When does someone really hit rock bottom?

sadeyescryin

Can anyone help me understand how far an addict must go to hit rock bottom and care enough to get help?

Rancid1

Re: When does someone really hit rock bottom?

It's different for everyone.

For me, I had to loose something that I thought I would never loose. My own sanity. Insanity scared me so much that I wanted to die, and I went crying to someone and begged them to make the voices in my head go away.

It's different for everyone, but most people have to loose something that they never thought they would loose.

Savedin
illinois

Re: When does someone really hit rock bottom?

Rock bottom is definitely different for everyone.

One way to look at it is...think about what you think that persons bottom would be, jail, losing friends and family, losing job, homelessness, and imagine 10 times worse than that. That's usually about where rock bottom resides.

And that's almost ALWAYS where meth takes you.

TnSkye

Re: When does someone really hit rock bottom?

My husband has lost his family, homes, jobs, EVERYTHING-not once, but TWICE in the last 11 years and still hasn't found his bottom.

Before I left him, he told me over and over he could quit on his own, he developed plans, etc, but never followed through.

Now that I've left him, I really don't expect him to ever stop. He'll die using like his daddy did.

There is no predicting anyone's bottom.You can't assume that you can do or say anything to speed up the process.

Penel0pe

Re: When does someone really hit rock bottom?

I think it's different for everyone.

I stopped using when I finally opened my eyes and honestly admitted to myself that ADDICTION was my problem - not the world, not the "System," not my husband.... when I finally surrendered to the fact that, if I was ever going to have a good life, I was going to have to give up the dope. I lost a LOT along the way.

Naiev Newlywed

Re: When does someone really hit rock bottom?

Quote:
how far an addict must go to hit rock bottom

Unfortunately, sometimes death is the rock bottom.

There are no easy answers, and everyone else is right, it's different for everyone.

Some lose very little, some lose it all, including their life. It's hard to tell where your addict will fall in between those lines.

You can't sit around and wait and pray and hope that the bottom will come before death, that's only YOU wasting away. Trust me, I know, I was there. Waiting, praying, pleaing, getting high with him, losing myself to bring him back. It doesn't work. I dove into the depths of hell with him thinking I could pull him out. You can't, no matter what you do, you can't.

I don't mean to sound harsh, I just want you to realize there's no easy answers to this. YOU have to take care of YOU.

nineyearsclean

Re: When does someone really hit rock bottom?

Hi Sadeyes:

Here's an excerpt from my story. Like snowflakes, everyone is different. There is no way to predict what it will take for someone to hit bottom.

Quote:
At the end of 13 years, I was using 1/16th a day, I was 85 lbs., I had lost all of my back teeth, top and bottom, my house was in foreclosure, my cars were being repossessed, and I actually sold one for a song just to buy more dope, my husband was gone (still out there using to this day), my son had graduated high school and moved away to college, my step-son had gone to live with his bio mother, I was facing 11 felony counts against me, I had lost all self-respect, any sense of self-preservation, and all hope.

(I called a rehab center and was told my insurance didn't cover inpatient care)

Quote:

I cried into the phone for this woman to please help me. I told her that it was hard enough just to get to the point where I was asking, even begging, for help, and then to be turned away. I hung up the phone and felt more desperate than I have ever felt in my life. I was standing at a precipice, and I felt certain that I was going to fall, and that when I did, I was going to die.

Quote:
My choices were two: go out and buy the BIGGEST bag of dope I could find and do it all at once and end the madness once and for all. Or, turn in the opposite direction and run as fast as I could and never look back. That is what I did.

That was my bottom, nearly ten years ago. I went to prison for a year when I was about 6 months clean. So I hit my bottom BEFORE I got locked up, but AFTER I had lost anything and everything that was dear to me.

gotta have
a plan 1

Re: When does someone really hit rock bottom?

whoa! just realized hitting rock bottom is a good thing.some people never get to that point and have an oppotunity to clean up and recover and live.it's a life or death situation.i agree it's different things for different people and that it's all about losing what you value most in life.i have been very fortunate to not loose a thing and that makes me more vulnerable.i better watch it!i'm very very very glad i found this place.thanks guys!!!

undone

*Rancid*

that's how i feel right now . . . lately
think i pushed myself too far - now i've lost it -

forget suzette

Re: *Rancid*

22 years of observation....
...did'nt prevent me from loosing EVERYTHING.

I'd binge, hit the first floor of bottom...

....quit, acknowledge every time I use, it damn near destroys everything around me, I understood the universe was not with me, when I stepped on to that road....
...I understood, my body and mind was weakening with each
encounter.

I'd binge...
.....analyze the damage.

quit

binge again...
.......comunicate DEEPLY, and honestly within myself, until I could completely understand, meth would inflict the most severe punishments known, if I stayed with her.
....when I did meth, meth was doing me.
we would both run out sooner or later.
....one day there would be no meth for me, and no me for meth.

but you know...
...I JUST was'nt happy until I lost EVERYTHING.

I showed up at my parents house with one suitcase, and my tired, but intact soul.

...I'm 41 years old.

Suzette walked off and just left the most beloved things in my life.
she did'nt care about the things suzie cared about, and was in the drivers seat, making all the wrong decisions
that will haunt me and cause me pain forever.
....not only did suzette "win" the power struggle of my identity, she kept more of it than she had before.

the next time.
....I'll die.

even if I'm alive, you will not be able to see me in my eyes.

you'd see where something used to live.
.....like an overgrown garden, someone loved once, died,
and the new tennant never took care of.

so in closing, I've hit about 5 bottoms.
....each more devistating spiritually, physically, and financaily than the last.
.....each one picked apart and looked at closely in attempts to REALLY UNDERSTAND where this road was taking me, and trying to make it "set" with my core, and prevent it from owning me...
.....it owns me. It's pandoras box.
once opened, you can never quite get it shut again.

I look at it now, and I can't belive I did'nt regain control of my self, and what I love, and what means most to me.
.....NOTHING mattered as long as I had THE SPEED.
I knew THE SPEED was the most important thing in the world as losses accumulated.

....gotta get more,
uhm... I can see a little of...hurry up!
.... make it go away, don't look under the matrix, at all costs...
...do not look at what you've done suzie, there's nothing left for you, except the need for speed.
...the drugs are all you have left.
that's what you wanted.
......you wanted meth, you got meth.
plenty of meth, but no one, including me can EVER
pick up on the fine print.... the deal is....

You get meth......
......meth gets you.

a deal with the devil, costs you.

"it might come as quite a shock, you can't REALLY own that rock, it's just a waste of time"

jimmy buffett

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