Knapp remembers talking to two fellow rehab residents, George and Chris. George asks how low one has to go to quit drinking. Chris says that truly hitting bottom is dying, and that an alcoholic has to find a way to quit drinking before that happens. Put another way, one has to get off the elevator before it reaches the basement. Knapp says there’s usually a long decline before reaching the bottom. Some alcoholics leap to start their descent, while others are pushed by other forces in their lives. Taking the leap, or surrendering oneself to alcohol, isn’t the same as hitting bottom but it gets an alcoholic to where he needs to go: a state of desperation Knapp characterizes as a “gift” (215).

Knapp’s trip to the bottom begins with her father’s death. Her mother’s illness makes her descend even more, until she finally reaches rehab. Watching her father’s illness shut down one part of his body after another is devastating. At the end, his memory and personality disappeared. Her mother’s illness is filled with anxiety-provoking tests and nightmarish hospital visits. For the most part, Knapp lets herself freefall with her alcohol use during this time:

During both illnesses, and after both deaths, I drank with the no-holds-barred abandon of the truly self-pitying drinker, every night until I passed out […] [but] what stands out are a few key scenes, ones that had less to do with the facts of illness and loss than with what I was forced to see through those experiences about myself (219).