Day 5: Sharing

10 minutes to come up with a synopsis, 15 minutes to write.

Aim: to experiment with a "life story" sort of monologue.

A young woman is talking about her relationship with her alcoholic mother; how she never wanted to be like her mother, and now finds herself at an Alcoholic's Anonymous meeting.

Character biography
Katie is an alcholic, and blames her mother for her predicament. She's been in a long string of failed relationships, somehow manages to keep her job as an accountant, and all of her friends are more drinking-buddies than anything else.

Emotional undercurrents
She feels guilty, and has a whole lot of self-loathing going on; she's very bitter towards her mother, and at herself for becoming her mother. She feels embarassed about her story, but knows that she has to tell it.

Synopsis
She starts by talking about when her mother started; when she was about 10, and her father (Stephen) left her mother (Marianne). How she was fine during the day, mostly, but she'd get drunk every night without fail--and sometimes didn't stop, being drunk for days at a time and simply not turning up for work. Katie remembers having to get herself ready for school and calling her friends' mum's to pick her up and get her to school.

She always said she'd never be like her mother, and moved out when she was 15 to live with her father. She moved out of home completely when she was 17, and lived with her boyfriend of the time. She never drank alcohol, scared that she'd become like her mother.

Things were fine until she and her boyfriend (of 3 years) broke up, and her friends took her out clubbing. It went downhill from there... she was drunk every night, and would crash at the house of whoever would have her.

She got a little better, got a place of her own, but the drinking didn't stop. She lost several jobs and learnt to keep her drinking to herself.

She was in a bath, with bottles of wine strewn all over the bathroom, when she realised it was the exact image she remembered seeing of her mother. She determines not to turn out like her mother, so decided she needed help.

Done, 6 minutes overtime, but oh well!

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