Fourteen years ago today I took my last drink. I’m not sure exactly what it was because much of that night remains a blur – in and out of a blackout. I remember going to a party where there were massive martini glasses on each table filled with goldfish. I was determined to SAVE THE GOLDFISH! when the clean-up crew started flushing them down the toilet. Ah, the joys of being the last one at the party.

I have a few other snippets of drunken debauchery from that night but I clearly remember waking up and my neighbor coming over and asking if I was okay because my front door was wide open when he went out to get his paper that morning and some of my clothes — the kind of clothing that neighbors usually aren’t privy to seeing — were strewn about my front yard.

I stumbled into a 12-Step meeting later that day, sat in the back and realized I was in the right place — even though I thought it was insane that these people could be laughing at stories like mine from the night before! How dare they take this so lightly! Can’t they see how much pain I am in? What is wrong with these people?

A guy from Flagstaff, Arizona called me the other day out of the blue. He wanted to talk about some of my writings and we covered a lot of ground. A co-worker and I had a smorgasbord of a conversation yesterday – discussing parenting, quirky, brilliant friends and investigative journalism.

What struck me about both conversations is that the topic of mindfulness came up. Seems kind of weird because mindfulness isn’t a topic that gets dropped into  conversations with strangers and co-workers. I’m taking it as a sign that I need to bone-up on my mindfulness practice.

I first learned about mindfulness when I got sober 14 years ago. As part of my 12-Step journey I decided to research some of the world’s great religions. I was brought up by a devout Irish-Catholic mother and attended a Catholic elementary school. I figured between mom and mother superior, I had the Catholic thing down. But I had never read the Bible. Parts of the Bible had been read TO me. But I had never read the whole thing.

Trout live in beautiful places. They like cold water, preferably flowing over the rocky riverbed. To catch them you must wade into running river, one uncertain step at a time over very slippery rocks with a fly rod in one hand and the other jerking and waving to counterbalance what seems like a certain plunge into frigid water.

Fly fishing a form of ballet. Your rod is like a conductor’s baton. If your cues and gestures are precise, the line floats in the air above the water, forming fluid arcs until the fly gently lands  in the water. You slowly strip the line in and cast again, waiting for the trout to strike. The scenery is breathtaking and there is no sound but for birds and the whoosh of the rapids in the river.

For me to accomplish this without falling or snagging my hook on my hat requires complete focus. If I think of anything else but the task at hand, I will fail. I have found several other activities that require this kind of razor focus. Snow skiing hard and fast, sculling – rowing a 27-foot pencil thin boat with long oars as fast as you can – and CrossFit – an extreme boot camp exercise program that demands I push my strength, flexibility and endurance to the limit at every workout.

Some people think I am too serious and obsessed with these kinds of activities. What they do not realize is that for those of us who are bipolar, these activities silence our racing thoughts and focus our mania into something good and healthy.

I used to swim and run a lot. Running and swimming exhausted me and helped burn-off the excess energy. But I could still think while I ran or swam. I would think about work, what I needed to pick up at the grocery store, bills and what I would have or should-have said to someone who had pissed me off.

For the most part, I really like my hypomania. Actually, I sometimes love my hypomania.

When I was first diagnosed I was so relieved because I thought I had bipolar disorder and you know how THOSE people act. Then I learned that hypomania IS s a type of bipolar – Bipolar II – and I had to confront my own prejudice against Bipolar Disorder.

I’m cool with it now. I have done a lot of research on both Bipolar I and Bipolar II. I am in good company: Kurt Cobain. Vincent VanGogh. Marilyn Monroe. Virginia Woolf. And did I mention Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher)? Many of us are creative and very, very successful.

Problem is, we tend to step on a lot of toes along the way and tick off a whole lot of people. We’re also intimidating. When I’m in a manic phase, all I have to do is walk into a room and folks kind of lean back in their chairs – like I have invaded their personal space. I throw out this energy – which some people admire and others question.

Source: Bravo TV

Sometimes the power of a bad example is as powerful as a good example. I’m thinking of Kim Richards, one of the housewives on The Housewives of Beverly Hills.

My daughter got me hooked on that show when she came home from college on winter break.  There was a time – not too long ago – when that little intellectual dilettante in me would have dismissed such a show as a complete waste of time only to be watched by the mindless, vapid masses. Thankfully, I shut that little dilettante up and now I’m watching all the re-runs – thank you very much.

Watching Kim’s slow, self-destruction over this last season is good for me. I am, like Kim, am a single, somewhat middle-aged, mother whose child has grown up. We are both trying to keep our hair blonde and minimize our wrinkles. I am not going to pronounce Kim an alcoholic, but let’s just say there was a day – before I got sober 13 years ago – that I would have partied with Kim in a heartbeat.

Vacation.

I have been on vacation.  A vacation without cellphones, wifi or even my watch. The kind of vacation where time stands still and you forget what day it is. I slept until my body told me to wake up. I fell asleep when it got dark because at 39-degrees and 10,000 feet, up in the mountains where the mountain lions roam, there is not a lot to do after dark but talk, sleep and pray that the mountain lions and bears have full tummies.

I did not read a newspaper or listen to any news. I stopped to say “hello” to every dog that crossed my path and ate jerky. I stomped around in streams, up to my thighs in clean, cold water attempting to fly-fish.

I paid attention to my mood. Uptight at the airport – trying to figure out what I had forgotten. Negotiating for an upgrade on the rental car, trip to WalMart for camping supplies and provisions.

Finally, we fished.

Way back in the 1970′s, when I was a teenager, the only depression we knew about was the one in 1929 that made our parents and grandparents tightwads. Back then, teenagers with depression either hid it (like I did), self-medicated (like I did) or were loners – kids who did not fit in.

So when I heard a local couple who had lost their son to bipolar was underwriting Johns Hopkins’ ADAP program at local schools, I had to ask…”What if this had been around when I was in high school?”

The Adolescent Depression Awareness Program is brilliantly simple. It’s common sense at its finest. ADAP provides teachers with a curriculum to use on on how to teach their students about depression.“Through education we will increase awareness about depression and the need for evaluation and treatment.”

• Interactive lectures and discussions
• Video of teenagers describing their experiences with depression and bipolar disorder
• Homework and video assignments to reinforce key points
• Group interactive activities to teach the key message that depression is a common, treatable, medical illness.

This should not be controversial but teaching teens anything about their health can be absurdly controversial. Just say the word”condom” in in some parts of the country and you’re just asking for an inquisition by the PTA.

For many alcoholics, opposites do not attract.

This is especially true for dually-blessed alcoholics (those of use with another mental illness besides our alcoholism). Take me, for instance. I have alcoholism and hypomania (Bipolar Disorder II). Sometimes I have a lot of energy. A whole lot of energy. Throw a case of Corona and a few limes on that energy and you’ve got one really wound up gal.

The last thing I want to do is hang around someone who does not like Corona, limes and dancing on – not at – a bar. What good are you to me if you don’t skinny dip?  Why would you not want to pretend you don’t understand English when you try to sneak into a chi-chi private spa and the attendant asks for your room number? What do you mean you don’t want to:

A. go scuba diving.

B. jump out of an airplane.

C. ride a Harley.

D. join the Mile-High Club

I don’t want to be around people – especially men – who have OFF switches. They are no fun. Even after years of sobriety, therapy, medications and a membership in AARP, I still prefer people – especially men – with that live-on-the-razor’s-edge, laugh-in-the-face-of-death attitude.

I got mad the other day. Zero-to-sixty-in-a-second mad. I wasn’t in a rage, like the day I went to the junkyard with a metal baseball bat. But I was pissed and the guy sitting next to me, who just happened to be the guy who forgot to tell me something that he should have told me, took the brunt of it.

Luckily, we were in the midst of an important public meeting so I had to keep my voice down. But I have a whisper that will curl the hair on the back of your neck and that’s exactly what it did to this poor guy.

We had our little verbal tussle and then shut up but I could feel that manic anger still  oozing out of me.  And I could see him leaning away from me. I realized that even in silence my mania can shred your serenity. I forgot about the officials up on the dials and paid close attention to my feelings and energy and how it affected this guy.

On the one hand, manic energy is kind of cool. People pay attention to manic energy. It’s probably some primal part of our brain that can sense danger: “Even though that saber tooth tiger is not moving – just staring a hole in me, I can feel his energy and it is not warm and fuzzy. Back away from the tiger.”

Recovered alcoholics have two birthdays. Our belly-button birthday – the day we took our first breath – and our sober birthday – the day we took our last drink. We get presents for both.

I’m telling you this not because my sober birthday is coming up – August 27 is 13 years without a drink – but because we live a life divided. Our sobriety has given us a new life but it comes with price. Secrecy. Anonymity. I am speaking about the life we lead among our clan of fellow recovered alcoholics.

We have sayings – “Keep coming back it works if you work it” – and we have tokens of devotion – colored poker chips to denote lengths of sobriety. We have clubhouses and private meetings. But there are no dues for membership.

I am not knocking any of this. I love my sober life. I am telling you this because this is not always an easy way to live. Especially if you are a dual-diagnosed recovered alcoholic. For many of us, we have spent much of our lives either denying we had a problem, convincing ourselves that we could handle it, ignoring all of it and covering our tracks.