Alcohol – specifically my consumption of it – is a running theme here.  I have decided to quantify my drinking habits to put them into perspective.  I have been drinking alcohol since I was 15 – roughly 12 years – but for the sake of the math I will be focusing specifically on the last 5 years.

During that period of time my consumption has remained fairly consistent, and therefore much easier for me to put into numbers.  My estimates err on the conservative side, taking into account both brief periods of abstinence and mind-bending binges, as well as high-proof spirits (over 100-proof / 50% by volume).

My estimates are measured in liters/ounces of liquor (80+ proof); they also account for per-volume equivalents in beer, wine, and other alcoholic beverages consumed.

The Science of Averages

Weekly consumption:  1.75 liters/59.17 ounces

Annual consumption:  91 liters/3,077.07 ounces

5-year total consumption:  455 liters/15,385.38 ounces

That’s 10,256.92 shots @ 1.5 ounces/shot

or 5.6175 drinks/day for 1826 days (there was a leap year in there)

Right.  Binge drinking is defined as 5 or more drinks in a single sitting (for men) or 4 drinks (for women).  Opinions on what frequency constitutes binging differ, but those “rules” are written by teetotalers.

At a rate of just over five and a half drinks a day, I would finish a liter of Evan Williams in 4 days flat.  This seems just about right.  Typically, a liter of Evan lasts me the duration of the work-week (Sunday night – Thursday night).  I do not day-drink, and generally prefer not to drink at all before at least 5:30, or until any other responsibilities are completed.

That leaves 0.75 liters for the weekend.

I can easily consume 0.5 liters in a sitting – roughly 11 drinks – and still function the next day.  By function I mean that I can work out in the AM, and put in a 10 hour day.  However, during the week I try to avoid this sort of heavy consumption as it is both expensive and physically taxing.

My typical weeknight drinking involves 2-3 “shots” – 2 to 4 ounces – poured in a rocks glass.  I’ll plug one of these down when I know I’m done for the day, sip another with dinner, and maybe another after that.

Hard partying on a Friday or Saturday night can easily eat up that 0.75 liter weekend “allowance”.  Adhering to The German Method, it is not unheard of for me to slam down 18-20 drinks over the course of a long night.  15 shots is a fairly heavy night for me, and 8-12 is probably closer to a normal night of partying.

This kind of drinking would hardly qualify as “above average” . . . if I were 300 lbs.

My Other Stats

I am 5′10″ tall.  My average bodyweight over the last 5 years has been between 188-192 lbs.  The lowest I clocked in was 182, and the highest was 203.  My % of bodyfat averaged around 14%, never exceeding 17% at my heaviest.

I have always worked out a minimum of 5 times a week.  This includes

Weight Lifting at least 4 days/week as well as running, swimming, hiking and submission wrestling/mixed martial arts.

My hardest days included a 5:30 AM wake-up, 90 minutes of weight training, 30 minutes in the pool at lunch and 90-120 minutes of martial arts that night.  I did that 2-3 days a week on top of my other workouts.

At my heaviest, my 1 Rep Max on the flat bench exceeded 300 lbs, and my 3-lift total (Bench/Squat/Deadlift) was around 1000 lbs.  My cardio, at its worst, left me roughly enough gas for 45 minutes of drilling techniques and 30-60 minutes of 3-5 minute grappling matches.

The longest period of strict abstinence during this time was 15 days without caffeine or alcohol.  The worst night involved 2/3’s of a bottle of Booker’s (126-proof) and at least 1/3rd of a bottle of Jim Beam Black (86-proof).

That was the worst hangover I have ever had – two days immobile on the couch with alcohol poisoning – and the only night I’ve ever pissed the bed.

I have vomited from drinking less than 10 times in the past 5 years, .all of them due to nausea the following day.  Therefore, no liquor was lost in that way.

As for spillage, Mr. Black once took my stash of empty whiskey bottles (a year’s worth) and emptied out the tailings.  These miniscule portions netted him a gross (and I do mean gross) of 6 ounces of whiskey.  I am certain that my excesses more than compensate for any spillage, and I have factored that into my totals.

Bedpan had just finished an overnight shift at the hospital when he found me. I was sprawled out on the couch.  My boots were still on, hat rested over my eyes.  An empty bottle of Evan Williams set on the floor next to me.  My .45 was disassembled neatly on the coffee table, eight Federal hollow points standing in a row beside it.

Bedpan popped open his phone and speed-dialed his roommate, Mr. Black.

“Who’s the scary looking guy with the gun sleeping in our living room?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, “Ask Willy Pete.”

Willy Pete played dumb, giving Bedpan a nervous jolt.  Bedpan is the poster-child for suburban white America.  Easy going.  Non-confrontational.  How he came to live with those two is beyond me.

I woke shortly after the awkward phone exchange.  My head must have swelled.  Morning sunlight made my eyes water.  A dull throb filled my skull.  My boots thumped the floor as I struggled to sit up, knocking over the empty liquor bottle.

“Hey man.  So, uh . . . what’s with the Glock?”

Bedpan tried to sound conversational.  Uncomfortable was more like it.

“Glock?” I asked.

I slid the pieces back together, chambered a round and eased the slide closed.  I thumbed the decocker and set the gun back on the table.  I squinted up at Bedpan as I squeezed rounds back into the magazine.

“It’s a Sig,” I told him.

Mr. Black and Willy Pete came home soon after.  They laughed at Bedpan’s expense while I put myself back together.  They explained the situation to him and Willy Pete fired up the percolator.  I poured coffee on my hangover.

. . .

It had been five days since I left her.  That headache was the best I’d felt since.

The night I left, I grabbed a handful of clothes, my pistol, and my laptop.  She thought I was bluffing until she saw me heading for the door.  From across the room I could see her eyes go wide.  Her anger dissolved into tears.

I didn’t slam a single door on my way out.

I bounced from couch to couch, trying not to overstay my welcome.  I had half a paycheck to my name.  My options were few and far between.  Mr. Black and I were barely on speaking terms at the time, but he loaned me his couch without hesitation.

It was Saturday morning.  Mr. Black shuffled around the apartment, gathering his bearings.  His band was shooting their first video that afternoon.  He invited me to join them.

It was already hot as Hell.  The video was being filmed in a small space with no air conditioning.  Packed full of sweating hardcore metal fans, the conditions sounded ideal for riding out a hangover.

I rode up separate.  Willy Pete and I made a quick beer run – he had no money – and I wedged my car into a corner of the gravel driveway.  The film crew arrived next, unpacking their gear, followed by several carloads of inky metal-heads.  Last but not least came a Hummer.  The driver and his friend produced a couple of assault rifles from the back seat.

There was a photo shoot first.  The band posed outside holding various weapons, all of them empty.  I stood by quietly with my .45 tucked discretely beneath my shirt.  I locked it in my trunk when we went inside.

The premise was to pack the space with people while the band played.  We thrashed violently, shoulder to shoulder.  The crew filmed the whole thing from every possible angle.  This went on for hours.  I sweat out toxins in the heat while everyone else drank.

During one take, someone tripped over the camera rigging.  The guy next to him stumbled and stepped on his shin.  I heard the crack over the amps.

I left shortly afterward.  The shoot continued, but I made a side trek to her house to collect my things.  We’d hardly spoken since the night I left.  I shoveled my belongings into my trunk as quickly as I could.

Back at Mr. Black’s apartment, I heaved a sigh of relief.  I took my boots off for the first time in two days.  Four years together, five days apart.  I felt hollow and awful and alone.  I lingered in the shower, letting water wash away tears and sweat and grief.

Willy Pete and I made a run to the liquor store.  I grabbed a liter of Wild Turkey and a sandwich, my first real meal all day.  With food in my stomach, I took a pull straight from the bottle.  Willy Pete followed suit.

The day was fading fast.  The windows dimmed, and I could barely see inside the apartment.  Mr. Black pulled me aside.

“Listen, I’ve got some bitches coming over.  If he gets fucked up and turns into an asshole, it’s on you.  Don’t call me looking for help.  He’s your responsibility.”

“I know . . . I’ve got it.”

I took another swig . . .

I woke up on the couch with a searing headache.  My boots were still on.  My shirt lay across the room.  The bottle of Wild Turkey sat on the coffee table, nearly empty.  My left brow was tender to the touch.  My hands ached, my fingers hurt to move.

My memory was completely blank.

One look in the bathroom mirror spoke volumes.  My left eyebrow was swollen.  Blood had glued the gash shut.  It caked in my eyebrow and down the side of my face.  My cheeks were sunken and unshaven, my eyes jaundiced and bloodshot.  The night came back to me in fragments.

I looked like ten miles of rough road.  I felt worse.

Willy Pete was standing in the hall when I opened the bathroom door.  He looked like I felt, minus the blood.  He was holding his head in his hand, and he squinted at me for a moment before his face twisted in surprise.

“What the fuck happened to your face!?”

“You did,” I croaked.

My voice was so whiskey-scarred I could barely speak.  Dirty grey light filtered into the kitchen through a make-shift American flag curtain.   I choked down two aspirin, desperate to alleviate the pain in my head.

I heard the toilet flush and Willy Pete came shuffling in behind me.  I leaned against the counter, chugging water from a coffee mug.

“How’s the head?” I asked.

“Not good.  I feel like someone hit me with a two-by-four.  I can’t remember a fucking thing.  The inside of my cheek is shredded.”

Willy Pete tried to pry open his mouth to show me the extent of the damage.  I could see nothing in the dim light.  I held up my right hand in response, flexing my fingers slowly.  It was going to be a bad day of picking up the pieces.

. . .

We primed ourselves the night before with ephedrine, caffeine, and whiskey.  It was a twenty minute walk to the first bar.  The night was young and the bar was dead.  We lingered for a while, nursing beers.

We debated the second round.  Willy Pete made the executive decision to hike to the bar where he worked.  It was several miles away, and neither of us had money for a cab.  We ordered shots for the road and headed out.

“We are too white to go that way,” I observed, pointing toward the port.  Willy Pete laughed.

We were on the edge of the ghetto.  Going around would mean a lot of extra walking.  We cut through the park instead, shaving time and distance off our trip.

Our destination was at the end of a street full of sport-bikes and neon bars.  The bouncers waved Willy Pete and me inside without a cover and we elbowed through the crowd.  The front bar was jammed up.  A cover band played downstairs.  We headed for the service end of the bar.  Willy Pete introduced me to the manager.

I didn’t pay for a single drink the rest of the night.

Things began to blur.  I throttled back my consumption, ordering water to chase down more go-pills.  This was not a night for chasing tail.  Willy Pete tried anyway.  He told girls that I had just broken up with my girlfriend, and made repeated attempts to get me to show off my tattoos.  I refused.

By two AM I stood alone at the back of the bar.  Then I lost Willy Pete.

I took a lap through the bar.  Then another.  He wasn’t outside smoking.  He wasn’t anywhere.  One of the bouncers approached me.  He looked like Duke Nukem, right down to the buzz cut.  He stood half a foot taller than me, and probably 60 lbs heavier.  He informed me that Willy Pete had to leave.

“Do me a favor.  Get him out of here . . .”

“No problem,” I said.  ”Thanks.”

I flashed him a thumbs-up, my face twisting into a frustrated sneer.  He just nodded at me and climbed back onto his perch above the crowd.  I searched the bar high-and-low again, with no luck.  He wasn’t answering his phone.  None of the bartenders had seen him.

I tracked down the manager.  He explained that Willy Pete had been mouthing off to the wait staff.  He made some rude comments to one of the waitresses.  Her boyfriend – Duke – was not happy.

I was on the verge of abandoning him when some awful part of my brain kicked in.  No matter what kind of trouble Willy Pete found himself in, I never left him behind.  I had to find him before someone called the cops.

Willy Pete had outstanding warrants for his arrest.

I knew it was only a matter of time.  I knew all along.  I pulled out my phone and thumbed Mr. Black a message: EMERG.  In the back of my head, I thought of his warning.

Don’t call me looking for help.  He’s your responsibility.

. . .

]]> http://www.fkinonline.com/we-spread-thought-cancer/downward-spiral-pt-1/feed/ 3 http://www.fkinonline.com/we-spread-thought-cancer/wet-dream/ http://www.fkinonline.com/we-spread-thought-cancer/wet-dream/#comments Mon, 03 May 2010 02:49:33 +0000 Max http://www.fkinonline.com/?p=3346

I walked into the bar alone.  Cinqo de Mayo fell on a week night, and no one was returning my calls.  Three feet through the door I ran into a kid I knew from around the neighborhood.

He turned small talk into a boring lecture about college.  Art school fag.  He moaned about being a walking cliche while I struggled to remember his name.  I eyeballed the bar nervously, more interested in a drink than anything he had to say.

“So, uh . . . where are all the hot, straight chicks?”

As if I hadn’t just insulted him, he pointed and walked across the bar.  He sidled up to a little co-ed – cute, dirty blonde – and wrapped his arms around her.  She sat at a table with some soggy looking poof.  Art Boi leaned in and whispered something to the Blonde, and pointed at me.

Her eyes lit up.  She waved me over.

I walked to her table and she pushed the chair out next to her with her foot.  As first impressions go, this was more auspicious than most.

“Alcohol would be good,” I said.  My version of an introduction.

Art Boi made proper introductions around the table.  The fat poof looked like he spent most nights crying and jerking off to Bauhaus.  We were one chair shy.  Art Boi stood.

“What’re we drinking?” I asked.

“Ooh, Jager?” she said.

“Be a sweetheart?” I pulled out a twenty, holding it across the table to the fat poof.

He looked hurt.  The blonde looked over at him.

“Oh, come on,” she cooed.

“Fine . . . ” he said, pushing himself away from the table.

“You drinking?” I said, looking up at Art Boi.

“No . . . ” he showed me the large X drawn on either hand in black marker.  He took fat boy’s seat.

“Oh, right.  Straight edge.”

I made small talk with the blonde.  Where do you go to school?  What’s your major?  What color panties are you wearing?

It was a thong, actually.  Pink.  She stood to show me the strap.  I was only being a smart-ass, if deliberately rude.  I couldn’t believe that worked.  Fat Boy returned with our shots.  Blondie slid into my lap so Fat Boy could sit.  She wiggled and snuggled up to me.

What God had I pleased?

“So, what did homeboy whisper in your ear?” I murmured.

“You’re hot . . . ” she stammered.

She giggled and reached down between my legs, feeling her way up my thigh.  She shifted her weight indelicately and palmed my crotch, rubbing me through my jeans.

Dear Penthouse Forum . . .

Then she turned to kiss me.  If kissing is a skill, she didn’t have it.  Her spit ran down my chin.  I could taste the alcohol on her breath.  I was only on my second drink.  My motivation faltered.

I had said less than a full paragraph worth of words to this girl.  It was actually happening – her squeezing reminded me – but I could hardly believe that this girl had just fallen into my lap.  I suspected I was committing a crime.

I made her show me her I.D.  She was 20 – or 21 – depending on which card I looked at.

Game on.

I stood her up and marched us to the bar.  The bartender was surprised to see me.  I hadn’t been around in months.  The next pair of shots were on the house, and I bought another double for myself.  I had catching up to do.

We hopped to the next bar.  Art Boi scored us a free round at the next bar, before scuttling off to parts unknown.  A few more drinks and a few more bars and Blondie was hanging on my arm for support.

I suggested calling it a night.

She suggested that we go back to her friend’s house.  I insisted on a cab until she told me where we were going.  I was parked two blocks away.  The walk to my car was longer than the drive to her friend’s apartment.

Stupidly, I marched us to my car.

Not a block later she was whining in my ear.  It’s cold!  Where’s your car?  Let’s call a cab to your car!

I dragged her the distance.  By the time I unlocked my doors, I hated her with every fiber of my being.  She fell into my passenger seat, and I rolled out of my space with surgical delicacy.  It was only a few more blocks to her friend’s apartment.  All back streets.  I multi-tasked between clutching, shifting, and removing her hand from my groin.

All of this while glancing frantically in my mirrors for cops.

We crash landed on a couch in the living room of a dank frat pad.  I was given a brief introduction to the leaseholder, who casually shrugged me the consent to fuck on his furniture.   He hit the lights on his way out.

I had barely sunk my teeth into Blondie’s shoulder, and a hand up her shirt, when Fat Boy reappeared.

“There aren’t any spare bedrooms . . . “

I groaned loudly, my noise barely muffled by her skin.

“What happened to the room you slept in last night?” she howled.

“Someone else is passed out in there . . . ” he muttered.

He said nothing else.  He was hammered, and he curled up on the adjacent couch.  My hand froze.  With all momentum lost, I unhanded her breast.  In the back of my mind, I was grateful not to be balancing on one foot, or counting to thirty.

Thousand one, thousand two, thousand three . . .

“I’m sorry,” she said.

I woke before she did.  We were spooning.  Sunlight filtered through the bedsheets that passed as curtains.  The room smelled like piss and puke.

My clothes were soaked with sweat.  Everything was damp, even the couch.  My arms were wrapped around her.  The crotch of her jeans was wet.

In a panic, I reached between us and checked my groin.  Still dry.

Fat Boy was stirring.  Before long, Captain Frat and a roommate stumbled  into the living room.  I was desperate to be anywhere else.  She didn’t even say good morning.

After the most awkward conversation of my life, I climbed over her and staggered out of the apartment.  Now that I was moving, the hangover began to throb.

Out in the cool morning air, I checked to see how much I had been peed on.  I scraped two bumpers dislodging myself from my parking space.  I didn’t remember her name.

This week is my kid sister’s 21st Birthday.  When she turned 16, I pulled a bottle of bourbon from my desk drawer and poured her a shot.  She slugged it back, had a thoughtful moment, and described its flavor.

A natural . . .

For this one, I need to up the ante.  However, I do not believe that anyone’s 21st should be a gut-sick mess.  If you’re going to learn to drink, learn to drink properly.

One must know the rules.

1. No Driving

Never, under any circumstances, drive drunk.  I have metabolized more alcohol than most people have food, and I can’t think of one night of binge drinking worth ruining my life for.

2. Be Fashionably Late

Showing up on time looks try-hard.  Others should feel graced with your presence.  Don’t let anyone think you had nothing better to be doing until the minute you strolled through the door.

3. Pre-Game

Never show up sober.  Wherever you’re going, make sure you’re properly greased.  If you’re fashionably late, like you should be, then you’ve had ample time to put on a good face.

4. Cover Charge

Never start the night at a place with a cover.  If you’re going
somewhere with a band, go somewhere else first.  Don’t get stuck at a party prematurely.

5. Juke and Jive

Never go to a bar if you can’t stand the music everyone else is playing.  Avoid bars so loud you can’t hear a grenade drop.

6. Drink!  Always Drink!

Fuck “being seen”.  Don’t go anywhere you can’t afford to drink, or can’t get service.  The bar is there to serve you, not the other way around.

7. Never Leave a Drink Behind

This isn’t some stupid “Alcohol Abuse” rule.  Don’t put your drink down, don’t let it out of your sight.  It will either vanish or someone will drug you.

8. Never Leave a Friend Behind

I don’t care how drunk you get, never leave a friend behind.  Puking in an alley, arrested, stuck in the clutches of a fat girl . . . we’ve all been there.  Never leave a man behind.

I knew my plan was fucked when I got to the foot of the highway and realized the foot bridge across the river wasn’t where I thought it was.  I adjusted my rucksack on my sun burnt shoulders and double-timed it across the street.  I jogged up the next block, along the highway, squinting over traffic for any sign of the foot path.

No entrance there either.

I was lost.  It was time to improvise.  A wave of excitement washed over me.  Thinking quickly, I remembered there was foot access to the railroad bridge.  It was out of my way, but that was kind of the point.

I crossed the trestle once before.  I was badly hung over, and the foot path was out about three quarters of the way across.  I was certain I could hustle down the tracks that last stretch.  My mind made up, I did an about face and hustled back toward the river.  Someone sat at a green light, gaping,  as I trotted past.

I cut down a couple of side streets and made my way beneath another overpass.  As I waited for traffic, I realized I was standing across the street from the footbridge I had originally planned to take.

I headed up the steep incline and double-timed it the length of the bridge.  From the descending ramp I could see the neons glowing at a low-rent tavern I know.

This is a bad idea, I thought.

Mounting the steps, I struggled against the wind to close the front door.

Happy Hour on a Friday.  The place was packed.  Blue collar workers hunched over their beers as I sidled up to the bar.  A few glanced at me, brows knitting in confusion.

I felt conspicuous.

“Double shot of Jack,” I said.

The bartender stared at me for a moment.  She was cute in the face, but soft in the waist.  A last-call pump.

“I.D. please . . . “

You have -got- to be kidding me, I thought, digging a gloved hand into my pocket.

I struggled to fish my wallet out from under the frame of my pack.  I handed her my license and debit card.  She glanced at my photo, leaning down to peer under the brim of my hat.

She waved my debit card at me.

“There’s a ten dollar minimum on cards,” she said, frowning.

“Triple shot . . . ” I replied.  ”And cash me out.”

She made a face at me before heading down the bar.  It took three of the regular patrons to navigate her to the bottle through a sea of vodka and schnapps.  The guys on either side of me looked up from their drinks.

“You just get off the train?” asked the man to my left.

“Nope.  Trainin’.”

The bartender set a loaded rocks glass in front of me.

“I’ll be back with your third shot,” she said.

I chased the double with the shot.

“Jesus,” muttered the man on my left.  ”You really are training.  Marines?”

“Nah,” I leaned forward to scribble my initials on my receipt.  ”Corps told me to go fuck myself.  Tattoos.  Army didn’t care, though.”

He nodded.  I stood there a moment, adjusting my pack, waiting for the bartender to return my card.  She leaned against the cash register, eyes wandering the bar.  She looked at me, confused.

“Oh, is that all you’re having?”

I wedged my card back in my wallet and nodded to the man at the bar.

“Good luck,” he said.

Not long after my heart was pumping alcohol through me at a furious rate.  The initial elation passed quickly and the rest of the trip became a slog.  I felt exhausted.  A mile from home, a young couple passed me in an old Chevy.

The driver honked the horn and waved.

Wally Balls is an old friend of mine.  Big and I have know Wally since high-school.  After a few years of community college, Wally moved to Rochester to attend RIT.  Since then, I can count the number of times I’ve seen Wally on two hands.

A week ago I found out Wally was back in town.  We got together for lunch and made plans to go out Saturday night.  Unfortunately, a plan is just a list of things that never happen.  I left several messages with Wally on Saturday morning.  By afternoon he called me from the road to tell me he had left town early.

I was not happy.

I had just hung up the phone when Hack called.  We shored up plans for that night.  I spent most of the week contemplating an night of serious drinking.  Wally requires some encouragement to get the worst out of him.  Hack gets bored, feeds me shots, and pushes me into public.

We spent most of the night in transit, hopping from bar to bar.  Assess the scene, order a drink, frown, piss, leave.  A slow night.

Late in the evening I had given up the ghost.  Hack was slowly sobering up.  I had pulled out the stops, downing glass after glass of whiskey.  We shook our heads at the sad fools groping the bar for pussy.  I made small talk with a group of girls.

The cocksure demeanor that caught their attention was the same thing that chased them off.  Head bitch scurried back to the other side of the bar to snuggle up on her boyfriend.  Her two girlfriends were too drunk to serve.  After a few minutes of isolated small talk, their slurring left me cold.  I turned around and ignored them.

Hack pointed out that the bar stocked 101.  I can spot that thicker, darker band where the proof is printed from a long way off.

“I know it’s calling your name,” he said.

I spent the next morning trying to piece together the last parts of the evening.  I poured two Bloody Maries on the hangover.  Later in the afternoon I drove back to the bar to fetch my debit card, which I had left behind on an open tab.

After dinner I scoured the bar scars and Sharpie marks off the back of my hands with a brillo pad.

Three things you didn’t know about me.

Explained.

After the jump.

1. Soap

I buy things in bulk.  Socks, t-shirts, condoms . . .

But I buy soap as an obsessive compulsive habit.  I tend to horde things.  Books, Internet bookmarks, hand-written notes – Information.  These things are normal.

I horde soap.  Hygine products, really.  Cleansers, lotion, even razors – and I rarely fucking shave – but hygine products in general.  I like knowing that I have certain staple items around, no matter what . . .

I shower three times a day and I only shop for soap once a year.

2. Food

I eat everything cold.  That isn’t to say that I let my food set once I cook it.  It isn’t even that I can’t cook – I do more with whiskey and tenderloin than you ever thought possible.

. . . but I prefer not to.

I eat things out of cans.  Lid off.  Eaten.  I eat frozen food . . . frozen.  I drink soup from the can.  No leftover is safe.  When I need calories, I don’t give a fuck where they come from.

3. Alcohol

I drink.  A lot.

But you already knew that.  The reason you know is that I tell you about it.  Alcohol is central to my life, but not in the way you might think.

The lives of pedestrian drunks revolve around alcohol.  They cannot function without it.  In my case, alcohol is self-medication.  In fact, alcohol is more a consequence than a cause.

When I am sober I am tense, anxious and miserable.  Even worse, I’m motivated to act on my anger.  Alcohol calms me just enough to keep me from unleashing my malice on Society.  While it may have certain negative side-effects, alcohol is responsible for helping me remain a semi-productive member of this tenuous Social Contract.

I can live without alcohol – without the bar tabs, memory loss, and hangovers – but, believe me, you wouldn’t like it if I did.  So, if you buy that Logic, I don’t drink because I’m an addict.  I drink because life without alcohol would be “solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short.”

Before I do I want to level a few words at you, General Public.

To every cunt in a Lexus, every slack-jawed shitheel in traffic, everyone turning left, every fuck who crosses against the light . . .

To every bitch who defines herself by her anorexic tits, her tangerine tan, her junk fucking jewelry, her stupid cell phone, her cunt fucking friends, her oversized sunglasses, or how well she (falsely) thinks she can suck a cock . . .

Every dick-jerk in an Ed Hardy T-shirt, every bug-eyed juicehead, every wanna-be yuppie cunt stock broker on his Blue Tooth . . .

To every bar owner that overcharges for piss-water liquor . . .

To every tumor farm who blocks the door to the bar so they can chain-smoke while they text all the people who obviously don’t want to hang out with them . . .

To anyone who plays hip-hop in a dingy, rat-fuck bar full of pugs and drunks . . .

STAY THE FUCK HOME!

Inevitably, St. Patty’s Day turns into a slop fest for the disingenuous among us.  The faux-Irish pile into bars for Kegs and Eggs – the only day they ever wake up so early – strung with green beads and shamrocks and “Kiss Me, I’m a Dipshit” t-shirts.  They’re as “Irish” as it gets!

And none of them have ever heard of James Joyce.

I loathe people who have no sense of self beyond some cookie-cutter cartoon impression of ethnic identity.  Especially when the best traits they manage to distill out of that identity are poverty and a drinking problem.

Pretending to be Irish is bad enough.  Pretending to be a drinker is nearly inexcusable.  Drinking is a skill one can only acquire over time.  It requires that you evaluate your drinking and apply the lessons learned.

Amateurs write off all the evils of drinking on the drink.

That’s how Prohibition happened.  Demon Rum!  As you can imagine, I’m not much for Prohibition, so I’d really appreciate it if the Chesters of the world didn’t ruin my fun by fucking things up.

So let’s examine the “skill set” of a professional drinker to see where amateurs go wrong.

1) Read Thyself - Amateurs don’t know their body.  They drink anything that comes along, they buy things that don’t mix well, and assume that a slice of cold pizza at 3 AM is all they need to fix it.

This is why amateurs wake up 4 hours late for work, covered in their own vomit.

Drinking large amounts of anything requires knowing how your body will react to it.   If you sense that you need to “adjust” mid-binge, then do so.  Alcohol takes time to set in.  If you’ve just put down three shots in five minutes, have a glass of water.

2) Function While Impared – Big will tell you that I can order drinks in sign language.  It hides the fact that I may no longer be able to speak straight, or at all, and allows me to continue drinking well past any logical cut-off point.

Hack, Big and I have also developed the ability to maintain some semblance of bearing.  This is crucial.  When it comes time to deal with bouncers, bar staff or other patrons, they should not have any idea how drunk you really are.

This does not mean that you should be able to ride unicycles after chugging a liter of vodka.

It means you should know well enough not to sit your drunk ass on the unicycle.  If you limit your drinking activities to simple functions, like ordering drinks, then it becomes more difficult to gauge your sobriety.  Namely, you shouldn’t be stumbling around, trying to hurl darts at the wrong wall.

3) Pace -  A professional drinker knows intuitively how fast they can pour things into their body while maintaining the necessary brain-stem functions.  Like putting money into the juke box, and ordering more drinks.

Just like professional fighters, professional drinkers have weight classes.  Drinking a lot means drinking a lot FOR YOUR BODY.  Even a great drinker, at 150 lbs, will have nothing on Andre the Giant (a notorious drunk who wrestled occasionally).

Much of what you hear when people tell you how much they can drink is an outright lie.  The rest is simply false.

Alcohol soaks into the body at a relatively fixed rate.  However, the body will react if you impose sudden overwhelming demands on it.  If you pour 3 shots of 99 Bananas in your gut on a dare, the spincter that leads to your large intestine will go into spasm and close.  Then your stomach will secrete mucous heavily to slow the rate of absorption into your bloodstream.

This is why people will tell you that shot of 151 didn’t really do anything.  Later, that same asshole will be curled up in the back seat of a cab, trying to eat their cell phone.

4) Tolerance – Hard drinkers are tolerant of alcohol at a physiological level.  Tolerance happens in stages, and it’s not the point of pride that those guys from Phi Kappa Douchebagga want you to believe it is.

Stage 1

When the body is first exposed to alcohol it doesn’t know what the fuck is going on.  Drinkers feel euphoric, they lose control of themselves easily and will often misplace their virginity and their dignity.  Over time, cell membranes toughen and cells learn how to function during exposure to alcohol.

Stage 2

Alcohol is a funny thing.  It’s the only drug that also happens to be food.  Alcohol as your know it is technically beverage alcohol – ETOH.  Ethanol.  Ethanol is a sugar alcohol (glycerol), and it metabolizes into sugar acetaldehyde.

In case you were wondering, the commercial that claims “Bacardi and Diet” has no carbs is lying.  (* edit: Sort of.  Alcohol has a calorie density of 7 calories per gram.  Carbohydrates are 4, Fat is 9.  It ain’t making you skinny.)

Once the body can function without alcohol killing cells outright, the cells then learn how to use alcohol for fuel.  In this stage, alcoholism is setting in.  The first few drinks give you a sense of vitality.  Your accuity may even increase slightly (especially if you’re hung over).

Stage 2 drinkers don’t brag about drinking huge amounts of booze.  They just do it.  Not because it’s impressive, but because they need to.  Over time the body begins to need alcohol as a source of fuel.  This is the beginning of a very slow end . . .

Stage 3

At this point the frequent (or constant) presence of alcohol in the body begins to wear at a person’s health.  This steady buzz is called Plateau Alcoholism.  They become protein deficient as their appetite wanes and their body comes to be heavily dependent upon alcohol.  Recovering alcoholics crave sweets.

Hardcore alcoholics keep a bottle in their car because they’ll fall asleep if their supply of alcohol goes away.  Alcohol is literally the fuel that keeps them running.  Of course, the thing that propels an alcoholic also kills them.

By Stage 3 tolerance begins to diminish.  Organs function poorly as enzyme and hormone levels change.  At this point, a drinker can only handle small amounts of alcohol at a time, metered out over the course of the day.

Most amateur drinkers will never get to this point.  After one hangover too many they sour on the whole experience and grow a normal life.  They have debt and a significant other.  They may even go on to demonize the “ills of alcohol” – a wonderful drug they never properly learned how to control.  Of course, a Stage 3 terminal alcoholic never learned either.  They simply managed to keep it up a lot longer.

That about covers it.  Any questions?

It would be bad enough to spend your life waking up next to the same face, attached metaphorically at the hip by a wedding shackle.  Imagine waking up next to the same face because you’re conjoined at the shoulder.  I was reading about just such a person(s) this morning.

“The 18-year-old dicephalus twins have two spines, which join at the pelvis, two hearts and stomachs, three kidneys, two gall bladders and four lungs.

But they share one liver and ribcage and a nervous system.” – The Sun

I decided to compile a list of all the things that would be immediately queered by having to share a body with someone.

1. Drinking.  Of course this would be the first problem I list.  The old addage about having two hands and only one mouth – it’s no problem for this/these girl(s).  In fact, they have two stomachs as well so they can pour in the booze at twice the normal rate.  Boasting an extra kidney, they should be capable of some heroic binging.  Unfortunately, with only one liver between them they’re kind of fucked for the long term.

Bonus: You can always tell the cop it was the other girl’s decision to drive . . .

2. Driving.  Since we’re on the subject, if you thought one woman driver was bad, imagine two at the same time?  The level of indecision and bickering between two teen girls simultaneously behind the wheel is bound to cause some sort of rip in the space-time continuum.  If the Large Hadron Collider doesn’t kill us . . .

3. Finances.  Speaking of things no girl should have control over, are the girl(s) considered one person or two, for legal purposes?  Will they have separate credit cards?  What if one has great credit and the other is a shop-a-holic . . . it’s not like you can evict just the irresponsible one.

4. Bathroom.  Two girls, one bowl.  Each controls their own arm.  How do you decide who wipes?

5. Masturbation.  Is it incest?  The “Problem of the Commons” never addressed communal vaginas.  Before medical science allowed for dicephalus twins to live longer than a day, the only people worried about communal vaginas were Mormons and outlaw biker gangs.

Technically, the vagina belongs to both of them.  However, in either case they’d be fingering their own sister.  You can’t even find that on Craigslist. without getting flagged.

6. Sex.  Even if you can cross the Masturbation hurdle, sex is a whole different ball game.  Having sex with dicephalus twins means everything has to go through a Committee meeting first.  On the bright side, the possibilities for oral sex are endless.

Since their first private sexual experience is likely to be with each other, does that make them lesbians?  Bi-sexual?  How does that work?  What if one is only into women, and the other loves the cock?  Can one head sue the other for rape or sexual impropriety?  Would having sex with them count as a threesome?

If you thought getting your girlfriend to give up the Butt was hard, imagine these two.  While you might think that it’d be so difficult for them to find a date that they would gladly dole out Anal sex to anyone willing to do it, one might protest.  Sure, you can enlist the other sister to wear her down, but is it really worth the hassle just to fuck a dicephalus twin in the ass?

(By the way, the answer to that question is always yes.)