I went to meeting of our local Criminal Justice Commission last week. The commission created a task force called the Criminal Justice, Mental Health and Substance Abuse Planning Council. After months of research the council held a “summit” to prioritize their goals. The consultant admitted – out loud – that he had to be educated about dual diagnosis before he started his research. There were charts, cost estimates and a free breakfast.  They came up with a fancy bureaucratic-babble name that I have already forgotten. 

I wanted to scream. I know these people mean well but they are designing programs that probably won’t work. Why? Because they do not know what they do not know. Most alcoholics and addicts charged with a crime have another mental illness. Most mentally ill people charged with a crime are also addicts or alcoholics. The number one reason for relapse among recovering alcoholics and addicts in the criminal justice system is untreated depression, biplolar or other mental illnesses. The number reason that the mentally ill in the criminal justice system cannot be stabilized is because they are abusing drugs and/or alcohol.

The medicine for depression and bipolar and other mental illnesses are antidepressants, mood stabilizers, anti-psychotics and other medications (preferably NOT benzodiazepines.) The medicine for alcoholism and addiction is a 12-step program – the most successful abstinence program ever.  Who in the criminal justice system knows what a 12-step program is? Who knows how a 12-step program works? Who knows the 12-steps? If judges, prosecutors, attorneys and probation officers could answer these questions they would know what questions to ask to determine if someone is really clean and sober and working a program.

Learning about 12-step programs is simple, easy and costs almost nothing. Get “the” book and read the first 168 pages. Then make sure the addict or alcoholic in court gets “the” book, reads the first 168 pages and works a program. As for medication, it is stupid and cruel to release a mentally ill inmate with a prescription for a week’s worth of medication, as they do here.

Jails, unlike prisons, are for defendants who cannot post bail or are serving …

I do not like to be “should” on. 

If you say “you should” or “you should not” I will seriously consider – maybe even do – the opposite. Maybe it is a symptom of alcoholism or bipolar. Maybe I am just a jerk. I don’t know.

The only thing worse than being “should on” is a “Do NOT”.  If you throw down that verbal gauntlet I will raise an eyebrow and give you that Oh-Really”  look. Except my nurse-practitioner. Her “do NOTS” are holy, like a “Thou Shalt Not.” 

But I, my friends, am a sinner. For some stupid reason I tinkered with my meds and I am still doing penance. It happened at the end of January. My nurse practitioner told me I could stop taking a medication she had prescribed to help get me through the holidays.

“You should stay on the other medications,” she said. Well, Dr. Christine thought it would be okay to drop the dosage of another med she had upped during the holidays. Hey, the holidays are over. Why not just return to my pre-holiday dosages? So, I did it.

Of course I did not tell my nurse practitioner or my therapist or anyone, for that matter. I kept it a secret. About two weeks later I hopped on the roller coaster. Up, up, up I climbed, then dove to the bottom. Up, up, up I climbed, then down to the bottom. 

My therapist saw the mania and said I SHOULD call my nurse practitioner. Did I? Of course not. Two weeks later she asked if I had called my nurse practitioner. Of course not. Two weeks later she asked if I had called my nurse practitioner. Of course not. Finally, to get my therapist off my back, I called my nurse practitioner – after hours. I left a message.

My nurse practitioner called back and I confessed. She gently, but firmly told me “DO NOT mess around with your medications!” I realized she was right. I was manic. She told me she had patients who had done what I had done and she was never able to stabilize them again. Bipolar is serious. We love the …

Apparently, while in the stupor of my last depression, I was angry. It was hard to believe because all I wanted to do was sleep and wander around the house. But both my therapist and my nurse practitioner told me I was angry and would not get well until I got rid of the anger. I did not know how to do this. In my family we did not get angry. We seethed. We cut people out of our lives, avoided them and refused to make eye contact. We kept our anger inside. Good girls don’t get angry.

So, when I learned that anger turned inward was fueling my depression, I did not know what to do. My therapist handed me a wiffle bat and wanted me to wiffle a stuffed animal in her office. A wiffle bat? I am not a wiffle bat kind of girl, I told her. I went home and used a real bat on a pillow. It felt good. I realized that I was angry – real angry – and that pounding pillows was not going to do it for me. I needed to beat the *#%! out of something. I needed to break something, hear the power of my anger and feel it.

I opened the Yellow Pages and found a junk yard. I grabbed a Sharpie, my bat, steel toed boots and a Rolling Stones CD. It was raining when I got to the junk yard. I walked up to the counter and explained my predicament. The man agreed and pointed to the corner. “You want a bat?”

“No,” I explained, “I have my own.” A nice metal bat.

The man walked me to a smashed up truck. “This is the only one you can hit,” he said. “You gonna scream?”

“I don’t know,” I said. He walked away. I surveyed the truck, walked around to the hood and took out my Sharpie. I wrote the names of all the people I believed had wronged me. Then I went at it. I have no idea how long I was there. Over and over and over I raised up that bat and slammed it down. …