stick2it

Do I need a 'rock bottom' to finally quit drinking for good? I've been here before, just half-assing the trying to quit thing. And I'm back again.....
What was your catalyst to quit? The thing that got you to say "that's it, i'm done"?

nez

Acceptance of the blatantly obvious fact that, the result of me taking a drink was never going to end the way I wanted it to; it was always going to ultimately end in the sh#ts.

ToughChoices

I spectacularly and publicly lost my job, but I still had loving friends, supportive family, and a blessedly forgiving spouse.

I was absolutely unwilling to voluntarily sacrifice any of those relationships.
I stopped because I lost something important enough to jolt me into reality. If I kept using, the next loss would be horribly more painful.

Today I am clean, sober, and determined to make amends so that I can LIVE instead of just getting by.

If you stay on the drinking/using train, you get further and further away from where you want to be. Get off now.

least

For me, it was waking up after two days of drinking, sicker than a dog, and wishing I could die just to end the misery. At that point I just knew I was done. I knew withdrawal would be hell but wanted so desperately to never wake up feeling that bad ever again. Tomorrow will be 12 years and 7 months sober. I am so glad I stopped drinking. My life is so much better now.

AtomicBlue

The last two years of my drinking I struggled with admitting I might be an alcoholic. After my second earnest attempt to quit drinking (lasted two weeks) I ended up in short time back to the same level of drinking. I woke up at my neighbor’s house after passing out and pissing myself (not a first for that). At that point I realized I had a serious problem and didn’t have the solution. That’s when I reached out for help and found the solution. I’ve been sober since. It’s a much better life.

Dee74

welcome back Stick2it

I always thought a bottom needed to be some catastrophe - but I lost my career and kept drinking, I lost my relationship and kept drinking, I lost a lot of my health and kept drinking....

I discovered that bottom is that moment when you stop digging and start climbing.

That can happen anytime - which is great cos it means you don't have to dig as deep a hole as I did
Don't half ass it - give it all you have

Mags1

Hi Stick2it. I saw myself for what I was, a drunk, and I didn’t like it.

AthensDawgs

lost multiple jobs due to drinking. I've also had a few relationships that stopped due to my excessive drinking.

Last November I went on a two week bender. It resulted in back to back hospital visits. I was placed in the mental wing and placed under suicide watch because I apparently told them I was going to harm myself. During my time there I got aggressive towards the staff and I was put under restraints for a brief time period.

I was putting myself and my family through pure hell and misery. I couldn't stop drinking and I was going to die if I didn't stop. I went from November to April and then relapsed. I'm now approaching 3 months with no alcohol(17th). I have an apartment that I love and a great job. Life is great right now.

BackandScared

This!
As I have explained here my decision to quit came when I was about to drink at 7 am to stop withdrawals. Instead, I decided to face them with the help of a doctor. The doctor did not help the way I wanted, but tI was determined not to continue on the same direction. Do not give up, reassess what you may be able to do different instead of waiting for something else to happen to you. Good luck

ClearPath64

Hi stick2it, everyone's definition of 'rock bottom' is different. When you posted back in August, you mentioned that you were diagnosed with a fatty liver and that the doctor advised you to quit. For many of us, that would be considered 'rock bottom'.

I know that you keep coming back to SR because you want a better life. Even at our age, it's possible. That was one of your questions back in August. Are we too old? Half-assing it is the problem. I've been doing just that for years. Just coming to SR and posting periodically works for some, but not for most, I'm guessing. Getting outside of my comfort zone and doing something different seems to be working for me now. I remember you saying that you had a bad experience at an AA meeting once, and didn't go back. Same here. But I recently started dialing into a Zoom meeting that has given me a completely different experience. People that I can relate to, that are just there because they want a better life. No preaching. No judgement.

My 'rock bottom' was finally realizing that I could no longer win this fight. Accepting that this is who I am and changing my focus to "what am I going to do about it". It takes work stick2it. But what better work is there than fundamentally changing who we are. You don't have to continue living life in a half-assed manner, which is the best we can hope for while drinking.

Wishing you the best.

DriGuy

I doubt that it is just "one" thing for anyone. There's so many bad things about it.

Rock bottom is not a catalyst. This is a bit pedantic, but rock bottom is just your lowest point. For every rock bottom there is another one waiting for the honor. I propose we throw out the term as meaningless. And I hate it when people advise (or imply), "Maybe you need to hit rock bottom before you can quit." What??! Are you suppose to drink your way to an unidentifiable place, and then finally quit? That has nothing to do with recovery. You must take action, not give way to further decline. Suppose your rock bottom is where you die of alcohol poisoning? Waiting to get really bad before you do something is counter productive.

Now after that bit of lecture, one of my most motivating experiences to quit was being a pathetic schmuck all the time, knowing I was acting like an pathetic ass, and knowing I was being controlled by a mindless chemical that I could not stop drinking. Yee gods! Who wants to be the pathetic loser throwing away his life and his money by being addicted to a substance that makes you stupid? Of course some alcoholics may feel like macho men, drinking their beer and walking around thinking they ought to join the Hell's Angels. But it was becoming more an more apparent to me, that alcoholism was my failure.

Then there were health issues involved too. Drinking doesn't make you healthy. It does the opposite. Slowly at first, but through the years, the effect is profound, and I was well aware of that, while watching it happen.

Others will undoubtedly have other things that made them up and quit. There are too many of these to count.

MrPL

I’m with DriGuy on this. It can always get worse, but this shouldn’t be the driver for recovery.

For me the catalyst was seeing I had no control
over it, multiple times. And more than anything, a really true desire and intention to live a better life, or even the best life I can.

Scott2295

It took me 3 years from the "rock bottom" to my true recovery that started last November. That "rock bottom" January 2019 was daily drinking starting at 6am, auditory hallucinations, being so sick from drinking that when I stopped that time I was in bed for 3 days. Last November, after 50 day 1s in 3 years, I knew I couldn't continue or I would die. I also just couldn't physically drink any more. My body was totally rejecting booze. There was no pleasure in drinking. It only stopped the nausea and shakes for awhile after I took that first drink. I knew what to expect in withdrawal by then and just hung on for a those first few days. It was then that I really fully understood what alcohol was doing to me that I was able to develop the mindset that I could never drink again. The memory of the last days drinking is still fresh. I know that if I take even one drink it will take at least 6 months to stop again if I ever manage to do so. There is another "rock bottom" waiting for me if I ever do take that one drink.

Radix

I drank daily (or very nearly daily) for more than 20 years but I never had what I would call a "rock bottom." I knew I had to stop, but I was always thinking it would be in the future.

In preparing for this hypothetical quit date, I came to SR, and I read the book on AVRT, and I looked at other online resources, partly in a good-faith effort to educate myself about alcohol use disorder, but also because some corner of my brain was hoping that if I researched long enough, I could discover a way to stop that was easy, painless, required no work on my part (maybe there's a new pill I could take!), never required me to confess anything to anyone, and left me with no uncomfortable cravings whatsoever. Ha!

Then about a year ago I got really drunk and fell over at home, and hit my head. My partner got totally freaked out and almost called an ambulance, because apparently it took me a few minutes to wake up.

That was what finally opened my eyes. I realized that my drinking was really, really hurting other people, who were worried about me. And that gave me just enough embarrassment and shame to finally make the change. Or I don't know if that's even true, because I had had plenty of embarrassment and shame before. But I was just ready to not feel that way again. As I said above, I had already been reading about recovery, so I felt I had some knowledge and some "tools," I just hadn't put them to use. But on that fateful morning, I said I was done, it's enough, this is over. And I haven't had any alcohol since.

That's probably too much information, but the summary is this: I educated myself while I was still contemplating, and then I took action when I was confronted with how my drinking behavior really didn't fit (at all!) in with the values I thought I was aspiring to.

You definitely don't need to hit some kind of objective "rock bottom." In fact, waiting for rock bottom is kind of like my old plan of waiting to quit until some hypothetical future day (that may never come).

My advice would be this: Ask yourself -- does your drinking behavior bring you closer to your best self? Does your drinking make you into the person you want to be? If not, then quit today. Be done with it.

Nonsensical

+1
I could choose a bottom or wait for the Grim Reaper to do it for me.

Hevyn

The knowledge that no matter how much willpower I used, one drink would always lead to getting drunk & stupid.
Getting drunk & stupid would always lead to unintended consequences - sometimes very dangerous.
Admitting that once alcohol was in my system anything could happen was what needed to happen for me. I drank decades, & in the end it was all day.
Things began to happen that I swore never would. I turned myself into someone I didn't recognize, & that was terrifying.

Good to see you, Stick.

VikingGF

My rock bottom was in April 2021 but I kept on drinking. Eventually I realized that I was waking up in withdrawals and by August- I was simply finished. Drinking held no more power over me- but stopping was still physically hard- nothing worth doing is easy, right? So, bottom or not- once you decide you're done, you're done. It still requires thinking, planning, growing and working every day- but that's the difference of sobriety and just "not drinking." Took a while for me to figure that part out, too.

You can do this, Stick2it. All these voices are proof.

DriGuy

I drank for years, but was never the classic "falling down drunk." Until one day when I fell down drunk. It wasn't outside on the slippery ice, or tripping on the edge of a sidewalk. I was walking across the floor, and just fell down. I was laying on the floor looking at the ceiling and said to myself, "This is really bad. I drink way too much, and here I am on the floor, and I didn't even trip. I just fell down."

I knew I had to fix this. I just didn't know how. This wasn't my personal rock bottom. I continued to do new stupid things, albeit from a near vertical position most of the time. I didn't see a rock bottom. I just saw what looked like a bottomless pit that I was sliding deeper and deeper into. This is not a verbal metaphor. I actually imagined looking into a bottomless pit, and I knew I was well on my way in the slide. I knew that if I didn't do something, it was going to get worse.

fishkiller

The bottomless pit of alcoholism.

Thanks driguy. I've been trying to reply but could not think of a way to put it but here it is.
I was waiting for rock bottom to quit.
Said I would quit if the Dr. ever told me my test results showed a bad liver or kidneys. Insane
Why would I wait until then?
Because I was an addict. Because I was listening to the addiction and not my brain. Because I feared a life without alcohol.
So I would drink until I was sick and then live the rest of my life sober and unwell. Insanity

Well my body is pretty resilient my mind however not so much.
I was drinking myself crazy.
I was losing my mind.
However I somehow realized there was no point where I could not get any lower.
The bottomless pit.

I got low enough that if there even is a bottom I sure as hell don't want to go there.

So I suppose my bottom was reached when I realized there was no bottom.

Just an endless pit of agony and despair.

DriGuy

Pretty much the same. It's a terrifying hole to be looking into.