How To Not Say No To Drinking
By CJ Hallman
You recently said to an older, wiser, moderation-practicing friend, “I don’t really drink too much these days; I just have a crazy night about once a week.” Mocking your earnestly-delivered statement, he replied with, “Ooh, look at me, I’m not an alcoholic, I just go on a bender every seven days.” Okay, so maybe he had a point. But drinks are good. Real good. And as a girl, drinks are also often free. How can you say no to good and free? You can only accept. And that decency/ common sense is, after all, what separates us from the animals. Also, opposable thumbs, which are necessary for tending bar.
So you drink. A lot. And things happen. You wake up in a love motel in Seoul with only a vague recollection of the night prior — but this recollection involves partying with Louis Vuitton and Prada employees. Sexy, right? And you can totally just ignore the part in which you vomited on the street in front of the fashionistas. And sure, you might partake in awkward exchanges with ex-boyfriends, or make regrettable statements about the Taliban or the Holocaust or David Sedaris, or you might even throw a baked potato against somebody’s living room wall because, “I WANT TO SEE A POTATO EXPLODE,” or whatever, but you can just pretend none of those things happened, too. Because rather than say no to drinking, you’ve evolved. Adapted. You’ve discovered ways to make your drinking problem less of a problem. You’ve learned how to not say no to drinking.
How to Not Say No to Drinking Tip #1: Turn Down Hot Dudes
“What’s that you say? You’re a freelance chip taster with a half-completed online Associate’s degree in Medieval Weaponry? Oh, hey, you think Creed had a few pretty good songs? And you want to play three of them for me on the guitar you named after an ex-girlfriend who was killed in some sort of freak accident at the soft opening of a Pottery Barn? Wow, you’re a vegan video-gamer and self-proclaimed ‘very experienced lover’ who lives in a deteriorating Craftsman house with eight other men who all work for a pyramid scheme? Tee-hee, you’re married to a vengeful, potentially knife-wielding psychopath who flunked out of beauty school and lists ‘Sarah Pahlin!!1!’ and ‘Myself, not 2 be stuck-up or anything!’ as the people who inspire her on Facebook? Oh, and you two winners brought into this world a set of The Shining-esque twins, who will forever haunt me in the hallways of my nightmares? Well, sign me up! Let’s make out like a couple of horny eleven-year-olds in some seedy Russian basement bar in a booth beside some horny Russian eleven-year-olds! Let’s give each other pet names and exchange cutesy text messages, Buttercup-Asscheeks-Patty-Cake! Let’s talk on the phone every night and get an apartment together and…”
As temptingly sweet as it all may sound to your drunken ears… No. Just, no.
Tip #2: Befriend A Human Cock-Block
Drinking mall smoothies and then going to Claire’s and buying $4.99 entwined dolphin BFF necklaces with a human cock-block might seem sort of awful. And it is. However, this torture will prove a small price to pay for a friendship that’ll allow you to continue boozing it up. Head to the bar with your twenty-something neighbor who loves Pokemon and dresses like a Midwestern dad, or with that stringy-haired girl from your computer class who smells like bleach and always draws pictures of squids on the whiteboard when the professor leaves the room, and you’re golden. And not golden showered. Not this time. Just golden. No attractive, or even sexually-capable, individual will dare approach you while in such atrocious company, and the risk of STDs and WTF-wake-ups therefore decreases significantly. If things work out really well for you, you’ll eventually grow weary of being seen in public with your new BFF, retire the dolphin necklace, and just take up solo bedroom-drinking, which lowers your sexy-time risk to about four percent, a figure which takes into consideration your internet connection, your lockless door, and your creepy uncle.
Tip #3: Take Control Over The Drunken Munchies
Urges take hold of you when you are drunk. Food urges. Fat urges. Being drunk is akin to being a pregnant lady. And not just any pregnant lady, but The Octomom or The Kate Gosselin, minus the subsequent fame and free plastic surgery. Urges.
Accept: You lack impulse control when it comes to frozen dairy products. Ice cream is the crack and you are but the Whitney Houston of your life.
Be aware: You are an adult, legally. Accordingly, you occasionally possess this thing called money. Or your mom’s money. Or your grandma’s money if it was recently your birthday and she mailed you a nine-dollar check that actually cleared this year. Or at the very least you might know someone who has some money, like your friend from college who finally got a gig from that temp agency after like seven weeks of waiting, and who might let you borrow five bucks if you offer to help her spray-tan her own back again. Along with money, you also have access to restaurants and shops. These are facts. These are demons. Be aware.
Now, deal: Because you don’t wanna end up some fatty-fat-face. You don’t want your massive fat reserves to crush your own bones, turning you into an anthropomorphic blob that leaves a slime trail everywhere it goes, fatty-fat-face. You want to be a hot alcoholic, just like Lindsay Lohan or approximately one-tenth of the people on Intervention. So leave your money at home. Go to the store. Get right up in ice cream’s satanic face. Tell that cold bitch who’s boss. F–k you, ice cream. F–k. You.
Tip #4: Manage That Hangover
You can eat half a bottle of Motrin and pray for minimal liver damage. You can spend the day in bed sipping Bloody Marys and listening to Enya. Or you can get really fancy and ahead-of-the-game and guzzle a hangover-prevention drink.
In Korea, you discover that they offer such an elixir in the convenience stores. It costs five dollars. Now, five dollars might seem like a lot to spend on a beverage that doesn’t contain a hearty dose of vodka, but you decide it is so worth it to hopefully maybe feel slightly less terrible in the morning. Also, your old coping methods are wearing thin — that one Enya song always reminds you of 9/11 (bummer!) and the salt from the V-8 makes your feet bloated.
Printed on the can of this miracle drink is an image of a grinning old Korean man. You discover that his paternal face proves a soothing sight when you are Having Drunken Emotions. The hot bartender declined your pass? Old Korean Man says, “That chunk of manmeat obviously has deep-rooted issues and/ or is a member of a mind-control cult and/ or digs 90’s alternative Christian rock, so it’s probably for the best.” You’re gonna cry if you don’t get ice cream rightthisminute, even though you know it contains trace amounts of Satan, and that you will then also cry when you weigh yourself in the morning? Old Korean Man says, “Eat some frozen yogurt, bimbo. Life is about compromise, yo.” Feeling sad remembering that year your dad didn’t have a job and you had to eat the off-brand cereal that came in a bag? Old Korean Man says, “You’re right and your dad was wrong — Fruity-O’s are not the same thing as Fruit Loops just with a different name. Fool be trippin’.” Puking up noodles on a blurry street in front of a group of well-dressed people who are younger, more successful, more beautiful, and richer than you’ll ever be? None of whose names you will remember in the morning, even with the aid of the “medicinal” properties of this overpriced placebo drink? None of whom yell at frozen desserts or befriend potential future murderers or seek pro-bono therapy from Asia’s aluminum Colonel Sanders? Old Korean Man says, “Um, so, listen, maybe you should just learn to say no…”