What follows is one of my most embarassing drinking stories - not because I did anything outrageous, but because it's revealing about myself as a person, at least the person I was 11 years ago.
I had just turned 19 in December, and wanted to go out for New Years. I thought I'd go see a movie in the city, I think I'd planned to see American Pie 3 to kill some time before the fireworks etc. started, I'd hit a club, have a few drinks, just try and get out of the house for a change.
When I got to the cinemas, I ran into about six of my schoolfriends who were there to see the Lord of the Rings. I'd not really seen any of them since graduating high school the previous year and they all assumed that someone in the group had invited me along. No one had, but that wasn't intentional - they just overlooked me (I wasn't that much of a social outcast). So I figured why not, I'll see Lord of the Rings.
After the movie, we decided we'd go get some drinks and go to one friend's house to party since no one really felt like staying in the city. We hit up a bottle shop and bought an assortment of booze: some liquor like kahlua, rum, as well as some pre-mixes, etc. One of the things bought was a 750ml bottle of strawberry schnapps, which will feature later. I made the mistake of getting some cans of black sambucca and coke, which if you're not a fan of liquorice/aniseed flavoured drinks is a bad idea. I had no idea what black sambucca was, but I quickly learned I was NOT a fan.
We caught a train and a bus to a friend's place in the surburbs and I got halfway through a can of black sambucca and coke before nearly retching, the taste was so awful. I threw the can away and one of my friends claimed the other three, though I don't think he ever actually drank any of them. Anyway, at this point I already had a pretty upset stomach even though I'd consumed nearly no alcohol.
After a few white russians and black russians (one of the few "cocktails" available given the limited selection of booze we had available) we started playing a card game with a shot of the strawberry schnapps as a "penalty" - so chosen because it tasted pretty awful. After two hands of the game my friends bailed on the penalty idea, so minus two shots no one touched the bottle of cherry schnapps.
Except for me.
Robbed of my black sambucca cans I had nearly nothing to drink apart from what my friends were willing to split from their stash, so I wound up sticking to this bottle of schnapps, which I drank almost the entirety of, shot by shot, over the course of the next 4 hours. I wish I could say I blacked out, but no, that'd be the easy way out.
Just after midnight, I called a girl. A girl a barely knew, a girl I wasn't even interested in, who wasn't interested in me. I couldn't think of anything to say, so I wished her a happy new year. Six times. In my haze I painted a wonderful picture of her as a perfect match for me. She told me she was soon going to move interstate with her family and I was devastated. I proposed we move in together so she could stay, and couldn't understand why she didn't leap at the opportunity.
I put my friends on the phone with her, believing that this would somehow convince them she was actually my girlfriend and that I was therefore not some forever-alone loser. Amazingly this worked, since none of the conversations revealed that she was just some girl whose number I happened to have.
Later, I was sitting on the floor, telling a long and increasingly slurred story about my completely new feelings for her, and how devastated I was she was moving away - something I'd only learned in my midnight phone call, that would not have impacted me at all. My friends nodded along, mostly drunk themselves after finishing off the kahlua and vodka and finding a bottle of tequila somewhere.
At some point after my story I fell asleep in an armchair for an unknown period of time, waking up to myself vomiting down the front of my t-shirt, a warm, dark cascade of partially disgested schnapps and black fibres that might have been my stomach lining. I peered blearily around the room, my still conscious friends were chatting on the other side of the room and did not appear to have noticed.
I stumbled to the bathroom and finshed vomiting in the toilet. I think took off my shirt and washed it out in the sink, letting the water run over it while I sat on the toilet and fell asleep. A few minutes later my friends were knocking on the door, worried about me, bless them. I fumbled for words as I flushed the toilet and wrung out my shirt, putting it back on. It was a dark colour so I don't think any of them noticed anything was amiss. I assured them I was fine and they went back to the living room.
I diverted upstairs and lay down on the blacony, assuring myself I just needed some fresh air. I promptly fell asleep, only to wake up being shaken by my friends. Their voices sounded as though they were coming from a great distance:
"Why is his shirt wet?"
"Come back inside man, it's cold out here."
"This is how my father died."
I allowed myself to be taken back inside, where I sat in the corner. I was starting to sober up and everything that had happened which seem innocuous now seemed inflated to a terrifying degree, my friends patience for my behaviour so patient and tolerant. I wanted to cry from embarassment and gratitude.
I left as soon as the first buses were running in the morning, caught a train home and climbed into bed. I weighed on my conscience for the next year. The next time I saw the friend whose house it had been and told him what I remembered he laughed and told me he had hardly any recollection of the night, and no idea I'd been sick.
All in all, not my finest hour. But I think I learned a lot from that experience.
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