Life is a Soap Opera

I currently live in a quiet little neighborhood in a big city and I've lived in a tiny little country (ok, hick) town and I've come to know there is drama all around.

I was talking to my new neighbor this morning as he was painting his fence and we were discussing all the crap that is going on with the whole assessment (see prior post) and we got on the topic of the lady that lives directly across the street from us. She is a nice enough lady, but apparently, she has a wicked drinking problem. From what the neighbor told me, she has been in rehab 3 times and despite that she is still on the bottle. Apparently, she hides beer throughout her home that even friends and family can't find when they attempt to clean it all out. She currently has no hot water or heat (ok, it's May and we don't need heat, but in any case, she doesn't have it) in her house and the electricity has been recently shut off. She hasn't paid taxes in 2 years on the property, either (so we are pretty sure she didn't fight the assessment issues.) At the end of last year there were several times when the cops were parked outside escorting a couple individuals from the property. I do know that there was a lot of yelling and the cops where there for a good long time. I thought it was a family member being removed, but I guess she was renting an area of her house to some lowlifes who where taking advantage of an elderly lady down the street. Now she is renting out her driveway to some motorcyclists. She has only recently gotten a job. I'm just wondering how long that will last until she gets drunk, forgets her schedule and blows off work, losing her job.

I know what you may be thinking and I already know that none of this is really any of my business but it's things like this that really make me glad that I stay in my house and keep to myself. I just feel so sorry for this woman. She has basically let herself get to this point. You have to want to make a difference in your life in order for rehab to work and obviously, she doesn't want to change her life. I know that many people see drinking as a disease, but you really do have to want to change in order for AA or rehab to do any good. People out there have tried to help her and it seems to do no good.

I guess where I'm going with this is that I just don't understand how good people can let themselves get to the point where they drink themselves into oblivion each day, they are jobless, they've already lost hot water/heat because they can't afford the oil, they've lost electricity and are in jeopardy of losing their home. I don't want to see her turned out of her home, but I would like to see her make some changes in her life for the better, but who am I to try to tell her how she needs to run her life. As the Boniva ad on the tv just said, "You only get one life." Why not make the best of it?