Do Alcoholics Need to Hit Rock Bottom before Getting Help

 

That’s what my brother was like when I used to live with him, when I was in my teens and 20’s. He was always angry about something. That’s why we called him the pissed off dude all the time.

You might be asking;

We’re going to talk to you about that right now.

We’re going to answer the big question of does an alcoholic need to hit rock bottom in order to stay sober?

Now this is a common myth and it comes from a lot of the 12-step recovery program.

The 12-step recovery program is good; it does help people stay sober however it’s not perfect.

But in the culture of the 12-step recovery programs, they talk about a spiritual awakening.

A lot of people get irritated because they say that someone needs to go from rock bottom to a spiritual awakening. The reason they do this because in  church and  religious stuff  you have people that get to the depths of what they call depravity.

The depths of where they can go as a human, like the guy in the gutter, the guy who’s strung out and the guy who has no money, no life, everyone left him.

That’s what they look at rock bottom.

A lot of times they’re going to say that rock bottom is subjective. Rock bottom for me might be having my collapse and a half million dollar house with fancy cars .For someone else, rock bottom is the gutter.

We got to look at this, we have to say do these people need to hit rock bottom?

When we look at that again, the spiritual stuff lines up, they say,

For some people that means hitting the bottom, nowhere else to go but up.

 

“Here’s what we got to look at I don’t like the idea of rock-bottom because it says that people can’t get healthy, unless they hit the floor. I don’t believe that to be the case and the reason is my brother who was the pissed off dude.”

My brother, he’s like I am pissed off all the time.  luckily now he’s done a lot better, he’s got a family and doing good. But back then he was pissed off, he was angry now he isn’t. He didn’t really have to hit a rock bottom he just came to a realization or spiritual awakening.

So the question is what happened?

Now there were some drugs involved but when we look at this we say rock bottom. Do we need to hit it?  Do we just need to have enlightenment, awakening or some kind of epiphany that goes off?

 Let’s take a look at this…

Before I got sober.  I was the type of person who thought

Everything was coming at me,

  • I thought life was attacking me.
  • my grandpa died I thought that happened to me
  • I had problems with money.
  • I thought man the world’s against me,
  • the government’s against me,
  • Everything sucks it’s all against me.

I didn’t think this is kind of just what happens in life. I thought wow this happened to me, how much more shit can I take.

We got pissed off guy, we got victim Marcus.

 

 

Is it the depths of depravity?

Going down as far as you can change.

Are we supposed to just let people go as far as they can?

Or is there a way to intervene.

Let’s take a look at this because I think there’s something to the rock bottom and spiritual awakening thing. Because what happens is, we start to notice and we start to change our perspective

 The key here: change perspective. You look at people in life.

Some people, in recovery and me, we’re not able to do that.

  • We need some kind of outside help
  • We need something to guide us work

So rock bottom is your loop

For me it was the loop of everything’s happening to me

I go drink when everything’s happening to me

lower and lower I fall on the scale.

 

Now why does that happen because drinking causes mental issues and insanity?

You either continue on or you get help. You realize you had enough.

Some people say;

For me personally I think it is different. They don’t have the tools to get where they want to go.

So once someone is fed up and they say you know what this is it.  I’ve had it.

For me it happened about I’m going to say maybe 90 days to 180 days before I got sober. I started to realize, I don’t want to do it anymore. Drinking stopped working for me everything was collapsing for me. I was done. I was a mess I didn’t even want to be alive anymore, which is where a lot of people are.

So the question is should people have let me go farther?  Should there been a worse rock bottom or was that it?  You know I could have gone farther; there are a lot of things in my life I could have fucked up, a lot worse than I did.

So we got a look at it.  We can say rock bottom for many, could be insanity.

And the spiritual awakening is a new way of life.

Many of us we have a lot of issues that we drink to cover up;

We have a lot of things that were running from.

We have a lot of things that are going on.

What we need to do is we need to start to realize a new way of life.

Instead of walking around saying…

Why don’t you say,

How can I make a life that I don’t have to escape from?

 

If you’re walking around saying,

Whatever the alcoholic in your life has been telling yourself…

You got to look at this and you have to say what perspective I am looking at, is  there another view?

  • Do I let them hit rock bottom? Do I take him to recovery now?
  • Do I sell my house?
  • Do I get divorced?

There’s always a third option.

We got to look for that third option because as alcoholics and addicts we tend to be stuck and tend to see the world as black-and-white. We look at things this way and we get trapped.

The secret here is that when you look at things, black and white, you tend to live in this Middle zone. This is the zone of no action. Where…

I’d stew and asked questions about this and dwell on it all the while doing absolutely nothing to make it better.

 So what we got to do is…

Step outside of all the chaos, because

Your life is filled with chaos.

There are eight billion other people on the earth that things are happening to

We’re getting these arguments with our family and it’s easy to say, ”this is happening to me, They hate me, they don’t love me, they don’t like me” or I could change my perspective and say this is the way they’ve always been there is no surprise, there is no change. That’s how they’ve always been. It’s not personal.

  • What do we do with this information?
  • How do we get this new way of life?
  • How do we get this spiritual awakening?

First of all… we have to realize our problem.

We got to say look, i got a problem it’s taking me down.

Alcohol keeps you in this insanity loop and it doesn’t let you out.

The key is to look at it and say it doesn’t have to be this way. I don’t need to wait until I’ve lost everything.

I can decide to make a change right now.

 

Right now,

  • You might be vulnerable.
  • You might not have all the answers.
  • You might not know how to fix things.
  • You might not have the means to get away from whatever toxic relationships you’re in.
  • You might not have the means to go in and figure this stuff out.
  • You might not even know what a spiritual awakening.
  • You might even think that spiritual awakening is stupid because you think about the Bible and you think about all this stuff.

Instead of thinking about what it actually is, this is a change of perspective.

When you change your perspective and you start to look at things differently. You can live from a place of abundance, full of love, care, comfort and kindness. You can live there. it doesn’t take alcohol to get to where you’re at.  You can learn new tools and you can look at it and say you know what life is going.

I don’t need

to make any rash decisions.

to do anything right now.

 

I do need

to get help now.

to do something to get better.

to start to change my perspective.

I’d like you to pause and relax .think about your life  think about what could be because as fast as things can go downhill to rock-bottom… that’s how fast they can go up as well.

There’s always something else that can be done,

There’s always something you can look for

And you just have to do the work

 

What’s going to happen as a result of doing all this stuff and realizing what’s going on?

 

Your perspective is going to change and

 You’re going to have what they call a spiritual awakening.

Could be very liberating seeing, we’re here, we’re in it together.

I’m here to do the best that I can with the tools.

I’ve been given and I’m going to go get some more tools.

I’m going to do better.

I’m going to live the life that I want.

and I’m going to get help and get out of alcoholic insanity.

 

I don’t need to wait till I hit rock bottom. I can make a choice to get help now  and I got to tell you there’s no perfect time there’s no perfect time to go to rehab.

Do what you need to do to get the job done, it’s time to learn and grow, it’s time to get help.   It is the day that you and can make a change.  Today is the day that you can start to be different.  Today is the day you can change your mind.

 

In reality all your thoughts are as chemical impulses in the brain, when you pour alcohol on the chemical impulses in your brain you have a recipe for disaster.

 

 So take a breath, take a breather

 Rome wasn’t built in a day

 Your life doesn’t need to be rebuilt in five minutes either.

 

The fact of the matter is you might be looking at it saying;

Forget about all that and focus on you because the fact of the matter is, things in your life might seem big, money, getting help, going away for 30 days. The fact of the matter is, it’s not that big in the grand scheme of life.  It’s a sliver and if you use it right wisely, if you take that chance and say;

then you’re going to realize that:

I believe that you can be much more than what you’re struggling with right now. We are not the sum of our struggles. We’re not the sum of our thoughts. We’re not the sum of our actions. We’re not the sum of what’s been done to us or what we’ve done to others. You are something more.

Stop giving in to the lies that alcohol is telling you

Stop waiting for rock bottom and

Go get some help.

 

my name is Marcus, if you need help go to

talksober.com/help

We got some tools and resources for you to get help. I look forward to seeing and hearing you in your new sober life.

Don’t wait until rock bottom, get help now.