Chip Chick
This man recently bought his first house and is surrounded by neighbors who are mostly families with young children.
He also has struggled with alcoholism since his college years, and while he sees an addiction counselor, he recognizes that he has his good days and his bad days.
He feels comfortable living alone and feels like it lessens the amount of judgment that he often receives whenever he chooses to drink.
“It has actually meant I drink less overall. The shame fuels the drinking,” he explained.
One day, a big wind storm came through, causing his recycling can to travel down the street, and after grabbing it, he ran into a neighbor.
She saw the number of bottles that he had in the can and asked if he had had a party recently. When he told her that no, these were just from him, she tried to explain to him that recycling comes once a week, so there was no need to hang on to old bottles for so long.
He was well aware and told her that this amount was just from him from just the past week. She was stunned and asked him if he needed to talk to someone. During this conversation, another neighbor passing by decided to join in.
Not wanting to drag things out, he was upfront with his neighbors and explained that he is an alcoholic and that sometimes they might see a lot of bottles in his recycling.
Both of the women were quite surprised by his bluntness, and the first neighbor was really rubbed the wrong way by his response. She said it disturbed her to see him act so nonchalant about alcoholism.
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