The Dreadful Toll of Alcoholism and Mental Illness
The comorbidity of alcohol use disorder and depression is well documented. For those with both, they are co-dependent with the other. It is estimated that 1/3 of people with severe depression are also addicted to alcohol at one time or another.
I was one of them.
Although I was initially diagnosed with depression (and later bipolar ll), it was usually during the depressive periods that I depended on liquor to self-medicate, even after I started taking anti-depressant pills. In turn, the alcoholism exacerbated my depression, social discomfort, and anxiety when I wasn't drinking. I never thought about the warnings on most anti-depression medications to not drink alcohol.
However, I never drank during the day at my various jobs or at home until my family went to sleep. In fact, I was energized by my work in my remission phases. I became obsessively absorbed in the details of my day-to-day tasks, leading me to excel and become extraordinarily successful in many different areas.
There were times during my periods of hypomania and racing thoughts that the pressure of working at a Herculean breakneck pace also led me to drink excessively at night. This was a pattern that lasted off-and-on for decades, except for the short or long periods of remission.
On vacations overseas, my addiction to alcohol was incessant and unquenchable. During the days on such trips, I stayed sober, but at nights and when flying, all bets were off.
It was at Narita Airport in Tokyo in 2019 that I reached my abject nadir, as my wife and I were waiting at the gate for a plane to transfer to Hanoi to begin a three-week vacation in Southeast Asia.
My wife is an avid reader and when she is absorbed in a book, there is very little that can distract her. I told my wife that I was restless -- which given my racing thoughts was not entirely untrue -- and needed to walk around. In a duty free shop I bought some miniature Absolut bottles and guzzled down six of them in a washroom stall. My wife was still absorbed in her novel when I returned, and she didn't notice that I was inebriated.
Alcoholic debauchery was not infrequent when flying to stave off my depression, my anxiety, and my desire to avoid interacting with people, such as strangers sitting next to me in an airport waiting area or on the plane.
When we arrived back to the O'Hare international terminal, after our trip to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, I had already made the decision to go cold turkey, and I did.
I have not had a drink since that day, I have never attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, gone through withdrawal, or received therapy for my former alcoholism. Like many conundrums associated with mental illness, it remains a mystery that I had the willpower to stop so abruptly.
I didn't become what is known as a dry drunk, which is someone who still craves alcohol; I became stone cold sober, losing any desire to become drunk. I no longer walked through aisles of liquor shelves at supermarkets with a compulsive craving for the gleaming bottles and the temporary relief that came with intoxication.
It was then, when I was no longer waking up after blackouts, that I was ultimately diagnosed as being bipolar II.
There is no doubt in my mind that my closet alcoholism was precipitated by my vacillating moods (most notably depression) as a bipolar.
It has been five years since my last drink. I think with more clarity, I am more open to relationships, emotions, and social engagement. I avidly volunteer for a variety of causes in my retirement, with my mental health under control due to an effective "cocktail" of medications and therapy.
I occasionally remember when we socialized with a colleague of my wife's and her boyfriend when I was in my mid-20’s. I got blindingly drunk. I was beyond remembering what transpired, a total blackout, and only afterward, my wife thanked me for driving the couple to their hotel.
As I look back, I feel grateful beyond words that I did not get into a catastrophic accident and kill anyone, including myself. Fortunately, I had the good sense after that not to drive after drinking.
But that horrifying, irresponsible behavior is behind me. I finally feel that I have arrived home, and the possibilities of such disasters and dissolution are no longer on the horizon.
Mark Karlin is retired, after a long career in advocating against gun violence, as a hospital executive, an online journalist, a consultant, and founder of a progressive website. He graduated from Yale University, cum laude, with an honors degree in English and received his MA from the University of Illinois.