The curses of the modern age

[epershand]

The Sunday after I turned 21, I got phenomenally wasted, on vodka and cranberries. I didn't really have a particular reason for it--I was hanging out in militantgeek and empress_elle's dorm room and we were watching tv and I just kept drinking alcohol and I woke up stark naked in my own bed the next morning with no idea of how I'd gotten there and stumbled out to my 8:30 Latin class.

I later pulled bits and pieces of what had happened that evening together from Dani and El's stories and mockery--I'd thrown up at some point and apparently went on and on about exactly how physically attractive oliviacirce was. (We'd been together for almost exactly three months at that point. Bless!) But that's it, that's all I have of that evening, just a few stories and a vague queasiness about the thought of vodka and a desire never to repeat the experience.

Except... last night I repeated the experience. Again, I'm unsure why. Well, I know why I started drinking--I was getting all the chametz out of my apartment, and that was *good booze* and I hadn't found a pesach goy to sell it to in time so I'd might as well drink some of it before putting it out on the curb. And I know that when I start drinking I often *keep drinking*--the feeling of being drunk gives me this unpleasant itch, it's precisely the opposite effect of my ADD meds, and I can't hold still, I have to get it out by moving around a lot or talking loudly and fast. Or I have to deaden it with more alcohol. But I don't know why, in what was a pretty conscious echo of the previous Sunday, I kept drinking past the point of oblivion, why I drunk to the point of blackout for only the second time in my life.

And once again there's a gap in my head where a period of wakefulness was. But unlike the first time, I have transcripts of that missing hour or so. My skim from this morning tells me that they are pretty much the most humiliating set of chat transcripts I've ever taken part in, and I'm both horrified and captivated by their existence. I want to run away and hide and never know that those conversations happened (or really, for those conversations never to have happened). And yet the idea of them just sitting there haunts me. It's like a scab I want to pick at, equal parts painful and captivating.

And it's nice, having the capability of filling in those gaps of my consciousness, but at the same time it's existentially terrifying to look at a screen and see words that claim to be from you, but are timestamped an hour after you thought you'd gone to sleep. A variation on Berkeley's tree keeps running through my head--if a conversation happens but everybody is blacked out for it, did it really happen? But the gchat archives are just sitting there, just like Berkeley's all-knowing, all-seeing G-d tracking every tree in every forrest.

Chag sameach, to my friends who are celebrating. So far my Passover experience has been a lot more Noahide than Moshianic*--here's hoping I make the progression this week.

* Evidently the correct adjective for "of or relating to Moses" is "Mosaic" but I reject it for its resemblance to a noun I associate largely with the Byzantine Empire and an out-of-date web browser.

Comments

[tirial]

I learned once upon a time that if drinking is planned to occur, it's a good idea to unPlug your router before you start. Usually if you're drunk enough that you shouldn't be online, you'll be drunk enough that you can't get back online.

[epershand]

Yeah, that is... very wise.

[were_duck]

*hugs*

[belledezuylen.livejournal.com]

The first time I got truly drunk, I was 20, heartbroken, and alone in my room at Oxford. I downed an entire bottle of cheap rosé and decided it would be a great idea to write to a certain Mount Holyoke professor and inform him how drunk I was. His answer included the line "I hope that you are asleep, and that waking won't be too painful."

[prismakaos]

The only time that I can recall blacking out, I was helping one of my friends get over his ex. Six rounds later, I ended up on the curb outside the whiskey lounge, clutching a glass bottle of water (who the fuck gives someone as clearly drunk as I was a glass bottle?), all alone. Waiting for my then-boyfriend to pick me up. I have no idea whether I called him, or whether my friend I was with called him, and I had this vague notion of having been kissed by someone who wasn't my boyfriend and oh boy was he going to kill me if he found out.

Eventually I got picked up and spent the entire car ride bitching to Marc about how I was so incredibly pissed at Dave, but wouldn't explain why. I don't remember this car ride either.

I woke up the next morning completely confused (not at all hungover, oddly), and amazed I wasn't dead/robbed/raped in a gutter somewhere. Because that whiskey lounge? Wasn't in a good neighborhood at all. And I was not functional.

I am glad that you were at least at home, and you were talking to people, which is a good way to stay coherent so you don't die of alcohol poisoning.

Anyway, sorry I didn't come over and help you drink the Guinness.

[epershand]

Oh gosh, that is an incredibly sad story. I want to give your 20-year-old self a giant hug. But hearing other people's horror stories is helping me feel a bit calmer, so thanks for sharing. ♥

[digitalemur]

And I know that when I start drinking I often *keep drinking*--the feeling of being drunk gives me this unpleasant itch, it's precisely the opposite effect of my ADD meds, and I can't hold still, I have to get it out by moving around a lot or talking loudly and fast.

This sounds like a bad reaction to fast-penta to me.

[epershand]

Oh gosh, I remember that night. Or at least, I remember the aftermath of that night. <3 <3 <3 That sucked a lot. Yeah, I was lucky in a lot of ways, especially in that the people I was talking to love me enough to have taken my ridiculous behavior with a sense of humor more than anything else.

[epershand]

It's not Miles-reciting-Richard III levels of energy, it's just this low-level itch under my skin, an antsiness and a need to be doing something, anything, but sitting still. Experimentation shows that caffeine and protein do a pretty good job of helping calm it down.

[februaryfour]

I cannot remember if I have ever been that drunk! O_o