Zdenek's Story: A Journey Out of the Darkness of Bipolar Disorder

Zdeněk struggled with bipolar disorder for over 25 years. Thanks to treatment at the NEO Center, he found a path to recovery and has been living depression-free for five years. Be inspired by his story and find out that it is never too late to change your life.

How Zdeněk fights his illness

I have been struggling with depression and manic depression for 25 years, now called bipolar disorder. For 25 years I searched for something or someone to help me. I found some relief with medication, therapy and yoga, I accepted my condition and learned to live with it.

I once tried to relieve my depression with alcohol, it was a disaster. I was paralyzed for a month and couldn't do anything, I couldn't even get out of bed. I took pills and tried to sleep everything off.

But then I found the NEO Center. I experienced six weeks of intensive therapy at NEO and after 25 years, a turning point came, a miracle! I have been free of depression for 5 years, healthy and without any problems.

I am grateful for everything that happened, I regret nothing. Without it and without Neo, I would not be happy today.

At the slightest hint of depression, I return to NEA for a few days. It helps me stay in shape and manage my personal life and business.

NO thank you

Do you need help?

Director of the NEO Center outpatient clinic, psychologist and psychotherapist Markéta Miláčková Čermáková on Zdeněk's story

Can we say that someone who regularly takes medication for a serious illness is abstinent?

In the case of clients with addiction problems, it is appropriate to avoid medication with addictive potential. However, asking a person who is abstaining from addictive substances to stop taking the medication they need (e.g., treatment of bipolar affective disorder requires medication) would be a senseless gamble. On the contrary, properly prescribed and used psychiatric medication is very often necessary to maintain abstinence - for example, when someone suffering from depressive states drinks alcohol to suppress the symptoms of these mental disorders, taking correctly prescribed medications and working therapeutically, this significantly contributes to their sobriety. Bipolar affective disorder (for example) cannot be completely cured, only stabilized and the client taught how to work with it, how to protect themselves.

Is a six-week stay enough for an addict to abstain?

A six-week stay can give him a good start so that he can manage to abstain in an unprotected environment. In six weeks of a psychotherapy stay, such as the one we offer at the NEO Center, we can unravel the causes that led to addiction, risk factors for the resumption of addictive behavior, and factors that will support abstinence. However, to maintain what has been set, it is necessary to work systematically and long-term. We usually talk about a year of change. So a year is needed to work very intensively to maintain changes that support abstinence, or sobriety, as we prefer to say. But abstinence, sobriety, is a lifelong process.

Is there a major life event that is a major risk factor for relapse (trigger)?

When something in our lives derails us, we tend to return to familiar behavior, even if we know that this behavior was harmful to us. This is completely natural. However, there are many more risks of a possible return to addictive behavior, they are very individual and some cannot be prevented. Therefore, it is always good to have a space where I can name my own risks, examine them, prepare for them, and at the same time set up and strengthen mechanisms that will help me cope well with risky/challenging situations in a way that will not harm me (unlike addictive behavior).

We are accredited by the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic

CERAD s.r.o. holds the accreditation of the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic for the implementation of the specialized educational program "Healthcare Psychologist - Clinical Psychology"