Well, I guess one day is better than no days... :-(
Wednesday I know she was not drinking. At least up until about 4pm.
This was following my landing a small bombshell on her on Monday night. She fell apart, tears, etc etc BUT...the interesting thing (because she said that had given her a "kick up the butt" ) was that she waited until Tuesday night to quit!!!
I ought to have been suspicious already.
But I thought, Ok she is managing one day. A day at a time. Even an hour at a time.
Thursday, I was going to meet her for a coffee for an hour. At the last minute she changed the arrangement and wanted to meet me at the coffee shop not at her house.
Again I should have been suspicious.
She was her old self on Wednesday. I felt it and saw it. The person she had been for the 6 months I knew her that she was not drinking.
Yesterday morning she was 90% like that but there was something I couldn't put my finger on...
I should again have been suspicious.
Last night - very very long phone call from the mutual friend who has known her for 5 years and at least two or three such "cycles".
Amongst other things, this friend had seen her walking down the road "swaying, although not as much as normal".
This morning, my friend tells me she is "doing ok". I look her in the eyes but can glean nothing from that alone.
Hindsight is a great teacher. Unfortunately I wish I could always learn to spot these signs long before instead of long after :-( - I guess that comes with practice.
So now I am back to Square One. One day is good; but it is not good enough.
This friend cares for my dog while I work my 12-hour shifts. I have no worries over stuff like whether my dog is being walked or whatever...she is a little healer (she also visits Alzheimers patients in a Care Facility) and she will lie indefinitely with this friend whilst she sleeps off her excesses...
But there are other issues coming into play here. This friend was a wonderful carer whilst she was off the drink; but she cannot put the dogs first when she is not 100% with it. There are the issues of Insurance. Her Insurance is currently not worth the paper it's written on, and whilst I have no control over any other customers who dayboard or board their dogs with her, I am going to have to set my boundary now as far as my own dog is concerned.
I don't know what it will take to make her sit up and decide to quit. She is in denial; she accepts that she has this disease but what she cannot accept is that she is NOT "ok" day by day.
She has not spoken with her AA sponsor for nearly 2 weeks. Excuses there too: "She will leave me alone until I contact her".
So - why DOESN'T she contact her??!!
Because she is in denial...thinks she can beat this herself. I can see that she cannot. But what the hell does it take???
So I am coming to terms with the fact that I have to take drastic action. I have to accept that I need to walk...I am not abandoning HER but I am abandoning her ILLNESS. Of course, she won't see it that way. She is not able to reason, 90% of the time.
I am not looking for answers...I know that I hold the answers, if there indeed are any, in my own hands. I just need to vent.
Wednesday we had a very long talk. She was actually very ok then because she had not had a drink since Tuesday evening. And she accepted certain "ground rules" that I laid down. However, the ultimate ground rule is going to have to be that my dog does not go to her again until she can prove to me beyond any doubt that she is not using alcohol.
I believe the alcohol means more to her than anything, right now. I believe also that it means more to her than her own life. This is a hard one...because I do care very much about this friend. But I am also very fortunate in that I CAN walk out...so I guess I am back to asking myself, why then DON'T I??!! :-(
I have seen mistakes this other friend has been making for 5 years. She has told me a lot of what she did, and the poor girl has been enabling for pretty much all that time. She has never been to Al-Anon...never found out much about true alcoholism...and had no idea until very recently that she was making things worse by constantly bailing out the friend; covering up for her with other people; even fixing her meals and cleaning up for her.
I somehow need the courage to ACCEPT that I am bailing out on the demon illness and not on my friend. That's actually the hardest thing in all this. I am not a quitter. But there is something way stronger than I, in all this.
Thanks for listening.
I am learning a very important Life Lesson here...and am trying to grasp all the spiritual help out there, in order to do so.
