I have a friend. A friend with a great deal of baggage. She is a good person. In fact she is a wonderful, giving and generous person. The kind of friend that would be there in a New York minute if you needed someone no matter when, no matter where. A truly nice woman. She has some tremendous problems however. I suppose nothing is perfect, least of all life. My friend, I’ll call her Eleanor for this writing, has an addictive personality. Alcohol is her main addiction, possibly pills in addition( I believe Vicodin or Oxycontin). Previously she had (and still does have) a food addiction, which led to a gastric bypass surgery. She is slowly gaining back her weight despite the surgery. She is not a healthy person. She is only 43.

My closest friend and I have tried to help her. We have spent days and nights worrying about her. We fear for her. My close friend, (I’ll call her Rita), who is about 18yrs older than her is much more involved in trying to help her than I am. She has the gift for that. She has a calming affect. A mothering way. She has a way with seeing the light. But even she cannot help her. Rita’s husband is a drug counselor. So is Rita’s middle son. They have tried to help her also. But Eleanor lies. She is in terrible denial most of the time. And when she does admit she has a problem, she quickly retracts it the next day. She tries to self-rehab. It doesn’t work. She drains us.

Eleanor lies. About everything. It is gotten so bad that anything she says is presumed to be a lie. No matter what. I would say, without exaggeration, that if you asked her what color her underwear is, she’d lie. And she doesn’t remember, so she contradicts herself almost immediately. And so it goes. Day after day after day.

Her skin is blotchy. Her words slur.  On days when she does not smell from alcohol, I suspect she is upbeat and steady because of other reasons. She misses an awful lot of work. She comes up with the most outrageous stories. We refer to her as the Perils of Pauline. Constant drama. Constant emergencies. Constant excuses. Everyone at work knows. Everyone talks about her. She is oblivious. She thinks no one notices. She wreaks from beer. It is coming out of the pores of her skin, when it is not on her breath. (I pulled up behind her at the curb when I was parking my car one morning, she didn’t notice me, and I watched her down two cans of beer before she got out of her car to go into the job at 8:45am).She has been reassigned to a different department, one where her absenteeism isn’t affecting her coworkers directly. This job will not do anything. It is a civil service job. No one will take any official action. The unions are strong. No one will put their careers on the line for her. There is no random drug or alcohol testing. There is no mandatory rehab. We just have to stand by and watch her fall. And unfortunately she will fall hard. When we tried to help her, she became furious. We tried to have our union rep speak to her, off the record. She screamed at her. We tried to have the Chief speak to her, and he has, several times. She denies a problem, and further threatens to get whoever it is that is trying to get her into trouble. She is adamantly denying her problem. She doesn’t think anyone else sees it. She is still in denial. She believes to have things under control. She tries to self rehab time and time again. She’s okay for a few days and then boom! Back off the wagon she falls. Her childhood friends are all alcoholics who never grew up. She is in trouble. She lies about EVERYTHING. She doesn’t remember what she says from minute to minute, so catching her is easy, natural.

Her personal life is a shambles. Her mother passed away several years ago. On her deathbed she made Eleanor promise to take care of her older brother. Her brother the crack cocaine, prescription drug addict. Her brother, the son who struck his mother, mooched off her, stole from her and took her money. The son who she knew beat Eleanor. The son who was in and out of jail. Eleanor took her promise to heart. She takes care of him. Her older brother, who because of his addictions, is considered disabled by the government and collects SSD and Medicaid. She has an order of protection against him, but because of guilt, allowed him back into her apartment, let him use her car (with a revoked license). He violated the order. He is currently serving 6 months in jail. She feels guilty. She has paid for his lawyer, his storage bills, his other expenses while he is serving his time. She has been evicted. Recently. She has no money. Destitute. Rita and I wonder where her money is. She hasn’t paid rent for the past 7 months during the eviction proceedings. She has no bills, other than her car insurance, her cell phone and her cable TV bill. Nothing else. Her salary nets her approx $2000.00 per month. Where is her money? Even if she drank a case of Coors a day, it would only cost her about $15.00 a case.

But by now, she is probably out of annual leave and sick time on the job, and is not getting paid for the days she misses, and the minutes late she is docked when she clocks in. Although she has told us she has about 90 hours accumulated, we can’t imagine how, because she uses her days faster than she earns them. (she accumulates one annual leave day per bi-weekly schedule and ½ day of sick time per same time period.) Of course. Another lie. She has been absent 12 days out the last 15. She will not lose her job. It is extremely difficult to lose a civil service job. Luckily for her.

I’ve decided that this woman is more than I can handle. I love her dearly. And I know this will sound selfish, but I must take a step back. I have to remove myself from her daily drama. I can go on and on. There is so much I have not told you. It would take too much time and too much space. I cannot help her. She feels I am against her. She has told Rita as much, because I have begun to call her on the discrepancies in her stories. Not in a nasty way, just with questions, such as, “I thought you said it happened (another way)?” She perceives me as being untrustworthy of her confidences now. In a way it’s a relief. Rita is still with her. She cannot step back. She has tried. She has cried for her and over her. She has said so many times, how she just can’t deal with this anymore. She has stated time and time again that she is done. But she can’t let go. Rita’s husband is frustrated with Rita. She feels that Eleanor is not her child, and she should not be taking her problems so personally. But she can’t let go. She can’t step back.

I have never met anyone like this before. I have never been so close to someone with so many problems. It is difficult to watch someone you love self destruct. I am not strong enough to be so involved with her. I feel guilty. I feel like I am being extremely selfish. But she is draining the life from me. She is choking my creativity. Her drama is absorbing. Constant. I’m so tired. I have my own problems. I have my own health and personal issues that require my attention. I cannot help her. She is not willing to be helped. So I stand back from the inner circle. Rita keeps me informed about her for the most part, because Rita and I are the closest of friends, and she feels she can share what is happening to Eleanor with me. But I do not reveal to Eleanor what I am being told. I cannot let her know that I know. It will pull me back into her drama. But I worry. I worry and pray that she will not do harm to herself, or God forbid, to anyone else. I worry that she will get behind the wheel one day and get into a horrible accident. I worry that she will hurt herself. I worry that her brother will kill her.

I don’t know what else to do. I have to self preserve. Do you understand what I am trying to say? I’m so torn. I feel like I have failed her. I feel like I am being a hardened bitch. But I cannot do it. Shame on me. It is harsh, but she is not my family. I don’t love her enough to put myself on the line for her. I have people in my life that I would. But she is not one of them. I hope God forgives me. I hope she does too.