"Tim Bruening" <tsbrueni@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote in message
news:47AFF63B.DFCC4F26@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us...
> What does it take to make an alcoholic hit bottom?

From the book, Alcoholics Anonymous

For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship and
colorful imagination. It means release from care, boredom and worry. It is
joyous intimacy with friends and a feeling that life is good. But not so
with us in those last days of heavy drinking. The old pleasures were gone.
They were but memories. Never could we recapture the great moments of the
past. There was an insistent yearning to enjoy life as we once did and a
heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control would enable us to
do it. There was always one more attempt - and one more failure.
The less people tolerated us, the more we withdrew from society, from life
itself. As we became subjects of King Alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad
realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down. It thickened,
ever becoming blacker. Some of us sought out sordid places, hoping to find
understanding companionship and approval. Momentarily we did - then would
come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous Four Horsemen -
Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair. Unhappy drinkers who read this
page will understand!

Now and then a serious drinker, being dry at the moment says, "I don't miss
it at all. Feel better. Work better. Having a better time." As ex-problem
drinkers, we smile at such a sally. We know our friend is like a boy
whistling in the dark to keep up his spirits. He fools himself. Inwardly he
would give anything to take half a dozen drinks and get away with them. He
will presently try the old game again, for he isn't happy about his
sobriety. He cannot picture life without alcohol. Some day he will be unable
to imagine life either with alcohol or without it. Then he will know
loneliness such as few do. He will be at the jumping-off place. He will wish
for the end.