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UnevenEdge

Have you ever hit rock bottom?


Sawdamizer

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Watching this intervention show while on a call and I was thinking what rock bottom looks like to people.

 

I'd imagine it could be completely different from person to person. I mean, I've wanted to die from substances before and ive been hung over for a week or gone through withdrawals from shit, but not sure what it would look like to me.

 

I don't have a lot of IRL friends, by choice... and not very close to family so I would never know it by becoming more distant.

 

Then again, I guess you wouldn't know it until you are there, right?

 

Best guess, rock bottom to you?

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Rock bottom is a mental health issue unresolved, pre-existing and made worse by the substance use, or possibly even caused by substance use.

 

People who are "just addicts" wine and cry and bitch and complain they are alcoholics and what not- it may be true for some.

 

Mental health issues (bipolar, schizophrenia) is a far more complicated thing then just a drinking problem.

 

So Rock Bottom to me is mental health. 

 

 

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i was approaching once, but i think i corrected before i got there. had just been busted for second dui. lost driver's license and job, had to move into a shitty "apartment" and trade labor for rent. it was actually a big empty building, and the owner needed someone to keep an eye on it 24/7. i mean, the place didn't have heat in the winter, no appliances except for a small fridge and microwave, no fucking shower until i installed one myself (i bathed with a rag from the kitchen sink for a while). slept on a cot. walked my laundry to the laundromat a mile away once a week, and shopped at the dollar store for everything because it was the only place within walking distance. my closest family was 4 hours away and the only friends i had were the local drunks.

 

i look back at that and think, damn, that was fucking horrible. but then i realize it wasn't really that bad, compared to what actual rock bottom probably looks like. i made the most of my shitty time there. had access to the roof of the building, and i would bring friends over and we'd toss beer cans at the traffic below and pass out under the stars. had a big old fireplace out in the main room that i could crank up whenever i felt like it. it was also during that time i got my bartending job and started working alongside future wifey.

 

so i think that was probably the lowest i've been, but i'm kinda glad it happened, because it put me on this path. so i don't think i can honestly call it a rock bottom moment. more like a reset button maybe?

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For me it was back in 2009. Family disowned me, but not before abusing me one last time, and took my college funding away. It was too expensive to continue school so I withdrew. Grandma dies, dad convinces every one I ignored her dying wish even though I didn't even know she was sick, much less had died. They believed him and I had to bring a bodyguard to her funeral, which I wasn't invited to.

 

Wound up homeless, lost nearly 70lbs in a month, mostly from all the stress and not so much the lack of food. I was eating exclusively out of a dumpster of a restaurant. Was exhausted and cold and tried to kill myself but was stopped.  Had the cops called on me when I was resting on a bench outside of a shopping center. They told the police I was breaking into the Piggly Wiggly...at 7pm, so it was still open. One of the officers sympathized with me but his partner pulled a gun on me and threatened to shoot. The other cop got him to back down and called my next of kin which lead to another bad year, though not as bad as 2009.

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For me it was back in 2009. Family disowned me, but not before abusing me one last time, and took my college funding away. It was too expensive to continue school so I withdrew. Grandma dies, dad convinces every one I ignored her dying wish even though I didn't even know she was sick, much less had died. They believed him and I had to bring a bodyguard to her funeral, which I wasn't invited to.

 

Wound up homeless, lost nearly 70lbs in a month, mostly from all the stress and not so much the lack of food. I was eating exclusively out of a dumpster of a restaurant. Was exhausted and cold and tried to kill myself but was stopped.  Had the cops called on me when I was resting on a bench outside of a shopping center. They told the police I was breaking into the Piggly Wiggly...at 7pm, so it was still open. One of the officers sympathized with me but his partner pulled a gun on me and threatened to shoot. The other cop got him to back down and called my next of kin which lead to another bad year, though not as bad as 2009.

whut

 

I wanted to like this post in support for over coming this tragedy

But somehow it doesn't feel right to like the abuse you went thru

 

Sorry

 

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  whut

 

I wanted to like this post in support for over coming this tragedy

But somehow it doesn't feel right to like the abuse you went thru

 

Sorry

 

The abuse had been going since the mid-90s, so that was nothing new. But in 2009 it had become much more physically violent than previous years, which were often more psychological with the abuse with a little physical stuff here and there. I'm 2009 I started getting thrown into walls, slammed into pavement, and just straight beaten along with the other, non-physical abuse.

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The abuse had been going since the mid-90s, so that was nothing new. But in 2009 it had become much more physically violent than previous years, which were often more psychological with the abuse with a little physical stuff here and there. I'm 2009 I started getting thrown into walls, slammed into pavement, and just straight beaten along with the other, non-physical abuse.

 

I'm hoping you filed many restraining orders against them as well as a few lawsuits

 

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shit....rock bottom....my personal opinion is that it can always get lower....when I say "it could be worse" it honestly could ...by sheer luck I could be sitting outside on a park bench...next thing I know I could be getting mounted a large Kodiak bear....I mean really it can ALWAYS get worse...

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I was gonna be an ass and autoplay a vid of JR yelling "rock bottom" for like 6 minutes, but things got kinda heavy and I am not in the mood to be a complete jerk.

 

Glad you made it out GSH, keep doing you. :)

 

 

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LOL at these rock bottom examples.....And that's not to say that I have anything better to present to the table, because unless you were......I dunno, I use this for example...... hunted, gassed and cooked by Nazis, I don't think depression over poor decisions can ever really qualify as rock bottom.

 

When your entire life is hiding or dying, THAT'S where I think the rock bottom guage starts.

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that's not really "rock bottom" type stuff though. hitting rock bottom = self-imposed suffering or despair, at least imo.

 

maybe my definition is wrong?

 

So you don't think losing one's entire family and fearing for your own life isn't a quality scenario for rock bottom.  Why would rock bottom need be self inflicted.  What if you are dead sober, but you lose your job, wife and kids, and property due to no fault of your own?

 

 

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LOL at these rock bottom examples.....And that's not to say that I have anything better to present to the table, because unless you were......I dunno, I use this for example...... hunted, gassed and cooked by Nazis, I don't think depression over poor decisions can ever really qualify as rock bottom.

 

When your entire life is hiding or dying, THAT'S where I think the rock bottom guage starts.

 

I don''t know - I've always thought of people who are persecuted by others as victims, and if they make it through, as survivors. They deserve comfort for suffering and applause for enduring. 

 

For me, rock bottom is something one does to oneself, and it's the result of one's own bad decisions, inflated ego, and refusal to learn (Which is probably why I'm so familiar with it.) Generally, although one may receive help and kindness at this point, what one deserves is a swift kick in the ass., because one is exactly where one has put oneself.

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So you don't think losing one's entire family and fearing for your own life isn't a quality scenario for rock bottom.  Why would rock bottom need be self inflicted.  What if you are dead sober, but you lose your job, wife and kids, and property due to no fault of your own?

not exactly, no. mthor did a better job of expressing the idea than i did. i think what you're expressing is closer to the definition of dire straits than rock bottom.
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I don't think being a victim automatically nulifies rock bottom.  I always considered the story a Job in the bible the ultimate rock bottom story,

 

But fine, I realy don't think anything I do to myself would ever allow me to claim rock bottom......If I ever in some way were responsible for one of m kid's death, I guess that the only thing that I couldn't shake off with opiates and a pastrami sammich.

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i suppose some of that out-of-your-control shit could be a trigger or a factor in hitting rock bottom. it's a grey area i guess.

 

i always just assumed hitting rock bottom was normally tied to substance abuse and/or a series of poor life choices.

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