You were drinking when you were 10 years old??
Yikes so I take it you felt guilty and responsible for not being home? I also do those kinds of "bargaining". "If only I would have...", "I should've not been so selfish", and so on. It's a natural response to tragic events, or in your case an accident that could've been prevented, but I'm sure you realize it wasn't your fault. You could've also fallen asleep, had music on, or a thousand other things that'd make you unable to rescue her for 2 hours. Still, it's great that it was your own personal rock "bottom" and the catalyst for a newfound control of alcohol.
My rock bottom wasn't so tragic. Losing a house or job, ruining a marriage, jail time, cirrhosis - these are stereotypical rock bottoms. My moment of clarity came from introspection. Like I told Happy Man up there I simply got sick of the hangovers. I also don't want to keep being the short-tempered guy in my personal and professional life. It doesn't take a genius to see that 5 hours of sleep on a damn Monday will make anyone cranky.
There were some weird inspirations too. One night I watched a video of Lemmy from the metal group Motorhead talk about his drinking. He said he'd regularly put away a bottle of Jack Daniel's a night. Not that long ago I would've been appalled at such debauchery, but I realized that I could match him drink for drink. I'm not in a rock band, I'm just a regular joe with a wife and kids. A bottle of Jameson 3 - 5 nights a week is just stupid.
It's time. Time to control this thing. Now, I may come back to this thread and say I had a few. Abstinence was never my goal. To be frank, I don't believe people when they say they've been sober for 10, 20, 30 years. If you've been sober 30+ years (!), why would you even need to talk about it anymore?