I used to hear her in the night, screaming from her nightmares, wandering around downstairs, watching TV with her mixed drink(s) on one side and her orange salt rock lamp on the other. That salt rock lamp was supposed to give off “good energy”, but I wasn’t really sure how much of that was true considering the circumstances. A salt rock lamp can’t free you. Neither could medication. She used to tell me; survival, is just getting through the day. I listened. I tried to save her myself, but alcohol is more powerful than I am. It’s more powerful than anything I could have said to her. It was a year from last semester, when my best friend started spiraling out of control. I had lived with her for the past three years, this is my fourth. We became instant friends when we both saw each other at UVM. She always seemed so happy on the outside, but I soon started to see the hollowness inside of her. She had gone through so much in her life, and I thought of her as strong. I still do. But for her it wasn’t that easy to call herself strong and just let it all go, she didn’t know how to handle it, until alcohol became her way. I never understood why she did the things she did that year. Did you know she drank a whole handle of Rasberry Smirnoff in two days? It was sickening. I didn’t know what to do, because at a certain point I couldn’t even look at her. I know that sounds harsh, and maybe I shouldn’t have left her alone in the apartment to be swigging even more of yet another flavored handle of *****. I just couldn’t talk to her without hurting her feelings. She is really sensitive, like an open wound and everything hurts her. I wasn’t trying to, but she was so uncovered and vulnerable. Everything I said either went one ear and out the other, or stung her like salt in a deep cut. It got hard to live with sometimes. I love her so much yet I was uselessly sitting there watching her drown in her invasive misery, destroying herself and leaving me to watch her ashes build up more and more in front of me. She isolated herself on purpose, lost a lot of friends for a while. I tried but I couldn’t stop her, no one could. She was so far gone, like I lost my best friend whom I couldn’t recognize anymore, and I missed her. It became a routine, coming home to her drunk and sometimes crying hysterically on the floor or on the couch, or in her room, whether there was even a reason or not. She fell apart. I told her my thoughts, gave her my advice, but if words helped everyone all the time, no one would feel the pain that you sometimes have to feel. I wanted to tell her it was okay, but then I didn’t know how to anymore. All I could do was shove my phone in her face already calling a school therapist for her. At first, she looked at me with a blank stare. With tears dripping down her cheek, I knew she didn’t want the help, but she knew she needed it. She didn’t deny it. To my surprise, she didn’t fight it. She took the phone, made an appointment, and started her journey to recovering.
