I went to the symphony Wednesday night. I haven’t been to the symphony in years. I don’t know why, because I love the symphony and I can walk to the performing arts center (and you can get a ticket really cheap if you wait until the last minute and they haven’t sold out).

Anyway, I got to the symphony a few minutes before it began and, of course, my seat was in the middle of the row and everyone had to get up so I could get in. I was tired from working all day and didn’t need any more dirty looks. I really wasn’t in the mood.

And then it happened. I looked at the program and saw two of my favorite words: cello solo. A beautiful young woman from Vienna took the stage in a flowing emerald green gown, sat on a little dais and began to play her cello.

I went to bed last night at 1:30 this afternoon.

I spent the night doggin’ a Miami man charged with gunning down four people – including his twin sisters and a sleeping 6-year-old – at a family Thanksgiving dinner in Jupiter, Florida. I went to the Palm Beach County jail at about 1 am but he wasn’t there. So I drove north about 30 minutes to the police department where investigators were questioning Paul Merhige. The police wouldn’t let the media park within sight of the sally port (the garage where Merhige got in and out of a police car.) So, we staked out Merhige from a hedge across from the sally port until 4:15 am. It was 43-degrees, which isn’t cold if you are a Packer’s fan, but is damn cold if you are a Floridian.

I followed Merhige back to jail and then to court. Then I raced back to the newsroom, then back to court and then back to the newsroom. I finally hit the pillow at 1:30 pm – about 30 hours without sleep. In my college days I pulled all nighters during exams and drinking marathons and bounced back quickly. Not today. Sleep is to my mental health what my heart beat is to my physical health. Can’t function well without a nice, regular pattern.

During my last major depression, as my psychiatric nurse practitioner evaluated whether I needed to be involuntarily commitment to a psych hospital, she said I needed sleep. Actually, she said it was “the first thing you need.” Sleep? She explained how disruptive sleep patterns and lack of sleep fueled my depression. I knew my depression caused my sleeplessness but I did not know my sleeplessness worsened my depression, which worsened my sleeplessness and on and on.

She gave me a prescription for a drug called Seroquel and I slept and slept and slept. I was in a fog, stared off into space but I was sleeping. It took a couple of months before I crawled out of my black hole and a couple more months before I tapered off the Seroquel. Now, I take my antidepressants and mood …

As someone who has depression, bipolar and alcoholism, I love to read about research. My problem is that I often cannot understand a word of what I am reading. I cannot even pronounce half of the words, which is why I have to thank The New York Times columnist David Brooks and NARSAD for their recent efforts to make neuroscience intelligible and palatable.

Last Sunday Brooks had a simple column on a recent academic conference of the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society.  Normally I would not read a snooze-o-rama like this – especially on a Sunday morning. But the headline sucked me in - The Young and the neuro - and Brooks’ first paragraph held my attention:

“When you go to an academic conference you expect to see some geeks, gravitas and graying professors giving lectures. But the people who showed up at the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society’s conference in Lower Manhattan last weekend were so damned young, hip and attractive.”

Thank you David Brooks and the editor who wrote the headline. You got me. Because of your clever writing I now know that dominant behavior activates the reward center of the brain in Americans,  but in the Japanese that center of the brain was more likely to be activated by subordinate behavior.

A region of the brain in American and Chinese subjects activates when they see members of their own group endure pain, but at lower levels when watching others endure pain. “These effects may form the basis of prejudice.”

Brain scans of Yankee and Red Sox fans showed their “ventral striatum and nucleus accumbens were activated” when they watched highlights of their own team’s games but neither reacted much when watching an Orioles-Blue Jays game. I am not sure what this means. It could be simply be a statement about the quality of play by the Orioles and Blue Jays. Or it could mean “that we are awash in social signals, and any social science that treats individuals as discrete decision-making creatures is nonsense.”

Why is any of this important? There are two reasons:

1. We know how other parts of the body work but the brain …

My name is Christine, and I am mentally ill. I have depression, bipolar and alcoholism. I am also white (actually I am kind of a pasty beige with age spots freckles but race discussions – unlike the paint aisle at Home Depot – are limited to five colors – black, white, red, yellow or brown.)

Alcoholics and addicts come in all colors but you wouldn’t know it from walking into a 12-Step meeting. You would think that alcoholism and addiction are illnesses that overwhelmingly afflict white people (and pasty beige people with age spots freckles.) But we all know these illnesses are color blind. The truth is that there just are not many 12-step meetings in minority communities.

I do not know why this is and I do not want to ascribe any blame. But I do know that alcoholics/addicts walking into their first 12-step meeting are often at the lowest point of their lives. They feel as though someone has taken a potato peeler to their soul. They are vulnerable and frightened beyond words.

I ask myself, would I have walked into my first meeting – shaking, hung-over and emotionally raw – if it had been in a black or Hispanic neighborhood, in a black or Hispanic church and I was the only white face in the room? Honestly, I don’t know – and I am white and have never been the target of bigotry.

I can only imagine what it would feel like to be the only black or brown face in a room of 10, 25, 50 or 100 white faces. But I have had it explained to me by a dear friend, who – in her words – is the color of her beloved Dunkin’ Donuts coffee with three creams and two Splendas. She has many, many years of sobriety, which means she attended 12-step meetings back in the days when women were uncommon and blacks were a rare oddity.

She has told me stories of racial slurs, back-handed insults, crude sexual advances and flat-out bigotry aimed at her because of her color. But she kept coming back and speaking her mind …

Last week our local sheriff – reacting to a demand to cut $3 million from his proposed $480 budget  - threatened to cut a successful substance-abuse treatment program before cutting deputies. In other words, if the sheriff doesn’t get what he wants he will put alcoholics and drug addicts back on the street before he takes deputies off the street.

This kind of political extortion is inhumane, illogical and demonstrates the sheriff’s ignorance of substance abuse and mental illness. According to the sheriff, ”I only have two options. Cut deputy sheriffs … or cut programs that I’m not mandated to do.”

Many, if not most, inmates with substance abuse problems also suffer from other mental illnesses. It’s called dual-diagnosis. Their addictions and companion illnesses – such as bipolar – have reached the stage where they are committing crimes to self-medicate, support their habits or because they have completely lost their ability to control their impulses.

Release these addicts and alcoholics without treatment and they WILL very likely commit more crimes and those crimes WILL very likely be more serious.  Just as mental illnesses are progressive, so is criminal behavior.

Unfortunately we cannot see the crimes that an addict/alcoholic inmate will not commit because they received treatment. A clean and sober addict/alcoholic probably won’t end up homeless, in an emergency room or back behind bars. They are better able to manage their companion mental illnesses, such as bipolar and depression, and are less likely to physically abuse and abandon their kids. Clean addicts and sober alcoholics are less likely to contract AIDS because they are less likely to have unsafe sex or prostitute themselves. Many actually get jobs, go to school and pay taxes.

Who can put a price tag on how much misery and how many dollars are saved by treating just one mentally ill inmate?

Putting more deputies on the street undoubtedly prevents crime from being committed at a particular location at a specific time. But the drug dealers will simply move to another corner and the addicts will follow. The addicts and alcoholics will continue to drink and drug, abuse and abandon their children, clog emergency rooms, spread sexually-transmitted diseases, commit crimes …

So, looks like we have ANOTHER doctor accused of prescribing drugs that killed a celeb. This time it’s Michael Jackson’s doctor. Apparently, Jackson’s doctor injected propofol – a powerful anesthetic- to Jackson the night he died. Tox reports are not in but investigators believe the drug caused his heart to stop. Two years ago it was Anna Nicole Smith and the psychiatrist who prescribed a smorgaasbord of benzos to her in the months before her death.

Obviously, I am NOT a doctor. But I don’t need a medical degree to know that both these celebs has serious mental illnesses. You only had to watch one episode of Anna Nicole Smith’s reality television show to see that she was an addict. One look at Michael Jackson and you could tell he had – at the very least – some body-image issues (Body Dysmorphic Disorder).

Mental illnesses are like potato chips: Many of us have more than one. In the medical world they call it “co-morbidity.” In other words, you have more than one illness going on. Some research shows that at least 30 percent of addicts and alcoholics have at least one companion mental illness. Knowing this, wouldn’t you screen your patient for substance abuse if they came to your office looking like Michael Jackson or Anna Nicole Smith?

Where is the line between common-sense and criminal negligence? These doctors aren’t stupid. I truly believe that Anna Nicole’s doctor knew that Anna Nicole was a addict. Despite that knowledge, the doctor made a conscious decision to prescribe benzos to Ms. Anna Nicole Addict. Same with Michael. What kind of doctor injects Diprivan to help you sleep at night? Maybe to help you sleep DURING SURGERY but not to go nighty-night.

I believe these doctors were seduced by celebrity and money. But what about the doctors treating folks like you and me? Did your doctor screen you for substance abuse before writing you a ‘script for Xanax or Klonopin? Likewise, if you are in treatment for substance abuse, did your doctor screen your for depression and bipolar?

Let’s put it this way: It’s common practice for a doctor treating a diabetic to screen …

Twenty-one polo ponies died here last Sunday.

I do not know much about polo. But I do understand this:

“These horses give you their all,” said one of the world’s top polo player. “They are like the best dog you ever had.”

The best dog I ever had died in my arms. Her death was the last in a 22-month wave of death that finally pulled me under. My father died first. Sixteen months later, my mother. Eight month after that – my eternally faithful and infinitely loving dog Bella died.

Of the three I cried the hardest when my beautiful Weimeraner Bella died.

My daughter, Kealy, and Bella

 Maybe it was accumulated grief. But I wept like I had never wept before. I dug a hole in the backyard and buried her. My daughter and I made a headstone from a children’s craft kit designed for imprinting little hands in cement.

I replaced Bella several months later with another Weimeraner named Bella – the fourth dog in my life to carry that name. Bella IV is my depression dog. She stayed beside me through my descent to hell and refused to abandon me. She did not judge my illness and she had utter faith I would get better. 

I consider her as vital to my recovery as my medications and therapy. When I did not want to get out of bed she reminded me – with those piercing yellow eyes – that she had a bladder and if I did not get my butt out of bed there would be trouble. When I could not sleep she, too, would awaken and accompany me on my sad wanderings through our silent neighborhood.

When I had no love to give, she snuggled beside me and asked for nothing. She watched me. She knew something was wrong. She never left me alone. She waited. Even though I know nothing about polo, I do understand that devastating loss. I understand why grief counselors were brought in for the players, the trainers and the workers who cleaned these ponies’ stables. 

I know …

Where do I end and you begin?

You could be a stranger and I would not know. Your problems are mine. Your consequences are my challenges. “I will take care of that.”  ”You don’t have to worry about it.” ” Lemme see what I can do.”

This is my codependency. It is masked in selflessness and martyrdom. “Go ahead. I didn’t want it anyway.” “Oh, you shouldn’t have.” “I would never think of…”

I will offer advice and directions when you don’t want it. I will push and pull you at the same time. I am like a tick – I will dig my fingernails into your psyche and suck out your free will. No matter what you do to me, you cannot get rid of me. I will mask all my demands in good intentions. I will take care of all your needs — even the ones you do not know you have — and you will feel guilty. I will mirror your feelings.

Nothing I do will ever be good enough. You will embarrass me if you praise me. I will resent you if you don’t let me help. I will never ask ask for anything and I will lavish gifts and favors on you. “Let’s do what you want to do.” “Why don’t we go to your favorite restaurant?” “That’s okay. I know you didn’t mean it.”

Someday I’m gonna make some man a wonderful doormat.

I had heard about codependency. It sounded like psycho-babble. Then, on April 27, 2006, I fell into the darkest hole I could have imagined. To get out I needed medicine and a new way of living. Not just eating better and getting more exercise. I needed a new paradigm. I needed to be willing to accept that my good deeds were often bad. My right was wrong. Your free-will was not mine. And God forbid – I deserved more.

I went to co-dependency camp at a treatment center. The cost was about $3,000 (including airfare) and I had never spent that much money on myself. I cringed with guilt. I was scared. It was excruciating but thrilling work. It was as if the clouds …

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 …

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. …