Notimetoloose

I just watched a quick interview with Joe Walsh on Sydney Morning TV "Sunrise"...Eagles back together, Aussie Tour... etc,
The interviewer asked Joe about his previous addiction to cocaine and alcohol and ask how he had overcome that....His answer was that "he reached rock bottom before he died while a lot of his friends died before they reached rock bottom.".....
..I think I constantly made new bottoms or was able to dismissed a lot of my bottoms with a several more drinks, kinda cycling but at the same time recognizing that I need to stop the lunacy.
We all have different rock bottoms....
Just wondering what you think!?.

Della1968

I just kept lowering my bottom for way too long.

Soberwolf

I think Joe Walsh summed it up really well

suki44883

I've always liked Joe Walsh, and I admire him tremendously for beating his addictions, especially in the line of work he is in.

ScottFromWI

I think it's mostly just semantics. It's impossible to define what a "bottom" is anyway. What is important is realzing you have a problem, accepting it and working to change it. Where you are on the scale of "top to bottom" when that happens is largely irrelevant.

Notimetoloose

I like Joe Walsh as well,
I think so too Scott...I think it is semantics
I just keep wondering why we can recognise that we have a problem but somehow keep postponing getting help or taking action to change it...why sometimes we can not get up from a rock bottom or a progressive slide downhill. There is no epiphany or if there is we are no longer capable or have the means of going in a forward direction....
Joe Walsh clearly has insight, he has lived it....I just don't think that it is as simple as a bottom...

ScottFromWI

For me, the last time I quit, I just knew it was time. It wasn't a lightning bolt or a magic vision, I just woke up that morning and knew I had to stop. I still had a job, my family, my home, but I had just come off a 2 week binge over the holidays and it had to end. It wasn't the first time I quit, or even the first time I had a decent run of sobriety.

I do credit SR and my time spent here for helpign me realize and accept my problem, but it cannot say why this time was so much different.

biminiblue

The day I reached bottom was the day I stopped digging.

Doesn't have to be a huge event that causes it. In my case, I was tired of the grind of anxiety/drink/anxiety/drink/racing heart/racing thoughts. ugh. Bottom.

Sebastian84

A scene from the TV series 'Californication' comes to mind, which I realise isn't exactly a bastion of sober characters, heh, but I used to enjoy watching. Many of the main characters are congregated around a dining table doing brunch, when another runs in naked - high and drunk. He dances around shaking his junk before running back out into the garden. Everyone regards the scene that just played out silently, and one of the female characters speaks out:

Woman: He has got to change.

Hank Moody (show's main protagonist): Well you know what they say about change..

Woman, eyeing him off cooly: What.

Hank Moody: You have to hit rock bottom.

I echo ScottfromWI's sentiments completely, that it's just semantics and difficult to define 'rock bottom'. I imagine that in most cases 'rock bottom' would be death, having brought only a negative influence to the lives around you. In my case though 'rock bottom' was this past Tuesday morning, waking up sitting in bed with my neck bent at an unnatural angle, laptop crashed to the floor, beer bottle spilt over me, and my body almost convulsing as it struggled to rid itself of the toxins I had poured into it over the past 75 days. Ultimately though, I still had a roof over my head and my family still loved me, so it could have been much worse. As ScottfromWI says, it's about hitting a point where you actively work to change yourself, having realised it has gone on too far.

Seb.

MesaMan

Joe was a 'fixture' around Boulder Colorado when I moved to there.

This was the period where he was booed off Stages when he was too hammered to complete a Show. Besides the 'Fast Lane' Lifestyle, he had to deal with his Daughter being run down and killed in a Boulder Crosswalk at the bottom of a Hill.

The top level of Amateur 'Ham' Radio License one can get is the 'Extra' Class. Joe achieved that, and has some gorgeous, classic, 'Collins' Company Radio Gear in his Ham Shack. One intelligent Dude.

Live, he dedicates his Song 'One Day At A Time' to 'giving up his Best Friend Vodka 20 years ago' [paraphrased]. I immensely respect what he did in getting Sober, and thereafter.

I posted this Clip recently, since it shows Joe back in top form. Whatever his personal 'bottom' was, he hit it - unlike most of us - in the glare of Public scrutiny.

'Rocky Mountain Way' ~ Joe Walsh ~ Live At Daryl's House

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