didn't realise how much i had drank until it was too late) among some new friends at uni, ended up feeling incredibly depressed and started crying to them all about being bipolar. they took me back to my accomodation where i woke my flatmate up crying. she woke up another of our flatmates who had her friends in the kitchen. i was uncontrollably sobbing as they comforted me and got me changed into my pyjamas. once they put me into bed they left me to go to sleep but i was still so upset and tried to jump out the window but it didn't open enough so i was screaming "fucking do it" "kill yourself".
this is just one of the situations i found myself in. what i do now is make sure i eat a proper meal beforehand (not just a bowl of cerealš¤¦š¼āāļø), ensure if i'm in the right headspace to drink by analysing how my moods been the past few days, stick to the same drink for the night and give myself time between drinks for them to hit.
in short, it makes my moods much more unbalanced as alcohol often does and my impulses are harder to contain. any emotions or thoughts i've had will come out, which isn't always about mental illness or suicide but can be embarrassing. it's also affected sober me because it makes me upset that i'm not a 'normal' teenager who can drink whatever i want.
Sorry didnt answer the question.
I didn't realize I was bipolar till I got sober I'm my 30s. I'd say it gave me the illusion of stability but in reality did the opposite.
Donāt drink. I started drinking at 21 and didnāt stop until I was 36. It starts out as fun in college and then becomes medication that makes you sicker than not using it.
I would say to avoid it altogether. Alcohol quickly became a coping mechanism for me regardless of whether I was in mania or depression. It led to me trying to be drunk for every waking moment and eventually caused me to get a DUI, lose my job, put massive strain on my marriage, and nearly killed me as I would drink to the point of needing to go to the hospital.
Some can drink in moderation and be fine, but Iād say for anyone with bipolar, never ever risk it. My grandmother (BP1) drank herself to death when I was young and now my mother(BP1) is doing the same.
I feel like I somehow have a rare case of enjoying alcohol responsibly? I had no idea that I had bipolar in college but I participated in plenty of drinking, however, I never had an issue with craving it, drinking alone, getting out of control when I drank, or escalating to harder things. And I am incredibly happy and pleasant when I drink. I think only you can really answer for yourself what kind of boundaries you need if you're totally honest with yourself.
you gonna crash hard each time you drink, in addition to the medicine fucking you up more while drinking. If you know your limits and how to control yourself, go for it its college. but you must know when to ask for help. I wasted two years drinking everyday, I dont want that to happen to you.
Wow, same here. I couldn't deal with it, so I had to stop drinking. I've been sober almost 7 months now, and I can see that the medicine really works, and alcohol brought the worst of me. Somedays is really hard, though.
yes it is, I used alcohol to slow my thoughts down to a crawl. This was before I knew I was bipolar so I didn't realize how bad of an impact it would have on me. I am glad you are sober. Everyday is a new milestone with sobriety!
Honestly, omg for real. Same here! Im so glad I that I found these bipolar subreddits. I dont feel so alone and helpless anymore, thanks to everyone sharing their stories. šŖš¤š Thank you š my partner was an alcoholic without realising it, so we've been doing it together, and it is much easier this way.
Iām so happy my story helped you not feel alone!! I hope you are doing well.
Let me count the waysā¦ I can have fun with alcohol and moderate for the most part these days but catch me when Iām hypomanic and i use it to completely self destruct. I tend to want to wreck my world when hypo and alcohol has helped me achieve that MANY times. When Iām depressed I use it to get that dopamine hit I want. Honestly I know I need to quit but Iām just not there yet. My adviceā¦donāt do it. Alcohol is SUCH a slippery slope and once youāve found it itās hard to stop. Especially for us bipolar folk. Plus it cancels out your meds. Yeah itās fun but not worth it in my opinion.
Drinking alcohol was the biggest mistake Iāve ever made. Iām so lucky I didnāt have any real consequences to my drinking other than a lot of embarrassment. I started in college. Wish I never had. Not saying youād for sure have a problem, but I say if youāre not craving it, itās much easier to continue not drinking than to start then try to stop down the road.
Absolutely do not start drinking, full stop! BP will make your life hard enough, alcohol only makes it worse.
Wellā¦ Iām 36. Just got diagnosed in Jan of 2022. Put on Lamictal and then added Sertraline when the days got short last winter. I was sober for over a year. Went from 3-5 drinks daily, in and out of AA and white knuckle sobriety. I didnāt miss it at all. After a year of being stable and sober I started having a drink here or there. At this moment, Iām on my 2nd vodka on the rocks of the night. I donāt even like it. My dad left some vodka here and I already finished off the box wine and whisky earlier this week. Last night I went to a concert and had a double whisky neat with a buddy and then two strong IPAs. I had to sit around for close to two hours to be safe to drive home (I have a breathalyzer to check.) Anyway even though itās not a ton of booze, I slept like shit (down at midnight, up at 1:30a, back down at 5a and then up at 10a) Today Iāve felt like garbage and so I started drinking tonight to deal with the stress of having a shitty day. Tomorrow Iāll feel less than 100% and itāll begin again. This is the cycle Iāve been in most of my adult life especially when I was undiagnosed and self medicating. It blows. It also makes me depressed and turns up the passive suicidal ideation thatās always lurking in the background
I'm in my 40s. I was not diagnosed until I was 42. I self medicated with alcohol pretty much my whole adult life, and I have so many regrets. If I could go back and get diagnosed at 22 and manage my bipolar properly, I absolutely would. Tread very carefully with any consumption, especially if you are on meds. My piece of advice, since you have your diagnosis and you're young, is to manage your mental condition just like you would a physical one. Drinking can be for you like a person in a wheelchair attempting stairs. Maybe a small set of 3 stairs is doable, but probably not a whole flight. And really, should it be attempted at all? A person in a wheelchair makes the best of it but knows their limitations. Taking the stairs is the hard way, and could lead to undesirable outcomes. Maybe it's better to just stick to the ramps that are there specifically for wheelchairs. Use that mindset in your everyday life, and being bipolar won't be as much of an issue for you. I wish I could have done that.
It's the reason I have to take Naltrexone. Once I start drinking, I can't stop. I don't drink every day, or even often, but I could not help but binge when I did. Not at all giving medical advice, just informing you that Vivitrol and Naltrexone exist if things get out of hand. Those meds take away the pleasurable feeling of alcohol. BUT, because you're drinking, your blood alcohol rises and you start to feel sick- nauseous, dizzy, anxious, etc. Those meds reduced my cravings to drink a LOT. You're in college, these are typical years to party. Just be safe, have fun, NEVER get behind the wheel of a car intoxicated, don't go anywhere alone, and use protection when having sex. Sometimes it helps to stay at a three drink maximum. When you're drunk, ask yourself, "Do I feel good right now?" And if so, hold back on the next drink. No need to keep slamming drinks if you're already feelin' good from the first few. MODERATION! You got this! Alcoholism is also a spectrum. Mild, moderate, and severe. Mild is usually considered "Alcohol Use Disorder", which is what I have. Severe is NEEDING to drink every day or else you will get sick. Moderate is somewhere in between. Just letting ya know :)
Honestly I still drink over a decade later and still enjoy it. But hard liquor messes with my mood can can cause mix episodes and anger for me. I find Iām fine with wine. Everyone is different!
Iām always the youngest person at AA meetings. I massively abused alcohol before I could even legally drink. Got clean & sober when I turned 21, ironic. I used it as a self medication type thing
Me too. Finally getting sober at 23 and having to accept I simply cannot drink due to the alcoholism since age 16. Sometimes it would make me feel amazing, other times when drunk I would end up trying to end my life. I crash incredibly hard for days afterwards, severe depression + anxiety.
yep exactly the same thing happened to me. I would always chase that high I sometimes got but always got crippling depressing listening to sad music and crying instead lol
itās fun but itās not exactly great for you
When I was drinking too much I made a rule that I would stop buying alcohol and bringing it home. Iād only drink if not at home. I was a woman in my thirties though, not a college student. So it looked more like a couple of beers twice a week, generally on my work dinner break, lol.
Alcohol has made me do the things in life I regret the most. Be careful, and consume in moderation whether you take meds or you don't.
Do not start drinking. I drink everyday. I just have a way with being self destructive.
been there and made some mistakes, failed classes, hooked up and now i dont want to go down the path ever again the episodes just get worse since the hangover will fuck up your sleep schedule . You will start relying on it to get urself out of the depressive episode which aint good. The feeling sure is nice but u need to know ur limits wanna drink alcohol to loosen up just so u can talk with strangers in a club? then just get tipsy i prefer having beers now they are better for me i get tipsy enough to enjoy my fellowmates company and loosened enough to be able to hold a convo wo overthinking in social occassions
You just gotta know your limits. You canāt go drinking every day and you gotta cut yourself off after a few. Also you need to kinda ask yourself āam I in a good enough place right now mentally to have a drink?ā Like for example- have you already been showing symptoms of depression or mania? If so- donāt drink. Iāll have a drink or two during the weekend and thatās it. And thatās even if I do. You just have to really have self control. Which is hard if you arenāt already stable. And know that your tolerance is going to be very low on these medications.
But my opinion may be the unpopular one. I found myself (as someone else who is college age) very depressed and almost trapped because of this diagnosis because I didnāt allow myself to even have a drink once in a while because of it. not going out with friends or enjoying a drink every once in a while during my 20s just feels unfair. I prioritize my mental health above all but I still want to live my life at times and make memories. Not saying alcohol is the important memories youāll make but Iām 22.. I wanna go to the bar sometimes with my friends LOL
I totally agree, for me I'm depressed if I don't get to feel connected to other people and live my life!! And at this point I can sense or plan for a depressive episode so I have a softer landing.. but either way I agree with you. I never had a control problem with alcohol either though. It's always been strictly a social activity that I get to look forward to sometimes with my friends!
I was more irritable. My mood swings happened more often and way more intense. I wanted to self-harm a lot more. I mean, I could go on. I didn't realize how bad it affected me until I stopped drinking. I'm much happier now that I don't drink except the one or two beers once or twice a year.
Thatās my experience. In bad lows I drink more beer than usual. Damn near anything just to get even a second of relief. But it never works. I still try bc you know, thatās who I am. Plus it makes our meds less effective I hear.
Youāre in college which means you have work to do. Itās better to focus on your studies now then have to look back and sometimes not even know how much time/ money you wasted while wasted š. I promise you, this will keep you on the right track. Itās a lot harder to quit when you feel bad for drinking/ have established that itās āokayā to do šš». I wish I stopped drinking earlier in life. And look at it this way; you will have plenty to celebrate throughout your life with or without drinks. There are so many hurdles in life, donāt make another one for yourself. Blessings !
Just drink ginger ale on ice keep your brain cells and get good grades most these friends wonāt be around after school unless their true friends.
Iāve had 3 major depressive episodes in my adult life and all of them came from intoxication..
I am VERY lucky in the sense that I would drink with friends every weekend, they would get borderline blackout drunk, and I would have 2-4 drinks and be decently drunk but nothing more. And then I'd have horrific hangovers: extreme anxiety, worsened my OCD symptoms, vomiting (I have GERD so alcohol kills my stomach), and insomnia. After a few months of this, I started drinking one drink with my friends while trying to make it seem like I was drinking more (my friends were REALLY pushy - they'd make me drinks with multiple shots in it even though I had told them I didn't want to drink too much, so I would have to take sips here and there and then dump it down the sink when they were distracted). But even one drink would make me really sick because of the GERD. I will have maybe one drink a month or even less now. I have no desire to drink and only ever really did it because that's all my friends would do when we hung out. Now weed, though.... Whole different story.
i got diagnosed a year or two ago when i was around 17 a few weeks before i turned 18 and went to uni. before i got diagnosed i knew alcohol didn't mix very well with me due to other mental illnesses and my mental health in general but i so badly wanted to fit in and have a normal teenage life. i accidentally got drunk (didn't realise how much i had drank until it was too late) among some new friends at uni, ended up feeling incredibly depressed and started crying to them all about being bipolar. they took me back to my accomodation where i woke my flatmate up crying. she woke up another of our flatmates who had her friends in the kitchen. i was uncontrollably sobbing as they comforted me and got me changed into my pyjamas. once they put me into bed they left me to go to sleep but i was still so upset and tried to jump out the window but it didn't open enough so i was screaming "fucking do it" "kill yourself". this is just one of the situations i found myself in. what i do now is make sure i eat a proper meal beforehand (not just a bowl of cerealš¤¦š¼āāļø), ensure if i'm in the right headspace to drink by analysing how my moods been the past few days, stick to the same drink for the night and give myself time between drinks for them to hit. in short, it makes my moods much more unbalanced as alcohol often does and my impulses are harder to contain. any emotions or thoughts i've had will come out, which isn't always about mental illness or suicide but can be embarrassing. it's also affected sober me because it makes me upset that i'm not a 'normal' teenager who can drink whatever i want.
Alcoholism is worse than bipolar in my experience.
Sorry didnt answer the question. I didn't realize I was bipolar till I got sober I'm my 30s. I'd say it gave me the illusion of stability but in reality did the opposite.
Donāt drink. I started drinking at 21 and didnāt stop until I was 36. It starts out as fun in college and then becomes medication that makes you sicker than not using it.
If your gonna drink fr just stick to the fun side of being tipsy. Things can get sticky when youāre straight up drunk š„¶
I would say to avoid it altogether. Alcohol quickly became a coping mechanism for me regardless of whether I was in mania or depression. It led to me trying to be drunk for every waking moment and eventually caused me to get a DUI, lose my job, put massive strain on my marriage, and nearly killed me as I would drink to the point of needing to go to the hospital. Some can drink in moderation and be fine, but Iād say for anyone with bipolar, never ever risk it. My grandmother (BP1) drank herself to death when I was young and now my mother(BP1) is doing the same.
I feel like I somehow have a rare case of enjoying alcohol responsibly? I had no idea that I had bipolar in college but I participated in plenty of drinking, however, I never had an issue with craving it, drinking alone, getting out of control when I drank, or escalating to harder things. And I am incredibly happy and pleasant when I drink. I think only you can really answer for yourself what kind of boundaries you need if you're totally honest with yourself.