Anyone have friends ,family, co-workers or any online sites that, have any knowlege of effects of D/A on Aspie. ie. Higher instance of abuse, trouble with the law etc...

Anything small or large I cant seem to find much online (personal research) I have been looking for some wks now.

I react strangely to several different drugs. For instance, I needed demerol for pain control for kidney stones. While a single pill is supposed to make one feel less pain, 1/4 of a tablet is enough to basically knock me out for about 24 hours.

If I get even a small sip of alcohol I can be unconscious for hours and hours. I didn't even know about this till I got some alcohol in a dessert at a dinner. I noticed it, then woke up 3 hours later, having almost been taken to the hospital due to turning redder than a beet and no waking me up.

Since I react to many foods in bizarre ways too, I am very careful about taking different drugs. Corn - I become like I'm drunk. 2 popcorns is like 2 beers for someone else. Coffee - calms me down. 2 strong coffees and I can sleep deeply all night. Seafood - instantaneous projectile vomitting. St. John's Wort - makes me hyper, even though it is supposed to be a calming herb. That's just a few examples.

Since finding out about my son's dx I have highly suspected my father of having AS. He was an alcoholic most of his life. I beleive he used alcohol to self medicate, especially in social situations that he found difficult. He is certainly one of the most brilliant people I have ever met yet he has no real friends and stays home all day (in his thread bare pajamas) even though he is a retired doctor with plenty of money to do and go anywhere he wants (including buying some PJ's that are not worn so thin you can see through them!). He quit drinking about 10 years ago when he retired. He only ventures out when it is absolutely neccessary now.

I self med. for yrs. I quit in 91. so i understand that, im a better person for it, eventhough my x will tell you Im a dry drunk, whatever that it!

Don't know if you are being sarcastic ewallace, but just in case..... a drydrunk is someone who quit drinking but has not addressed the problems that led them to drink in the first place so they still have the same behavior and problems they are just not masking them with alcohol. They also refer to it as a white knuckle non-drinker. I don't think you fit either category as you are obviously dealing with your issues and trying to learn and grow. SMILEY FACE ICON here - still haven't figured out how to get my emoticons! Linda

No not being sarcastic, that is what she would say. I had no idea thats what it was. that would seem right as i did not understand Asperger's back than. I wonder if the two could be confused to some degree?

mom, Near as i can tell, you must push Reply or Quote-
Quick reply or quick quite wont bring up the emoticons.

Also i havent been able to use the cool ones i found on line. i think it the change over in site.

Thanks!

you are so cool

I
ditto - in regard to my dad. He is now on risperidone (minimal dose for psychotic symptoms related to heart failure). Since starting the risperidone is a much calmer man, much easier to be around.
My son self medicated with alcohol for a time - he used to make his own - it was an intense special interest for a time. He barely drinks at all now.

I have taken a lot of prescribed medication for my epilepsy over the years, some of which was probably horrific enough to be sold on the streets, and I would not even wish their symptoms on my most vindictive rival (family is family after all; *smiles wickedly*). There was one I took around the age of eleven at a dosage that was meant for someone around the age of thirteen or fourteen that knocked me for six: I remember going to a geography field trip (the school having ruled that my mother must attend because otherwise, they said, I couldn't go) and having to do all my essays again when I got home because there were great pencil lines on all of them from where I had just slumped across the paper in drowsiness; not long after being taken off it (because we read that that particular anticonvulsant had a reputation for causing "sudden death" in those that took it) my mother thought I was developing anorexia, but it turned out it was a side-affect of the new medication I was on: it gave me, literally, a phobia for food so much to the extent that the kitchen door at home had to be closed whenever a meal was being prepared or I couldn't go downstairs, and if I was asked what had been on the menu at school that day, my throat-muscles would constrict in sickness as I tried to name each food-item.

Most traumatic of all was one that I took just before I turned sixteen that turned me, basically, into an old man with Alzhemier's (sp?)- or perhaps schizophrenia: I would need help getting in and out of bed or up and down the stairs, would see and hear things that weren't there, and would find difficulty in distinguishing reality from dream or hallucination. I fell unconscious at one point and was rushed to hospital (where I apparently failed to recognise my mother when I opened my eyes) and when they put a piece of tubing on my arm I thought it was a snake. As for alcohol, I recently came dangerously near alcoholism after losing my grandfather, falling out with my aunt and being disowned by my grandmother within the space of a few weeks, but just about avoided it before it became majorly serious.

So all drug-takers and alcoholics I lose my AS armour to and sympathise a lot. It is a mystery to me- particularly with regard to drugs- why anyone would want to take them for fun.

I had plenty of problems with drinking, I was on the wagon more than off, but when I drank it was for one reason, To get drunk!
I would wake up with a hang over and swear by christ never again. Next weekend on the sofa with a pounding head ache. I would go in sperts some time as much as year and a half before i would drink. then within two weeks i was back on the wagon, cause i went overboard once i started back up. Im just glad i quit before my mother died she would worry so about us kids drinking.

this is how my son drunk - prior to getting his diagnosis he was on financial support due to his diagnosis of depression and anxiety. Soon as he got his benefit cheque he was off to the bottle store to buy 2 large bottles of vodka. He was miserable - alcohol drowned his misery.
Life was awful during those years.

Having a diagnosis and given time this behaviour stopped.

I am glad Ellen. Even more so as his grandfather was an alcoholic and the dependency issues so likely to run in families. My father and my ex-husbands fathers were both alcoholic so I watched my oldest boys like a hawk but they seem to be OK. Went to adult children of alcoholics when they were small to try to learn to break the chain. Linda

"Went to adult children of alcoholics when they were small to try to learn to break the chain. Linda[/quote]"

I had went many times to AA and thought it was a waste in the begining, it took years before all the info i recived started to click. But im happy so say it works give it time if need be. More is better when it comes to AA info, whatever form its recived in(aa, alonon, etc...)
Very wise and caring task to take on. As John Wayne would say "lets head'um off at the pass". You are a great mom for that act of true love.

Thanks Ewallace - it was so worth the effort. And, as usual when you are truly doing something for others, I got more out of it then I ever dreamed I would. It was painful at times but sure learned a lot about who I am. Linda