Nice thread, Flynbuy -- bringing out some good responses!
My tipping point was probably in the spring of 2009 at a conference in San Diego. That's all I want to say about that.
Hurricane Sandy in NYC sent me towards my recovery. The city was like a war zone for a while -- a long while in places -- and in the institution where I work all ordinary operations were suspended for about 10 days and the building was made into a shelter. There were only 3 kinds of people there: storm refugees, volunteers, and me. Every day, morning to night, I'd go to my office to drink. Alone. And stare out my windows at the city below. At that point, I couldn't do much else. I started then to become aware that something was seriously wrong.