Bottoming Out

Watching Celebrity Rehab the other day, it was amazing to think some of the entertainers went from their career's peak to rock bottom in just a few years. If these guys live to be 60-70, in less than a decade they had covered the spectrum of their highs and lows. What else was there to live for?

Focus Describe your rock bottom.

For me, it was in college after I got kicked out of a venue for being obnoxiously drunk and being carried by two bouncers out the front door. They sat me down on a curb in front of a line of people and I proceeded to vomit through my nose and mouth for a good 20 minutes.

I just sat there, with my head hung low, knowing a group of fellow students were watching my little show and I was too ashamed to get up and walk away. I then thought I heard someone ripping on me from the crowd, and without an individual to call out, I proceeded to instigate a fight with half the crowd.

Cops were called, I was placed in handcuffs, and the crowd cheered as I was led away to the drunk tank.

 

I bottomed out the day I was born. It's all been getting better from there, baby.

 

My lowest point was after I graduated college and was searching for work. I remember the exact day it happened, too.

It was Kimbo Slice's debut fight on Showtime and I had a bunch of friends over to watch. I had always been a drinker, but in the time following graduation, I had adopted rampant alcoholic behavior and I binge drank for no other reason than to just pass the time. Leading up to, during, and after the fight, I drank 18 beers to myself. I'm told that I was drinking them like water, and every 15 minutes or so I was asking whoever was up and around to grab me another one. After the fight, everyone but one of my friend's left, and he and I decided to play some Tiger Woods golf. I ran out of beer soon after, and decided to join him in numerous rum and cokes.

The next part of the night was relayed to me from my friend the following day. Shortly after the first rum and coke, I blacked out and was apparently abysmal at Tiger Woods golf. I reacted to my inability to play by gripping the controller cord and whipping the controller into the carpet at high speed. After the second strike, I destroyed it, so we had to start over and share one controller. Shortly after, I destroyed that one and we had to spend some time rebuilding it (including, to my surprise, resoldering a couple contacts--my friend did it while I watched and drank I'm told). In addition to destroying PS2 controllers, I also spent some quality time stumbling around my basement, bumping into and breaking various vases, and at one point, tipped the mini-fridge on its side as I went careening into the corner. This went on until 5:30 in the morning.

The next day, I woke up and noticed it was still dark out and my clock said it was 5:45. I thought at first that I had just woken up shortly after I laid down, but I wasn't tired. It was 5:45 at night. I went downstairs and asked my mother if I had missed the sun. She gave me that look that mothers give when they're simply disappointed and said that they checked in on me to make sure I was still breathing all day long. My fucking kidneys hurt I had been drinking so much.

It was a major turning point for me. I realized that if I was ever going to be employable, I had to be able to make it to the job. I didn't drink anything for two weeks, and afterwards took things very easy so as not to fall into my old habits. It also motivated me to find work--any work--to keep me busy. Idle hands were drinking hands. I started freelance writing for a small marketing firm, among other odd jobs, which helped fill my time.

 

Focus:

In 2007 I went out on a Sunday night with the purpose of having one beer with some of the players from the hockey team. One beer quickly turned into a matchup of "schooner for schooner" with our team trainer. The trainer happened to be over 300 pounds, an alcoholic and didn't have to work the next day. Me? 210 and I had to work at 5 A.M.

I get blindingly ass-backwards drunk to the point where I drunk-dialed my own father, and then started shamelessly hitting on our lesbian server, trying to get her to come home with me. She did go home with me, only to drop my drunk, passed-out ass at home at 2:30 AM. My last clear memory involved sending a text message to a co-worker saying, "text me at 5 so i wake up, I drunk."

I woke up to the phone ringing at 7:30 AM from my boss who was (rightfully so) livid. He cussed my ass out, demanded that I get to work right away and that I'd better be on time for my next sportscast, because he wasn't going to do it for me.

I make my way to work without showering, shaving or brushing my teeth. I smell like a fucking brewery. I puked in the bathroom before my sportscast, and miraculously I was able to read five minutes of (prepared) sports without succumbing to dry-mouth.

My boss didn't speak to me for another hour, and I was left to wallow at my desk. I was hungover, I stunk of booze and I was sure that I was going to get fired.

After he calmed down, he pulled me into his office and told me that he wasn't going to write me up, and that we all make our mistakes. I guess it helped that I had been a diligent, exemplary employee for the past eight months or so and that until that moment I could do no wrong in his eyes. We shook hands, and I carried on with my day with a huge amount of weight taken off of my shoulders.

Lesson learned? You bet. I can't drink a single beer on a weeknight now without thinking back to that morning and making sure I hold myself together.

 

I was a self entitled brat when I was 19, I thought the world owed me something and that no matter what I did with my life it should fall on the responsibility of others (specifically my parents) to make sure all my needs were met. After sophomore year of college I decided I wasn't going back, that I was going to be a personal trainer and that my parents would give me the money to open my own gym when I had enough experience, which I felt was six months to a year. How was I going to pay for rent? Well of course my parents should float me the cash until I'm making real money.

My parents of course laughed in my face when I told them this plan and said I needed to stay in school, but if this was still my dream after I graduated and I had a solid plan we could talk about them helping me a little. I cursed them out and yelled at them for crushing my dreams, it was their fault that I couldn't have what I wanted when I wanted it and they were awful parents.

After two months of wallowing in self pity and depression one of my friends called me out for being a little bitch and convinced me to go back to school and finish up. Had he done this a month later I'm not sure I would have had time to sign up for classes and I may have never graduated. The worst part of this is my parents were paying the full sticker price for me to go to an expensive private school and I didn't have to take out loans, yet I still felt they weren't doing enough for me, THAT'S how shitty of a person I was at that age.

The hilarious thing is that I was the nicest and most respectful kid you ever met up until I was 19.

 

After being arrested for "intent to distribute" (I had less than a fucking ounce of weed on me), "asked" to leave college by the administration, and being released from a week stay in maximum security prison (look up the laws of Rhode Island, I ain't lyin) and coming home to live with my parents. I was 20 years old.

I'll admit to a few minutes contemplation of ending it all.

 

It's amazing how the safety net can really fuck you up. I was lucky because I had a friend guide me down the right path, but my parents honestly just didn't prepare me for the real world*. I had no concept that if you're not working full time things like rent and food would be a serious issue. And I know for a fact that if I didn't move states and still commuted to my first job which I hated, I would have quit and still be living in my parents' summer apartment working part time jobs that would have lead me to nothing instead of developing the skills needed to move up.

My GF's brother took the path I wanted to take and left school because he didn't like it. He was in the same position as me, parents willing to give him a free ride to whatever school he wanted and he just walked away. But he didn't get the slap in the face as a wake up call. Now he's 25 still living off the parental dollar making zero progress towards any real career or general path in life.

The worst part is that he doesn't HAVE to find something since his parents are continuing to pay, which will cripple him even more because five years from now he'll be thirty with no skills. And even if he does get a good full time job around 40k a year he won't be living a more lavish lifestyle because he'll have to start paying for things that his parents take care of now. And if the job doesn't 'fulfill' him he knows he can just quit and go back to the bank of mom and dad.

*Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my parents and they are wonderful, but in wanting me to be as happy as possible, they protected me too much from the real world.

 

I was made mod of this place.

 

Are you speaking about the rock bottom of yourself or the rock bottom of the board?

 

To be honest? Probably both.

 

I was homeless last year.

With children. My children and I were homeless.

Even typing that outright instead of saying it out loud gives me heebies.
I was in the process of divorcing (I thought amicably - there's no such thing. All divorces end in ugly nasty hate.) my husband, and we'd made an agreement. He reneged, to the Nth degree. I moved out.
I was staying with a friend and the situation became untenable for a myriad of reasons.

So my kids and I moved into the backroom of the gym where I work.

Shelters? No help to me, I wasn't a drug addict.
Halfway houses? Well. He didn't actually shoot me, so no help.
Women's groups? Churches?

No one is interested in a white single mom without an addiction or visible bruises etc.

By the end of summer I had my own place.


But that, that was rock bottom for me.

 

While the passed year has been a series of "could it get any worse?" moments, one does stick out more than the others.

I was living in a basement apartment with two other dudes that definitely rode the "slacker desperation" stereotype like a colt, so it's not surprising how ill-conceived decisions and general stupidity was taken with a grain of salt. The layout was a two bedroom railroad with the shitter in the middle, and my friend--we'll call him Mark--sleeping on a mattress in the dining room, across from the bathroom, nestled between the kitchen and living area. Some people might call that a dining room, but we saw it as a way to shoehorn in another human for cheaper rent. The place was a haven for misguided man-children and dudes who just got divorced. Beers cans that had to literally be cleaned out with a snow shovel, milk crate furniture, stained carpet like a cheetah pelt, and a very expensive TV with cable. The priorities were sound.

One evening we decided to purchase a couple of 8 balls of blow, a cube of Budweiser, and see where the evening took us. Hell, it was a Wednesday night after all. We called our friend, who we'll call Steve, to come over and help us make a dent in our pile of Peruvian Blue. Beers flowing, dudes coughing, pointless conversation that at the moment seems incredibly profound commenced. That is, until Steve felt the urge for female company.

"I just need some...you know, some girl energy around."
"Alright, let's make some calls."

A few of our friends come by, they leave, others come, all while Steve is freaking out any girl he comes in contact with. Overbearing, energetic nonsense escaping his mouth, our door was a turnstile for alienated women that he chased away. A few hours pass, he decides we need more girls.

"Not going to happen," I say, shaking my head.
"Then fuck it...we're...we're getting a stripper. Where is your laptop? Let's fucking do this!"

Not being a stranger to a few stripper encounters, I'm fairly certain he's not going to find a whore on Craigslist at 5:30am on a weekday. As is the case more often than not, I was wrong.
He comes screaming out of my room, cell phone to his ear, "SHE'S FUCKING COMING. DUDE! WE NEED TO GO OUT AND MEET HER!" Shocked, I follow him out.
Standing in the cold Chicago street, the wind howling and picking up snow, I see a busted 80s Cutlass barreling down, exhaust dragging, missing three out of four hubcaps. Pulling up to my apartment, she opens the door, and standing in a cheap sequin cocktail dress is the perfect picture of Passed Her Prime. She smiles a toothy smile, Joel screams like a girl seeing a pony, and I laugh. We usher her in.

Mark is standing in the kitchen smoking, groaning at the thought of what will unfold. She starts talking about the drive and then asks if we're cops.

Steve laughs, "Of course not...are you?"

"No...but cops can't touch another person, so if we touch each other at the same time, then we'll know we're not cops."

"Awesome."

And with that, on the count of three, she grabbed his crotch and he grabbed her sagging tit with the emphatic cry of, "NOT A COP!" Mark groaned again. She laughed a little, pointed to the coke mound and asked, "Mind if I have a bump before we do this thing?" Steve nods and she cuts up a John Henry of a rail. In the blink of an eye, it's gone, she throws her head back and yells while inhaling heavily, "WHO'S GETTIN' FUCKED FIRST!" So much for the dancing; straight to business.
Steve raises his hand and starts taking off his shirt. In our kitchen. She takes off her dress, and in all her glory stood a woman who looked like she had more abortions than a Victorian whore and emblazoned on her thigh was a tattoo of a wolf's face, complete in prison green. Delicious. She looks to Mark's bed and asks, "Who's bed is this?" Steve raises his hand again before Mark can answer, and in the blink of an eye, she's on her back, rubbing her clit. Steve starts egging her on, talking dirty to her, and she just stares us down.

"Oh, did I mention I'm a squirter?"

Mark groaned again.
]
This continued on for a bit. A few lines, a few more beers, and quickly Steve had her in the bathroom. Twenty minutes. Thirty minutes. No noise. I'm starting to think either he killed her in a drug induced psychosis, or she killed him. I knock on the door. Steve yells out, "Hey, yeah, come in here, dude." I open the door to see Steve butt naked, the whore sitting on my toilet with his dick in her mouth, and he gives me two thumbs up. I shut the door.
A few minutes later they return to the kitchen and she flops back on Mark's bed. "Who wants to finger me?" she asks in a disgustingly seductive way. Steve looks at Mark, "Come on, fucker, do this! Get into it!" Mark shrugs, puts out his cigarette, and moves over to her. Shoving three fingers in, he shivers in horror and she yelps. He does not have a tender touch. Pulling out his fingers, he almost vomits at the sight of white on his index finger. Rushing to the sink, he runs a Bic lighter over it in a desperate attempt to sterilize his tainted digit. I'm laughing and Steve's finger banging her while she asks, "Who wants to do one off me?" Realizing this is the pinnacle of debauchery, this Holy Grail of acts, I volunteer. Using a playing card, I drop some blow on her butt cheek, cut a line, and do it right off her ass. I had arrived.

Then I realized, "Wow, this is fucking awful." The dread, the disgust, the shame overtook instantly. As Robert Evans would say, "Rock bottom? You bet."

A few more minutes of the spectacle unfolded before the booked time expired. She swapped numbers with Steve, the sun was shining quite bright at dawn, and once she left, we were left sitting in a living room questioning our life. The inevitable outcome of those kind of nights; the loathing, the despair.

 

I went through a pretty awful phase in 2009. I was working in Financial Services, mostly with Investment Banks, and my clients kept folding or downsizing and firing us. I was pushed back into an auditing/accounting role and left to travel the East Coast, staying at various shitty hotels miles from the closest... anything. I was working in basements of old buildings doing inventories, or sitting in the cafeteria of non-descript corporate strip mall recalculating AFDA. When I did manage to get back home, I was drinking more than a reasonable amount. After a couple months of this, I got into drugs (fun!). By July of 2009, I was usually operating under two or more controlled substances and drinking on lunch, or just not going to work at all.

Then my apartment got flooded when I was out of town and I lost everything. Everything.

That was the final straw. I checked into a Holiday Inn and just stewed for about three weeks. I wound up taking a forced leave from my job to get my shit together and find a place. I knew it hit rock bottom in the early fall of 2009. By this time, I hadn't really worked in about two months. I was living out of a shitty hotel, with two pairs of jeans, a suit and a sweatshirt as my worldly possessions. I remember standing behind the hotel, in one of those little loading dock/alleys that smells of garbage juice and despair. I was stoned out of my mind, but still smoking a joint and staring at the city. I looked up and some black guy had his window open, with his back facing it. I was just staring off, spacing out, when he turned around and began screaming at me. I, of course, yelled back. He shut his window; I assumed we were done with the conversation, but little did I know that an angry black man wearing a stained wife beater and two-sizes-too-small madras shorts was now roaming the halls of the hotel like a caged animal, looking for me. After I got the shit kicked out of me, I smartned up, got my ducks in order and took a transfer to a new practice area.

That was a weird fucking year.

 

One time, I thought I might have a story relevant to a messageboard thread about hitting rock-bottom. Then, I read through the first page of posts, realized how much worse things could possibly be, and allowed strangers to completely justify my own destructive, thought comparatively mild, behavior.

I think I'm learning some kind of meta-lesson.

 

My rock bottom was looking at my face in the mirror with the split lip and shiner that the ex gave me. Bruises on the arms were common, but this was the first time he'd actually hit my face. I remember just staring at myself thinking that I had to be worth more than that - that there had to be someone in the world who thought more of me than he did.

It took courage and the help of a network of amazing friends, but that's the day I walked away from him and never looked back.

 

I was going to type a long-winded story, but Vietnam-esque flashbacks deterred me from wanting to relive this situation. Here are the highlights:

-Woke up in Vegas slumped against a door in a hotel hallway, no idea where I was
-Blood covering the front of my shirt
-A taste of bile, vomit and blood in my mouth
-Wallet was stolen
-Down roughly $1,000, or exactly 1/26th of my annual salary as an entry-level journalist
-That $1,000 was my brand new paycheck, which I was supposed to use to pay rent, bills, etc.
-A sticky, sex-smelling dick

I couldn't remember a thing, basically from 10 p.m. until I woke up. The six-hour drive home from Vegas was the low point of my life. I'm not exaggerating. I had an overwhelming, all-encompassing sense of dread. I didn't know how I was going to pay rent. I didn't know what kind of girl I'd stuck my dick in. The hangover was excruciating. I couldn't remember a goddamn second of an eight-hour span, and of course the human mind always jumps to the worst-case scenario. All I could think was, "What would my mother say?" I even broke down into tears at one point. I had to call my dad, who I have no relationship with and hadn't talked to in six years, for a loan. That's fucking rock bottom, people.

The best part about rock bottom? There's nowhere to go but up. I changed my drinking habits after that and became a better person because of it. I still drink hard and even black out from time to time, but always in a safe setting with responsible people. I got tested and was fine, thank god. It took almost a year, but I paid back my dad. I look at that weekend as the point in my life I finally grew up. Stories like that are funny in the movies or when they're not you, but no one actually wants to LIVE those situations. Before that weekend, I was totally irresponsible, a self-entitled prick to the people who cared about me, living from paycheck to paycheck, and a borderline alcoholic who couldn't drink without wanting to black out. Now, two years later, I have my shit together. Thanks, Vegas. Go fuck yourself.

 

You ain't kidding.
And once you've truly hit bottom and found yourself in a place and situation you never could have dreamed you'd be...you either find a way to keep it together and make the world work for you, or you fall to pieces.
Falling to pieces isn't entirely horrible, because everyone needs to bleed some of the pressure off, but staying a heaving mess isn't that helpful.

Finding the strength to pull through teaches you things about yourself that you'd never ever know otherwise.

 

Only by a 2/3rds vote of the upper chamber, with the consent of the monarchy.