To My Dear Friend:

Last week – Monday, to be exact, you called me up and asked me to come to your house. 

You were afraid that death was pounding at your door, so you asked me to help you.  “I’m in so much pain”, you said.  “I looked in the mirror and there I was…bloodshot, yellowing eyes, red bloated face, a torn and disheveled mess.  I’m ashamed of myself for what I’ve become.” You listed your syptoms to me…not least, a pounding heart and heavy pressure in your chest.  Pain in your arms and legs, and this uncontrollable shaking. “I’ve never had the DT’s this badly before…I just know I’m dying.”

I came closer to you as you told me the truth about what you had gone through the last week.  It was a week like so many other weeks that you’ve had.  You felt lost, lonely, thirsty.  You spent eight days locked in your house.  Your stash of booze, which you had hidden from questioning eyes, came out of its various places of concealment. The resultant empty bottles were there in a row; a glassy police lineup with labels defiantly proclaiming innocence.

You lied to your family and your friends about the way you were handling your pain.  You said you were okay.  You had been dumped, unceremoniously, and what I don’t understand is that the reason you were let go (”We’re just friends, now…”) and the cause of this physical breakdown is the same.  “I love him, and he doesn’t love me…I’m too much for him to handle…”  We bought your lies for about a day, and when we asked you to stop you refused. 

I don’t understand it, how did this come so far?  How can you let yourself live this way?  I’m not accusing you of anything, I’m just stating fact.  You submit to self imposed torture in an attempt to rid yourself of a different kind of pain, and you do it over and over again.  You’re like a person who continually grabs a hot poker and never learns that it causes agony and scarring.

It hurt me to watch you as you talked to me about the way you’ve been living.  The light had faded from your eyes, and your hands were shaking so you couldn’t even hold a glass.  Ice cubes clinked and clacked in that metallic way they have, and I took the glass of ginger ale from you so you wouldn’t spill it.