Recovery From Mental Illness:

Psychosis, Schizophrenia, Bipolar, Depression, Anxiety, Alcoholism, Narcotism etc.

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Questions and answers

Inventory examples

Introduction

   My Story (very briefly)  

  After around 3 years of social marijuana and alcohol use and abuse, I suffered from terrible psychotic mental illness: emotional/social internal suffering, depression, low motivation, extreme paranoia about my condition, critical voices, very poor sleeping, anything goes attitude, fake enthusiasm, self isolation, attempted suicide etc, which continued for around 7½ years.  After around 7½ years of suffering, someone decided to try and help me, and using existing information, stumbled onto something that I was almost certain would work and did work and I recovered completely.  My recovery was also not just a medication assisted recovery whilst still experiencing the effects of mental illness or accepting the illness as a disability, with the aid of medication, and attempting to resume your life as best as possible, but a full recovery and complete and total relief from mental illness altogether.

   Please read recovery information below (below the following information boxes) and/or download or view recovery information via the above Downloads button.

   If you have any problems using the information, beginning recovery or with recovery, please first search the recovery information, and have a look at the Questions and Answers section, above, to see if your question has already been asked and answered, and if not, please contact me via the Questions and Answers section or via the following link.  All information and downloads are free.

  

   Other Information

    Apart from making the information available via the website, to try and help others to recover, I also emailed all of my recovery information to mental illness research institutions (in the USA, UK and Australia), mental illness online support websites, mental illness support groups and mental health services etc and after around 6 months I checked clinical trial registers and options for recovery from psychotic mental illness and there was no mention of it.   

  As my information didn’t seem to be going anywhere and I had never tried the information on anyone else but myself, I thought that I had better make sure that my information actually worked on others and I gave the information to quite a few people in Facebook mental illness support groups. People were selected if they exhibited symptoms similar to mine when I was suffering (depression, low motivation, self isolation, internal suffering, trouble with critical voices etc) and by diagnosis and also people who were taking very little or no medication, most were suffering badly, most with suicidal thoughts and suicidal ideation etc. And out of all that tried the information and were suffering from psychotic mental illness and who stayed on Facebook, as far as I could tell, all recovered.

   If you give the information a try and recover, please tell your doctor or others in the medical community and pass the information on to them and help to accelerate an end to not only the suffering of mental illness but also to the high suicide rate for people suffering from mental illness when they could be getting well.

    

     MORAL INVENTORY EXAMPLES

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                 Only sufficient information to remind

       you of each situation or entry needs to be used.  

   Most of the examples shown below are actual examples

 from my moral inventory. Extra detail has been added in   some examples, [in square brackets], to show what is    meant.

  My original inventory was about 3 times the size of the examples shown below.

     For example (Actual examples, no extra detail)

• Rude to youth refuge lady (the establishment).

• Making personal long-distance phone calls from the work phone.

• Bouncers.

• Driving unregistered and unlicensed (Adelaide).

• Bloke at detox, thought he was a poof and especially when he didn’t want to lie on the floor.

• Neurotic at D. O. A. what’s his name, Philmore.

    For more inventory examples, possibly including female, international, gay, different age groups etc (If inventory examples have been submitted by others), please visit the website inventory examples section.  Please also assist others by submitting your own Inventory examples.

    

     CHEATING                               Return to Contents

• Doing my own personal work during work hours.

• Making personal long-distance phone calls from the work phone.

• Left push bike at a youth refuge without asking.

• Tried to con friend of grandmother’s into buying push bike (bike shop), by saying your voice sounds Dutch and tried to “use” friendship of grandmother to get higher price etc.

    [Whilst on holidays and staying with my grandmother, I was asked to sell my old push bike, which I was no longer using, as I now had a motorbike. A friend of my grandmother’s owned a push bike shop and it was suggested that I try to sell it there. Whilst I was trying to sell it, in the spur of the moment, I tried to con my grandmother’s friend by saying, “your voice sounds Dutch”, and tried to “use” their friendship to get a higher price].

• Darwin, phone bill.

    [I was living in Darwin and was sharing my government flat with some street kids that I got to know from a youth refuge and they made a lot of long-distance phone calls and I ended up with a very large bill, which I refused to pay. I, through Telecom, found out where the calls were made to (a phone box in Sydney); however I refused to pay and wound up being listed with the credit reference association and couldn’t get credit or loans for five years or until I had paid the bill. I eventually paid the bill].

    

     STEALING                               Return to Contents

• Stamps and envelopes.

• Photo copies.

• From parents friends got caught and had to pay back.

• Shoplifting.

• Breaking and entering.

• Parts from work, also ended up with a solder sucker.

• Stole brick from house at Casuarina flats.

    [Whilst living in a government flat in Darwin, critical voices had gotten particularly bad and would continually pick on me and made my life a painful and unbearable existence. I had closed all the louvres in the flat and installed a mini ducted air-conditioning system so as to try to escape them and isolate myself from the outside world, without much success. I needed a brick for some reason, possibly to hold something down on the air-conditioner, and I knew of one lying around in the middle of nowhere downstairs, so I took it. Critical voices tried to make me think that maybe I could feel a little guilty about taking it because it might have belonged to somebody. I may or may not have returned it in the end].

• Bought stolen 32 calibre pistol for $50 broken firing pin (taken back by police called themselves cops.)

    [Whilst living in Darwin in a government flat, I was sharing with some street kids that I had gotten to know from a youth refuge; at one stage they had gotten to know another kid called Mick, whose father owned a gun shop. I don’t think they had known him very long. At one stage he had stolen a 32 calibre pistol from his father, and it was offered to me for sale for $50 and I bought it. We also managed to obtain, with Mick’s help, a packet of 32 calibre bullets. We then went out bush to try it out, but it didn’t work, and after pulling it apart, we found that it had a broken firing pin. I later hid it under some built-in cupboards in the kitchen. Possibly the next day at work, with some work associates, whilst very unsuccessfully attempting to understand how portions of the airport instrument landing system worked (due to me thinking I already knew how it worked, when I really had no idea), I got a phone call from somebody saying that they were the cops, and they wanted to know where the gun was. I didn’t believe that they were really the police because they called themselves cops, so I didn’t tell them. I was eventually convinced that they really were a couple of police detectives, so I told them, and they took the gun back. No further action was taken over it].

• Found one dollar note in drive way and kept it and bought two match box cars with it, child.  Felt really scared with it in my nighting gown.

    [When I was about five or six years old, I was about to visit a friend of my mothers (with my mother), and when we were about to get into the car (it had been raining), I noticed a one dollar note in the drive way, which I picked up and hid in my nighting gown. When we were at my mother’s friends house (in the lounge room), I was sure that my mother and her friend could tell that I had it, I felt really scared about it, but they didn’t say anything, so I ended up keeping it and bought 2 x match box cars with it later on].

    

     LYING                                      Return to Contents

• About age in Darwin. To get in with crowd, had to hide licence etc.

• Fish bones, Darwin. (Lied to boss at work, said that I couldn’t come into work because I had eaten fish bones when I really had gotten too drunk the night before.)

• To judge about wanting adjournment to seek legal advice. (Was just trying to stall for more time).

• Reasons for not turning up at work on time.

• About making long-distance phone calls from work.

    

     LYING ABOUT FEELINGS         Return to Contents

• Dukes of Hazard, Tenant Creek. [Because I had liked the show in the past, I really fakely acted as if I thought the show was really, really super cool. I liked the show, but nowhere near as much as I said I did]

• Generally lying about what I truthfully think and feel.

• 44 magnums, Alice Springs. [really fakely exclaimed, “44 magnums”, thinking I was cool: a good looking girl with big breasts was wearing a T-shirt with the number 44 on it.]

• Madonna music on push bike etc.

• Darwin, death rides. [very exaggeratively described how being a passenger on my motorbike was like going on a death ride.]

• Carma Sutra, Darwin.

• “Whitt Sundays” Townsville.

    

     VIOLENCE                                Return to Contents

• Bloke downstairs, Townsville. Tried to smash door down. [said something in a really bad Way]

• Frank M. Punched out. [Lunged at me and I punched him in the mouth]

• Michael C, spat on him when he said some thing in a bad way, I was disgusted with him.

• F.O.R.E.W.A.R.D. Smashed louvres and stabbed bed.

• Threw a rubber stopper from a chair at a temporary boss. Lost my job. Said something I didn’t like. Resentment .

• Rocks on AA [Threw rocks on the roof of an AA meeting after getting angry during a meeting].

• Rocks on AA big meet [someone said, “you don’t like these kinds of meetings”, in a bad way, at a bad time, and I threw rocks on the roof of the AA meeting]

    

     ANGER AND RESENTMENT      Return to Contents

               Dictionary meaning. –

                           Resentment: –   www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/resentment

       / To bear a grudge, hatred. To feel bitter, indignant, or

            aggrieved at.

Some Helpful Hints

Anger

    In the early stages of recovery it may be very difficult or impossible to avoid a lot of your anger, however once any moral problems or liabilities have been eliminated or dealt with, a lot of your angry actions and reactions will just be nonsense old actions and reactions in certain situations. In the very early stages of recovery (within the first one to two weeks), you will also likely find yourself beginning to get angry and catching yourself in the same kinds of situations that you used to. If avoiding anger is becoming too hard, don’t worry about it, think about it at a later date, or don’t worry about it at all. It is definitely possible (as I did myself) to recover from mental illness, alcoholism, narcotism, depression etc, whilst leaving the anger side of things to itself; although for your own benefit, once you are free of liabilities, you would be better off avoiding anger where reasonably possible.

• Avoiding anger is solely for your own benefit, and you only need to avoid it if you would be better off.

• If you get angry when you don’t have to, you will needlessly suffer.

• In the early stages of recovery, you may also find yourself unknowingly getting angry or resentful by falling into past ingrained actions and reactions in certain situations.

• Once you have recovered (depending on the conditions where you live), it can be very beneficial to move to a different suburb or State, where neighbours, passers by etc, will not treat you atrociously and try to bait you etc because of your past; and as long as you have recovered, you will have a completely clean slate, and generally in the new area, as long as you behave, people will treat you nicely, respectably and very well all of the time.

Resentment

    In the past, if you were suffering from mental illness, alcoholism etc, it may not have made any difference if you held grudges (Resentments) or were permanently angry at certain people or places etc. However once you have sufficiently recovered and begin to enjoy freedom from liabilities and release from suffering, the same anger and resentment will spoil the pleasure of living, relations with others etc and you may feel badly about it.

• Getting angry at work (by myself) and kicking and smashing things.

• Same at another employer. Karate kicking things.

• Kid call me anxiety, got angry and wanted to smash things

• Getting angry at work with people over being called anxiety.

• Thinking badly of dry drunkenness at AA meetings.

• Barnacle Bill advert. [got angry automatically at the word Barnacle]

• Put fingerprints on halogen globe of bloke at work so it would blow. -- Resentment.

• Bloke kicked my new motorbike and damaged it (he called it jap crap) and I was going around asking who did it, and I was going to get him with the crossbow.

• Bloke at AA said something I didn’t like (Townsville) I followed him home to get him but didn’t in the end.

• Jackie. Lust. Etc. Put down. She’s up herself. [tried to put someone down by telling everybody that she was up herself. I resented something she said]

• Julie. -- getting fatter. -- resent not talking. [I resented someone not talking to me, so I said she was getting fatter]

• Neurotic at D. O. A. what’s his name. Philmore. [Hated him because he seemed neurotic]

• Steve S -- verbiage . Hated.

• Greg B T, repetitive hated.

• Steve S egg head all brains etc.

• Chris -- straight, full of it. Thought he was full of it.

• Angry at Mick G not saying anything, thinking he was smart.

• Girl across road, I said she is getting better looking every day because the clothes she was wearing were less flashy than usual (I thought she was a bimbo because she said something I didn’t like)

• Girl at flats. I Threw a tennis ball at her son from the top floor. Resented his friend (said something in a bad way).

• Jackie – resentment told everyone she was up herself.

• Anger toward or hate toward people who I have been hurt by.

• Derryn Hinch current affairs.

    Another way of looking at anger or resentment, is to look at the truthful causes and underlying reasons for it, and in many cases, once you have recovered sufficiently, you will find that you can no longer be angry for the same reasons. In many cases you may also find that critical voices had been coaxing you into holding grudges and getting angry, “treating you like you are an alcoholic or drug-addict etc”.

    Make a list, including people, places etc (as shown below), the reason for the anger or resentment, and how you are affected by it. Use the following areas: self esteem, security, ambitions, relationships, financial, social (fear, worry, distress, unease etc) and any other areas you can think of.

    

     BAD CONDUCT                        Return to Contents

• Rudeness to people at corner shop.

• Getting drunk and stoned, and playing loud music late at night, even though the neighbours are seriously complaining.

• Youth refuge bloke said that he didn’t like me, and I replied [because I thought he looked like a poof] that I didn’t make a profession out of being liked.

• Snatched canister of marijuana from grandmother after she found it in our luggage at end of holidays. Christmas. Didn’t help her with things that they couldn’t do.

• Drinking milk out of fridge. [at work, drinking straight out of the carton, didn’t pay for it.]

• M. C. Townsend, lust girlfriend, said bad things over the phone (liked her), a bit off sort of thing.

• Mum -- Worried after suicide attempt. 32 sleeping pills. [My mother was worried about me after I attempted suicide and I thought she looked bad because of it.]

• Washing line probably broke it. At party.

• Carrol F Darwin. Didn’t want her around when I was with my new girlfriend.

• Susie -- took $40 to buy dope for her and never did.

• Darwin, petty cash. [borrowing petty cash from work when this wasn’t the usual thing to do]

• Frank -- put down in Stuart Park. [put somebody down]

• Mick -- put down South Alligator. [put someone down, calling him an idiot, because his motorbike got stuck in the mud.].

• Drink driving.

• Vandalism.

    

     SEX, LUST                              Return to Contents

           Dictionary meaning. – (perving) – A lustful,      amorous, sexual stare, peek or look at someone,        sually of the opposite sex.

                  There is nothing wrong with “lust” or wanting sex; there is only something wrong with lust, if there is something wrong with what you do in combination with it.

      For example: staring (Perving) at girls breasts in a        church.

                          - (Rude and inappropriate).

     Unless you have sufficient religious or cultural convictions to the contrary, there is nothing wrong with masturbation, sex, pornography, contraception, vanity, homosexuality, fornication (or sex before marriage), divorce etc.

• Wanting to con onto the girls at work and at shop. Sleazy?.

• Malcolm C. T girlfriend. (almost wanted her, even though I knew she was already taken)

• Patricia -- Lust etc. (lusting after her in a sleazy kind of way, had boyfriend)

• Perving on girls at church. (Potter’s house).

• Perving on girls in the street, thinking they couldn’t tell I was looking.

• Girl at flats wanted to get her into the sack right there and then almost, with her son there.

• Sonia also with her kids there. Etc, and even though I didn’t think she was that good looking.

• Julie -- General perv etc. (lusted after girls at work even though they already had boyfriend’s)

• Daughter at shop next-door. General perv etc. (lusted after her even though she was only ten or 11 years old)

• Girl in Townsville wanted to go to bed with her, even though she had her boyfriend with her.

• Kym lust. (Really good looking, lusted after her, Perving etc)

• Girl next-door, Stuart Park. I was conning on to her when she had a boyfriend, didn’t know though.

• Wanted married girl at detox.

    

     DISLIKES OF HUMAN DEFECTS  Return to Contents

• Thinking badly of dry drunkenness.

• Woman at AA She said that she “woke up with a hangover”, after having a dream about getting drunk. (I thought that there was something seriously wrong with her, and I hated her because of it)

• Bloke at concert with glasses. (thought he looked really straight, I hated him and thought he looked like a straight jerk because he wore glasses).

• Mum at 21 Smith Street. Thought she looked bad because of worry etc. (thought she looked disgusting because she was “worrying”).

• Mum aboriginal and counsellor.

• Didn’t like Maya’s programme or fruit trees ideas.

• Arrogance, youth refuge bloke. (Thought a kid looked disgusting because he looked arrogant)

• Neville, AA. Shrunken brain. (didn’t like him because he said his brain had shrunken due to alcoholism).

• Weedy bloke AA

• Nuro girl. (Hated her because I thought she seemed like a neurotic)

• Dave H -- weight lifting, archery.

• Mickelpops dog, intelligence.

• Tim D girlfriend. (didn’t like her because she was supposed to be a prostitute.)

• Bloke across from Fannies, at hospital, looked straight. (didn’t like him because he looked straight).

• Glenelg -- Cook straight. (didn’t like him because he looked straight)

• (if they looked straight or whatever I hated them on face value).

• Male hormones Ramsey’s cousin. (thought he seemed like a poofter because he took male Hormones)

    

     SMOKE SCREENS                   Return to Contents

          (A smoke screen is something very distracting and usually nasty, such as putting someone down or creating a scene, that you may do to take attention away from    yourself)

• Jason -- calling him an idiot. (putting my younger brother down, criticising him etc to escape being looked at myself)

• Gwin -- too much coke on corn flakes.

    

     DELUSIONS                            Return to Contents

• Oscilloscope – Gove

• Oscilloscope – Darwin airport

• Child-hood ego boundaries [A work counsellor had given me a self-help book called Born to Win and I was trying think away my childhood ego boundaries (even though I had no idea what they were) to try and cure my alcoholism (mental illness)].

• Meditation [I tried Meditation to cure myself of alcoholism (mental illness) but it didn’t work]

    

     OTHER LIABILITIES                Return to Contents

• Comparing myself to other people

    

  ABOUT THE ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS 12 STEPS                

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         The alcoholics anonymous 12 steps are similar to the Alanon and Narcotics anonymous twelve step programmes. The book being used in this section is the Alcoholics Anonymous twelve steps and twelve traditions book.

     AA 12 steps and 12 traditions download: www.aa.org/twelveandtwelve/en_tableofcnt.cfm

    

     Step 1. Admitted that we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.

                 Dictionary meanings:

                           Bankruptcy:    www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/bankrupt

                       Self-sufficient:  www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/self-sufficient

   / Live in a way that does not conform to the will of God.

     Step 1 encourages the reader to admit powerlessness or complete defeat over alcohol, their addiction etc, and admit that consequentially their lives have become unmanageable, stating:

That the alcoholic would find no enduring strength until they first admit complete defeat.

That admissions of powerlessness turn out to be firm bedrock upon which happy and purposeful lives may be built.

That the admission of defeat is the main taproot from which our whole society has sprung and flowered.

Suggests a need to hit bottom before the alcoholic would be willing to practice the rest of  the steps.

And also suggests that AA members recounting their drinking histories can show other AA members who have not reached bottom that their lives actually are or soon will be unmanageable and recognise their alcoholism before actually hitting bottom.

And condemns the alcoholic by stating:

That alcoholic's almost never recover on their own resources.

That alcoholic’s are the victims of an obsession so powerful that no amount of human willpower can break it.

And that there was no such thing as the personal conquest of this obsession by the unaided will.

And that only an act of Providence (act of God) could remove the alcohol obsession.

Personal note: Step 1 could only honestly and truthfully be completed if the alcoholic honestly and truthfully admits that he or she is “powerless” over alcohol and that consequentially their lives have become unmanageable. If you can not honestly and truthfully admit that you are "powerless" over alcohol (“hopelessly addicted” to alcohol) or that your life has become unmanageable, it is unlikely that you are "powerless" over alcohol or that your life has become unmanageable.

* Using this method of recovery, you do not have to admit powerlessness over anything or admit your life has become unmanageable to recover from mental illness, alcoholism, narcotism, depression etc.

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     Step 2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

            This step describes difficulties in returning to or obtaining faith in God or a higher power; difficulties such as:

People who do not believe in God, believing only in evolution.

People who have lost faith, become prejudiced against religion, and people where God has failed them.

Also people that complain and are disgusted with how bad religion and religious people are.

The drunkard who believes he is devout.

Which suggests a necessity for a belief that a religious God could restore you to sanity.

    On the other hand it also states that if you wish you can make AA itself your higher power and have faith that this large group of people who have solved their alcohol problem can help you to recover from alcoholism. This seems possible, however I went to AA for years and was not helped at all.

    I have also heard said in AA that you can make anything you’re higher power, such as a packet of cigarettes. It is very unlikely that somebody could ever “truthfully come to believe” that a packet of cigarettes could restore them to sanity.

Personal note: The meaning for step two is that it leads into step three, and you need to come to believe / have faith / or trust that a higher power "could" (there is a possibility that the higher power could) restore you to sanity before you would be willing to move on to step three.

* Using this method of recovery, it also isn’t necessary to believe that a power greater than yourself could restore you to sanity in order to

recover from alcoholism, narcotism, mental illness, depression etc.

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     Step 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.

                 Dictionary meaning. –

                                 self-will:     www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/self-will

     / Actions that do not conform to the will of God as

        you understand him.

    This step states that step 3 is like opening the door to a faith that works and the key is willingness, and that a beginning, even the smallest, is all that is needed. Also that alcoholics, by attending AA, have already begun to turn their will and their lives over to the care of AA.

It then describes difficulties in conforming to gods will; difficulties such as:

May turn into a nonentity and look like the hole in a doughnut.

Must maintain independence and must do everything our own way.

Dependence a distasteful word, due to past bad experiences with forms of faulty dependence.

    And then goes on to state that the world of normal people is filled with anger, fear and disharmony.  Showing that the philosophy of self-sufficiency (non religiousness or non-reliance on God) is not paying off and its final achievement is ruin. That AA members during World War II were just as capable of endurance and valour as any other soldiers. And their dependence upon a higher power, far from being a weakness, was their chief source of strength.

    Then relates a story of a new member, who has by now realised that he has more problems than alcohol, which no matter what he does don’t get any better. He is still victimised by remorse and guilt when he thinks of the past, bitterness still overpowers him when he broods upon those he still envies or hates, financial and family problems. His sponsor then points out that he must practice the remaining steps in order to recover.

    And then states that the remaining steps can only be practiced successfully if step 3 is given a determined and persistent trial. That when we try to make our will conform with gods, we begin to use it rightly. And we find that our trouble had been misuse of willpower; Step 3 opens the door.

    Personal note - Step 3 states that you should make a decision to hand your will and your life over to the care of God as you understand him, meaning decide to give your will and your life wholly (completely, entirely) to God as you understand him. God as you understand him is underlined, meaning God as you understand him to be. For example: If you were a Christian, God would be the Christian God and if you were a Muslim, God would be Allah etc. Step 3 would also have to be taken honestly and truthfully, and if I was going to honestly and truthfully begin step 3 (Although I am not religious), my truthful idea of what God is, is both the Christian and the Muslim God (both are the same God), and to complete or begin step 3, I would have to become a Christian and a Muslim combined or at least decide to become one.  

* Using this method of recovery, it also isn’t necessary to become religious or hand your will and your life over to the care of God as you understand him to recover from mental illness, alcoholism, narcotism, depression etc.

    

     REFERENCES                         Return to Contents

AA Big Book: www.aa.org/pages/en_US/alcoholics-anonymous

AA Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions: www.aa.org/twelveandtwelve/en_tableofcnt.cfm

How Al-Anon Works for Families & Friends of Alcoholics (hard cover edition).

Psychosis pamphlet: (What is Psychosis / Recovering from Psychosis / Getting help early / How can I help

someone with Psychosis). From Health and Community Services, Adelaide, South Australia.

                   Dictionaries:

  The Collins online dictionary:  www.collinsdictionary.com

     Collins English Dictionary (Australian updated

        3rd edition 1995)

     Online Google definition searches

     Microsoft office 2000 thesaurus

     Online: www.thesaurus.com

    

     COPYRIGHT                           Return to Contents

© copyright 2021

   This document, in part or in its entirety or modified in any way, may be copied or reproduced by anyone free of charge, provided I am credited for my contribution and my name and website address are given at the beginning or the end of the document or text or at some point during or at the beginning or end of an audio or video recording etc.

   Examples are shown below.

    Please also note: The only reason that there are any copyright restrictions on this material, is that when the information eventually becomes public knowledge, I wish to be known as the person who discovered it or brought it to light (my little bit of fame), and once that has been achieved, I will remove all copyright restrictions on current and past versions of the material and people will be able to do any thing they want with the information without restriction.

    

     COPYRIGHT EXAMPLES:       Return to Contents

    (Note: the following examples may be copied)

Reproducing this document: no additions or changes are necessary.

Copying this document in its entirety (as part of a book or lager project etc):

    Written at the beginning or the end of the document (e.g. in the title or the end of the chapter): written by Gary J Seal, website: www.recovery-from-mental-illness.com or if written in the credits or references section: Chapter 3 etc or “Recovery From Mental Illness: Psychosis, Schizophrenia, Bipolar, Depression, Anxiety, Alcoholism, Narcotism Etc” was written by Gary J Seal, website: www.recovery-from-mental-illness.com.

Or if used on a website:

    Written at the beginning or end of the web page text or written in the credits or references section: written by Gary J Seal, website: www.recovery-from-mental-illness.com.

Copying portions of this document:

    Written at the beginning or the end of the document (e.g. in the title or the end of the chapter/s): written by or portions were written by Gary J Seal, website: www.recovery-from-mental-illness.com or if written in the credits or references section: Portions of chapter 3 etc were written by Gary J Seal, website: www.recovery-from-mental-illness.com.

Or if used on a website:

    Written at the beginning or end of the web page/s text or written in the credits or references section: written by or portions of “web page/s name” were written by Gary J Seal, website: www.recovery-from-mental-illness.com.

Rewriting all or part of this document (where copyright may be infringed):

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  About Us

Recovery-from-mental-illness.com is a website where people wishing to recover from mental illness can download recovery information, benefit from the experience of others in recovery, and also benefit from the assistance and experience of possibly the only person to have recovered in this way, who has many years of experience in recovery, invaluable inside knowledge regarding critical voices, and can assist with recovery at all stages.

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Please click the buttons above for assistance with problems beginning recovery, moral questions, questions about recovery, assistance writing your inventory, problems with other people, taunting, baiting, harassment, anger, questions regarding 12 step programs, Alcoholics Anonymous, questions regarding critical voices: what they can do, what you can do if they are keeping you up, how to escape them etc.

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Recovery From Mental Illness:         

Psychosis, Schizophrenia, Bipolar, Depression, Anxiety, Alcoholism, Narcotism Etc.

    Written by Gary J Seal                                                   

      (Please click the contents headings below to jump

                  to the desired page)

    

Contents                    Last updated: 03 Oct 2021

My story                                                    

    The beginning of trouble        

    My condition in general         

    First suicide attempt           

    Spiritual experience             

    Almost second suicide attempt

    Finding the cure       

    Recovery                              

    

Recovery                   

     About recovery

    How to make a moral emotional and other

     inventory (Different to the 12 step inventory)

    More about recovery

    Examples

    Recovery and medication

    For critical voices

    The process of recovery

    Being Serious

    Critical Voices   

    Alcoholics Anonymous        

    Some Helpful Hints      

    More Helpful Hints      

    More About the AA 12 Steps     

    More About Critical Voices    

    Exercise and depression

           

Moral Inventory Examples                       

    Cheating        

    Stealing                          

    Lying                           

    Lying about feelings

    Violence         

    Anger and resentment            

    Bad conduct                   

    Sex, lust        

    Dislikes of human defects      

    Smokescreens                 

    Delusions       

    Other liabilities             

           

About the AA 12 Steps           

    Step 1

    Step 2

    Step 3             

            

    References              

    Copyright

    Copyright examples          

                                                                                                                          

Notes

•     Recovery information is continually improved and updated. For example, the More about recovery section and many others have been added since the first publication. For future downloads, to get the best and easiest to use information, please either view or download it via the website or download a new pdf copy via the following link.
•     The following recovery information has been rewritten whilst suffering from a lack of sleep to ensure that it is understandable and easily readable even if the reader suffers from very bad sleeping.
•     In the following recovery information, the word's alcoholism and narcotism are slang terms and refer to the physical and mental decline and mental illness caused by drug and alcohol use and abuse.

    

         

MY STORY                               Return to Contents

 

    At the age of 17, after a year of full time college, I began an interstate government trainee-ship where I didn't have to attend work at all and I only had to attend part-time college and I was still paid a full trainee-ship wage.  After staying with friends of the family for a while and then a guest-house, I moved into government run single room accommodation.  Initially in the evenings I often used to get a little drunk by myself whilst watching TV, I later made some friends who smoked a lot of dope and went to nightclubs etc.  Because I had so much free time and I was still getting paid a small wage, I was able to stay up late at night every night of the week and get drunk and stoned, have a good time and occasionally go out to nightclubs etc.

          

 The beginning of trouble           Return to Contents

    After a few years of getting drunk and stoned every night of the week and after sharing a 2 bedroom flat with some friends for a while, they both moved interstate, and I moved into a one bedroom flat on my own and I continued getting drunk and stoned and playing loud music every night of the week. In the new flats however, I was very much not appreciated and the downstairs neighbours complained very, very seriously and nastily to me about the loud music, but rather than seeing the error of my ways and keeping the music down at night (probably because of years of drug and alcohol abuse), I pridefully thought that because I was paying good money for rent, I could do anything that I wanted, beyond this point my life changed.

    Initially critical voices began to be continually around me and they made me feel "physically self-conscious" and also made me feel very physically numbed, clumsy and useless and were disapproving of me and I felt like I was no longer myself or the likeable person I used to be. When I went to visit friends, critical voices were very bad and destructive, I could no longer just have a nice easy time, get drunk and stoned or just hang around and have a good time etc; critical voices very destructively and in a big loud way, disliked me and everything I did, and it was extremely difficult, hard going and very socially threatening and I felt that I wasn't ok anymore and I started to avoid friends.

    After a while I went through a phase where I began to wish and long for the way things used to be, getting on with people etc, even cigarettes had lost their flavour.       

    At work people realised that something was wrong and a co-worker let me have his government flat thinking that it may help the situation, but things continued getting worse.     Around this time I decided to try and find help for my condition. At first I had to decide where I could go to find help, and in Darwin, Northern Territory at that time (which was before all of the relatively recent media attention and treatment advances regarding mental illness), all that I knew were available were places like Alcoholics Anonymous and Grow etc, and I had to decide which was the best fit.  But in the end, because my condition seemed to be alcohol and drug related, I got the idea to do an alcohol detox course at the local hospital and go from there, and I got 2 weeks medical leave from work and did a 2 week alcohol detox course, which involved alcohol addiction, psychological and psychiatric information, a few visits to the psychiatric ward and a few Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, however it did not help at all. After the course I still wanted to try and find help, so I attended AA meetings, I asked questions but I did not get any helpful answers, I read all of the AA literature that I could find, but I still could not understand the programme; I could admit that my life had become unmanageable, but I could not admit that I was powerless over alcohol or come to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity, so I could not progress beyond step 1. I continued to attend AA meetings for quite some time, hoping that I may find help there, something might change etc, when someone speaking at a meeting suggested, in an appealing, and (in an AA meeting) nice way, that to do step 3, people should go to Potters House church. Because of all the negativity at AA meetings and how it was making my entire life even worse, I left AA and went to Potters House church. I went to Potters House church for I think 2 to 3 months or more, but because I was so prejudiced against religion at the time, I couldn't find help there either. At one point I also booked myself into a psychiatric ward and when I first got there, I saw other patients wondering around with their arms moving uncontrollably and because of my condition I really hated them. At one stage a male nurse or doctor got me into his office and, acting very forcibly, suggested that I should take some medication that would get rid of the voices but may cause involuntary arm movements. I definitely didn’t want to take any medication that could leave me in the same condition as the other patients in the ward and critical voices at the time also didn’t think that I should be taking anything so potentially harmful that it would “get rid of them”, so I didn’t take them. Not long after that I snuck out of the ward and got drunk and ended up wetting the bed and I was kicked out for it. I also had some meetings with a work counsellor, but he also could not help me.

    

My condition in general              Return to Contents

    In the beginning my condition seemed like it may be temporary, however over time I came to know that there was something seriously wrong with me and I didn't know what, although I did think that it had something to do with years of drug and alcohol abuse. Generally in the beginning I always felt a bit off or bad, socially at work nothing seemed to feel ok or work any more, I didn't feel good or okay and something was definitely wrong. If I went to a shopping centre or public place, because of the bad critical voices I was getting, I would walk around feeling terrible, sweaty and a little uneasy and I had to try to keep it hidden, but I kind of felt that it may be temporary and that it would sort itself out in the end.

    After possibly six months to a year or so of my condition slowly getting worse, my life had become a chaotic, painful and often laborious and depressive existence, I didn't feel like a human being any more and it was a horrible unimaginable way of being, I rarely if ever got a good night's sleep, I never felt ok and I  couldn't escape or cure it no matter what I did.     

    Whenever I went out (riding my push-bike to work etc), I always felt extremely paranoid about my condition and I had to fight to try to keep it hidden. I couldn't go out socially to nightclubs etc any more and if I did I felt very conspicuous. Everywhere I went I was also affected by critical voices, at home they would make me suffer extremely depressive afternoons, evenings and weekends, where on at least a few occasions I was forced to move very slowly and extremely depressively (like walking through quicksand) every where I went, and I was barely able to move or do anything; the thought of things like cleaning or cooking was also made to seem, in a very perilous kind of way, as if they would be impossible to do.

   They would also harass and torment me because I couldn't recover, I couldn't have a social life, I had no future etc, and at times try to make me think I couldn't recover because "I could have a mental bar against all knowledge, which kept me in everlasting ignorance". If I went out, they would for the most part, try to make me feel paranoid by drawing attention to my condition, and if I met people that I used to know, they would tell them how bad I was. I also no longer knew what the truth was any more, and people could trick me into laughing at stupid times to make a joke out of me: say "don't look", "one eye", "don't go" etc or say something angrily or in an untrue way and I couldn't tell that they were trying to fool me. At one stage critical voices pointed out how bad I felt all of the time, and that I never felt ok, and convinced me that because I felt so bad all of the time, I could no longer be myself in social situations, and from that point on in social situations I started to just fake it and act ok, happy, excited etc, which in most cases would have been obvious to any normal person. Also around this time, critical voices would do things like cause a 3 volt battery taste in my mouth, which made me feel like there was something wrong with me, keep me up at night, make pain worse and cause me extremely unpleasant / painful feelings whilst eating or thinking etc. At one stage, out of frustration with myself, one of them got me to smash myself in the head with an aluminium saucepan, repeatedly, until it had a large dent in the bottom, and from that point on whenever I rode my push-bike or went out in public, critical voices made me see a black spot above my left or right eye as if I had suffered brain damage from it. After possibly a few months to a year or so of suffering, one morning I woke up and I found I couldn't move and I couldn't get out of bed, I literally could not control myself or find the will or force myself to move or get up, it was like someone had cast an evil spell on me and I just couldn't do it, I was paralysed, and there were a lot of critical voices gathered to watch, maybe taking the blame for it and maybe not, and it was very frightening and very worrying because I needed to get up to go to work to have somewhere to live and to buy food etc. Due to my condition, I also isolated myself from old friends and family.

    After leaving Potters House, I met some street kids and I let them stay in my government flat for somewhere to live. Also around this time a neighbour was acting in an "unreal" way towards me and giving me trouble about my condition and one of the street kids thought we should get away from it, so we all moved into a small caravan at a caravan park and got drunk and stoned every night of the week. The counsellor from work had given me a self help book called Born To Win, and whilst at the caravan park I was reading it to try and recover. I couldn't understand a lot of the book, and in my head I was doing completely insane and out of reality things like trying to solve my childhood ego boundary regions, which I couldn't understand at all, and I would wake up in the morning with a very sore forehead, where I think the street kids had been knocking to try and snap me out of it, and when leaving the caravan park, on the way to work, I could hear people and/or critical voices angrily hating me for the way I act and the way I was etc. Also around this time some people at work would do things like talk really repetitively, act neurotically etc and one person really seriously detested me behind my back because of my criminal attitude. We eventually left or got kicked out of the caravan park and moved back into the government flat, and after the street kids possibly tried to kill me with my crossbow, I didn't let them in any more.

    

First suicide attempt                   Return to Contents

    And then I was on my own again, after 2 years of suffering and all hope of recovering gone, it didn’t take more than about 2 to 3 weeks, living with myself and critical voices, and I had had enough, I had given up and I just wanted it to end, and I decided to commit suicide. At first I was going to shoot myself in the head with an 80 pound crossbow, but either an upstairs neighbour or critical voices pretending to be an upstairs neighbour convinced me that it may not kill me and that I may wind up brain-damaged or it may take a long time to kill me etc, and I saw visions of the crossbow bolt in my head and still being alive etc, so I decided on a soft easy way of doing it, and decided to overdose on sleeping pills. At the time I had lost my license and had to ride my push-bike out in the open to try and get the sleeping pills and I had to try and hide what I was doing. Whilst collecting the sleeping pills and after collecting some of the sleeping pills, outside the front of a group of shops, critical voices started very loudly and noticeably pointing out to everyone in the area that I was committing suicide and started pointing me out excitedly to everybody walking past etc, saying “he’s committing suicide” etc, which made things very difficult. After a minute or so I managed to get them to almost stop, but they continued doing it a little bit, off and on, for a long time afterwards. I was only able to get 7 sleeping pills from the hospital and possibly another doctor, but I was able to get a packet of 25 of what I thought were sleeping pills from a private Indian doctor, which seemed enough. And that night I took one sleeping pill, waited until I got a little drowsy and then took most of the other sleeping pills and went to bed to die. I had sent letters to members of my family, leaving them my possessions, the week before attempting to commit suicide, and my brother decided to drive his V8 Ute 1000 km to try and help, and he woke me up the next morning. I was still a little drowsy from the sleeping pills, but I had gotten a better than usual nights sleep and felt quite refreshed. We then packed up all of my things, put them in the back of the Ute and drove 1000 km back to my parents house.

    

Spiritual experience                   Return to Contents

    After around a week, my parents and my youngest brother and I went on a shopping trip to Alice Springs and stayed at a caravan park. After a day or so in Alice Springs, at the caravan park, I turned around and said something to my parents, and whilst I was doing it what appeared to be God and Jesus and the holy spirit behind them appeared in the sky above us (appearing like critical voices, not physically there). God looked very ancient and looked maybe millions of years old, Jesus was sitting on God's right hand side and although I didn't look at him that closely he also looked very ancient, but a younger looking ancient. And then I noticed the (not visible) holy spirit behind them, and I saw ripples in the air like ripples in water, and all of a sudden from the middle of my spine I was filled with a really good feeling and I felt perfect, whole, completely cured and very relaxed for about 3 to 10 seconds, and I could still feel it for days afterwards. I am not 100% sure if it actually was the Holy Trinity, maybe it was a critical voice or someone else who could do that sort of thing, I can't be 100% certain.

    Afterwards I knew that there was something spiritual and supernatural as I had been led to believe in AA, and I again believed that recovery was possible and I decided to go back to AA and give it another try. I went to AA for a further seven months and I again read all of the AA literature that I could find, however I still could not understand the programme or progress beyond step 1, so I decided to leave AA permanently, because it didn't help at all and because of how badly it affected my life, and I also decided to try and get a fresh start and move interstate, which turned out to be a good idea because critical voices were no where near as bad in most of the new towns and cities.

    Although I still could not recover, a lot had changed within me due to the spiritual experience: I had hope and will for life, I was a lot stronger, I could like and appreciate the kindness and niceness in people, I could phone up my mother occasionally and once I had moved interstate I was strong enough to get off of unemployment benefits and get a job. However my life was still continuous turmoil, although not as bad: I still knew that there was something seriously wrong with me, I rarely got a good night's sleep, I still avoided social public places like malls etc for fear of being socially stirred up or picked on, I still felt paranoid about myself in public and I still isolated myself from old friends etc.

    

Almost second suicide attempt    Return to Contents

    After a further 5½ years, I had been working as an audio video repair technician at a Hifi shop for about 3 years, when an older work associate decided that he no longer wanted to tolerate someone in my condition, and every time I had a problem or insecurity due to my condition, he very angrily and seriously hated it; and he kept on doing it every day, and it got so unbelievably nasty that I just couldn't cope at all, and I got and stayed angry, and over about a week I decided that I was going to commit suicide to get back at him and I was going to do it by overdosing on antihistamines. Critical voices where I was living didn’t seem to be bothered by the idea and I was about to begin collecting packets of antihistamines from different chemists and was getting ready to do it, when another critical voice from a distant South westerly direction said, “don't kill him”, and he said it in a way as if he knew that I was important or was something important. Critical voices where I was living wanted him to explain further and waited for quite some time, but I am not sure if he ever did. After this critical voices where I lived talked me out of committing suicide and said that the antihistamines probably wouldn't have killed me anyway and may have caused permanent physical damage.

    

Finding the cure                         Return to Contents

    After a couple of days to a week, either one of the girls from across the road, critical voices pretending to be one of the girls from across the road or both, said that she didn't think I was that bad, and she decided that she was going to try and help me. She bought an AA book or maybe two, and over time read through the information, and after around two weeks she found that it was too confusing and she couldn’t work it out and wasn’t able to offer any suggestions on what to do. A few days or so after that however, it was concluded that the only thing that I actually could do out of every thing suggested, was to make a moral inventory. The kind of inventory that I made was different to the AA inventory (as described in the AA 12 steps and 12 traditions book): which briefly looks into character defects associated with desires for security, power, sex, society, fear etc, and also looks into resentment; which I found very difficult or impossible to understand when I was trying to recover years previously and if I had tried to do it that way again I probably would have failed and also every time I read AA material my mind would go on the fritz badly and I would feel even worse than usual and more ashamed of my condition, confused etc, so I didn’t want to look into it again.  The kind of inventory that I made (shown below in recovery), which was what I had thought a moral inventory should be like in the past and the only other option apart from the AA option that critical voices and I could think of, lists only the individual moral wrongs themselves, grouped into different categories, such as cheating, stealing, lying etc, which is easy and very thorough.  Right from the start I knew that it was the answer, and critical voices also thought so. After a while I had the dreadful and very oppressing thought that I could no longer do the inventory without first doing steps 1 to 3 of the AA programme (as is required in AA), and I had never been able to get beyond the first half of step 1, but critical voices talked me out of it, almost pleading with me, saying that I could stay like I was just waiting to commit suicide or I could do the inventory without doing steps 1 to 3, and they made me make a decision, and I decided to do the inventory. Within a day or so, one of the girls from across the road or critical voices pretending to be one of the girls from across the road added (because I had had problems with the anger aspect of the AA programme whilst looking at it recently), that rather than trying to curb my anger / develop a grooved action etc (as is advised in AA), I should leave the anger side of things to itself, let it be natural etc, and later also added that critical voices really were there and that God and Jesus appearing in the sky when I was in Alice Springs also really happened.

    

Recovery                                    Return to Contents

    Although I had no other choice but to do the inventory, I needed some time to think about it first, and I didn't do anything for about two weeks. After two weeks, critical voices confronted me about it and convinced me to start writing my inventory.

    Once I got started, I couldn't stop, it was like I was obsessively compelled to do it every waking hour, I carried it everywhere I went, even to work etc and every time I thought of something, I wrote it down. The inventory also took about two weeks to complete. Once I had completed my inventory, rather than waiting again, I decided to stop doing whatever was written on it straight away.

    Not doing everything I had written on the inventory seemed like it would be easy at first, however over the next week or two, I found it extremely difficult almost all of the time, and often impossible, trying to stop doing hundreds of things all at once that I had been doing regularly for many years; but I kept trying, and when things got so difficult that I could no longer continue, I temporarily handed my inventory over to God to look after or temporarily just let things take care of themselves. I also found it very helpful if I carried my inventory around with me to remind me of what I had written down.

    Also within the first 2 weeks, critical voices noticed that I was turning human (as I had read about in AA), I hadn’t noticed it myself at the time and couldn’t really see it myself, but it was ok to get some positive feedback from them, and also whilst talking with critical voices around that time, we also noticed that I was having a spiritual awakening, although it was nothing supernatural as I expected it may be. After around 1½ to 2 weeks, I was beginning to have long periods of time where I was completely free of liabilities; 3½ to 4 weeks earlier when I had been given the cure, I was almost certain that I had found the answer, and it was just a matter of doing the inventory before I could be sure, and although I still felt a bit mixed up inside kind of thing and not quite there yet, I now knew beyond any doubt that it was the answer, and it was just a matter of time before I was completely cured. It took around a further 1 to 1½ weeks before I was free from the suffering of mental illness and around a further week before I was mostly finished with the inventory side of recovery.

        On several occasions during preparations for and during recovery, myself and the girl critical voice / girl from across the road (that helped me find the cure) also had discussions on how to do the inventory, what to include in it and helped me to decide what was right for me etc and covered areas such as sex before marriage, masturbation, helped me with other areas in my inventory and gave me the idea to make a list or build a repertoire of alternative actions etc (all of which have been included in the following recovery, hints and inventory examples sections etc).

    A nearby neighbour, who could hear me thinking, would also help me with my inventory and help me with any moral problems that I may be having. (all of which have also been included in the following recovery, hints and inventory examples sections etc)

    Also around 1 to 2 weeks after I had recovered, one of the critical voices, acting on behalf of 99% of the really bad critical voices, announced that because I had recovered and there was no chance of me returning, they were all going to leave me alone, and apart from one unscrupulous one and his friend, they all did.

    Beyond the first four weeks, I still fairly regularly had problems with doing wrong things, or moral dilemmas (usually due to inexperience, things seemed okay to start with etc), and the remaining two critical voices where I was living would make me feel anything from a little out of sorts to absolutely terrible, and maybe lose sleep etc, until the problem had been corrected or dealt with etc.

     The remaining two critical voices where I was living (next door to a guest-house) were also not the norm, and were quite severe, and would continually and unfairly keep me up at night for little or no reason and continually try to trick me into moral dilemmas and were the cause of many if not most of the problems and moral dilemmas.

    The moral dilemmas continued with decreasing regularity for the next 3 to 6 months, until they reached a point (due to the two unscrupulous critical voices in my area) where they could no longer be considered part of recovery and were considered just a normal part of living in a bad environment. Even in such a bad environment, life was mostly ok, and I was very, very grateful to finally be free of what I called alcoholism at the time and I valued just being alive and free from suffering and I wanted to live the rest of my life as fully as possible. During the first 3 to 6 months, I also liked doing things like watching TV, watching music videos, keeping fit and just doing nothing etc.

    Recovery time will vary dependent on how long and how badly the person has been suffering and also due to conditions where they live whilst recovering. If they are in an area where critical voices are normal and don't unfairly keep them up at night and try to trick them into moral dilemmas etc, recovery will be a lot quicker than if they lived in an area as I did whilst recovering.

    Slowly over the next few years I also changed untrue attitudes (which weren't a problem for me at all at the time), things such as thinking looking bad was cool, when over time I had found that I liked nice things etc. I also eventually rid myself of all of my long term built up grudges and resentments and avoided anger where reasonably possible. Over time I also began to see anger as just another liability and I avoided it because I would suffer socially, in personal relationships, I would needlessly have a bad time when I could be having a good time or I would just pointlessly suffer when I didn’t have to etc.

          

                    

    

RECOVERY

    

About Recovery                           Return to Contents     

    Although recovery involves making a moral inventory, it is not the same as a 12 step inventory or part of a 12 step programme; recovery is a very easy and simple step by step procedure that anyone could easily follow and does not involve religion, 12 step programmes or anything difficult to understand.

In the following sections, pages 6 to 11, I have also included:

• All general areas that I found necessary in preparation for and before beginning recovery.
• All general problem areas experienced during recovery.
• Any ideas, advice and hints that I found helpful when I was recovering.

More information and hints have also been included in the Anger and Resentment, and Sex, Lust sections.

    If you have any problems using the information, beginning recovery or with recovery, please first have a look at the questions and answers section at www.recovery-from-mental-illness.com to see if your question has already been asked and answered, and if not, please contact me via the website questions and answers section. All information and downloads on the website are free.

    

How To Make A Moral Emotional And Other Inventory (Different to the 12 step inventory)  Return to Contents

    The first step in recovery is to make a moral, emotional, liability and other inventory (Different to the 12 step inventory). If you have been to Alcoholics Anonymous or similar 12 step programmes in the past and you think that you may have to do steps 1 to 3 before you can make a moral inventory, in this case it isn’t true, I recovered from serious long term mental illness without doing steps 1 to 3. If you haven’t already done so, it would be very beneficial if you also read My Story, above, as part of recovery, as you will get a good understanding of my condition before recovery, better understand what is involved in recovery, and what you will likely experience during recovery.  I have also written explanations of the Alcoholics Anonymous first 3 steps on page 21.

                Dictionary meanings –

      moral: www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/moral

  immoral: www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/immoral

    Firstly head separate pages with moral areas such as stealing, lying, cheating, violence, rude and bad conduct, liabilities and any other area’s you can think of etc. Also emotional area’s such as anger and resentment . (examples are shown in the following sections: pages 13 to 21 ).

(NOTE ON ANGER)

    In the early stages of recovery it may be very difficult or impossible to avoid a lot of your anger, however once any moral problems or liabilities have been eliminated or dealt with, a lot of your angry actions and reactions will just be nonsense old actions and reactions in certain situations. In the very early stages of recovery (within the first one to two weeks), you will also likely find yourself beginning to get angry and catching yourself in the same kinds of situations that you used to. If avoiding anger is becoming too hard, don’t worry about it, think about it at a later date, or don’t worry about it at all. It is definitely possible (as I did myself) to recover from mental illness, alcoholism, narcotism, depression etc, whilst leaving the anger side of things to itself; although for your own benefit, once you are free of liabilities, you would be better off avoiding anger where reasonably possible.

Note: You will still also need to include and write out an anger and resentment section in your moral Inventory.

    Everything that is written under these headings should be written “putting aside” any wrongs that others have done. This is “very” important, otherwise you may stay angry and may not be able to seriously and sensibly judge your own wrongs in each instance.

    (For example: An old friend had acted in a hurtful manner towards me when he was supposed to be a friend, and I brooded resentfully over the memory of it every time I thought of him for years. Without putting aside the wrongs he had done to me, I would not have been able to make a serious and unbiased assessment of my behaviour towards him.

    Then write down under each of these headings everything that you can think of that could come under these sections, “past and present”, including your life prior to mental illness, alcoholism etc (e.g. childhood, early adulthood etc). It is “very” important to include your life prior to mental illness, alcoholism, etc, as you may continue to justify present wrongs with past, “ill perceived”, wrong behaviour under different circumstances. If after you recover you find that the past wrong really isn’t that bad and will not cause you to suffer sufficiently, you can take it off of your inventory or forget about it or if it is a more borderline item you can forget about it for the present and possibly reconsider it at a later date.

    Write down as much information as possible, the more the better, as with more information you will get a better picture of the truth about yourself.

Once you have written your inventory, the next step is to stop doing every thing that you have written.

    When I first began recovery and started to try to stop doing everything that I had written, I tried to remember everything all at once from my inventory and tried to be ready to tackle anything that could come along and during the early stages of recovery my life quite often turned into an almost impossible task, trying to stop doing hundreds of things all at once that I had been doing every day for many years and I often had to hand things over to God to take care of or just let things take care of themselves because my life had become completely impossible; if you are old, physically weak or ill or on a lot of medication, you may need to take recovery a lot, lot slower and easier, and the best thing that you could do, I think, is to just try to become aware of your past and present moral areas by reading and re-reading your inventory and take it as slow and easy as you need to, even if it takes many months you will get there in the end, and at the same time also just try and deal with any moral or liability areas that you are aware of as they come along, which will likely not be very often, for myself, I think possibly no more than 3 to 10 times a day right at the beginning (at worst), and typically no more than 1 to 3 or less for the whole day from there on, and just try to do the best that you can, and if you have to, just let things go and write them down and deal with them at a later date. New things may also turn up every 1 to 3 days or so and you may also wish to add things to your inventory. I also found it very helpful if I carried my inventory around with me.

(Note: Even if you are not old, physically weak or ill or on a lot of medication you can also take recovery a lot slower and easier than I did when I was recovering)

         

   Once you have begun to stop doing whatever is written on your inventory, it will take a minimum of around two weeks, more or less, before you begin to be free of liabilities and a further week or so before you should be free from the suffering of mental illness; if you are old, physically weak or ill or on a lot of medication and are taking recovery slower and easier, recovery time will also likely increase and may take many months, please also read the section on recovery and medication.

        

    

More About Recovery                  Return to Contents

• Some things that you write on your inventory (examples are shown below) may turn out to be too difficult, a bit too ridiculous, not worth the effort, going too far or just not you etc.
• Other things that you thought would be ok, may turn out to be something you absolutely can’t do.
• Other things may turn out to be borderline and may or may not cause you to suffer sufficiently and you may have to decide if the item is tolerable or not or if it would be more difficult to stop doing than it would be to continue with.
• Many things that you thought could be a problem may also turn out to be ok.
• In the very early stages of recovery you may also find yourself falling back into past actions and reactions in certain situations and you will have to change your actions and reactions to something else and learn to be yourself. It may also be helpful to write out a list or build a repertoire of alternative actions and reactions that you are happy with.

    

Examples                                    Return to Contents

Some examples of things that may be too difficult, a bit too ridiculous or going too far etc may be things such as:

   Never doing anything wrong, never lying, never getting angry, never getting frustrated, never being rude even accidentally, not hurting an ant or a fly, trying to be too perfect, little white lies Wiki Collins and (if you are not religious) no sex before marriage etc.

Examples of things that may be borderline may be things such as:

   Riding your motorbike with a bald back tyre, speeding, riding your pushbike at night on the footpath without lights.   

Examples of things that you thought may be a problem but turn out to be ok may be things such as:

Getting drunk, getting stoned, perving on girls a little (if it is ok), watching strippers, not liking hot days.

Examples of things that you thought would be ok but turn out to be something you absolutely can’t do may be things such as:

Using work stamps and envelopes and making photocopies for your own personal use.

Examples of things that are just not you may be things such as:

   Doing things in a way that someone else does them (that just doesn’t suit you), copying other peoples anger, copying other peoples anger and emotionalism etc from news, current affairs programs, TV soaps, movies etc (not really true).

Some actual examples of things that I did wrong even after recovery are as follows:

(Note: I do not wish to be a bad influence and you shouldn't copy the things that I did wrong, I am only including them in the interests of recovery)

• Deliberately for many years rode my motorbike at 65 km/h or more in 60 km/h zones because I was sure I would get away with it.
• Let the rear tire on my motorbike get bald until just showing a bit of canvas before replacing it for many years (was borderline).
• Lied to get out of trouble including to the police.
• I would have smoked dope (marijuana) because I didn't think there was anything wrong with it.
• Kept dope seeds in the freezer.
• Not telling the truth about my age.
• If I went to court I could have asked for an adjournment, to possibly seek legal advice, and likely not seek any.
• If it came down to possibly loosing my job, I still would have lied about my reasons for not turning up to work on time.
• Plus a few other things that I can't write here or I would get into trouble.

   Please note: what you can and can't do will depend completely on the individual and on your current circumstances including critical voices and neighbours etc.

   Please also note: if critical voices would have been too hard on me or if I felt too badly about myself, I would have had to give up whatever I was doing or correct it etc, and 99.9% of the time I wasn't doing anything wrong and I was doing the right things etc.

                                                    Return to recovery

    

Recovery And Medication           Return to Contents

    When I was recovering, I was not taking medication and I had never taken any medication. If you are taking medication you may find recovery more difficult, tricky or even impossible.  (For example: If you were taking medication that reduces or takes away your ability to feel, you may find judging your own rights and wrongs or if something is too difficult or just not you etc a lot more difficult than if you were not taking medication, and if you were taking medication that reduces or takes away the suffering of mental illness, you would also be reducing or taking away the suffering required to assist you in judging your rights and wrongs or if something is too difficult, borderline or something you absolutely can’t do etc and recovery will also be more difficult.  If you find that medication could be a problem and you wish to reduce or go off your medication, please do so only under the guidance of your doctor, psychiatrist or health care provider, as withdrawal from antipsychotic, antidepressant and other medication used to treat mental illness (especially cold turkey or all at once) may cause serious side effects which may result in death or death by suicide etc.  

    

For Critical Voices                      Return to Contents

   Critical voices could also help with recovery by giving people who are beginning recovery or writing their inventory a bit of space or by taking it a bit or a lot easier on them and just see how they get on kind of thing; otherwise recovery may be made too hard or impossible for them, they may not get enough sleep, they may not be able to read correctly or feel or judge their own rights and wrongs etc; and if possible, it could also make a big difference if critical voices could help them with recovery: their rights and wrongs, things they believe that aren’t true etc (as critical voices did for me).

    

The Process Of Recovery           Return to Contents

    A moral inventory, as you will find, is a process of getting rid of liabilities; things that normally if you were to do them, would be an extremely bad experience to something you just couldn’t do. A moral inventory, by beginning to avoid bad experiences, is a process of turning into a normal, feeling human being. A moral inventory is also a process of getting back to within your own real boundaries in your current conditions.

    

Being Serious                           Return to Contents

    When you first begin to write your inventory, you may have problems being serious. One way of getting serious, is to write items down on your inventory as if you are writing them down in front of or before God.

    

Critical Voices                           Return to Contents

    Psychiatrists call critical voices hallucinations, claiming that the person hears, sees, feels, smells or tastes something that is not actually there. But they are actually there, and can cause a person to hear, see, feel, smell or taste something that isn’t actually real (although it may seem real).

  Things such as criticising what you are doing, mocking you, making sounds talk, be abusive, causing smells, pains in the body, keeping you up at night, stopping you from going to the toilet, making pain worse, coughing, hiccups, crying, farting, sweating, itching, cramps etc.

    If you think back into your past, prior to mental illness, you will find many instances where there have been critical voices of one description or another. For example:

• When you were younger, if your parents left you home alone at night, critical voices may have tried to scare you, telling you that a murderer or thief may try to break in etc.
• You may have been jogging and got a stitch, and a critical voice, thinking you are stupid, may have asked if you could tell if he was doing it or not.

    

Alcoholics Anonymous               Return to Contents

    In alcoholics anonymous, during AA meetings, the recovered members often act like something they are not. For example: they may seem weedy, weird looking, stupid idiot voices, super fantastic, ugly etc. They also may tell their stories in such a way as to try to bait you, cause you to resent them, hate them, think that there is something wrong with them etc. (usually to judge if you are all-together or not)

    

Some Helpful Hints                    Return to Contents

• Apart from liabilities, only immoral and corrupt actions cause problems. Once you eliminate these items on your moral, liability and emotional inventory, everything else seems to sort itself out.
• After a short period of time, you will begin to understand what self esteem means, begin to gain in self-respect and dignity, feel okay and even good about yourself.
• Because you are now looking at the truth of your past and no longer fear past bad experiences, you are now able to freely remember your past, without fear, and everything that has happened over the years.
• If anything gets too hard or impossible, forget about it, leave it until later or leave it until such a time that you can deal with it.
• If you are really suffering and really need to get some relief as soon as possible, or for any other reason, you can begin writing your inventory straight away and also begin to stop doing things on your inventory whilst you are writing it and write your inventory as you go.
• You may also find yourself putting off beginning to write your inventory or beginning recovery almost indefinitely. If thinking about your inventory or beginning recovery is taking more than a couple of weeks, the best thing that you could do, I think, is just to put any doubts aside and make a beginning, you don’t want to go on suffering and the sooner you start the sooner you will recover.
• When I was recovering I was physically fit, 29 years old and not on any medication. If you are old, physically weak or ill or on a lot of medication etc, you will likely need to take things a lot, lot slower and easier than I did when I was recovering and recovery time will also likely increase.

    

More Helpful Hints                     Return to Contents

• Look at motives: Real motives or underlying motives can determine if wrong or not.
• In the very early stages of recovery you may also find yourself falling back into past actions and reactions in certain situations and you will have to change your actions and reactions to something else and learn to be yourself. It may also be helpful to write out a list or build a repertoire of alternative actions and reactions that you are happy with.
• You don’t have to like not doing the wrong things.
• It may also help to support new attitudes, moral directions etc, with similar or identical experiences from your past, prior to mental illness.
• In many cases your defences (anger, lies etc) turn out to be liabilities and moral wrongs.
• At times it may become impossible trying to stop doing everything on your inventory; it may help if you handover your inventory (temporarily) for God to look after or temporarily just let things take care of themselves, it may also help if you keep your inventory with you.
• Once you have begun to stop doing whatever is written on your inventory, it will take a minimum of around two weeks, more or less, before you begin to be free of liabilities and a further week or so before you should be free from the suffering of mental illness. If you are old, physically weak or ill or on a lot of medication and are taking recovery slower and easier, recovery time will also likely increase and may take many months, please also read the section on recovery and medication.
• No need to throw your moral inventory away. Once you have finished with it, you can keep it for sentimental value.
• If after you recover, you find that an item on your inventory really isn’t that bad and will not cause you to suffer sufficiently, you can take it off of your inventory or forget about it or if it is a more borderline item, you can forget about it for the present and possibly reconsider it at a later date.

    

More About The AA 12 Steps     Return to Contents

    Recovering in this way, I also found that there was:

• No need to admit your wrongs to anyone (It also isn’t necessary to do things such as admit to your boss that you stole things from work and then lose your job and risk jail etc).
• No need to make amends, unless you want to or need to.
• No need to pray or meditate, unless you want to or need to.

    When I was attending AA meetings, I was also given the impression by some members, that carrying the message was necessary in order to recover. I have also found that, for me, using this method of recovery, that this is not the case. Although there is nothing at all wrong with helping your fellow man or woman to recover, once you have done so yourself.

    

More About Critical Voices         Return to Contents

    Critical voices may mistake a lack of sleep for alcoholism, depression, mental illness, serious flaws etc, even after recovery, and may still keep you up, harass you and treat you badly, as if you are still not a normal human being. They may not be able to accurately judge a situation, over a distance, where aspects of a lack of sleep come into play. In order to remedy the situation, if they persist, once you have sufficiently recovered, you will need to get within 10 to 20 meters of them, possibly in a neutral location, through open-air, before they can accurately judge what is going on.  Making and uploading a facebook video of yourself that critical voices may be able to see, may also be very helpful.

     

Exercise and depression            Return to Contents

    My story

    After looking after my little brother for a few years, I ended up on my own again (whilst still suffering from mental illness) and I started feeling depressed and slowly getting worse and worse (I think due to a lack of company and activity etc) and started getting bad critical voices for it, which made things really bad, and I was starting to really suffer and someone suggested that I start exercising to try and pick myself up and I bought a boxing bag and some weights for sit-ups and started doing about half an hour of exercise every day. At first I couldn't tell if it was making any difference, but after around three to five days, I could start to feel a bit charged or good or up, which still didn't make a big difference in the short term, I wasn't really suffering badly anymore but I wasn't really out of trouble either, but after around two to three weeks, I was out of trouble and after around two to three months, I think I probably changed or something due to the exercise, and I kept exercising and I've never had a problem with it since.

    Any kind of exercise would also do such as kicking a soccer ball around, jogging, swimming etc and as little as 5 minutes per day just slightly puffing should do.

    A lot of research has also been done on the physical and mental effects of exercise, for more information please follow the following links.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurobiological_effects_of_physical_exercise#Euphoria

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurobiological_effects_of_physical_exercise#Short-term_effects

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurobiological_effects_of_physical_exercise

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurobiological_effects_of_physical_exercise#Long-term_effects

    If you begin exercising, apart from the strong antidepressant effects, you will also get less caught up in little things and be more able to see overall situations which can be a big help in recovery.

    Please also note: as mentioned above, if you begin exercising, it will take between 3 to 5 days before you begin to feel the effects.

Recovery Critical voices Sleep Depression Anxiety 12 step programs Medication Harassment, teasing etc Cheating Stealing Lying Lying about feelings Violence Anger and resentment Bad conduct Sex, Lust Dislikes of human defects Smokescreens Delusions Other liabilities

Cheating Stealing Lying Lying about feelings Violence Anger and Resentment Bad conduct Sex, Lust Dislikes of human defects Smokescreens Delusions Other liabilities