Bella_Fox

Sorry if I seem to be spending more time starting threads than replying to them. I guess I just have a lot of questions to ask and almost no answers to provide.

Anyway, I just found out that my therapist also works doing intake and counseling for addiction and alcoholism at another hospital. Today, during our session, he said something that took me by surprise. The conversation went something like this:

Him: Maybe you should drink.
Me: What? Are you trying to use reverse psychology on me?
Him: Well, clearly the part of you that wants to drink again is very strong. Maybe you need to bottom out.
Me: So... you're saying I should drink?

OK, so maybe I was purposely being obtuse at the end there, but still... it did almost feel as though he were giving me permission. And I KNOW he wasn't, but it nevertheless made me wonder: DO I need to bottom out?

Also...he's going to call the Outpatient Addiction Services at the hospital where I see him, but I'm worried that they may turn me away because I'm sober right now. How will my being a "dry drunk" (on the verge of relapse) affect their decision to work with me? I'm afraid that maybe I'll have to hit bottom first. Then what??

One more thing: He suggested that I also consider trying an anti-anxiety medication to cut down on the some of the stress that's triggering the need to drink again (a mental-relapse if you will). The first thing that went through my mind was, "WHAT IF IT WORKS?" I can't believe I'm saying this, but the thought of it taking away the craving, the longing -- that scares me. Even though I really don't want to relapse, I like knowing I can if I want to. If I go on meds that help quell the urge to drink, I won't have it waiting in the wings for me, so to speak.

Is that weird? Does it make sense?

sugErspun

"Do I need to bottom out?"


I am going to assume you want to stop drinking, or have a problem with alcohol. (See..I don't know that backstory to your post).

Why do you want to stop drinking?
What are you doing to stop drinking?
What is being offered at this outpatient treatment facility that you cannot get elsewhere? (Some places are free)
Is your current way of living keeping you sober? (It sounds like you are struggling)
If you were to 'bottom out' - what exactly is that to you? It has different meanings for different people. For me, to bottom out, means to come pretty close to death and be treated in a hospital, many many times. I think it could have been avoided if I had been desperate enough to not go through that hell time and again. But I thought I could stop, I really did.

What would your doctor suggest once you bottom out?


btw- I have been to many many outpatient treatment programs and 'wet drunks' typically aren't allowed - they need to be hospitalized for safety reasons. Just because you haven't drank in some time (I am not sure on the length), that should not keep you from getting treatment.

I know people who were dry for many years before they finally sought effective treatment for their alcoholism - they took away the liqour, but the problems were pretty much the same(other than the physical).

If you could clarify a little more on what you are looking for (sorry if you have posted this elsewhere, I have not come across it).


~Adam

barb dwyer

From the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous - page38, Third Edition:

"Some of you are thinking: "Yes, what you tell us it true, but it doesn't fully apply. We admit we have some of these symptoms, but we have not gone to the extremes you fellows did, nor are we likely to, fo rwe understand ourselves so well after what you have told us that such things cannot happen again. We have not lost everything in life through drinking and we certainly do not intend to. Thanks for the information.'
(the bold print here is MY doing - not in the book)
That may be true of certain nonalcoholic people who, through drinking foolishly and heavily at the present time, are able to stop or moderate, because their brains and bodies have not been damaged as ours were. But the actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self - knowledge. This is a point we wish to emphasize and re-emphasize, to smash home upon our alcoholc readers as it has been revealed to us out of bitter experience."

I think you're looking for someone to tell you what you are going to have to find out for yourself. I think that's what your therapist is saying. If you're going to argue about it - by all means - go out and drink more.

We can't work with anyone who isn't willing. We can't help someone who is not yet convinced they're in need of help.

You are going to have to at least want to quit.
It doesn't sound to me ... like you do.

*shrug*

Maybe that's what your therapist means.

Pinkcuda

I'm not a big believer in the Rock Bottom theory. Rock Bottom is relative to your mindset during that particular period in your life. I prefer to use the Straw that broke the camels back theory. It adds up and adds up until one day you call it quits for good. You get tired of the ill effects of your life and you decide to make a change. In my book, you don't need a "Rock Bottom" to realize what the common denominator was, or still is, in your life when it comes to self inflicted troubles.
You quit when you've decided that it's just not worth the trouble anymore.
If you want to go with the "Rock Bottom" philosophy..... Yes, it's out there with your name on it. My guess is that you're probably not going to like it. Why take the risk of finding out just how bad it's going to be?

CarolD

Hmmm...
Geez! my bottom was not in
relationships..jobs...money....body
I absolutely knew I was drinking myself insane.

The oddest events in my sobriety ...no more
suicide attempts...mental institutions...blackouts
weird relationships with toxic men

Will I drink again?
Hope you don't either Bella

earthmama

I am of the belief that your "bottom" is wherever it is.

Your bottom doesn't have to involve a gutter, living under a bridge, losing your health, D.T.s....maybe your bottom is reaching the point where you are unhappy and concerned enough to be posting on an AA message board, seeing a counselor, considering outpatient treatment, and obsessing about whether or not you can drink.

Life is way, way, way more than obsessing about drinking. When I got sober, I was afraid to let some things go, particularly a lot of resentment left over from being abused by an alcoholic parent when I was a child. I felt like....if I let that go, what will be left? I thought I would just be an empty shell, because that was WHO I WAS. Another alcoholic in AA convinced me that if I could quit drinking, work the steps, and let that go, something new, and good would take it's place. He was right.

I was living half a life before, and didn't even know it. I am grateful that I gave AA a try....it's shown me a lot of sunshine that I didn't even know was there.

Am I all "better"? No. It's a journey, not a destination. But I AM glad I'm on the journey, and that I decided I had reached my "bottom" when I did. I could have suffered for many more years....so can you....but we don't have to. A better life is there for the taking, right now.

Keep coming back....we're glad you're here

Zencat

“To begin, you may need to reject certain myths that in the past have done great harm to alcoholics and other drug abusers and hampered those who would help them. These untruths come from ingrained public attitudes that see alcoholism and other drug problems as personal misconduct, moral weakness, or even sin. They are expressed in such declarations as, "Nothing can be done unless the alcohol or drug abuser wants to stop," or "They must hit bottom," that is, lose health, job, home, family, "before they will want to get well." These stubborn myths are not true, and have been destructive. One may as well say that you cannot treat cancer or tuberculosis until the gross signs of disease are visible to all.” SAMHSA

Why some people insist that one must “hit bottom” in one disease and tell others that early treatment for another disease is necessary for better chances of survival eludes me. For the life of me, I just cant see myself telling a cancer inflicted person to wait until they loose just about everything near and dear to them i.e. health, functioning, then seek treatment.

Missymae737

Hi,

For some reason, I had to go to the bowels of hell with addiction...This was the turning point for me and yes it was my bottom...

I could no longer say, this hasn't happened, it all happened..

Maybe it was meant for me to learn from...:morning

Bella_Fox

Hi, Adam. The nutshell version is that I started binge drinking at 15 (I'm 31 now) and continued to do so for about ten years -- in spite of some very negative consequences. When I was about 25, I developed a bad eating disorder and my focus shifted from what I guess was one (psychological) addiction to the next. (From the throes of the ED, I then moved to a four-year relationship that I now realize was an unhealthy addiction unto itself.) I never actually got help for the drinking (other than a half-hearted attempt at A.A. at the urging of my then-therapist), I simply switched to something else.

Technically, I haven't had a drink in six years. I've always missed it, though -- and realize now that I did things over the years to purposely trigger myself or live vicariously through others (i.e. by watching movies or reading things that I knew would trigger me). During this time, I stayed sober and worked on my ED issues because my boyfriend was Mr. Straight and Narrow, and I wanted to be as "good" as him.

Six months ago my relationship ended, I got laid off from work and I had some health issues. All I can think about now is drinking; it's pre-occupying me to the point of distraction. My current therapist (whom I've been seeing for 3-4 years) thinks that all of this is coming up now because I never actually got treatment for the alcohol.

Like I said, nutshell version.

I do want to. It's not that I'm not willing to try...

Thanks, earthmama.

You know, the thing about bottoming out is this: I KNOW what will happen to me if I drink again, and get back to how it was years ago. I've already suffered ill effects (to put it mildly). But that wasn't enough to stop me back then; it took moving home, sick with my ED to put a halt to it for awhile. And now, even though I know on an intellectual level that drinking again will set me up for a major fall, I can't seem to connect with it on an emotional level. The only reason I'm NOT already drinking again is because I'm back here at home and have to see my mom's worried face on a regular basis. If that wasn't an issue, well... I just don't know. And that's what scares me. That I'm sober for all the wrong reasons.

Bella_Fox

That's what I want to know. Why can't I (as mentioned in the post above) connect emotionally with all the potentially negative consequences -- some of which I've already suffered?

I definitely don't want to go there.

nandm

Carol, you told my story here.

Everyone has their own bottom it is just matter of how far down one has to go before they are ready to surrender and honestly have the desire to stop drinking.

RufusACanal

I articulate, though obviously hampered with a severely stunted vocabulary, but aren't you making this just a tad too difficult. Get full of booze, find God and work the Steps? Peace

paulmh

It wasn't enough that I suffered. I had to have suffered enough.

Sheryl85

I love this topic.

How far down do we have to go to hit our bottom?

I heard it said that it’s sort of like hitching a ride on a garbage truck. You don’t have to ride it all the way to the dump. Instead, you can get off anytime you want.

For me, it was when the pain exceeded the pleasure and I became willing and teachable. Mind you, I didn’t lose a whole lot of things due to my drinking. I hadn’t lost a job because of it. I hadn’t had anything like a car or home repossessed. I hadn’t gotten a divorce over my drinking or become estranged from family. Blah, blah, blah. However, it was explained to me that for each of those statements above I needed to tack the word “YET” to the end, because “YET” means “You’re Eligible Too!” Going the way I had been going it was only a matter of time before all those “yets” became a reality.

The truth be known, it really hit home when I finally faced the fact that I couldn’t keep going like I was going. I no longer could drink enough to hold off those thoughts and feelings for any period of time. Instead I was suffering too frequently from terrifying blackouts. The booze I had found to work in the beginning could no longer do the job and I found I couldn’t fix it by myself anymore either. I had finally come to that coldest, darkest, loneliest place in my life. Then I surrendered. I got off the garbage truck.

Not everyone reaches this point at the same time in life or in the same way. Some people are tough! Man, they go through years and tears to come to that point when enough is enough and they are willing to take direction. (Only Step One…can be worked with 100% perfection.)

So, when you come to the point that I did and you find yourself asking “God, help me,” Jump! You don’t have to ride that thing all the way to the dump.

Pinkcuda

Because we have a tremendous ability to block out painful and bad memories. Pleasure we can seem to remember forever, but pain is something we tend to forget.
Time has a way of healing all wounds no matter how deep they are. This is where we need to remind ourselves of the reasons we had to stop. Today, as I look back, I ask myself, "was it really all that bad"? I answer myself, "Yes it was"!

sugErspun

I think you answered your own question Bella

"a half-hearted attempt at A.A."

You didn't have the root pulled. You just put bandaids on the symptoms. AA you are familiar with, half heartedly. From my personal experience, the 'problem' has been removed, and it hasn't manifested itself into something else. Re-born you might say, though that tends to sound a little religous.

Rufus hit the nail on the head, but I don't think you need to actually drink to find out (I am not implying that is what you suggested rufus).

Go back to a meeting. If you go to that outpatient deal - they are gonna talk AA anyways, gauranteed.

RufusACanal

Can you say Narcissism ?

Aa_vark

A bit from the 12 steps and 12 traditions of AA book, about raising the bottom...

" In A.A.'s pioneering time, none but the most desperate cases could swallow and
digest this unpalatable truth. Even these "last-gaspers" often had difficulty
in realizing how hopeless they actually were. But a few did, and when these
laid hold of A.A. principles with all the fervor with which the drowning seize
life preservers, they almost invariably got well. That is why the first edition
of the book "Alcoholics Anonymous," published when our membership was small,
dealt with low-bottom cases only. Many less desperate alcoholics tried A.A.,
but did not succeed because they could not make the admission of
hopelessness."
"It is a tremendous satisfaction to record that in the following years this
changed. Alcoholics who still had their health, their families, their jobs, and
even two cars in the garage, began to recognize their alcoholism. As this trend
grew, they were joined by young people who were scarcely more than potential
alcoholics. They were spared that last ten or fifteen years of literal hell the
rest of us had gone through. Since Step One requires an admission that our
lives have become unmanageable, how could people such as these take this
Step?"
"It was obviously necessary to raise the bottom the rest of us had hit to the
point where it would hit them. By going back in our own drinking histories, we
could show that years before we realized it we were out of control, that our
drinking even then was no mere habit, that it was indeed the beginning of a
fatal progression. To the doubters we could say, "Perhaps you're not an
alcoholic after all. Why don't you try some more controlled drinking, bearing
in mind meanwhile what we have told you about alcoholism?" This attitude
brought immediate and practical results. It was then discovered that when one
alcoholic had planted in the mind of another the true nature of his malady,
that person could never be the same again. Following every spree, he would say
to himself, "Maybe those A.A.'s were right..." After a few such experiences,
often years before the onset of extreme difficulties, he would return to us
convinced. He had hit bottom as truly as any of us. John Barleycorn himself had
become our best advocate."
"Why all this insistence that every A.A. must hit bottom first? The answer is
that few people will sincerely try to practice the A.A. program unless they
have hit bottom. For practicing A.A.'s remaining eleven Steps means the
adoption of attitudes and actions that almost no alcoholic who is still
drinking can dream of taking. Who wishes to be rigorously honest and tolerant?
Who wants to confess his faults to another and make restitution for harm done?
Who cares anything about a Higher Power, let alone meditation and prayer? Who
wants to sacrifice time and energy in trying to carry A.A.'s message to the
next sufferer? No, the average alcoholic, self-centered in the extreme, doesn't
care for this prospect--unless he has to do these things in order to stay alive
himself. "
"Under the lash of alcoholism, we are driven to A.A., and there we discover the fatal nature of our situation. Then, and only then, do we become as open-minded
to conviction and as willing to listen as the dying can be. We stand ready to
do anything which will lift the merciless obsession from us."

Pick-a-name

For me it was far enough down that I was ready to surrender to Step One out of desperation....my way just was not working. Made me willing and therefor allowed me to try another way. That was the hardest part....the free-fall into the unknown.

Turned out that now it is the easist part,once I did it!

zoomer

There are no wrong reasons to stay sober,just excuses to want to drink again. There are right reasons to stay sober... The family, a job, court ordered, self, girlfriend,boyfriend, friends and the list goes on. I got sober the first time because I was drinking too much and a friend suggested AA. I jumped at the chance to escape my wrong doings. Stayed sober for a number of years too until a therapist told me I was not an alcoholic,but I abused alcohol and gave me permission if you will to go back out and drink. LOL, I bought myself 3 little bottles of hard stuff the first day and it lasted awhile,then I only drank on weekends,then a few times a week,then everyday if I could. Never had a black out unfortunatly,never had DWIs and the like, never ended up in jail,just sat my ass home and drank every night. I only got **** faced a few times because I was scard to be hung over,but after all my knolage of what alcohol does to a person, i still drank. I did drink while preganat,could not stop,but justified it saying only one or two beers would not hurt, it was good for the digestive system,but I live with the guilt of knowing I may have caused harm to my children. I still get the "I don't knows" because of that therapist,but I stick to AA because I went insain with a belly full of beer and a head full of AA. I'm sober three years now and I do go to meetings every week to stay sober. I go for myself, i go for my kids, I go because i like the people and i like to socailize. Maybe I go now days because I need to hear what is being said,or at least I do try to make it a point to listion. I use to go sometimes because there where really cute guys in the group,but I'm getting married to one of them,so the others are off limits LOL. Who cares why you get sober,but how you stay sober is important. Your doing the right thing by coming here and talking and by seeing a therapsit,so you may need more,go to it then. If it takes a new out patent thing,then do it,but like someone said in an earlier post,they are just going to tell you to go to AA in the end. When I got sober 3 years ago, I went pure AA and have not had any treatment this time because I figured after 5 years of treatment there was not much more I could learn. You know what, i'm taking a class in alcohol and drug treatment and I'm learning tons. I have to take it to graduate,but I'm glad i'm taking it because I'm learning more to help my clients with. It use to be that relaps was not part of recovery,but now I'm learning it is although I don't want to test it out any more. My bottom was beign insain and the guilt I had when I drank while preganat. I'm so glad i do not have to feel shame and guilt any more and besides I got my tubes tied LOL. Stay sober for the wrong reasons or the right ones,it don't matter, it's better than drinking for all the wrong reasons or exscuses anyday.