As I returned the keg bought for my 21st birthday celebration, I started thinking back on a more innocent time in my life. Instead, a younger, wide-eyed, completely impressionable version of me popped into my head. I thought back on the first time I got really, really drunk.Flash back to the end of my sophomore year in high school, the Year of our Lord 1999. A family friend who had finished up her first year in college was visiting, and by golly, she had a fake ID. After seemingly endless begging and pleading, I managed to convince her to buy me a fifth of vodka. She made me promise to be responsible with it. Too bad-at 14, my word was worth even less than the cheap vodka she bought.

She drove me and a couple of my friends to a movie theater later that day to meet a bunch of her friends. Using a Capri Sun as a chaser, I killed almost the entire fifth of vodka on the way to the movie theater. Hilarity ensued.

The first person I had the pleasure of meeting was the best friend of this girl I had a huge crush on. Apparently-and I was never told this before-alcohol lowers your inhibitions. Completely uninhibited, I said some of the most foul things I have ever uttered about my crush to her best friend. Thank God her father never found out that his daughter was talked about in such a manner.

Then it was time for the movie to start, and being the champion that I am, I almost made it through the previews before hurling up my guts all over the theater. And I have news for Hansel and Gretel... I found a much more efficient way to leave a trail than breadcrumbs.

Had you followed my trail, it would have led out to the parking lot, where my friends had the pleasure of tending to me for the next couple hours. I cried a bit, told them what great friends they were: "like, you're so great, no seriously, you guys are like, the greatest friends ever." I recited the musings of one of the great street poets of our time, Mr. Snoop Dogg, in an ungodly rendition of "Gin and Juice," to which, had you asked me sober, I was unaware I knew the lyrics. All of this was interspersed with ceaseless yakking. Or that's what my friends told me, at least.

Then things got weird. An older woman found my worthless, puking carcass leaning against a car in the parking lot. She wanted to know what was wrong with the poor boy. My friends told her that we had gone out for sushi and that had I seafood poisoning. She burst into tears.
"My mother died of seafood poisoning!" she screamed as she tried to force me into our car. "Get him to a hospital!" What are the chances?

We ignored her. On the way home I had to stop several times to be thrown out of the car to vomit on the side of the road. One time I even tried to slug a little yippy dog that was barking in my face during this very vulnerable time in my life.

When we got back to my house, my friends stripped me naked and threw me in the shower, which was exactly how my parents found me. There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth. I spent the next afternoon in a psychiatrist's office.

We agreed that I was headed down a dangerous path, that alcohol should be consumed in moderation, and when I do drink, it should be of a higher quality than the fire-piss I had that night. The night should never be about getting drunk.

Fast forward to my 15th shot on my 21st birthday, the last one I can remember from that night. It was about that time the birthday cake was smashed in my face. I spent the rest of the night begging for healing potion, which in contemporary terms means water. After shot 21, I had zero body control and was again puking like I had seafood poisoning. It took four of my friends to carry me home, and I urinated in my bed multiple times that night. Yes, in fact, shame is an emotion I'm incapable of feeling.

So what's the point of this article? Perhaps it's that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Or maybe I'm trying to discourage people from calling BEMCo the second a drunk kid throws up-the human body is much more resilient than you think. Perhaps it's just a "thank you" to my pall bearers who were good enough friends to carry my worthless ass home. Or how about this: Alcohol is a beautiful thing, kids. Although potentially dangerous and embarrassing, getting sloppy is a beautiful thing, kids. Embrace drunken debauchery at any age.