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can you stop before rock bottom?

Old 12-14-2008, 04:57 PM
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can you stop before rock bottom?

There is a great deal of talk about hitting your own personal rock bottom before finally being able to stop drinking, using gambling or any addiction of sorts.

I have been drinking all my adult life, am 37 now and realised a couple of months ago that i could not stop drinking and that i should either accept that this is my lot in life or get help. I had been down to AA, been to counselling, stopped for periods of time, changed drinks, changed jobs, changed friends/partners, even changed countries etc. in an attempt to try and solve the problem that I had with alcohol.

Now being sober for just 2 months I can see how futile all my previous attempts at quitting drinking were along the years and, more than regret drinking itself, regret the time i wasted trying to control my addicition myself and can honestly say i wish i had spent that time drinking, gambling etc not worrying so much about what i was doing. All that time wasted trying to sort myself out, i wonder what advice we would all give to someone who would ask us how to cut down their drinking down and control it?

Is it possible to stop drinking without hitting rock bottom? Why would any of us do that? If there is still one ounce of hope that someday, the next time, we would be able to control our drinking and return to 'normal' then there is a reason to keep drinking. Do we really have to reach that realisation where we accept that we are powerless over our addiction and unable to solve the problem ourselves completely, without any doubt in our mind before we can get help or be helped?

I had a drinking friend who drank themselves to death, found one morning sitting upright on his bed, always talking about AA, about stopping, about depression, would be the first to say he was an alcoholic as he gulped his double vodka...even cancer didnt stop him! He can't have ever hit that rock bottom, can he?

So after all that how on earth would you help what i was 7 years ago when i would drink on saturday and spend the next week recovering up to the point where i was drinking every night trying to figure out the best way to end it all? Is it possible?
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Old 12-14-2008, 05:26 PM
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A lucky few might be able to.

Seems to me, different people have different bottoms though!
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Old 12-14-2008, 05:28 PM
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The only way I know how to help anyone
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Old 12-14-2008, 05:48 PM
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Good post, it is a mystery. im, with my fingers crossed in recovery phase-am 5 days now clean-ive done that before but i have a different sense of purpose this time. As for hitting rock bottom, it totally depends on the person. Like no i dont think I hit my absolute rock bottom-but rock bottom means so many different things depending on the person. Personally, i found myself lying to friends/family, etc., was lazy and not pursuing career interests, became a solo drinker, and lastly had a very scary withdrawal that im just coming out of kind of right now. Now, this may not be "rock bottom" because i can think of tons of things that if happened would spin my life into a worse place like getting a DUI, killing someone else somehow, blacking out by myself and hitting my head- or choking-and dying all alone, or really deeply personally hurting someone i care for physically or mentally...i never reached any of those things. before i knew i had somewhat of a problem but i guess the bottom for me happened b4 the rock bottom happened , thats right now, i realized this is no joke and if i keep going like im going its only going to get worse and i truly will end up hitting some type of rock bottom. The thing with true alcoholics is a rock bottom event can happen anytime-i could've gotten a dui tons of times-was lucky, i couldve last week fell down the stairs blackout and died, i couldve called a friend/family member and said hurtful horrible things, etc. That is the scary thing...and i know it now.
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Old 12-14-2008, 06:05 PM
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If you were to ask 20 people in AA what rock bottom meant you would probably get 50 different answers
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Old 12-14-2008, 06:07 PM
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That's a good question. For some people it takes a DUI while others it takes the family leaving. Sadly, for others (perhaps myself?) it seems rock bottom is death. I once met a guy who went to treatment close to 20 times before he got sober! They say jails, institutions and death. The first time I went to jail I was very scared but the second and third time it no longer fazed me. I have no problem admitting I'm an alcoholic but I do have trouble believing there is a better way to live.


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Old 12-14-2008, 06:22 PM
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can you stop before rock bottom?

Yes, I got really drunk one night and I considering shooting someone.

I had the gun in my hand, and I was also considering shooting myself.

I didn't shoot anybody.

I do believe that would have been 'rock bottom', with no room for argument or debate.
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Old 12-14-2008, 07:31 PM
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The day I quit drinking was the day that I accepted that I am an alcoholic and that I could not quit without help.

After my last bender, I still had my career, family, and health but the mental anguish was the worst I have ever experienced.

I just knew that there was more to life than the obsessing-drinking-remorse cycle I was in. Nice life!

I think it's in one of the BB stories: "do you want this to be your bottom or do you want to get hit even harder?" That stuck with me. It can only get worse if I keep drinking. But it became so much better once I made the decision to reach out for help. No drinking, no obsession, living life!
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Old 12-14-2008, 07:37 PM
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"do you want this to be your bottom or do you want to get hit even harder?"

i like that
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Old 12-14-2008, 09:31 PM
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Rock Botom is a relative term. It's meaningless in the fact that when I quit was when I quit. 25 years ago I was a homeless street punk in Salt Lake City. Making the rounds from Plasma Center to the liquor store I had no visible bottom. Mom came to the rescue and brought me back to Colorado. Fast forward a couple decades and I am married with kids and a house in the burbs. Maintaining a job as a successful Engineer it seemed nothing could stop me. Except Alcohol! The more you have, the more you have to lose. When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. Where the hell is a "Bottom" when you have nothing left to lose?
I don't believe in "Rock Bottom", things can always get worse, and they will if I continue to drink.
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Old 12-14-2008, 10:21 PM
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I absolutely think someone can stop before rock bottom comes along. I was in the midst of my addiction, I honestly hadn't lost too much, but I could see it happening before it happened, and I got help.
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Old 12-14-2008, 10:39 PM
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It depends on the person. For me it was. Now that I think about it im not really sure if I hit ROCK bottom. I guess things could have been alot worse although I wouldnt want to imagine that picture, but I hit a low that dont want to revisit. I was fired from my job and unemployed for a long time and ended up nearly 45K in debt (basicly unemployable). I got in trouble with the law on my 2nd dwi charge and that has costed me around 5k alone right there. I flunked out of college, lost all of my friends, had to look over my shoulder because of pissing off ppl when I was ripped. I carried more regret, remorse, and shame on my back than I could handle. My physical and mental health were deteriorating to the point that it was really starting to scare me, and others. Blackout drinking daily, craving it 24/7, and I was doing meth on top of that and id often wake up shaking and vomiting. I was literally losing my mind. I could go on and on. I just got to the point where I could not take it anymore and decided to quit before I either kill myself or do something even more reckless then than ever before. Ive been sober for 6 months now. Ive been on this roller coaster before though but I hadnt hit a low like the one I hit so im more determined to stay sober this time around. If only I could drink like your average Joe 6 pack I wouldnt give a crap about sobriety, but when I drink I simply cannot stop.

Last edited by tes; 12-14-2008 at 11:08 PM.
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Old 12-14-2008, 11:06 PM
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I don't think I've hit what I believe is rock bottom, but my body and my mind has been telling me in the nicest possible way that I need to stop.

For one year I've been having heart palpitations and this past Saturday, for the first time ever, I very likely had a panic attack (or maybe there really is something wrong with my heart).

Over time, my emotional/mental state has been slowly eroding.

I am falling apart, albeit slowly. It can only get worse from here if I cannot find a way to stay stopped. For about 20 seconds on Saturday, I thought I was going to pass out (I was a little light headed/dizzy) and die. I was lucky that during Saturday afternoon I had decided NOT to drink. I was sober when this hit me out of the blue--I was completely calm at the time and feeling okay physically. I don't even want to think how whatever happened might have been affected if I had been under the influence. I had quit again two nights before this happened and have remained sober since.

I'm learning that what I'm going through will not improve if I don't change. It can only get worse from here, and my life is already too crappy for me to handle. It's not going to be easy, but I'm going to get help along the way. We are social beings, and it makes sense to reach out at times when we need it.
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Old 12-14-2008, 11:21 PM
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The the bottom I hit was enough for me.

Everyone's bottom is different.
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Old 12-15-2008, 08:46 AM
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I'm hoping now that I have hit bottom. I own my business still after 10 years, but it doesn't make me happy. I have a family, and I couldn't see the joy it anymore. My life isn't really too bad, and only mildly stressful, yet I get no satisfaction from it.

I am 5 days in now and am starting to see why. I was going to post a week or two ago "when will I hit bottom", and realized that I should be smart enough not to have to have a really bad one. Just being unhappy and miserable and depressed would be enough for any non-alcoholic to stop...

Am I happy about work, family and life today? Not really. There is a lot of work in all areas to work on. All the reasons are not my fault either, but many are indirectly.

So is that a bottom? I hope so. No DWI, arrests etc... but only because I've become a "super safe" drinker by reclusing myself from the world. I hope someday I will look back and say although it took until you were turning 37, you managed to get out of the crazy cycle BEFORE you hit ROCK bottom... Or maybe being miserable is my rock bottom. Time will tell.
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Old 12-15-2008, 09:26 AM
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my 'bottom' was not physical or legal, thank you very much, but was mental: how long can I go on like this and not kill my worthless self?? I had no self respect left and had lost the respect of my kids. I'm very glad I didn't let myself get further down, but my attempt to get and stay sober took me months until I finally wanted to be sober more than anything else.

I'm so glad I didn't fall any further down the hole. It could have been so much worse.
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