JMO but I think some of these responses indicate such a poor understanding of alcoholism. There seems to be an assumption now that NB was drunk at the time, could have fallen over drunk and drowned, shouldn’t have been driving, etc. This very much plays into the stereotype of the drunk man passing out on the park bench with a brown paper bag. That’s not representative at all of the vast majority of alcoholics.
I say this as someone who has had ‘significant issues with alcohol’. Most of the people I know are just like NB (and just like me too). Professional women, mums, very involved at school, ferrying kids around, go for runs/the gym, have friends, seem happy, very idyllic social media lives. They’re not drinking when they first wake up. They aren’t drunk and falling over on dog walks. Many women like us have all sorts of rules about not drinking in ways that feel like they impact on us as parents, never before the kids are home from sports, never before the kids go to bed. You can absolutely still have ‘significant issues with alcohol’ and not be drinking all the time, or falling over, or passing out in random places. You are just pounding 2 bottles of wine after bedtime and being absolutely miserable.
MOO but I scratch my head a bit about the assumption that alcohol problem = going missing in water. It doesn’t make sense to me in this context. Yes, we know drunk people toddle home from the pub and end up drowning. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. Unless there is information that LE has from the welfare check on the 10th that indicates a previous threat of self harm related to water or that specific place, maybe there is?
But actually what this does make me appreciate is the state of mind NB may have been in. She may have been absolutely sober, but alcoholism is a revolving door of shame and misery. You feel awful and hate yourself for it, you know a drink will take some of that away, you drink, you feel better, eventually you stop feeling better, so you drink more and then you feel sad…roll on the next morning, you wake up and feel miserable and ashamed and it starts again. Mornings are particularly difficult for many. It’s the time you feel the worst about yourself. MOO but it’s a time when the urge to just give up and walk away might be the greatest or to do something that might put you at risk of harm simply from not caring anymore. So it doesn’t make sense to me why the emphasis on the river because I think an accident isn’t the most likely occurrence when you can imagine yourself in NB’s shoes.
