I’d drink a glass or two (max) of wine three or four days of the week. Then, at forty-six, something happened to push me into the category of problem drinker—my seventeen year-old son Alex’s diagnosis with a serious mental disorder.  With the stress of seeing my first born in so much psychic pain, it took a half a bottle of wine a night to keep me “calm.” Unfortunately, by the time Alex got the right treatment and began to improve, I was broke, alone, and drinking—more.

There were immediate repercussions. My freelance work dried up, and, with no health insurance, my only option when I decided to seek help was to go to the nearest public mental health clinic—where they take everyone, no questions asked.

Now I can say thank God I finally “humbled myself” to go stand in line and wait my turn.

“There’s no question you have dual depression,” the balding middle-age psychiatrist I’ll call Dr. B told me after a five minute conversation.

“Can you explain that?” I asked him.

“The mild depression you’ve had since late childhood. As you get older, you’re having longer episodes of severe major depression, which your alcohol intake is only making worse. The crisis with your son has pushed you into the severe episodes you’re dealing with now.”

He nailed me in an astonishingly short time. Still, getting a diagnosis for something that has always been part of you—as well as the defining characteristic of your whole family—is a truly strange experience. Omnipresent depression doesn’t feel like a symptom, it becomes a personality trait, and, I’ve since learned, this is the reason why most people with it don’t get treatment.

After finally surrendering to reality and accepting Dr. B’s prescription for antidepressants, I became a poster child for their benefits. Within a year, my income tripled. I moved from Los Angeles to my present home in San Francisco, leaving behind the last of my unavailable (read married) boyfriends and years of underemployment in the chaotic TV business.

After a few years on my meds, I did a brief run of psychotherapy. It was something I’d tried before for my depression, to no avail. This time, however, it worked, allowing me to make room for some new ways of thinking and behaving: like having an expectation that I would be liked; hell, just doing my taxes or the dinner dishes on time. I plan to stay on antidepressant medication for the rest of my life. The data on getting off them after lifelong major depression is not good. Most people relapse and have another episode of major depression within a year—and I don’t plan to be one of them.

Ultimately to keep the practical and emotional gains I’d made in my life, I had to to give up my beloved wine habit. It turns out that for me (and many others), daily or regular alcohol intake fights against the positive benefits of taking an antidepressant. One major reason is that I can’t seem to drink moderately anymore; one glass soon becomes two and three and so on. Finally, looking back, I see that my drinking had more often than not been an attempt to feel less. Now, when I allow myself to surrender to feeling anxious or sad, these emotions no longer need to be squashed. Low and behold they say their piece, and before long fade away.

So today, I’m sober and my depression is under control. Instead of a nightly wine habit, I end most days with a cup (or two or three) of herbal tea. Sure, like anyone, I’ve still got my swings. But it's not as though there aren't other "allowable" substances to stir the psyche: indeed, with two strong cups of coffee in the morning, and, if I’m feeling a bit low, a mid-afternoon bar of chocolate, I can honestly say I’m doing great.

Victoria Costello is a blogger for Psychology Today and MentalHealthMomBlog. She is also the author of the new memoir A Lethal Inheritance, A Mother Uncovers the Science Behind Three Decades of Mental Illness, available Jan/2012 from Prometheus Books.