Who Took the Highroad, Who Took the Low Bottom

[Sobriety1st]

Hello, My name is Tonya, and i am an alcoholic, trying to understand more about myself and my recovery..In a conversation with a friend, he asked me if i was a "low" or "high" bottom? I asked him to explain the difference, he suggested i was a "high" bottom, considering i had not understood the difference between the two, and so, he suggested starting a thread here, to get input on this topic..I would appreciate any and all relations to this in your recovery..I am not sure what a "high" or "low" bottom is, but when i figure it out, by your responses, i will let you know what i believe myself to be..thank you..

[CarolD]

Hmmm..I do not use those terms..

There are 3 stages of alcoholism
according to "Under The Influence"

And when I quit I was middle stage.

Depression is why I began sobriety.

Thanks for the topic..

[Ngokpa]

One of the problems I have with AA literature is that it defines the alcoholic according to what was current at the time it was written--the round-the-clock sot with DT's and blackouts who makes the rounds to hospitals, jails, and asylums. Beyond The Influence says that's late stage; in the early stage it's still fun, but we are already alcoholics because non-alcoholics don't enjoy getting drunk that much. Middle stage means the fun isn't there so much, but it's still a refuge, but much of the reason we need a refuge is because we're alcoholic, but we don't put two and two together. Things get hairy enough in the middle stage, because the problems get bigger and the refuge gets smaller.

Powerlessness comes into question, because many alcoholics exhibit some control, being able to wait until noon or evening, or not drink for days or weeks at times; but their ability to control drinking decreases as the disease progresses. I rarely drank in the morning, but managed to put away a fifth a night--but I was doing it because of stress, never imagining where much of the stress came from.

I had a lot of emotional issues I had been postponing since I was a teenager, which I did first mainly with pot, and then with alcohol. And it worked. Then it didn't. Because AA focused almost exclusively on alcohol when I got sober, it was hard to call myself an alcoholic at first, especially when the Big Book discussed experiences I never had. AA has been an important tool, but I also needed Al-Anon, therapy, Buddhist meditation, and a little reading to better understand the disease in the way it relates to me.

[Music]

There are one or two vague references to high and low in AA literature but it really doesn't matter which stage a person is in as long as they realize the problem and do something about it. A "high" bottom to me is a person like my wife who only drank for about 3 years and went down fast. She's now been sober over 30 years. A low bottom is someone who may have spent some time on skid row, in a sanitarium, or jail and my have suffered some DTs before doing anything about their drinking.

If I were you Tonya, I'd tell your friend to stop comparing bottoms. It doesn't make any difference. Comparing myself to other drunks only leads to problems. I try to keep things simple. When someone talks about comparing bottoms, I check out how high they wear their pants. Try to find similarities, not differences. Safer that way.

[jlo34]

High bottom drunk vs low bottom drunk. Hmmm. Good question.

Low bottom drunk is the person who has lost everything...usually thought of as the homeless, desolate looking person. My definition? I guess that would be a person who has lost much, not just physically, but also spiritually and emotionally. Low bottom drunks seem to have a better chance, in my opinion, of staying sober because they are so broken and by the time they desire help, they want it with everything they have. They want to live and find a better way of life. For them, to drink is to die. The next bottom for them, is the grave.

High bottom drunk. This is a person who hasn't drank for very long. This person may have gotten a drunk driving and sent to AA or they are really aware and notice that their drinking is starting to get out of hand. Generally speaking, these people have a harder time staying sober because they haven't lost everything to the depths the low bottom drunks have. They struggle more, well, because, it "wasn't that bad....yet". They may have also lost a lot physically and some mentally, spiritually. But not to the extreme that the low bottoms have.

Why is it important to classify ourselves? I think so we understand how our disease is going to try to manipulate and lie to us. So we are better able to fight for our lives, our sobriety.

Carol said there were categories of drunks in the Big Book about the different types of drinker. This is located in the chapter, "To The Wives".

Additionally, yes the Big Book was written in the 1930s when the person seeking help would be a true low bottom drunk, near death's door. Things have changed in the past 70+ years, however, that doesn't mean that I can't relate (very well) with the thinking and the thoughts of those who were such "hopeless cases". I had my own desperation and hopelessness, and though I only drank for a short time, I had nothing for spiritual, I didn't have much left emotionally other than a whole lot of anger and rage. Physically, I was still doing ok, despite migraines, hangovers, and 3 ulcers. Thankfully, I didn't ruin my health. I'm one of the fortunates that was able to get sober very young. Despite all odds. Thankfully, I'm able to pass the 12 steps on to my kids and teach them all that I didn't know when I was their age; like how to deal with resentments and anger in a "good" way.

I owe my life to AA. AA is a program with a singleness of purpose. We deal with alcohol only because we don't have any opinion on any outside matters. Through a lot of trial and error with other groups and AA; the founders learned enough to set AA up with Traditions to help hold AA together. The Traditions save AA from individuals while the steps save the individuals. Not sure if that makes sense, but that's how it's been explained to me.

Kinda like a former employer use to say: "for every rule, there is a face". For every tradition there was a problem. AA's worked very well for thousands of people over the past 71 years. Who am I to say it needs to change for me?

Jen

[raynaadi424]

Great question Tonya. I think it's in the 1st step in the 12X12 that talks about the so-called high bottoms, about how they had to "raise the bottom" for drinkers, especially the younger ones who realized they had a problem with drinking and wanted to so something, but maybe hadn't hit the lows that so many had before them. I like the phrase in the back in the back of the Bigbook just before some stories about the "high bottoms", that says something like, "we didn't have to see the bottom, the bottom came up and hit us". For me, the yets kept me coming back, and still do. I had YET to get a DUI, I had YET to get arrested, I had YET to kill someone....but my drinking had become unmanageable. Am I a high bottom? Some might think so. My bottom wasn't as bad as some, but it was still MY bottom and what led me to the rooms. So yes, compared to some, my bottom was high, for me it was low enough. The healthy fear of going lower keeps me coming back, and keeps me in the center of the roof. =)

[laurie6781]

Tonya to be perfectly frank, it really doesn't matter. Some people get here with 'things' left, with family still hanging in there, and with a job. Others like myself, took it to the MAX, and lost everything, arriving bankrupt in every area of their life, material, friendships, financial, spiritual, and emotional. I was the latter. I had to die in an emergency room and have the Dr start to write the TOD on my chart.

Doesn't matter really, the question really is are you now WILLING TO GO TO ANY LENGTHS TO STAY SOBER?

J M H O

Love and (((((to all))))),

[Rusty Zipper]

as far as online recovery goes, it is a good jump start to recovery ... it will never be the same as a one on one, two, or three ... or a room full of people... face to face as we say .... i'm that friend that asked the question... as tonya, considers me a freind, and i her ... shes in the A.A. recovery program... and thats what AA mentions... yep, its in step-1, the one were suposed to be able to get and understand ... on a daily basis... its a fair question to ask... so knock the crap off ... and of course, all the feelings are the same ... hi or low .. the insecuritys, the low self-esteem, the feelings of less then... we all can pick and choose what we like in recovery... thats yet again... choice .... i see on a daily basis in the rooms, young people, with not much time of useing, long timers, gutter people, cush'y cush'y people, middle of the road people ... i have seen lots of death, some soon to die ... the one thing we have in common ... The Rat ... the Rat named addiction ... so to have a better understaning of the person we are tring to give back to, its good to know where their coming from ... " Bottom Line"... so yep, the writings of the books are a little out dated ... addiction is not!

all good wishes to you tonya, and as you do with me, give only love...

xxoo and bless ... your recovery buddy, Rusty (...)

so to who has taken the high road, and to those that have taken the low road, i hope i dont see ya in rehab befor ya ... or dead ...

thank you soberrecovey for all you have done to give back to me!

[scootinbabe]

can there be a rollercoaster with no bottom ;-) ?

that might fit me...i guess we'll see!

[Zoei]

Hi Tonya,

Sounds to me like, by reading the post's you've already received, you've got your answers. I myself am both. But it doesn't matter. I'm here and I plan to stay and work the program.......Let's keep coming back!!!

Big Hugs,
Judy

[michski]

Jeez, I think what needs to be said here is that one person's low bottom may be another's high bottom. We all bottom out at different levels, but I would say jail, institutions and death would be a low bottom for me. Luckily I never had to do that. Does that make me a high bottom?. Nope. For people who have had to do those things (except death!) it's possible that those things still would've made them a high bottom.

[rose petals]

hey
ido believe there are high and low bottom--thats my perception and my experience--i see there are variances to each one--imho people say there is no such thing but from the way i see it there clearly is--low bottom, imo. is rock bottom. bottom of the barrel--variances for sure but--i dunno for me--lying in my own filth unable to walk because like the alcohol had made my muscles stop working--losing my children because i was a hopeless drunk--and i mean HOPELESS--(i now believe noone is hopeless--i am living proof) --ive never hardly got to know my older two--i just get to see them once a year, (they live out of state)--jails, institutions --yes--death, well im still alive, but felt the breath of death breathing down my neck many times"low bottomers" will know what im saying--the most horrifying alcohol withdawls --so heinoes i cant even describe it--drinking morning noon and night--constant vomiting--bleeding--rotting--prostitution for alcohol--paranoid--gone mad--insane--no family left that would talk to me--still not--on and on and on and on--alcohol peremeted every fiber in my being--i seeped alcohol as my organs rotted and my brain fried--honestly i do look on here and see lots of people who are here that say well i drink everyday, a pint a night or a 12th or a six pack and thats high bottom if you ask me--my opinion and i have a right to it--of course i always could be wrong--but thats how i see it today--but i am glad, if its problematic,even slightly , that these people could consider quitting--more power to you guys for sure--awesome--nothing is set in stone and im fully aware my opinions might chandge and sway over time--i often wonder. did anyone else go down that far?--i rarelysee anybody here say the have and i sometimes get a case of terminal uniquness
Laura

[BigSis]

I think I was between early and mid stage drinking... bingeing every weekend - which was starting to stretch beyond the weekend.

A break when I got married... then a few "typical" parties - only now I was married, so I went home with HIM! Except... our behaviors were nasty and terrible for a married couple. So we stopped going to parties.

Separated ourselves ENTIRELY from every person we partied with. Never went to bars and started a family and couldn't afford booze anymore anyway.

To a social drinker...my stop-drinking point would look "low". To someone in the hospital or jail... it would look "high". It was low enough that I don't want to go back out, because where I left off would be only the jumping off point.

[Sheryl85]

When I came into the program in ’85 my sponsor told me to read the preface to the second set of personal stories in the Big Book (Third Edition) entitled “They stopped in time.” It helped me a lot to understand that I qualified for this program even though I had been described as a “high” bottom drunk. She went on to tell me about a conversation that she had had early on in her sobriety (she has 32 years now) in Houston with a lady they called Carney Mary. She had asked Mary about the difference in low bottoms and high bottoms. At the time she asked Mary they were working in what was then a place to help drunks sober up. (Mainly it consisted of babysitting them, giving them a mixture of honey and orange juice, and manning the “puke” buckets when the person couldn’t hold down any food or liquids.) Mary’s reply was to point at the poor folks who were head down in their buckets and say, “When you’re bending over a puke bucket, Rachel, all them bottoms look the same.”

Today I don’t really think that the level of your bottom is all that important. High or low it takes what it takes. It’s the feelings that we have when we reach here that are the most important. When we become willing to take direction and finally surrender, that’s what really counts because then we have become teachable.

By the way, what I usually share with my girls as my definition of a bottom…a bottom is any place that you stop digging.

[miss communicat]

For me, it was "Spin Cycle" all the way. And, not "delicate" or "fluff dry" either....

But, seriously, this IS a helpful discussion. Thank you Tonya and Patrick for starting it. Whatever words we use, and there will be newer phrases every now and then, it seems important that we relate to the common denominators: alcoholism, powerlessness, desperation, and hopelessness, which we all surrender in the face of, to a varying degree and do not fool ourselves into believing that we are not as bad off as the next person.

We could be if we continue to drink.

[Rusty Zipper]

posted by scoot'n ... can there be a rollercoaster with no bottom ;-) ?

that might fit me...i guess we'll see!

IMO, i believe there can ...

if it does, and can stop.

please dont buy another ticket!

agw & gol, ........................... xxoo RZ

[Sobriety1st]

Thank you all for your opinions, and insights and sharing..i have been thinking about it, and reading your posts, i would have to say i have seen both..i began drinking at the age of 13-14 on a reg. basis, by 20-24, i had 3 dui's which i totalled 2 of those cars, and both times had kids in the car, went to jail, did things that i am not even able to begin to forgive myself for, but then 8 yrs. ago, i met my husband, a man without a drink for 10 yrs. at that time, so, i became a very different drinker..didn't go to the bars, didn't sleep around, didn't drink and drive, didn't get in any trouble, just drank in my home behind closed doors, but i beleive the difference for me was, before 8 yrs. ago, it didn't really bother me, i was numb to it all..i didn't wake up with remorse, fear, worry, or any of that..i just started all over again, but the last 8 yrs. it is totally different..i guess because i premediated my drinking, as to the time of day, the day of the week, ect. and i didn't tell my husband (he works out of town most of the time), and i would lie if he asked me..i woke up spiritually broken, full of remorse, full of fear, and full of regret everytime..and i was so spirtitually malnutrioned that i felt asking GOD to forgive me everytime was useless..i didn't enjoy the drinking as i did before, i guess because i was a lone drinker and a drinker that hid it from all..so, i went from a full blown alcoholic, to a closet alcoholic, but the outcome was still the same spiritually..i was dead inside, it took days to feel that i had beat myself up enough to forgive myself, and by then the week day would come for me to drink, and the cycle began again..today, i don't wake up spiritually neglected, and i have no lies to cover, and i have no remorse for the day before, and staying sober gives me that freedom..i am far from being stable in my recovery, i have a lot of work to do, but even though some of you may think that a high or low bottom doesn't really matter, it does to me only because it helps me learn more about myself, my recovery, and so Patrick, thanks for talking to me about that, and for the nudge to start this thread, it really has helped me take a step forward, as did all the sharing all of you have done..have an awesome day..