How do you know when an alcoholic has hit rock bottom?

[UnexpectedItemInShaggingArea]

Member of my family is an alcoholic. She's fighting it tooth and nail, doing all the right things, but keeps fucking up, with escalating consequences.

Every time the remorse is massive, she's straight back into her program, everyone gets optimistic again. Then it happens again. And every time our "last chance", "line in the sand" shifts.

I think she's got to hit rock bottom before she actually puts everything into her recovery. But how do you know when that happens?

My brother hit rock bottom. I broke into the doss house he was in to find him starving, filthy, scared, hearing voices, suicidal...
Eventually he Salvation Army took him in to one of their Life Houses. He was de-toxed and supported and eventually came back from almost dead. Rock bottom does exist and it's truly terrifying.

I think what people are trying to say is that is it a case she is only doing well due to the constant supervision?

So, if that was all withdrawn but she still had her husband and daughtrr, is it likely she will have a drink?

So if she's only drinking 5 days per year - which to be honest, I'm REALLY struggling to believe - how has this developed into such a massive problem warranting constant supervision and SS involvement? I don't doubt YOU, OP, but something doesn't add up here and I don't believe you've been given the full story.

I don't see how 5 days drinking a year can possibly cause this level of difficulty.

She is lying to you. And you are only hearing what you want to hear.

She is lying to you. And you are only hearing what you want to hear.

This. And she doesn't have to be falling down drunk to be drinking every day. I used to drink half a bottle of vodka before I left the house to go to the shop and get more vodka most mornings, and you wouldn't have known. It only became obvious I'd been drinking after about a litre's worth, OR if I switched to wine, when I was in front of other people.

I know lots of people who drink so infrequently that they should, apparently, have zero tolerance. None of them get scuttered on a single glass of wine, enough to completely lose their shit and be unable to care for a child/get arrested/have SS looking at them.

It's never just a glass. It's a bottle. Chugged down like water in seconds.

And if, at the same time, you're driving a car, with a child in the back, yes you will get arrested.

I don't see how 5 days drinking a year can possibly cause this level of difficulty.

Because it's not "bye darling, I'm off to that hen do we talked about, I'll probably drink too much, look after Junior."

Instead it's popping over to a friend's house at 9.30am with your toddler for a play date. And stealing a litre bottle of gin from their fridge. And chugging it down. And becoming paralytic while a bunch of small kids are about. And your DH having to leave work at 10.00am and come and pick you up. And he then can't get back to his clients for the rest of the day.

I believe you believe she only drinks occasionally. However, I just don't believe it myself

She's trying really hard not to drink. And a lot of the time she doesn't. Just like the recovered alcoholics on this thread.

I suspect she might have other addictions she is developing/hiding though

Do you think she may be mixing alcohol with medication? My DGM used to drink and take whatever meds she could get her hands on. She particularly liked kaolin and morphine. Local chemists ended up refusing to sell her the stuff, and she'd go further and further to get her hands on it until her poor mobility made her housebound. She also used to hide alcohol in the house. I found that one out when I was 14 and I'd popped in to visit. I wondered why she kept trotting to the toilet every 10 minutes. I found it stashed under the bath panel.

Other addictions including (but not limited to) prescription drugs, shopping, watching daytime tv, going to AA meetings an feeling smug because she isn't like "them"

This is not her. She is active, productive, house proud, does a lot of sport, cooks and bakes, makes her own clothes, spends loads of time outdoors, talks (in general terms to protect anonymity) of how amazing her AA friends are and how they give her hope and belief that she can beat this addiction.

She's just not there yet. And I think she has a long hard road ahead of her.

I suspect your friend will get there Sometimes it takes time
Those AA friends can help her more than anything or anyone else
I speak from experience and now nearly 10 years sober thanks to AA and the people in it It took me nearly two years to get it and finally accept my alcoholism which is far more than just not drinking

It's all about the lies.

OP - as a carer of a recovering alcoholic you must surely understand the lying.

The lying is harder to deal with than the drinking, in my experience.

Rosie and congratulations. I've met enough recovered alcoholics to know it's not hopeless. I just wish I could see into the future and know what we will all have to go through to get there.

This is so sad. I recognise that hope in you that she will recover. And she might but only if she wants to. It is the most awful thing watching someone slowly kill themselves. I come from a family of alcoholics. I even have alcoholics in-law! Unfortunately children of alcoholics (if they aren't alcoholics themselves often you on to marry or have relationships with addicts). My sisters partner almost died when his oesephageal varices burst. He almost drowned in his own blood. His teenaged son (my nephew) found him and had to call an ambulance. He was in ICU for weeks. He's still drinking. That obviously wasn't his rock bottom. My brother has sustained nerve damage due to alcoholic abuse that is likely to get worse and leave him disabled. Still drinking. I think rock bottom is never reached by some adducts.

Instead it's popping over to a friend's house at 9.30am with your toddler for a play date. And stealing a litre bottle of gin from their fridge. And chugging it down.

Someone who only drank five times a year (as if) would be hospitalised, if not killed, by 400ml of ethanol in a short period of time. They would not be merely paralytic. She's lying. And someone capable of drinking 400ml of ethanol in a short period of time without being hospitalised would not be rendered incapable by the 100ml of ethanol in a bottle of wine, either, and would be able to drink a bottle of wine with relatively little effect (as, indeed, could most adults, although they would have a very sore head in the morning).

Am I being particularly stupid? I still don't get the "only 5 times a year" thing.

Sorry- I've said that loads of times. But this really doesn't add up.

She's trying not to drink. She fails several times a year. What's not to understand?

If you are an alcoholic you can never drink, ever again. That's what she is working towards.