great thread and amazing responses!!!!! i was homeless, living off a stolen powerbar a day for food (weighed 125 pounds even though im 5-9 and male), crippled by a massive heroin addiction, no ID's, no money, no insurance, no contact with family, hadnt slept in a bed in 5 months, was scared to death of chicago's streets, starving, lonely, suicidal, continually dying from heroin only to be resurrected by paramedics, etc....

thank God things are so different today (as i type on my laptop in my apartment after a hard days work/trip to the gym/nice dinner). :)

I quit because I thought I would die a lonely drunk like my Grandfather. I never meet him. He died before my parents got married.

Barb

I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was also sick of chasing the pills. I was tired. I thank God I do not have to live like that anymore. One day at a time. Great thread!

I was killing myself and breaking my families lives, and that is an understatement.

Now let me change the line of questioning a bit ...

Would you all share the role of your family and friends in this "breaking point." Was there anything they did that ultimately brought you to that point or was it all on your own? If you had a word of advice for them prior to that, what would you say? Like "why didn't you?!!" or "why DID you?!!!"

A lot of us want to do SOMETHING or ANYTHING to get you help, but feel helpless. Or we feel used, or like we're just making things worse. Any help for us in retrospect?

No, there was nothing my friends/family could do...amd belive me they tried. It wasn't until they finally gave up on me and would have nothing more to do with me that I hit "bottom" and sobered up.

There was absolutely nothing my Husband could of done or said. It was a point that I had to reach on my own.

I don't blame my friends or family in any way, but I just wish someone had of talked to me and asked me what I thought I was doing.
However, having said that, I wonder if that would have stopped me drinking. Maybe I really had to hit the bottom before I stopped.

CB, was at a funeral of my best friends (civilan) cousin...(addict) he OD'd...

my best friend looked at me... (i was a train wreck)

he said, pat... if you die like cuz... i wont shed one tear for you at you funeral... i will for your mother! OMG... that one stuck in the abys of what was left of my life...

i have to say, a few more little experiances like that happened... not words, the aciton of another as bad as me... get'n better was one more...

6 months after...

i surendered...

hands up zip!

grateful for my bottom!

and to all the anti-bottom folk... phoey i says!!! its my recovery... lol

I delibertly stayed 900 miles away from my non drinking family.
I only associated with other drinkers.

So No..my family and old friends had no part in my recovery.

My new AA friends sure did!
:funjump:

I, like CarolD, estranged myself from my entire family and isolated from people towards the end. I still had not lost my business or my reputation, but I had lost my mind.

But to answer your 2nd question: No. Nothing anybody could have done or said to me would have penetrated my zombie heart. I had no sense of there even being other people on this planet. It was all about me.