Getting It Done While Coming Undone

Lately over drinks with friends I've been expressing my concerns that I'm an alcoholic, or more precisely, some sort of new hybrid alcoholic. You know, the kind that has a job and relationships but has to answer that awkward question at the doctors of office--"Do you have more than three drinks a day?"-- with an affirmative. The kind that enjoys picnics, but really enjoys picnics with a forty. The kind with an extensive yet tasteful koozie collection. It's a surprisingly spry conversation to have over cocktails, usually right after politics and right before religion. (There is certainly a sliding scale of number of drinks to heaviness of metaphysical conversation but that is another post we can examine in the future.)

The consensus from my friends has been two fold: A. You're not an alcoholic because that would make me an alcoholic and I'm not an alcoholic--and B. You're not an alcoholic because My so-and-so is an alcoholic and believe me, you'd be doing X, Y, and Z if you were an alcoholic.

While the second is the more sobering, the first of these scientific conclusions is the far more entertaining of the two because it inevitably leads to my friends recounting tales of wild inebriation. For example, my friend told me a story about an excursion he took to Reno back when he was in college. The trip was loosely affiliated with a soft fraternity (to me a soft fraternity are the ones tied into a specific major, like the fraternity of business majors of the fraternity of competitive math theory) and was primarily an excuse for the pledges to get wasted at the expense of the upper classmen's amusement. The story begins with a recounting of all the different beverages he drank and how much he was forced against his will to do so. He vaguely remembers meeting some girl and taking her back to his hotel room. From there it's all a black nothingness in the space a memory should hold, but he does distinctly remember having a dream that he was pissing a river of Nile proportions and man, did it feel good, until he awoke and discovered he had urinated all over the coed in his bed. Thinking surprisingly clearly, in my opinion, for one so intoxicated he went to the sink, filled a 32 oz. Big Gulp with water and proceeded to dump it all over the girl. She of course sprang awake with a confused and angry what the fuck? to which my friend explained that he had got up to get a drink of water and spilled it all over her and how he was very sorry but he was reeeeally drunk and maybe she should just hit the road. You see, Ben, if you were an alcoholic that would be happening to you on a regular basis.

Thankfully for my wife's sake, that is not an average Tuesday night for me. But the more of these stories I hear and the more I can recall about myself, and so many of them having to do with playing rock and roll, I've begun to suspect that I've allowed my lifestyle to dictate my habits. I drink every night because I don't have to wake up and be productive before ten in the morning. I drink every night because I feel looser on stage after a couple of beers. The trick is figuring out if I am continuing to do the things I do, like play in bands and wait tables, as an excuse to drink. It's a disturbing hypothesis, and one that I plan to examine. As soon as the World Series is over. Because I like baseball, but man do I love a baseball beer!

Historical Footnote

On this date in 2007, Summer Darling played an acoustic show at Koo's Art Cafe in Long Beach. There are two brief things I remember specifically about this show. First, that Koo's in Santa Ana was way better than Koo's in Long Beach. And that the opening band Coho somehow broke the tuning peg on my acoustic guitar. To this day I carry around pliers in my acoustic guitar case to tune my B string.