The Walking Dead- An Old Drink for the New Drunk

Let's just say that addiction is something that i'm more than casually acquainted with, of course i've always been to lazy to be a serious boozehound, in my younger days i may have had it in me but basically booze was like the appetizer, like the cheese tray i picked at all night while the main course was usually some kind of Class A, be it weed or acid or coke or pills or mushrooms or dust, the bevy was just there, that said i would say i have a keen understanding into the mind of the addict, i've known enough and more than likely been alot closer than i'd like to admit to being one at certain times of my life so this piece here is no judgement on anyone, more a snapshot of what happens when you let it spin helplessly out of control until you are so deep in it you can't find your way back...

See i work with a woman at the Big World Bank Machine who is spinning deeper and deeper into the darkness, it started a few years back with more than a bit of infidelity with the BWBM boy toy, a move that put a huge strain on her marriage as she denied and her slightly nutty husband went mad trying to find out who what when and where, the boy toy was a guy she met on the BWBM fitness team and while she worked herself into great shape for hotel rendezvous's i'm sure hubby was left with nothing but his right hand, she liked to walk around and spout that the next time she married it would be for money and not love being as she carried most of the financial burden of the family, and yes did i mention she has a young son?

I work pretty closely with this woman (and no i'm not the boy toy) and one X-mas eve we took a long lunch at work and talked, she was in the middle of the affair and though i was not supposed to know about it we talked in a round about way about the damage it could do to her relationship and kid, talked a bit about life and philosophy and the demons that we sometimes battle, be it drugs or sex or booze or shopping, it was a good conversation, i was a bit surprised when people told me how highly she thought of me and what a wise derelict i was, i mean really i'm just the guy who changes the light bulbs and moves furniture but i figured i might try to offer up some wisdom before shit really came apart on her...

Well things went relatively smoothly for her until that day when we got the fucking news that the axe was coming and that we should all loosen up or necks for the block, see this was a woman who had worked here half her life, a high school diploma and a powerful benefactor in the shape of our boss, a woman who helped promote her up the ranks and land her a cushy position that paid pretty well and involved a minimum of work, that day she knew she was fucked, she knew she would never score a job that paid her what she was making and as the days went by she became more and more distressed and distraught, i asked if she was alright one day and she broke down crying at her desk, i gave her a hug and some Xanax and said keep the chin up, i like her was another one who wouldn't get a seat in a lifeboat and would go down singing on this sinking ship, remember this was in February...

As i speak another round of human resources is being shown the door at the end of this week and the BWBM is down to about 30% of it's former capacity, many of the bigwigs have jumped off and headed for the mothership in C-town or found other gigs, our included, and with no one to keep tabs on her things have gone south rather quickly starting with her marriage, of course her drinking was a catalyst for this, at work she started leaving for lunch and coming back an hour or two later drunk, then it turned into going to lunch and coming back 4 hours later trashed, then it turned into coming to work at 10:30 or so, leaving for lunch at 11:15 and not coming back until she could barely walk if she came back at all, she's scraped the wall of one of the tunnels with her car, a move she's lucky didn't wind her ass in jail, the hospital or the morgue, instead she sped home and the next day took it in to get repaired, when she let that slip i gave her a long hard gaze and stated that she had a son who she might not see if her soon to be ex gets wind of that info, besides the fact that she could kill herself or someone else, a sheepish look and  shrug followed... then last week she got so drunk she had someone drive her home, on the way she threw up a few times, then passed out and missed her son's play...

I've sat back and watched as a long line of her friends and co-workers have tried to talk to her all to be met with an icy indifference, some of them, knowing that i've run the streets for a long time have talked to me, we've agreed that the job thing is more than likely the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, they ask what i think and i tell them the truth, when you've seen this shit up close you know, she won't change until she wants to i tell them. Junkies, drunks, cokeheads they don't give a fuck when they are in the middle of it, all they want is the next fix or drink or line and even though she's using the booze to forget her other problems the booze is now her main problem and she's not gonna listen to you or me or Jesus H. Christ until she hopefully has a moment of clarity or does something so stupid that it shakes her out of it, hopefully without hurting anyone...

I'd like to show the powers that be what their decision has cost in human terms, see this whole consolidation thing was a farce, i'd have had some respect for them if they'd just shown up and shut us down but this shit's a fucking joke, breaking off bits and pieces and shuffling them all over the place, fuck them and their six figures, they don't give a shit that even one of their soon to be former employee's is basically breaking down in front of them, yeah there are other factors, but the fact is she was okay until that day in February and now she's just a wreck.