Dear Mom,

Do you think I hit my rock bottom? I think you of all people would know.

I’ve thought about it a lot lately, since I’ve been on the topic of addiction. I know it was a roadblock for me when I was deciding whether or not to quit. It was as if I was waiting for this end-of-days moment. Something so big and so horrific that I would be forced to clean up my act.

I’ve read a lot of addiction memoirs and listened to podcasts by recovering addicts and there is always a big deal surrounding the rock bottom. Usually, someone drives drunk one too many times and ends up wrapping their car around a telephone pole. Or, much worse, they end up killing someone. I’ve heard stories of people destroying their families. Adultery, theft, arson. Always something terrible that acts as a wake up call for said addict. Often, as a way to really push them into recovery, their bad deeds lead to arrest.

This is something that I always felt I was missing. I struggled with the idea of giving up before my time. Was it too soon to quit? Was I overreacting? I hadn’t hit my rock bottom yet; maybe I should just keep going until I reach that point. And if I were to quit before that point, how would I know if it was a legitimate problem?

These were all questions I’d ask myself before I quit. And trust me, this went on for a while. Years of me contemplating whether or not this was a step I needed to take.

Now, I ask myself very different questions.

Mom, did I already hit my rock bottom? Did I simply not notice? Was I too blacked out to remember it happening? I guess the blackout itself would act as a rock bottom right? If blackouts were frequent, which they were, then clearly something was wrong. But my biggest question now is, does it even matter? Is hitting the ultimate low necessary at all? Can’t someone just simply decide that it is time?

You might be able to help me with those first questions, since you witnessed some of my worse moments. For the other moments, the ones you weren’t there for, I’m sorry to break it to you, but I was shitty.

Did my rock bottom happen way back in High School? Could it have been the DUI when I was 17? Getting pulled over, driving someone else’s car (someone else who wasn’t in the car with me at the time), with a flask and a fake ID in my bag, hours after city curfew, wracking up 5 tickets in one night, and all just a few months after getting an underage drinking ticket.  Could I have hit my rock bottom just three years after taking my first drink? Didn’t feel like it to me at the time. I’m sure you felt differently.

Maybe it was a little later. When I took ecstasy and then downed a bottle of Bacardi and drove my car to a friend’s house before blacking out? I woke up that next morning in my bed with empty condom wrappers in my wallet and no recollection of the end of my evening. That could have been it, but probably not.

Could it have been at the very end of High School? My girlfriends and I met a group of guys from Wauconda, IL and practically lived at their house. We’d leave them every few days to get a change of clothes. When we were there, we didn’t sleep. We’d stay up all night drinking and doing cocaine. And then take Adderall in the morning to make it through the following day.  I’ll never forget peeling myself off of their couch one early morning in January. It was freezing. I hadn’t slept in days and reeked of alcohol and cigarettes. I chewed gum as I drove, likely buzzed still, 13 miles back to my High School to take my last final. I believe I got a C.

I doubt it was during High School. I did much worse in college.

Maybe it was when my Freshman roommate at the dorms hooked me up with her cocaine dealer. I purchased 6 grams with the allowance you gave me, that was supposed to last a month. I might have made the coke last that long. But probably not. Anyway, I did all 6 of those grams. By myself. And when it was all gone, my roommate informed me that it was all laced with meth. But that didn’t feel like a rock bottom. In fact, I got a lot of homework done.

It could have been after Undergrad. Maybe that time I had sex with two guys in one night? One strangled me and left me with bruises all over my body.

Maybe it was the time in Grad School when I did so much cocaine that I ran into the free clinic and demanded to see a doctor for the heart attack I was not having?

Was it a few years ago when I got so drunk that I picked an imaginary fight with Jeremy and somehow ended up with a knife in my hand?

As I wrack my brain for more examples, it’s starting to occur to me that maybe it’s my collective drunken escapades that all add up to becoming a rock bottom. Do I need one big instance to wake me up? Or how about a decade of barely any sleep?

I’ve had enough times that could have, and probably should have, resulted in a terrible misfortune to cause a wake up call. I drove so drunk that I had to have one eye closed in order to not focus on the double lines. I drove wasted down dark and curved roads while texting. I put myself in places where I could have easily been arrested or worse. Parking lot drug deals. Drug deals with super sketchy dealers in dark alleys by myself. Unprotected sex. Worse of all, I can’t count the amount of times I woke up with no memory of the night before. What else could I have done during those lost hours? Honestly, I’d rather not know.

The feeling I get when I think about the bad times isn’t a good feeling. It’s not regret. I enjoyed myself and was perfectly happy at the time. It’s not really shame. Maybe a version. I think what it most resembles is a deep sadness. I feel lucky that I got away with so much. That I didn’t overdose like some of my close friends did. That I didn’t die in a drunk driving accident or kill someone else, like so many people I know. But I’m sad that I could have put you through the loss of another child. I could have called you from jail after much worse than a DUI. I feel like I dodged a lot of bullets and maybe that’s not so bad. Why wait to self-destruct? I’m one of the lucky ones. I got away clean.

I love you, Mom.

Rachel