quietsins

we talk a lot about the A's hitting their bottom.

but what about us? there is usually an event, or a thought, or a suggestion that finally breaks us.... and we no longer seek to wander without recovery.

my bottom was my exA asked me to get his drugs for him. it went against everything i have ever believed in, and everything i ever taught. i looked at my life and him in it.. saw that this is where i am at... and i dont like me very much.

and ever since that moment... i knew i had to choose to change, and possibly lose him (which has happened) or live a life in line with my beliefs morally, and spiritually.

life is for the living, not those who choose to die. my exA has made a conscious decision to end his life with alcoholism. thats not my path. thats not my fate. thats not my choice.

so i choose recovery, and these boards, and life.
and life is darn good.

quietsins

JessicaNAJ

My bottom was when I realized I wasn't happy. I was on Prozac for years and when I stopped taking it (to loose weight ) I had my revelation.....with a good talk from my best friend. She saw it all along. I was a pushover.

Savana 54

My bottom was the lack of respect that I had for him after seeing him as a drunk. Also, him racking up a huge gamlbling debt and writing bad checks to cover it.

michski

I had many bottoms and it wasn't the most humiliating one that got me to take sobriety seriously. Basically, my husband just had enough of my drinking and as screwed up as I was, I could not choose the bottle over him. He stuck by me through the worse of my drinking and using, but the morning he walked into our bedroom, woke me up out of a stupor and told me he just had to go because his heart was breaking, well, that was it. I asked him to drive me to detox and I've been sober ever since.

I read lots of posts here by husbands and wifes of drunks feeling bad because they must leave their alcoholic, but jeez, sometimes it's the only thing that works! In a weird way I think I was waiting for him to get serious about leaving me... and in a weirder way, I got a new respect for him because he knew what he wanted out of life and it didn't include living with a drunk, even a drunk he loved. He was patient but couldn't wait a minute more for me to make the decision of my life time.. I've been sober a few years now and things couldn't be better, although our life together definitely experienced some growing pains the first couple years of my sobriety.

gelfling

For me it was the admission of my son that he was an alcoholic. I went to pieces. Literally got hysterical. I screamed at my husband that I couldn't live through the whole thing again. I had put up with all the crap everyone here talks about with my AH and knew that it would kill me to have to go through it again. Especially with it being our son.

The pain was the worse thing I've ever experienced. It was as if my heart exploded in my chest.

I then realized that I had to take care of myself and to hell with everyone else.

JT

Gelfing I hear you...it was my son. I had a father and two husbands but when it was my son I thought I was going to die. They say that you keep repeating the same lessons until you learn them. My God wanted me to be a better person, to give me the peace that I always wanted and at first He whispered...when I didn't listen the first few times He had to shout.

Practically speaking, my bottom came when my son came home at 6 am from a night out (Ward had left to golf) and we argued. He shoved me across the room and I ran to a neighbor and called the police. Not that we hadn't had fights before but somehow this was different. I felt like we were living like trash...like my family was going to end up on an episode of "Cops'...and I was done. I got on the phone, found Al Anon and never looked back. They were going to go with me or stay on the porch but I was moving on!

As a testament my first daily reader "One day at a time in Al Anon" has a broken binding from being thrown against a wall.

Hugs,
JT

Cynay

I dont know if I have hit bottom... as all the decisions to be seperate were his.... but Im praying this last contact was it for me...

My bottom is when he told me he never got over his ex-wife, 24 hours after asking me if there was a chance for us and that he never stopped loving me.

I think that what hit the hardest is Im starting to see who he really is. The ex is living with a man that she had a baby with last year.... she was with this guy months after she kicked him out the last time... she says he treats her like a princess and its a life. He made it sound like she was not crazy about him.... But what kills is he is 7 months sober, saying to everyone no women till his 1 year is up, not telling his sponsor etc.... This women calls every 6 to 9 months and messes with him, I think she is probably addicted to his Chaos and Im told that she was quite the partier when they were married. I just see the crazyness of it all....the selfishness.... the lying....lack of respect for a family.... and his need to keep it all in a chaos.

I cant live like that and I think the trust is completely gone now, he said something about being friends but how can I be friends with someone I love and watch him doing all this????

I hope this is my bottom

JennyK

If hitting the bottom is leaving, I have not hit.

If hitting the bottom is realizing that "I" have to find help and make changes, well that would be the ONE day that I said the word alcoholic to my husband and he did not flinch.

I got online right away and found support within minutes. What I learned about detachment was life saving....

The site I found initially no longer exists, but the words that I read on that first day made all the difference in my life.

I CAN NOT CONTROL IT. I became a new person on that day. A better person. I was a HORRIBLE nag....when I stopped doing that, my life changed.

It amazes me that I used to think that I could make him change. Interestingly enough, being able to LABEL the problem, changed ME....not him.

So my bottom was really just a new beginning...

Jenny

minnie

I don't really know when I hit the bottom which led me here and into al-anon. I know that at the start of last May, I issued an ultimatum - get help or I'm leaving. I don't remember what event led me to do that. And I found SR and began to learn that I needed help too. That was more of a gradual process.

I hit my final bottom in a couples counselling session. I simply ran out of chances.

My ex had stopped drinking for a while and was going to AA. I was going to al-anon and we were attending couples counselling. He also had his own counsellor. We were talking a bit more honestly and I was starting to apply al-anon principles which were making life a bit easier. He kept saying "give me a break" and "work with me" and I tried to do that. He asked when I was going to start trusting him and I told him when he showed me he could be trusted. One way he could do that would be to talk to me when he had cravings and be honest with me when he'd had a slip.

Well, on that fateful Wednesday, he came home from a client visit totally hammered. Slurring, swaying and talking total nonsense. I didn't say anything, I just left him to pass out. He did talk to me and in fact came on here and admitted that he'd had a drink, but only one g&t on the train home. Failed to mention the bottle of wine in his briefcase. We went to the counselling session on the Friday and I sat there and heard the same old justifications and promises, word for word. That was when I realised that I couldn't live like this anymore. It was like I was living in Groundhog Day.

bahookie

Mine is a bit more embarrassing
My bottom came when I had been hoping for so long that my partner would change back to the person I fell in love with that I'd had shouting and screaming match with her one long long night. We ended up tussling physically and I said some things I wished instantly I could suck back in.
In the morning I woke up and realised that no matter what frustration or feelings of betrayal I had, nothing, but nothing could excuse my behaviour.
I had made the move to insanity -
I was reliving old hurts, I was expecting to be able to change her, I was living her chaotic emotional life and I didn't like me.
Through work I got myself into counselling, but talking to her, we both agreed the place I really should be is Alanon.

I'm getting there slowly and sometimes reluctantly, and sometimes I just want to chuck the whole thing and have a "normal" relationship.

But I guess it's worth it - the good outweighs the bad

Jane
xxx

CarolD

to let my addict son and daughter go to save my sanity.

For 10 years I tried everything to get them to see their illness. And it never improved.
I know these last straws were over material things...but they were finally my Waterloo.


The final straw with him...I came home from work to find 13 orginal paintings removed from the walls. And no son. When he called weeks later he asked if I had noticed that I was robbed!! I could no longer have him in my home.

When Mother was dying...my daughter stole her car and checkbook.
She also took antique family jewelry. My brother and I wanted to turn her in but Mother made us promise to let it alone. I did honor Mothers wish but I have no interst in allowing my daughter in my life.

The dishonesty the disregard for anyone else the lies the broken promises and dead dreams...

I will not live in the insanity.

Thanks for letting me share.

journeygal

My bottom came the day I lied to my boss, told him I had a doctor's appt, left work and drove home 30 miles b/c I couldn't find my addict. I got home, searched the house, looked to see if anything had been pawned, but I couldn't find him. Turns out he was at work the whole time.

The thing that really freaked me out was walking to the parking lot at work, which is a long way from the building, trying to tell myself to stop and go back inside, getting in the car, and feeling completely unable to keep myself from driving home for 30 miles. The entire time I was driving I tried to tell myself to turn around and go back but I couldn't. It was like I was watching myself, trying to warn myself to stop like you do when you're watching a horror movie and you're trying to warn the characters to turn around before they get axed. I just could not stop. I would not stop until I found him, like I was some demented Jason, Michael Myers, or Freddy Kruger. That's when I knew my life was out of control, and that's when I got my first glimpse of what an addict goes through.

Thank God for al-anon.

Magichappens

My bottom was standing over the emergency room table and realizing that I had made this man my higher power. I let a mentally ill person responsible for my life, my pain, and my happiness. Whether he got help or not, I knew I couldn't go on without it. I started Al-Anon the next day. I realized that if I got better and he didn't, it might be the end for us. About 18 months later, he found sobriety and began working the AA program. It's still no bed of roses. There is a long period of reconstruction. But I now know that I have direction and purpose in my life. I thank God for Al-Anon every day. Hugs, Magic

paula a.

My bottom came when I was so miserable that every time I got in my truck, I contemplated driving into a wall, or off a cliff, or over the center line...it was that or get help--I came here

Paula

equus

I thought about this and at first I thought that I’ve had many smaller bottoms rather than one big one but that’s not true. (Okay – grab a cuppa this may take a while!)

My bottom came before D came back into my life and it was absolute. It was the end of where I could go living the life I was and being the person I was. There wasn’t one single event that defined it, a few that were a symptom of it but none that stand out in isolation.

Through all my life I lived being strong, independent and successful. At 30 I could look back and know I had achieved childhood dreams almost a decade ago. I had a degree, my own house, a car, a horse, two dogs, a professional job and friends. My problem was that my own image and the image my friends had of me started to not really match the truth. I advised friends on careers (successfully), held their hands through break ups, you name it when there was a problem I solved it. Even physically I had the reputation of being indestructible – I could take the most incredible horse falls without breaking any bones – my bones are large and thick.

In every respect I lived this incredibly healthy life except for one small detail – I hadn’t the first idea how to be anyone other than my image, my past. I think I just got tired, it should have been such a small problem I should have just been able to say, but I didn’t, I didn’t even know how. I lived two lives, one still the old me the other one I didn’t so much live as quietly die. I let bills go unpaid, my house got messier and messier, I sold my horse, I lost heart at work, I let more bills go unpaid – including my car insurance, I got caught on the way to work.

I stood in my office and cried because no-one even seemed to realise I had completely unravelled. My old office mate asked me what was wrong and I said I have no-one who notices. That wasn’t true, friends had noticed, one said she was scared because I always solved problems so she thought if I couldn’t solve it she knew she couldn’t. Another one said she knew but all I would ever say is that I was fine, when she tried to say I wasn’t then I just avoided her. I had made the prison, but I felt trapped inside because I had NO practice at asking for help, I genuinely didn’t know where to start.

My bottom is the exact same moment as my changing myself, my bottom was knowing I needed help and saying I didn’t know how to ask for it. After that I went to the docs, spoke to my boss, took time off work, but most of all ASKED for help – and I started to learn how to do that. Actually I learned it doesn’t really matter how you do it as long as you do it honestly.

Then D came back, I’d put my house on the market and I’d decided to emigrate to a place where it’s culturally fine to ask for anything, but then D turned up. I’ve written here often that he has supported me easily as much as I have ever supported him, none more so than in those first weeks. The funny thing is even years ago I could ask D anything, even when that wasn’t true of any other human being I could always ask him. I can’t explain why but asking him to help me draw a graph wasn’t a problem – but those were years when I would NEVER have plucked up the courage to ask for a downright favour.

My life now is SO SO SO different, no-one sees me as indestructible, I find it easy to ask for help, people still ask me to help and I love that – it’s balanced. Recently I shot straight for counselling faster than a greyhound out a trap. No-one except me could know how impossible something like that would have been two years ago. Friends have said they love me having got more human, I think it’s meant the world to D knowing he helped me get back on my feet too. I don’t have to face anything alone, my friendship bonds have tightened and I have all their wisdom to rely on too. There are people here that know I’m willing these days to ask for help and their wisdom has been amazing. On top of all of that I can use things like counselling as and when I need.

I love my new life – I love suddenly having all this extra wisdom at my disposal, other people’s wisdom.

In all my life I’ve never grown in the way I have in the past two years, before I just grew up and up, now I’m growing outwards too, with stronger foundations, feeling steadier on a broader base. I know I’ll never go back to the way it was I’m too addicted to the support of my fellow human beings to ever try and be alone again.

GettingBy

I don't know that I've hit a "bottom" per say. I don't know what lies around the corner for us, so I don't know if things are going to get worse or better. I know that I've been pushed far enough to know that I need help.

I've seen myself (like an out of body experience) carrying on like a raving lunatic. Screaming, crying, throwing temper-tantrums... only to have my husband call me crazy, controlling, manipulative, and every other truth that he saw. Maybe that was one of my bottoms, the day I actually sat and listened to him and realized that he was right. I never wanted to see him as being "right"... so that was big for me. I realized then that I truly was keeping score, seeing in black and white, and over all being extremelly judgemental.

I also had many days of dreaming of ways to hurt myself, crash the car, etc in attempts to get attention from my husband. That was really sad, and it's embarassing to actually admit that I was thinking about crap like that. I never actually did anything and thank god I'm past that now.

I was so miserable for so long... and was always looking for "something" to blame. The drinking was a very easy target, but it's only a small part of our problems. Maybe that is my bottom? Recognizing that I can't blame everyone else anymore.

Lorelai

I thought about this question for a minute and I have to honestly say that I left my husband, not when I hit bottom, but when I hit the top. It wasn't any specific thing that he did that made me say "enough". It was when I finally realized that I was worth much more than this and that I deserved to be treated with respect - not just occasionally but always.

Once that hit me, I felt strong and happy and in control of my life. That was definitely the top for me.
Hugs - L

Minx1969

I'm not sure I really had one bottom..I've had an awareness since I was little that my family life was crazy and that I needed help..I saw my first therapist in high school..In and out of therapy many times..One bottom was when my brother killed himself (because of this disease)..that was the worst time in my life..FULL STOP.

I've never stopped trying to grow and improve myself..First it was therapy, self help books, a life coach..now it's Alanon..

My most recent exABF was the reason I went to Alanon..I went to learn how to live with his drinking (I wasn't going to make him stop..I already knew that..) I just could not continue to live the way I was living..Therapy didn't tell me anything new..Alanon has given me TOOLS to use and solutions on how to live life one day at a time.

And it is working for me..I am really learning how to change my thinking and have faith not fear.

chrisea

I hit bottom, well actually it seems like alot of bottoms, but it all got started last Oct... When xabf got pulled over for another Dui (it's his second) but after driving him around (for court hearings, meetings, bailing him out of jails) and spending thousands on attorney fees and fines... to finally get his license Back... I just was having a hard time with that. Besides he was restarting his business that he lost and I was helping him with that, more time & $$$. I just couldn't take anymore... Now, I am still untangling the web... Tomorrow the truck that is in my name, that he drove, while unknowing to me ~ he didn't have a license (cause he lost it due to non payment of child support...) will be transferred from my name. Fortunely my court hearing, went in my favor and I will get the fine $$$ back. But most importantly, I don't know if that traffic violation (letting someone drive your vehicle without a license) has points to it... That could have possibly raised my insurance premium... So I consider myself very grateful. I find any little thing, whether it's a book or movie from the library, the warm weather, my secluded apt, (recently, have been redecorating on a shoestring budget) to keep myself very content

nocellphone

I went to my first Al-Anon meeting, fittingly enough, on my birthday in August 1994. Since I hadn't hit a bottom at that point (I was simply slogging through a consistently-miserable daily existence), I went back out and got myself a good, quality bottom. Six months later, having gotten what I needed, I went back for my second meeting.

Since that day, Al-Anon has been a part of my daily life.

My bottom came around 1:30 am on February 22, 1995. After hours and hours of banging the ping-pong ball of verbal abuse back and forth with my now ex-girlfriend (preceded, of course, by six similar months of living hell), I decided to take a bath, figuring that the bathtub was some kind of sanctuary where I would be safe from further fighting. That's "normal", right? Taking baths at 1:30 in the morning?

Anyway, if I thought the bathroom was neutral territory, I was quickly proven wrong. My ACOA ex sat right down a foot away and picked up where we'd left off, cursing and screaming. I looked at her and said the magic words that have come to define my bottom: "I want my life back." She leaned closer, looked me in the eye and replied, in the iciest tone I've ever heard, "I'll kill you..." I said, "Please do, 'cause it would be better... than living... with you."

Apparently, she didn't kill me.

Having up to that point spent my days and nights feeling alternately suicidal and homicidal depending on, like, what time it was, being put out of my misery would have been a welcome change. Call it the "sweet relief of death"...

I'm grateful today that I was able to find my way to my bottom (which, incidentally, also turned out to be hers. She has a family today and sounded much healthier the last time we spoke). I will also be forever grateful that Al-Anon was there to welcome me back when I was truly ready to embrace it!

GREAT TOPIC!!!!!!