YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Thanks, I appreciate your response, and it does help validate my decision, not to go. For years I blamed myself. I've been in active recovery for 10 years and therapy for a year. I always thought I had some part in them being jerks to me. Its not something I cause. I am always nice at the holidays a...

Being an alcoholic myself, I can relate to his side of things, Unfortunately, your being nice and understanding will not help his problem at all. You sound like a great person but its time to direct your energy elsewhere. Go to a http://www.al-anonuk.org.uk/ meeting. If you want to understand his pr...

Hello and welcome to the forum! I have a question for you. I have a family that is very narcissist and seems to like misery in others. Its a long history but I wont go into all the details. My question is, is there any "good" in seeing my family at the holidays? I get very anxious to go ev...

I don't know if my settings are causing me not to get notifications.I think it would help the forum grow if we get an email notification whenever someone responds to our posts.

Thanks for sharing rxtravaganza.

Sounds great to avoid the family. My spouse drags me in the fire every year. Good idea to move

I know when I was on effexor, my drinking increased a ton. I always drank on or off effexor but not as much as when I was off of it. I don't know what to say. It sounds like you have a plan in place to control your drinking. I used to try to control my drinking too. I tried to quit for a month here ...

I don't know either. But you try calling a clinic. Ask if they accept your insurance.

That sounds really really tough. I hope you can find some relief. Reminds me of me 10 years ago. I could barely leave my apartment. It was like everyone was looking at me and could see how I felt about myself inside. i got sober shortly after that. Much later I got into therapy. One thing that helpe...

I experienced mania while on effexor. I had too much energy. My ego took over. I started drinking almost half the hours of every day. I wouldn't doubt your smoking to try to balance out the mania. Its up to you if you want to continue with trying it. I have heard that some peoples mania stage is jus...

I see a lot of attics in my AA meetings. Ive heard some bad things about NA meetings also. There are some bad AA and NA meetings and Im sure there is good examples of both also. If you are in the US, look up your AA intergroup http://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/find-local-aa Ask them for a temporary cont...