Life before Schizophrenia

BEFORE I GET INTO The BLOG, I WOULD LIKE TO REMIND OUR READERS THAT The RECOVERY BLOG IS MOVING TO A NEW LOCACTION: OUR BLOG WILL CONTINUE FROM OUR NEW HOME:  http://www.mhcd.org/blog I turned something negative into something positive. That is paranoid schizophrenia that is what I am diagnosed with. I have said before that my life was not going good. Altogether I lost ten years of my life being locked up for crimes and for my mental illness. Every time I was locked up for a dui I would go to the county jail and ask to work in the laundry. That is what I knew how to do. No matter what I said that I was going to change my life for the better, I was soon locked up again. I did not see it as problem. There were a lot of people I knew that did time and a person would know the regulars.
You knew the people who would get locked up for the winter because it was too cold to be homeless at that time of year. It just seemed like bad luck was following me. Once I was walking through some apartment buildings where my friends lived and the police stopped me and told me to leave. I said O.K. and was cutting across a yard to get away and they locked me up for trespassing. That is the kind of luck I had. When I was locked up for the second time, facing prison time again I started looking at my life and knew I had to change it or I would be locked up for life.
Then what I thought should have been a misdemeanor or not locked up at all when I went to trial on a case. The Judge said it is the law but I am not giving the law to this person. I knew I would win in appeal court. Although I did not expect the Judge to not give me an appeal bond in a case that was wrong. I was back up doing time. I worked my way in Buena Vista to the south wing where I was the first time I was sent to prison. Then they wanted to move me to the east wing where you could wear street clothes. I did not want to go. No one was going to see me in street clothes in prison, so why wear them. I would still be locked up.
I also was running a gambling house with a friend. Things were going ok and I was just waiting for my appeal. When I reached east wing I had just finished an accounting class and receive a diploma for it. I started taking computer classes to learn basic programming. Things were not going good. I had everything you could have in prison because of my gambling. Then I did a stupid thing and raised the limits in my gambling. One of the guards I knew from the first time I was in prison was in east wing.
Then my ex-wife contacted me I knew that I should not be talking to her but life gets lonely in prison. She told me somebody was saying that I was snitching on people. I told one friend in jail what was going on and nobody else. All this was happening and I was doing well in the computer school. I had finished my studies and they made me an teaching assistant to teach what I had learned and to grade papers. Then the guard I knew from my prior lock up,wrote me up and they charged me with gambling. I was angry and all stress out with what was going on. They stuck me in the solitary confinement. I do not remember what happened after they locked me up in the hole.
I laid down on the bunk and do not remember anything after that. Then I woke up on another tier and was mentally ill. I did not know at the time I was mentally ill and tried to commit suicide with a razor I had it did not do no damage though. I told the guard what was happening and they sent me to the hospital in Canon City. I hardly talked to authority, although I did not know what was going on so I told the doctor what was happening. He thought at first I was mentally ill, then changed his mind and just ordered me sleeping pills. He asked where I would like to go back to Buena or where. I told him right there behind the walls. I could not go back and face my friends with something that happened that I did not understand. I stayed mentally ill in Canon City untill about a week later the nurses told me the doctor had ordered me sleeping pills. They were called halcyon. That brought me around and they moved me to population. Next week I will tell how I was released and the State Hospital. JUST A REMINDER THAT THE RECOVERY BLOG IS MOVING TO A NEW ADDRESS: OUR NEW HOME IS: http://mhcd.org/blog

Almost Alcoholic

This is the second in a series of blogs about the title of this book. As I said last in week’s blog I am a recovering alcoholic. My first DUI was at the age of nineteen and I totaled another car and damaged mine. I only had liability insurance so I lost my job without a car. Now I will talk about the five signs of being an almost alcoholic. “(1). You continue drinking despite at least some negative consequences. (2). You look forward to drinking. (3). You drink alone. (4). You sometimes drink in order to control emotional and/or physical symptoms. (5). You and your loved ones are suffering as a result of your drinking.” (pg.29) We will talk about the first one first. Because of my drinking I lost a good job. That is one of the first signs, also even though I was always being locked up in jail after the first DUI. I kept drinking, and antabuse and probation were just part of life. The book says about the first sign: “This first sign we discovered is shared by true alcoholics and those who drink more than they should but not enough to be considered and alcoholic. In fact, this is the hallmark of the criteria for alcohol abuse in the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-IV where negative consequences are defined as affecting work, family, legal status, physical safety, and social life.” (pg.29) As we go along I will fit all the criteria when I used to drink. The book goes on to say that: “…estimated 10 to 12 percent of the U.S. population who meet the criteria is needed to be diagnosed as alcohol dependent.” (pg.30) They are not full blown alcoholics but they are close to becoming one. The book asks the question about one of the case studies should they wait to get such a diagnosis: “For an almost alcoholic, even a short delay can cause long-term problems.” (pg.30) It is better to try and correct the problem before it worsens. I will write about more of the signs next week. I let alcohol ruin my life, and I could not see it at the time. I do regret that all the times I was sentenced to probation no one tried to help. The counselor I saw never practiced none of the applications I studied to be an alcohol counselor. It could have saved me from going to prison. Years are lost when an alcoholic is spiraling down. For me abstinence is the only way.