by J. Lee Kenser

Created on: August 13, 2008

I was a beer-bottle baby, a natural born alcoholic in a family of beer drinking European based origins. Polish & German decent, with a hint of other oddities that grew up driving up in the early 70's to the Northern Lower Peninsula looking for paper bags of Morel mushrooms with beer in hands. It was a family tradition.

As an early teen I had experimented with the ideas of faking drug use in order to explain the odd feelings I was experiencing. The loss of traction in my life I was feeling over and over again. The older I got the more I felt lost, beginning to wonder if I would ever find my way out of the feelings, I did. I used drugs, booze and whatever made me feel better to aid in the regaining of traction that I had so longed for but, soon that failed me too.

I joined the Army trying to find some semblance of an opportunity to regain myself yet again. I of course regained the ability to consume alcohol in mass quantities in order to hide the feelings that came over me almost daily. Hung over during the day, drunk almost every night or at least a bit buzzed; So lost in the mind of masking those lost feelings brought on by the Bipolar/Borderline Disorders.

I once got so drunk I woke up in ICU only to be moved into a private room strapped to a bed where my co-workers were forced to watch me twenty four hours a day after an apparent failed suicide attempt. Each time I turned over I saw a familiar face looking at me with such pity and fear I wanted another drink, another chance at it.

It wasn't until college and meeting my first real girlfriend that I struggled to clean up and it was a struggle. Between the pressures of college and paying for it all despite having my GI Bill I worked very hard to pay for it all. And to keep me in-line during all of this was very hard to do as my mind was again struggling to take over my life. But, I was in love and didn't care at least for a while. Then within a moment of failure, it won and I spent more time in the hospital for a drinking binge which ended in an apparent failed overdose.

All too often I used drugs and alcohol to rid myself of my "gift" as I so wanted to make it all just go away; The pain, the struggle, the wandering mind which led me about by my hand as if I have no idea of what to do on my own. The thing is on several occasions during college I was getting drug & alcohol treatment and that therapist tried to get me mental health assistance only to be told it was entirely a drinking problem and not Bipolar. The treatment system often fails its users as the clinicians are too often lost in the books in front of them basing their treatment styles only on what is written and not what is truly needed on a case by case basis.

Learn more about this author, J. Lee Kenser.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.