COMPLETE AND TOTAL BARF-O-RAMA

This is an old blog that I had originally posted on MySpace (originally dated 07.25.05), but decided to repost it here because it was good. Enjoy!

Listen to me, my fellow apes. Alcohol is EVIL! I have had some bad experiences with alcohol, but this weekend took the proverbial cake. Usually, if I get sick to the point of vomiting due to a massive ingestion of alcohol, the time before the evacuation is memorable, funny, and generally silly. Those are times when everyone is in a drunken stupor that can be enjoyed by all. Nothing life-changing is said or done, but while intelligence is lowered, passion, charisma, and confidence are raised. This makes for fun times that a few sober folks can moderate. A party this past Saturday at a friend's house could have been great. It could have involved my rants coming off the page in a sane order and being spewed in English at everyone present. Instead, four whisky and Coke's (heavy on the whisky, mind you) in about two hours sent hot political, religious, and spiritual debate over my friend's backyard deck in warm orange spurts.

It's bad enough to get sick when you drink, but I was violently sick. Everyone was outside on the deck drinking, smoking, and talking. Welfare, the Bush administration, military funding, God, paganism, and federal taxes were among the subjects that kept coming up throughout the evening and into the night. My personal views were being expressed quite well a few times, but as my intoxication increased, my sense decreased. I may have been converted to a new religion at some point that night. I can't be sure. After a while, people started leaving and a core group of about five of us was left. We eventually decided to go in because it was fucking hot outside. I'm sure that had something to do with my heightened drunken state. I brought my last drink in with me and finished off the last few swigs. About five minutes later, I stood from my chair and announced my exit.

"I'm gonna go puke." And I was out the back door back onto the deck. I hung over the balcony opposite the back door trying my damnedest to puke up all of the poison in me that was making me feel so terrible. The next few hours were a blur. I remember my glasses and my cigarettes falling off of my person and into the backyard. I remember several voices asking me if I was all right. I remember telling them all that I wasn't. I remember a bottle of ice-cold water. I remember falling to the deck at least twice because my legs wouldn't hold me up. I remember stumbling into the bathroom and ending up on the living room couch an unknown time later. I woke up at 10:30 the next morning with a bottle of Dasani and a large bowl (thankfully sans vomit) on the floor near me. I went to the backyard and found my glasses and my cigarettes and left in a hurry. I wanted to be away from the scene of the crime, I guess you could say. I wondered why my forehead, elbows, and throat all hurt. I had scratches from the deck on my forehead and dirt on my face. My elbows were also scratched from the deck and my shirt was splattered with dirt and a few orange discolored spots. When I realized why my throat hurt, I almost lost it. I remembered the feeling of four of my own fingers prodding the inside of my esophagus. I was so desperate to relieve myself of the sickness that I had been gagging myself. Apparently, I had been doing it so much and so hard that my gag reflex gave up. I had been jamming my fingers literally down my throat only to make myself heave stomach acid up over and over. Have you ever felt the inside of your own throat while you're puking your insides onto you own hand? I do not recommend it. On the drive home I nearly hit two mailboxes. I was no longer drunk, but I was hung over, sick, and trying not to cry in shame. I had done it all to myself.

When I thought back on the conversations of the night before, I became even angrier with myself. Had I not been drunk, I could have actually conveyed my ideas. I stand behind what I believe and would have been able to remain passionate during conversation without the booze. Also, I didn't do anything funny or memorable or crazy as I normally do when I'm drunk. As I said before, I have had some bad times with alcohol, but any other time that I've gotten sick, I could think back and realize that the night before had been fun. As awful as it may have ended, it was fun up until then enough to deal with being hung over. This weekend, that was not the case. The parts when I was getting drunk were not worth the violent vomiting, the hangover that lasted the entire next day, and the tone of pity in my friends' voices when they asked me if I was okay as I laid in my own puke on the ground.

I may be done with drinking for good this time.