Being Drunk

Hi.  Sorry.  It’s summer.  I’m busy.  With what, you ask?  Well, primarily with my job and with carrying around my severe emotional baggage (did you know I told a lost 8 year old kid who was already crying to begin with that I would hide him where no one could find him if he tried to raise his voice ((he wasn’t raising his voice)) to me one more time the other day?  I’m not bringing this up because I feel bad about it, I’m just letting you know that I have become completely devoid of human compassion altogether.  Woops.) BUT, aside from those two things, I’ve been majorly preoccupied with the soma* of the human race: drinking alcohol.

Tell me I wouldn't make a great girlfriend for a gargantuan black guy.

 

Now, I’m a huge fan of anything that completely obliterates natural human thought processes and destroys valuable brain cells, which is why it’s strange that I’ve come to the conclusion that drinking is slowly ruining my life, but let me explain via a brief bullet pointed list (which is the cheapest format I can possibly think of to write in right now).  As a reminder, it’s 2:20 am on a Tuesday morning**, I have work in four hours, and there is a cricket absolutely BEGGING me to euthanize it by playing me the song of its people directly outside of my window.  Just a few disclaimers for the shittiness to come.

Let’s start with some obvious reasons (listed in no particular order) for why drinking has come to take a negative role in my daily life:

HANGOVERS

If that orange juice doesn't have champagne in it, this bitch is doing it wrong.

 

This is probably the most critically awful and glaringly obvious aspect of drinking that fucking blows a giant cock (much like I appear to be doing in that first photo up there). Currently, I’ve reached that point in life where one is just cresting over into the realm of being an actual adult, meaning I have something called Real Responsibilities and need to work every day of my life without the option of taking off/calling in sick.  Normally this isn’t a huge deal – everyone has to do it and I don’t really care – but it becomes a fucking nightmare in the event that I have a particularly nasty hangover.  Unfortunately, the situation is expounded by the fact that I’m getting older - my body simply cannot recover from substance abuse as quickly as it once did (*pours champagne on the ground for Junior year fall semester, when a handle to the face followed by hours of illegal drug abuse were a pregame to taking finals*). ALL OF THIS COMBINED means I have to struggle especially hard to pretend I can operate at even the most fundamental level the day following an alcohol binge, which we all know is not a practical goal for anyone who has been throwing back Captain until four am.  I essentially become a full-fledged paraplegic when I'm hungover – I can barely keep my eyes open, my skin becomes a layer of pizza grease, and the single neuron I have remaining in my pulsating brain fires at random for a large amount of the day.  That’s all even AFTER I’ve completed the Holy Trinity of Hangovers (showering, drinking a gallon of water, and brushing your teeth).  Being hungover just fucking sucks.  Random sidenotes: Can we discuss the next morning bloat that follows drinking?  How you wake up smelling like a Vietnam Veteran with a dry mouth that tastes like Rottweiler's asshole?  Or how you become a human garbage disposal for foods when you're hungover, namely porkroll sandwiches and other Various Carbs?  Oh, and trying to continue the party the next night, aka the same day of your hellish hangover - how does that first shot feel then?  Like crusted vomit and bad decisions.  So not ideal.

The agony that is a hangover undoubtedly acts as a deterrant to convince even a borderline substance abuser from drinking, but for the sake of continuing this post, let’s say you are one of those people who “don’t get hungover”.  I’m going to go right ahead and call bullshit - I hope you know that all your lack of a hangover means is that you either aren’t drinking enough, that you’re still drunk and possibly an alcoholic, OR that Jesus (lol) is biding his holy little time, making your body store up all of your hangovers in a 4x4 safety deposit box, only to empty it out some random day after you’ve had literally half a sip of a wine cooler so that you become entirely bedridden and/or dead.  I do not envy you. 

COMPLETE DISREGARD FOR HYGIENE

WUT IZ U

One of the main reasons full-fledged alcoholics drink is because it helps them to escape from the harshness of reality.  Unfortunately, one aspect of reality that I find loathsome to escape is General Hygiene (looking at you, People Who Wear Stained Sweatpants In Public).  Some of the uncleanly atrocities I’ve committed while drunk have been fucking foul, and range anywhere from eating pizza out of a trash can to traipsing around barefoot through a New York bar, stepping on old lemons and ultimately discarding my underwear in a small alleyway.  I’m actually shocked that my blood test results have come back as clean as they have because I’m 95% sure that after drinking certain alcohols (see below) I would stab myself with an AIDS infested syringe as a party trick without even a second thought.  Think about it - have you ever remembered to brush your teeth before passing out face down into the shag carpet of your boss’s office?  Have you ever tried to scrape the black tar off of your feet after a day drink before crashing into your local frathouse hook-up’s bed?  DO YOU WASH YOUR HANDS AFTER USING THE BATHROOM IN A BAR?  Probably (definitely) not, which is fucking disgusting and all the result of alcohol (I hope).

THE FACT THAT I TURN INTO A TYPICAL DRUNK GIRL

You've seen her.  You've met her.  Fuck, you ARE her (guys included).  The drunk girl is a stereotype that plagues my existence, but while I'd love to nitpick and destroy every embarrassing aspect of this awful persona we females adopt when our bloodstream surpasses the .10 BAC level, the topic is more overdone than the chopped and screwed remix that is Joan Rivers' face.

Petrifying.

 

I’m the first to admit that I’m guilty of all of the following shit, so while reading this next part, try to imagine me as I was at 18 (ten pounds overweight, self-cut side-bangs, wardrobe styled by Forever 21 . . . ) sitting across from me as I am now (flawless), who is dishing out some tough love in an attempt to smack some sense into my past-but-still-present-in-this-time-warp-situation-self.  Just go with it.

 

1.     Walking like a baby giraffe.  This is not okay, and to repeat an old proverb that my great grandmother from Italy once uttered between bouts of ravioli making, “If you cannot handle the heel, don’t wear it to the fucking club.”  But seriously, there is nothing more tragic than a drunk Freshman girl stumbling along like a new-born deer in heels she simply cannot handle.  It’s not cute, and you’re not cute, so just cut it the fuck out.  Which segues perfectly into my next point . . . .

2.     Removing one’s heels while one is still out at a venue.  Ladies, please, for the love of Mary Magdalene and her overused biblical vagina, PLEASE do not do this.  In fact, next time you are hammered drunk and the fleeting thought passes through your head that you should remove your shoes between rounds of cocktails at a bar, I want you to take your inevitable iPhone, open the camera app, flip the screen so it’s in Selfie (read: pathetic) mode, and take a cold, hard look at yourself.  You will undoubtedly find that you already look like a slopfest, and hopefully this will act as enough incentive for you to lay a feeble grasp on whatever dignity you have hidden inside of your tiny, too-tight outfit and remain shoed until you are in the privacy of your own apartment/home/sewer ditch.

3.     Screaming.  Are you fucking kidding me?  Maybe it’s just my Asperger’s kicking in, but hearing girls scream at a party/bar makes me want to dive head first into a pool full of barbed wire.  Shut the entire fuck up.  That is all.

4.   Needing to text every ex-boyfriend.  Why are you doing this to yourself.  It doesn't help that when you are drunk, you're shady as fuck and delete all of your sent messages before Sober You has a chance to review the damage come sunrise.  Just put the phone down, for fucks sake, you're old enough to learn that nothing positive has ever come from drunk texting or calling or picture messaging or anything-ing an ex while under the influence.  This is not amateur hour anymore, get your shit together.

5.     Dancing.  Apparently it becomes entirely appropriate upon hearing the first chords of “Call Me Maybe” to instantly begin singing along (i.e. SCREAMING), holding hands with your friends, and shimmying around like Michael J. Fox without his Parkinson’s meds.  Do you want to know what you look like outside of your own drunken “I look so good right now probably” thought realm?  Here:

You were so right, that smoky eye make up was SUCH a good choice!

The list keeps going, but at this point my 18 year old self would have likely punched my present self in the throat because let’s be real, I was quite a stubborn little whore when I was 18 and I don’t think I’d be too fond of being told what to do by some ratchet ass 22 year old who thinks she knows better now that a measly four years have passed.  Moving on.

HOOKING UP

The other night I drank a pint of Captain Morgan as a pregame for the bar, and, having consumed a mere grain of rice as my caloric sustenance for the day, I was borderline black out by the time we got in.  I subsequently made a direct beeline for the food area, clothes-lining any dumb bitches that dared to cross my heated path, and upon arriving, ordered a gigantic plate of steaming hot cheese fries.  I ate them.  I ate all of them.  And while that's gross and not okay, that's not even the point of what I'm saying here.  The point is that I not only ate the cheese fries, but for some reason flirted with the bespectacled food server guy who had sold me the cheese fries, FOR TWO ENTIRE HOURS.  We ultimately exchanged numbers and he now wants to take me out on a date.  Too bad I have no idea what he even looks like because I was so shitfaced, not to mention too bad I don't go on dates with random people that sell me CHEESE FRIES at a BAR.  His name was saved in my phone as "Condor".   Like, what?

Such a turn on.

Thankfully, Condor and I never actually made physical contact (ew), but the truth of the general matter at hand remains the same - whenever people get drunk, they want to touch each other.  They want to find someone they think is remotely attractive and grab all their stuff and make out with their face, and then take them home and fuck them on their pull out couch.  People love that shit, and while it's happening, it's definitely a great time.  But you guys, THE NEXT MORNING.  The next morning is a dumbbell of regret just resting upon your shoulders - why, why, WHY did you hook up with that fat girl, that boy with the gigantic mole, that she-male with a lisp you thought was sexy under the single bulb of the bar's storage closet?

Unfortunately, no one has the answer.  Being drunk rewires your brain, making it respond to every decision with "Hey, why the fuck not?" and while this carefree attitude might serve some people well in sober, daily life, during a drinking session it's usually what leads to a drunken hook up that both parties mutually regret and cringe to look back on.  

THE NEXT DAY STORY TELLING SESSION THAT NO ONE CARES ABOUT UNLESS THEY WERE PERSONALLY INVOLVED IN THE DRUNKFEST AND WHICH GENERALLY INCLUDES GROSS EXAGGERATIONS BOTH ABOUT THE AMOUNT OF ALCOHOL THAT WAS ACTUALLY INGESTED AND ABOUT THE SUPPOSED INSANITY OF THE NIGHT.

I am painfully aware that I just did this exact thing a second ago with my unfunny cheese fries anecdote, but as always, slutever.

I'm over this list.  Switching gears, let's take a look at some of the alcohol choices available to the general public, and their usual effects when imbibed in large quantities.

Beer  

There is a reason beer is a favorite among all age groups - I'm sure of it. but the thing is, I don't have the slightest fucking clue what it could be.  I personally hate beer (unless it's a Bud Light Lime because I have a vagina and that's one of the requirements listed in the Vagina Owner's Manual) - beer makes you bloated; you have to drink like, sixteen of them to get drunk; and it smells like Uncle Lester's late night visits (okay, that was fucked up, I'm sorry).  I guess people like beer because it's a reliable drink - refreshing on a hot summer's day, comforting in a post-work stupor, intriguing when shotgunned with the key to your Camry in the garage of your grandparent's house.  Beer usually leads to a mellow time with probably ten or less people sitting around chatting, with the possible involvement of a campfire or two (obvious exception: Frat parties, but overruled).

Vodka 

Here's to that handle of Smirnoff that just ass fucked you, Mr. Hasslehoff.

Vodka to me is a catch all.  If you don't know what you're doing or where you're going that night, there is nothing safer than bringing along a nice solid handle of Burnett's as a measure of insurance.  It comes in a wide array of flavors (of which everyone has at least one that they cannot drink because of some unfortunate alcohol poisoning experience . . . Mine is Raspberry), it tastes like fresh nail polish remover, and it's more of a sure thing in terms of a drunken good time than the girl with obvious daddy issues wavering ever so slightly back and forth near the keg.  Shots of vodka are forever associated in my mind with pregaming and Sorority girls, and it's usually a great way to start off one of those generic Tuesday through Saturday night shitshows.

Rum 

My main bitch.

I don't know what it is about this summer, but it seems that I've suddenly been hit by a massive and infinite craving for rum.  The thought of any other alcohol entering my body disgusts me, which is weird because I've never been much of a rum kind of girl.  Of course, Sailor Jerry's (tip of the hat, always) isn't the only kind of rum in existence, but all types generally lead to the same atmosphere - that warm, Kelvin filter on Instagram kind of drunkeness (which might be a personal bias since it's the summer and this is all that my blood stream is made of at this point, and also I just got an iPhone and really wanted to reference something iPhone-y so that people know I'm now part of the popular crowd).  I have nothing bad to say about rum, other than the fact that if you drink it and then break even the slightest sweat the next day, it comes oozing out of your pores and you smell Homeless Chic for the rest of the day and your boss gives you disdainful looks and everyone can tell that you were out drinking the night before and that you aren't nearly as responsible a person as you chalk yourself up to be.

Wine 

Are you having sexy times with your boyfriend?  Are you tasting various expensive cheeses?  Are you surrounded by a gaggle of girls in pajamas during a slumber party about to watch The Notebook while braiding each other's hair and discussing how you never really wanted to get married anyway?  If you find yourself answering all of these questions with "No", then put down the glass of wine because you're doing it wrong.  The thing that both rules and sucks about wine is it's small party atmosphere - while it's an awesome additive when you're actually at a small fucking party, wine loses it's charm if brought outside into any other sphere of night (or day) life.  In fact, I think it even makes most situations kind of sad: Say you're spending the night in, obsessively refreshing Facebook and watching Real Housewives in your room alone in the basement of your mother's house after you just graduated college.  Now add an entire bottle of wine to that situation and tell me people don't think you have a drinking problem.  Wine has other obvious drawbacks - red wine makes your teeth gray, the amount of sugar in it is enough to take down Paula Deen, and let us not forget the unholy wrath of the wine hangover, when there is not enough Vicodin in the entire world to put you out of your headache misery.  I'm all for a good glass of wine every once and again, but my overall rating of this alcohol is a 5 out of 10 based on the sloppiness it causes and it's basic aura of pretentiousness.  Oh and slapping the bag?  Shame on you.  Sorry.

Four Loko 

Four Loko Ono, or what really broke apart The Beatles.

This shit is solely for 18 year old girls and the 22 year old frat bros who are trying to fuck them.  I can't even look at that picture without throwing up in my mouth, and that's got nothing to do with the fact that John Lennon is naked posing in the fetal position.  I've listed the suicide prevention hotline number below***, because if you're drinking Four Loko, you clearly have a death wish.  Unacceptable.  Always.

Tequila 

I have a friend who fucking loves tequila (hey Sam!) and I have to commend her because honestly, I cannot get tequila down my throat without multiple gagging sessions which means you have to be a completely crazy bitch (the good kind) to crown it the drink of your choice.  Tequila is the sort of thing that starts a night off aggressively, develops the evening into a series of rash decisions, and ultimately wraps the whole thing up at around 2:30 am when your face is resting peacefully on a toilet bowl.   It makes people fucking angry, and I don't really have a set image in my head of the type of night that would call for shots of tequila, which is perhaps what makes it all the more enticing to some people.  However, if the law of moderation simply MUST apply itself to any situation, I say it's this:  Any night has the potential to be a tequila night, but not every night should be a tequila night.

Exactly my point.

All bullshit and rambling aside, do I honestly believe that these negative aspects to drinking are enough to make me cut alcohol out of my existence altogether?  Absolutely not, but my relationship with being drunk just seems too prone to vacillation, too bipolar to be counted as a positive influence on my life.  It seems that alcohol either makes the night substantially better, or completely wrecks it to the point of disrepair.  I'm just not into the drama of hangovers, the embarrassing hook-ups, the typicality of the drunk persona.  Plus, let's face it - drinking was insanely more fun when it was still illegal for us all to do.  Now that I can stop diving into my parent's liquor cabinet at every possible chance and am able to procure my own alcohol, I'm sort of over the novelty of the whole thing.  It's lost some of it's charm, and maybe that's what becoming an adult is like for some people - gradually discovering an honest disinterest in everything you once found amusing.  And that's kind of a fucking sucky thing to have to realize, you know?  So, on an anticlimactic note, that's essentially why being drunk is slowly ruining my life.

*Please understand this reference.  Please.

**That's when I first started writing this.  It's taken forever.  So lazy.
***No, I haven't.  Look it up on your own time.