Rock Bottom
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Join Date: Aug 2017
Location: The Great White North
Posts: 260
Rock Bottom
Rock Bottom? Does it exist? Sometimes I think there is and it exists, and other times as I read these threads from all the people struggling, I am in doubt.
I ask this because some of these threads are quite honestly horrifying.
If you haven't hit your "rock bottom" then you're screwed buddy!!!
That is regular thinking from regular people that don't have this terrible disease. We've all heard people say that to us right?
LOL my favourite was "Get a Grip on yourself man!"
To me, these threads are everyday life for all of us. I've come clean on the stuff I've done while drunk outta my mind, and the looks I get from those are sheer horror.
But I believe I hit my Rock Bottom, as I am sober, but still very early into it and cautious still. I'm repairing relationships and all that stuff that goes with it. So anyways as I have rambled on and on I ask this question.
Is there a Rock Bottom?
I ask this because some of these threads are quite honestly horrifying.
If you haven't hit your "rock bottom" then you're screwed buddy!!!
That is regular thinking from regular people that don't have this terrible disease. We've all heard people say that to us right?
LOL my favourite was "Get a Grip on yourself man!"
To me, these threads are everyday life for all of us. I've come clean on the stuff I've done while drunk outta my mind, and the looks I get from those are sheer horror.
But I believe I hit my Rock Bottom, as I am sober, but still very early into it and cautious still. I'm repairing relationships and all that stuff that goes with it. So anyways as I have rambled on and on I ask this question.
Is there a Rock Bottom?
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Wisconsin, USA
Posts: 16,945
This is a very commonly discussed concept here, and there is no textbook definition of "rock bottom". Some people feel they have to reach it before they quit, and some people die before they get the chance. So it's really just a concept more than an event.
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: northern michigan. not the U.P.
Posts: 15,281
rock bottom is death.cant get no lower than that.
however, people can stop on the way down.some people have the bottom come up and smack 'em.
at which depth they stop varies, which is proven here quite often.
however, people can stop on the way down.some people have the bottom come up and smack 'em.
at which depth they stop varies, which is proven here quite often.
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Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: ireland
Posts: 138
Hi Canuckleman45,
What a great question, I often wonder the same myself. I would say for some people certain events can trigger a rock-bottom level in alcoholism. But it is all up to that person to decide if alcohol has taken enough from them that it cant take anymore so they decide to quit. Moreover, some people,s rock bottom is liver cirrhosis and even death and that is when I think rock bottom is too late. So I do think there is a rock bottom that everyone can hit it just depends where it stops for that person or what stops it for that person.
What a great question, I often wonder the same myself. I would say for some people certain events can trigger a rock-bottom level in alcoholism. But it is all up to that person to decide if alcohol has taken enough from them that it cant take anymore so they decide to quit. Moreover, some people,s rock bottom is liver cirrhosis and even death and that is when I think rock bottom is too late. So I do think there is a rock bottom that everyone can hit it just depends where it stops for that person or what stops it for that person.
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Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 25,373
I used to skydive. The lowest recommended parachute opening altitude was 2000 feet. That's when you wanted to be under parachute.
After several hundred jumps, it became instinct. In freefall, there is a sense of how close the earth is getting. It may be the horizon or the fact you can make out trees, but there are visual cues/warnings if you will.
One day I had a malfunction of my main parachute. I flailed around under a violently spinning and tangled parachute trying to get it to open - all the while falling through 1800, 1600, 1300 feet.
Finally something screamed danger and I cut it away, and went back into a sickening freefall...spinning. I pulled the reserve ripcord. In that instant, waiting for the reserve to open - I "felt" how low I was. The horizon was way up here.
I was under 1000 feet, less than ten seconds away from death when the reserve opened.
I felt that same cold hand of impending death at the end of my drinking. I could have kept drinking a little longer, maybe. Or I could have ridden that tangled mess into the ground.
After several hundred jumps, it became instinct. In freefall, there is a sense of how close the earth is getting. It may be the horizon or the fact you can make out trees, but there are visual cues/warnings if you will.
One day I had a malfunction of my main parachute. I flailed around under a violently spinning and tangled parachute trying to get it to open - all the while falling through 1800, 1600, 1300 feet.
Finally something screamed danger and I cut it away, and went back into a sickening freefall...spinning. I pulled the reserve ripcord. In that instant, waiting for the reserve to open - I "felt" how low I was. The horizon was way up here.
I was under 1000 feet, less than ten seconds away from death when the reserve opened.
I felt that same cold hand of impending death at the end of my drinking. I could have kept drinking a little longer, maybe. Or I could have ridden that tangled mess into the ground.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2018
Posts: 524
It's impossible to answer. As it stands my rock bottom was two weeks ago when I ended up in A&E due to a two week alcohol binge drinking 3 bottles of wine a day.
That was my rock bottom which made me decide I no longer wanted or could have a relationship with alcohol.
However if I was to continue to drink, my rock bottom would no doubt make that two week drink binge and A&E look like a walk in the park and I'd ended up in a far worse situation. So really it all depends on when the person says enough is enough.
One person's rock bottom is drunk driving, drinking at work, drinking in the mornings etc, someone else's is overdose, cirrhosis etc
That was my rock bottom which made me decide I no longer wanted or could have a relationship with alcohol.
However if I was to continue to drink, my rock bottom would no doubt make that two week drink binge and A&E look like a walk in the park and I'd ended up in a far worse situation. So really it all depends on when the person says enough is enough.
One person's rock bottom is drunk driving, drinking at work, drinking in the mornings etc, someone else's is overdose, cirrhosis etc
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Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: MN
Posts: 8,704
Like Tomsteve said, I believe rock bottom is when it kills you, dead. Everyone has a different level of "tolerance". When the addiction becomes more than we can tolerate, there's a good chance we start thinking about doing something about it.
Member
Join Date: Mar 2015
Location: St.Petersburg, FL.
Posts: 1,077
As we continue drinking our rock bottom gets lower and lower. Mine was wrecking my car while drunk and suicidal. I don't remember much, but the horrifying impact of hitting a concrete barrier at 80 mph is like nothing I'd ever felt. (It did shock me into a moment of awareness where I instantly regretted what I'd done, though.) I suffered a subdural hematoma and still have issues from brain injury---however I have been sober for 29 months and will never go back to that horrible, hopeless place. I am generally happy and my life is much, much better. The only bottom left for me would be the grave.
AA Member
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: Silicon Valley
Posts: 2,983
step 1 12X12
Why all this insistence that every A.A. must hit bottom
first? The answer is that few people will sincerely try to
practice the A.A. program unless they have hit bottom.
For practicing A.A.’s remaining eleven Steps means the
adoption of attitudes and actions that almost no alcoholic
who is still drinking can dream of taking. Who wishes to
be rigorously honest and tolerant? Who wants to confess
his faults to another and make restitution for harm done?
Who cares anything about a Higher Power, let alone
meditation and prayer? Who wants to sacrifice time and energy
in trying to carry A.A.’s message to the next sufferer? No,
the average alcoholic, self-centered in the extreme, doesn’t
care for this prospect—unless he has to do these things in
order to stay alive himself.
Why all this insistence that every A.A. must hit bottom
first? The answer is that few people will sincerely try to
practice the A.A. program unless they have hit bottom.
For practicing A.A.’s remaining eleven Steps means the
adoption of attitudes and actions that almost no alcoholic
who is still drinking can dream of taking. Who wishes to
be rigorously honest and tolerant? Who wants to confess
his faults to another and make restitution for harm done?
Who cares anything about a Higher Power, let alone
meditation and prayer? Who wants to sacrifice time and energy
in trying to carry A.A.’s message to the next sufferer? No,
the average alcoholic, self-centered in the extreme, doesn’t
care for this prospect—unless he has to do these things in
order to stay alive himself.
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Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Big City
Posts: 3,895
Originally Posted by Canuckleman45 
Is there a Rock Bottom?
Don't have to go very far in these boards to find people teetering on the edge of a rock bottom fall.
Seems to me to that most of us know deep down what a rock bottom would look like. Some of us have ALLOWED ourselves to get there, some of us have gotten very lucky and skirted The Fall. Some of us have climbed out of whatever level of the bottom we were hanging on to and stopped drinking.
Amazing how one of the ultimate tragedies in life, that effects so many of us, from so many different walks of life, has the same simple simple simple cure. Just stop.
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Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: US
Posts: 5,095
I try not to make comparisons between myself and others fighting addiction. I know that I can go lower as long as I'm alive.
On the outside you would not think that I'm an addict. Nice home in nice upper middle class world. Nice cars. Beautiful successful kid. Health. Stuff. But I consider myself to be a very low bottom addict. I'm just lucky as he!! that I haven't lost all the trimmings. Spiritually I couldn't have gone any lower. I was crushed.
On the outside you would not think that I'm an addict. Nice home in nice upper middle class world. Nice cars. Beautiful successful kid. Health. Stuff. But I consider myself to be a very low bottom addict. I'm just lucky as he!! that I haven't lost all the trimmings. Spiritually I couldn't have gone any lower. I was crushed.
Member
Join Date: Feb 2018
Posts: 274
The bottom varies from person to person. Somebody's bottom is lower than others but for you, where is rock bottom? Loss of relationships, lost money, jail, mental asylum? I have had it all. Some people are brighter than I am and the light in their head goes on earlier. I have not been homeless or eating out of dumpsters yet but I know people that have. And I could easily be there. Some died. I could believe that's a rock solid rock bottom.
Member
Join Date: Feb 2018
Posts: 674
Originally Posted by tomsteve
rock bottom is death.cant get no lower than that.
however, people can stop on the way down.some people have the bottom come up and smack 'em.
at which depth they stop varies, which is proven here quite often.
however, people can stop on the way down.some people have the bottom come up and smack 'em.
at which depth they stop varies, which is proven here quite often.
I think maybe the only thing worse would be to cause the death of or permanent injury to someone and live. Seems to me death might be just one notch above that.
Everything else is likely manageable to some extent.
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