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I started a thread about my friend in the BP section as he admits to being a "tiny bit BP", and also admits to having a drinking problem. The folks in the BP section said that since he is not on med or formally diagnosed with BP, the alcohol issue needs to be addressed first.
My friend flipped out on me 10 days ago. (letter below will explain) I waited 2 days and sent him a link about something he is passionate about. He responded with one angry line. The next day I sent him a new related link. He again responded with anger saying he would not waste his brain power on reading it. I have not sent anything else. He has cut off communications since. He has been my best friend for the last 2 years. We would talk daily and have had a very intellectual relationship. He has no other friends except for me, seriously, no friends. His personality is strange, yet appealing to me as I find him stimulating. He is very much like "Dr. House" on the TV show with all the sarcasm and self righteousness of him.
I started this letter to him. I just don't know if I should finish it and email it or send a short note of just checking in, or what. I am concerned for him and I miss our daily communications. Here is the letter so far;
Dear Neal,
You really scared me this last time and it can’t be pushed under the rug!
You know I care a great deal about you and value your friendship. I want you to be happy and to find love. Whatever causes you to flip out needs to be dealt with or it will happen again and again, and you could end out hurting yourself or someone, or lose your future love.
I want to review what happened, just in case you actually don’t remember everything.
You went to the concert on Friday night and had a few beers. I don’t know if you ate before the show. You called me after the show and told me to come over. You texted me around midnight and told me you were home, to come, and be ready for a linguistics lesson. I picked up a bottle of wine and came over. We talked for a few hours and I got tired. You told me to be sure and leave some wine for you so I left the rest of the bottle that had about one glass.
The next morning you sent me a text me at 9:21AM with the word, “Arise.” You called a few minutes later and told me you were drinking wine and you wanted to come over. You arrived with a 6 pack of beer. I was working in the kitchen and having coffee. We had a fun day, watching college football, talking, looking at my old things from Bulgaria and trying to get the speakers to work. Ron came downstairs at about 3PM and talked to you about music. I heated a can of soup and ate. You finished the 6 pack of beer.
Around 5PM we drove Ron to his friend’s house. You wanted to stop at a bar for a drink. We went to Montana’s and you did not want to stay because there was no one there. We went to Rounder’s next which was packed. You switched to vodka-cranberry. I ordered wine. We were there till it got dark. I had 3 glasses of wine and you had 3 tall vodka-cranberry drinks and I ordered food. I ate and you had nothing. I got a box for your food. We left and you pulled over and asked me to drive.
Next you wanted to get more wine so we went to Von’s. I selected a bottle and you grabbed a pretty bottle with Greek designs that was champagne. We went to check out and the clerk was busy counting change and ignored you. You were trying to pay but she had not pressed the button confirming you were old enough to buy alcohol so the transaction did not go through. You swiped your Von’s card and credit card 3 times and got more stressed with each passing moment. Finally you yelled at the clerk and told her to stop counting change and take notice that you are having problems. She turned around, pressed the button, and you swiped your credit card. She told you to swipe your Von’s card and you yelled, “No, I want to just go!” You grabbed the bag and stormed out the store. The clerk tried to say to swipe your Von’s card for the discount and she will give you the money back. I swiped mine and she gave me the $10. You were standing at your car as I had the keys. I handed you the money and you tore it on half and threw it on the parking lot and yelled you don’t want it.
You were ranting about the problems with everyone else on the 2 mile drive back to my place. I tried to calm you down and told you how the clerk was rude. You carried in the bag with the bottles and kept ranting about Ron, Lee and Brittany. You dropped the wine bottle which broke on the kitchen floor. I kept asking you to calm down, again telling you that the clerk was rude but let it go. I started to clean up the glass and spill. You kept yelling and grabbed the larger section of the broken bottle and threw it on the floor again, making a bigger mess and yelled , "here's more glass for you to clean up since you seem to like cleaning so much!"
You kept yelling and saying mean things about my kids, my life, my home, and my friends. You started drinking out of the other bottle direct and expressing hate for everything around me. You even said that maybe you belong on meds. I kept calm and asked you to please relax and calm down, saying things like no one is perfect, we all have flaws, and so on. You set the other bottle on the floor and it fell over and spilled. I said I will clean it up. You had a cigarette and came back in and sat down. I finished cleaning and sat on the red round chair.
Suddenly you got up, got into my face, grabbed my glass and held it to your wrist and yelled how many times you would like to cut your wrist and finish it all. I grabbed my glass back. Next you held your finger to your head like a gun and said you would like to blow your brains out. I was crying at this point and you were gritting your teeth as you were yelling and really scaring me. You swung his arm and purposely knocked over the lamp and the table. You were trying to provoke me to fight you! I picked up the table and lamp, stayed calm, never raising my voice through the whole thing. I walked over to my purse in the kitchen, turned to you and said, "I am leaving my home. You are welcome to stay and cool down. If you leave, just close the door so my dogs don't get out." I went to my car, jumped in, locked my doors, and drove away. I passed by my house 10 minutes later and you were gone.
You can’t blame me or my son or Brittany or anyone for your behavior. You drank wine in the morning, you brought over the beer, you ordered the vodka and you suddenly snapped at Von’s. I have experienced your snaps a number of times now. It seems that they generally involve when you change to hard liquor.
You have said I am your therapist before, so please take the time to think about my words before you reply.
When I research “angry drinker”, the consensus is that a person who is internally anger and hides it till they finally reach a point where they suddenly let it out. A person, who is actually sad inside, suddenly cries and is the sad drunk. A person who doesn’t hide their feelings just becomes a drunk. It is the cultural veil, as you would say.
You become very angry at a certain point when you drink too much. How many times has this happened with you since I have known you? I can think of 6 or 7 times.
That is as far as I am and I don't know where to go from here. Any one who has experience with drinkers, or has done this same thing, please let me know what you think I should do. I am concerned for him.
Peace
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