The Narrative Arc of my Drinking Career

October 11, 2005 by David Blackman

High School: I somehow failed to start drinking alcohol during high school. My friends started drinking at the beginning of senior year, progressing steadily towards the stylish alcoholism that comes only with being a private school kid. I was too busy studying for SAT IIs and writing college essays in order to get into a good school where I could begin drinking.

Unfortunately, by the time the Big Envelope showed up from Stanford, my friends had long surpassed me in the substance abuse curriculum, making it all the way to experimental unnamed drugs purchased over the Internet and delivered in boxes with no return addresses. Seeing no chance of catching up with them, I started hanging out with a bunch of straight-edge theater dorks.

The first drink I ever had was liquid cocaine -- vodka and red bull -- a lethal concoction that had me grabbing a friend's boob in front of her conservative Indian mother by the end of the night. When I came home that night, my parents asked me, "Of all the things to drink, what possessed you to drink that?"

Freshman Year: I made one of the worst mistakes of my already regret-filled life. I didn't touch alcohol for the entire year. Four years ago, when fun was still holding on thanks to an iron lung financed jointly by Kappa Sig and Synergy, it was tradition for sophomore alums from all-frosh dorms to show up completely trashed, smash a few lounge windows and roll in a keg.

These kids scared the crap out of me. I thought they were going to eat me. I locked myself in my room and when the previous year's occupants knocked, I told them I didn't live there and slammed the door. I was a sniveling loser and an idiot.

Freshmen, if you are planning on drinking at any point during your Stanford career, learn to do it as a freshman. Surprisingly enough, many of the people around you didn't drink much in high school either and need to learn to hold their liquor like everyone else. This education usually involves showing up to intimidating parties, watching beer trickle out of a keg until someone older and wiser pumps the tap, getting lost near the GSB, pissing behind a tree (guys), wishing you could piss behind a tree (girls), running from the PoPo and puking. These are all much more pleasant and forgivable offenses if done in groups as a bonding activity.

Sophomore Year: I learned to drink. This momentous occasion occurred during Full Moon on the Quad. In my drunken state, I was convinced that my old opinions editor was trying to hook up with me. I believed this because that night, she told every member of The Daily's staff that she was looking for me. When I was unable to find her, I ran around telling people that my roommate was trying to hook up with another Daily chick, which was only partially true, and everyone ended the night sad and lonely. Days later, when I finally did find her, she told me she was just messing with my head. This set a tone for the rest of the year.

Junior Year: I was staff in an all-frosh dorm, so of course, in an effort to set an example for my residents I didn't touch the sauce all year.

Which is a lie, but it sounds nice. This year included the most awkward experience I've ever had involving alcohol, and occurred, oddly enough, with my mother. Since my father stopped drinking decades ago, my mother has been without a drinking buddy in the family -- so she was excited at the prospect of trying new flavors and brands of hard alcohol with me, after she'd gotten over her initial fit of laughter during which she called my liquor cabinet a collection of "old man drinks." Around New Year's, we bought a bunch of airplane bottles of liquor and went home to mix drinks. College binge drinking does not prepare you for nursing a Rum and Coke with your mother. Worse, when she poured a shot of Grey Goose vodka, she began to sip it, and then handed it to me. At which point I took the shot. "Why did you do that?" she asked. "What else did you expect me to do?" I replied. "I don't know, but not that." Then I went out clubbing.

Summer Interlude: During my summer internship a few months ago, I attempted to party on work nights and still show up coherent the next day. I would quit work at 6 p.m., drive to Santa Clara, drink gin and tonics while watching "Family Guy," crash on a couch, sleep five hours, wake up, drive home, shower, change and go to work. When I observed that this experiment was failing, I compensated by picking up an addiction to incredibly acidic, burnt coffee. I discovered that the brown stuff gives me fierce jitters, but it was better than falling asleep in meetings with senior vice presidents. By the end of the summer, I was so exhausted that I was incapable of having fun. Some would argue these two things had nothing to do with each other.

Senior Year: I began to worry that perhaps I was an alcoholic, not that there's anything wrong with that -- it's not alcoholism until you graduate, and its not unacceptable until you're pushing 30. To test if this was the case, a friend and I devised a test. It went like this -- one Saturday, both our houses were throwing progressives, and we resolved not to drink at either of them. I baked cookies for mine, drank some orange juice and said a short prayer to Ralph Castro, thanking him for pointing out that vodka doesn't make a Screwdriver taste good (though I don't believe he has ever attempted to make a Mojito sans rum). This led to many holier-than-thou conversations in which I was offered a drink and had to say "Nope, testing to see if I'm an alcoholic," making for a terrible Saturday night -- which isn't to say one can't have fun when one isn't drinking, just that one can't have fun sober when every else is rowdy and drunk. (See "Freshman Year"). But, we proved to ourselves we weren't alcoholics, which has given us carte blanche to drink as much and as absurdly as we've wanted since then. The highlight of this so far has been nursing Amaretto Sours over a broken heart and cheese sticks at Stern's Cyber Cafe late one Tuesday night, an informal re-induction of my friend into the Sad Men's Club.

Dear Mom, I'm not an alcoholic. Love, Dave. P.S. If you're really concerned, you can reach me at blackmad@stanford.edu.

Dear Mom, I'm not an alcoholic. Love, Dave. P.S. If you're really concerned, you can reach me at blackmad@stanford.edu.