I've hit a new low... - Page 2

If you haven't made it to AA yet, you haven't hit your all-time low. In which case, after you hit bottom and decide to go for sobriety, you can regale us all with tales of the truly lowest point.

I once had a (I presume homeless) guy attempt to sell me a filthy, adult-sized bear costume for a dollar. I know nothing else about that man's life, but if that wasn't the lowest ebb of it, I just don't want to know.

Hmmm... well a motel room in San Ysidro (just north of the Mexican border to Tijuana) was completely destroyed after a horrible night of booze, whores, and vomiting and I still made sure to get the deposit back before running out.

I have a bunch. They all took place in the span of about 8 or 9 months, and they all had to do with a difficult breakup from my college girlfriend.

Stumbling home drunk off my ass from her birthday party because her new boyfriend showed up. I found my way home, fixed myself a screwdriver (or 3) and passed out in the dark on my sofa. That was no fun.

4 or so months after that, I'm still a wreck. But I'd previously committed to being the DP for her senior project. I'm not a dick (even when I should be), so now I'm doing that. Every shooting weekend I'd come home and have a few shots of vodka, and my own work would suffer. One weekend in particular was fun: we had a night shoot at her boyfriends house! The whole time I can't wait to get out of there. I'm just looking at the shotlist thinking "ok, 5 more shots. Get this coverage, and I can go home and get hammered."

It fucking goes on, it was like this every weekend for almost 9 months. But you get the drift. I had a LOT of empty Smirnoff bottles at the end of my senior year, s'all I'm sayin'.

Funny thing is, I did a lot of my best work on that film.

Having your heart broken will make you do some pretty stupid, rock-bottomish things. Summer of '88 - this guy I was quickly falling in love with dumped me out of the blue. No explanation, no nothing. I spent every single day of the next eight months just utterly miserable. Going to work, coming home after, eating cheese nachos and beer every night for dinner while watching The Lost Boys over and over for about the first two of those months. I don't drink much at all - I'm the kind of person who has a lampshade on her head after two drinks, so hoovering down beers every night? Yeah, that's bad for my particular tolernance level. Plus nothing but shitty food and the same movie over and over.

On my days off? I'd drive past this guy's workplace in hopes of spotting his car. Two days off in a row? Two drive-bys.

I'd date, believe it or not - quite a bit. Then I'd dump the guy after one date because they just couldn't live up to the ex.

One day, the inevitable straw that broke the camel's back happened - I drove past his place of business and saw him coming out the door to his car. It was the first time I'd seen him since he dumped me, so I just floored it all the way back home, called one of my best friends at work, and sobbed so hard into the phone that he couldn't even understand me at first. Seriously - it took five minutes on the phone before he could understand, "I've been driving past Alan's workplace in hopes of spotting him, and now I did, and I'm even more screwed up over it."

So, it might not seem as bad as some of these stories, but I've always been proud of having a pretty good backbone during breakups, and for just moving on with things. So sitting around eating crap, getting drunk, going on many many "date and dumps", and doing drivebys for months on end was a pretty low point for me. I finally snapped out of the slump when I moved to NY.

I'm not sure you're interpreting this thread in the spirit in which it was intended.

Lisa's story reminded me of when my first girlfriend dumped me. Yeah, I too drove past my ex's house - it killed me that she was getting on with her life, and I was just agonizing over it.

A friend of mine told me I should try asking her out again. Reluctantly I did, we went to dinner, followed by a flick she wanted to see - and that was it. She called me the next day, thanking me for the date, and when she hung up - I felt like I just got paroled. In the space of a few months, my feelings changed - I got over her.

Haven't heard from or spoken to her since. If I'm anywhere near Point Pleasant, near her neighborhood, I occasionally pass by her house, though she's probably long since moved (it was 20 years ago, after all - cue "Memories").

Hmm. A pretty low point for me was when I declared my undying love, REALLY LOUDLY, for this girl.

Who I'd just met a couple hours before.

While I was piss drunk.

In a party at her house.

While I was in her bathroom.

Where her boyfriend was holding my head while I puked my guts out into her toilet.

So, yeah.