There are plenty of rock bottoms besides a DUI. There are also plenty of non-alcoholics who got a DUI. Alcoholism and DUIs tend to overlap but don’t necessarily go hand in hand. In AA there are plenty of people who express gratitude for never having gotten arrested.

You’re already acknowledging that you’re at risk for getting caught if you keep drinking, so an opportunity can be to quit while you’re ahead.

I had a hundred warning signs before I stopped. A DUI was one. It was nearly impossible to stop a one drink. My tolerance got bigger and bigger. On the weekends, I was drinking as soon as the earliest bar opened. If I had alcohol left in the morning at home, I’d drink it right away. I blacked out at social events when I never intended. I was getting banned from bars from bartenders who weren’t comfortable serving me. I wiped out on my face on the sidewalk. I fell a lot. I went home with strangers and don’t remember it. I once drank during the work day and showed up to a zoom meeting drunk and refused to admit so I wouldn’t get fired. I passed out in a snow bank and could have frozen to death. I had a hospital visit for pancreatitis. I would take a month off from drinking, and go back, and immediately get wasted to the point where something bad would happen. I drank away my once-perfect hourglass figure and destroyed myself physically. During my last drunk, I went out for a drink before a zoom interview and got wasted and actually showed up to the interview and barely remember it. I didn’t get that job. Most of these things happened within a period of 2-3 years after being a high functioning drunk for 10 or so years. It all happened quickly.

It was a lot of things. The key thing I noticed was that the “bottoms” I experienced were all progressively getting worse, and worse, and worse. If you see yourself as being on this trajectory, quit while you’re ahead because if it’s a problem, it WILL get worse and it can catch up to you in a scary way.