Self-Destructive Tendencies...

I know, from a psychological point of view (yes, I minored in it for 3 years...) that everyone has some degree of self-destructive tendancy. This is accepted, but normally not entertained on a wide scale by most people.

I don't mind people having these tendencies. I have them myself, and occasionally feel the need to bring them out, play with them quietly in a corner, and then put them back in their little box for another year or so. It's not a problem, honestly, as long as my self-destructive tendencies do NOT directly impact others over a lengthy period of time (like, longer than an hour or so), and they don't cause significant amounts of drama repeatedly to those around me.

Sometimes, some people just don't know when they are moving from venting to drama... Case in point, this last weekend. A friend of ours came to spend the weekend with us because of issues with her roommates. Suffice to say, the relationship she's had with them has ended, and now she is feeling very cut off, isolated, and rather uncomfortable in her own home. This is all understandable. When anything like that happens and it's a non-amecable break-up, it tends to make things very uncomfortable.

So, she asked if she could spend the weekend with us to get away and relax for a bit. This was fine. She also asked if she could bring over alcohol. This also was fine, as far as I was concerned. Not really cluing into anything, and having it not occur that something bad could happen with it, I didn't say anything about it, other than mentioning that I wouldn't mind having a tipple of something sweet myself.

So, she arrives at our house whilst Fred is out and about with Boo, bringing with her 5 bottles of alcohol - 4 of them 30 proof, and one bottle of 151... Friday night we decide we aren't going to do much - Saturday is going to be a big day for most of us, and while it's been a long week, we're too tired to actually enjoy any "real" drinking - so we put it off for Saturday. I promise to teach both S and our guest how to play tablero, and we go to bed.

SaturDAY was fine - our guest declined to join us for the quilter's volunteer circle at the hospital, so we headed out, picked up Rikki on the way and had a great time sewing, then wending through a local fabric shop, and then to lunch and home (picked up ribs for dinner, too).

That evening, however, was a different matter entirely.

Again, venting is perfectly natural, and acceptable. I have no issues with it. HOWEVER - you do not... NOT... mix venting in with alcohol - especially when you happen to be our guest, apparently. I taught her how to play tablero, and we went through a standard-sized bottle of mead together with it. I fwas feeling nice and tipsy, warm and pleasant, but not overly out-of-control. I was enjoying the feeling, and felt that, should the need arise, I would be perfectly happy to either sober up or go to sleep with no issues whatsoever.

Our guest, however, decided instead to start straight-shooting 151, with diet pepsi shooters. I didn't even WANT to see her blood sugar levels at that point (oh, did we not mention that she's an insulin-dependent diabetic?) After she'd had about 8 shots, she suddenly turned white and headed off to the bathroom just in time to throw up... By then it was around 9pm or so... This was the beginning of the major downslide to the evening.

She proceeded to continue to get more and more sick, punctuated by bouts of self-pitying soliloquies about how horrible she was, and how she didn't deserve anything that anyone might give her at all... ever...

By 1am, she was still drunk, and I'd gone to bed. Or at least, I'd attempted to go to bed. Instead, while Fred and S attempted to deal with her puking on herself, the blankets, the floor and the couch, I had to get up and calm down Boo because she was getting so upset and hyped up on what was going on.

Finally got Boo to go to sleep around 2-ish, when they plopped our guest into the tub to wash her off. We finally got to sleep around 3:30 or 4-ish Sunday morning.

Boo woke us up at 7:30, convinced that we all had to be up at that point. I felt NO remorse for bringing a very rambunctious and happily loud baby out to the front room to play. Mwa ha ha.

New rules in the house from this point forward:

If you want to bring alcohol to the house, that's fine.
You are only allowed 1 bottle, of 1 liter or less.
Said bottle cannot be more than 80 proof.
No self-destructive stuff around the baby. EVER.

This was NOT a good saturday.