My business partner is an alcoholic. She rings me at all times of night pissed with some stupid idea or complaint about my character. These calls leave me upset for hours but she has forgotten about them in the morning. During the day she is a clever and amusing partner who brings a lot to the business but after her first glass of wine at 6.30pm it all goes out of the window. Last year she quit drinking for a few months and all went well, but now is back on the sauce. If I mention her drinking she gets furious, so it seems less disruptive to say nothing. She owns part of the business, so I cannot fire her, even if I wanted to. What should I do, if anything?
Entrepreneur, male, 46
Lucy’s Answer
Having a little chat with her about her drinking is a waste of time, as you’ve already discovered. She is in the grip of something that she cannot control, so reasonable words will only enrage her and make things worse.
You have a choice. You either find a way of coping with an alcoholic partner or you find a way of getting out.
Which is best depends on you, on her and on the state of your business. Alcoholism gets worse, but it may get worse quite slowly. I am often surprised to come across people who hold down successful jobs and then get drunk as a lord night after night, and keep going like that for years, sometimes for decades.
It may be a long time before she starts ranting at clients or doing things that really hurt the business. In the meantime, if she is essential to you and if the company is doing well it might make sense to stick with it – and her – for now.
In that case, you need to find a way of insulating yourself from the mad, abusive phone calls. The easiest thing would be not to answer when she rings in the evening; but this is so obvious I wonder why you haven’t already done it. Is she exerting some kind of horrible control over you? If she is, you need to get out now.
While you’re right that you can’t fire her, you can tell her that you want out, and she must either buy your share or you buy hers. It is conceivable that this shock will shove her on to the wagon, although I think that unlikely.
This way out for you is going to be messy, expensive and stressful. But it is probably going to end badly anyway – so better to go through it now than to spend a further five or 10 unhappy years with an increasingly drunken partner and go through it all then.
