Know the one that's one too many
I was sitting beside someone who had already told me the same story four times and was just about to tell it to me again and I was trying to work the right amount of interest onto my face as the two glasses of wine I'd drank, had already worn off. Yes, drunk people are more annoying when you're not but also the thought that I'm like that after a few more glasses bothered me and not just that I've been like that and worse.
It's not just about knowing your limit, it's about recognizing your limit when you hit it and successfully stopping there. It's only recently and I mean very recently that I have learned to pace myself because social situations often make me awkward and having a glass of something takes the edge off that nervousness.
The problem for me is that while I don't enjoy the taste of alcohol I have enjoyed the taste of drunk. Unfortunately on the flip side I suffer from the most punishing of hangovers which I've tolerated for years assuming they were par for the course and its only in recent years that I've started to question my thinking.
To paraphrase one of my favorite comedians, David O'Doherty, when hungover I turn into a lady from the sixteenth century.....'please go on without me, my legs are but hollow tubes'.
I'm the type to proclaim I'm actually dying while lying in a ball on the couch. and announce things loudly such as 'my mouth tastes like sock' , 'I think I'm going to puke' and 'I'm never drinking again'
And I've been thinking, every single time I've woken up with the fear of moving ( lest I discover exactly how hungover I am) or that feeling of oh god I wish I didn't...., or even worse again the feeling of only being able to remember a night in patches, drink has been involved. Well if I'm to be honest, drink has not so much been involved as been the actual cause of said feeling. That's pretty scary when you really think about it. As someone who started drinking at 14, which gives me exactly 16 years to draw from. (Just give me a moment to finish freaking out about how old that makes me feel) and every single major regret I've had about things I've done or said all started with a night out.
There's only so many times that people can tell you a hilarious story about a thing you said or did that makes you want to hide beneath your duvet until it feels less excruciatingly embarrassing before you reach the point of questioning your behavior and asking Is that really what I want. Of course I'd love to be able to live a life without regrets and hell I'm working on letting go of the feelings I have about past behavior. It's still a work in progress but then again so am I as a person.
The real difficultly I have is in striking a balance, now I can go months at the time without having a drink because to be fair my social life isn't really all that exciting. But when I do I find myself either having very little and getting sleepy as soon as the alcohol wears off or having too many ( these days that's 3-4 glasses of wine for me) and being drunk enough that I risk saying something embarrassing. I don't know who these people are who go out without any alcohol at all and have a good time. In fact I'm not entirely sure they exist, I think most people who aren't drinking tend to avoid that whole scene as much as possible because if you're sober drunk people are en-masse a fairly horrible bunch. There's the ones telling jokes that you don't get because everything's so funny drunk, and the ones telling you the same five stories all night long, the ones who are a little too handsy and the ones who can barely stand unaided. I think everyone knows at least one or two people who claim that despite their pioneering ways that they are great craic. So far in life I have found that to be the worst kind of false advertising because In my experience they are not any fun at all and they should stop selling themselves as such.
For now I'll still try to manage walking the line between having fun and embarrassing myself and maybe I'll find a compromise soon that works for me. But for today I'm glad I only had two glasses last night, My liver and wallet thank me
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