bamboo10

Hello all,
I don't know if I am allowed to post in here or not-so let me know If I shouldn't. Anyway, my A is slowly killing himself with alcohol. He has ended up the hospital but even that hasn't knocked the sense into him yet. Im so worried about what will happen to him if he doesn't atop drinking. Just Wondering what the final straw was for you. What made you realize you needed to and/or made you want to quit?
Thanks in advance.

MycoolFitz

Mine was jut drinking the women of my life away.

silly

I've had too many to count... most have been internalized bottoms, not outwardly visible. No lost job, no hospital stay (one ER visit though), no DUI, no lost loves. Yet. And that's all it is if I'd keep drinking. One Yet after another. I can't tell you how close I've come to each and every one of these things and more. I think after a while I just got sick of knowing this and doing nothing to stop it. The worst is the hate I had for myself. Now that's a bottom. To look at yourself in the mirror and hate yourself. I had someone I love point it out to me. How much I clearly hate myself... Can't get much worse.

Drexo

After I started vomitting blood and experienced hallucinations while I felt an impending doom creeping up on me daily. Couldn't think straight in those periods and I was only drinking the hangovers away. Luckily something far behind me now.

least

I woke up every morning hating myself and wishing I were dead.

Carleeezy

I destroyed a very important relationship, got a dui, did the jail thing, attacked my very close friend when I was under the influence, and blew a fail recently in my ignition interlock device (meaning jail time will probably double). 8 days sober and i'm hoping for good.

KaeHot323

My rock bottom is not actually what made me stop, I was still too consumed. I was at a party with my husband and I liquored up beforehand. I danced with hubby's uncle and when hubby got jealous I whacked his uncle in the head with my purse and said it was his fault. The buckle of it busted his head and his uncle had to get stitches. His aunts and cousins gathered around me ready to fight me for what I did. My hubby plead with them to not punch me, that I was just too intoxicated. Hubby took me home and I fought with him, and ended up running in front of a moving car, which luckily came to a screeching stop. I then laid on the ground in the street crying "God! Please help me! I can't do this anymore! I can't live this way!"

The crazy thing was that this happened in 2008, but I just stopped drinking a few months ago. When a person is ready to quit, there will be signs that tell them, no one else can make that decision for them, no matter what kind of rock bottom they hit.

hypochondriac

I'm not sure about a rock bottom but what changed for me was realising I wasn't alone and getting support from other alcoholics here on SR. I think it was a combination of being able to relate to other peoples stories and seeing that other people had managed it too. It wasn't an impossible task anymore, it was something to aspire to.

tammy711

Lost a very special, blessing of a connection with my 18 year old. She isn't my daughter, but rather my niece. I raised her since she was 9 years old. We were really close. She left on Super Bowl night when we got into a stupid fight over the half time show. I don't even remember all the details, but I shoved her at one point. She stormed out. She lives with my sister now and our relationship has been shattered.

The funny thing is, we never fought before that... not while I was drinking. I mean, we had the typical teen/parent argument over homework, who could come over, how late she could stay out, etc. We were super close and shared everything.

In a flash, I ruined one of the greatest relationships God gave me. When I get there, she'll be on my list for steps #8 and #9.

tammy711

100% agree!! The same for me - although, not as long from rock bottom to quitting, but still time passed between the worst and initiating my plan to quit for good.

Your rock bottom sounded funny. I know it wasn't, but I was picturing that situation like a movie scene and it cracked me up. I mean no disrespect by saying that because I can imagine the strain on the family situation - not to mention you about got yourself seriously hurt or killed.

Good luck on your sober journey. All my best!

RobC420

6 months of living in hell with panic, anxiety, paranoia, impending doom, and a ton of denial that anything was wrong. Eventually I had a panic attack far worse than any I have ever experienced before. This happened at work. I deserted my shift and completely freaked out in side my car. I imagine this is the kind of panic I would experience if I was in a plane I knew was about to crash in to a mountain or was kidnapped and the kidnapper had a gun to my head ready to pull the trigger. I was crying hysterically, shaking, numb, and making these freaky shrieking sounds that I've never heard myself make before. It was a living nightmare. I was finally stuck in a corner that I could not get myself out of. In that moment I decided that I was done with drinking/drugs. I had had enough and I didn't ever want to be in that spot again. I pulled out my phone and went through my contacts to my mom. She came and picked me up. Then I had to call my boss ad explain why I was deserting my shift. A couple weeks later I jump headfirst in to the program of AA. It was a really humbling experiencing, but I am sooooooo grateful I went through it. I haven't had a drink or a drug since.

Maylie

My rock bottom was realizing that over the years I had lost myself. I got tired of living a double life and pretending to be happy. I finally woke up and decided I deserved more, and I was tired of being sick, tired, unhappy, ashamed, and a liar. I wanted my self respect back.

KaeHot323

Yes Tammy I can laugh at it now, and it does sound like a movie scene that should have been cut out...lol
I am thankful that I lived through that. We have some of his family coming down this weekend and I can't wait to show them what changes in my life I have made! Happy sobriety to you Tammy!

tammy711

Powerful.

tomsteve

when i passed back in the day after my last drunk and was told what i had done and said the night before. it was then i decided to get help or take another drink and kill myself.

Thepatman

Maylie, Pretty much the same then you ;-)

behindblueyes

DUI in 07, gaining 100 lbs, over 10 hospital visits from falling off bar stools or in my home, the real bottom was being hit by a car walking home drunk and being at level .36 at the time. I still drank and two detoxes in delerium tremens had me knowing I would die if I kept it up. He will know when his body can't take any more. Just have to pray my 6yr old hasn't been traumatized by me.

Username1

My rock bottom was a contineous thing that I just chugged through for several years. Been arrested a few times, drove drunk and cheated death a few times crashing my trucks (also cheated the law NO duis), lost 3 jobs (not outright fired but threw in the towel cuz i was to fu*ked up mentally), lost so many friends, lost 2 apartments, spent a winter drunk from sun up to sundown, went to my current job *********,spent many nights drunk alone nodding out, almost got kicked out of my band, walking the streets of my city drunk, getting robbed at gunpoint a step away from black out drunk, on and on and on and lost track of who I really was. Then I don't know I just gave up living like that, so many people tried to get me to stop and I just kept going away at it.

Celtic12

Like some of you have said is the case with yourselves, my bottom came over a year ago when I woke up in a Colorado hotel room at 3am in full blown withdrawls and crippling anxiety after a week long vacation insanity bender. I was shaking uncontrollably as I was struggling to get our luggage together in the middle of the night and insisted to my wife that we leave and start the ten hour drive back home,right then and there. I didn't make it more than ten miles before I had to pull into a WalMart parking lot and drink three beers before I could get back on the freeway and continue home... And to think I still drank for a year after that. It took me being hospitalized with an gastro-intestine bleed to finally start to quit.

The power of alcohol will never cease to terrify me. 8(

Quinne

I had a lot of public embarassments. Thrown in the drunk tank twice. OD'd on anti-depressants because I wanted to feel something, even if it was horrendously nauseous. Admitted myself to two rehabs and had about 10 psych hospital inpatient stays. One was involuntary. It was there I took a swing at a psych nurse in a blackout and woke up in isolation. I've raised my fist to my Mother. Lost friends, lost jobs, lost study opportunities, been kicked out of sharehouses. Directly self-harmed and threatened violence. Discharged myself against medical advice after a fall, got plastered and fell in front of a moving vehicle. I sustained a traumatic intercranial haemorrhage that could've killed me.

EVERYTHING I had written in my Step One that reinforces in my mind that i'm powerless over alcohol and that i'm a hopeless alcoholic.

All of these things (plus a whole lot more) led me to an indescribably dark place where I didn't only feel, but *knew* I was spiritually and morally destitute. I had had enough. Sure, externally I could've lost a whole lot more, but that isn't what mattered. I reached a point of being spiritually dead. The only other people i've spoken to who understand such a mental state are other alcoholics.

xx