Imagine

In my case I had to hit bottom on every part of my life I needed to change, before recovery and in recovery. The hardest thing for me to do is to admit complete defeat, on anything. I say to myself, I know what I did wrong, so next time it will work, or that happened because I was to honest and up front with people, or I don't need to drink so much when I'm on that s&!t. Something bad always has to happen to make me ask questions like, why do I have to be High 24/7? Why is it easier for me to be withdrawn and dishonest with everyone, myself inclued? And why would I ratter take an a** beaten instead of taken someone's advice? As for this addict, I'm so affaid of change, that I have to go thru so much pain that any kind of change is better than going thru that again. Let's have a on-line step ONE study.

Paulie

Powerlessness....yep been there many many times in my life and in my recovery. Being aware of it, remaining teachable that is what works. When I think I know what I am doing, I am setting myself up for failure.

lonlion

Hi, I think hitting bottom is different for each of us. Not all addicts/alcoholics lose their homes, families, and possessions, some just get tired of the way their lives are. They accept that they have a problem and need to seek help.

Sounds to me that you are getting real about your problem and about yourself and your behaviours. You acknowledge that you are afraid of change. Journey of self discovery is huge! Give yourself a gold star, and keep coming back.

Take care,
Big NA hugs,
Diana

REZ

I agree that people hit different bottoms. Some people have to go lower than others. For me, my bottom was a relatively high one. I had not lost a lot of the things or done a lot of the things that other people do. I just reached a point where I could live with myself any longer. The drugs weren't doing the trick anymore. I would use, and then wonder "why am I using again?" But then I would come down of the drugs and want to use again. I was really stuck. I couldn't enjoy life with or without drugs.

Phinneas

Hey, Jerome. Good to see you.

I was discussing this with a friend in recovery just last night. She has had a gradual slide into alcohol and drugs for 20 years or so. No catostrophic events, just ever increasing disatisfation and misery. I, on the other hand, didn't meet my DOC until I was 32 but then it was all over. In less than 2 years I lost everything I cared about - great job, fairy tale marriage, house, car, license, etc. I was brought to my knees, believing that death was the only way out, before I got recovery.

The difference in out paths brought out one very critical point - today I KNOW with every fiber of my being that I am an addict and that I cannot go back, no matter what. She is still testing the waters, thinking, well, maybe it wasn't so bad.

I am not grateful that I suffered the pain and devestation of my disease, but I AM grateful that my low bottom removed any and all doubts about step one for me.

Sugah

There are some folks who, no matter what problems they've encountered as a result of using, won't surrender until they're staring death in the face - if even then.

Sugah raises her hand, "That was me!

I was the walking poster child for why willpower really doesn't work in overcoming addiction. I was willful alright - to the point of being clinically dead on more than one occassion and still thinking I could control my using.

On the other hand, I sponsor a girl who just celebrated a year sober - and her bottom was reaching age 28 and realizing she hadn't reached any of the goals she set for herself at 18 - that alcohol had become her god and controller. She surrendered. I admire that, just as I admire the junkie who walks into the room thirty pounds underweight and about six months overdue for a shower.

I won't tell any young person, "You haven't been beaten bad enough yet. Go back out there and don't come back until you're ready to surrender." Keep coming back and share your experience (it will surely keep someone in the rooms clean and sober another day). Sometimes, it comes in stages. They hear us say, "It doesn't get any better." They find out it's true, and powerlessness begins to seem a little less like a failure and a little more like the pathway to freedom.

Like the girl I work with, a bottom can be a conscious decision that it doesn't have to get any worse. With someone like me, well, I had to stop fighting - stay out there until all the fight was out of me, in order to surrender - and win.

Sure, everyone needs a bottom. I know that if I pick up a drink or a drug, I have no choice in picking up the second (or third, fourth, etc). I also believe that, again, so long as there's breath, there's a choice in how low my bottom must be.

The tragic thing is way too many of us have often misjudged how much lower we could go before that proverbial elevator lands with a hollow thud. There's no coming back from the ultimate bottom.

If you're clean today, you're blessed. It never has to be that bad again. Don't forget that.

Peace & Love,
Sugah

gratefulgal

Addicts are on an elevator going down and we can get off on any floor we want.

namommy

I believe we all hit several 'bottoms' along the way.

If something happened to me just 'once' that wouldn't have been enough to convince me that there was a problem.

If I ran out of money one night, that was a bottom for that day. Or if I got ripped off by a trick, that was a bottom. Got caught by the cops, oops there goes another bottom.

For me it was a series of bottoms that finally brought me to the point of desperation. Even after hitting my last bottom, I know that I could still find a way to dig deeper if I wanted to. I still have thoughts sometimes of what it would be like if I were to pick up again. I would surely hit many more bottoms if I were to do that.

I have a friend who lovingly calls me a 'bottom feeder' Not only did I hit bottom, but I lurked around there for a long time trying to feed off of the other scum that was there with me. Not ready to accept that as my bottom. Not yet ready to surrender.

For me, God had a tough job on his hands trying to open the steel trap that my mind had become.

Imagine

Thanks everyone for the great shares. What got me started on this was really needing to let go of some stuff I have been tring so damn hard to control the out come of. My sister has cancer and nothing her Doctors try are working, see was put under the care of Hospice a few months ago. The other day she said a Doctor in FL believes he can help, I said to myself "yell-help himself to her insurance money." I want her to make it thru this, but she has been thru so much the past years, and I know she is so damn tried that she wants it to be over,one way or another. She told me she has put it in God's hands and that's what she wants be to do. The years of my using almost took its toll on our brother/sister relasonship. With the help of my HP thru my 8th and 9th steps she has forgave me, and I understand why she gave me the hard times she always did when I was out there, it's that love thing she has for her little brother. She remembers the pain and fear our Mother with thru when she found out I was born with a bad heart, and everything the family went thru the years after the operation, until the Doctors said I was going to make it. And then to see me tring to throw it all away with my using had to just p!$s her off. And when I had my first birthday in NA, her and her family was at my brithday party at my homegroup, meet my NA family, and my sponsor. When I was going thru that treatment for hep-c and was to weak to even drive, she took me to my Doctor appts. See; she would not support me thru my stupidtily, but when I needed her she was always there. Turning her life over to the care of God, is so much damn harder than turning my own. Does this mean I'm still having problems believing in a power greater than myself? Thanks for letting me share all this, sometimes it's easier for me to write about it than it is to share in a meeting.

BeginAgain

Hi - for me the bottom was a requirement. There was no other way. In my case as long as I had no consequences I could continue to justify my using. Everything was a-okay. I didn't loos my house, or go to jail, or loose my children or my job - so every bottom is different I suppose. For me it was more of a spiritual emptiness, a loneliness, a feeling of the old saying "being sick and tired or being sick and tired". It was only when I could see that the endless loop of addicition was like a prison that was keeping me sick that I became willing to try and do something about it. I used to numb the pain, or feel better about myself or to forget. But it was only temporary. The next day all that stuff was still there and you can add in the resulting guilt and shame for good measure. So what would I do? Use some more like any good addict. Use and regret - use and regret.

I can't overpower my addiction. It controls me - not the other way around. If I can apply that concept to other situations in my life I'll be much happier. I can't overpower the circumstances of my life either, but I can learn to accept them and try to look at them in a different way. It is a learning process. I'm not so good at working the first step in all areas of my life. Part of my failure was working the steps only on my drug use and addiction. I was clean 11 years and relapsed. Plain and simple - I didn't work this program in all areas of my life. It caught up with me. I am now a little over 60 days clean again and I'm trying really hard to practice the principles of this program in all my affairs.

Thanks for letting me share. For me it really boils down to accepting and understanding exactly what my signature says below. Repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results is pure insanity.

Jared112987

I too had to hit rock bottom before I made the huge change in my life almost 7 months and 3 weeks ago. I had many things occur within a period of time which led up to hitting rock bottom. I was living the life...popular, biggest party kid in school, the one noone could out do, biggest supplier in school even as a freshmen, always high as kite, always had no less than ounce on me and always plenty of money. I bit the bullet many times and always managed to not get caught. I used to walk around school with a QP in my pockets. I'd have an ounce in both of my cargo pockets and an ounce in each of my regular pockets of my shorts, along with 1-3 bowls. I thought I was better than everyone else because I did more than anyone and never got caught. Once I even got so drunk in class that the next class I drank another water bottle of straight vodka, ate my friends g/f's birthday cake, yelling "hahahah it's my birthday.", then standing on desks yelling "I'm lord of the classroom." We had a substitute teacher that day who knew and liked me and did nothing. Well I guess one of the kids in class thought I was having a little too much fun probably one of the kids who didn’t drink or do drugs that my friends and I could have been not so nice to decided to go report what was going on to the principal. Well it was Friday last mod of the day before April vacation and the vice principal walked into the room, by this time I was sitting down with my friends. He asked me to go out in the hall with him and to bring my bag and I did so. I had a water bottle with basically nothing left in it and would have had nothing if my other friend's g/f didn’t take the booze from me earlier, along with a gatorade with barley anything drank out of it. We got in the hall and he asked me to see the bottles...I handed him the gatorade and he asked for the other, I said "No" and turned around running with a back pack with all my books in it. Our VP was all states in football and track and tackled me in the hall I saw him coming from a reflection in the glass of the door and positioned my self so that when he tackled me he got my elbow in the abdomen. A teacher saw the incident and immediately called down the office and reported how outrageous it was and how I had been assaulted by the VP. I was given a 10 suspension from school, and escaped arrest because he would have lost his job and been arrested as well for assault. He felt the 2 ounces I had in my pockets as well as pipes but knew if he searched me he would have had to have me arrested. My friends and I would also smoke and drink in a room in school every class and everymorning and never got caught. Then finally sh*t hit the fan in Nov 2004. 3 days before my 17th birthday I had just picked up and 2 friends and I were driving around smoking and drinking, apoximately 20 something bowls were smoked in the car, and I had taken 9 vicoden over the course of the day. Next thing I know we crashed into a rock. We all got out and ditched the beer in the woods. An SUV then drove by and told us they had a scanner and the cops were coming and to get in if we had drugs. One friend jumped in because he was on house arrest and I was about to when my friend who was driving begged me not to leave him. I then didn’t go with the suv and didn’t ditch my drugs either. The cops came and the one who got there first was a friend of my dads and let me call my mom to come get me. He was keeping me away from the other 2 cops because he knew I had stuff on me and I didn't know. They smelled the pot and where going nuts looking for it and had already searched my friend. Then stupidly I walked away from the cop trying to help me and ended up getting searched. They found 2 ounces of pot in 3 bags, 3 bowls, a bottle of vicoden, and a stolen I.D. in my pockets. The cop who was friends with my dad told me to tell him where I got the pot and not even my parents would find out about it. I told him I couldn't do that and that the person whom I bought it from didn't get caught and that I did. My mom then got there and he let me go home with her but told me I'd still be charged but I'd have more time til court. That money I found out I was being suspended indefinably from school until court was over and if I was convicted I wouldn't be allowed to return since I was being charged with possession of class D substance, MIP of alcohol, and Possession of Class E substance. Since the Class E was a felony the school could do this. I kept drinking and drugging, while my parents hired 2 top lawyers, one for the court case and one who was an educational lawyer who put the screws to the school and made them pay for tutoring. I was doing the tutoring and doing all the drugs for a while. Then one night in early Jan my friends and I decided to go skiing. I've been a skier since I was 4 and can ski better than I can walk. We smoked a few bowls on the way up but that was it. We skied all night, and then on the last run I was way ahead of my friends and going well over 60 mph with trick skis with binding that don't release. I decided I was going to keep going this speed so I could ski right to the car. I knew I was going way too fast. Then at the bottom I hit soft snow caused from a snow machine being left on too long. My left ski dug into the snow launching me forward, smashing my face and causing me to roll. I woke up from the blackout and could not move my left leg and it felt warm and tingly like it was moving in all diff directions and did not hurt. A doctor witnessed the crash and told me I had ripped my hamstring and that I couldn't have broken the bone because the femur was impossible to break. Well my friends got down and I gave one of them my drugs and money. I was taken to the hospital and found out I snapped my femur in half and needed to have the center of the bone which was in 2 pieces drilled out and have a titanium rod inserted to put it together. The operation was done and I was coughing up flem that was blacker than tar after 8 hours of not smoking. This continued for a week. I was given percocet and flexoral for meds after I got out of the hospital and had painful physical therapy. I didn’t smoke for a few days because I had the pills and I had smoked with my friends the minute I got home and it made my leg feel wiiiicked f*cked up. Then I started smoking again and continuing to take the pills. Then I was informed after my tutoring I would have to go to this school for delinquents for the rest of the year to get back into high school. The educational lawyer then put the screws to the school and forced them to pay 40 grand to send me to a private school to make an assement of my learning style and told them she believed I had a learning disability other than ADHD which she knew was untrue. After just beginning to walk after 10 weeks and finishing my tutoring that day 2 friends I and I went out for a drive to a neighboring town for a bone cruise because there were no cops in the area and we had been doing so for almost a year. Well we ended up driving past a cop who decided to turn around and follow us. We had no clue that the night before some friends of ours had gone to the house of one of their step parents who had just moved in with his dad. They had been seen going into the house and someone called the cops and the cops busted them and charged them with B and E int he night and possession of booze. The cops already had it out for kids from our town and pulled us over for no reason. I knew the law very good and when the cop told me to exit the vehicle I informed him I had a right not to do so since he had no probable cause to force me out and I had just had surgery and didn't feel up to getting out. The cop called for back up and ripped me and the driver out of the car and then my friend in the back got out. They told us they were going to search the car and we had better tell them what was in it before they did. The driver and I both told them nothing was in it and they had no consent to do so. They searched it anyways and discovered a bottle of vodka and brass knuckles under my seat and found 2 backs of pot along with a pipe. I was then charged with possession of class D, MIP of alcohol and Possession of dangerous weapon(felony charge). The back seat passenger was not arrested because nothing was in the back of the car. The driver and I was arrested but he was not charged for the knucks since they were under my seat. I was pretty scared about it all since I had a pre-trial coming up for the first arrest in 2 weeks. I had my arraignment 2 days after that and thanks to a friend of my dads the open charges were ignored so I didn’t go to an adult prison for 60 days. Then I started school the next day which was the last time I used. For the first time I took my prescription adderall the proper way for my ADHD because I had to and I did more work in one day than I had all year. I continued doing excellent with my work sent by the school to be done and assessed by the professionals at the school I was attending. My teachers from the school sent letters to the judge telling her I was the most motivated and excellent student they had ever seen. I also had an excellent lawyer and a dad with connections with a guy in the probation department that recommended 9 months supervised probation for the charges. The judge reviewed the case and was pretty shaken up about the vicoden but the letters made a huge impact and she gave me 7 months supervised probation, and required me to receive one on one consoling every other week which I had already began, and to attend NA meeting which I had already done, along with an 8 week once a week substance abuse meeting for adolescents. She then asked me if I was using drugs and if I could pass a drug test. I told her I had stopped using exactly 2 weeks prior to that day and that I felt great and that I knew once an addict always an addict and that I could never go back without running my life. She told me since I had never been in trouble before she would agree. Then I continued with doing good in school, staying clean, going to NA, and completing the 8 week classes. I was working out 3 times a day 4-6 hours a time when school got out all summer. I ended up injuring my shoulders pretty bad but that's a whole other story and this post is extremely long. Then we went to court for the second arrest. At the pre-trial motion to suppress the evidence seized, my lawyer ate the cop for lunch on the stand. All charges were dropped and the case was dismissed. I get off juvenile probation on the 29th of this month when I turn 18 and my record will be completely clean. I know this post was extremely long but I felt it necessary for it to be so get the whole situation of my life across. I went from believing I was king to having everything I had known for 4 years turn on me. I could never see myself living a different life from the one I was living and could never see myself without drugs. For me to get clean it caused a series of events that led up to me hitting rock bottom. I am very thankful for it happening because I'm back to making high honor roll, and off to college next year to major in pre-law. I do believe however that it can be done without someone having something terrible occur. In my case the drugs always made everything ok even when my tolerance was so high the pot didn’t make me stoned it made me feel "normal". After the second arrest I was full of anxiety and different emotions and the pot didn’t do a thing for it. If I could stop because of that and stay clean this long, I had the will power to do so all along I just was too scared to use it.