Nov 21 2007
A Tale Of Two Drinkers
Blatantly pinching a famous opening line, it was the best of times and the worst of times for Brenda and Liz. This sentence brilliantly describes the lives of these two women who shared a problem. These women could not be any more different and probably would ignore each other if they met by accident on the street. Yet they share an eerily similar dark secret; they both are nurturing a growing dependence on alcohol.Liz lives in a large home and leads a very interesting life as an interior designer working from her home that she shares with her equally successful husband and two daughters’ ages 9 and 14. Some people would be envious of Liz’s life since it seems quite idyllic. On the contrary, Liz’s life is beginning to fall apart.
Brenda lives in a middle class suburb of the same city with a mortgage, a husband, 2 cats and works as a paralegal for a real estate lawyer. All things considered a pretty mundane life. Her husband works in the local car plant and makes a decent wage when he’s not laid off. They both work hard to make ends meet.
Liz has been working very long hours recently and when she gets home from work her husband has detected the smell of alcohol on her breath. He chocks it up to her constantly meeting new clients in hotel bars and restaurants. The kids have started pitching in and making dinners and keeping the house for their mother since when she gets home she usually retires to her office with a strong mixed drink. Her husband notices this is different but she works hard and deserves it. Liz will skip dinner and have 2 more drinks while finishing up in her office.
Brenda will generally stop off after work with her two friends from the office at the piano bar in their office building. There the girls will each have a couple glasses of wine before heading home to spend the evening with their families. Brenda drives herself home every night even though she knows she probably shouldn’t but tells herself she feels fine. When she gets home her husband is often heading out the door to his late shift at the plant, he’s been working a lot of overtime to make up for previous lost wages. This means another night alone for Brenda but she will relax with a glass of wine in front of the TV. She wakes up at 4:00 am staring at an empty wine bottle on the coffee table and drags herself to bed.
Liz is excited today because she will hear from 2 large clients whether or not she is awarded their lucrative contracts. She has been wooing them over boozy lunches and at design shops with hospitality suites for weeks now. By noon hour she is terribly disappointed to hear that she has lost both contracts. Reaching into her desk she pulls out a bottle of vodka that she has hidden just for these times when she needs a bit of liquid sedation. She pours herself a strong glass and mixes it with apple juice, the only mixer she can find. 2 hours later the phone rings and it’s her daughter’s school nurse but Liz can’t hear the phone because she has passed out on the sofa in her home office.
Brenda hits the snooze button on her alarm clock for the 4th time when she wakes with a sudden start. Her husband is home and after finding the empty wine bottle and Brenda still sleeping and late for work he loses it with her. They’ve had this argument before. He works very hard, she is turning into a drunk, she will lose her job this time, the money she spends on alcohol could pay their mortgage, he threatens to leave her and on and on. Brenda heads for the bathroom, gets in the shower and starts sobbing uncontrollably. She knows she needs help and when she has fixed herself up she heads into the spare room and turns on the computer. She is determined to look into alcoholism and problem drinking online.
When Liz’s husband and youngest daughter get home Liz is no where to be found. Her daughter wants to show her mum the new cast she has on her arm and tell her what happened at school when she hears her father yelling her mother’s name. Liz’s husband has found her passed out in her office and is trying unsuccessfully so far to wake her up. He sees that she is still breathing and when he finally shakes her awake he rips into her because he can smell the alcohol on her breath. Whoever said that you couldn’t smell vodka on your breath after drinking it didn’t have a husband who was part bloodhound!
Screaming at her he tells her their daughter broke her arm in gym class and that the school was trying to reach her for hours. He was pulled out of a client investor meeting by his secretary who took the call from the school. He was livid and after he settled his daughter in listening to her music he started into Liz about her drinking and how things better change and fast. Liz grabbed a water bottle out of the fridge and settled down at her computer with tears in her eyes. She would search the net for answers to her drinking problem
Brenda found a website with a chat room where alcoholics and problem drinkers met online to discuss their recovery process and different treatments available etc. Signing in Brenda watched initially as people typed in the most intimate details of their drinking problems and was amazed at how helpful and understanding the responses were. Finally getting up the nerve to type in her first words she entered “hey everyone my name is Brenda and I need some help with my drinking”. Immediately others where welcoming her into the chat telling her she wasn’t alone and that she was at the right place.
One particular woman introduced herself as Liz and said she was a recovering problem drinker for just over a year now and she could identify with Brenda’s story. When they realized they lived in the same city they immediately became fast friends online. Brenda clung to every word of advice Liz had to tell her and furiously wrote down resources and websites, the names of online alcohol cessation programs and offline groups that she attended to help maintain her sobriety. After a week of meeting twice daily online Liz offered to meet with Brenda in person at a coffee shop familiar to both of them.
When the two ladies finally met in person they hugged and talked like old friends. Brenda told her how she hadn’t had a drink since the day they first met online and how tough it had been for her. Liz reached across the table and grasping both Brenda’s trembling hands looked her in the eyes and told her…
“Everything Will Be Just Fine, I Promise”
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