Please tell me that Steven Tyler’s relapse last year was not the cause of his splitting from Aerosmith this week. Tyler got clean in 1986 – when the band was in a drug and alcohol induced free-fall. Eventually the rest of the band got clean and sober and reunited for rock-n-roll’s biggest comeback ever. The new and improved, clean and sober Aerosmith united generations – with kids listening to their parents’ music and proved that sobriety did not mean a lifetime of musty church basements and bingo games on Saturday nights. In sobriety you can party without a drink, go to concerts and – best of all – remember it all in the morning. In other words, I can still have fun. And if sobriety is not fun, you probably won’t stay sober.

So, why am I writing about Tyler in my depression blog? Because I am triple-diagnosed. I have depression, bipolar and alcoholism. Aerosmith was the music of my high school days back in the mid-70s and I met Tyler in my favorite bar in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Aerosmith’s music was so tied to my drinking days that I did not know if I could ever listen to their music without craving a drink.

When I learned that the entire band had gotten clean and sober, I listened without worry. If they could MAKE that kind of music while sober, I could certainly LISTEN to it sober. The band gave me hope. It was cool to be sober and getting sober was the best thing I could do for my depression. For many years I turned to alcohol – a depressant – to self-medicate my depression.

But as we addicts and alcoholics know, sobriety it is a one-day-at-a-time program. After 20 years of sobriety Tyler relapsed on pain pills he began using after surgery on his throat. He checked into rehab in May 2008. Little has been said about whether Tyler has remained clean and sober but Tyler has been keeping his distance from his band mates. The band cancelled several shows in August after Tyler fell off the stage during a concert.  Since then Tyler hasn’t returned …

I will go to my therapist’s office this afternoon. I will sit in the waiting room and read an old magazine. Another client will walk from a hallway that leads to my therapist’s office, pass through the waiting room and leave. My therapist will poke her head out, smile and say: “I’ll be with you in a minute.” After a  few minutes she will come back and invite me into her office. I will walk in, notice Kleenex in the waste basket and sit on the couch beside the box of Kleenex.

After a few pleasantries I will start unloading the detritus of my soul. She always pays attention and looks interested. I am her last patient on Friday. I cap off her week of listening to the detritus of other peoples’ souls. I ask myself, who in their right freakin’ mind would do this for a living? Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, year after year, listening other peoples’ misery.

So I asked her. ”It does get to you,” she said and explained how she takes care of herself. Burnout is a big problem among mental health care providers, she said. Then I remembered Tony Soprano’s therapist who had her own therapist on The Sopranos. It never dawned on me that a therapist might have a therapist.

This morning I got to thinking about this after reading about the gunman and his horrible rampage at Fort Hood yesterday. His name is Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and he is an Army psychiatrist. He also is Muslim. Before he opened fire and killed 12 and wounded 31 people yesterday he had been assigned to counsel soldiers returning from the battlefields with post traumatic stress disorder. Hour after hour, day after day, week after week he listened to the horrors and atrocities of war. The soldiers he counseled were emotionally raw – just off the battlefield.

Then Dr. Nidal Malik Hasan learned that the Army wanted to send him to the very place where those horrors and atrocities occur. There was the “Muslim issue”, too. The doctor is a practicing Muslim and he took a lot of heat for it …

On Thursday former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, 82, will do what she has done for over 30 years – bring together doctors, policy makers and consumers to draft policies that will decrease stigma and discrimination against people with mental illnesses and promote positive policy change on mental health issues.

Mrs. Carter’s annual Symposium on Mental Health Policy is one of the best kept secrets in the ranks of mental health advocacy. Although the symposia are not open to the public, they can be viewed in realtime on the Carter Center’s website. The idea is to bring stakeholders together – not only to listen to each others’ problems but to create solutions that address the needs and goals of all.

I like to think that things happen when they happen for a reason. There are no coincidences in life, just synchronicity. How else can you explain Congress debating health care reform in Washington on the same day that Rosalynn Carter opens this year’s symposium, entitled Fixing the Nation’s Broken Behavioral Health Care System? It’s destiny – good karma.

So when you get to work on Wednesday check your calendar for Thursday and Friday. Make some time to listen in to the symposium – even for a few minutes, for a little inspiration. Sometimes, just listening to others care so deeply about what you care for and hearing how badly they want to help you is enough to get you through the day.

Someone wants to help you. Her name is Rosalynn.

A three-week court hearing about the roles of two doctors in the death of Anna Nicole Smith ended last week with a judge ordering the doctors and Smith’s long-time companion to stand trial on charges of illegally supplying her with prescription drugs, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Amen. Hallelujah. God bless America.

It’s about time.

Smith died 2-1/2 years ago. The medical examiner found a smorgasbord of benzodiazepines in her blood – but no antidepressants. According to reports, she had fallen into a deep depression after her son died in her hospital room, where she had given birth to her daughter just hours earlier. Anna Nicole Smith was 39-years-old. The cause of her death was “combined drug intoxication.” Simply put, she overdosed. But according to prosecutor, Smith did not overdose. Her doctors overdosed her. And now, two of them are looking at prison.

Why is this case so significant? Because finally, someone with some clout has finally realized that doctors who irresponsibly prescribe drugs such as Ativan, Klonopin and Valium – to patients they know are addicts and alcoholics must be held responsible. It was obvious that Smith was an addict/alcoholic. Anyone who watched her reality television show knew that.

Still, her doctors wrote prescriptions – sometimes under an alias – for drugs that are widely prescribed for anxiety and depression and widely abused by addicts/alcoholics. Drugs like Ativan, an anti-anxiety medication. My mother took it in hospice, and, boy, did it work. Klonopin is the drug to which Stevie Nicks was addicted. And Valium, well, let’s just say a lot of us know what Valium feels like. Then there was Soma and Methadone, both habit-forming. And finally Noctec, a very old sedative that is rarely used and must be used — especially by an addict and/or alcoholic — with extreme caution.

If that isn’t criminal malpractice I do not know what it. We saw the same thing with Michael Jackson, whose death was ruled a homicide by drug overdose. Jackson’s doctor has not been charged. However, the doctor prescribed drugs to Jackson – including the benzodiazepine lorazepam – despite Jackson’s well documented drug abuse.

Doctors must understand that prescribing …