Alcoholic vs. Drug Addict: Part 6 – The Rock Bottom Is the Same

The Rock Bottom Is the Same

Let’s stop pretending there’s a difference. That one version of addiction is more forgivable, more understandable, or somehow less destructive than another. Because when the dust settles, when the lies have run dry, and when your body and mind finally give out—rock bottom doesn’t give a damn what drug took you there.

Alcoholics, heroin addicts, meth heads, gambling fiends, pill poppers, porn addicts—it doesn’t matter. The consequences are eerily alike: broken relationships, lost jobs, criminal records, physical deterioration, mental health crises, and that unbearable emptiness that swallows you whole. If anything, the specifics of the vice are irrelevant. The devastation is universal.

Rock Bottom Has No Preference

Rock bottom doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t rank addictions by social acceptability. It doesn’t care if you were drinking boxed wine in secret or slamming fentanyl in a gas station bathroom. Rock bottom is:

• Your child crying in the next room because you didn’t come home—again.

• Your body curled on the floor, shaking, sweating, puking, or praying for death.

• Your partner walking out the door because they’ve run out of chances to give.

• Your boss firing you for stealing, lying, or showing up drunk.

• Your mother, exhausted and heartbroken, telling you she can’t do it anymore.

It’s shame. It’s chaos. It’s the unshakable feeling that you are beyond saving. It is the great equalizer for addicts of every kind.

The Illusion of “Less Severe”

There’s this ugly myth that alcoholics somehow get a pass. Society might call you a “functioning alcoholic” and pat you on the back when you get sober. But smoke a little meth or shoot some heroin? You're suddenly "trash," "dangerous," or "a lost cause."

Let’s call that what it is: bullsh*t.

The alcoholic who drives drunk and kills someone in a crash is no more righteous than the junkie who overdoses alone in a motel room. The pain they cause—the damage they leave behind—is equally catastrophic. One addiction just hides better in public.

Let’s Talk Numbers

Alcohol is responsible for over 140,000 deaths per year in the U.S. alone. It's legal. It's glamorized. It’s pushed into every celebration, every commercial, every dinner table. But make no mistake: alcohol is a drug. A lethal one.

Meanwhile, opioids claim over 100,000 lives per year, with fentanyl poisoning leading the charge. Methamphetamine and cocaine overdoses are steadily rising. But these aren’t just numbers—these are humans. Mothers. Brothers. Teachers. Friends. Daughters. They're not statistics. They're not "bad people." They're addicts in pain.

Addiction is the enemy. Not the substance.

Pain Is Pain

What we need to remember is this: no one uses because life is going well. No one wakes up saying, “I’d love to destroy everything today.” Addicts use to escape, to numb, to survive, to feel something—or nothing.

The alcoholic drowning in whiskey at 9 a.m. feels the same suffocating despair as the heroin user chasing the next fix in an alley. The mother abusing Xanax just to make it through her day is carrying the same weight as the ex-soldier gambling his last dollar at the casino.

Pain is pain. Trauma is trauma. Addiction doesn’t care how you spell it.

The Truth They Don’t Tell You

Rock bottom doesn’t just arrive with a dramatic crash. Sometimes it creeps in slowly. It’s the hollow stare in the mirror. The missed birthdays. The bank account you drained. The part of your soul you can’t get back.

And when you're there—fully and undeniably there—it doesn’t matter what your poison was. You’re left with the same question:

“How the hell did I get here?”

And the same fear:

“Can I ever come back?”

Yes, You Can Come Back

Recovery doesn’t care what you used, how long you used, or how badly you fell. It only cares that you get up. That you reach out. That you fight like hell for your life.

Because in the end, rock bottom isn’t where your story ends. It’s where it begins. It’s where masks fall off and truth steps in. It’s where you realize that no matter how dark it gets, you still have a choice.

You can rise.

You can recover.

You can rewrite the whole damn story—regardless of your addiction.

Let’s stop comparing tragedies and start saving lives. Because no matter what your drug of choice was, the pain is the same—and so is the hope.