Emily

I urge you not to get involved. I strongly so urge you.

I have a friend. He has been my friend since about 1962. He has always been a pisshead. He joined the armed forces and spent years killing (war or no) for the Queen. He was one of a handful in the world with a large bore rifle over very long ranges. He is equally dangerous at close range. He nearly killed the PTI at his passing out parade because he annoyed him, and spent his first month in the forces in the brig. He has never had a comfortable life. His father was bankrupted. His older daughter is a self destructive blimp. His younger daughter had bulimia. He married a woman with a background of her father's self-made success to which he could never aspire.

When he dried out after civilian jobs aggravated a spinal injury and first reduced him to a wheelchair, he divorced. It was messy. His wife's father had been a powerful free mason and his wife still worked for a masonic charity. Small wonder his lawyers got nowhere fast. He also lost his workers comp claim.

"Faith healing" got him walking again (in reality it probably destroyed a healing process and crippled him for life). He also remarried. He left his second wife 9 times before he married her. She was a manic depressive and attempted suicide about every 6 or 7 weeks. When they split up his legs had gone again. He was left in a wheelchair in an upstairs council flat with no lift. He could not get out, for health and safety regulations forbade anyone other than ambulance workers to lift him or his wheelchair down the stairs. His wheelchair would not go through the doors of the flat, for it was too big. So he crawled, until the damage to the tissue in his kneecaps caused life threatening bloodclots in his legs.

He will probably never walk again. The catch 22 is that his legs hurt as if they are in a fire. The painkillers will kill him sooner or later because of the liver damage from his lifetime's alcohol abuse. But cutting the nerves (a surgical option) will definitely mean he will never walk again.

This Xmas his family (several parts of it) would not come and take him out of the flat or cook him a Christmas meal because they wanted to drink and would not risk a drink-driving conviction.

But the only times he has tried to commit suicide were some of the times when his second wife did – when he was trying to support her.

For your own sake: walk away.