She was as happy and chatty as ever.
Actually, that wasn’treallythe last time, but I give a shot to remember her that way.
She was 26, and it was just days before she died of liver failure from alcoholism.
“Did she talk to you about her problem?”
her stepmother asked me when I came out of Tessa’s room.
I admitted that my warnings to Tessa about her drinking had been lukewarm and infrequent.
“She was lucky to have your friendship,” she said.
“It’s not your fault.”
My feeling: Wasn’t it, though?
I’d first met Tessa when I was a shy, sheltered, frizzy-haired college freshman.
At first, I didn’t know how to fit into her world.
I didn’t drink; no judgment, I just never got into it.
Still, I almost never really drank; for Tessa, it was nightly.
But it seemed like normal college stuff.
She was an honors student with a steady job babysitting a professor’s child.
She never seemed to be hungover.
The girl had it together.
But there were sometimes cracks in Tessa’s cheerful exterior I now realize I should have taken more seriously.
She told me her mom had died of cancer when she was little.
Then Tessa apologized for getting emotional.
“You don’t have to be happy all the time,” I said, squeezing her hand.
Maybe I should have prodded her more, given her an opening to talk about her sadness.
But I didn’t know what to say, and she quickly clammed up, done with the conversation.
Later, she met up with someone else for drinks.
There were times, too, when she showed a less sympathetic side.
She whined and refused.
I knew she was drinking a lot, but it seemed normal in her job.
Then again, I might have been too busy toreallyknow.
I had a new job as a newspaper reporter and was in the office 12 hours a day.
Because I couldn’t do late nights, Tessa and I had weekly brunch dates at her place.
But I convinced myself I was overreacting: She’d grow out of it.
Plus, confrontation would be awkward and change our dynamic.
Honestly, I loved hearing about her wild nights.
I didn’t want to be a nag.
I’d never heard her lie about drinking before and wondered when else she hid it.
But all I said was, “Maybe I should drive us home.”
Now that my radar was up, I began seeing more red flags.
Friends stopped inviting Tessa out.
She began cutting food calories to offset weight gain from the booze.
I cautiously probed her.
“How much did you drink this week?”
She said she hadn’t, and I said I didn’t believe her.
There was a long silence.
I could sense the jumble of her thoughts.
In retrospect, I realize this was a huge moment; maybe I could have gotten through to her.
But I was too scared of losing her friendship.
I didn’t consider losingher.
Finally, she hit a low point I couldn’t get past.
She was barely standing.
I left my friends and drove her home, embarrassed.
“Yeah, I think you are,” I said, curtly.
She said nothing, and I ended the talk.
It was just getting so hard to be her friend.
And I didn’t have the toolsor the courageto take away her keys.
For one thing, I was in major denial.
I’d think about the alcoholics who causerealwreckage: those who lose their families, their careers.
She wasn’t that bad!
She still had friends and a great job!
Not long after I left L.A. for grad school, Tessa got laid off.
She had a year’s severance pay, so she spent her days sipping margaritas by the pool.
But being alone all day with her thoughts took an emotional toll.
She felt lost, depressed.
She’d spend hours thinking about her mother.
“I was looking at her picture,” she told me one afternoon over the phone.
“She looked just like me.”
She was slurring her words.
“Tessa, are you drunk?”
She lied and said no.
But I also let myself off the hook.
Even if she admitted she had a problem, I told myself, I would be powerless to help.
What could I do from so far away?
When we did talk, she seemed somehow slower.
It made me worry, but not enough to jump into action or reach out to her family.
One day, I called her to make travel plans for a friend’s upcoming wedding.
She had developed cirrhosis and her liver had failed.
I finally got Tessa on the phone.
“I can’t believe I’m here.
I’m really scared,” Tessa whimpered from her hospital bed.
She was in so much pain, that’s all she could say.
Soon, her kidneys started to fail.
There were no more options.
I flew to California the next weekend and rented a car.
I arrived at the hospice and was led to her room.
Her eyes never opened.
I hadn’t thought through what I would say to her.
But all I could think about was how sorry I was.
I’d let her lie to me.
I hadn’t pressed her about how her mother’s death plagued her.
I had spent nights in bars with her long after it stopped being fun.
In the world of addiction, there’s a word for what I did:enabling.
Tessa had been drinking enough to kill herself, and I had done nothing.
I’d been completely fooling myself into sitting idly by.
Slowly, I’ve stopped blaming myself for Tessa’s death.
The sad truth is, she probably would have kept drinking whether or not I had confronted her.
Even so, it would have been worth it to take that chance.
Sometimes being a good friend means doing what’s right, no matter how scary it is.
I said I was sorry, too.
We didn’t elaborate, but I think Tessa was apologizing for all she’d put me through.
I tell myself she would forgive me.
When (and How) You Should Butt In
Photo Credit: Ture Lillegraven
