Alcoholism is extremely common in the expat community in SE Asia. I would imagine that the same is likely true in other parts of the world where foreigners commonly decide to live and retire. The allure of living somewhere that the laws are more relaxed and the cost of living is so low that it seems to bring out the demons in people as far as how they live their lives is concerned. I will admit that I have, multiple times since moving over here, been caught up in basically the same downward spiral of drinking heavily almost every day and not really knowing what else I could possibly do with my time.
Hell, even when I had my first job over here as a scuba-diving guide and had to wake up at the crack of dawn nearly every day, I was still out at the pubs until quite late. This was because my job was a "playtime" job and I knew I could sleep on the boat as we made our way out to the dive sites. In retrospect this was a really bad choice because it is the only job I ever had where the customer's ability to remain alive was largely based on my performance. I'll get into that more at a later date because I have some amazing stories to tell about that part of my life but let's stick to what I am observing right in front of me right now with someone I have known for nearly 10 years.
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The above is a stock image, not the person in question. I haven't really approached her about fixing herself but the few times I have hinted at the fact that she might be headed down a dark path she has become, like most alcoholics do, quite defensive and dismissive about it. I don't approach her in a preachy way because my life is far from perfect and I have plenty of flaws as well. Wrecking my body with booze isn't one of them though because with the exception of my bowling Thursdays, I tend to stay "off the sauce" for the most part. Hell, the other night I went to dinner and had ONE BEER. To quote Chris Rock's character in some movie I saw years ago "How do you do that?" Well, discipline I suppose.
This girl that I have known for 10 years wasn't always this way, but she has always struggled to have any sort of social life outside of drinking. This much I can relate to for sure and this is especially true if you are an expat in a country where you do not speak the local language. Almost all of what goes on in Vietnam that involves foreigners will be centered around drinking alcohol. Very little of the activities do not. Sure you can go surfing with your pals but first you have to make surfing pals... that's the hard part because that twatty group of blowhards seem to think that they are part of some exclusive club even though the surf here is shite.
Stay focused me! Ok, this girl, when I first met her in Thailand I only ever saw her at the local bar, one of which I owned at the time. She was fun but always ordered beer after beer and every now and then she would get involved in the deadly game of "I'll get us some shots!" which always spirals into several rounds of unnecessary shots because each person now feels obligated to also buy a round of the same thing. She was always there with her co-worker and some nights I would offer to drive the 2 of them home. She would almost always pass out in the car despite the fact that the ride was 5-10 minutes. She would do this quite regularly and well, she seemed to be having a good time.
What I didn't see was that she was actually slowly but surely, losing her job. She was good at what she did, which was a tourism manager at some sort of business that does that sort of thing, but as we all know, a hungover staff member isn't going to be as on point as they are if they lived more sensibly. Eventually she lost her job, moved to another city, and I didn't see her again for 5 years. It was partially because of my provision of information to her that Da Nang is a tourism rich city, that she started to look for work here and eventually found it.
Now if I could go back in time I wouldn't have told her about it. Because as much of a drinking culture that Thailand has (where I first met her), Vietnam is even more so. In Vietnam the bars never close, the shops have no restrictions on when alcohol can be sold, and there is almost no policing of any sort about drunks wandering the streets. This place is absolutely ripe for someone that wants to be able to drink around the clock with almost zero chance of consequences.
I helped her to move here and now I am seriously regretting that but I try to not blame myself because it isn't my fault that she seems to love drinking and only that. The bar that I introduced her to as my local, well she took to it right away and now when I am walking by there with Nadi or for any other reason, she is there... always.
The thing is she doesn't even seem to be having fun. She is often sitting on her own with a beer in front of her, messing around on her phone and talking to no one. I don't think that she really has any friends except for the other regulars there that, and I hate to be judgmental, are going nowhere in life.
I talk to her when I see her but often I can tell that she is made uneasy because often I am just passing by with my dog and am not really that interested in getting involved in drinking on a Tuesday for no reason other than to just drink. On weekdays, she will stay there until it starts to get dangerously late for someone that has to go to work the next day, but it is on the weekends where she truly shines (in a bad way.)
On Friday and Saturday, this bar that never closes is a place where she will sit and talk to people (I guess) for hours and hours and hours. It is not uncommon for her to arrive there at right after work o'clock and stay there until the sun comes up the next day. I am one of those people that believes that almost nothing good comes from being at a bar past midnight and maybe that sounds like old man talk but seriously... unless you are in college and hooking up is a regular thing for you, what the hell are you doing at the bar at 3,4,5 AM with nothing to celebrate? As you would expect, the following day of hers is completely ruined and she just lies in bed all day and eats garbage delivery food until the evening rolls around again and normally, she repeats the process.
The really sad thing about all of this is that on the few occasions that I have seen her in the early hours because I was up and walking the dog or because there was some sort of major sporting event on at that same bar, I see her in there completely wrecked and honestly, it doesn't look like she is having a good time at all.
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Some of these times she is actually asleep on the bar, with loads of people around her that all turned up early to see something like a big UFC event. She will wake up, look around, smile a bit, order another beer, get about 2 sips into it, then put her head face down on the bar, shamelessly, with people surrounding her. I have also heard stories from people there that she has drunkenly gone home with a few of the local drunk men and that is as far as the relationship goes. I don't confront her about this because it is none of my business and I also have no desire to be with her romantically.
I have several times attempted to encourage her to go home because she is making an ass of herself but this only makes her angry so I have learned that this sort of intervention is not going to get me anywhere.
The saddest thing about all of this to me, and it is because I have a small dog that means the world to me, is that she has 2 small dogs similar to my own that are nearly completely neglected because of her chosen lifestyle. Despite the fact that we live in the same neighborhood and there are very limited spaces for anyone to walk their dogs, I have NEVER seen her walking either of her dogs. The few times I do see the dogs out they are on the barstool next to her and when I pick them up (they are very cute and friendly) they are clearly starved for attention and go nutso when you touch them. They also tend to smell very bad which shows she isn't even giving them baths. Although I wasn't there for this there have been several instances where someone who is a fellow dog lover has confronted her with anger because she has been at the bar all night without so much as providing the dogs with any water to drink. According to other people, she was shamed into taking the dogs home, only to turn back up at the same bar 15 minutes later sans dogs.
Most days that I see her there it is evident that she went straight from work to the bar without so much as even stopping home to say hello to her dogs, let alone take them out for a walk.
The major thing about this, and I will get into this in part 2 because this is already too long to expect anyone to read it is this: She doesn't appear to actually be enjoying herself - this is just what she does now. It makes me sad to see her like this and now when I do see her I say very little to her despite the fact that I have known her longer than anyone else that is living here and we have a rather massive mutual background and a ton of mutual friends from overseas.
She is basically unapproachable and clearly isn't enjoying life. During the times in my life where I went into a dark place as far as booze was concerned, at least I really enjoyed it all. I just don't get it.
Part 2, which is even more tragic, is coming soon.