I Ain’t Drunk, I’m Just Drinkin’

The title of a particularly groovy older blues tune I know of…Albert Collins did it, but it’s older than that…

Lawdog made me promise to tell this story of my misspent and naïve youth. When I was a teenager, growing up in upstate New York, the drinking age in New York State was still 18 (I got grandfathered when they changed it to 20, then 21). My friends and I used to go to this bar/restaurant where we were never proofed and always got served, but being 16 and stupid, we were always afraid we were going to get caught. My friends and I were also ultra-nerdly, so we didn’t have (and didn’t know how to get) fake IDs. We figured that to be convincing, we needed to order drinks that adults would drink, so as not to arouse suspicion that we were underage. Our drink of choice? Whiskey sours, a drink, I might add, that I have never seen any human being drink before or since. Yep – that was sure to fool any bartender.

Things have changed greatly since the halcyon days of my over-drinking youth – if the times had not been different, I would not be blathering on ad infinitum to you, I’d be in jail. I went to college in New York City, and stayed there for a good chunk of my early adulthood. I didn’t learn to drive until I was 28. I didn’t get my license until I was 29. That didn’t stop me, however, from driving from time to time when the need arose. One particularly memorable driving experience was on a road trip with a friend of mine from NY back upstate, when I was about 23. We stopped off in Albany to see if a friend of ours wanted to come, and since he wasn’t home, we just kept going after a stop at a liquor store. My friend (now very high up the management chain at a very well known company that would have a cow if they knew anything about his past) was tired, and asked me to take the wheel. So there I am, bombing down the NYS Thruway at 90 mph in a rented car, being driven by someone who had driven in a parking lot once when I was 16, with 12 empty beer bottles in the rear seat, and a half-empty bottle of Johnny Walker Red in the well between the front seats – an advertisement for MADD if ever there was one. It was a Hunter S Thompson moment – we were the embodiment of Fear and Loathing near Rome, NY, or so I thought at the time.

In truth, we didn’t have enough good quality drugs for it to be truly a HST moment. And, we didn’t get caught. What did I learn from this experience? Absolutely nothing. Fortunately, nobody ever got hurt in the time between my stupidest days and light dawning on Marblehead.

My wife and I were talking about this the other day – the question arose: would you like to be younger and know what you know now? Neither one of us thought this’d be any good, really. My reasoning being that if I was 23 and knew then what I know now, I would NEVER have gotten behind the wheel of that car. I had a lot of fun in my younger days, and almost everything I did then I wouldn’t dream of doing now. I was lucky in some areas. I got completely screwed in others by my own stupidity and hubris. When you think you’re invincible, you go for it. When you start to see that there may be other things that are more important, you become aware of your vulnerability, and more cautious, more careful – because you become aware that you have more to lose. So what fun is it to be 21 and cautious? Go for the gusto, baby! Drink them whiskey sours! Put on your beer goggles and meet some girlies!

Parenthetically – I spoke with some British expats in Germany last year about drinking and driving. I was playing at a festival, and by the end of the evening the steps of the local cathedral were littered with the bodies of the young inebriated. It looked like a battle zone, with less blood and more vomit. And none of them were driving. Hell, none of them were standing. I think we have it backwards in the US – kids should be allowed to drink earlier, and getting a driver’s license should be much more difficult than it is now, and the age limit for learning to drive should be higher. I think it’d be safer. But we as a country would never go for it. Seeing the USA in our Chevrolet is a part of American culture. We don’t have the public transportation infrastructure, or bicycle support system, to make that a choice that makes sense in the US.

One of the amusing things about alcohol, and I’m sure part of the reason for its continued popularity, is that you can, with its assistance, recapture those days of wine and roses. Many intelligent, talented, thoughtful grown adults I know become mind-bogglingly stupid when they get a few pops in ‘em. They pick fights, they get wild and wanton, they find themselves in positions where they’re in danger of embarrassment at least, of losing life and limb at most, and need ultra-nerdly, cautious grown-ups like me to bail them out. It’s astounding.

As a result of all this, I don’t drink a whole lot any more. I have one beer per set when I’m playing. I’ll drink wine with dinner from time to time. I’ll drink Stoly on ice at special occasions. And once a year, I get together with some old friends out in the middle of nowhere where we can’t get hurt or hurt anyone or anything else and really tie one on, featuring our traditional eye-opener, equal parts Orange Juice, Jack Daniels and champagne – we dubbed it the Jackosa. Eye-opening is actually a bit of an understatement.

Finally, as a public service, you can find the recipe to most mixed drinks (excluding the Jackosa, but you already know how to make one of those) at:

Lawdog, the Gist, and I all encourage you to drink responsibly, and remember - if you’re drinking to excess, do it with people you know, who won’t mind getting acquainted with many of your bodily fluids.

I really only have one thing to add. It is amazing to me how one's perspective on things change as you go through your twenties. I am 29 now (five months until the one of the BIG ones) and ten years ago I would have laughed my ass off at Flatcat's last comment about drinking responsibly. But his article is dead on as far as I'm concerned. My idea of drinking responsibly back then was making sure there wasn't a single wasted drop remaining in the beer can when I finished it. I believe we used the term "alcohol abuse" to apply to someone who was foolish enough to actually spill some beer on the floor.

Once in college, a girl from some organization at the school was coming around the dorms making sure everyone was aware that the school offered a program for students with a drinking problem. Being the dick that I was, she asked me if I had a drinking problem and I told her yes. She became genuinely concerned and began her speech about the dangers of alcohol abuse. I let her continue with her sermon for a little while until she asked me how serious I thought my problem was. I looked her dead in the eye and said "Fairly serious. My problem is that I have two hands but only one mouth." Needless to say, she wasn't happy. She started to give me a speech about the seriousness of the program but was too pissed to get into it and left, slamming the door on her way.

But I have to say I have mellowed a little since that incident and I don't find the fascination with the drinking anymore. I am still as much of a dick, but I rarely drink these days. When I do, it's either beer or a Vodka tonic, preferably Stoli.

Poll Topic: Best Alcoholic Mixed Drink
Margarita	13.8% - (69 Votes)
Long Island Iced Tea	10.8% - (54 Votes)
Martini	10.2% - (51 Votes)
Rum and Coke	8.4% - (42 Votes)
Gin and Tonic	8.2% - (41 Votes)
White Russian	6.2% - (31 Votes)
Screwdriver	5.6% - (28 Votes)
Whiskey Sour	3.8% - (19 Votes)
Bloody Mary	3.8% - (19 Votes)
Seven and Seven	3.8% - (19 Votes)
Vodka and Tonic	3.8% - (19 Votes)
Tequila Sunrise	3.4% - (17 Votes)
Tom Collins	3.2% - (16 Votes)
Pina Colada	3.2% - (16 Votes)
Strawberry or Banana Daquiri	2.8% - (14 Votes)
Sex on the Beach	1.8% - (9 Votes)
Slow Comfortable Screw	1.8% - (9 Votes)
Rob Roy	1.6% - (8 Votes)
Kamikaze (cocktail, not shot)	1% - (5 Votes)
Harvey Wallbanger	0.8% - (4 Votes)
Shirley Temple	0.8% - (4 Votes)
Gin Fizz	0.4% - (2 Votes)
Melon Ball	0.2% - (1 Votes)
Rum Runner	0% - (0 Votes)
Total Votes: 497