Hi all! Im a NEWBIE! Glad to be here & nice to meet you all! Alittle about myself, I've been a alcoholic & drug addict since i was thirteen & I'm now 44. I've been clean & sober for about 8 mths ( Praise God)! After reading some of the boards with people struggling in their first hours & days of sobriety, I find I need to be more grateful for what I have. I think not losing sight of the struggles I've had ( i had 27 years of them) will help me to be more grateful for the things I have to today ( job, roof over my head) and most important sobriety. After some sobriety, it's easy to get caught up in the cares of the world and start seeing them as so important. I've found being so caught up in the cares of the world ( like finding a mate - lol) can be stressful & not to healthy. When in reality, not forgetting where you came from and sobriety - just for today - is what is all important. This is the longest sobriety I've had since '89 ( I had three years then). Now, I got a new problem: dealing with depression & the meds they prescribe. I thought about nineteen months ago I might have some depression that I might want to deal with so I started taking antidepressants. In hindsight, it probably wasn't bad enough to start meds. To make a long story short, I've tried to stop taking antidepressants and I feel my condition is much worse than before I started antidepressants. Also, some of the antidepressants they have prescribed ( plaxil, lexapro, luvox) have made my condition much worse. My condition was so bad ( no eating, no sleeping, severe restlessness,etc.) from the med luvox that I had to go to the emergency room on September 28th. They shot me up with ativam (benzo) and made me all well. What a life saver it was! Now, I'm on ativam and nothing else. I don't know the next course of action. The doctors say ativam is a temorary solution but I'm scared to take any antidepressant again. I hope this ativam will get me through what I hope is a withdraw syndrome from these antidepressants. Like I said, I didn't have this serious depression before taking antidepressants so I hope this ativam will give my head a chance to heal or clear itself of these meds I've took for the last nineteen months. After reading boards about benzo's, I'm all worried about taking them, too. Anyway, God Bless! With Christ's love, RJ! :angel: