Finally Had THE Talk in Current Events

I finally had the talk with my roommate about her drinking. When I got home from my evening class yesterday she opened up to me about what has been going on with her. I speculated in the previous entry that she was having an affair and was wrong. It was much worse, she met a dog…

The back story is that she was friends with benefits with Bob. She knew the score when he called that off so he could start a relationship with somebody else, Erna. That devastated Toni, my roommate. Mind you, there was a period where he was sleeping with both Toni and Erna, his girlfriend. Erna does not know this. Toni had a nervous breakdown and she became a raging alcoholic at home when Bob chose Erna over Toni.

She refuses to just abandon her friendship with Bob. She was hanging on which led to another nervous breakdown when she found out that he was moving in with Erna. Then again after she officially met Erna. Still, Toni keeps trying to be friends with Bob even though she continues to pine over him. This situation is toxic for everybody because it has a love triangle, for starters. It’s also got a secret, Erna does not know that Toni and Bob had a thing. Though, I suspect that Erna is piecing it together. That relationship is built on a lie and it will blow up in Bob’s face and it is not Toni’s problem. He made his bed.

I heard her on the weekend crying over the phone to somebody one morning. She spent the whole weekend in hiding. That was Bob that she was crying with over the phone. That is part of her process when she has a breakdown. She calls him to tell him how hurt she is. How he hurt her, essentially. They were hanging out when he realized that he forgot his charger at home. He ran in and brought a dog out to introduce to Toni. Erna stepped out too. Bob and Erna got a dog together. That was a reality check to Toni that Bob is truly invested in Erna. Toni was stunned and refused to get out of the car and even touch the dog.

Toni admits to herself now that she was hanging on to hope for Bob. She believed that his relationship was going to fail and that he would just come crawling back to her. That is not happening and she can see that now.

Toni went on and on about it. I was invested in this diatribe because I don’t want her to become a raging alcoholic at home. She needs to have a breakthrough instead of a breakdown. I know how to get into somebody’s head and this was the perfect moment. Whenever I tried to add self-awareness she would blow up on me. You don’t get it! You don’t know him! You don’t know anything! I eventually penetrated that stubborn ego of hers and got her to see that she is toxic to Bob. The concept of self-awareness was lost on her at first. I told her that nobody wants to be aware of how they negatively affect others. What truly triggered her to blow up on me was when I implied that she was not happy for Bob. That is when she popped off. It’s toxic for him that his friend will call him to blame him for her heartbreak every time something positive happens in his life. To complain about how his happiness is making them miserable.

Maybe you don’t get it, Toni? Maybe there is something you are not getting in this situation. That is the other statement I said that made her explode on me. To which I responded Okay, you got this all figured out. You know it all inside and out. You don’t need to talk about it with anybody, you don’t need me here. I’m glad you figured this out because we are 36 and life shouldn’t be a Taylor Swift song. She started to rebuttle and I got stern. You say you get it but he has told you many times that he does not have feelings for you yet you keep hanging on to this! What don’t you get about it!?

I asked her what she was going to do differently this time to get over this. She provided no sufficient answer and she knew it. I asked what is different about this situation from the rest. She thinks seeing that there is no hope for her is all she needs to move on. I was really trying to get her to give me answers about herself. About how she can put all of her energy into herself because she is toxic to Bob and to Erna and to herself. She needs to step away because she is the toxic one.

That was my segway into adding the self-awareness of how she has been toxic at home to me. That is when I brought up her drinking. She didn’t fight me on any of it. She knew it was a problem. She knew it was making it weird at home. She feels awful. She apologized but I made sure to drive it home and tell her exactly what it is like living with her when she drinks. I left out the financial abuse and the laziness at home, that’s a later conversation. She admits that she has a problem and she admits that she wants to stop. She wants to quit weed and alcohol. Not completely, but she understands that she doesn’t have it under control.

Eventually, we got to the point where she was no longer talking about Bob and finally talking about herself. She sees her habit of putting everything into a relationship with somebody and losing herself in it. That is why she gets so attached. I wrote three words on my whiteboard. Balance, Boundaries, Discipline. Beside those words I wrote the word Communication. That was the missing link between creating balance, boundaries and discipline, she explained. She needs to be honest and real with others and above all with herself. I wrote that under communication. Then at the bottom of the little chart, I wrote Breakdown or Breakthrough. She is going to have one or the other and no matter which one happens it was her choice. We discussed what a breakdown looks like and then what a breakthrough looks like for her. She is going to need discipline if she wants to have a breakthrough. The best version of ourselves is not a person without limits but a person with parameters.

I offered to help her in some capacity. I created the boundary that I will not be available for her to talk about Bob. She said that she needed space from Bob but didn’t want to just ghost him. I told her that space doesn’t need to look like that. How about you only think about Bob and that situation when you are with him but when you are at home and work, you work really hard to not think about him and talk about him. When she catches herself getting ready to commit to wallowing, she can go for a walk. I can join her on a walk. We can find something to do to take her mind off him it.

We will see what happens. I just don’t want this drinking to get out of hand. I feel like this might be the breakthrough she needs. She refuses to get help though. I explained how she admitted that she has a problem, and she admits that she can be a version of herself without these problems but most people tap out on the third step to recovery which is admitting that they need help. She cannot do this her way because her way will always lead back to this. You can’t correct a problem with the same mind that created it. This recovery I speak of is not just about the addictions. It’s her attachments altogether which are making her life unmanageable.

She said that she has been working on herself and her goals. I told her that she just keeps changing everything in her life except herself. She will try to control everything in her life except herself. If I am correct on this, in two years time she will hate her new job. She will hate all of the changes she just made and she will be back to square one. She sees my point. Toni, don’t be fifty when you realize that it was never the content in your life that needed to change but the context. I know it’s tacky but this inward, self-help journey needs to start eventually. Don’t wait until you are sixty to realize that all you accomplished in life was mastering the art of pretending that the pain isn’t happening. It isn’t happening when you are drunk, high, having that affair, making that dumb purchase, eating like garbage, etc. Find your story and change it. #LakeTravis

I’m confident in her but she is very stubborn. She is a fixed sign, a Taurus. We always end up having the same old conversations about the same old things because they always want to be the same old person. They want nothing to change. My birth chart is full of fixed sign realness and it’s the bane of my existence. I have all the ambition of a Capricorn but all of the starting power of my Taurus rising and Scorpio placements. Astrology aside, Toni has an opportunity here to actually create change within herself now that she has opened herself up to accepting some self-awareness. She will now be able to be honest with herself about her bullshit and real with herself about her bullshit and hold herself accountable for her bullshit. If she chooses to do so. That is what is different this time around. I hope it is enough.

Last updated October 12, 2022