Epilepsy and marijuana

Hi Dayna -Something you said about the D.A.R.E. program also hit a nerve with me. Wasn't that spawned out of Nancy Reagon's incredibly naive campaign of "Just Say No"? Her Just Say No campaign was started at the time she was defending and explaining why wearing red all the time was smart and defending rigourously, even had a one hour TV special on this very hot little international topic, that red was a "neutral" color which seemed to be more important to her sensibilities than "Just Say No". That Just Say No was so pathetically naive I vascillated between out right fury to being incredulous someone didn't get her mouth taped shut before that became her "cause" to out right hilarity. And Nancy Reagon had to follow, without getting the hint apparently, very earthy I-admit-it -I'm-an-alcoholic Betty Ford? With - Just Say No? I thought that a little tacky.My husband is very open about this just so you know I'm not pulling the family's pants down here. He sponsors people but mainly has helped a lot of youth with alcoholism or addiction. He started drinking at the age of 10 and he was a very good example of being in terminal phases of alcoholism before he rehab'd. I divorced an alcoholic and was certainly not going to get into that trap again and in the year my second, and present husband, and I dated? I did not have ONE clue he drank as heavily as he did. I still can't imagine just from an anatomical point of view how he got so much liquid in his stomach! Impressive. It was also impressive to watch him go through rehab the first time with the shakes, anxieties, explosions, depressions etc then relapsed. Went through rehab again and this time got DT's. Which most people don't I was told. DT's - kill. After the second attempt, he came home and we had a deal his only job for 3 months was fighting to stay sober and doing all the things taught to him to do, one of which was he was going to 90 meetings in 90 days but what really kept him sober was nearly living at one AA hall. I had mixed emotions of huge admiration for him going through this hell of rehab, feeling sorry for him (which didn't go over big), and I'll be honest in my deepest of thoughts there were times I'd see him so miserable in those first early months of sobriety I'd think - good grief just drink it wasn't THAT bad! Of course now years later the effects of years of alcoholism are paying big time visits. Fourteen and a half years though of sobriety - I'm proud of him. Even though I haven't experienced rehab, I have participated as a spouse on his rehab units, lived with a first husband who repeatedly tried to quit drinking - and still does 22 years later and a second husband who went through "the cure" twice and I saw the misery he went through for quite awhile, the different miseries of others and THEN*******Nancy Reagon has the audacity and naivite as the First (memory loss. What do they call that) First Wonder Woman? Anyway JUST SAY NO ain't exactly to me anyway, understanding the problem. That is as cerebral as I can put it on a forum board. I put it much raunchier verbally to friends. That just slayed and infuritated me. I was going to write her an educational letter but thought I'd probably have the Secret Service pay me a visit.So IF Dayna you have gone through rehab and I'm only guessing, then I can not tell you and I mean this I have mountainous admiration for you. That takes a strength of soul and spirit I'm not sure, hope I'll never have to find out, if I have that strength or not. Plus statistically only 10% make it in the first 5 years. Way to go!I come from a large family. There were many adults in my family that were alcoholics. I really can't hold my booze at all plus i hate the way I feel but I know too watching the staggering members of my family during many get togethers was my child hood education too about substance abuse - without anyone saying a word. Consider this was in the l950's. But the alcoholics in my family sort of had, it seems to me now, "grades" of alcoholism such as it's okay for Uncle Elmer to drink so heavily even though it gave him what wound up to be end stage diabetes because HE still worked. That was an "okay alcoholic". Dismissed. NEXT! The two "drunk uncles", who were brothers and I NEVER knew their names, they were always just the "drunk uncles", couldn't work because they could barely walk but they were treated like family mascots and kind of coddled. Times they have changed!I think the D.A.R.E. program probably is as good as the person who leads it though. I can see from the course material how it could be just as vapid or dynamic as the person, in our community always a policeman, taught it. The GORGEOUS young policeman (pardon me but epilepsy didn't make me blind to eye candy!) who taught my children's program was a rehab'd drug/alcohol user. He made a very strirring image because he was gorgeous and very healthy appearing. That's just a fact and with 6th grade girls that made "impact", and then he used himself as an example, used very vivid and graphic personal histories that would almost make me wince at times, the difference in his life of drugging and drinking and sobriety, but he did get through to these kids. So you live in California huh? Did perchance Nancy Reagon teach your children the D.A.R.E. program and flip off a - just say no? (Just typing that phrase infuriates me). If someone wants to get recreationally high or smoke funky mushrooms? They should be able to induce some of the auras I get. Let's see, try out Alice in Wonderland. Or, have hallucinatory smells like burning chicken feathers. OR go auditory and hear "I'm home" very distinctly, when you're the only one in the house. OR one of my all time favorites is Jamais Vu, a sister to Deja. Or HEY - try toxic! That's always a great little trip through the mind zoo!Good grief - brains! I need a transplant.Gretchen

my neurologist....(not going to publish in a journal anywhere) on first visit suggested if i could "get my hands on marijuana" that there were studies that showed that it aided in lessening the incidence of seizures in some patients , particularly those w/ nocturnal seizures....this neuro. is spec. in epilepsy. ps...i am not taking tegritol...so i can't  comment on that.