Rock Botom

I have a Friend who is a total mess. 

I asked him to come over and hang out last night. I desperately want to stay connected with him because I do not think he has many friends who are morally responsible in his life and I hope that my influence can help him get on track. Currently he is around 40 years old, lives at home, drinks all the time, has no money and has no job (a promising job is in the works), he has lost his child in a custody battle, which doesn't really matter because when he had custody he didn't spend much time with her anyhow, he owes a ton of taxes, he smokes and is a sex addict... he is also my friend. 

He had no money for gas, so I said I would give him gas money. Before he came over, I hid the alcohol we had in our house, I knew it would be a target for him. When he arrived we hung out for about 10 minutes and he asked if I had any Sprite or tonic water. I said yeah go git some, he left to go into the house. I was excited at this point because I thought it was good he was asking for those things instead of alcohol. He came back in started watching a movie. He came over to my desk for something and I smelled that smell of alcohol. I asked him if he was drinking and he said "No, that smell was from earlier", man I was disappointed in him, but I thought, here at my house, he cannot drink any more, so he should sober up. I was wrong, he was drinking...

So we hung out a while more and as I was taking out the garbage he asked the question I was hoping he never asked... "Hey, do you have any vodka?". Again I was totally disappointed. I said "Even if I did have any vodka I would not give you any". He said whatever, then went into his care and pulled out an almost empty bottle of vodka and put some in his Sprite. I told him that he had a serious problem and needed to get some help, he laughed and told me not to preach to him.

We had a pretty good discussion in the kitchen about his sickness. When he spoke about fixing his life, it always revolved around finding a girlfriend. BTW, he is currently sleeping with a married woman and has no bones about it. He said over and over phrases like "you are my best friend, I would never sleep with your wife" and "you can trust me with your wife"... It seems he thinks that a friendship is based on the fact that you don't sleep with your buddies spouse.. which I thought was a given. Whatever.  In this little heart to heart, I brought up stuff that he needed to look at: His job, his alcohol problem and his womanizing. I had to explain to him that my house was not a place for people like that... and unless he changed, he could not be a part of my life here at home. Looking back he was prolly so tanked, he doesn't even remember the conversation.

As the night wrapped up he said Hey, lets go to Bothellbees to get something to eat. I knew that he just wanted to get a drink. I said I would go IF we did not have any alcohol there. He agreed. We went down and he orded a water.. there were 2 girls at Bothellbees that he tried to hit on, but they would not have it.. after about 4 minutes he ordered a vodka tonic. I was so disappointed. When the bill came he only needed to pay for his one drink (because he ate most of the food I ordered) and it was around $4. He gave a five dollar bill for the bill and we left.

On the way back to my place he said, Hey, I am going to need to borrow that $5 back... Laughed because I thought he was joking, he wasn't. We went in the house and I explained that there was no way that I would give him any money at all.. I reminded him about our agreement about not having drinks and told him that basically ordering that drink was a big FU right to my face. I told him that it was a total disrespect of my wishes, so I was giving him an FU and told him to find his way home. 

He got pissed and slammed the door on his way out. 

My lesson learned: Alcoholizm has taken yet another one of my loved ones away from me.