Fortunately, for me, the medications used with any effectiveness for what I deal with are not addictive as such. Even so, I need to be careful. I needed to find and need to maintain a fully integrated approach to my recovery, balancing the needs of my recovery with the needs of managing the mental illness.

It requires honesty with my support structure in recovery and honesty about my addictions with the doctors and working with both groups to come up with an approach that works for me. This has not been easy to do.

I am very fortunate that the mental illness leaves me quite capable of making informed reasoned choices. The program I use for recovery is not designed to treat mental illness nor should it be used for such. It does what it is supposed to do very well. So I use it for just that, staying clean and sober. It is not going to do a thing specifically for my OCD (Obessive-Compulsive Disorder). The doctors and the behavior therapist are not going to keep me sober. If I do not use both, I will neither stay sober nor will I be able to continue managing my disorder.

I do not know how this page will develop or how my story will. There are many things I could talk about on Dual Diagnosis. There are many us out there and not many places to be with fellow travelers. I have been fortunate for the last few years to be a SYSOP in the CompuServe Recovery Forum, for the Dual Diagnosis section. I have learned a great deal from the others that frequent that corner of SoberSpace. Not the least of which is that there is a tremendous need for awareness and education both in the recovering communities and in the psychiatric communities.

There is hope for us Dual's. At the time of this writing, I have a little over 11 years of continuous sobriety. If I had achieved that by myself, I could take a great deal of pride in that. Being human, I do take some pride in that. But I did not and could not have come this far without a great deal of support and help. It's been a true adventure and will continue to be so.