This Drunken Life
I recently realized I’ve been binge drinking since I was about 16 or 17 years old. I’m 26 now, so that’s what? Six, seven years of drinking? Wait, it’s 10 years of drinking. (I knew how many years it was originally, but I thought it would be funny to imply that this much drinking hurts your brain. Obviously it doesn’t hurt your brain too badly since I knew the math right away). I’m lucky that when I get very drunk I still have a tiny light in myself that knows it would be a poor thing to do to drive a car.
I’ll level with you: I have driven “buzzed” a few times. I felt fine, but isn’t that what some asshole says as they stand in a court room after totaling their BMW? (I don’t drive a BMW)
Despite that light I have that says, “Dan, you’re too drunk, put your penis back in your pants and get down off the statue,” I simply don’t have a tiny speaking light that says “Maybe you simply shouldn’t drink at all.”
I wish I did.
I’ve also never damaged [much] property or started fights when I’m good and sauced up.
At this point you’re like, “So you drink, but nothing bad happens?”
While it is true that I don’t drive drunk or start fights or take dumps on people’s park/non-parked cars, I often find myself feeling ashamed of things I’ve said or done when I’m drunk. Isn’t that bad enough?
Two years ago I met a girl at a bar and immediately took a very real and terrifying liking to her. It was rare for me to feel that way and maybe kind of weird and I tried my best to “play it cool” which is something cool people are able to do. I’m not cool.
I worked up the courage to ask for her number, which she gave to me (her REAL number might I add) and I called her (sober) a few days later. We made plans to hang out. I was thrilled.
If I had met her at the right time, I would have probably asked her to my friend Ed’s wedding, but alas, it was too late, I went stag, and drank my face off. At one point I laid face-down on the dance floor for no reason. It was pretty hilarious. But I’m sure people were like, “Yeah, Dan’s been b-fucked by alcohol.”
After the reception, we continued our drunken exploits at bars.
Completely by accident, we ended up at the same bar. I remember hugging her and that’s it.
Later that night, I texted her, she told me she was at another bar and that we should meet up there. I excitedly walked to that bar. The only problem was that I had already walked the twenty minutes home. Twenty minutes later I arrived at the bar and she was gone. I dejectedly walked home from that bar.
She later told me that when we ran into one another at the first place I barely spoke, smiled a lot, and asked her how she’d been about 14 times. Could you imagine that?
Me: Hey!
Girl: Hey there!
Me: How have you been?
Girl: Great! You?
Me:
Girl: Are you…good?
Me: How have you been?
And so on.
Luckily she was a good sport and thought it was “cute” and that I “must have had a great time at that wedding.” I was embarrassed. It wasn’t the impression I wanted to leave on her, obviously.
That experience is what got me thinking that I might soon have a drinking problem. Maybe I don’t have one right now but I certainly could be on my way to homelessness and chugging Thunderbird before passing out on some kid’s plastic tricycle.
But maybe we all are.
