The Alcohol Induced Blackout

I was able to make the Seinfeld post in about 10 minutes yesterday.  As I feel I’ve gotten better at blogging, the length of time to create each post has increased to sometimes over an hour per post.  I need to spend that much time on each post if I want to continue to raise this blog’s bar.  Needless to say, to me at least, I haven’t been putting time into posting these past few days for reasons which I will explain in this also not stellar post.

On Saturday, after my awesome Friday, I was feeling pretty hyped for the Eagles game.  The plan was to go out to Center City and watch the games with the local crowd.  It was around 3 and I put 100 bucks of action on the Chiefs feeling pretty pumped about the layout of the day.  I bought a fifth of Goose and headed over Evan’s.  I incorrectly thought to myself that it makes sense to get a nice buzz before the bar so I don’t have to spend as much cash because Center City bars can add up over hours.  I downed 2 Goose and pineapple juice and headed to the bar with Evan, the Shee, Jeff, and Julia to meet up with the McGrath’s and other people we know.  If you saw the game on Saturday you’d know that Chiefs lost a thriller to the Colts.  My plan was to place the winnings on the Eagles if I won so this actually wasn’t as unfortunate as it seemed.  We were pounding pitchers of Lager at a bar called O’Sheas.  I recall doing one shot of Fireball and preparing for the game to start and then everything went blank.

I woke up in my bed the next morning unsure if the Eagles won or not.  I had slept on all my clothes that I had laid out on my bed from the wash the previous day and thought, “what the fuck happened?”  I was searching my brain for some recollection of anything and I’ll I could come up with was some Eagles chants led by Steve and the Fly Eagles Fly song.  It was in my mind the Eagles didn’t win but I could hardly remember watching any actual action.  Since I’m not a noob to this situation which closely resembles The Hangover, I started searching for clues.  No injuries, check.  One text saying, “where are you?.   American Express card in the actual money portion of the wallet instead of its slot and 0 dollars in my wallet.  It could be worse.  It was 12 pm and I couldn’t move so I watched the Negotiator for a bit before making myself move.   I contacted Evan and told him I was coming over to retrieve my car which I left parked in his lot which is the safe play.  I took a taxi over and asked, “what happened last night?”

He said I didn’t come out to the bar after the game and that was it.  Nothing irregular.  Now I was stumped.  I’ve been in these situations before and they rarely ever, perhaps never, work out this well.  When I can’t piece 3+ hours of my life together, bad things happen.  This was indeed a memory blackout which is the inability to recall events, not a loss of consciousness as a result of drinking too much.  I’ve gone through my 20’s blacking out more times than I can count and for the past year or two I’ve done a much better job of leaving the bar or party before reaching this point.  This feeling is completely unsettling.  I did learn one thing from Evan though that I hadn’t known, he told me we did at least 4 shots together.  I remembered 0.

At Evan’s, we watched some of the game (which is incredibly slow compared to RedZone) and I left after the first game.  I ate a Wawa club sandwich and drank a coffee before I headed home.  At this point I felt like complete poop and started chugging water to help reduce this horrific feeling.  Over and over in mind I tried to piece together things I said or did but it’s like a black hole.  The above picture isn’t a joke, you literally move from one place to the next with no concept of time.  I laid in bed the rest of the night and went to sleep feeling lousy.

The next morning I awoke with a dry mouth and completely cranky for a Monday.  I read online that this was the worst day of the year for most people because the holidays were over and it’s winter and a new start to work.  I agreed.  Throughout the day I continued to chug water but it was to no avail.  I would drink a bottle and then have to take a piss 10 minutes later.  This is the effect of too much alcohol in your system and your kidneys still trying to recover.   Your body doesn’t get hydrated by water.  There is nothing to do other than tough it out.  I probably urinated a dozen times throughout the day trying to hydrate.  I was tired the entire day and when night came I wanted to sleep but the alcohol fucks with your system and makes you fatigued but actual sleep is difficult.  I caught a few hours off and on and when I woke up today I felt slightly better.  My mouth was (is) still dry but at least I know I’m feeling more like myself.  I was able to navigate the day and get to where I am now.

I write this post to explain the dangers of drinking too much and the physical aftermath of blacking out.  I’ve had previous instances of blacking out and doing substantial damage to myself.  For the past few years I’ve done a much better job of not getting myself in those situations but last Saturday was a clear cut hazardous situation.  The absolute amazing thing is that the people I was with for those few hours weren’t exactly aware that I was black out drunk.  They said I was acting drunk obviously but nothing out of the ordinary which shows that you can be black out drunk and still be actively conscious.  To me this is incredible.  After this instance I read a reddit post on blacking out and a poster said to think of your body as a water pail and filling it up with water.  Once the water (alcohol) overflows the pail, your body starts shutting down the less important functions such as memory.   I still am in shock that nothing happened and am expecting a bomb of news any time.

It’s a potentially fatal way to live life.  When I throw hard alcohol into the mix, I ask for trouble.  I rarely throw up from the alcohol anymore and my body just handles it which means I am more likely to black out.  This obviously has me considering why I drink and it’s an age old question for me.  Completely cold turkey is the only way.  My character and genetics don’t allow me to have 2 drinks and call it a night.  I may be fine 100 times in a row but at any one time alcohol can be treacherous.  Does this mean that I’ll stop completely?  Probably not.  I know that sounds ridiculous after reading this post but this post isn’t just about me.  It’s about any single person who this happens to and it happens to millions throughout the year.  By posting this I hope to educate the process of how it happens and the aftermath.  If you encounter someone who can’t take care of themselves, getting them to safety is crucial, drunk accidents are no joke.  Trust me, I know.

It took me 3 straight days to recover from this and I’m still not 100%.  Tomorrow though I should feel normal and return to actively posting.  I honestly can’t think properly under these conditions.  It affects my entire life negatively.