Now I have a neighbour down here on the docks that I have been hanging out with off and on for over a year. Good guy. Good friend. Alcoholic.
I don't drink. Not because I'm against it in particular - I just don't like it and the meds I take amplify the effects horribly. As in 3 sips and I'm 3 sheets. So I just don't go there.
My buddy is Chinook. He should not drink. He knows this and has been a friend of Bill's for a long time. He's got lots of support, in every aspect of his social life. He's a meeting regular. His boss and many friends are in the program with him. And he's off the wagon as they say.
I'm livid.
I'm not livid because he's drinking - that's not my yak. He's a grown ass man about my own age - he can make his own decisions. But I have a problem when he starts turning on me.
He told someone I would work on their boat - and didn't let me know. I wasn't there when the guy expected of course. So I get a call from Mr Neighbour this morning asking me if I am going to do the work or not - I suggest since he's just quit his job he should probably take it instead. I also mention that I appreciate his help, but let me make my own deals for jobs. He tells me to go fuck myself.
I go up on the dock. The boat owner is there, as is my friend and whomever his little drinking buddy for the last 48 or so was - I don't know him. I apologised to the boat owner that I was unaware of the work, and that since our mutual friend had someone there willing to do it - then he should do it and I would step back. Mr Drunkass then decided I was calling him a liar (by saying we had a communication error and it was my fault) and wanted to fight.
I did Tae Kwon Do for a lot of years. I was also a bouncer in my past. I may be a bit fat - but there is a whole lot of trained muscle under the disguising blobby bits that moves it far faster than you expect. So he wanted to throw down, I went into my ready stance.
"HIT ME!" he screamed as I stood in my stance, getting ready to take his head off with one of my feet.
"I'm not going to throw the first punch, I'm going to finish it," I said quietly, looking at him. Slender, wiry, hung over. I know where to hit him. I know how to make him scream in agony - he was badly beaten the last time he went on a big bender and ended up in hospital with a broken head and neck. That's really the best way to describe what happened to him. Facial bones smashed, jaw broken, neck all messed up with herniated discs and bone chips and more. I don't want to hurt him, but I can, easily.
He backed down. Good thing too. While I do not want to hurt my friend - I will not tolerate being hit. That's my trigger for my PTSD. That was the reason I took TKD, Kendo and spent several years in SCA combat. Don't hit me, it won't end well.
But now that the adenaline rush is gone - I'm angry. Not quite grinding and tooth chipping angry - but close. The problem is I don't know who or what to be angry at. My friend? He's out of his fucking mind right now. The booze? That's a chemical compound. His co-drunk? I don't have any say over his friendships. Myself? I didn't hit him, even though I wanted to at that moment on the docks.
I don't know how to help him. I asked another AA person who knows him and he was dismissive - not only of my concern but also over our mutual friend. His boozing makes him persona non grata to them I guess? I don't know.
I miss my friend. I worry he will actually try to attack me or my animal or my boat - and I will have to hurt him. I don't want to be angry.
But I am.