Over the most recent weekend, I learned a few things:
1. The only time I'm an impulsive buyer is when it's musically related- as seen with my mandolin purchase
2. I'm surprisingly in tune with how I felt/thought when I was around my nephew's age of three.
3. Attempting to consume today the same quantity of alcohol I poured down my esophagus in college does not end well.
Although the others are fine topics for possibily a later blog, I'll touch base a bit on the third point- alcohol. Yes, I can hear that little high schooler in you giggling, raising your hand sheepishly over your mouth as you repeat it in your head. Getting drunk is obviously one of the oldest past times in civilization, dating back to Neolithic times when Fred Flinstone and Barney Rubble were pouring ingredients into beer jugs and painting Bedrock red (and of course, Wilma and Betty weren't invited...this was caveman times, so they stayed home and cooked up some wooly mammoth meat and dysentery).
But what really happens when we consume this magical elixer of feelgood? We get happy, carefree, extroverted, and get severely dehydrated. Apparently water is double-edged sword- yeah it's essential for life and all, but it also seems to be the ultimate buzzkill. If it weren't for water and needing it to be hydrated, would that mean we'd be drunk all the time?
How this shit works
This is nothing new, but alcohol is a depressant- which means it slows down pretty much everything about you. Most of you have been drunk but for those who haven't the big ones are the decrease in motor coordination and we all become temporary homeless people in search of life's essentials. Yep, when you're drunk you know how it is- all you can think of is that shitty burrito from Taco Bell, how that chick in front of you's stilettos make her ass mesmerizing, or if you felt that soft feel of your bed against your skin right now you could die a happy man. This is all from the fact that parts of your brain shut down and your left with just an auto pilot of human existence. Kind of crazy that when we're drunk we're essentially just a forest creature with half-open eyes stumbling forward in search of food, our mate, and our nest.
Like I said, these things have been talked about before, and experienced by college kids for generations. But what I find most interesting about being drunk is the shit we say. I'm not talking about the "I'm going to buy a castle" or the "Man, SR-71 had some good songs" or the "someone call 911, I think he drank the Chlorox"...by those points we're already too late (though I Chlorox drinker might have a higher survival rate than the SR-71 appreciator). The interesting things that we say are the ones just before our brain turns off the lights to that little section of ourselves for the night. Being drunk with my friends I notice this happening, and in the style of my other blogs I'll break it down into categories/stages, with accompanying approximate intoxication and fun level of each stage. (for the approximate intoxication, I went with my own drink scale, but obviously this is subjective so try to use the descriptions mixed with your own assessment of what percentage drunk you are). So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen I present to you the stages of drunkenness.
1. Settling In
Approximate intoxication: 1-2 drinks, or 5-10%
Fun Level (scale 1-10): 5
In the beginning, our subject is only acclimating to his surroundings. After a beer or or two, he may elect to share a story. He may also chip in his opinion about the Packers' defense or Charlie Sheen. The conversation at this point is pretty light, unrememerable, and could easily be mistaken for having happened in any other social situation. The brain is still fully functional, and is generally enjoying the ride.
2. Amusement Confirmation
Approximate intoxication: 3~4 drinks, or 15-20%
Fun Level: 7
At this point, the subject is more at ease with his comradery and more likely to share some more about himself, but is still generally cautious as to not offend anyone. He may clink glasses at some witicism or female degradation, and laugh as if to say "Oh, I'm amused!" This is the point where self-disclosure begins, and the subject may discuss in more detail about the advantages of a zone-read out of the wildcat, existentialism, even outright declare his amusement. By this point, it's quitting time on the first layer of the brain that controls social filters, run by that responsible eastern European man with the mustache running the cigar shop to provide for his family in Lithuania.
3. Heart to Heart
Approximate intoxication: 5-8 drinks, or 25-40%
Fun Level: 10
This is the sweet spot. This is the when the subject would start disclosing about that the ex girlfriend he left over a year ago is still on his mind, or the harsh reality how he went to school for 22 years to provide for a fulfilling life...only to find he no longer has time to enjoy that life he thought he was providing for. To be perfectly blunt- this is the main section of this blog.
It seems a lot of times, this is when secrets that have been kept intentionally or unintentionally for years come out. I can recall several times that I've been to this stage and my friends and I will admit to something that we never did before...like our mutual appreciation/respect for each other, something that one of us did a while ago that pissed the other off but we really were sorry about it, or about a new girlfriend who seems so fucking awesome and are excited for the future with said girl. This is the layer for that depressed-with-his-life 35 year old closing down his Dairy Queen franchise for the night. Not much more cognitive thought is open this late at night.
4. Lovechild of Ray Charles and Helen Keller
Approximate Intoxication: 9-12 drinks, or 45-75% drunk
Fun Factor: 7
This is the stage when the subject's senses begin shutting down. The speech is getting pretty slurred, eyes are half-open, but a bit of comprehension is still occurring. Generally at this stage, people begin making ridiculous claims like "I'm going to buy a pirate ship", or "celebrity opinions are relevant"'. People will still sometimes be able to disclose things about themselves, but it will just be the memories of the time they had a memory two drinks ago...so although they may be accurate, they probably won't be able to ellaborate into much detail anymore. Also note, that this is the stage where the Fun Level begins to decline. Yeah, this is the time when those late night stores like the porn shop and gas station are shutting down, and those little juggalos are closing up shop 20 minutes early.
5. Drunkocalypse
Approximate intoxication: 13-who gives a shit
Fun Level: Can't even define words
Dear God. This is the point when everything you've known and loved is blasted off into oblivion. Pretty much this is the state where your words sound like a radiator with Jack Daniels and endangered species running through it, your walk is somewhere between a zombie and Keanu Reeves' attempt at acting, and when you puke you reason with yourself that "you've always puked before...it's nothing new." Yeah, this is when the Wal Mart closes down for the snowstorm of the century...game over for the next few days.
What it means...
As I mentioned before, this last weekend I got annialated to the point in which I wouldn't even be able to spell "annialated". It was the first time I ever blacked out, but lucky for me I had a text trail like little easter eggs leading me to the pastel colored easter basket of vomiting and self-loathing. Yes, this was a span between this stage 3 of drunkeness and the drunkacalypse, but for story's sake I'll consolidate them. Here my readers, is some of my finest literary work (with commentary):
me: chick friend, send me hot pics im with my friend. (this was to my closest female friend I've known for years)
chick friend: sends multiple pictures with her friends
me: wait, it's hard to see your tits from that angle. Can you do me a biggie and send me a nude?
chick friend: sends picture of shit in a toilet
me: chick friend, come on.
(couple hours pass)
me: Fuck I'm at a stomp bar w/ hip hop music going croce eyed whast
me: What shud I do
chick friend: u dance. drink more
me: no ugh, I puked in the club..the club beats make me sick literally
chick friend: where r u?
me: downtown..I puked in the club bc the thumpin bass while my friend walksn us back to his char w a chick
me: I'll mention now I hate my life even tho im hammered
The main reason I decided to include this is because even though I don't necessarily remember the whole puking bit, or what really went on at the club, I just remember bits and pieces of what I was feeling. It was like the whole sensory part of my brain was shut down entirely (seeing, hearing, smelling, etc) but my emotional memory was still open. I remember the feeling of general darkness, seclusion, and the feeling of loneliness.
Now this isn't a journal so I don't want to go into all the details, but it was more interesting to me to look back and see what I said when I was drunk. This is what I was trying to get at by breaking down the drunkenness into levels. By the point that I was disclosing this shit I was obviously to a 4, possibly 5 (yes I impress even myself with my ability to use technology while being incapacitated).
So the question that comes up with this disclosure is when you're drunk, how much of what you say is true? I know most people like to say things like "Oh I was drunk, I don't remember saying that" or "I was drunk, I didn't know what I was talking about"...but my theory is that alcohol is a truth serum. It takes away your normal filters that go on your words so you don't offend people or make yourself vulnerable...because like I said when you're drunk, you've shut down those things and are in primal thirst mode. Then if it wasn't true, how are you sure which of yourselves was the real you? Was your drunken conscious tapped into your subconscious better than your sober conscious? Or was it limited by the partial cranium shutdown?
Oh and the results of the night, you ask? Puking out my friend's car window while he takes a girl back to her place, losing my glasses mid-puking, and waking up on my friend's futon. Good times.
No comments:
Post a Comment