Death By Brandy Isn’t the Answer

We can help, but it won’t be easy.

Do you know, or know of, a toxic woman, who is in a toxic triangular relationship (her, her boyfriend, and her boyfriend’s friend, who lives in the flat above them)?

Do you hear her shouting and screaming, banging doors and crashing around in the morning, just as you are going to start your full-time online English language coaching job?

As chance would have it, your headphones are a snug fit and block out all peripheral noise. Then there’s silence for a while, maybe six to seven hours and you think, oh, that’s good, she’s fallen (probably literally) asleep.

Around ten to five in the afternoon, when you are about to start your second job as a market research interviewer, this one’s part-time, the yelling starts up again. You reckon she’s been on some kind of mind altering drug for another few hours and is good to have a go at everything and anyone who has slighted her.

You arrange your snug headphones, log into multiple systems and start work.

Three days after this anti-social behaviour started with the banging and crashing, you stand listening from the grey and dingy litter-strewn hallway. You surmise she is a woman who feels so deeply that life is not worth staying sober for, and her boyfriend must be shrivelling from the onslaught of her jibes and taunts. Perhaps you agree with her.

On the sixth day, after you’ve knocked on his door to ask him if he’s got a crowbar for the police to use because the usual kicking the door down isn’t getting past the robust fire door, you find out from this kind neighbour that the woman had spent the week working her way through three bottles of brandy.

He produces a screwdriver and the best you can come up with is metal mop handle. Neither of which were of any use to the police.

Malbec, Rioja, and Cabernet Sauvignon; Brandy, Whisky, and Polish Bison Grass Vodka are all wonderful accessories to making a Saturday night pass in a blur — your one evening off — with no demanding jobs to be charming and on the ball for on Sunday.

Of course, you don’t drink them all on one evening, that would be far too expensive and destructive.

You’ve chosen to control your desire to go out in a haze of drunken bravado.

You’ve realised that life is what you make of it ,and you strive to stay long-term by doing work you (mostly) enjoy, speaking with friends and loved ones regularly and writing about topics that deserve an airing.

A second hand treadmill is great for the days when it hasn’t stopped raining and you need that adrenalin rush to power your evening. If you can fit it in between your multiple self-employed and casual worker contracts, that is.

The police got into the woman’s flat. The mewling heard on the sixth day, but ignored, wasn’t a cat. In fact, it was the drunken woman who had fallen down and was rescued.

Only to do the same thing a few weeks later.

This woman cannot help herself. We can help women who do this to themselves. Maybe you could be the first step in her recovery.

What you should know is that the affected individual might not be the best person to judge when his or her drinking is out of control. Alcohol can affect the area of the brain that is responsible for good decision making and logical thinking, so it is very likely that this person is unable to see what is obvious to you.~Jason Shiers Dip.Psyche MBACP

Remember that alcoholism is an illness that can cause the person in question to change. He or she will likely become manipulative and selfish in the pursuit of alcohol, and nothing will stand in the way — not even you, as difficult as this might be for you to come to terms with.~Jason Shiers Dip.Psyche MBACP

You might, however, choose to do nothing.

Thank you for reading.