The Drug Report For December, 2012: Booze

Gotta get one in before the ball drops...Or the other shoe drops. Or I drop a bowling ball on my foot, which would damage the shoe on my other foot, or...

Okay, booze-hounds. I'm writing this at 4:25 PST, which means it's 7:25 EST in New York, and some of you are already well on your way to plasterface.

My friends in England? That's...plus nine, right? It's already New Year's for you. Jeez, the sun still shines here, now. I hope you make it home okay. Jeez, I shouldda written about booze yesterday. Well, at least you get the news first. We on the West Coast of Unistat are always the last to know.

You Are Not Required To Get Rat-Legged Drunk
The main thing I wanna urge upon y'all, if you're listening: you are not required to get so ripped on booze you wake up in a pool of your own filth...on a living room rug in a house you cannot identify. No, that was last year. Things can be saner now. You get a do-over every 365 (or so), barring death. You can choose to limit yourself to only 15 Long Island Ice Teas this year, half of what you had last year. You can walk away after noticing people's alarmed faces when you slur out some idiocy, then bash your shin on the coffee table so bad that's gonna leave a mark till Valentine's Day. You have agency. You're all sitting around, drinking beer, recounting the year, laffing, trying to convince each other 2013 will be the Best Year Ever? Fine. Good. But try to abstain when someone brings out the beer funnel. I speak from experience.

Some booze items of note before I send myself on my way to a NewYear's Party/housewarming/potential bete noir. (Do I have cab fare? Check!):

Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire, on always being drunk.

A Toast
A toast, from Homer Simpson:
"To: alcohol! The cause of...and the solution to...all of our problems!"

Are You Smart?
"Why Do Smart Kids Grow Up To Be Heavier Drinkers?" (My personal fave of the shots in the dark here: best way to deal with morons. Your mileage may vary.)

Accidents Will Happen
Here's some very good news if you're going to get shitfaced tonight (or any night), and get into a horrible accident: "Intoxicated Patients More Likely To Survive Traumatic Injuries". Note: the doctors here suggest NOT using this study as a reason to get so tweaked you can't even remember your own name. But hey, what do doctors know? Lest ye think this study (that you didn't even read) is bogus: it takes into account 190,612 sozzled patients who showed up in ERs and trauma centers from 1995-2009, so that's nothing to sneeze at. Or barf over. Yep: fractures, internal injuries, open wounds: a 50% reduction in mortality (i.e, death) if you had the decency to get badly injured while piss-drunk. What this article doesn't address is my pet theory about this all along: when you're drunk your body just crumples all zen-like going-with-the-flow. Straight people see they're going over the edge of the highway and get all tensed-up, which only makes the injuries worse. Also, you won't even really feel the pain all that much until the next day, which is an added bonus. Don't say I never tried to improve your lives. I'm here to help!

PSA
A Public Service Announcement: Friends Don't Let Friends Butt-Chug: You'll only make an ass out of yourself by using your ass to get ass-drunk. Talk about drinking like an asshole!:

C'mon. This is just too silly, even for me. Besides, what if the wine has a nice bouquet? The receptor sites in your anus will not be able to appreciate it like those ones in your mouth. It just makes sense to drink with that orifice in the middle of your head instead. (As far as I know, Robert Parker has not addressed this issue.)

A Riddle
Puzzle this one out before going out and getting hammered: former UK drug advisor chief David Nutt, in the Lancet, showed that alcohol was more dangerous than crack or heroin. Nutt got sacked in 2009 after this. You don't offend the National Pastime by breaking bad news like that and get away with it.

But: given that knowledge - and what the fuck, it's probably right, right? Need another beer? I'll go get you one - how do we assess this bit of datum: taking a Benadryl then driving makes you drive worse than if you were drunk-driving. And Benadryl is legal, OTC (over-the-counter).

Given my knowledge of the mathematics of set theory and logic, I can only surmise that it's far safer to do heroin, then some crack, and then drive. Wait till you get there before washing down your Benadryl with some Wild Turkey. Anyone got a different read on this?

Wha???Speak a Little Louder, You Drunk!
According to this study - as reported by the brilliant and sexy science writer Maggie Koerth-Baker of BoingBoing - bars that have louder music make people drink more, presumably because you can't talk to your friends so you may as well have another swallow. So: loud music causes quicker drunken-ness-ish. Plato was right about music: it's dangerous. Like poets. Stay away from music, especially loud music, and it goes without saying that poets are still a pain in the ass. (See Baudelaire, above.) Drink in peace, my friends!

Another Caution Before You Drink and Drive
A woman got all Merle Haggard and drove, hit someone else's car. A real fuck-up. But the nightmare: the judge made her read the Book of Job and write essays about it as part of her punishment. Man, that's harsh. Forced reading. Jeez. It's not like she was butt-chugging or anything.

Like We Didn't Already Know
A French study showed that people with tattoos and piercings drank more at the local bar. Gosh what a surprise. Well, let's just hope they're not doing Benadryl too.

Sobering?
Things like this may help you make better choices tonight. Or maybe you're already hungover as you read this, in which case: drink lots of water, and just try to sleep as much of it off as you can. And fer crissakes: take a B vitamin supplement! The Bs help convert your food into energy, and that coffin varnish you drank last night just killed the Bs.

Happy New Year to all, wherever you are in the world!