🎄Archers thread #122: Deck the Hall with Eddie, Freddie 🎵 'Tis the Season to be jolly (but orange juice for you, Alice)

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed. We don't all agree on all points and most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you love Bert Fry’s poetry (as I do), or other unusual views.

Spoilers: not on this thread, please. We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the weeknight episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3853783--The-Archers-spoilers-thread-5-Cant-wait-for-7-02pm-Join-us-here, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

For newer listeners, lurkers or those who just have no idea what we're talking about, @DadDadDad has created this useful thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3557323-For-Archers-fans-a-guide-to-acronyms-on-the-long-running-discussion-threads-and-any-other-meta-thread-questions-you-may-have - BOOP point for him! (See thread for explanation.)

Thanks to @C8H10N4O2 for requesting an annoyingly cheerful thread title which might take us up to Christmas and to @Prestissimo for the title suggestion. I was strongly tempted by @LillianGish’s suggestion: Eddie’s turkeys, Freddie’s show, village green with lights aglow, Stir Up Sunday, Deck the Hall, Merry Christmas one and all - with apologies to Bert Fry and @R4’s suggestion Wassail to the Ambridge Not-A-Panto where Freddie gets nine LESSONS in directing from CAROLe Lynda. Top work, all!

Three days to go until we can return to Ambridge.

My list for Father Christmas

In the next few weeks I’d like:

• Freddie’s show to be a huge success

• Philip and Gavin to be driven out of the village with pitchforks into the waiting arms of the police, and the three ‘horses’ rescued and taken in by kind people who will help them turn their lives around

• Pip to take a perpetual vow of silence and leave for a nunnery

• a terrific Grundy Christmas (although the travails of Alice and Chris will overshadow things)

• Alice to lose the baby, as this seems the least grim option for us listeners; she leaves Chris and makes a fresh start of some kind

What do you all want for Christmas from The Archers?

My understanding is that detox is only a preliminary stage and should be followed by rehab. If she had been at the clinic all that time discharging her with no follow up seems very negligent and bound to fail- isn't this supposed to be some amazing private clinic?

The GP did explain to them that the clinic would just be for detox and she'd then need rehab.

Alice won't think she needs it though.

Poor Chris.

discharging her with no follow up seems very negligent
They paid for a fortnight; they got a fortnight. And Alice was the 'patient', not Chris, so they wouldn't be talking directly to him. Welk, they shouldn't be...

Phoenix the sober side kick
Wasn't it Felix?

But yes, she hasn't accepted she's really got a problem, and she doesn't really recognise that it's not just about her (nothing new there,) and she isn't picking up that Chris doesn't trust her any more.

On the accents topic, I'm ancient and grew up in what was then a colony. The norm was for Brits to have a stretch of around 4 months' leave every two years or so. We didn't think we had any accent, but when people came back from leave they very noticeably had what we thought of as rather a posh accent which however they lost relatively quickly.

I think Alice did say she’d be having follow-up with ‘the clinic’ although it wasn’t clear what form that would take. Probably Zoom meetings at the moment. And she mentioned the GP and her midwife as sources of support. No talk of finding an AA meeting or similar though. And completely unrealistic of her to imagine that no one needs to know about her alcoholism. Unless she thinks she can just stop drinking while pregnant and no one will think it odd that she doesn’t start again... Of course if she’s not a real alcoholic in her own eyes then I guess maybe she thinks there’s no need for her to have stopped long-term. She’s clearly forgotten the abject terror she was feeling at the thought of having harmed the baby only a few weeks ago.

I think it’s interesting that there was no clinic handover. Not in a ‘telling Chris what Alice has been up to’ kind of way, but a meeting with Alice and Chris and her ?mentor/sponsor/lead clinician (don’t know what the title would be) explaining how well she’d done, what strategies they’d worked on, how to access help if needed etc. But maybe Alice declined that meeting for plot purposes...

I get the impression that support for family and friends is woeful despite the impact alcoholism (or addiction, or mental health problems.... ) has on them, and the crucial role they play in the patients recovery.

That episode was written to sound as if Chris had gone to pick up a young student from the train station rather than his dearly beloved wife from detox.

I've had more of a handover after accompanying DH for a £ ingrowing toe op! She hasn't been cured, they've simply ensured that she is unlikely to have major organ failure without alcohol in her system.

I hope Chris has hidden Alice's car keys (Harrison must certainly be reflecting on the number of years Alice has been blind drunk driving in and out of Ambridge). I expect she'll be off to see Shula and the skittish horse today.

But maybe Alice declined that meeting for plot purposes.
Maybe she had it before Chris arrived. She probably didn't like what they said and doesn't want to talk to him about it.

I don’t doubt that she didn’t like the message @CaptainMyCaptain. She’s clearly pretty deluded as to her situation. But as @Darker says, Chris is going to be crucial to Alice’s recovery (or lack thereof) and so irl I’m sure there would have been at least the offer of a meeting with a significant other at discharge from such a place. If declined then I imagine clinic staff would have waved her off while thinking “see you soon when you’ve fallen off the wagon again”.

I’m sure that in this case the reason we didn’t hear that meeting was for the SWs’ purposes/convenience.

Did you notice Alice's comment 'he was a PROPER alcoholic' which means she hasn't really accepted her alcoholism

Agree and am unsurprised. The desire to keep it all secret and belief that secrecy is even possible also testifies to that.

I would have been disappointed if having built a character who has supposedly had the DTs and left vodka bottles in hiding places, the LSWs had her come back from a two week stay and stay sober witih the the odd zoom call. It wouldn't be remotely credible.

I agree that Chris needs to be involved and also her wider family at the very least. Otherwise they'll be pressing drinks on her again once the baby is born and we know that Lillian won't even wait until then.

Alice and Felix sitting in a tree...

Felix will come to Ambridge and will meet Kirsty just as she is fleeing Philip. They will live happily ever after.

There’s no way Alice is ‘cured’ after two weeks (though she clearly thinks she is) and her refusal to discuss it with Chris let alone any other friends or family does not bode well for her having any support whatsoever now she’s left the clinic. Of course we know that Harrison knows so he will be alert and what will happen when Alice finds out that Chris has talked to him? I also think Alice will be going riding again soon so she can conveniently lose the baby in order that the SWs don’t need to worry about whether or not it has FAS. Cheery times ahead.

@Darker

Felix will come to Ambridge and will meet Kirsty just as she is fleeing Philip. They will live happily ever after.

Alice is more likely to run off with him - 'He's the only one who understands me....'

Felix has more sense. I just know it.

Felix and Kirsty will set up a local charity to support people with plot-driven character transplants.

plot driven character transplants
she will lose the baby I'm sure for reasons mentioned

I think so too, and for the reasons mentioned.
The 'bridal bag' and Banjo's back will be involved.
Much hand wringing by St Shula.

Once she loses the baby, that's it, she'll have no reason not to drink and will be on the binge.

How she loses the baby will depend on whether or not the SWs want to 'do' alcoholism. If she falls of the horse, they don't need to do alcoholism, she can just make a miraculous recovery.
But if she has a miscarriage that is clearly caused by her drinking, she and Chris will split, her drinking will become public and she will continue until she reaches rock bottom.

I think they will 'do' alcoholism.
There is mileage in the story and the quality of the acting is good.

The marriage will fall apart spectacularly with JD and Radio getting plenty of airtime.

I think if she loses the baby in any way, she will have also lost her reason not to drink and probably blame herself too.