Sometimes Things Have to Get Worse Before They Get Better

Hitting Bottom

By BuddyT

For those suffering from the disease of alcoholism or addiction it seems to be an almost universal truth that before things can get better, they have to get worse -- sometimes a lot worse.

They call it "hitting bottom" -- the place an alcoholic must reach before he finally is ready to admit that he has a problem and reaches out for help.

After all, for the true alcoholic, it doesn't seem to him (or her) that he has a problem. He's just having a good time. If everybody would just get off his back, everything would be okay. He's got a disease, but it sure doesn't seem like one and the last thing that would ever occur to him is that he needs help.

A Progressive Disease

Because alcoholism is a progressive disease -- it gets more severe the longer the alcoholic drinks -- there comes a point at which even the most dedicated drunk decides that there just might be a problem.

Alcoholism does not stay in one place. It doesn't hit a certain stage and then level off. It keeps deepening, affecting the alcoholic physcially, mentally, morally and spiritually. On all of those levels he keeps getting worse until finally he hits bottom.

So where is bottom? Nobody really knows.

Where Is Bottom?

For some, getting that first DUI might be where the turning point comes. Getting locked up, even for a few hours, and facing the public humiliation of a court date is for some the only signal they need they have a problem.

For others, however, 10 drunk driving arrests have no affect on their drinking habits. Driving without a license and frequent visits to the local jail don't phase them at all.

RELATED: How to Recognize a Functional Alcoholic

Alcoholics have lost driver's licenses, jobs, careers, girlfriends, wives, family and children and astonishingly still continued to deny they have a drinking problem.

Problems Increase, Denial Gets Deeper

It was always somebody else's fault. His wife just didn't understand him. The only reason he got that DUI was because he was driving a red vehicle and cops watch for red vehicles. He wouldn't have all the problems he's got if it weren't for those MADD mothers!

Her boss was a real pain to put up with anyway. Her career as a professional was going nowhere fast, and besides she enjoys selling advertising for the local radio station, she gets to meet more people. The greater the consequences of their actions, the deeper the denial becomes.

Some alcoholics go on for many years denying their downward spiral into social, economic and moral decline. But most alcoholics have a "bottom" out there to hit. A place where even the most devoted of the hard-core drinkers finally admit that their lives have become unmanageable.

If this sounds familiar, there are a few questions that you might want to ask yourself about your own use of alcohol. It doesn't have to get any worse before you can find help putting your life back on track.

Learn more about How to Quit Drinking.