Wow ok I was just thinking about this today?
My experience was that a few things happened to get me into AA:
The drinking was getting into more regular blackouts and I had started drinking earlier than before, was considering taking the morning drink. I started drinking at midday and by 4pm had gone through a few bottles of wine so was having to make myself sick to try and keep drinking or eat and stop drinking which made me miserable. I was thinking about suicide a lot more. I had become hopeless and miserable. But that wasn't enough.
I then became aware that in 2008 I had basically repeated a year I had in 2000 where I had ended up in much the same position financially, with new car and nice home but once again could not care less about it and knew that something was wrong with this picture.
I went to a rehab in Spain then drank after leaving.
I had cut my family off by this point and my final ex girlfriend enabler told me she had a new boyfriend and could not see my anymore. Then one night afternoon I sat down to start drinking and no matter what I drank I Gould get no relief or feeling from the alcohol, it was at this point they I knew I was f***ed.
Then I went to AA.
Over the years lots of people tried to help me, I tried lots of things to stop and had various dry spells. The dry spells taught me that without alcohol I would be miserable.
That's it in a nutshell, as to what changed for me to go to AA I still don't know. What is it that makes an alcoholic do something about getting into recovery, don't know? I do know that trying to get an alcoholic to see that they need help before they are ready is a waste if time.
The only thing that would have got me into recovery quicker would to have not tried to stop drinking all those years and got on with it until I'd had enough.