ItsJustMe89

I was wondering if anyone would be willing to share where they were in their life and what it was like when they hit their "bottom".

I feel like I have a relatively high bottom compared to other people I know. But I also think that it would have been a lot worse for me if I really felt ALL of the consequences of my actions. Like if I didn't have supportive family, especially my mom, who kinda enables me and softens the consequences, then my bottom would have been much worse. If I really had been left to my own devices and had to be a responsible self supporting adult I cant imagine what my life would be like right now. So I am grateful for the help and recourses my family gives me, but it makes it seem like my problem is not as bad as it really is. Which makes it hard to get enough motivation to change.

Plenny

hmmmm I think it's pretty subjective. However, I do think that one thing is the same for everyone. When, at some point, a voice inside you wells up and says, "Something has to change, I can't go on like this."

For some, it's too many times getting in to work late. For others, it's waking up in a pile of broken glass. For many, it's really really much worse.

I think that if you know something isn't working and it's making you stuck and you need to get out, it's a 'bottom'

Rina

My bottom was a DUI this past May. This is after many long periods of sobriety. I was a nightly drinker in my 20's and then had a few "close calls." Ie: embarrassing behavior, falling, missing work, hooking up with men I would never have sober... After a few years of sobriety, I began drinking again for a few months and while at a family barbecue I poured my own drinks and drove home early. I was pulled over for swerving and blew a super high number! I was completely oblivious and to this day terrified! I run businesses with my parents so I know how they can soften the consequences but let me tell you-there is nothing that makes you feel more guilty than having to go through something like this while being financially connected to them. I have been sober and in AA since the morning after my accident and I will never have another bottom from alcohol again...I can't because it will kill me eventually I know it will.

SoberLife2014

I hit a lot of bottoms. It got to be that I was so low that bottom wasn't so far to fall. It wasn't until I started to climb out of the rabbit hole and take a look down at the bottom that I realized how far I could fall. Now I see that the bottom is very far, but I can get there very quickly just by letting go and giving in to just 1 drink.

In other words, I was drinking so much and so used to disrespecting myself and abusing myself that, while hitting bottom hurt, it didn't affect me as much as I expected. When I finally started to sober up and seeing how wonderful life is, I stupidly took a chance by drinking one night and I saw how quickly I could lose everything and how bad it would truly hurt to hit bottom again. Now I think if I hit bottom again it'd hurt worse than any time before because now I'm used to being out of that hole.

silentrun

I just snapped. I was depressed, anxious and mentally exhausted. Something had to give. I finally admitted it was bad and I felt the only choice was to quit.

Bailey3

Mine was about 4 months of nightly blackouts. Most nights I didn't eat supper because it would interfere with my buzz. Didn't care if I lived or died. Finally one night, in the bathroom, I decided I didn't want to die. The following morning I found this website. It's done me wonders.

You obviously think you have a problem otherwise, you wouldn't be posting here. Consider yourself lucky if you found a high bottom. My four months of blacking out were a living hell. I'm pretty sure others have had it worse.

Please don't start drinking and find a low bottom. Sounds to me like you have a good support system. Take advantage of it.

bunnezjp

My liver failed 5 months sgo. I'm lucky it forgave me.

Bunnez

Plenny

I think I hit a lot of bottoms too. I knew I'd die if I kept drinking. That was seven years ago. A year ago, I started trying. I hit another bottom this summer. I went to a place where I couldn't even hear myself crying for help. I didn't eat, I wasn't careful with my body or my finances. I was reckless. I didn't care about anything.
It's been a very up and down year. But here I am again, trying to be proactive and get out of the ditch.

Stayingsober72

Last year I got arrested and thrown in jail while traveling cross-country for telling a cop to F off. Spent the weekend in jail in a jumpsuit. Continued to drink and got to the point where I was spending all my money on booze. Got to the point where I was blacking out all the time, and had a two week long binge that culminated with a hangover/withdrawal so bad I knew I was becoming physically dependent on it. I felt terrified and I thought I was going to have a heart attack. And my friend died of cirrhosis two weeks ago at the age of forty-one. She didn't drink half as much as I did. I realized that booze can and will kill anyone, and I was no exception. Don't find your bottom. There's nothing there but emptiness. I wish you the best.

Wastinglife

Whenever I thought I had hit a bottom, I found that there was further to go down.

Absolute rock bottom for me was when the following had happened: lost career, bankrupt, evicted, lost gf, lost car (DUI), 50lbs overweight, hospitalized for alcoholic hepatitis, arrested multiple times (public drunkeness/fights), and zero dignity left.

airwick

My rock bottom was the alcohol contributing to the break-up of a significantly strong marriage and the stress and pain it was causing for an undeserving young boy (my son).

This may sound funny, and will show exactly how old I really am. I always think of the Brady Bunch. A song that Peter sang when his voice was changing "When it's time to change it's time to rearrange just who we are and what we want to be"

That says it all!

PolarBlue

Being walked out of my job by the arm like a child in front of everyone and driven to a clinic to be drug and alcohol tested. I may have to file for bankruptcy now and see if I can sell my house before I run out of money and it's foreclosed on. It's not likely I'll find work around here making nearly as much as I was before. Starting out I'd probably have to take more than a $10k per year cut.

Then who knows. It could get better or worse.

ScottFromWI

Not sure if it was a bottom, but when I realized that I was drinking because I HAD to, vs drinking because I wanted to, I knew it was time to quit.

breath

I proved it is a proggressive disease, couldn't even get a buzz anymore. I'd look at that bottle, my actions and ask why, why can't I stop the compulsion? I'd reach for the bottle and not want it but had to have it. I started to feel like I was going to die. I was also dealing with the loss of Mom. Everything was spinning out of control, although I hadn't lost anything but my Mom, I was close to losing everything. I went to a therapist wit ha typewritten list of things that were wrong in my life, #11 was alcohol, she pointed to that, said once we fix #11 we can work on the rest and handed me her phone. She dialed an outpatient treatment program and told me I needed to listen & sign up. I did; then I was told not to go cold turkey for the 48 hours before I started the IOP, but I did anyway. That night I ended up having my wife drive me to the ER because my detox/DT was out of control. As I lay on that gurney I experienced the powerless and unmanageablity of Alcoholism; I didn't know a thing about recovery and AA, only later did I find that I was experiencing the first step of the 12 steps of AA. Although I do attend AA still I'm a very 'passive' member. Anyway, that was it for me, that night I knew I was whipped, done, and could not control alcohol in my life. THat was May 23, 2011; and I do stay sober One Day At A Time, I've learned that the surrender of that evening was in fact victory.

breath

And I typed that list because I had the shakes so bad I couldn't function, let alone write. THe list had twenty items on it; after taking care of #11 the rest were pretty much taken care of by the simple fact that I was sober, they just gradually went away.

MythOfSisyphus

I'd hit bottom every few weeks.

Chilledice

Blimmin heck, are you ok now?

FreeOwl

During a three-year period, after already having gotten my second DUI, a series of increasingly-bad blackout drinking periods and stints of trying unsuccessfully to moderate.

My "bottom" wasn't really one event but a chained-together series of events both private and known to my family over the course of those years. It just finally got to be too much when I could no longer hide how bad it had gotten for me. One particularly horrible day was when I passed out drunk while I had my kids and one cut the other's hair. Nothing terrible happened.... but the awareness of what could have happened was the most awful feeling ever.

I got sober for close to 6 months, felt confident I was "OK to have a few now and again", fell off into a bender for another year and a half and finally just got worn down low enough in my own sense of doom and despair that I knew it was quit or watch my life go straight to hell.

luvmygirls

I posted about it here. I'm a "yet," like many others. I think we should start our own club or something. http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ing-ready.html

sickofthiscrap

I hope I've hit my bottom and I never have to go down there again. Compared to some other tales here it doesn't sound that bad... major social embarrassment essentially, I made a total arse of myself at a party. But in addition to that I was sick of having more bad days in life than good... sick of feeling sick, sick of lying and hiding my problem, sick of being hungover at work, sick of the wasted hours... I was less enjoying drinking than doing it out of compulsion and I could only see things getting worse if I didn't stop.