What Does Hitting Rock Bottom in Addiction & Mental Health Mean?

It is without question that at some point, you will hear that for someone with addiction or mental health concerns to get better, they must want help and hit rock bottom. So, what does that even mean? For starters, rock bottom is not something you hit; it is something you feel. What the bottom feels like and when you get there is different for everyone and depends on many factors. Please keep in mind that although it is different for everyone, what it takes to get there is overwhelmingly similar. In the addiction and mental health recovery process, there is something called the five stages of change.

The most pivotal stage is the second stage, the contemplation stage. In this stage, the intended patient decides to stay the same or address the problem. One of the number one predictors of this decision is the environment, which includes anything and everything that provides comfort and reduces consequences and accountability for the intended patient. The environment also consists of the family and their impact on seeing the need for change. The definition of the environment per the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “the circumstances, objects, or conditions by which one is surrounded.”

If you reflect on the above definition and the explanation of rock bottom, you can see that when someone feels rock bottom, it is dependent on whether someone sees the need to change. The same applies to the comment “They have to ask for help” or “They have to want help.” There is truth to this; it does not happen without changing the environment and family system. The family system and roles significantly impact the environment and the psychological aspect of your loved one. We are saying there is truth to the statement that your loved one must want help and hit rock bottom first.

The problem is when the family thinks they must wait for their loved one to get there alone. Rock bottom, asking for help and wanting help only occurs if there is a significant environmental change. The change can and will happen when the family makes the necessary adjustments to hold their loved one accountable and steps out of the way to allow their loved one to see the need for change

The problem with this statement is, rarely, if ever, does someone ask your family questions about your loved ones’ environment to see if the family is preventing wanting help and hitting rock bottom from occurring. The closest most get is making the statement that you must cut them off or kick them out of the house, which is not entirely untrue. The problem is that you can only do that with an intervention strategy to transfer ownership of accountability and consequences to your loved one. The last thing you want to have happen is your loved one blaming you for losing their comfort, which they will do. When successfully executed, professional interventionists can transfer complete ownership to your loved one so they can look at the problem as their problem and not you, your family, or any other person, place, or thing they like to point fingers at.

“The bottom is not something you hit; it is something you feel. A person with a mental health or substance use disorder is not going to feel a bottom or want help if the environment shields them from consequences and accountability. An unhealthy family system comprised of family roles that work against the intended patient and their ability to see the need for help is the number one reason why your family does not see a successful outcome. Thinking your loved one will make an about-face and surrender while remaining comfortable and believing there is nothing you can do other than wait is like standing on a rug wondering why you cannot pick it up.”

When Does Hitting Rock Bottom Make Someone Ask for Help or Want Help?

Change is considered when the consequences become more significant than the perceived benefits. Up until then, the intended patient blames all their problems associated with their addiction and mental health and the family and all other people, places, and things. People with addiction and mental health disorders become professional victims, and families often drink the Kool-Aid. We are not minimizing addiction or mental health, and nobody asks for it. What we are saying is there are solutions, and they are available. The available solutions are not being sought because your loved one believes their actions are a better option.

“The question needs to shift to why they do not want help or hit rock bottom instead of when they will get there.”

We want to make clear that what a family sees as a bad situation, your loved one does not. The perception of comfort for someone with addiction and mental health is a much lower standard than it is for the family and others. What you see as what your bottom would be is not applicable. People with addiction and mental health keep lowering the bar and psychologically justify what is acceptable. What keeps your loved one from the bottom is your family’s ability to set boundaries and detach from the chaos and drama.

As stated earlier in this article, the intended patient hits or feels bottom for a common reason. Everyone’s pain threshold is different, but the goal intended to be achieved has many common denominators. Before we list the common denominators for why and when someone hits or feels rock bottom, we must also remind the family that hitting bottom applies to them.

“Families spend all their time and energy figuring out why and when their loved one will hit bottom. While doing this, they rarely consider their bottom line and when they have had enough. A family must understand that they need not wait for their loved one to want help or hit rock bottom, and they are allowed to act when they want help or have hit their bottom. This approach is the first step towards detachment and freedom of codependency, which leads to family independence.”

While waiting for your loved one to ask for help, want help, or hit bottom, please remember it is not that simple. Here are some reasons they are not getting where you would like or feel they need to be for them to address their problem. After reading and understanding these, perhaps the next time someone says you must wait for them to ask for help, want help, or hit bottom, you can say that is not entirely true, and there is another way to look at this.

Here are some common denominators of why they are not hitting rock bottom, asking for help, or wanting help:

• Comfort level exceeds the pain of the consequences
• Enabling and Codependency
• A dysfunctional family system that disables your loved one from addressing the problem
• Family roles that prevent the person from having a chance at getting better
• Believing the problem is everything other than their actions
• Wanting to cause pain to the family because they believe the family is the cause of their pain (this is a little psychological game they play and doesn’t mean it’s true)
• Family not addressing the problem and allowing things to continue or worsen
• Selfishness and family secrets
• Not setting boundaries
• Not detaching
• Not holding them accountable
• Not doing an intervention that focuses on your family getting better

There are many more to list, but these are the most common. It is important to remember that wanting to get help and having to get help are entirely different. People with everything taken care of for them may want to work, and they don’t have to. Often, a family does not provide support and comfort with financial resources. It is common for families to believe they do not enable or make the environment comfortable for their loved ones because they do not provide resources. Financial leverage is impactful and is only a tiny piece of the puzzle. Now, when you ask yourself when they will ask for help, want help, or hit rock bottom, you can look at that differently.

Signs Your Loved One is at or near Hitting Rock Bottom

The most significant indicator that your loved one is at or near hitting rock bottom is anger. Anger always comes from fear; that is an absolute. Whenever someone is angry, they are scared; yes, even you tough guys reading this. It can be the fear of death, the fear of your ego being bruised, or your self-esteem being affected. For people with addiction and mental health who always need to feel they are in control, the anger comes from the fear that they are losing that control. Even while approaching the bottom or being at the bottom, people with addiction commonly make excuses to avoid treatment. Some still fight to the bitter end because of the misconception that they can still manage things the way they were.

One of the final moments of an intervention is when the person with a substance use or mental health disorder realizes the family is never going back to the way it was. Above, when we listed why people are not hitting bottom, we listed wanting to inflict pain on their families. One of the driving forces of addiction and mental health indeed is to cause pain to those who they feel are the cause of their pain. When the cause is no longer affected, the game changes for the one trying to play it. When fighting for the status quo is no longer an option for the intended patient, they shift their thoughts to address the problem. What is happening is the consequences of the lifestyle are becoming more significant than the benefits of the lifestyle.

What about the signs of your family being at or near rock bottom? Even when faced with a horrible situation, families kick the can on addressing the problem just like their loved ones and often make excuses not to do an intervention or address the issue. Families often make more excuses to not address the problem out of fear their loved one will not accept help. An equal number of families fear their loved ones will accept help. When this happens, a family will have to look at themselves and adapt to their new lifestyle, which is driven by the acquired family role and scares them. The intended patient frequently shows signs of anger and not fear. Families often show signs of fear and rarely show anger unless they feel our solutions threaten to take away their maladaptive coping skills and unhealthy family roles they rely on. Families get angry with us when we expose their family role, but why? A family member will get angry and be driven by fear when they feel we are calling out their solution.

What is happening is family roles are acquired to reduce anxiety and stress and to justify the approach they are taking, which rarely leads to an effective solution. The enabler does not want us to take away their purpose and role of being needed. The hero does not want a solution from anyone other than themselves. The martyr is more afraid of what will happen to them if their loved one gets better than they are their loved one getting better. Some in the family are terrified the intervention will expose family secrets that have been buried. Others are just downright terrified to confront their loved one because their loved one has taught them if they do anything or do an intervention, there will be dire consequences.

“Families do not hear our solutions; they only hear us trying to take away theirs.”

The point is that preventing your loved one from doing something about the problem prevents a family from taking the first step. Both are consumed with selfishness and use each other to get what they want. What both sides want is unhealthy and destructive, and that is where addiction and mental health have led all of you. Addiction and mental health interventions must start with the family first.

Can I Help a Loved One Who Hasn’t Reached Rock Bottom, or Must I Wait?

You can help them stay sick, or you can help them see the need to change; those are your options. Families often believe the problem is the person with an addiction or mental health disorder, and they wouldn’t be entirely wrong. The more significant issue is the family system, which prevents the person from hitting rock bottom. The problem starts with the enabler and trickles down. The enabler and the others in the family are not always interested in improving the person. The focus is often on a family to figure out how to better control the situation.

The belief the family can accomplish this stems from not wanting to relinquish the family role while not suffering as much. The approach is like an addict or alcoholic who does not want to stop using drugs or alcohol and wants to be a better person with a better life. For both the person with substance use and mental health disorder and the family, it is all about control as the solution rather than surrender.

So, whether you can help a loved one who has yet to reach the bottom or must wait depends on what you think is helping them. The answer is this: Anytime you do something, ask yourself if it benefits you or them. Then, ask yourself if my action will help them feel consequences or comfort.

“Codependency is like lighting yourself on fire to keep someone warm.”

Doing something that benefits your unhealthy role prevents them from doing something about the problem. Therefore, it hurts them, although they don’t think so, and it makes you feel better.

Doing something that hurts your role, like doing the opposite of what you have been doing, helps them do something about the problem and hurts them differently because now they are forced to do something different.

The reality is there is no way to avoid the discomfort of change, and families try to do that for as long as they can. There is no easy way out of this; it will be painful and never more painful than waiting for them to do something first.

Why Isn’t My Loved One Asking for Help, Wanting Help, or Hitting the Bottom?

Because the consequences are not more significant than the benefits if the person is comfortable, it does not matter if they want help; they don’t have to seek help. When a family provides any support or comfort, it prevents the bottom from being felt. Even though the bottom is not something you hit, it is something you feel; the consequences must be felt.

Earlier in this article, we spoke about the second stage of change. Intervention helps address this stage. The intended patient must acquire ambivalence, in other words, the ability to see both sides of the argument. If your loved one has a better case for not doing something about the problem than they do addressing the problem, they will always choose the latter.

These are not Family First Intervention-isms but scientific facts supported by clinical data and studies. Nobody, and we mean nobody, checks into treatment or goes to a twelve-step meeting for the first time because things are on the upswing. No matter how hard you try to avoid confrontation, you will have confrontation if you want things to improve. Families must stop kicking the can in fear of change, which is an unknown outcome, hence the fear. Families would rather stay the same in a known situation than face fears of the unknown. If families do this, your loved one will not ask for help, want help, or hit bottom.

What Happens and What to do When you Hit Rock Bottom?

Hitting bottom is when you get to where you can’t go on and realize anything is better than what is happening right then and there. It doesn’t mean the intended patient will fight for a viable solution. People reading this would not believe the ideas some have as a solution to the problem when they have reached the bottom. The will and the insanity of addiction and mental health are almost unexplainable. Addiction and mental health are the only two fatal illnesses the patient fights to stay sick and seeks solutions that will not be effective. The best way to help someone with addiction and mental health disorders is not to help them stay sick.

When the intended patient hits rock bottom, the suggestion is to call the treatment center contact provided during the intervention. If it is not an intervention, we suggest the intended patient call the number on the back of their insurance card or seek treatment immediately. For families, when you are an intervention client and your loved one refused help at the intervention and is now ready to go later on, we suggest you hold boundaries and not give in just because they said they would go to treatment. The intended patient is in a treatment center once they are physically there.

“So, to answer the question, what happens when you have hit rock bottom? It is when you realize the consequences have outweighed the benefits of your lifestyle and that your environment and family are never going back to the way it was before.”

How Our S.A.F.E.^® Addiction and Mental Health Intervention Services Can Bring the Bottom to your loved one on the Family’s Terms

As stated throughout the article, the family must address themselves first before expecting to see any changes in their loved one. In the rare cases where there is no leverage or anything that the family can do to influence change in their loved one, the family will benefit from their recovery. Our mission statement is to provide families closure, knowing they did all they could to help themselves and their loved ones. You can find our mission statement, vision statement, and statement of values here.

Our S.A.F.E.® Intervention Services helps families understand and correct any behaviors within themselves that can compromise the outcome for their loved ones and their sanity for themselves. Our goal is not to make you uncomfortable, although the process will inevitably bring uncomfortable feelings and decisions. As we stated earlier, there is no easy way out, and although the solution is easy, the execution is only for some. That is why we are here to help you through the process and the change.

Family First Intervention is the only intervention company in the country that has an entire family program. Our aftercare services offer you groups and one-on-one counseling, and we also meet with your loved one’s treatment team. Meeting with the treatment team profoundly impacts your loved one’s recovery and the family. Many interventionists say they do what we do, and they do not. Delivering a state-of-the-art family program requires a large team of people, a team most intervention companies do not have. Many interventionists are great at getting your loved one into treatment, and very few can help your family keep them in treatment.

Earlier in this article, we referred to both the intended patient and the family looking for a way to control the situation. The control is often over the wrong thing. The intended patient is looking at maintaining the status quo while becoming a productive member of society. The family would like to learn how to control the intended patient better while not having to suffer the consequences of their life as it stands today. Both are trying to control the other to get what they want, and that is to fulfill their maladaptive behaviors and way of living. Our S.A.F.E.^® Intervention Services help you understand you can’t control your loved one directly, and the only control a family has is control over the actions that contribute to their loved one’s problem. Once a family realizes this, healing for both can happen.

An intervention is not about how to control your loved one with a substance use or mental health disorder; it is about learning how to let go of believing you can.