Last Friday was my birthday. I was 12. It was not my belly-button birthday. It was my sobriety birthday – 12 years without a drink. Normally I celebrate my sobriety date but this year I didn’t think much about it. My other mental illness was on my mind – literally.

I started sliding on Tuesday. I felt awful – everything ached and by end of  a very, very long day (Election day is the longest day of the year for journalists) I had a low-grade fever. I told my boss I wouldn’t be in on Wednesday. I went home and slept for 16 hours with a couple of bathroom breaks and a banana. I woke up in a fog, a dark cloud above. The fever was gone but I was in a funk. It wasn’t just a funky-funk, it was an uh-oh funk.

Other recovered alcoholics take little jabs at us.

“I never chewed my beer.”

“I have managed to stay sober without the big bottle or little bottle.”

“…and I have not taken any mood altering substances in my xx years of sobriety.”

My response: “Well, good for you.”  But in my head I am thinking, “Maybe you should have.”

There persists – despite decades of peer-reviewed research, anecdotal proof and the admission of LSD use by AA founder Bill Wilson – ignorance in the recovery community about the use of antidepressants and mood stabilizers. They backhand us with their belief that we are not clean and sober because we take psychotropic medications for other mental illnesses.

My phone rang at 4:45 am on Thursday morning. I didn’t recognize the number so I didn’t answer it. Then I heard that little voicemail alarm and I was like, oh man, what now?

It was a friend who was about to be arrested. The deputy was kind enough to let my friend use his phone and make a call. An arrest warrant had been issued because my friend had failed to pay the court costs from a DUI 18 months ago. My friend performed all the other conditions of probation except the court costs of $373.

I am dual-diagnosed. I have bipolar disorder coupled with substance abuse. My favorite substance to abuse is alcohol but over the years I have also been addicted to marijuana, exercise and work. I have been in recovery for nearly 12 years but I have one addiction that I can’t seem to shake: Oil.

Every time I hear President Obama or Thomas Friedman or some other pundit or politician tell me that I am addicted to oil, I think of my other addictions. How did I recover from them? Prayer. 12-step program. Therapy. Friends. Medications. A lot of humble pie.

What I did not do – ever – was blame my dealer/supplier. It wasn’t his fault. I am the addict.

I am a bubble off plumb.

There is too much good stuff going on in my life. My amazing daughter — my only child –  is graduating from high school. She leaves for college next month. I spent five days in Louisiana covering the oil spill and  then two days in Boston interviewing doctors at McLean Hospital and meeting Glenn Close and her sister. My calendar is booked with speaking gigs, dinner parties and lunches. I won a prestigious writing award. My daughter won a scholarship. I got a raise. My orchids are blooming. I lost a couple of pounds. My dog stopped drinking from the toilet.

Life is good. Too good. I am diggin’ this. Wow. Pinch me. I want to wring every drop of excitement out of all this good fortune. I want to wring it so hard that there is nothing left. Bone dry. I am not used to this much good stuff in my life at one time. I have a lot more experience dealing with a lot of bad stuff happening all at once. Trust me, I am not complaining but the mania triggered by a cascade of good fortune is much more fun than the mania of  misfortune.

If there is one thing you can say about actress Glenn Close, it’s that she has a very cool sister. And her sister, Jessie Close, has a couple of great kids and laid-back service pup named Snitz.

The Close family wants everyone to know that mental illness is a family disease. It can destroy, bankrupt and embarrass families. Or — as in the case with the Close family — it can bring them together to fight the illness and the stigma, which can cause as much suffering as the illness.

So, there they were last Friday night on a stage in Boston – Glenn, Jessie, Jessie’s daughter, Mattie Close-Davis, Jessie’s son, Calen Pick and  and Snitz, being honored  by the prestigious McLean Hospital — a Harvard affiliate chock-full of renown psychiatrists, therapists and researchers. They looked like any happy family — except Glenn is a movie star, Jessie is an alcoholic with bipolar, her son has schizo-affective disorder and her daughter is a healthy young lady who thoroughly supports her family.

Four years ago when I was diagnosed with depression and then bipolar disorder, the clouds parted and my life finally made sense. I did a timeline of my life with my therapist and bingo, there it was — my alcoholism, depression and mania had been singing in perfect harmony as I plowed through the chaos that I had called my life.

The amazing thing is how far back we were able to trace the illnesses. I started swimming competitively when I was 7. I swam hard and fast. I liked the way it made me feel. My coach and parents and teammates cheered me on. Swimming made me feel part of something — and I finally fit in with the other kids. At 14-years-old, I had had enough of swimming back and forth, staring at a black line on the bottom of the pool. I slid into a teenage wasteland and the endorphins stopped working.

I think I would like to go to rehab.

I didn’t go to rehab when I got sober in 1998. I went to the local AA clubhouse, which was a former Shriner’s clubhouse with a spiffy wood bar (promptly converted to a coffee shop) and a meeting room that seemed large  enough to drive around in little cars. I love my AA clubhouse and have had some wonderful times there. It had a major overhaul a couple of years ago and now features a nice pool table, a flat, large screen television above a fireplace, pin ball machines, a public access computer, and a lovely little cafe. Did I mention the coffee? We have cappuccino, too.

Still, I think it might be kind of nice to go to rehab. I don’t need it but I hear other recovering alcoholics talk about their rehabs like they’re sororities or  spas and I think I could use 30 days to “work on myself” … and my tan. I got the idea while trying to plan a vacation. I wanted to find a resort or spa for recovered alcoholics. A place where we could go and continue and expand our programs with lectures and seminars and yoga and massages and pedicures and really great healthy food. Meetings morning, noon and night. Movies. Tennis. Group meditations and long walks on the beach. Wouldn’t that be great?

Step 9: ”Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.”

What I heard Tiger Woods say today was not a ploy to win back his wife, kids and sponsors. It was not penance. It was not superficial. It was a 9th step.

I have no proof that Tiger is in a 12-step treatment program besides what I have seen and heard. Tiger was in a Mississippi treatment center for 45 days. Among the staff is a renown expert in sex addiction whose treatment plan is based on a 12-step program. By going live on international TV, Tiger made  ”direct” amends to his legions of fans, critics, business partners, employees and  friends. He could have taken an easier, softer way and made an amends via a press release, email or blog. But that would not have been a “direct” amends. A “direct” amends is humbling and often humiliating.

A 9th step prohibits laying blame on others. You won’t hear a “yeah, but …” in a 9th step. It is about honestly assessing our role in a wrong and taking responsibility for what WE have done and not the harm others have done to us. So if your wife comes at you with a golf club and bashes in the back window of your SUV after she learns that you have had multiple affairs during your marriage, you don’t blame her. You look at YOUR side of the street and the harm YOU have done.

I interviewed conservative talk show host Larry Kudlow on Tuesday night, about 10 minutes after he finished his prime time show, The Kudlow Report, on CNBC. Kudlow is speaking in Palm Beach on Saturday night at a black-tie benefit for Gratitude House, a local treatment center for women – many who are off the streets and could never afford the kind of long-term residential treatment they get there.

I am not a big fan of talk shows – radio or television – whose hosts cover current events like they are fans at a hockey game – taunting each other’s beliefs with insults, threats and misinformation. I think these shows encourage viewers to draw a line in the sand – you are either on their side or you are not.

On the rude-o-meter Kudlow is nowhere near Palm Beach’s own Rush Limbaugh. Regardless of what you think about Kudlow’s beliefs,  the guy is brilliant and he has a resume that blows all other talk show hosts out of the water: Chief economist at Bear Sterns, Paine Webber and the OMB under Reagan. His is an author and regular contributor to The National Review. He was a member of the Bush Cheney transition team and advisor to Jack Kemp.

Personally, I don’t agree with some of Kudlow’s beliefs but he knows what he is talking about. He is NOT just another talking head.

What does any of this have to do with depression?

Kudlow is a fellow recovered alcoholic who speaks openly about his illness.

What does that have to do with depression?

I am one of those alcoholics who also has depression. I am dual diagnosed, like about half the other alcoholics out there. I don’t know if Kudlow is dual-diagnosed but I admire and respect the hell out of his 15-years in recovery. Unlike his TV persona, Kudlow –  the recovered addict and alcoholic – is soft-spoken, calm and humble when he speaks of his respect for his illness and 12-Step program.

He regularly attends meetings. He still reads his program’s literature every morning. He still prays. He still …