Can I Drink Alcohol if I have Bipolar Disorder?
Can I drink while having bipolar?
You already know the answer, don't you? I did, when last weekend I was drinking a beer on Friday, Saturday and Sunday's evening. I am mania or hypomania now - I don't know, I guess I was just trying to know how it is drinking alcohol during this state - I used to drink while depression - cause most the time I have depression.. And guess what? It wasn't worth it.. Keep reading to know why..
Waking up after drinking while having bipolar disorder
I woke up. Suddenly. What is?? I'm in bed, how did I get here? Why are my daughters not sleeping next to me? Where are my cigarettes ?? Damn, I want to pee - no wonder, I drank 5 beers after all - all that I had in the fridge.
I descend from my mezzanine bed to use the bathroom. I hear a rustle, someone just got out of bed .. From my daughters' room emerges ... my father. Mother of God, where did he get here from? And immediately the second thought - something happened, something I did ... Father asks what is going on, why did I get up - I say that I have to pee. I don't ask for anything, shame floods - after all, the last thing I remember from yesterday is that I wrote an entry about bipolar. I remember that the last paragraphs were about why you can't combine drugs with alcohol. I wrote it myself, drinking alcohol, enjoying it and this moment, my creativity (are you sure?) At that moment .. In the evening I took another 50 mg of quetiapine for a better sleep, or even for any sleep at all. And yet I stopped taking this drug some time ago, because after quetiapine I had such hunger pangs that I ate everything I had from the kitchen cupboards in the evening, including breakfast cereals from children. But now, when the "up" came, I knew that I would not fall asleep without it - so for the last few days I was taking two little pink pills for sleep. And from Friday every evening I had 4 beers in the evening. At the end of the weekend, I deserve it, after all, I feel better then, relaxed, nice dazed - in mania, when your thoughts are fucking in your head all the time, you can't catch them, keep up with them, somehow even "finish" - after drinking they slow down a bit ..
"You shouldn't drink alcohol if you have bipolar" - remember - but are you able to apply it?
The alarm clock rings at 6, I set it for a 10-minute nap. My father gets up, he brutally shines the light on - he tells me to get up, he goes to his house. I can see he's furious, but traditionally he doesn't say anything. He asks if I can take care of the children - I can assure that I will. He goes to my car for a school backpack from my son, who slept with his grandparents today - "I'm taking Leon's backpack to make him breakfast for school, I saw that you don't have much in the fridge." I don't dare to ask what happened, what he found when he came to me in the middle of the night. I don't even know when. I'll have to find out from my daughters ... They must have been scared, I was drunk and I must have said something to them that scared them ...
But first, a quick shower, I don't feel well - I have a cold, my joints hurt, I feel weak, my mouth is desert - but that's the effect of quetiapine. I make my daughters breakfast, iron their clothes for school - I am overwhelmed at home - my dad had to clean up for me at night .. I don't feel much, or maybe I should be whipping myself for what I did to my daughters, that I got drunk in front of them for the second time in their life until unconscious. And I was so glad my kids didn't know what it meant to be drunk because they didn't see it in my family.
Drinking in front of child
I did it for the first time in July this year - after my daughter's birthday. July - holiday - birthday in the garden, barbecue, beer. I don't remember how much I drank, but in the evening, when my parents finished cleaning with me, I had little contact. I don't remember how I went to sleep or how my children went to sleep. I do not remember now whether I talked to my daughter the next morning or a few days later - maybe a few days later, when in the evening my daughter, seeing that I was taking my medications (50 mg lamotrigine), got scared and asked me not to take any medications because it will be with me again as before, that they will not be able to wake me up, that I will say something nonsense. So I told the truth - that it was not because of the drugs that I was in such a state, but that I drank too much beer and was drunk, that this is what a drunk man behaves. I apologized to my children for being afraid because of me, for not knowing what was going on. But did that stop me from not drinking? Not. Although no, it seems that I had a few weeks off afterwards ... or not, this break was probably at the beginning of July?
Drinking alcohol can increase the severity of symptoms of bipolar
Today I have problems with concentration, with gathering my thoughts, as you can see, with memory as well. I don't know for how many weeks, but lately I've been drinking again - on weekends. Friday, Saturday, sometimes Sunday. In the evening. And unfortunately in front of children. Maria said - mom, don't drink, it will be like last time again. 'Take it easy, my daughter, it won't be - then mummy drank 10 beers, and look, now one or two. (And, in effect, three or four) I didn't lose control like after that unfortunate birthday - everything was nice - bathing, lying in bed with my daughters, proper order of falling asleep - that is, first them, then the mother. Until yesterday.
Ok, I'm going to wake my daughters - I decide that first the younger, Ania - I don't have the courage to start with Mary, the older, more sensitive one, the one who experiences my illness more strongly and sometimes has to take care of me. I tickle Ania on her feet, singing our wake-up song. It is going hard - she is tired, she must have gone to bed late, because of me. She stretches, I take her to my lap - she hasn't even opened her eyes yet, I hug her tightly and pull her to her feet. Ania seemed to wake up:
'Mom, yesterday we called daddy because you did not want to wake up, and we cried so terribly, and then dad called grandpa and grandpa came' (phew, I didn't talk too much, I just fell asleep, maybe they will not associate it with alcohol, and I can explain it by the fact that I take pills for sleep, otherwise I will not fall asleep)
Mary, surprisingly, gets up alone. I apologize to them for what happened, I said I was drinking beer. Mary said briefly: "You can't do 4 beers either, mom." Oh yes daughter, I can't. And I will not - until Friday for sure. But I'll try as long as possible.
Am I in depression again?
I take children to school, go to work, but there's a drama there. I can't stand on my feet, but the worst part is that the brain works like slow motion. I open Word, I have to write a technical description for the project, but I already know that I will not be able to do it. Colleagues ask something, and I can't process this question in my head, synthesize it - The sentence pops into my head, and there it seems to have been cut into pieces, and each word flew in a different direction and they cannot find each other. I have great difficulty saying anything, I speak slowly, and I have no words to finish the sentence. I'm physically exhausted (is it supposed to be - bye, bye mania? Now a jump over the head into the pool of depression? No no no, don't take away my mania, my superpower - I still have so much to do.) - why, ah, why did you do this to yourself Joanna, You were so proud of yourself yesterday, that you control this mania, that you would take care of yourself - just to drown it in glasses of beer.
Was it worth it? Was it worth it, Joanna?
At work, I am asking for a day off, I am going home. I can feel my body crying out for sleep, but I can't sleep. I ate a dry roll from Saturday, a protein bar, drank a glass of multivitamin juice and vitamin shots - magnesium and vitamins D and K. I know I have to eat and drink, but my brain doesn't send me signals that my body needs it. I would like someone to be with me, to take care of me. Someone, who could make me a tea, sandwiches, cook soup. On Saturday, I wrote a text message to my psychiatrist - I'm taking an antidepressant, I was supposed to inform the doctor if it beats me up - because then I will have to reduce its dose. But the doctor has turned off the phone for the weekend - so I make my own decision and go down to 60 mg of duloxetine with 90 mg) Today I write again that I feel like shit, I have problems concentrating and speaking, having a confusion of thoughts, that I have moments when I freeze motionless and I stare blankly at the thing in front of me. I am writing honestly about the fact that I was taking quetiapine with alcohol. I am asking what I can do, why do I feel this way.
"Alcohol weakens the effects of drugs, combining it with quetiapine is not a good idea .. you have to wait a few days for the concentration to even out again. Plus a cold does not improve the situation either.
”What about sleep, doctor, what about sleep? "Quetiapine, but no beer." It will be like that, doctor, it will be like that.
I have a comfortable nest on the couch, under the duvet - I have to describe it on my blog, describe everything. For a moment I think - fuck, what if I deleted everything I wrote yesterday by accident? I open the computer, fortunately it is, nothing has deleted - I read the last scraps - fine, you went well, sister .. I don't know yet what I will do with it, Will I leave these arguments in this article, which was supposed to be an informative, general entry, almost medical - about what bipolar is - and it came out of it… what? Maniacal, drunk gibberish. But unfortunately it is also part of this disease ..
Conclusion:
Don't drink alcohol if you are taking medications.
Don't drink alcohol if you are on medication and are mania / hypomania.
Don't drink alcohol if you're on medication, are mania, and look after young children.
Don't drink alcohol at all, alcohol is bad.
