Rock bottom:

Mine came about a month ago. I've had a problem with drinking and suicidal tendencies for almost a decade. I kicked an opiate habit before it got to be too much of a problem, but the booze stuck with me. It came to a head after a meeting with an organization I volunteered with, a few of us had decided to get together for drinks back at my apartment. I lived with my partner of two years, our beautiful year-and-a-half old pitbull who was born in my old apartment, a roommate, and her dog.

I had been under a ton of stress and my relationship with my partner was starting to come undone. I drank at an accelerated pace and started to really lose control some time around 2-3am. By 4am I was bleeding and screaming all over the apartment, scaring the shit out of a friend who had decided to spend the night and upsetting the dogs, the roommate, and my partner.

My partner contacted a mutual friend who called a cab to get me out of the apartment I had just terrorized. I bled all over the cab and, upon arrival at my friend's house, continued drinking and talking about killing myself. I had essentially laid out a plan for ending my life that I had come up with years prior and made the decision to go through with it after I sober up and leave my friend's apartment.

My partner came by the next day to talk to me. The landlord thought I was on drugs and didn't want me back in the building. The roommate was worried about me and didn't want me to come back until I had at least gone to therapy or got medicated. My partner, having dealt with many of my suicide attempts, told me she still loves me but she can't deal with me doing things like this. The last time I had done something along these lines, she had to break down my bedroom door to find me bleeding from the wrists and sitting on a windowsill looking down into the alley below me.

So I found a place to stay with family to recover a bit and, eventually, find a shrink to help fix this shit. Shortly after, my partner found out that I had nearly cheated on her after a particularly intense fight we had. She broke up with me, effectively making me homeless, single, and without my puppy who I had raised from birth. I spent a few days drinking away feelings alone in a room. April 7th came up, and I was to go to a concert with my (now ex) partner. It was Pat the Bunny, a musician who meant a lot to both me and my partner, and I asked her a few days prior if I should still go, or if she'd rather go and not see me there. She told me she wasn't angry with me and would like to try to enjoy the night, I agreed that we both needed a relaxing night and we went.

Climbing out of the bottom:

Pat the Bunny, for those who don't know, started his musical career as Johnny Hobo and the Freight Trains. The music was largely about shooting dope (something I had left behind years prior) and getting shitfaced (something I still did quite often.) until he started to sober up. His next project was called Wingnut Dishwashers Union, which was a lot of music about how much of a fuckup he was and how the world sucked and how trying to get sober sucked. After that, it was Ramshackle Glory, which was a lot of music about trying to get life back together after a few years off junk and booze. Now solo, Pat the Bunny's show was a lot of songs about the reality of sobriety, how many people he had hurt while off the wagon, how forgiveness isn't easy, how he's trying to be better...

During the show, my partner leaned in and kissed me during a song both of us had a particular connection to. I decided I was going to get sober, that I had fucked up too much, and that if I didn't kill myself by this point then the booze would do me in. I'd struggled to get sober before and Ramshackle Glory was a HUGE source of inspiration for doing so. After the show I went up to Pat, who makes a point to stay after and meet fans every time he plays, and I gave him a very brief version of my immediate life while paying for his new album (His fanbase is largely low-income, sometimes homeless, youth and he has everything from tshirts to vinyl to patches and stickers on a pay-what-you-can basis). Essentially, I told him that I'd fucked up too much, and when I thought I had found my rock bottom I found a way to keep digging. I told him that his show, which I pregamed with a few beers, sealed the deal, and that some day I'm going to go up to him after a show and thank him for making music that helped inspire my sobriety. I asked that, even though he won't likely remember me, it would mean a lot for me to be able to say that to him. He walked around the merch table, hugged me, and told me "You've got this."

After the show, I met a woman who had just moved to town that week. She had been struggling with sobriety, as well, and had just gotten out of the hospital (presumably from booze-related something) and really needed this show. She was talking to me any my ex through tears. My ex offered her a ride home, we were going that way anyway, and she shouldn't have to walk alone in a strange city after a show that obviously touched her in a similar way it had touched me. We talked for the ride, and after dropping her off, it came time to drop my ex back at what was formerly our apartment. She asked if she could come by where I'm staying, maybe get me caught up on some of the volunteer work I'd missed in the past few weeks from that organization we worked with. We spent the night holding each other and watching our favorite TV show, and fell asleep happy together.

We aren't back together, though we both love each other immensely, but we do talk very often and both hope that I'll be able to find help soon and find a new place together. She gives me constant updates on how our puppy is doing, sending me pictures almost every day. I know that if I'm not better to myself I won't be better to the people I love, so I've gone since April 7th without a drink. A week tomorrow. That doesn't seem like long, but it's the best i've done in a very long time and it's something I'm immensely proud of. Every now and again my scumbag brain will suggest I celebrate with a nice glass of scotch. That temptation hasn't been the easiest thing to turn down, but I've not touched the stuff since that night. I'm insanely grateful for all the second chances I've been given and constantly wonder if I would have done the same for me. I know I wouldn't have, which makes me wonder sometimes why I deserve it, but the life I've been fucking up could be something so much more beautiful. I've had an amazing significant other, we've raised the cutest little furball I've ever known, and we've done so much for our organization and our community that people we don't even know have been checking in on us to make sure we're doing okay and telling us how much they appreciate the work we both do. I have been deciding to throw it away, and through everything she has been trying to change my mind. So, a week of sobriety down, I've got a lot more weeks ahead of me, and my only real option is to do what I can to patch up all the damage I've already done. Making my partner happy again is a huge motivator, being happy myself is an even bigger one, and whenever it gets tough to keep moving I remember the time Pat told me that I've got this. And, you know what? I fuckin' do.

TL;DR - I'm a drunk who keeps trying to end my own life, I succeeded in a sense, now I'm sober and trying to rebuild because a homeless junkie drunk with a guitar told me I could do it.