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What does rock bottom look like for you guys ?

Merek said:
I hit rock bottom from addiction & a drug induced mental illness (psychosis) that landed me in the psych ward (I didn’t even know why I was there or where I even was to begin with as I came in on a stretcher) also not being able to sleep for 5 days straight and only sleeping 8 days out of my 22 day stay in that hell hole when I was on unit restriction most of the time. They also gave me 6 different medications with god awful side effects that made me hella suicidal and I had to take them or else I couldn’t leave or would be court ordered to take them.
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I had a very similar experience a few years ago. I decided enough was enough and that I would detox at home cold turkey from benzos and opioids. In retrospect I realise how dangerously foolish it was but at the time I wasnt exactly thinking clearly but the one thing I was sure of was that I wanted all of that crap out of my system ASAP. I didn't sleep for about a week and was severely dehydrated. Got up to answer the door on day 10 and collapsed into a seizure.

I was taken to hospital in an ambulance and after lying on a gurney in a corridor for three days I was taken to the psych-ward. I hadnt a clue where I was, why I was there and was severely anxious/paranoid to the point where I didn't know if what I was seeing was a hallucination or reality. Eventually I was given 10mgs of diazepam in the evenings to calm me down and was told I could expect to be there for at least 10 days. Interesting experience but not one I'd like to repeat - and I felt extremely guilty for worrying my family who, as it turned out, hadnt a notion I was even using drugs. I came clean to the doctors that I was detoxing from heroin and I had to get on methadone - something I really didn't want to do due to having been on it before and how it dulled me down, not to mention how bloody long the withdrawal process lasted but luckily I just got on a 20ml dose and got off it within a few months out of sheer force of will.
 
JackARoe said:
^ Agreed on there being no rock bottom. There is also never getting to the bottom of some situations. I guess Death would be a rock bottom. Watching people use tranq dope while body parts are falling off shows me it has to be death that is rock bottom.

I honestly so dislike the 90's recovery lingo. I was in a rehab in 1990. The notion was once you identify this deep dark pain and face it you won't feel like using. Well I was the type that faced the deep dark pain and used anyway. You know why? Pure logic. Because it feels good. Even the monkeys that pull that cocaine lever instead of the food go for what feels better. Doubtful they have deep dark pain.

Saying that I agree we can hide from feelings and using helps with that. There is some wisdom to the old recovery logic. But mostly just rhetoric. I like logic better to discribe. And drugs just feel good. Period.
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That Tranq-Dope stuff scares the hell out of me. There I was thinking I'd seen it all until videos of people frozen still began surfacing on reddit. Its incredibly sad.
 
The last three times I checked myself into detox/rehab I was at the point where I was getting so fucked up that I couldn't function (couldn't work/eat/etc) AND it still wasn't killing the pain. What I was doing simply wasn't working and I was in a hopeless, helpless, unsustainable state. I felt that I had only two choices:
1. Kill myself
2. Get help

As I said before, suicide scared me because I might fuck that up and just end up paralyzed or something. So I sought help.

One would think that, having hit rock bottom and surviving, one would never repeat such a thing.
One would need to think again.
And again...
 
When I was in Keystone 28 day rehab a guy got out two weeks before me. But he had to come back for meetings. And he did and one time brought me two MS contins. Orally I did them. The second time with a needle. I shot up in the rehab bathroom. This guy Charles who was in there recovering looks at me at the meeting that night and says what is up with you. You are nodding. He was a good dude. I wished that hadn't happened.

I have been to various 5 day detoxes. I think I used every time. One time someone gave me 40 mgs of their methadone and I was fixed for a day and a half in there. Another friend I knew was in there name Bill. He was suffering. He found out and looks at me as says you bastard. Then he said this is getting old. Just smoking and jonesing. He asked me if I had a car and money. lol We played guitars together. He passed from a heroin overdose a year later.

I have a million stories. Rehab you can reach some really funny states. Keystone was an old castle where the basement was a torture chamber. For real And they held the Halloween party down there. Creepy. You can see the chains. Saying that it was said to be haunted. Now this guy that got out was named Ralph. He brought me the morphine. But when he was in he was in an old part of the building. He as sort of suffering. But in the meeting the next day he mentions the lights kept coming on and waking him up at night. No real reason why the lights kept coming on. But by the end of the week he was so tired of it and suffering from lack of sleep. He said in the next meeting that he is getting some sleep that night and does not care if count Dracula comes in. lol

Really I have a million stories. Should start a rehab thread. That guy Ralph had a catheter in his heart. Use to shoot the MS contin directly in.

No real bottom. Just escapades.
 
Losing everything
Losing all family and friends
Homelessness
Jail or prison
Selling all your stuff
Committing crimes for the drug and for money
Selling your body
Can't live with or without the drug
Using against your will
Hating yourself and feeling like there is no way out.
Can't look at yourself in the mirror
No hope
Sharing needles
Smoking crack out of an inch long broken stem
Catching Hepatitis or HIV
Living in a crack house
Selling everything in sight
Robbing people
The list can go on and on . But your bottom really happens when you stop digging because bottoms have trapped doors
 
TimTim1993 said:
Losing everything
Losing all family and friends
Homelessness
Jail or prison
Selling all your stuff
Committing crimes for the drug and for money
Selling your body
Can't live with or without the drug
Using against your will
Hating yourself and feeling like there is no way out.
Can't look at yourself in the mirror
No hope
Sharing needles
Smoking crack out of an inch long broken stem
Catching Hepatitis or HIV
Living in a crack house
Selling everything in sight
Robbing people
The list can go on and on . But your bottom really happens when you stop digging because bottoms have trapped doors
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Going in and out of rehabs, detox, psych wards more than 10 or so times, going on the run, violating probation or parole because you can't stop using. It really is an endless cycle of misery
 
My Rock bottom is when I’m falling from 9 store building, crying from my ass, pissing blood from my eyes and puking from my nose and yelling with undisclosed punctuation: DON’T STOP PLEASE
Than I hit the the soft landing prepared for suicide guy up on the 13. and think with undisclosed punctuation: FUCK NOT AGAIN ME and proceed to run with a lot of broken bones toward friendly looking lights…. By the time we bump into each other and you offer me a beer I’ll be ready for new bottoms or as we like to call them, free-fall cave explorations.
 
TimTim1993 said:
Losing everything
Losing all family and friends
Homelessness
Jail or prison
Selling all your stuff
Committing crimes for the drug and for money
Selling your body
Can't live with or without the drug
Using against your will
Hating yourself and feeling like there is no way out.
Can't look at yourself in the mirror
No hope
Sharing needles
Smoking crack out of an inch long broken stem
Catching Hepatitis or HIV
Living in a crack house
Selling everything in sight
Robbing people
The list can go on and on . But your bottom really happens when you stop digging because bottoms have trapped doors
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Quite a comprehensive list, and what makes it worse is i can relate to around 90% of it.

Bottom for me came when I'd experienced so many of the above I could no longer look at myself in the mirror. Wound up going cold turkey with a half oz of heroin still in the same same as me, fuck living that way for another second, I couldn't handle the self loathing any more
 
elgoucho9 said:
Quite a comprehensive list, and what makes it worse is i can relate to around 90% of it.

Bottom for me came when I'd experienced so many of the above I could no longer look at myself in the mirror. Wound up going cold turkey with a half oz of heroin still in the same same as me, fuck living that way for another second, I couldn't handle the self loathing any more
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I hear you on that. It's no way to live, once that invisible line is crossed there is no going back. But like you said that you couldn't look at yourself in the mirror anymore. That's the worst thing, a lot of people think bottom is losing everything and all the external stuff which yeah it is but the internal stuff is even more detrimental.
 
I could write a lot but in short I think bottom is when you know you’re dying, literally killing self but continue, be it to finish the job cuz you (think) there’s nothing to live for or cuz you don’t care or whatever. I truly believe I’m now above that and that wont ever be my path again.
 
This thread and several other things today have brought about some sort of synchronicity where I've realised how long i actually spent at rock bottom.

The fucked up thing is alot of that time spent at my wits end in a bad place, i had money. Plenty of money. But my whole mindset/outlook was terrible and because of that mostly all the money brought was misery.

Now I'm skint and staying with family. But I don't feel so empty inside. I don't dream of my next hit every night.

It's taken it out of me a bit today. Like a realisation how far I actually had fallen. All the things I haven't done with my life. Comparing myself to childhood friends who are smashing it and here's me mid 30s skint back staying with parents. Haven't travelled as much as I'd like.

Even with all that in mind though since I kicked my habit it's like mindset is completely different. I am grateful for my current situation. I'm clean and on a better path. Still have friends/family who care. I'm back in an exercise and diet routine for the first time time years. I still have money too I guess, if I calculated assets, car and other material things I bought...

Without the drugs it's just so much easier to see things clearly and appreciate life. The second i get back into that whole cycle it's like im already at "rock bottom" with my mindset.
 
Of course, it's all relative. Any "normal" person would never have lingered, like I did, on so many rock bottoms...and then repeated the process several times.

As comedian Kyle Kinane put it:
"One man's rock bottom is another man's I'm banned from that Chili's."
🤣🤣🤣
 
Is rock bottom sleeping 1 to 2 days a week for months for unknow reason
Is it not recognizing yourself in the mirror
Is it not recognizing yourself at all
Feeling like your younger self wasn't you
Feeling like the world exist only from my consciousness
Is it understanding you will never know if your perception of reality is altered in any shape or form
Is it realizing you sound insane when you say what you really think
Is it not knowing what you really think
Lying to everyone even myself, so much lies,
Is it knowing you're doomed to not fuck up your last suicide attempt
knowing you will try again, no matter when
Romanticizing suicide, the only moment you are in control
Is it somehow managing to keep a decent social and professional life even as you're slowly killing yourself
Is it still feeling anxiety while HEAVILY medicated
Is it Being over the maximum dosage yet still barely notice improvement
Is rock bottom hiding psychotic symptoms
Is it ignoring the shadow people
Is it blacking out and seeing guns pointed towards you as you hold yourself hostage with a knife under the throat
Is it mixing stupidly high amounts of benzos and other downers just to see if you'll wake up
Then somehow always waking up, no brain damage, no permanent injuries and 37 scars on your body
Is it cutting yourself just to feel something
Is it always fucking up
Is it realizing life will never satisfy you no matter the meds/drugs
Is it death ?

There is no rock bottom, you can always go deeper.
 
My personal rock bottom (so far) was when I thought to myself "It's ok to be a lifelong benzo addict..."
Was drinking heavily and eating benzo RC's every night for a couple years and thought I would never be able to stop.
Thankfully I got off of them, but I never ever want to go back to that.
 
JohnPlayers said:
There is no rock bottom, you can always go deeper.
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Yup exactly my point. The only ultimate bottom is DEATH.

... And you tend to re-define what the 'lower limit' is as your life gets more and more out of hand.

I thought I'd stop if I ever found myself shooting up sweating and shaking in some filthy public toilet because I just couldn't wait another SECOND, like your 'desperate junkie' general stereotype. This became a rather too common occurrence.
I thought I'd stop if I ever OD'd. (I proceeded to require medical attention 18 x.)
I thought I'd stop if I ever ended up stranded among 'undesirables' in a dosshouse. Lived in one for an extended period of time.
I thought I'd stop if it ever jeopardised the future course of my life. I nearly lost my relationship over it despite it being the only thing that really matters to me.

The list can go on.
 
Well... I'm grateful for everything now. I went from being homeless to living in a group home to renting an apartment to inheriting a house. So, I'd have to say that being homeless was my rock bottom.
 
Wow this is one hell of s thread!!
Rock bottom is when you have had enough, and only you know. As well know in here many people die from the disease of addiction.
Rock bottom is when YOU stop digging, and put down the shovel of addiction.I came in to AA at 22 in 1982, right after collage at a highly Ranked Party school. My DOC is alcohol, and always will be.! I have had relapses over all these years related to death and Cancer, but I have NEVER thought that " I Got THIS" and can use safely. My mind is always just one will be fine, and my disease is like Why fucking bother having one of Anything?
The core of my addiction is MORE IS BETTER. That is a very dangerous mind set to allow Free range for me!
Sick and tired of
Being Sick and tired

I had to crush mt EGO, and humble myself that I am just a run of the mill Addict!
An other Bozo on the bus!!

BTW: my bottom had few few if any of these heart wrenching examples, I have never had a ticket ( one speeding in a really nice BMW) and only lost my soul. Yet I do empathize with hoe all those things would make me feel. Its not what addiction Does to us, Its How in makes us FEEL!!
 
TheUltimateFixx said:
Yup exactly my point. The only ultimate bottom is DEATH.
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There are far worse things than death, FAR WORSE!

It’s game over but sometimes alternative is level down so death ain’t that bad considering all the possible rock bottoms. Including broken spine down at some rocky bottom for example, tho I guess some would prefer life in any form over death be it for death fears or life beliefs.
 
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