Some vices are plain destructive. Please don't learn the hard way.
One thing that never made a whole lot of sense is that the vices that are banned and censored, here in the UK, are nowhere near as destructive as alcohol and gambling. In fact, it's generally the fallout from gambling and alcohol addiction that leads people to anaesthetise themselves with 'class A' drugs.
But this post isn't about addiction, per se, and I don't intend for it to be a lecture. It's a cautionary lesson, from experience, about what can happen on a single weekend bender.
Sometimes people do life-altering things, while intoxicated, that there's no coming back from, such as flatlining their friends in a car crash. Consequences are consequences, and life doesn't care about the could haves and should haves.
My own cautionary tale is more about the car crash of relationships, and how a single moment of drunken stupidity might cause a loved one to disappear from our lives permanently. And I mean permanently, as in no amount of remorse or regret could bring that person back.
Friday evening started out the way most Friday evenings do. The three of us - myself, my partner and a mutual friend - started drinking at a local pub, shortly after work. Both of them can outdrink me, sort of. It's more accurate to say I'm invariably far more sober, because I can't drink as fast. When I am drunk, I'm nothing but sociable.
After four pints and a decent meal, we moved on to a very nice bar. Good atmosphere. Lovely decor. Neon lights. Decent musician who's a cut above the average pub singer... A few drinks later, our friend, who had been messaging someone all night, took to viciously shouting 'CUNT!' into his phone, for a whole hour. By the end of the night, it transpired he'd subjected his brother to a relationship-ending barrage of nasty texts, voicemails, videos, etc. The one brother he was still on good terms until that point. The reason? Pure resentment, it seems. And drink.
Things got a whole lot worse soon after.
My partner is the kindest and most caring person I've known, and I genuinely do mean that. I love him in a way I couldn't possibly love anyone else. He is like a giant teddy bear.
On the way home, I paid a taxi driver slightly too much cash to make sure our barely-conscious friend got home safely, not knowing the taxi had already been paid for. That triggered a complete personality change in my partner, who went from being the kind, caring man to being the polar opposite. He essentially went on a tirade about how everything I'd done for him apparently counts for nothing, and his actions were those of someone who felt nothing but hated of me. What really hurt the most is watching someone I love turn into someone I didn't recognise.
I spent the next two days wondering if his real personality had surfaced, whether he'd expressed his real feelings about me, and I weighed up whether to take my own life. I know the time, place and the method for ending it all, and I've been on the knife edge of doing exactly that for years, but I bury those thoughts the best I can. I'm also thinking about how much worse it must be for women who are regular victims of domestic abuse.
Everything is (hopefully) fine now. My partner apologised, and said he won't drink again. What happened might stay with me for weeks or months - I honestly have no control over that. I've been too angry with myself to eat anything for the past several days.