Note to self: alcohol is REALLY dangerous. [LONG].

This thread is super long, but the bold parts comprise a summary of the whole thing. I'm going to write something that goes all the way back to primary school. A "recount".

Yesterday I turned up to work and the day was kind of interesting. I had an appointment with a client booked, and a clear task. I was going to be busy, which wasn't always the case.

Now, last time you might remember I talked about how my new job isn't panning out the way I would have liked. Ethically, I had some problems with it, and I didn't think the company was being run very well.

Well, yesterday that suspicion was well and truly confirmed. I was in the middle of writing a case note, and someone I had never met before asked me, one of my colleagues and my hiring manager (my [...] hiring manager) to come into a conference room for a meeting.

As soon as I sat down, I knew what it was. He gave us redundancy letters.

He said to come into work tomorrow like normal and they will have another meeting with us to see if we can be moved into other areas of the business, but he says it's unlikely. Obviously my manager didn't know before hiring me. I think that's insane, like how is someone allowed to be hired when they're thinking of making the entire department redundant? Obviously I'm not going to get a redundancy payment, because I've only been in the job for four weeks.

I was pretty annoyed, and I had the whole day to myself. So, for some reason, I started drinking.

I got something to eat first, and then I had my first drink. I went to another bar about five-ten minutes walk away and had a second. I knew I wanted to take it slowly, and have some time in between drinks (literally). I was also feeling bloated from the food I had, so I took a break, went to the library.

I was wondering why I couldn't stay there the entire rest of the day, or at least a couple of hours before drinking anything else. But I read for around twenty minutes, before going back out. I went to a rather famous venue about ten minutes away and that's when I went off the rails. I inhaled my next drink in three gulps and ordered another one.

In that time, I called another company that had offered me a job. The HR lady there was really nice, and I liked her sense of urgency. She thought it was terrible that I was being made redundant, and said that I don't have to make a new application. She said she'll get to work finding me a new job in a department similar to the one that I was offered for, because there are a lot of them. She expects to get back to me tomorrow. A huge thanks to her, and I'm praying that she can find something.

I went back to the original venue I went to and ordered two more drinks. I went to a different place and had two more before a man tapped me on the shoulder and said I had to leave.

I asked him who he was and he said he was the general manager. I asked whether someone called him and he said "no, I've been watching you on the security cameras. You're unsteady on your feet". I said that I was drinking Coke. I had stopped by then, I had a non-alcoholic drink in my hand. He took it off me and put it behind the bar and said "still, get out of my premises".

I walked out and went to the Police station, just to make sure I wasn't in trouble. You'll notice, I put out a post very similar to this in February, when I lost my previous job.

Well, exactly the same thing happened. I walked in, and asked whether I was in trouble.

The cop said "no, they'll only call us if you refuse to leave". He said "it doesn't really matter if you were drinking Coke when you got thrown out, they just want you out of there so you can't order any more."

I started crying and the cop was really good, he listened to me, asked me what was happening. I said I lost my job, and that I was drinking. I said the exact same thing happened two months ago.

Interestingly, he asked whether I was safe to go home. He said "mate, if you get any worse, I'm going to have to call an ambulance for you." I don't know if we have any paramedics in the audience, but surely not. It sounds remarkable that it was that bad. If someone is just intoxicated, not even vomiting, but drunk in every other sense of the word, they don't need to be hospitalised, right? Or do they?

I asked him whether, in his professional opinion, I have a drinking problem, and he said yes, and gave me the details of a counselling service.

He offered to let me stay and read in the lobby, and shortly after, I walked out, again with a warning not to drink any more alcohol for the rest of the day.

I stuck to that, and watched a horror movie, the name of which I'm not sure can be published on the site! The one starring Russell Crowe. I coincidentally got seat M13 (M being the thirteenth letter of the alphabet).

It's remarkable how, after only two or three hours without alcohol, you feel much better, more alert et cetera. I went over to the pub to apologise to the general manager, and the staff said he's on the day shift, but he'll be on shift again tomorrow morning.

If this isn't a wake-up call, I'm not sure what is.

I don't want my family to know that I drink, and I repeatedly told the cop not to send any Police to my house, because it's against our culture, which I don't really practice. I am a little leery of that, but I trust the guy when he tells me he won't. Cops go to so many jobs every night, I'm sure he won't be too worried. It's a major event for me, but for them it's just a part of the job, it's fine.

But you won't have to worry about it. You won't have to spend I don't know how much money, and you won't get in trouble if you don't drink at all, or drink in moderation.

So yeah, after all that "adventure"... I should get help.