One of the guys I canoe with likes to drink - a LOT. On more than one occasion, I've seen him down a gallon (yes, a gallon) of Jim Beam in a 24 hour period. That amount of alcohol would probably kill me. He tends to binge drink... staying dry for a while (weeks or months), then falling off of the wagon, and falling hard. Our canoe trips tend to be a drink-fest for him. Sometimes it's not so bad, sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's sad, and occasionally it pisses the other two of us off. (Okay, it's a drink-fest for us too, but nowhere close to the same extent.)
For several years, he's had a habit of getting drunk to the point of passing out. Just before hitting that point, he always says, "I'm going to lay down in my canoe and pass out. You guys go ahead, but wake me up if you see me floating by." Every year, I end up staying back and babysitting his drunk ass. This year I decided that enough was enough, and so did my other buddy. That's right, we let his drunk ass pass out in the boat and we continued on downstream. I've always been the one to make sure that nothing bad happened to him, and I'd had enough.
We paddled on, going through some water rough enough to tip him if he wasn't paying attention, but not rough enough to injure him. We finished our day, pulled over, set up camp, and ate. We never saw him. Nightfall came, and we never saw him. The next morning, we made breakfast, broke camp, loaded our canoes, and he still hadn't shown up. He didn't appear until noon.
We found out that he pulled over on a sandbar just upstream from us. Not having a tent, he tipped his canoe over, and slept under that. He also had no fire and little food. Meanwhile, my buddy and I worried that he was genuinely hurt.
Our actions had the intended impact though. He stayed relatively sober the rest of the trip. In fact, he didn't drink at all for the next day and a half. When he did finally drink, he only got slightly inebriated. He gave us a little crap for ditching him, but we both told him we were tired of babysitting his drunk ass. I went further and said that I didn't want to hear another word about ditching after having babysat his sorry unconscious body for the last several years straight. He said "fair enough," and that was that.
He suffered the physical effects of his stupidity. We suffered the guilt of wondering if we were doing the right thing. It was a tough lesson for everyone. I wonder if it will have a long-term impact on his drinking pattern. Probably not, but I can hope.
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1 comment:
It's called tough love.
My brother is exactly the same way. He used to go out drinking three or four times a week, get shit faced to the point he could barely speak and would call me for a ride home...and this was at a time when I would get in from work at 2am and be up to go to University at 6am. He knew this, but didn't give a shit. It didn't matter if I had to give up the only four hours I had to sleep, as long as he didn't have to wait for and pay for a taxi.
Finally I told him to go fuck himself and let him walk the twenty miles home.
Unfortunately, my brother never learned. This isjust one of a million things I could bore you with about him but, basically, he doesn't give a shit about anyone else unless it directly effects him. He's a guy who'll totally screw you over to make things slightly easier for himself.
At least your buddy got the message, even if it's only in the short term. Had I done the same thing to my brother he'd have thrown a shit fit and wouldn't have even considered that he might have been out of line.
Oops, this turned into a rant...I'll stop now.
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