"Where do I begin to tell the story
Of how great a drunk I've been?
The sad drunk story of how low a girl can sink,
The simple truth of what the boozing did to me.

Where do I start?"

I call this story UNDERWARE NIGHT.

I was so drunk once (about 15 years ago), that I was so disoriented that when I went to the bathroom to vomit, I was so turned around directionally that I was vomitting in the bathtub, but I SWORE it was the toilet. That was the same night I got tired of waiting for my BF to come to bed, wearing nothing except for underware and a pair of knee socks I chose to wear for some reason unbeknownst to me now - probably the preppy look of the day, walked right out into a living room full of people and said something like: "Aren't you ever coming to bed, I want to be having the sex right now". I think shortly after that I ended puking in the bathtub. I still remember how hung-over I was the next morning and had to go wait tables. Oh Heavens when I started to recall what had transpired the night before...Ooh wee!! Thinking more about that night... when I got home I heard the cops were at our house because my roommate, who I had been out drinking with, had a fight with her BF and he tried to leave and she chased him down the street in her underware. Mind you we lived DIRECTLY ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE POLICE STATION!!!

Any such stories I might or might not have will die with me.

Oh come on miko, dish...

OK, (I'm such a pushover). Well, not much outrageous but plenty of silly. Once performed a full play-cowboy-standoff-shootout-duel-scene along a narrow, balconied street on Martha's Vineyard, with several accomplices.

I can't think of any, but I'm sure if you were to ask my college friends they would fall all over themselves trying to regale you with humorous tales of my drunken folly.

I'll tell this one, though it technically doesn't really qualify. Once, I'd had a bit too much and my beloved friend Carl carried me blocks and blocks from the party to my dorm room in the middle of the night. He knocked on the door, my roommate opened, took one look at him holding me and, completely unfazed, uttered, "Are ya done with her? Just put her over there."

This isn't so much a story about what happened when I was drunk, but what happened during my drinking days.

I used to be a divorce lawyer, and I was acting for this guy, very nice man, whose wife alleged that he had a drinking problem. He always seems juuust fiiiine to me ...

Anyhoo, we had a directions (procedural) hearing in the judge's chamber where the room is arranged with 2 tables in a T-shape, the judge sitting at the top and the lawyers and clients on either side, so it's fairly cosy. It was a morning hearing, something I always tried to avoid because I was usually still drunk from the night before.

So, the hearing started, I spoke, the other lawyer spoke, both clients then had a couple of questions put to them, and the judge gave her directions. As we were standing up to leave she said to me "I'd like to have a word with you in private", so I asked my client to wait outside.

"I couldn't help noticing a very strong smell of alcohol from your side of the table"

*Thinks quickly*

"Well, Your Honour, I was at a party last night and I had a couple of glasses of wine and I don't really drink at all, but I only had two, maybe three glasses of wine and that must be it, because, you see, I don't really drink at all, so that's probably why, because I don't really drink..."

*Continues digging big hole like this for several minutes. Finally runs out of breath.*

The judge gave me a looooong stare. Then she said "I didn't mean you. I meant your client."

Shit

(Happy ending : about a year after I made it to AA, the client found his way there too. We're both still sober, a few years down the line now.)

Walk around my neighborhood in combat boots and nothing else?

Call a huge biker dude in New Orleans (wearing leather chaps and the whole get-up) a "flaming jackass" for bumping into me.

I can go on.

I was 29 the first time I got drunk (yes, thanks to you-know-who and a little thing called Jagermeister). It was about time, though, I'd say (I'd been leery due to the many empty vodka bottles my birth mother collected when I was a kid... me and my sad stories...).

Anyways, there was this time I went naked down the slide at a local park one evening. Jon had dared me, and, well, you know how hard it is to turn down a dare when you're drunk. I think I gave some nearby VFWers a thrill. (Come to think of it, I'm not sure I was even drunk that night.)

I also flashed my boobs at my best friend and roommate at the time. (Tequila. Not good.) To her credit, she was totally unphased. Just smiled and nodded, "Very nice." Of course, she ended up literally under the table, our coffee table, that is, from a little drink we invented called "Swamp Water," made of vodka and Surge, a swampy-green, high caffeine soda. Quite tasty, if I recall.

(on preview, that's great essexjan... AA was helpful for my mom, too, eventually... course, for her, it took a court order... and I imagine her prescription horse tranquilizers took the edge off)

I don't know if the server has enough space for all my drunken escapades.

This isn't about drunked escapades, but the aftermath thereof. A letter to my sister:

Dear Cait,

Just wanted to tell you how my day has gone so far.

My morning began when I surfaced reluctantly from unconsciousness to a shrill and incessant noise. "What in the hell is that weird noise?" I thought muzzily. "Oh, right. Alarm clock. Feh." I lurched up from the bed, rather unsteadily. In one smooth series of motions, I bypassed many small piles of things on the floor, hit the snooze button, and returned to bed. I was in blissful oblivion before my head hit the pillow.

But, lo, what was this new horror? What was that fucking NOISE? Oh right. Alarm clock. Lurch, bypass, snooze, bed.

I awoke on my own, seemingly moments later. "Why, I feel curiously well-rested," I thought. (This feeling of well-being quickly wore off.) "Gee I wonder what time it i- HOLY FUCK!!!" It was 9.08. I was already two hours and thitry-eight minutes late. After floundering weakly in the bedclothes for a moment, I got up, put my slippers on the wrong feet, and tottered off to the bathroom.

Here, the light was piercing, the gleaming surfaces relentlessly reflecting light into my bleary, bloodshot eyes. "Oh jeebus help me," I mumbled at the mirror. I peeled my tongue from the roof of my mouth and looked at it. Mistake. My tongue was coated with the remnants of gin. A lot of gin. My mouth tasted like a gin-soaked rodent had expired in it. My hair looked like someone had chewed on it. Enough with the mirror, I thought. I turned on the water, loaded my toothbrush with toothpaste, and stepped into the shower.

This is when the hot water hit my skinned knees. I guess when I yelled "Yay! Another bar!" and started running and tripped and fell on top of my pool cue case, I actually really *did* hurt myself. It didn't feel like anything when it happened, honest. Hmm. Having a skinned knee was embarrassing, because not a month prior, I tripped on a curb and put a hole in the right knee of my favorite jeans. That incident was due to inherent klutziness. This time, there was a lot of gin involved, and the hole was on the left knee. How thoughtfully symmetrical of me.

Where was I? Ah yes, hot water. I quickly turned my back to the spray, cringing. Toothpaste frothed liberally from my mouth as I cursed. I proceeded to brush my teeth, wincing as occasional stray stream of water accosted my knees.

Brushing my teeth took a lot longer than it usually does, because I kept forgetting the usual order: top, bottom, inside, outside, top, inside… wait. After a while, I decided that my teeth were probably as clean as they were going to get and I really needed to hurry a little. I had two epiphanies while showering: one was that I’d left my credit card at the bar last night, and would have to find a way to get it back this evening. I never wanted to see the inside of a drinking establishment again, so this was an unsavory concept. The second realization was that I have no recollection of completing the floor plans I promised my chiropractor four whole months ago. Did I finish them and give them to her and just can’t remember? Or is there some sheaf of paper stuffed under my bed that contains my scribbled measurements?

Anyway. I proceeded get out of the shower and towel off. I did not dry my legs because when I bent over, I could hear the blood rushing through my head, and my temples protested heartily. I applied calendula gel and band-aids to my abrasions. I put on face lotion, deodorant, and my watch. Then I put on deodorant again, having forgotten in the time it took me to put on my watch that I had already done so.

Back in my bedroom, I examined my jeans for blood stains, got dressed, and grabbed my bag. In the kitchen I fetched a Coke and some wasabi peanuts (breakfast of champions) and put on my shoes. Next, I removed my shoes, went back to my bedroom to put on some socks, and donned my shoes again. I exited the house and started on my merry way to the bus stop. As I walked through the drizzle that is ubiquitous in the Pacific Northwest, parts of the previous evening begun to come back to me. Something about finding a quarter and yelling about it a lot, tearful recollections of an ex boyfriend, and cold pizza at three. There was a lot more, but I wanted to stop thinking about it before I remembered something fantastically embarrassing.

On the bus, I asked myself some salient questions. Had my face lotion always smelled this nauseating? Did the bus driver have to scream out the stops like that? Was my Coke leaking in my bag? Where had this searing crick in my neck come from? Was my application of mascara and blush going to fool my boss into thinking that I had really gotten up at the crack of dawn and was late to work because I’d had a client meeting or that I’d visited my aforementioned chiropractor?

As I walked down the hallway to my office, still reeling from the elevator ride, I rummaged through my bag for my security pass card. I did not have it. This meant that my careful plan of sneaking in the back door and blithely bypassing my sober and judging co-workers was not going to work. I rang the bell and was let in by my boss. Lovely. “Still raining out there?” he boomed. “Oh yes,” I said, “it’s been raining since dawn.” I said and scurried away to my cubicle.

Love,
Specklet

Speck, where's the dirty part? I was waitin' on the dirty part. : )

Mine is like Pips's, where I was 29 before I had ever gotten very drunk, and it involved Jaegermeister and tequila. I threw up in the bathroom of a dive bar in Venice, California, which got me kicked out. Waiting for the valet in the parking lot, I started telling the friend that had fed me the alcohol that I was going to kill him. In between heaves. My friends drove me to their apartment and put me in bed, but the night was early so they then left me, and went down the street to catch a nice jazz show. I got up around four and threw up until the last bit of alcohol must have left me. I took a shower (shakily) and slept until noon. Then my friends took me for Oaxacan food, which I'd never had before, and I couldn't taste it because I'd lost my sense of taste. I'd never been that drunk before and haven't been since.

Essexjan, I am so glad to hear that ending to your story. It's touching that your former client has stayed sober, too. Kudos to you and him!

Pips, that's a different letter. And it wasn't to my sister.

Jaeger and tequila... deadly. We'll call it the te-gila-meister.

Well, one of my friends' mom often took cruises, and was away when we deceided to have a party. (While underage, we were out of high school). About a dozen people were there. Someone started combining alcohol in those tall plastic cups and I had one and a half. I vaguely remember crawling up the stairs to the guest bedroom, somehow getting in bed. Every time I opened my eyes, a different person was standing over me-checking to make sure I was still breathing. The day after, I spent quite a while clutching the porcelain god, but unfortunatly my body wouldn't give up the poison. Yeah, that was fun.

On another occasion (miko, at the original Dubliner Pub) I drank myself silly, and proceeded to drive home. (Please, no lectures. It was a bad choice, but I lived only a mile away at the time). I drove down a one-way street and noticed someone had put out a solid wood dresser to the curb. I went around the block, and stopped. It was a big, solid, six-drawer, tall dresser, with dovetailing and nice details. So there I was, giggling myself silly, manuvering this thing in the back of my pick up by myself. In the morning, I couldn't move it sober. I needed help getting it out of my truck! I still have it.

Once, after a fight with a girl I was totally in love with (but wasn't dating) I went home to sulk. It was the middle of summer and I was lying in bed at 7PM with the covers pulled up to my nose, my hand still stinging from snapping my copy of Surfer Rosa in half.

My goofy roommate Jeff comes home, sees my predicament and invites my co-worker Lyssa and her friend over. Then he produces a bottle of BUSHMILLS and harangues me to cheer up.
I'm fairly sucidal, but I decide to play along.

The next day I wake up with a hangover and go about my business. The hangover fades and I admit that I feel pretty good...until later that evening when, I remember with diamond-like clarity saying to Lyssa, "Baby, I wanna f--k the taste out of your mouth!"

Fortunately, Lyssa had a good sense of humor.

I once got so drunk that I hit on a girl and then later puked more than once.

Not the silliest or most outrageous, but redvixen's furniture story reminded me... One afternoon mr. taz and I went out to lunch with drinks, and walking home we saw several nice wood and canvas deck chairs stacked up by a dumpster. We needed some for our balcony, and figured we could refurbish whatever was wrong with these, so we each hoisted one under each arm and went home with our four chairs... which turned out to be nearly new and in need of no refurbishing. So we were all like, "I can't believe someone threw away these perfectly good chairs."

Until about a week later we passed by that spot again, and again there were chairs stacked up by the dumpster... which seemed sort of... unlikely - 'til we discovered that this just happened to be the spot where the nearby outdoor cafe put their extra chairs that they might need during the day.

That was years ago, and we still make the joke when we see anything nice sitting around outside, anywhere: "I can't believe they are throwing away that perfectly good potted plant/marble table/etc."

LOL, taz.

But do you still have the chairs?

Actually, no; they eventually died of sunstroke, and we left the corpses behind when we moved apartments. I like to think that when we put them out by the dumpster, someone picked them up and brought them back to life.

(We did think of taking them back to the cafe, but then remembered that no good deed goes unpunished, and realized it probably wasn't the best thing to do. Maybe in the U.S., but here it would be all kinds of strange.)

Oh dear...i am about to completely destroy my image now, but here goes:

About a month ago, after Ghana beat the US in the world cup (soccer), i met up with a friend at her house and proceeded to get sloshed on an empty stomach. After about half a bottle of Monopolowa vodka, i decided i felt a little woozy so i took a nap on her couch. But the couch wouldn't stay still, and besides, i had started feeling queasy. So i made my way to the bathroom. Stuck my head in the toilet and threw up. And threw up some more. And still some more. And then i had a flash of inspiration...flush the toilet with my head still in it...you know, to cool me down...(it made perfect sense then). So i did. And i got blue toilet water in my hair!
There's more.
I wet the hand towel in the toilet and put it to my brow...i was really really hot...and lay on the toilet floor, what can i say, all that puking had left me tired...and fell asleep!
She had to break the toilet door lock.

(now i guess i'll never be president!)

ramix ftw?

Take your pic:

- Waking up in detox, nude, chained to a bed, covered in my own urine. I was such a suave drunk.

- Playing air guitar with a shovel on top of a squad car. I was subsequently beaten to a pulp and then...

- Getting checked into detox and checked out 18 hours later while still in a blackout.

- Started drinking in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and woke up under a car in a parking lot in Minneapolis, 185 miles away.

- Shooting up with my mother, in our kitchen. I remember thinking "Wow, we're like doing stuff together!" Some fine bonding there.