People in the recovery community throw around the term “bottom” a lot. We talk about hitting bottom, bouncing on the bottom, circling the bottom, having a high bottom or a low bottom. The thing about a bottom when it comes to addiction is that only the person with the problem gets to decide where it is. One person’s bottom may be losing a job or getting a DUI, while another’s could be waking up from an overdose in the hospital, ending up homeless or sleeping under an overpass. Sometimes hitting bottom is a dramatic event, like a car accident or the death of a loved one. More often, a bottom is just another day of drinking or using when all of a sudden you see yourself for what you really are and you just can’t anymore.
I walked into my first 12-step meeting when I was 19 years old and I knew I wasn’t done. It wasn’t my bottom and nobody could tell me it was. I was required to attend by some joke of an outpatient program my parents were making me do. They caught me with drugs (again) and cracked the whip. I was grounded from my car for a month and I had to attend these groups. This was not the first time my drinking and using landed me in big trouble—it had been a pretty regular thing since I was 15. The difference this time was they were making me go to an outpatient program that required 12-step attendance.
At first, I just signed my own slip. No biggie. I had been faking doctor’s notes and hall passes since middle school. The trick was to forge them right from the start. Then you never had to worry about matching the handwriting. I pretended I was attending these meetings until the counselor called me out. I was too self-centered and wrapped up in my using to realize she could see right through me. So, I finally went to a meeting. My mom drove me and I made her drop me off down the street. I’m sure she followed me to make sure I went inside.
It was a blur. I remember wishing I were invisible and sitting in the corner nearest the door. I was in outer space—the row of chairs around the main circle. I was super busy staring at the backs of peoples’ heads and didn’t hear a damn word. I memorized the heads of the two women sitting in front of me. They were both blonde, with long pretty hair. One lady was older, like my mom’s age, and she had a super scratchy voice. She seemed like the boss of the meeting. I made a mental note to avoid her at all costs. The other one was younger and seemed pretty normal. I wondered vaguely what she was doing there. She couldn’t possibly be one of those losers.
I left that night with a meeting schedule and a white chip. I called my mom from the gas station down the street to come pick me up. I faked my way through the rest of the outpatient treatment program and back into my parents’ good graces. I got my car back and went away to college the following September. I spent the next five years completely wasted—flunking out, burning bridges and trying every possible combo of drugs and alcohol. I thought if I could just find that magic recipe, I would stop all my recklessness and just be okay.
The problem with that plan is that it’s really hard to make a habit of shooting heroin and be okay. There’s a reason you never hear about successful, happy people who recreationally shoot heroin. Once you’re addicted, the knowledge of that high lives in the back of your mind forever. If you don’t have anything to overwrite that devastating certainty—that something can completely erase all your feelings and replace them with pure, blank bliss—you will chase that high with your entire being. One day you wake up in a jail cell or a hospital bed, wondering why real life hurts so much. In my case, it was my parents’ basement.
I took me five days to detox; it was horrible. My body rebelled against me, my skin felt like it was melting off. I was hot, cold and turning inside out. I couldn’t stop shitting. I hallucinated spiders were crawling all over me. Looking back, I understand why you’re supposed to kick heroin in a hospital or other supervised environment with trained professionals. It’s really too much to ask of your mom and some random friend who took one semester of nursing school and was high on speed the whole time (what ever happened to her?). I didn’t really mean to get clean; I just sort of gave up. There wasn’t a plan for what I would do next. I wasn’t even sure I would live another five minutes—or that I wanted to.
I emerged from my childhood bedroom after nearly a week, knowing I just had to get out of that house. I felt good enough to take a shower, pull on clean clothes and walk a few steps without falling down. I’m not really sure why I was allowed to drive, but I got in the car and headed straight for the seediest part of town, like the tractor beam from Star Wars was pulling me. I cruised slowly, up and down narrow streets crowded with shitty apartments. For some reason, nobody was around. I couldn’t have scored drugs to save my life that evening. It probably saved my life that I didn’t.
Instead, I drove slowly back to that meeting—the one my mom dropped me off at five years before. I just couldn’t think of what else to do. I was out of ideas and I was exhausted from the effort it had taken to stay high for the previous five years. The meeting was still there. I went inside and sat in that same chair in the corner. It felt different, like everything was coated in clear lacquer, all unnaturally shiny and sparkly, breakable. I wasn’t sure why I was even there. It just seemed like the only option. It was my bottom. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered them saying I could always come back when I was ready. I wasn’t sure I was ready, but I was back.
I heard everything. The readings at the beginning made absolute sense. I hung on every word each time somebody shared. Toward the end of the meeting, a woman sitting in front of me started speaking. She had a scratchy voice and long blonde hair with silver streaks. I looked at the lady sitting next to her. She was pretty and young-ish, also with blonde hair. It hit me then. These were the same two women, in the same seats, five years later. They had no way of knowing I would be at the meeting that night. They probably didn’t even remember me. That left only one explanation. Something kept them coming back week after week, year after year. I decided to find out why.
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