The Problem With Alcohol

Being vomited on can you get you thinking.  Usually about how you ended up in this situation.  Also, eww, I need a towel and a shower.  But it got me thinking as I sped down route nine home with three inebriates in the car that I’ve been here before and I thought I was done going back to this place.

Some history.  I like to drink.  I drank a lot when I was in college.  I actually never really drank before then.  It wasn’t because I was a good kid (I was but that isn’t why) it’s because I didn’t socialize a whole lot and I didn’t go out to those kinds of parties.  In college I drank a lot.  To excess and beyond.  I was driven to becoming good at it.  Not quite world champion of idiocy and drunken lyrics good but maybe like an alternate for the Olympic drinking team good.  I drank roughly every Friday at my friend Ryan’s place for a few years.  Then when I was out of college I drank near every day because I live in a city and in walking distance to bar on South Street, now closed (the bar not the street), who’s owner and bartenders I was friendly with.  So I became rather tolerant.  Of course over the course of the years I imbibed past those limits and ended up violently ill.  I got dehydrated and  put my head through a wall, I started arm wrestling matches, I drank out of shoes, I had adventures with chocolate sauce, danced on tables, played beer pong, vomited in several places including but limited to sinks, toilets, and buckets.  I have woken up confused in someone else’s bed with a different shirt on and dried puke in my ear.  I have felt the world spin with my eyes closed in such a way that should be impossible.  I have walked the dog during a party where I came to the realization that I could no longer walk upright well and just hoped the dog could figure out how to pull me in the right directions so I didn’t fall on the concrete.  I have also wandered the inner workings of Atlantic City and its garages hung over and tired getting more and more lost as I climbed down seemingly endless set of stairs that seemed to get dirtier and more sinister as I delved deeper down.  As if every step brought me closer to some lurking nightmare.  I half joked we might find pyramid head down there.  That particular night in Atlantic City I only recall how many places we drank at not how much.  Also I found out that even though it’s 24 hours of food in the casino you can’t have pizza at four o’clock in the morning because they won’t turn the ovens back on.

I have been fortunate never to seriously hurt myself when drinking.  I often had someone nurse me through the night in my worst moments.  I have been there to nurse others, walk people home, hold hair back or carry half limp bodies to bed.  The worst alcohol related story was told to me by my brother in the kitchen of my parents old house in Philadelphia.  This was of him wandering around Germany lost, paranoid, alone and half blind (his glasses were malfunctioning as a lens popped out).  I stood there enthralled and slightly disturbed.  Most of all I was shocked he was so candid in front of my mother who was visibly trying to hold it together.  I thought she might grab him and hold him close never to let him out of sight again after the story.

But I figured most of those actions were behind me now that I am older and wiser.   I don’t drink that much anymore.  This is partially because alcohol gets in the way of achieving my goal of super fitness, but also because it saves me money but, partially, because somewhere in the back of my mind I thought maybe I had problem.   Perhaps I did not have a problem but I certainly didn’t need to drink as much and toning it down couldn’t hurt.

I think one of the problems with alcohol is endemic to Americans.  I think it pairs our love of excess, our innate thirst for competition and also our culture of taboo.  Our drinking age and rules and regulation only make alcohol sexier and more enticing.  Once we are able to get our hands on it after waiting twenty one years we binge.  From what I’ve heard and read binge drinking equates to having five or more drinks per outing.  I’ve had more than five drinks in an hour.  Which of course brings up back to whole competition point.  I’ve had friends who seemed more intent to tell me how much they drank than any other news.  The hot girl in the corner in the micro mini much was less important than a giving a detailed run down of everything you drank.  Hearing “I’m so wasted” gives me vivid flashbacks to certain douche bags in college.

I think there is also this allure, this worship of booze.  We don’t just admire the drink and the drinker but we admire the person who can drink the most.  How many movies have people in drinking contests?  Even Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc introduces out heroine Marion Ravenwood though a drinking competition as she defeats a much larger man by downing countless shots.  This was a particularly handy skill used later to try and trick Belloq.  Alcohol is treated with an odd mix of respect and taboo.  We disapprove of alcoholics but people in sitcoms who spend every episode at a bar are okay.  But I digress.

Back to last weekend.  **Note, sadly this part of the story is now redacted as those involved are upset with my candor.  Aggravating, perhaps, but not worth tantrums or fights.  So I chose to the censure the post to spare their feelings.  But seeing as I am doing this I can certainly have the last word.  If you can't face the consequences of your actions don't commit the actions.  You can't be upset at the truth.  Well, you can but it's nobody's fault but your own.  But a quick recap is this don't be in your thirties and drink like an idiot you'll make a fool of yourself and ruin the DD's night.**

So it leads me to thinking about alcohol when you are in your thirties.  And I feel like the answer was supplied by Lethal Weapon, “I’m too old for this shit.”

Ben