Mornin', all.
I live in a beautiful old house that has been around since before the French Revolution. It was built to retain heat. Last night it was 32 in my bedroom with the fan on full blast. I feel like a puddle at present, but not as bad as the blackbird I rescued yesterday; it collapsed on the lawn, gasping, and I put it in the shade with some water. Thankfully, it seemed to recover - though I don't know how it will fare today at 39 degrees... Still, managed to get a mahogany tan in the short time I was outside (apart from a worrying gigantifreckle on my right forearm), so shan't complain.
@Zippysays - I think you're wonderful. Just wonderful. You have such immense courage!
I keep, for some reason, returning to that text Ioan sent Ella re: her disrespectful and illegal behaviour. Does Alice
want her daughter to head down the two-years-in-juvenile-detention path? Had Ella done what she did to someone less understanding than her father, she would have felt the full weight of the law. Ioan needs to get her away from the Narcissist posthaste before any further damage is done. It's a narcissistic characteristic, I think, not only to believe that which happens to you is so much more intense than for 'ordinary people', but to never consider the consequences. Narcissists aren't known for their foresight. They live in the immediate present, give or take a week; the future is a shadowy, amorphous unknown in which they expect their plans to come to fruition.
Alice needs to have Zippy's bravery and get herself to rehab. Or she may die. I'm not using gross hyperbole, here, or indulging in wishful thinking - much as I may loathe the woman's behaviour, I don't want her to suffer unduly. She's setting herself up for pancreatitis, heart attacks, strokes, cirrhosis of the liver, DVT and a whole host of other devastating illnesses with her alcohol and pill addictions. I wouldn't be surprised if Alice the Atheist mumbles a prayer at the end of each session - 'please let me stay alive; please don't let me die tonight.' One day, prayers will no longer work. The body is a beautiful but finite thing. If you overstress delicate systems to breaking point on a daily basis, they will give out on you. Does she not realise how much that would traumatise her daughters, given her own experience in losing her mother in an untimely fashion?
Your ego is writing cheques your body can't cash, Alice. Get to rehab or an AA meeting today, find a sponsor and learn to be sober. If being sober is too horrible to contemplate due to your demons, find a therapist to whom you pledge being totally honest and do the work during your recovery. You're on a very dangerous path. I've seen this with my own father, whose health is now wrecked through years of alcohol abuse. One day at a time, eh?