I thought that it was high time I wrote down a few of my memories of my time as a borderline alcoholic, before my crippling addiction to energy drinks burns out my brain.
Let’s call it…
Inebriation Palpitations; Or My Life for a Jäger-Bomb! (PART 1)
I have to admit that my entrée into drinking was a little slow. I didn’t like beer, wine made me sick and bourbon tasted like dish-washing liquid to me. I could manage vodka and lift, but that was about all for me until I turned 17 and discovered GIN. Really not the typical drink of the Australian male but I knew what I liked and I liked Gin, Lemon Lime and Bitters. It was also, unfortunately, one of those drinks that gets harder and harder to order as the night wears on:
1st drink: ‘Could I have a Gin, lemon, lime and bitters please, with a little bit of ice?’
6th drink: ‘Could I have a gym, lemon, thyme and Smithers please? No Mice!’
10th drink (depending on the dodginess of the establishment and its regard for responsible service of alcohol, this could also be the 20th drink):
“hey. HAY! Yeah, I wanna hav a drimk. Of GIN. With a Straw. And a LEMON. DON”T YOU PUT F%&^* ICE IN THAT, I’M WATCHING YOO! What? Get your hands off me! Police brutality! Pol- ***THUD***”
Needless to say, becoming steadily more speech-deprived and wanting a complicated drink (complicated for a bar that advertises “$2 JUGS OF DILUTED ETHANOL” Out the front), eventually stopped working for me. I broke up with gin and went looking for another bitter lover.
It was around this time that I caught up with a brother of an ex girlfriend, let’s call him Gordon Freeman, for the sake of good (or otherwise) reputations. He’ll know who I mean if he reads this. Gordon and I had become pretty good friends, or at least amiable acquaintances, through our shared love of Manga and First Person Shooters. What good relationship isn’t built on these things? Initially, we were just going to meet at a Canberra pub called the Phoenix for a quiet cider and some chit-chat. At the time I didn’t mind a cigarette and the Phoenix was one of the few pubs in Canberra that still let you smoke indoors (many had voluntarily banned it way before the law came in). They also played pretty decent alternative music over the PA, but didn’t make a big deal of it, and it was never an advertised draw-card like some other places. Thus, it was a quiet, yet still pretty happening place to have a pint, and they had Bulmer’s on tap. Having not quite graduated to beer yet, cider could easily be passed off as beer and I could still be seen to be an Alpha-Male of sorts in the establishment.
We then saw a couple next to us order some shots of tequila, followed by a shot of Red Bull as a chaser. This intrigued me, as Tequila had previously signalled death, and an embarrassing vomit out the window of my mum’s car after eight straight shots of putrid Six Shooter Silver a few years prior. We decided to give it a shot. Or three.
By the time we decided it would be a fantastic plan to drive Gordon’s Dad’s beaten up Falcon to Kingston because there was a pub there with a dart board, I had far more tequila and Red Bull in me than I ever imagined I would. I don’t actually remember that drive too well, but I do remember getting to the pub, ordering another shot of tequila and a Corona chaser each, and heading to the aforementioned dartboard.
Our game barely resembled the darts played in the Motherland, more of a game of 'how close can you get the dart to the centre whilst throwing it as hard as you can':
After being politely asked to leave by a rather burly security guard (and considering the state we were in, and how many dart holes were now in the parquet below and around the board it was very polite) we hopped back into the Faclon, which we had now dubbed ‘La Cucaraca’ because of the way it hopped hilariously over speed bumps at 60km/h and drove back to the city for a few more pints of cider. At this point I don’t quite remember what happened, but I ended up face down in the porcelain trombone for about an hour.
I was ill. And drunker than I’d ever been in my life up till then. I had had about 6 beers, 1.5L of cider and a number of shots in the double figures somewhere. I decided that it was time to call it quits. Now, if you haven’t been in Canberra in winter then you probably don’t understand how cold it can get at night. I think that -6C without snow is pretty harsh, although I suppose I’ve never lived in Canada. Regardless, it was so cold on this night that the balls hadn’t just fallen off the brass monkey, he’d gone and gotten neutered or possibly had a sex-change. I stumbled to my little blue Pulsar which I’d helpfully parked right outside the ACT Magistrates Court, thinking it would deter villains, and just sat in the passenger seat with the door ajar for about 10 mins. Unfortunately, being drunk, I passed out and woke up about an hour later because I was slowly dying of hypothermia. How I didn’t get raped, mugged or even accosted by the constabulary still astounds me today.
I had rationalised in my head the idea that driving home would be safer than cabbing it because someone might break into my car if I left it there all night. Obviously, I was disregarding the fact that I had passed out with the door open not an hour earlier and hadn’t been bothered.
I managed to get onto the main highway and decided that what drunk people usually do wrong is drive really, really fast, so I would just stick to the speed limit. Unfortunately my sense of inertia was dulled and I found that going 100km/h felt like Warp-flippin’-10 Scotty, so I trundled along at 60… At one point I even turned on the A/C just to keep myself awake. I finally peeled off and got home, and promptly started purging at the side of the house.
I was actually having a fantastic time as far as vomiting goes, and feeling a lot better. Little did I know I was making a bit of a racket, and my house mate came out of the house with a BANG of the back door:
After being kindly escorted inside by my unimpressed housemate, I passed out in bed and didn't wake till midday the next day.
Feeling fine, I decided to start the day with some juice. This was a poor idea, apparently, and the acid in the juice made me instantly nauseous. I rushed to the toilet, only to realise that what I needed to do was going to come out of the other end. So here I am, naked apart from my boxer shorts around my ankles, trying not to breathe in the fumes that were threatening to overwhelm me.
Unfortunately that was a battle I lost, and I promptly found myself yelling down the toilet vomiting up the half a glass of juice I had five minutes previous. Eventually, weeping and shuddering, I simply clutched the bowl and lay on the floor, wallowing in my own self-pity. I managed to press the flush button before passing out again for a half hour on the floor of the toilet until I could move again and drag myself to the couch to convalesce.
At that moment I vowed that drinking is never worth the price you pay, and that being a usually sensible chap, I wouldn't be drinking like that ever again.
*SIGH* What's that about a road to a bad place and it being paved with good intentions?
Come back for PART 2 of INEBRIATION PALPITATIONS or, MY LIFE FOR A JAGER-BOMB, in which I chronicle my adventures being kidnapped by bats in Brisbane, moving to Melbourne to drink for free, and how I lost my flag on the West Gate Bridge!
Peace Out!
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