Four years ago I found myself working a full-time job, a part time job, and going to school as a doctoral student. I had just moved to a new neighborhood and started a relationship. I was, to put it mildly, stressed out. I was coping by drinking more that was good for me. I didn't like that I was drinking two to four cocktails a night. I had seen a psychologist years ago, and I thought talking about returning to see one to help with the stress. I attempted to act responsibly and contacted my physician of five years and asked him to recommend a psychiatrist who took my insurance. This he did, and I went.

The psychiatrist's office had all the trappings of a successful practice, an Upper East Side New York office in a prominent doorman building. On my first visit, I told him my tale of stress and woe, and he took copious notes. He prescribed two well known drugs. One was an anti-depressant, and the other was something to help me sleep. I knew of others who took these drugs, and I didn't think them dangerous. I was also up front with the doctor just how much I was drinking, which was several cocktails a night.

Because of limited insurance payments, I was allowed to return a month later. The doctor could not find his notes from my previous visit. He gave me another prescription which was different from the first. I didn't think much of it because I did have the old prescription left. Besides, I'd been taking the drugs he already prescribed for four weeks and noticed no effect. Over the next several weeks, however, I noticed that I was becoming more stressed and acting "hyper." I say I noticed this, but it really didn't register. There's an old saying "the fish can not conceive of the water in which it swims," and it did not register that the medication was having unintended effects. I noticed that my handwriting was getting messy and crabbed because I was getting so stressed. On top of it all, I found out that someone was working very hard to get me fired from my job.

On my partner and my anniversary dinner, things seemed to get out of control. After two glasses of champagne I really didn't know what I was doing. I began acting irrationally and eventually, after an argument, ran out of the house -- to get hit by a cab. I woke up seven hours later bruised and in a hospital; but worse than my bruises was the fact that I just wasn't thinking correctly. I insisted that I be taken home, and I was. What ensued was a week of hell. I lay in bed sweating and hallucinating. I was oversensitive to sounds and light. I could hear the wind rustling through the blinds in the bedroom. I "saw people" in the apartment who weren't there. Worst of all there was a music playing in my head which I couldn't stop. I thought the music was coming from the walls. I was nuts. I can't imagine suffering for a lifetime what I suffered for a week. Forever will the mentally imbalanced have my most profound sympathy. I learned later that the combined effects of the mis-prescribed drugs increased my sensitivity to input from my senses (hearing, light, etc), but decreased by ability to process it.

Two of my family members arrived from New England to help. The odd thing was that I had fits of normalcy and I was convinced that my sister and my cousin were coming for a social visit. When they arrived they tried to convince me that I was not acting normal, but of course I couldn't understand that. I told them that I wanted to take a nap and then I'd take them to a favorite restaurant of mine for dinner. As I was laying down I could hear them talking about me. I don't recall what it was that I heard, but I went running from the bedroom and attacked one of my relatives with a chair. I don't remember much after that, except fighting with ambulance attendants. I woke up in one of New York's neighborhood hospitals tied to a bed. I was still hallucinating.

Now up to this point, this is an unpleasant story. It should have ended here. I had been given four different medications in a month, and they had literally, enhanced by alcohol (I don't even recall drinking) made me insane. My family was involved and with me at the hospital. They saw the hospital as unsuitable. It was a large, urban hospital in a bad neighborhood, and the place was overcrowded and filthy. I had decent insurance and they felt that I would be better off at a private hospital. My family, unaware of the situation and attributing it to drinking, contacted the doctor who prescribed the drugs. He arranged for me to be sent to a small, private hospital that, as it turns out, he has a financial interest in. I was strapped into a cot and taken away.

During the journey in the ambulance I managed to get my hands loose, and I was aware that I wanted to escape. When we arrived at the hospital I tried just that, but enough of my brain was working to realize that not only did not know where I was, but clad only in a dirty bathrobe, even in my confused state, I knew I wouldn't get far looking like that. The hospital sent several muscular orderlies to the ambulance to get me. I was stripped of my bathrobe and thrown screaming and naked into a small room with carpeted walls. My clothes were taken and the room was cold. The orderlies came in and gave me a shot of something and in an hour, I was out. My two relatives were convinced that they had done the right thing. They left the next morning back to New England.

I woke up much better and, surprisingly, clearheaded. The room was a distressing place, slightly bigger than a closet and just about big enough for a mattress which was screwed into the floor. I asked to be let out. Some guard outside the door refused. After a few hours I was given some food to eat -- and I was starving, not haven eaten for several days -- a was given a hospital bathrobe and a new gown. The guard gave me a new sheet "because the psychiatrists don't like to see dirty bedclothes." I remember those words exactly. By this time I was getting quite claustrophobic. The room was cold and covered on walls and on the little of the floor not taken up by a hard mattress with a depressing brown carpeting. One window looked into an alleyway. There was a small glass window by the door, but you really couldn't see out. A guard was somewhere nearby.

Eventually a psychiatrist came and asked me a few questions and promised that I'd be let out if I promised to behave. Several hours later I was let out and was allowed to take a shower. I was taken to a ward, again, If I promised "to behave." Thinking of the dismal room, the smell of urine in the corner, and the choking claustrophobia, I readily agreed.

I was shown to a depressing room with four beds in it, which was adjoined to a dirty bathroom and some "day room" for about 30 or 40 people -- most of whom I was to learn later were drug addicts, crack cocaine and methadone mostly. I also met several other people who seemed quite normal to me, and who claimed that they had been incarcerated there. I was to spend all of my time this ward, mingling with homeless crack addicts, methadone abusers, the mentally ill, and several manic depressives shuffling around like zombies. Eventually a female psychiatrist (or so I imagine, she wouldn't tell me who she was) said that I would have to stay at this hospital for "a while." I told her this was unacceptable and that I wanted to leave. She said we'd discuss this "later" and that my doctor was the one who had originally given me the incorrect prescriptions and who had convinced my family to send me to this depressing hospital. The place didn't even have air-conditioning -- or didn't choose to use it -- despite it being a hot September.

In order to stay in the ward, and not to be thrown back into the prison cell, I had to attend about two or three AA meetings per day, as well as all sorts of counseling groups. I repeatedly asked to leave and was told that my doctor was "away" and that that decision had to be deferred. They kept calling me to the medical station to drink a liquid which was "good for" me. I later learned that it was thorazine. There was no way in hell I was going to take that, despite their explaining that it was a "mild dose." I argued with myself whether it would be better to drink the stuff or risk being thrown back into the filthy cell. I decided that no matter what, I would not drink it.

To make a long story short, I was released three days later. The reason I was released is not because I was better, which I most certainly was, but because my insurance would not cover the original thirty day "deal" the doctor had made with my family. I was very fortunate. You see, once the doctor's drugs had cleared my system after about 12 hours, I was again perfectly sane. During my three day imprisonment, I was given all sorts of excuses why I could not be let out, and eventually I was supplied with a state-generated form signed by my sister and cousin, that I could be kept there indefinitely. I was simply in shock that a cousin and a sister with whom I rarely speak could incarcerate me in a dirty and depressing hospital indefinitely. Along with this, I was given all sorts of excuses, such as "the cells in your body are still craving alcohol, we can't let you out yet." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Other inmates in this institution had similar stories. "But there's nothing wrong with you," I would tell them. Most, however, were convinced that they were damaged goods, and three times a day we would be assembled for a lecture, or a discussion group, or a counseling group who told us that we were damaged goods. That was the AA philosophy coming in.

As I say, I was fortunate, I got out. One young man who had been incarcerated on the day I had, asked me how I "got out" so soon. Wed had become friendly, because he and I were gay. The vast majority of the inmates of the place were serious drug addicts and tough customers, so we hung out together for safety. I told him that my insurance wouldn't cover my intended 30 day stay -- and I added "thank God!" He started to cry. It seems he had a wealthy family with tons of insurance which would pay to keep him there.

I started crying when I got home, home thankfully with a supportive partner and a secure, clean and private apartment. The first thing I did was to take a shower to get the filthy smell of the place off of me. I decided to take a week off work to think things through. I didn't drink for three months to see if what AA was telling me was true -- that I was a weak and diseased person, "damaged goods." I contacted the hospital to try to find out what happened. They, at first, refused to give me any assistance or any information. They asked me to come for "counseling"; later I learned that that was covered by my insurance. In short, they refused to give me the records. Eventually after months of letter writing, as well as reporting the hospital to the state medical authorities, I got the my medical records.

I couldn't believe what I read: The records indicated that I use cocaine -- a blatant lie. The records stated that I was a long-time alcoholic, which I am not. However, the real reason for my incarceration in a filthy and depressing hospital -- the fact that I was prescribed four counterindicated drugs within four weeks -- was hidden in illegible "doctor's" handwriting on page five of the document. This was in contrast to the neatly written "summary" which the hospital had to prepare for me by state law, and which made no mention of the handwritten doctor's notes. The doctor had prescribed two sets of drugs he should have not.

Eventually, after dozens of letters and request forms, I was "allowed" to speak to the head physician of this hospital to ask him "why the errors," "why the lying?" He was not forthcoming to say the least; he maintained that I was a paranoid, and an alcoholic, that I should have been hospitalized, and that I was as yet unwilling to take full account of my "responsibility in the matter."

After this horrible incident I took stock of my self. I've got a professional job. I've only been unemployed for two weeks since leaving college twenty years ago. I've paid my rent on time. I keep two jobs. I'm in a committed and caring relationship. I even can keep two cats fed and happy. I'm a doctoral candidate at an excellent university with an A average. How can I be the raving alcoholic AA tells me that I am. And, ultimately, why do I have to defend myself for getting sick at the hands of some doctor. What's worse, the intervention of the doctor who mis-prescribed drugs, as well as the "officials" at the hospital have convinced my family that I am a raging alcoholic, almost incapable of tying my own shoes. That I keep an apartment, a relationship, doctoral studies, and a good job going, seems not to matter. If I take just one little drink, I'll end up back locked up in a urine-smelling prison cell. This is nonsense.

I believe this doctor either intentionally mis-prescribed these drugs, or mis-prescribed them through incompetence. After several attempts at complaining to state and federal agencies, it didn't seem worthwhile to pursue the matter. You see, AA's philosophy has a stranglehold on any discussion about drinking. AA members told me, quite clearly, when I was imprisoned in the filthy and depressing hospital, that drinking was the primary cause of my drug addiction. I don't have a drug addiction and I am not an alcoholic, but I know that I will never convince them of this fact.

What I do know is that a doctor and a hospital welcomes the AA philosophy -- no, "welcome" is too strong a word, encourages an overwhelming AA philosophy. It does this because if AA's philosophy is true, then they can take my money, or my family's or my insurance's money and keep me incarcerated for 30 days or more, so that I can, in AA's phrase, "get it." I believe this is a crime. It is my opinion that this doctor makes his living by treating people, and getting them to a hospital he is intimately involved with, and keeping them there and taking their money. It is my opinion that this hospital keeps in business by allowing the AA philosophy and the AA presence to oppress people, to take their free will and their minds from them.

After my hellish three days in this filthy and disgusting hospital, I took a week off and thought about the matter. Then I returned to work, to my doctoral studies, and, you know what, I've done just fine -- no I'm doing excellent. And I do drink when I feel like it, and guess what, I ;haven't gone insane or ended on skid row. AA's philosophy is patently false, illogical, and a menace to people. That discussion is out in the open and growing. I am no longer alone in knowing that AA is a dangerous thing. The discussion which needs to be engendered now is how the medical and political establishment has appropriated a grossly destructive phenomenon and uses it to its financial advantage.

I was used, and my family was used, by the medical establishment not to help me, but to take my money, and, more importantly, my spirit. This I have not allowed to do. Nor should anyone.

And a reminder: If you're under a doctor's care for depression or anxiety, don't assume for an instance that he has your best interests at heart. Don't assume that the drugs you are taking are safe.