A friend of mine raised a disturbing possibility about Patrick and I'm not sure what to think about it.
She notices that Patrick has enormous amounts of energy for stupid things, and in particular for endlessly repetitive replies. His ability to keep replying the same or similar things dozens or more times in a row is unusual, even for one of our cows.
His health is obviously deteriorating. It's not just being fat. The man looks like crap.
These are signs which can be present with meth addiction. Despite the stereotype, meth addicts are not uniformly skinny. In fact, when they are fat, it can disguise some of the damage done by meth for a little while, particularly breakdown of collagen. Eventually that damage will be evident, but it takes a while.
I don't know if this is what is happening, but the very possibility gives me pause. Not of sympathy, mind you. If he's a meth addict, he's even more contemptible than I thought. But if this is true, we're probably going to figure it out within a year, and things are going to turn very grim for him.
Again, I'm not really sure, but that this is even possible is a pretty bad sign for him.
