Drink, Drank, DRUNK! The Alcoholic Chronicles Pt. 2

It’s been almost two years since I wrote the first installment, Drink, Drank DRUNK! The Alcoholic Chronicles Pt. 1. I was only eighteen months sober when I penned that particular piece and now I’m at three years, two months. So much has happened and, unlike when I was drinking, I actually remember most of it. I’ve also started remembering some of the drunken days and, recently, a classic story popped into my head. I offer this embarrassing and somewhat horrifying event for your amusement. Enjoy.

You know how when you’re an uncontrollable binge drinker, and you black out pretty much every time you even look at alcohol, and you do lots of stupid shit, and uh—wait, you do the same thing, right? It’s totally normal, isn’t it? What do you mean by “alcoholic”? That’s ridiculous. I’m a social drinker. I almost never binge drink alone. Granted, there were times that I had a few too many bottles of wine by myself, but those were the exception, not the rule. What fun is it to black out if there’s no one around to remind you of the humiliating things you said and did? No fun at all, if you ask me. But don’t act like you’ve never had three and a half bottles of two-dollar wine by yourself!

Speaking of fun, way back in the day, I used to go out to bars in Baltimore with Big Kev. We’d drive almost an hour away from where we lived just for a change of pace, new faces, a different atmosphere, and some “strange”. One of our favorite places to go, Parrot Island, was only open in the summer months, cuz it was an outdoor establishment. It was basically a giant deck with multiple bars, and a ton of hot, scantily clad, lower-middle class B-more girls. Like a backyard keg party for people who lost their virginity at twelve and didn’t graduate high school. It was awesome. One particular night we went to PI and, as usual, I drank enough to effectively erase every thought, idea, and memory that ever entered my brain. So, we started the night bantering with the bartenders, chatting with some Kelly Bundy types, and generally basking in our own coolness. That eventually faded into—Suddenly, I came out of my blackout in Kev’s car, already on the way home. Have you ever been really, really wasted, and suddenly “come to”, in a sudden moment of seemingly sober clarity? That’s exactly what happened to me. I “woke up” in Kev’s car, shocked and confused at my location. This was the conversation that followed:

Me: Where are we?

Kev: In my car nigga.

Me: I know that, where are we going?

Kev: Home.

Me: Why did we leave the bar?

Kev: Cuz you’re a fucking retard.

Me: Why, what happened?

Kev: Mothefucker, you disappeared like Houdini and I couldn’t find you anywhere. Finally, I saw you being walked out by a bouncer who was holding your drunk ass up. I went up to him and was like, “This is my buddy, what happened?” He said, “I caught your boy pissing on the wall next to the bar, he’s gotta go.” So I was like, “C’mon man, be cool. He’s fucked up but I’ll keep an eye on him. Just let him stay. He won’t do it again” The bouncer looked at me, irritated as hell, and snapped, “Again? That was the second time I caught him.”

Me: Oops.

And so we went home. Although I didn’t remember any of it happening, I understand why the bouncer needed to have me exit the premises. Peeing all over Parrot Island can’t be good for business, regardless of how good it was for my bladder. However, I might suggest that, if you’re going to serve alcohol to alcoholics, in a public bar, particularly if it is out-of-doors, you might want to A) add more bathrooms and B) make sure they are easy for a confused, staggering, slurring drunk, with a tiny bladder, to locate. The other thing is to reconsider the concept of the “outdoor bar”. Because everybody knows that, if you can’t find a bathroom, you just go pee outside. Ergo, if the bar is already outside, you’re inclined, no, obligated by man-law to pee there. Sound reasoning if you ask me.

Now, the time I pissed in a bar in Miami, that’s another story. That one was inside.

Oops.