Let’s start light, on this lovely Wednesday evening. With a fact…
Whenever Honey says “You know what’s funny?” I go “YA FACE.” It’s a knee-jerk reaction but I think I’m gonna stop doing that.
You know why? Because when I’m sick like right now he goes and he does this:
He ordered me Chinese food from work today. :)
Even though I’m sick as f**k, it takes the edge off to be loved like this. Kudos to all the fiances and fiancees and wifeys and hubbies and mommies and daddies and friends and neighbors and incredibly skilled dogs and cats who love in this way. It makes all the difference in the world to the people on the receiving end of your kindness.
Ok one quick thing: if you have half of a second, I would be so grateful if you’d vote for The Knotty Bride in Question 1 of this WedBiz Awards Nominations and then go to the bottom to submit (“Done” I think it says?). It would make my world. I kinda put my everything into this blogaby (blog baby) every day because I love sharing and interacting with you all. I’m living my dream, thanks to you guys. It would be The Coolest to win this. Ok I’m done begging :) Sorries.
We’re gonna get started now with today’s Question from a Reader. I want to preface this reader’s question by telling you that I hesitated to put this one up on the blog. I dunno I just wasn’t sure how to handle it. I think it’s because it touches on very real, very serious issues some or actually a lot of people face IRL when they’re dealing with tough life circumstances, and I guess I felt unsure if I should just straight copy + paste the question onto this blog post like I always do, or work to edit it in such a way that it wouldn’t be so honest and real-life-ish sounding. Weird, of me, right? I don’t really know why exactly all of this happened in my brain. Why I got so squeamish about it. Especially since I’m usually pretty direct as a blogger when it comes to talking about intense stuff and keeping it real about life on the blog.
WHATEVER, survey says I decided to keep it mothereffing rizzeal today. And so away we go.
Dear TKB:
Howdy! I’m a loving reader o’ your blog, and I need help. HELP!!!!! I’m in a bit of a panic.
My honey and I got engaged a while back. Happy, happy, yay! I then proceeded to ask my ladies to be my bridesmaids, like ya do. Everything had been going swimmingly until one of my maids and her boyfriend of three years broke up, and she lost her damn mind. Seriously. Completely sack of hammers. Here’s the rundown: She’s been drunk every day since (I’m not being figurative; it starts around 3 pm when she wakes up and ends around 5 or 6 am), been doing hard drugs with increasing regularity, and sleeping with every guy ever. I know that she’s just reacting extremely badly to something that hurt her. It’s been five months of this, though, and I don’t see a light at the end of this whiskey tunnel anytime soon. My selfish side of this whole mess is that I am terrified she’s going to do something crazy at my wedding. I’ve wanted to tell her that if she can’t shape up, she’s not invited thus not a bridesmaid (she was ecstatic about being in the wedding), but I’m scared that may make her go even further off the rails. I don’t know what to do, and it’s getting closer to dress ordering time. Help, help, helpitty, help, please!!!
On another note, I LOVE your blog!!! Thanks for being rad, lady!
L.
Dear L,
First, thank you, I appreciate your kind words and I’m so glad you enjoy. :) Now, about your situation.
HOLY SHIT. Your friend seems to be doing everything short of Gadhafi-ing herself in the rear in order to feel something other than what is clearly the intense pain of losing her beloved. I feel bad for her; that is one incredibly hard road especially after three years, even when you have the faculties/support system to help you through it… clearly she has neither. She is suffering, and making life far worse by not dealing with the pain she’s working so hard to cover up with excessive drug and alcohol use.
Because your friend is in a downward spiral, my impulse when I first read your question was to say that this is no time to get mad at her, because your first priority should be your friend and helping her find a path to recovery. But I knew that couldn’t be my best advice, so I had to stir this one around in my head for a few days. FYI this really all depends on how close you are with your friend. If you are close, and you worry, like you said, that she’ll go off the deep end if you boot her, then here’s what you might want to do:
If she’s abusing drugs/alcohol with the regularity you indicated, then calling her is a bad idea. You can’t time a call properly with a drug addict, and you won’t get anywhere good if she’s hallucinating while talking about this. So what I want you to consider is writing her a letter or an email. I’m going to write this as if I’m you, L…….
“Dear my drug-abusing-friend: (← don’t say that)
I picked you as one of my bridesmaids because you mean a lot to me, and I’ve been excited about having you by my side on my wedding day. I’ve always imagined you in my wedding, and I’ve truly wanted you there. But now I don’t know what to do. I see your behavior, and how unpredictable it is of late – I see you doing things that are very self-destructive - and I’ve been worrying for a long time now that my wedding might exacerbate the behavior you’re displaying now. Which is to get faced all the live long day. And while I hate seeing you do this to yourself, I’m smart enough to know I can’t stop you.
As much as I worry for you, I am also very concerned about what you’ll do as a member of my wedding party. I’m scared that what I’m hoping will be a very calm, pleasant and joyous day for me and my man, is instead potentially going to unravel into something bad. I worry constantly about what you’ll do.
I do know that my wedding shouldn’t mean anything at all to you right now, with regard to what’s going on in your life; I get that, and I don’t expect it to. But, if it can serve as a deadline for you to get clean — if, for no other reason than for your own good… you could pull it all together and get sober by the time my wedding roles around, then I would love to have you there with me. But if you can’t assure me that you’re going to be stone cold sober at my wedding, and call no negative attention to yourself in any way, then I feel that you should understand why you shouldn’t come to the wedding.”
Something along those lines up there, L. Because I hope you understand that you and your future husband are the highlight of your wedding. If anyone else by their actions detracts from you being the focus of that wedding, you have every right and absolutely should do whatever you can to prevent that from happening.
Let me tell you this, too, L. If I was drinking that hard, here’s what I would tell you if you were my close friend – I’d tell you that I don’t trust myself not to act a fool, and since I don’t want to be a douche and ruin things, I should probably not be your bridesmaid. Seriously.
It’s clear to me you care about your friend. I can tell that because like I mentioned a little bit ago, you said you’re worried that if you remove her from the bridal party she might spiral even more out of control. But I really want to make sure you don’t feel selfish about this. She needs to be reached out to in this serious of a manner, so she can finally figure out, “OMG. THIS, is how bad I am? It’s letter-worthy? I need to get my s**t together.” And L, this is the one day of your life where you’re expected to be selfish. Many people have that one drunk uncle, or that one slutty friend who sluts it up and tries to be the center of attention. But just because those characters exist, that doesn’t mean you have to let them eff up your wedding day, AMIRITE?! You don’t HAVE to invite ANYONE. I don’t care what anyone says. I mean, jeez, wittingly inviting a person who creates scenes regularly at gatherings would be pretty much the worst call on your part.
Ok, I’m turning it over to you guys now. I’d love to see what your thoughts are, or any advice you might have for Miss L. Even if it’s a quick comment. Whatever it is, I really appreciate your weighing in, because the more people weighing in, the better.
xoxo - Alison
P.S. – mmhmm, that’s right, I totally styled that shot of the Chinese food. I cannot not style pictures anymore. It feels like a disease.
Heather Scharf Photography is a member of Vendor Love. Explore more of her work here, in our guide.
