Anyone have experience with substance misuse?

Hey im 43 and currently coming to the realisation that I’m having/had various Issues with how my head works resulting in being placed on the waiting list for and ADHD diagnosis but in the meantime some of my close friends have suggested possibly autism when we’ve spoken about it having know me for a very long time.

This sort of brewed to a head when I spent some time going sober, 6 months fully last year and some intermittent breaks over the last couple years in what has a been a lifetime of regular excessive boozing, I used recreational drugs since my teens and spent a lot of time fully embracing the 90s and all it had to offer. The time when my head should’ve been at its clearest just rebounded and instead I had all these feelings and thought patterns i remembered from being young, I now see I did my best to shut out by what i would call either slowing my self down with downers or speeding myself up with uppers (something that when I read about medical treatments is often something mimicked)

On the positive side this type of behaviour is vastly improving in the last year or two now I have a bit more understanding. I watched someone close to me fall to alcoholism and saw a clear difference with how I treat these things and how it effected someone who was clearing mentally and physically taken by it. Enough of a shock to make me address some of my own faults though. I suffer from the compulsion to binge, driven to do so, recent example saw me drink down three bottles of wine to the point of being sick at a friends midweek dinner...then I have a whole other problem after with the shame side of it. Im dealing with all the common threads I’ve read about on here - I have been married and divorced (my fault) I don’t have kids, a career but in a very niche Market place that I obsess over and a role I created, failed academically, never fit in albeit popular and ‘funny’....

Just wondered if anyone else had thoughts or experience like what I’m describing?. In short it seems when I’ve removed my crutch(s) I got an almighty shock when confronted with what I had obviously being masking. Hopefully I can get some proper help soon!

  • I was on prescribed meds for anxiety before my diagnosis and they were worse than any thing that was around in the 90's .

    My GP told me she would have to take me off them because the NHS would not want any chemical other than natural in my system before and during diagnosis .

    That wrecked my sleep patterns ,diet , nerves ,etc etc.

    But it is nice to be able to know what my mind and brain feel like at the zero setting, due to post diagnosis cbt sessions .