I was emailing a friend today, asked him how his weekend piss-up was, and he stated “unsuccessful...I drank but didn't get drunk”.
Is getting drunk a requirement for a good night out? With my dry month of May in full swing the question that came to mind was “drinking, what do I want as the end result?” To get drunk?
My friend’s reasoning, “Just felt like it. Don’t do it very often and I had the time off. No particular reason.”
In my teenage years, getting drunk was the goal because, and I’m not ashamed to say, it was cool. I mean, getting tanked was the thing to do. *HALE PEER-PRESSURE* Once the novelty of being legal age wore off it turned into the fact that I needed to get drunk to have fun. It made the music better, the people better and doomed relationships tolerable. I didn’t have to deal with the hole I was digging for myself and all the misery I was feeling was just a hangover.
Now that my self-respect has grown back, why do I drink? I don’t like getting drunk; not remembering getting home freaks me out every time it occurs. So why don’t I learn?
Mostly I think it’s this firm belief that I can drink…a lot…and be fine…well, quite tipsy, but fine. Now this might have been the case when I was young and my gut made of iron (how else can you explain large quantities of sugar, grease and all things bad?) but as the years get on (and on…and on…) the iron has rotted away to leave soft, vulnerable tissue. Yet with this change I still believe after downing shots and just as many chasers that I’ll be A.O.K. Not the case Missy, time to grow up. Is it a matter of growing up? Or just accepting my limits? And not just when it comes to drinking.
Some time ago I had a conversation on what an alcoholic was. I always believed an alcoholic was someone who pretty much had a drink in their hands at all times. As soon as they wake up, they would be downing something. I knew people like this, and this belief was backed up by everything I saw or read…than I had this conversation were the title alcoholic also describes someone who can’t stop at one. They could go for weeks, months, years, without drinking and have no problems, but when they do, they drink and drink and drink. Now this freaked me out some and I made the decision to see if I can stop after only a few. Some times it worked, some times it didn’t. The times it worked I was quite comfortable with my surroundings. The times it didn’t, well, I wasn’t. And then you have the times when I have no idea why I drank that much.
So here I am, dry for the month of May. No problems with relaxing with a glass of water but what happens when my dry month is over and I decide to have a few? Will I be fine, just normal paranoia (can paranoia be normal)? Or do I fall in this newly discovered (for me anyway) area of alcoholism?
What’s the point of drinking in the first place?
After high school I can only see the pub/club as the place to socialise. Though getting shit-faced with a bunch of strangers, who are also off chops, isn’t the best situation for “getting to know you” conversation.
Oh fu*k I have a headache now…I’ve reread everything over and over…I’ve made changes but it’s still a mess and I have no idea what I’m going on, and on, and on about.
Bottle - DAAS
A stinking sun burned me awake
Through the shattered windowpane
I recalled through the eyes of claret
had taken me again
And the hair of the dog revives me
But I find it hard to swallow
It's a marriage made in heaven between me and the bottle
A thousand words fell through my hands
And the room just spins
This sodden mattress holds my heart
And it cradles my regrets
I'll read it once again
For he knows that I'll not follow
It's a marriage of convenience between me and the bottle
So king alcohol comes back
With the traffics mournful cry
And he staggers, drunk and skillful
Through my throat all parched and dry
And if I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take
Then I could rest
And never wake again in sorrow
It's a marriage on the rocks between me and the bottle
Why do I drink? Still haven’t answered that question.
Take one:
I’m at a pub/club sitting by myself surround by people. Conversation is strained as small talk was never my forte (yes it’s cold…) and I’m sitting/standing there, staring into space, which probably looks quite weird and I can’t fu*ken stand pity. So the bottle in my head gets lifted to my mouth time and time again to break the stiffness. Gulp by gulp it gets easier and I can talk just as much crap as anyone.
Take two:
Growing up it seemed to be you were either perfect or fu*ked up. Average was not an option, you’d just fall between the cracks. I was never going to be perfect (I never gave myself the chance) so fu*ked up it was. But I didn’t drink, take drugs, or have sex…guess I fixed that in a few short years. Fu*ked up also meant your life was shorter. “Indirect suicide” was the name of the game but try as hard as I might, others were better at it than me. Now after years of trying to die, I’m trying to live…but how can you live when all you do is question everything and everyone else just wants to talk about the weather?
Either way it’s fu*ken pitiful.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
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