I got completely and totally wasted for the first time...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The long and short of it: I’ve drank in the past, but always in moderation - the point of being buzzed, relaxed, and then stop. I’ve never had any problem with it before.

I was at a college party last night, the second one I’ve been to. We’re at a really high altitude here, so it’s a lot easier to get drunk. I’m a lightweight to begin with. Throw some smoking of various substances into the mix, and I very quickly end up forgetting that I don’t drink to excess.

Luckily, two of my friends either didn’t drink at all or were sober by the time I was beyond drunk; they helped me back to my room and put me to bed. A large part of last night is very blurry, and I woke up feeling like absolute misery this morning.

Question: how do people willingly do that more than once? :frowning: is it really worth it, somehow?

2

Speaking from experience. Getting ‘wasted’ is possibly not something people do for social reasons. They have a problem, an adiction to and/or dependence on alcohol that you don’t have. I was out drinking last night with workmates and because I was with other people I could easily judge my limit and level of anebriation and so I chose a specific time to stop drinking and go home. But when I drink on my own to effectively knock myself out for sleep there is never a moment when I say to myself “That’s enough” as I did when out. I either run out or fall asleep.

I wouldn’t say that I pass out, because I get ready for, and into bed. That’s going to sleep, not passing out.

3

I always wonder that. I’ve only been truly blasted a few times in my life. A few instead of one because sometimes when you’re having fun you forget to take note of how much you’re drinking. But, when that happens it’s always a year or two after the last time because the last time really does scare me off!

I’m not a ‘big’ drinker anyway - I don’t really like the taste of alcohol so generally I don’t drink at all.

4

I meant to say ‘many times’ after ‘wasted’.
The only way it’s ‘worth it’ for me is it’s easier to do than staying sober for bed. (it saves hours of lying in bed turning countless times just waiting for sleep). It’s a convenient way to switch off.

5

One word: shots.

The only time I’ve been truly wasted (as in, vomiting all over myself, my bathroom, my boyfriend, etc. along with passing out) was the first time I did shots. Like many, I am a regulated partaker only, but I can attest to the limited judgement you have in that relaxed state. After a few mixed drinks, I factored in the shots only in a “volume” sense - that is, one drink = about 6 shots. You see the error in my judgement. Since the shots went through me quicker, it all caught up with me at once, and I learned that the room really does spin when you’re wasted.

Anyway, I felt completely foolish (and nauseated, and generally terrible) the next day from - you guessed it - sheer lack of judgement. My guess is that some people honestly don’t take into consideration how just one drink can affect their judgement. Of course, if they really wanted to avoid it, they wouldn’t drink at all. But I can understand occassionally drinking too much and having it catch up with them, once enough time has passed to remember how miserable they really were.

6

I’ve gotten completely hammered about two or three times and have yet to suffer any ill affects from it. True, I did wind up puking on two of those occasions and was feeling particularly tired and a little worse for wear the day after the other but I’ve never had a hangover or what I would consider a bad experience from drinking so there’s the possibility that some others like me are out there that just don’t suffer many ill effects.

Luckily for me, I’m tight with money and I just don’t like the taste of alcohol enough to drink to excess too much so I doubt very seriously I will ever have a problem with it despite my apparent ease of use.

7

I used to get wasted in college and it was a blast. Some of the best nights I had were when me and my buddies were drunk. Now, I have maybe 2-3 drinks once a month. My gf and I did get pretty drunk in Vegas last month playing nickel slots 'till 7 in the morning - and that was a great time. But before that, I haven’t been drunk since New Year’s Eve one-and-a-half years ago.

8

I’m wondering the same thing… The one and only time I’ve been utterly plastered was this past New Year’s Eve. I just… didn’t stop drinking, and I made a complete ass out of myself (the short version: I had my first and only so far girl-on-girl makeout session with a chick I’d just met, and I spent a large amount of time hitting on and groping the 18-year-old-little brother of the girl who’s been my best friend since first grade). I puked for hours and spent the entire next day (once I pulled myself out of bed at 2:30 pm) feeling like my limbs weren’t attached properly and my head was in a fishbowl. It was NOT fun. Since then, I’ve only been moderately drunk once, on my 21st birthday a month ago, but was sober enough to eat at Denny’s after the bars closed and not throw up at all. So it boggles my mind that there are people who do the drinking-til-you-hurl-and-pass-out thing routinely.

9

I have never been drunk enough to pass out (as opposed to falling asleep and sleeping like the dead) or to lose track of what was happening around me/forget the next morning. Being a young, not-overly-big-or-strong female, doing so is simply dangerous, not just because of the dangers of alcohol poisoning, but also because in the worse case scenarios, someone could take advantage of me.

I think many people enjoy the relaxation they feel after having a few drinks, and basically just don’t know when to quit. That or they are getting wasted to forget about a bad day, zone out, etc. – often warning signs that they shouldn’t be drinking at all.

My roommate recently related a story to me about how at a party she passed out on the couch once, having had too much to drink. When she woke up, she had welts all over her body. Turns out some of the guys at the party thought it’d be a blast to run around and zap girls with tasers and stun guns.

10

Well, I think I can speak with a modest bit of experience. I don’t party…wooo hooo. etc. But I do drink a lot one night every one to two weeks. The deal is: you don’t start out thinking you’re going to get so wasted that you’re going to hate life in the morning. Once it is too late, you don’t care because you are out of it. You don’t even think about it at that point. The key: yes, you have thoughts of quitting when you are in the “feel like death the next morning mode.” You swear to whomever that you will quit drinking…and you truly believe this. But when it goes away, everything is ok again. Then your rational, logical mind tells you that thinking about quitting was plain crazy.

Then why start drinking at all, if you know what it leads to? Well, I guess that’s the mystical nature of addiction.

11

I don’t have any idea why people do that, either. I’ve had so much to drink that I vomited on three separate occasions. All three times were a mistake - the first, I was a freshman in high school and had never had more than a few sips of wine or beer, so I didn’t really know how much I could drink without getting sick. Second time was in college, and I became drunk enough that basically forgot how much I had already had and kept right on drinking. The third time it happened, I had just graduated from college and had people over to my apartment. We were doing tequila shots while watching Evil Dead 2. I was sent to bed after I began speaking in Spanish without realizing it, then later woke myself up by barfing on myself. I was completely disgusted and ashamed of myself all three times, and felt like hell all day after each incident.

After how sick and just completely stupid I felt each time I did that, I can’t imagine why anyone would do that on purpose on a regular basis.

12

Hmm…I think it must be more fun if you can clearly remember it…so much of last night is vague at best for me. And I distinctly remember kissing someone, and while my friends who were sober assure me that absolutely nothing more happened along those lines, they won’t tell me who. :smack:

13

Having a clear memory of what you’ve done definitely adds to your enjoyment but, again, I seem to be one of the weird few that doesn’t lose large portions of their memory when drunk. Four months after my last couple binges, I still specifically remember more about those nights than I do most of the ones after them.

14

I did this sort of thing to myself several times, but it taught me where my limits are. Although I rarely drink more than a few drinks, when I do I can better gauge my level of drunkeness and decide when to stop. Although I might still feel a bit rough the next day, it’s never the “room spinning, praying to the porcelain god” sort of thing.

A lot is knowing how to pace your drinking. Many young people drink as much as they can, as fast as they can, with predictable results. If they drank the same amount over several hours, while eating and keeping hydrated, they’d have a much better time.

Alchohol is many things to many people and if you’re going to use it, you need to learn your limits and play safe.

15

Only two weeks? :smiley:

Next up: sleeping through an entire class, failing a test and getting into an argument with a prof over a grade, in that order. :smiley:

16

I think the main thing I screwed up with was the pacing…very stupid, really. I know that I can not drink much to begin with without getting drunk (what with being five feet tall and about a hundred pounds…), but I basically chugged a beer, didn’t feel anything right at first, and so was like, hey, I’ll have more.

Then - wham. Stumbling around, making a total ass of myself drunk. Another part of it is the altitude: drinking at 7 or 8 thousand feet is way different than at sea level. I don’t know why (something to do with red blood cells, I believe…). Anyway, you get the same effect with a lot less. THe speed with which and the amount I drank last night would’ve likely been too much for me at sea level.

I didn’t puke, though. Wanted to, but didn’t.

I think I’ve scared myself straight. I really, really, really don’t like not having clear memory of what happened.

17

Hey, don’t worry about it.

I consider myself an experienced drinker. I spent the last year and a half partying as an exchange student, so I had a pretty high tolerance level for a while there. I would usually start out any given night with two liters of beer and would probably drink about two more over the course of the night. I would start abound 6 maybe until 3 Am or so, so it wasn’t really that bad. That would get me pretty drunk, but never in a bad way. I may have stumbled over my German more, and got off balance a few times, but I would never forget what happened nor, would I pass out. See, once you learn how to drink, you learn to pace yourself. Actually I have heard, I am not sure, but after a long time of drinking your brain learns how to handle it and that’s why the more you drink (in the long term) the less it feels like you are drunk, but you actually are. I am not talking about tolerance, or your body’s ability to process the actual alcohol, but your brain’s ability to cope with a given BAC. The first time you get drunk will probably make you sick, if you do it wrong, and you’ll feel totally wasted. After a couple of years of partying you tend to not feel like that until you get really drunk. This is just my very unscientific observations. If any really smart guy who knows what they are talking about comes along, feel free to correct me, or point out that I don’t know what the hell I am talking about, but this is my own theory.

Don’t diss drinking until you learn how to do it right. As a general rule for most novice drinkers, stick with beer. Its a lot harder to get into trouble with beer than it is with anything over 5 percent alcohol. Sometimes if you have started drinking directly after eating (within 5 minutes) it seems a lot harder to get drunk. I say this from my own experience, because I can never seem to fit anymore in my stomach, because the food is all mixed with the food, and it never seems to go anywhere. If your stomach is empty it sort of just gets absorbed.

If you learn to like beer (trust me its possible) you will open yourself up to a wonderful world of fine products that are relatively cheap. Compare fine beers to wines. I would argue that there is just as much diversity in the world’s beers as there is in wine, but you’ll almost never pay more than 5 dollars for a beer, whereas a bottle of wine can go up to thousands of dollars.

Its damn near impossible for me to get drunk off of Guiness because its so thick, with the same alcohol content of Budweiser. But here’s a hint. Stay away from the 10 percent belgian beers. They will tear you up!

But drinking responsibly can be fun. Its not about forgetting things, its about enhancing the fun. If you can drink without feeling sick the next day and without doing anything stupid the night before, then its not such a bad thing. Of course if you drink enough you will feel it in the morning, but its nothing a good breakfast won’t cure. Eating is your friend against the enemy hangover. If you ever find yourself hung over again, make sure you get something to eat. One thing I did one really bad hangover was eating spaghetti. Just plain noodles. That was easy and made me feel a lot better.

Also you can taper off your drinking as the night progresses. A hangover is bascially a withdrawal symptom. You get the drugs and then you have an abrubt cutoff. If you slow down your drinking as the night progresses you’ll do a lot better. Plus the snack before bed is always a plus. It helps you feel a lot better. One of my favorite things to do was to go eat after a night of partying around 5 Am. I would wake up the next day feeling great.

but

YMMV

18

Heh, I had a class where the professor brought Belgian beer for the students. Ah, college.

19

Social pressure is a major factor. People at a party are encouraged to drink by the other people around them.

20

Any tips? :wink:

I’ve had beer, maybe 4 or 5 times and I simply can’t stand it (I’m a pansy, I know). I can take mixed-drinks easily enough, but beer just doesn’t sit well.

It would be nice though if I could somehow adapt to drinking beer though.