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When you’re in college, you drink. It’s kind of a rule of life, a rite of passage. And since it is likely the first time you’re drinking while wholly unsupervised, with no risk of getting busted by your parents, you’ll probably drink to excess. One night, you’ll take that excess beyond the furthest reaches of your consciousness and wake up the following morning with only vague memories of the night before.
Then you start to get older. You graduate college. You get your first job, or maybe decide to go to grad school. But in all likelihood, your drinking habits will remain unchanged throughout your early years of post-grad life. Blacking out on a Thursday night and slogging through a Friday morning sales call sucks, but you learn, knock down some Gatorade, and bounce back. While your boss is probably less than thrilled with you, you’re living your early 20s to the fullest. Eventually, however, you hit the quarter-century mark. 25 years old. And then there’s no getting around the fact that you’re an adult.
You’re at that age when more and more of your friends start discussing marriage, kids, and a mortgage. A week-long bender in Cabo, or a full day at the racetrack getting day drunk, doesn’t seem as exciting as it did when you were 22. I mean, you’ll still go because it’s going to be fun, but you’re now acutely aware of the monster waiting around the corner.
The hangover. Once you hit 25, your body begins to break down. Binge drinking all weekend is no longer something that can be shrugged off with a morning in bed chugging water. When you hit 25, you simply cannot drink so much that you black out all the time. This is not an admonishment; this is a PSA. Such excessive drinking will set your body and schedule back for days, something you cannot afford as a goddamn adult. Let these rules guide those of you other older, weary travelers, for those rare occasions you decide to get–as the youths say–turnt.
You may never blackout when you’re going to be driving.
I’m willing to cut some flexibility when it comes to the other rules on this list, but on this, there is no wiggle room. You can NEVER drive if you’ve been drinking to excess. You shouldn’t drive even if you’ve been drinking to comfort, and this rule does apply to our younger readers as well, but for now, I’m going to focus on you older folks. You’re a goddamn adult, which means you should know your limits when it comes to alcohol. More importantly, it means that you should be able to keep yourself in check when drinking to make sure you don’t exceed those limits.
If you’re planning on going hard tonight, you will not drive. If you’re going somewhere that you think could result in you going hard, you will not drive there. Have a friend DD, take an Uber, take a Lyft, take the bus, hell, take a cab if you have to. Driving while intoxicated is one of the stupidest decisions you can make.
Now, if you had not planned on going hard, and drove to a party or bar, but the devil on your shoulder works his magic to get you drunk, you still have no excuse. I don’t care if you have to leave your car in a bad area of town, walk 30 miles in the freezing snow, you are not driving home. Ask the bartender for help. Hell, even ask a nearby cop for help. Is there the risk you might have to spend the night in the drunk tank? Sure. But I guarantee you that cop will go easy on you considering you prevented him from possibly having to scrape your car off the side of the road.
So in conclusion, do not drive when you’re going for a possible blackout night. The only possible reason I could accept is— TRICK QUESTION THERE IS NO EXCUSE DO NOT FUCKING DO IT.
You may blackout once every three months.
I already hear you crying out in protest, but this isn’t me talking, it’s science. After 25, the frequency of your blackouts will begin to echo off of each other, intensifying in nature. Blacking out in such close proximity so frequently will cause your entire existence to become one long, drunken haze. You have to space out your weekends of going hard, lest you live a life where you cannot risk stopping drinking for fear that the cumulative hangover might literally kill you.
The good news here is, unlike your PTO, these blackout days do roll over. So if you don’t have an occasion to get lit in Q1, you can save it for your buddy’s Vegas bachelor party and still have one in the chamber for an impromptu day at a NASCAR race a few weeks later. Also, this does not mean you can’t drink without blacking out every weekend, I’m not a complete monster. But, generally, give yourself enough lag time between your bouts of excess drinking, and allow your battered liver to recover just enough that it’s prepared to handle your next college reunion weekend.
Blacking Out on the Following Holidays Does Not Count
The previous rule notwithstanding, there are four holidays where you are always allowed, even encouraged, to drink to the point of blacking out. They are:
– Halloween
– St. Patrick’s Day
– 4th of July
– New Years Eve
Some might complain about the inclusion of St. Patrick’s Day and NYE, and the exclusion of classics like Cinco de Mayo, Christmas, Thanksgiving Eve, or Arbor Day. But the four listed above are the stereotypical drinking days. As much as you might protest, there will inevitably be parties and gatherings on these days, with ample opportunities to drank. So, these are given as free spaces, not to count to your quarterly allowance. As for Christmas, well it runs afoul of our next rule.
You may never blackout in front of your boss.
Christmas doesn’t make the list because I cannot, in good conscience, put out a green light to drink your best drinking life at the office Christmas party. It’s too risky to get hammered and uncage the beast inside of you around anyone with the power to fire you. A good rule of thumb for office parties is to always stay within one drink of your boss, either one fewer or one more than him. He’s your pace car for the evening, stay vigilant.
This rule also applies to business trips, conferences, client outings, or anything where “corporate” will be in attendance. I’d also highly recommend that you avoid blackouts within one week of any major speaking engagement, presentation, or pitch. If it was important enough to need a week or more prep time, you should not risk blowing that work because your buddy Johnny is in town. Keep it under 60 with Johnny, and go hard next weekend.
You may not blackout at home or alone.
Drinking alone is not only a classic sign of alcoholism, it’s pretty sad. What’s even sadder, though, is squandering one of those few allotted blackout nights by spending it inside alone. Blackout nights are meant for overcoming your social anxieties, random hookups, or forgetting your troubles. Not wallowing while watching Netflix alone.
You may not blackout within 24 hours of major travel.
Read any of the Worst Weekend tales. 75% of these conclude with “I’m nursing a wicked hangover with a six-hour flight in front of me.” As someone who hates traveling, this would be the seventh circle of hell, but for everyone else, this is still just a rough proposition. Travelling, by air, train, or car, while hungover is difficult at any stage of life, but after 25 it’s borderline impossible. Curing a hangover at this age requires minimal movement, constant care, and isolation. Travelling provides none of these. Make sure you leave yourself a full twelve-hour window to recover before any flight or car ride longer than three hours.
Your blackout night is the only night it is acceptable to do shots.
Shots are an integral part of your youthful drinking repertoire, as they’re the cheapest, fastest, and easiest way to get your BAC up. When you’re 21, you’ll tolerate blanching at the taste of tequila if it means you’ll get drunk. At 26, though, that price isn’t worth it. Instead, you’ll be able to afford alcohol that actually tastes good, and you’ll want to drink it in a way that isn’t pumping it past your tastebuds quicker than an Ovechkin slapper beating the goalie. Over 25, shots are generally a risky proposition. Except on your blackout night.
This night is your cheat day, where you can live your best drinking life. That’s not going to include nice wines or liquors, except perhaps at the beginning of the evening. This night is about being with friends, getting sloppy, and forgetting all your troubles. Shots are not only permitted on this night, they’re downright mandatory. After all, the only way my 29-year old ass could possibly tolerate downing a shot of vodka is if my body is already so numb that the taste won’t phase me.
You must prep your blackout.
As mentioned above, a blackout requires a fair amount of care to recover from at our advanced age. Since you’re an adult, and an adult is prepared, you will have your house equipped to nurse you back to health the morning after a blackout. This doesn’t mean you have to raid the CVS nearby like the zombie apocalypse has started before your Friday night out, but it does mean that your house is generally stocked with the necessities: water, some form of electrolyte-loaded beverage, whatever your particular hangover cure food is, aspirin, coffee, smelling salts, a priest to perform your last rites, whatever you need to recover.
It also means that you’re going to bring the essentials for your night out, including cash, a tracker for your phone and/or wallet, and (ahem) protection. The goal here is to mitigate the fallout tomorrow when you’re lying off the side of your bed praying for the sweet embrace of death to relieve this pounding headache. The knowledge that you that you can easily find that which you lost, didn’t make any massively life-altering mistakes the night before, and that you have the tools to make the road to recovery a smooth one is all we’re going for with these rules.
You’re an adult. Adults can blackout, but they also have their shit together enough that they’ll be able to make it into work on Monday with their lives still intact. .
Respond
@joshetyler
@joshetyler
You lost me at drinking alone is sad. Categorically incorrect.
If slamming an entire bottle of wine alone while playing Skyrim is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.
Just installed a decent graphics card (something I’ve been wanting to do for years) and I’m gonna do nothing this weekend but play Witcher 3, pound G&Ts, and coordinate with my fiancee on delivery options. Drinking alone isn’t sad, drinking alone while sad is sad.
Nice! Are you playing with triple monitor surround?
I am playing with one 1080p monitor and a shitty portable speaker. Baby steps.
Honestly felt personally attacked by that one.
Side note: I’ve switched to reverse screw drivers, the hangovers are not so bad!
It’s not drinking alone if your dog is there.
or if you’re pregnant
Does a food baby belly count?
This is way too many rules when it comes to drinking, at any age.
Name checks out
Browning out is much more acceptable on a much more frequent level. I’m talking like 3 days per week because life is tough and it’s all just a game so why not make playing it fun because if you don’t, it basically like living in The Sims but way longer lol
A wise college friend put it like this: you should drink to become happier, not to become happy. Blacking out to forget your troubles falls a little closer to the latter than the former.
Every milestone or life event, whether good or bad, should be treated the same way. By getting extremely drunk.
I’ll drink pretty heavily by myself every once in a while, I refer to it as “hitting the reset button”
Usually turns into “hitting the send button” on messages to exes.
flashbacks to last night on this one. yikes.
Wrong. Fake news.
Have to disagree with the major travel rule. On multiple occasions I have blacked out the night before a 6 or 7 am flight only to come to as my plane is landing safely in my destination city.
Congratulations. You’ve unlocked teleportation.
One Xanax and two small bottles of wine turned a 16 hour flight from Australia into a 1 hour flight.
Thought about doing this, but I’m scared of flying and if my plane is going down, I want to be awake and alert for those sweet final moments of life. Might have to suck it up though and try it on my flight to London in the spring. Not looking forward to those 12 hours.
Not if you land in the ocean off the coast of Australia. You’re straight up going to be devoured by saltwater crocodiles, great whites, or both.
I’ve been thinking about this for the past day and it’s still giving me second-hand anxiety
Totally disagree about shot. It’s not black and white – you can take shots and not black out. By 25 I would assume that you’ve learned how to drink and pace yourself. If you’re out drinking for 3 hours and take 6 shots over that span, you should be fine. A shot has as much alcohol as a beer so as long as you wait a bit in between them you’ll be fine.
Gonna disagree with you. The only reason one would take shots was to save money / fight their extreme tolerance. Most people over 25 don’t have these problems (for the most part). I can get plenty drunk actually enjoying my alcohol rather than pounding it.
My only exception is a beer and a shot order at a dive to start the night, because it is a power move that establishes street cred
People over 25 don’t have to worry about saving money? At 25 most people are barely starting their career, if they are even out of school yet. Gtfo
Honestly, I take shots for two reasons: I want to avoid sugary mixed drinks because sugar makes hangovers much worse and I get really full really quickly from mixed drinks/beer. If I have more than 3 beers, I’m going to be really full and not want to drink any more so I’ll spend the rest of the night sober. With shots, I can avoid that and enjoy the heavenly drunken meal of a bacon cheeseburger and curly fries.
Also, when doing shots, I avoid shitty liquor because the days of taking shots of Vodka of the Gods or Prestige are best left for 19 year-old Bill Nye. A shot of Ketel One at most bars around here will cost about as much as a beer, if not more.
Oh man, Vodka of the Gods definitely had it out for me when I was 19, though I was mixing it with Tang instead of doing shots.
Shots of vodka seem very agressive, especially when you live in the best city in the country to find Fernet. Acceptable, tasty shot, and I am not sure if I ever saw it for more than $5 in SF.
He’s Russian. It’s instinct to him
Correct.
People over 25 don’t have “extreme tolerance”? Are you still in college?
There are plenty of other reasons to take shots… to celebrate, to kick off the night in unison with your friends, to get another drink in quickly while you’re closing out your tab to head to the next bar…
Proactively having a blackout prep kit is either a sure sign of being totally out of control, or a sign of being irrevocably washed. I just can’t figure out which.