Life isn’t easy. Throughout it you will be tested by various obstacles that must be overcome in order to prevail. Sometimes life will test you by giving you 20 beers and 6 mind erasers in a day and it’s at that moment that you have to make a decision what to do. You run with it (if you know me you’ll like that pun). When running it’s important not to trip and fall but there will be pitfalls along the way, specifically a sidewalk. If you do happen to fall, it’s not surprising that you can chip 5 of your teeth and rip off your lip which in turn caused you to go to ER on a Saturday and get 13 stitches so they can try to put you back together again. You’ll also need to get your dentist from his family at 7pm to fix your teeth while your actually wearing the same shoes you woke up in, which are in fact covered with blood. An oral surgeon even has to break, yes break, one of you teeth by pushing this instrument as hard as he can into your tooth and the cracking sound and pain is not at all fun (it actually doesn’t hurt because of the Novocaine). These things are all part of a normal person’s life which we all should be aware of.

However it’s how you come out of the situation that makes you a better person. So what do you do? Well you obviously go down the shore for a 2 week bender to prove that you learned absolutely nothing. You bob and weave your way through person after person telling them that you’re a changed man and it’ll never happen again, but little do they know the truth. After you’ve had as much fun as you can physically handle, your body is not a happy camper. It fights back pretty much making you a walking zombie. You’ll be dehydrated constantly, cramping up in the unbearable heat, headaches, insomnia, can’t eat a meal, everything to make you feel like death is upon you. But wait a second, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. After 4 days of complete sobriety, the alcohol dependency begins to fade and you once again almost return to your normal self. You scoff at what just happened reminding yourself that you are too hard to let these speed bumps slow you down. The fact that you have to chew with the right side of your mouth for 3 months is easily achievable. Your lip actually heals back to a normal looking lip which is a miracle of modern science and the human body in a mere 3 weeks. You’ve chipped about a quarter of your upper teeth by the time you are 26, but no one can tell the difference. You actually can’t really bite your nails anymore and can’t get in any fights where the person is viable to punch you in the mouth, it’s way too expensive at this point. You have survived and will move on because there are plenty of things that could have been much worse. You aren’t really sure if there is anyone looking over you, but miraculously from all the stupid things you’ve done, over such a long time, you might actually believe someone is wanting you to do something with your life. You really wonder how you can be so lucky for being so reckless.

I’m sure this is no surprise but that you, is me. It’s hard to really grasp what I put myself through unless you actually do it, and I don’t recommend it. It’s costly, painful, not aesthetic, a nuisance, and a good ice breaker followed by a bad turn down. I have made it out alive though with pretty much everything fully intact and I will be able to live a normal life again. I have mixed feelings on how I’m going to proceed as stupid as I am. The smartest approach is obviously to quit drinking cold turkey but that would mean I’d have to get a place by myself and pretty much live a normal life and try to settle down. The other approach is to try to limit my drink intake but that would never work because based on the story above, I might not be so good at it. Or just continue as I have since college. Part of me knows that I’m shortchanging myself and that without alcohol I would be a better human being. I would have more money, no health issues, and most likely just win in life. Yet even re-reading that last sentence… where do I find my amusement? Let’s take some examples.