I have spent the last 19 years (more than half of my life) as a recovering alcoholic. Then, one year ago, it all fell apart.

Before that time, the success in my life had been fairly steady, interrupted only by stressful life events that caused very bizarre reactions in me. Over time I learned to manage all the life stressors that would cause me to lose sleep. But relationships with women remained a trouble area. I was so frightened by the way I reacted to my first attempt at a relationship after I was one year sober, that I stayed away from relationships for the next eleven years. I gradually reduced my interactions with anyone or anything that brought stressful reactions in me.

At one point, about 10 years sober, I realized that I had gone an entire year without any direct human contact whatsoever, aside from at work. I remedied this by taking karate lessons, acting lessons, and sailing lessons. Life got better. I raised my self-esteem and had energy and confidence that I thought would surely allow me to pursue a relationship with a woman. After all, I reasoned, my troubles had to be the result of my insecurity over not having a life.

I still could not understand why or how I could manage to stay completely awake and alive for an entire week when these relationships started. At the start of my two more relevant relationships, I ended up in the hospital after a week of little or no sleep. I finally began to believe this was not about fear or insecurity, but that something was wrong with my hormones.

Two years ago, I got married, but soon after, I lost interest in my wife. We spent ridiculous amounts of money and sought out excitement to re-ignite the fire. All of this was done in vain. Eventually, we divorced. I was awake for a week when that happened. When I found myself at my apartment window, contemplating ending my life, I realized that I had completely forgotten to work on my recovery from alcoholism.

I started going to more 12-step meetings. This didn’t bring the euphoria I experienced in my first year of sobriety, but it was no longer about just "getting happy." It took every bit of every single day of this past year to find new reasons to live, any reason to live. I disconnected from my life entirely. I could not even muster enough energy to open my mail, let alone pay my bills. I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop so I could finally have justification for bringing about my demise. Fortunately, it never came.

I began another relationship and again, my thoughts started to race. I recorded them in a journal, pages and pages of me talking to myself. My psychiatrist asked if I thought I was manic. I wasn’t sure. I scheduled an appointment with a hormone doctor to test my original theory that my wakefulness and mood swings were due to a hormonal imbalance.

That appointment pushed me over the edge. I raced home and began frantically calling for anyone who would answer. Finally, I reached my friend’s wife. She drove over immediately and picked me up. She pushed me to call my psychiatrist because she was concerned for my safety. He scheduled me to see him the next morning. Using my awake time constructively, I spent the entire night reading everything I could find on the internet about bipolar disorder. After passing a bipolar screening test with a perfect score, I stopped reading and started to write. I started writing out my life story. My whole life, as far back as I could remember, was unfolding before my eyes and starting to make perfect sense.

I spent most of the 45-minute session with my doctor listening. That was new for me. He prescribed an antipsychotic that he wanted me to start right away. I was both hopeful and scared. I was afraid of losing myself – a self I had spent so many years trying to find. I waited until bedtime to take the pill, since I had some important commitments for that afternoon.

I got a peaceful and much needed sleep that night. The next morning, my brain felt like it was in a washing machine. That passed quickly, and I figured it was my inner or middle ear, which usually got infected after my weeklong sleep deprivations. Then, the miracles started to happen. My mind was quiet. Moreover, as I walked down the street, I realized that I did not have a part of my brain dedicated to making sure I put one foot in front of the other as I walked. I had been doing this my entire life and I wasn’t even aware I was doing it! My eyes, crossed since birth, were aligned. I’m sure this comes across as being a little exaggerated, but I’m sure medical science could bear out the truth of this, though I don’t really know how. In the days since, things have felt normal. That sounds unimpressive, I’m sure. But when you consider that I do not ever recall feeling "normal" at any other time in my life, the significance grows.