There was no traumatic event for me, I was feeling very depressed and suicidal.
It was on my day off, I had almost finished a beer and was getting ready to go get more and it was like something clicked inside me and I thought: I am tired of that crap. I just got rid of what was left of my booze and did not go get more.
Your bottom will only be as deep as you will allow it to be. It stops when you quit digging. For some like my XABF it is 6 feet under
I really wish there was not that myth going around that an alcoholic
must reach bottom before they can quit.
For many, being sick and tired of being sick and tired or simply being concerned about their health and their drinking pattern is enough.
Another pet peeve of mine is the myth that relapse is part of recovery!!!
Great thing about SR is that those of us who have been around for a bit don't subscribe to those ideas:
a) You don't need to suffer major trauma, hurt someone or be half dead to quit
b) While relapse happens, it is
not part of recovery and definitely not necessary to go through it to achieve long term sobriety.
We were discussing something very similar a while back on another thread and TomSteve pointed out that the new edition of the BB has a section in personal stories about "high bottom" people. Called "they stopped in time"
http://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/en_bi...ies_partII.pdf Linked with the permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.