Katie09

I'm just curious. I admit this is my lowest in life, but I'd like to hear your stories.

I have a friend that popped out of a blackout after drinking for days and that was his moment of truth. He hasn't had a drink in probably 13 years. He tells me he ended up living in abandoned buildings and being scraped off the street by cops.

Anyway, just want to know where this addiction took you...

yeahgr8

Trying to work out, not think about, which was the best way to kill myself and organising my finances, letting people know in the best way possible (is that is possible in hindsight), who would look after my cat etc. was quite a clear indicator for me of the next stop. Bloody glad i got help, it's only been under 5 months and ******* loving life now!

least

When I hated myself more than anything on earth and wanted to die. That was the lowest I could go.

24hrsAday

it seems strange to say.. but, i could not see it.. how bad my drinking really was until it was almost too late. i was drinking myself to death.. working a job that paid me more money than i had ever made in my life (and i hated it) so i made drinking my life..

aasharon90

The lowest I went was about 3 months
after my car accident in Feb. 90 which
landed me in the hospital for 10 days
after running of the road and hitting
a concrete culvert sitting on top the
ground.

Aug.90 as soon as i healed almost
perfectly from my car accident, I
returned to drinking emmdiately
after thinking i had learned my lesson
from drinking too much.

I went out to my favorite local
club and returned home to face
my spouse with another argument.

In the heat of anger I told him
that maybe i should just end my
life and then i wouldnt make him
mad anymore.

He told me to just go on to bed.

When he turned the corner i
said to myself, ill show u and
with a hand full of Nuprin and
some left over pain pills I downed
them with a big gulp of wine.

Then off to sleep i went hoping
not to wake the next day.

When morning came my kids said
they tried to wake me with no
success. Then in a distance i could
here the ringing of a phone which
was right next to my bed.

To this day I believe my HP was calling
me to wake up and let me know He
wasnt threw with me yet and get
out of bed.

Hours later family did and intervention
on me and off to rehab i went in the
back of a police car feeling like low
life, a criminal, anger, fumming.......

My family stepped in and did for me
what i couldnt do for myself.

I spent 28 days in rehab recieving
the tools and knowledge of my disease
of alcoholism which then set me
on the path of recovery learning
to live one day at a time sharing
my own experiences strengths and
hopes with other alcoholics.

Hi Im Sharon and Im an Alcoholic.

By the grace of my HP and people
like you here in SR I havent found
it necessary to pick up a drink of
alcohol since 8-11-90.

For that and you I am truely grateful.

Thanks for letting me share.

Katie09

Sometimes that happens. We cannot see ourselves. We may have an awareness that things are not right, but yet we are in some kind of fog. I know I got a wake-up call the other night when my friend told me he thinks I'll be dead in a year if I don't change my ways. I was giving myself a few years. So...moral of the story is to reach out and ask for help, I guess.

24hrsAday

i never thought i would be back in A.A. ever again.. now i'm over 2 years sober. if i can do it.. you can too katie!

coffeenut

I didn't hit a bottom in the traditional sense of hitting. No dui's. Family relatively intact. Kept my job. So in that way there was no bottom. But having to face up to what 30 years of drinking does to a life is horrific, once you sober up.

Now, when I look at what alcoholism did to my life...it keeps me sober.

nickishine

Katie,

I thought that I had sooo many "bottoms"! There were more than one moment when things got so horrific in my life, yet kept drinking. I guess for me it's been the total isolation that has fallen on me and drinking around the clock -- needing to have that alcohol to just not get sick. Then taking handfuls of pills to "end it" and it didn't work! I couldn't die and I couldn't live any longer the way I was. The kids have grown and are out of the house and felt I no longer had purpose... only when in the bottle. It's on the shelf now and not in my gut today!... Actually, can't have ANY alcohol around this alcoholic cuz I'll drink it.

The sobriety time I have had is always amazing! I've decided I'm not going to jeopardize it once again with "just one bottle" today!

Hope you're doing good, girl! I always think of you! :ghug3

laurie6781

I lost it ALL and I died. I lost the big houses, the fancy cars, the great job, the jewels and the furs and I lived the last year and a half of my drinking on the streets of Hollyweird.

I had an old beat up 1963 Ford, typical Alkie car with all four corners dented and a coat hanger for an antenna.

On Sunday June 7, 1981, 3 weeks shy of my 36th birthday, at about 4:30pm, (I had a cheap plastic digital watch, it said 4:30 and it was day light so had to assume it was afternoon), sitting on the concrete bumper, next to my car at the back of the Hollywoow Bowl Parking lot, drinking. Each drink I took felt like it was coming out of every pore of my body as fast as I put it in. It was then I knew I was dying. I knew I would die if I kept drinking and I knew I would die if I tried to stop.

I cried, I yelled "Please Help Me" , put the cap on the bottle and threw it in the back seat. That was my last drink. the next morning, after a hellish night I knew something was terribly wrong. I had heard my wino buddies talk about a hospital called Olive View out in the Valley, didn't know where it was, but knew I needed to get there. To this day I do not know how I found that hospital.

I later found out from the my medical records and from the admitting gal what happened. I walked in and walked up to her desk (there were no glass partitions back then) and told her I was an alcoholic, I hadn't had a drink since the day before and something was wrong, I needed a doctor. She told me, I was a very weird shade of green, she hit the emergency button on her desk and pointed to a chair not 4 feet away and asked me to have a seat. I never made it, I went into seizures on the floor between her desk and that chair.

I found out later that my BAC at that point was .38, and my body wanted MORE. My body needed MORE. I would seizure then my heart would stop. They would get my heart started and I would seizure some more. This went on most of the day. At 4:28pm on June 8 1981, 24 hours after I put 'the plug in the jug,' they were writing the TOD on my chart, after trying for the previous 1/2 hour to get my heart started. While the ER Dr was writing, my heart started on it's own. I was given a second chance.

I took this disease, affliction, whatever you want to call it TO THE MAX. I pray every day that those still suffering do not have to go as far as I did.

Several weeks later, when I was in a sober living house called Women's Odyssey in the Valley, I and several other women, with the consent of the House Mother cleaned out the back seat of that old clunker. Wwe filled a big black trash bag and 1/2 of another with empty bottles. Empty Thunderbird Wine Bottles. Yep, for someone who only drank Jack Daniels or Wild Turkey I ended with Thunderbird Wine. All the bottles were empty except 1. That one had about 3 swallows left in the bottom of it. I believed then, and I believe now, if I had finished that bottle, I would not have gotten that second chance.

I still believe there are 3 UPs for an alcoholic:

1. Locked Up ............................... Jail

2. Covered Up ............................. Dead

or

3. Sobered Up

With lots of hard work I have been blessed with number 3.

I continue to pray and hope that no one, none of you have to take it to the extreme that I did.

Katie, I know you want sobriety. I know you are torn. But reach down inside of you. Go to the rehab, don't end up where I did. And yes, I have mental problems. I am Bi Polar and apparently have been for many years, was probably part of why I started self medicating at 12. I drank for 24 years, 22 of it alcoholically.

You CAN DO THIS Katie. Don't take it as far as I had to, because of my stubborness, bullheadedness and denial. Oh and btw, the Drs told my family when I was 29 that if I didn't stop I would be dead by the time I was 30. Well, I sure showed them ............... sheesh what an idiot I was.

For your own sake, now one elses, go to rehab. Learn everything you can. Take all the help they offer. Find ways to overcome the cravings. Learn new tools for living sober. Find what works for you. There are many good programs out there today. The only glitch with all of them, is that they require us to WORK real hard. Somehow, we just don't get 'it' by osmosis.

So, I hope this is your time to find recovery.

Love and hugs,

mle-sober

I lost all perspective regarding what was important in my life. I am married and have 4 beautiful boys. I am a painter and a homemaker. My husband is an engineer. My job is to paint, to take care of the kids and the house, to be a good partner to my spouse.

I was none of those. Somehow, over 25 years of drinking, all of the things in my life that should've been prioritized took last place to my drinking. I hid my drinking. I hid bottles all over the house, I drank at restaurants and paid with cash.

I am Bipolar and the alcohol made it worse. I ended up horribly drunk, walking down the street naked, psychotic, mumbling. Ended up in the pysch ward. And then again, taken in and put in 4-point restraint for a black-out where I was throwing raw chicken at the cooks in the back of a restaurant. There are more but you get the idea: Sick, sick, scik, out-of-control drunkeness and pychosis.... I lost myself entirely. I completely lost my way.

Thankfully, I am a little over one year sober and I feel strong and happy. My family is on its way to healing too. I am so grateful.

Katie09

What a powerful post. It's sort of hard to find the words to respond to this...but I do understand the part about hard work. I also get the part about not getting this by osmosis. No, I've never had a seizure, and I don't want to. But I have been in detox and that was unpleasant enough. I've tried to do my best to get through this week just dealing with stuff, as I have my adorable pets I have to look out for. I thought about going to the hospital and called people. Still, I have no one here to look out for the pets. My friend gets here in less than 16 hours, but who is counting? He wants to leave for LA by Monday, and that gives me a bit of time to figure stuff out. Thanks for sharing your story.

Music man

Wow this thread has a lot of good stuff in it. I mean that because of the realness involved.

Coffeenut, I'm only 33, To think of wasting 30 years drinking is tough, very tough.( I could feel what you were saying)

Laurie I read your post before, somewhere in the forum and before reading that I thought my problem was bad. .38 a day later thats incredible. I once got busted and refused a breath test hoping it would drop by the time I got to the station, they did the blood test. my BAC was .32.when I got in front of the judge he asked if it was a misprint.
I would have drank more that night. I also thought I was ok and kept asking the cop , " don't you have anything better to do?" I tell you what, if you want to make a cop mad say that.

Any way to answer the question I never got to the bottom from the alcohol.

But when I was doing dope, I ended up way less than zero. In the crazy house, in jail. on the streets in the alley. under the house.(someone elses)

Somehow I always managed to keep a car, never had gas but I had a car.

nowLife is great 28 days sober, from alcohol
7 years clean meth!

Katie09

Yes another powerful post and thank you. I need to hear how far people have gone down the pike, as I am on my way without stepping up to the plate and stopping it. I am really sort of excited about going forward, even though I know I need professional help.

That is a wild story about throwing raw chicken in the restaurant, although I get it. I just ended up with men who victimized me - bad enough - and kept on drinking.

Iriss

I have had some low points in my drinking career, but no official rock bottoms so to speak, but I know If I dont find long lasting sobriety, I am on a fast train heading straight for rock bottom, hence my being here.. Trying so hard not to reach it... Thanks for all of these posts, very powerful...x

Rusty Zipper

it took me to places i said i would never go...

it led me to people i said i would never be like...

and it made me do things, i said i would never do!

pennyless, a crackhead for a roomy, car held together with duct tape, a garbage can full of bills...

health, was 30+ lbs. of bloat overweight, and a nice shade of greenish yellow!

and the worst...

emotionless, i just wanted to end it!

next month, six years of a new rebuilt life!

mikel60

I was living on the third floor of my sister's house. I had a black and white TV perched on an empty milk crate, a futon for a bed, two pairs of pants, two shirts, empty KFC box in my fridge. No phone, no friends, no life.

That was 13 years ago. Now? Whoa!!! I've got a great life with even better prospects for the future.

Thank you, God!

Sober is better.

Mike

citychick

Least Same here.

yeahgr8

Thanks again Mike.

Isn't it always great to hear inspirational comments like 'That was 13 years ago. Now? Whoa!!! I've got a great life with even better prospects for the future.' from people who have been there done that and come out with long term sobriety the other end. Made my day

Bamboozle

Wow.

What scares me is that I don't think I've ever hit a low point. There's been some bad things...gashing open my forehead and walking to the ER drunk...countless blackouts...wasting several years of my life doing nothing but drinking in my free time...but none of that compares to what I'm reading here.

I have a dawning realization as to what will happen to me if I drink and continue to drink. In the last year a friend of the family died from complications due to alcohol. He was in his mid-50's...slipped into a coma and wasted away. He was isolated (or did he isolate himself....or was it a bit of both...) in the last few years and did nothing but drink. He sold all of his valued possessions so he could continue to get smashed. He died alone.

I hear these things and it makes me think…and it does scare me…but what really scares me is that this may not be enough.

I’m experiencing more sober days in a row than I’ve ever had since my drinking career began.

How to hang on and not slip back into the abyss….