Some of us hit a physical bottom. It may have been anything from a nosebleed which frightened us, to sexual impotence, to loss of sensation or temporary paralysis of a limb, to a loss of consciousness and a trip to an emergency room, to a cocaine induced stroke leaving us disabled. Maybe it was finally our gaunt reflection in the mirror.
Others of us hit an emotional or spiritual bottom. The good times were gone, the coke life was over. No matter how much we used, we nevermore achieved elation, only a temporary release from the depression of coming down, and often not even that. We suffered violent mood swings. Perhaps we awoke to our predicament after threatening or actually harming a loved one, desperately demanding imagined hidden money. We were overcome by feelings of alienation from friends, loved ones, parents, children, from society, from the sky, from everything wholesome. Even the dealer we thought was our friend turned into a stranger when we came to him without money. Perhaps we awoke in dread of the isolation we had created for ourselves, using alone, suffocated by our self-centered fear and our paranoia. We were spiritually and emotionally deadened. Perhaps we thought of suicide, or tried.
Still others of us reached a different sort of bottom, where our spending and lying lost us our jobs, credit and possessions. Some of us reached the point where we couldn’t even deal we consumed everything we touched before we could sell it. We simply could no longer afford to use. Sometimes the law intervened.
Most of us were brought down by a medley of financial, physical, social and spiritual problems.
When we found Cocaine Anonymous, we learned that cocaine addiction is a progressive disease, chronic and potentially fatal. It fit our own experience when we heard that contrary to popular myths about cocaine, it is possibly the most addictive substance known to man. And we were relieved to be told that addiction is not simply a moral problem, that it is a true disease over which the will alone is usually powerless. All the same, each of us must take responsibility for our own recovery. There is no secret, no magic. We each have to quit and stay sober; but we don’t have to do it alone!