The past 24 hours have been pretty rough here. I've been planning to start a business with a friend of mine who happens to be an outstanding chef. I'm not exaggerating, he is truly gifted. So we've been talking about it and finally started planning this year. Earlier this summer we put things in motion and he came to Florida to start kicking the tires.
What I didn't know was that he has a serious drinking problem. The kind of problem where you can't stop once you start.
We closed our eyes to it because we thought "he's on a mini vacation... Once we start working it will get better"..
Fast forward to last month and he arrives. First thing he wants to do is drink... Ok, fine we're celebrating the launch of the business... He spends 2-3 days drunk/hungover and then we get going. Get licensed, get inspected, all that stuff. Meanwhile he's still having benders every 5-7 days, yes in three weeks we had three benders, all of which went 2-3 days. I feel like I can't relax at home because if I have a drink I have to offer him one, but I don't need to get wasted every night, nor do I want to finish every bottle I open, and to be honest we were over after effects. I might have dealth with the drunk time, but it was the mood swings and all around shitty attitude we couldn't take.
It's a last weekend and we're finally set for an event this coming Friday. We're having a nice relaxing Sunday talking about the event, making some snacks for football, and he starts drinking beer. Two beers in he goes "Lets drink tonight!" I say no because of all the above, plus I don't want a hangover on Monday for work. He sighs, then goes and buys a handle of vodka. Proceeeds to drink half that night and the other half once he got up on Monday. Tries to do some work on Monday but kept drinking and passed out in the afternoon. Missed all the planned work activities on Tuesday either sleeping, or sulking or watching videos. Finally, around 6pm Merinda and I confront him and he couldn't give a shit. Made no effort to say he was sorry, wrong, hell anything beyond asking "what did you do today?". Mind you I was ordering items for the popup *and* working my 9-5 which is funding the startup. At that point I lost it and pulled the plug on the business and after a day of him sulking and not talking to use he finally left this evening. This was every bit as awkward and unpleasant as you can imagine. It wasn't dissimiliar from the last time I saw my first wife when she moved out of our home.
As I commented to someone, it's one thing to have a friend who's an addict, it's something different to have it be a business partner that you have to rely on. He was the chef and chief food guy, he made all the decisions yet I was told I was controlling.
I have an alcoholic father, I was in my 30's when I told him he wasn't welcome to be in my life anymore because he behaved like my friend (yes dad got sober). My wife has an alcoholic mother who also behaves like this and neither of us wanted to be someone's nanny. I don't want to worry that this is the weekend where he won't be able to work and fucks up our business, and as I learned it won't be the first time.
Regardless, I'm feeling pretty low. Yes the business failure is disappointing, but more importantly I've lost a friend that I've known for over a decade and I just hope he finds help before he ends up in a worse place...
Hug your loved ones.... Be safe....
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