Hitting bottom is different for everyone.  The end of my drinking was not marked by any huge catastrophes, but by a deteriorating mental state, an increasing inability to act appropriately with other people, and of course, an increasing dependence on alcohol.  Furthermore, alcohol was not having the same effect on me anymore, and I never really knew what would happen when I drank.  I was drinking more and more when I was alone, and people around me had no idea how bad the situation really was.  I was also deeply mired in resentment and self-pity.  I bemoaned my failed relationships, my inability to hold a real job, and that I was still living with my parents at 28.  I was depressed, volatile, and extremely self-centered- not that I could see it at the time.

The week before I stopped drinking I was on vacation with my family in Florida.  I stayed in a condo with my parents, my brother, and his then girlfriend, now his wife.  No one else seemed to interpret a vacation as an excuse to drink around the clock.  I vaguely remember downing drinks morning, noon, and night.  By the time we would go out for dinner, I was increasingly obnoxious.  One night I stole some items off the table before leaving the restaurant.  Another night my father expressed his disgust with my drunken behavior at the table.  My reaction was pathetic.  We went back to the condo, and I sat on the couch and pulled a blanket over my head and cried.  I vowed never to speak to my father again- even though I was living under his roof with no intention of moving out.

My sobriety date is February 24, 2004.  It was really a day like any other.  It was a Monday night several days after that trip to Florida, and I was sitting on a stool at a local bar drinking a vodka and cranberry.  I was suddenly struck by an unsettling realization.  I was on my second drink of the night, and I knew with absolute certainty that the feeling I had by the second drink of the evening was as good as I ever felt.  Even with that knowledge, I knew that the second drink would be followed by many others, and that I was chasing a feeling that I never could attain.  It was a daily exercise in futility, and I really only ever felt worse.  That drink was followed by several others, a drunken drive home, and the inevitable hangover I would face in the morning.

I was always vehemently against drunk driving.  In the last six months of my drinking, I could no longer stop myself from doing it.  I would go out at night with every intention of just having one or two drinks, and would wind up having far more.  I could no longer stop at one or two, and my good judgment was obsolete once the night would wear on.  I would always awake remorseful.  I also almost always had nightmares about driving drunk as well.  My own principles could not stop me, and it was incredibly unnerving.  My increased drunk driving and my own aversion to it definitely impacted my ultimate willingness to stop drinking.

I woke up on Tuesday, and I had no idea that I would be continually sober over the next nine years.  I just didn’t drink that day.  Then the next day.  Once I made it a few days, I decided I would try not to for a few more.  I was incredibly uncomfortable not drinking, but I kept at it.  I did not receive any professional or non-professional help.  After around 25 days I was on the edge of a nervous breakdown.  I knew that I should not drink, but I just didn’t think it would be possible to stay away from drinking.  I still thought about it almost every waking minute.  I felt doomed to a life of boredom, isolation and anxiety.  Just not drinking was simply not enough.  The alcohol was removed from me, and I was out of the relentless cycle of drinking.  I had no idea that I was just facing the beginning of my problems.  I showed up at my first 12 step meeting once I hit this point.  The realization that I could not live with or without alcohol was my real bottom.