Is It Just Me?
Is it Just Me? May 14, 2009
Adventures in Stupidity: To Drunkenness… and Beyond!
Alcohol – it’s such an integral part of our society, many people never give it more than a cursory thought as they pour ounce upon ounce of it down their eager throats. Be it beer, wine or the hard stuff, booze is here to stay and most of us are thankful for that fact.
I’ve condemned alcohol on these pages before – more accurately, I’ve condemned the abuse of it. Driving drunk, for example. There’s no excuse for it whatsoever. That being said, when I was a stupid teen, I drove intoxicated. Those of you out there who are no longer a stupid teen yet still occasionally drive under the influence, shame on you. I recommend stopping that practice, as your luck will most certainly run out soon enough. Then there’s the guys (and gals, too) who, when they drink beyond a certain point, become mean and unreasonable. These people will pick fights and just look for things to do and say in an effort to piss off those around them – and it usually works. Thankfully, I am not one of these people, nor do I associate with those that are, when they are. In fact, it’s difficult for me to say just what kind of drunk I am – it’s been over twenty years since I’ve gotten soused.
Make no mistake about it - I do drink alcohol. Currently, my favorite drink is one part raspberry vodka (Three Olives or Absolut) and three parts lemonade. Yummy. Almost too yummy, as I find myself edging closer to the dark precipice of drunken oblivion each time I indulge. I am fortunate to have some semblance of control when I drink now, and this allows me to simply stop consuming when I feel I’ve had enough. Thanks to this minor super-power, I haven’t drunkenly worshipped the porcelain god in nearly a quarter of a century, and I’m shooting for the remainder of my time here on earth.
I say that I have control "now" because this wasn’t always the case. Back in my stupidest years (age 14-20), I would often drink until I puked. My goal in those days was to be high whether by using alcohol, pot, pills, or powder, and I never concerned myself with any precipices or consequences. I’ve already regaled you with the story of how I destroyed my first car while wasted on whiskey. Let me give you a few more examples of how that buzz-seeking fool spent a few alcohol-laden nights.
I’ve always had a taste for vodka. As a teen, I used to drink Smirnoff Silver Label straight from the bottle. I was soon introduced to the Greyhound – a delicious mix of vodka and grapefruit juice. On one fine summer day, I was working on an old Monte Carlo out behind the apartment complex we lived at. I had consumed several large plastic cups filled with thirst-quenching Greyhound goodness. I can recall lying on the hood of the car for a moment, just to rest – then being woken up by my mother three hours later. It was a very proud moment for both of us. I found my way to our bathroom and proceeded to puke into the trashcan – just as my mother’s date arrived. The sounds emanating from there impressed him a great deal, I’m sure. My mother still brings that up on occasion.
On another day, in the middle of winter, a group of us decided to have a going away party for a friend who was, well, going away. We built a bonfire on the frozen lake, drove cars and snowmobiles out there, and partied the night away with rum, Southern Comfort, beer and, of course, plenty of pot. I remember thinking that mixing these things together wasn’t going to end well for me, as I took yet another slug off the SoCo bottle. I know I crashed someone’s snowmobile and wound up passed out in the back of someone else’s station wagon until the party ended. At that point, I was loaded onto another snowmobile (backwards, in case I puked) and brought back to another friend’s car, in which I got a ride home. I spent the ride deep-breathing on the floor of the backseat, but made it home without getting sick. A small victory. Once home, I stumbled my way into the bathroom where I laid upon the floor and slept until morning when my mother’s pounding on the door woke me. Another proud moment in Ash’s sordid past.
Mixing weed and hooch is bad enough, but adding even stronger drugs to the mix can get neurologically dangerous. On this particular night, my friend Mack and I each dropped two hits of mescaline (a pretty powerful hallucinogenic) and wound up at someone’s home (I can’t recall whose) to play a drinking game called "Pass Out". It was a board game in which when you landed on a color, the person who was that color had to drink. We started out with beer, but ran out and switched over to screwdrivers. There were spots on the board that had the words "Light Up" on them, and whenever someone landed there, we lit a joint – and we landed there a lot. I have no idea how much alcohol I consumed that night, nor how much pot I smoked, but when combined with the hallucinogens, my perceptions became a bit skewed, to say the least.
After a hard night of partying, Mack drove us home and I threw up only once in his ‘72 Camaro. He made me clean it up the next day. That night, though, Mack was on the same high that I was and, frankly, I don’t know how we made it home in one piece. I can vaguely recall some of the imagery that wobbled through my addled skull on that ride – nothing coherent, really, just constantly changing shapes and flashes of vivid colors that danced with the oddly distorted music on the radio. I don’t remember arriving home or entering my house, but I do remember sitting on the edge of the tub next to the toilet and watching the tile pattern on the floor shift position while my cat walked figure-eights around my feet. I also recall that it took me days to recover from that foolhardy chemical escapade and I swore I’d never mix drugs like that again – and I never did.
Today I’m very wary of the after-effects of alcohol all by itself, never mind the illegal crap. Like many folks, I like the happy little glow of a couple of drinks, but I rarely go much, if any, further. The price of overindulgence is far too high for my liking. However, if you enjoy getting totally annihilated every weekend, all the power to you. Just be sure to leave the car keys with someone else and don’t pick fights with your friends and loved ones. Fail to heed that advice too often and they may not be your friends and loved ones for too much longer.
- Is It Just Me?
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- E-lack-tricity
