Fun While Wasted or Wasted Fun?

(originally written as an essay 5/3/06)
I’d like someone to explain to me the “fun” in being “wasted”. I couldn’t help but overhear a group of my contemporaries at work the other day, discussing where they were going after work to “get wasted”. As usual, this dissolved into talk about the previous week when they got “wasted”, or “smashed”, “blasted”, “blitzed”, "shit-faced" or some other slang-ed adjective, all (supposedly) in the pursuit of the ever-elusive “fun”. Maybe I’m wrong here, but I’ve always held the notion that getting so drunk that you had to be carried home in a wheelbarrow was the domain of burned out cops and disgruntled and bitter newspapermen. My belief about these cops and newspapermen, was that they had seen so much degradation of the human condition through their policing and reporting, and had grown so tired of their disagreeable marriages, that they preferred the idea of passing out on the sidewalk than continuing to think or going home to their wives. They hung out in an Irish pub at late hours and the bartender’s name was “Mack”. It doesn't sound (to me) like much "fun". Indeed, it was their (unsuccessful and destructive) way of dealing with their problems - and creating new ones to replace or compound them. Ok, maybe I’ve been watching too much of Turner Classic Movies, nevertheless, I haven’t quite come to understand why those who “just want to party”, don’t just party.

Now, I have to intimate that I’m not an idiot when it comes to the effects of alcohol. Some amount of inebriation is an enjoyable experience, and for many people, helps them “lighten up”. Alcohol is often a precursor to sex, so much so, in fact, that it sometimes seems to be mandatory for the continuation of the species. If you don’t agree, just ask Curtis and Charlene in any mobile home complex in the United States. A few beers have never hurt the chances of conception, and even seem to improve it. It calls back to the days when that bitter cop or newspaperman (or the people he wrote about) would burst through the door shouting “Doris! Come here!” Moments later, anywhere from ten to one hundred million potential micro-suitors would be heading up the birth canal, hoping to add another unwanted expense to the family, and annoyance to the world.

Personally, I’ve only been “wasted” once, and it wasn’t really by choice. My girlfriend at the time (now fianceé – go alcohol!) had convinced me, to accompany her to hang out with a friend of hers. I don’t generally like hanging out with her friends because I feel I have nothing to add when two or more women are talking. They only turn to me when they want “the man’s opinion.” It’s the same when I hang with a group of white people and they want “the black opinion.” That being the case, I decided I’d best be unable to talk if my mouth was full of alcohol. Up to that point, vodka had been my favorite of the hard liquors, but I had never had more than a couple of shot glasses in an evening, and I’m not one to hold strong alcohol well. That night I had three tall glasses (or four, or five – who can remember at this point), each one roughly equivalent to about four shot glasses. I was actually doing well until I got to the end of the third (or fourth). I remember the bar being very loud earlier that evening, but after that third (or fourth) vodka, all of my memories are intermittent. I remember the bar being the same after I got drunk, in terms of activity, but there was no sound. The waitress would come over and ask if we needed anything from time to time, but I don’t personally remember hearing her. I just remember seeing her. I figure that’s what she had to be doing because why else would she have kept coming over? I do remember just zoning out and staring at the ceiling, chiming in to my girlfriend’s conversation when something caught my ear during my intermittent hearing return. I also remember trying to give the appearance that I wasn’t drunk, though I’m not sure how well it worked, since the waitress gave me a strange smile joined with a confused look on one of her trips over to our couch. It was as if I had just told a dirty (and bad) joke about space aliens and classical music and she was trying to find the humor, but instead her search for the punch line turned into the search for her customer's sanity.

The next thing I remember was saying to my girlfriend “We've got to get a cab. I won’t make it on the subway.” Then she asked me what was wrong, which is when I informed her that I was a sniff of alcohol away from vomiting. She didn't bother to ask why I thought a NYC taxi was less vomit-inducing than a subway. She did tell me she hadn’t even noticed, which led me to question how that was possible, to which she responded that I had maintained myself remarkably well. I got home and collapsed face down onto our unmade bed, wholly sure that I would soon be inhaling the dinner I was about to regurgitate.

I managed to keep my dinner down, but for all of the following day (and much of the next two) I felt as if my head and small intestine were two politicos who had overheard each others' opposing views on the merits of the Iraq war and decided the only way to solve their differences was to wrestle each other, upward, through my esophagus. During this period, I decided definitively (though I had decided, tentatively, years earlier) that being “wasted” wasn’t the thing for me.

But apparently it is the thing for many. I often overhear people bragging about themselves being in similar physical circumstances, leading me to believe that many people enjoy this state of being. "Dude, last night was awesome! I fucking puked my brains out all over this waitress, then again on my girlfriend. Let's do it again next week!" Indeed, the conversation at my job seemed to support that.

Still, no one can tell me why? The only explanation I’ve been able to get is so uniform and repetitive (everyone gives it) and so bland, that you would think I’ve just asked Ms. Universe why people like playing with puppies, “Because, like, you want to have a good time.” Though sufficient in the case of Ms. Universe, that answer doesn’t quite provide enough information in the case of why people drink themselves to oblivion. However, if ever one needed proof that the entire world can indeed see eye to eye on something, the proof is in that response. Ask anyone, anytime, anywhere, and that will likely be the answer you get. If you get any more than that, God bless you. I sometimes felt I was in a Lord of the Rings story, “One ring to rule them all.” Substitute the word “ring” with the word “response”.

Now, again, why people drink at all, is not a mystery. It can be quite tasty; I love a well-crafted beer and I often enjoy a glass of Sherry or Port, though I stay away from hard liquors after that vodka story. Historically, alcohol was often the safest thing to drink, water and juice standards not being what they are today. Fruit-bearing plants were more susceptible to disease in the past, as there was no crop-dusting or chemical injection to increase the strength of plants to resist disease, or to increase yield. Water was worse. When you could get to water, if you weren’t living under some immense historical empire, you had to contend with other creatures that used the same water, and the ensuing dangers, as well as microorganisms that could make for a very bad (and final) day if you ingested them. Alcohol was simply the way to go in most cases. It was as common to a meal in the 12th century as a distant, abusive father and repressive mother are in the 20th century. However, in social situations, people then would often drink themselves unconscious as well, all in the pursuit of that grand social paradigm of “fun”.

The late English Viscountess, Nancy Astor, once stated: “One reason I don’t drink, is that I want to know when I am having a good time.” I am inclined to agree with her sentiment, though I do drink, just not into a stupor. Is the fun in going out and having a good time, not in the going out and socializing, dancing, etc., that one does when one goes out? Perhaps people are at the bar or club because they actually want to hear this new band in Williamsburg that incorporates a plastic violin with a steel bow. Maybe tonight’s crowd enjoys music that sounds like a cat being killed while violently having its claws dragged along a chalkboard. Then again, maybe the only reason people can put up with that sort of thing is because they’re so “wasted” they’re not really paying attention anyway. Even if they are, they are probably too “wasted” to know what they’re listening to. Perhaps, though for the life of me I can’t see it, the fun is in being drunk. The 1st century Roman writer Seneca wrote: “Drunkenness is simply voluntary insanity.” I’m not sure if he was supporting or denouncing drunkenness, but if supporting, maybe he’s right. But then, what’s with what I call “proofing”, in which people (while getting drunk) have to catalogue everything they did to get drunk last time and how drunk they got? People have to prove that they not only drink, but can out drink you. You have to “catch up”. Personally, I’m happy to be “drank under the table”. I prefer to have my wits about me – few as they are. I’d like to think it’s a machismo thing, but I see women doing it about as often as I see men doing it; often I see women doing it to men.

But perhaps Seneca was on to something. Maybe after a week full of being jostled and mauled on the train, having flights delayed, being cut-in-front-of on lines, re-doing all of the work we did at the office because of a misplaced decimal, being rudely served at lunchtime then getting sick from that same lunch, only to get back to the office to redo what we already re-did, maybe getting wasted offers a recuperative escape. That’s understandable. However, if that is the case, and I believe that it is, I can think of many other “fun” things I’d personally prefer to do to recuperate, and getting “wasted” is not one of them. For me, if the “fun” is in "getting wasted”, then to me it’s all just wasted fun.