We’d Drink Until We Passed Out.
There were three guys at Mount Union who took me home on a regular basis. I called them “friends.” I’m not sure what they called me.
All three guys drank like I did.
It’s not my place to diagnose whether or not The Three were alcoholics. I can say that they had some things in common, and they had characteristics that I later identified as part of my own alcoholism.
For example, I never saw any of them outside of class when they weren’t drinking. If they went to class at all, they were hungover. Just like me.
They often walked around double-fisted at parties and bars – meaning with a drink in each hand. Just like me. (I found this to be an attractive trait.)
Also, when I ended up with one of these guys it was often because everyone else had gone home and we were still drinking. Sometimes the lights would suddenly blare, shocking us from darkness into florescence. The floor would be riddled with empty red cups and cigarette butts and sticky, chunky globs no one could identify.
But I didn’t want to quit drinking yet (meaning, I hadn’t yet passed out), so I would go with them to their rooms. And then – unlike with other guys – we would play music, dance, laugh, talk and … inevitably, we’d drink until we passed out.
If he passed out first, I would sit up, listening to music and continuing to drink. I didn’t realize then that I never purposefully “went to bed” anymore. I just passed out. I would walk home sometime after the sun came up, feeling like I’d accomplished something wonderful. This was never a “walk of shame;” it was a personal victory.
The other thing about these guys: I adored them. I thought they were funny and sweet and interesting. And they treated me with a respect I didn’t usually get from one-night-stands. We talked about our lives. I knew what their majors were, what they wanted from life, why they chose Mount Union. We laughed a lot.
I actually knew them. These little drunken friendships gave me hope. And hope was a revelation, since I was learning about people one person at a time. Men weren’t all Prince Charmings and they weren’t all idiots.
I didn’t know how much I could like a man without feeling like I needed to either detest or marry him. Drinking into the wee hours with the soundtrack of our lives forming in the background was not only pleasant, it was life-affirming.
I know that not all people learn things this haphazardly; I insisted on learning everything the hard way.
To be fair, if I’d looked around a bit more, I would have found other men that weren’t reprehensible. I just didn’t know to look for rational, level-headed humans, especially at the end of the night when my shoes were stuck to the beer-laden floor and I was holding my left hand over my eye so I could walk without bumping into anything.
I think about each of The Three from time to time, usually when a song plays that reminds me of one of our nights together. I wonder where they went, what happened to them. None of them are on Facebook – or if they are, they’re well hidden. For all I know, they could be dead.
But I hope they are alive. I hope they’re sober or, at least, clear-headed enough to have created an exquisite adulthood. I hope they found meaning in their lives and loving people with whom to hang, even after the lights came on and the party was over.