Half empty, or half fool

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WHENEVER I see reports of binge drinking females in the news, I always have a smug little chuckle to myself, and think ‘thank goodness I’m not as bad as that’.
After my shenanigans of last weekend, now I’m not so sure.
No matter how inebriated I have been in the past, I’ve always remembered what I’ve said and done, albeit sometimes with a little help from my equally sorry friends. Mostly, it’s things I’d rather have forgotten.
I’m now faced with the dilemma that there’s still at least two hours and four conversations I know nothing about, and probably never will.
Ten and a half hours of alcohol resulted in my automatic homing device kicking in and me seeing far too much of my newly bought pine toilet seat.
The main culprit of my unsteady demise was the free alcohol laid on at a corporate do, which had a midday kick off. Add to this a heavy lunch, with a side order of school day reminiscence.
If only I’d stayed in the same company for the remainder of the day; I probably would have been home long before I was, but I had a prior engagement with a group who were only cracking open their first refreshments at 9pm.
Instead of thinking, ‘I’d better stop now’, I joined them and continued at their pace, forgetting I already had an eight and a half hour lead on them.
During the evening I discovered beer goggles really do exist. I also tried out lesser known brands of wine goggles, vodka goggles and apple liqueur goggles. I was strutting around with my hair down thinking I looked perfect, when in fact the reality was more like Rick Parfitt.
I never want to feel like that again. Four days later while I am writing this, I’m still feeling the effects.
The morning after the night before, I tried to piece together the jigsaw, ashamed and uncertain about my behaviour. I woke up not knowing what I’d said and done, how I got home and where I’d been, and I’ve got to the point where I don’t really want to hear any more.
All I wanted to do was sleep, but I was stuck in that restless kind of mode, that you want to get up and do things but when you try you can’t move.
After updating my nearest and dearest on my whereabouts and wellbeing (or not so in this case), I got a window of movement and grabbed it.
In the five minutes it took me to get to my friend’s house it had worn off and from then on I felt rubbish again.
Anything I ate or drank just sat in my stomach, waiting for a way out. I think I can safely say I will never be bulimic. It just sat and sat and sat.
Despite nearly dropping off all day, sleep evaded me that night. The few hours I got was full of dreams about a giant inflatable Screwball Scramble game in the middle of a lake; the same lake that then had giant submarines in, and the one that I was dancing in fully-clothed with a young and very attractive long-haired man in front of a Scottish castle. The reason I know it was Scottish was because it was purple. Don’t ask, I don’t know.
In the days following, we all sat around dissecting the evening, having a laugh about just how bad we were, and it would have been funny if the conversation didn’t keep coming back to me.
I feel I was very lucky, that all I came away with was a dodgy belly and a sore toe. There are so many other young women who disappear from their group of friends, and never come back.
There are dangers in binge drinking, but I think the biggest problem is self control, of which I seem to have very little. Like Zammo, I’ll just say no in future. We always say ‘never again’ but I really think I mean it this time.
I’m going to test the ‘I don’t need drink to have a good time’ theory; one I have held with high regard for a while, but not actually put in place of late.
No, but seriously.